KING RICHARD. Can sick men play so
nicely with their names?
GAUNT. No,
misery makes sport to mock itself:
Since thou dost seek to kill my name in me,
I mock my name, great king, to
flatter thee.
KING RICHARD. Should dying men
flatter with those that live?
GAUNT. No, no; men living
flatter those that die.
KING RICHARD. Thou, now a-dying, sayest thou
flatterest me.
GAUNT. O, no! thou diest, though I the sicker be.
KING RICHARD. I am in health, I breathe, and see thee ill.
GAUNT. Now He that made me knows I see thee ill;
Ill in myself to see, and in thee
seeing ill.
Thy death-bed is no
lesser than thy land
Wherein thou liest in
reputation sick;
And thou, too
careless patient as thou art,
Commit'st thy anointed body to the cure
Of those physicians that first wounded thee:
A thousand
flatterers sit within thy crown,
Whose
compass is no bigger than thy head;
And yet, incaged in so small a verge,
The waste is no whit
lesser than thy land.
O, had thy
grandsire with a prophet's eye
Seen how his son's son should destroy his sons,
From forth thy reach he would have laid thy shame,
Deposing thee before thou wert possess'd,
Which art possess'd now to
depose thyself.
Why, cousin, wert thou
regent of the world,
It were a shame to let this land by lease;
But for thy world enjoying but this land,
Is it not more than shame to shame it so?
Landlord of England art thou now, not King.
Thy state of law is bondslave to the law;
And thou-
KING RICHARD. A
lunatic lean-witted fool,
Presuming on an ague's
privilege,
Darest with thy
frozen admonition
Make pale our cheek, chasing the royal blood
With fury from his native residence.
Now by my seat's right royal
majesty,
Wert thou not brother to great Edward's son,
This tongue that runs so roundly in thy head
Should run thy head from thy unreverent shoulders.
GAUNT. O, Spare me not, my brother Edward's son,
For that I was his father Edward's son;
That blood already, like the pelican,
Hast thou tapp'd out, and drunkenly carous'd.
My brother Gloucester, plain well-meaning soul-
Whom fair
befall in heaven 'mongst happy souls!-
May be a
precedent and
witness good
That thou respect'st not spilling Edward's blood.
Join with the present
sickness that I have;
And thy unkindness be like
crooked age,
To crop at once a too long withered flower.
Live in thy shame, but die not shame with thee!
These words
hereafter thy tormentors be!
Convey me to my bed, then to my grave.
Love they to live that love and honour have.
Exit, borne out by his attendants
KING RICHARD. And let them die that age and sullens have;
For both hast thou, and both become the grave.
YORK. I do
beseech your Majesty
impute his words
To
wayward sickliness and age in him.
He loves you, on my life, and holds you dear
As Harry Duke of Hereford, were he here.
KING RICHARD. Right, you say true: as Hereford's love, so his;
As
theirs, so mine; and all be as it is.
Enter NORTHUMBERLAND
NORTHUMBERLAND. My liege, old Gaunt commends him to your Majesty.
KING RICHARD. What says he?
NORTHUMBERLAND. Nay, nothing; all is said.
His tongue is now a stringless instrument;
Words, life, and all, old Lancaster hath spent.
YORK. Be York the next that must be
bankrupt so!
Though death be poor, it ends a
mortal woe.
KING RICHARD. The ripest fruit first falls, and so doth he;
His time is spent, our
pilgrimage must be.
So much for that. Now for our Irish wars.
We must
supplant those rough rug-headed kerns,
Which live like venom where no venom else
But only they have
privilege to live.
And for these great affairs do ask some charge,
Towards our
assistance we do seize to us
The plate, coin, revenues, and moveables,
Whereof our uncle Gaunt did stand possess'd.
YORK. How long shall I be patient? Ah, how long
Shall tender duty make me suffer wrong?
Not Gloucester's death, nor Hereford's banishment,
Nor Gaunt's rebukes, nor England's private wrongs,
Nor the
prevention of poor Bolingbroke
About his marriage, nor my own disgrace,
Have ever made me sour my patient cheek
Or bend one
wrinkle on my sovereign's face.
I am the last of noble Edward's sons,
Of whom thy father, Prince of Wales, was first.
In war was never lion rag'd more fierce,
In peace was never gentle lamb more mild,
Than was that young and
princely gentleman.
His face thou hast, for even so look'd he,
Accomplish'd with the number of thy hours;
But when he frown'd, it was against the French
And not against his friends. His noble hand
Did win what he did spend, and spent not that
Which his
triumphant father's hand had won.
His hands were
guilty of no
kindred blood,
But
bloody with the enemies of his kin.
O Richard! York is too far gone with grief,
Or else he never would compare between-
KING RICHARD. Why, uncle, what's the matter?
YORK. O my liege,
Pardon me, if you please; if not, I, pleas'd
Not to be pardoned, am content withal.
Seek you to seize and gripe into your hands
The royalties and rights of banish'd Hereford?
Is not Gaunt dead? and doth not Hereford live?
Was not Gaunt just? and is not Harry true?
Did not the one
deserve to have an heir?
Is not his heir a well-deserving son?
Take Hereford's rights away, and take from Time
His charters and his
customary rights;
Let not to-morrow then ensue to-day;
Be not thyself-for how art thou a king
But by fair
sequence and succession?
Now, afore God-God
forbid I say true!-
If you do wrongfully seize Hereford's rights,
Call in the letters patents that he hath
By his attorneys-general to sue
His
livery, and deny his off'red homage,
You pluck a thousand dangers on your head,
You lose a thousand well-disposed hearts,
And prick my tender
patience to those thoughts
Which honour and
allegiance cannot think.
KING RICHARD. Think what you will, we seize into our hands
His plate, his goods, his money, and his lands.
YORK. I'll not be by the while. My liege, farewell.
What will ensue hereof there's none can tell;
But by bad courses may be understood
That their events can never fall out good. Exit
KING RICHARD. Go, Bushy, to the Earl of Wiltshire straight;
Bid him
repair to us to Ely House
To see this business. To-morrow next
We will for Ireland; and 'tis time, I trow.
And we create, in
absence of ourself,
Our Uncle York Lord Governor of England;
For he is just, and always lov'd us well.
Come on, our queen; to-morrow must we part;
Be merry, for our time of stay is short.
Flourish. Exeunt KING, QUEEN, BUSHY, AUMERLE,
GREEN, and BAGOT
NORTHUMBERLAND. Well, lords, the Duke of Lancaster is dead.
Ross. And living too; for now his son is Duke.
WILLOUGHBY. Barely in title, not in revenues.
NORTHUMBERLAND. Richly in both, if justice had her right.
ROSS. My heart is great; but it must break with silence,
Ere't be disburdened with a
liberal tongue.
NORTHUMBERLAND. Nay, speak thy mind; and let him ne'er speak more
That speaks thy words again to do thee harm!
WILLOUGHBY. Tends that thou wouldst speak to the Duke of Hereford?
If it be so, out with it
boldly, man;
Quick is mine ear to hear of good towards him.
ROSS. No good at all that I can do for him;
Unless you call it good to pity him,
Bereft and gelded of his patrimony.
NORTHUMBERLAND. Now, afore God, 'tis shame such wrongs are borne
In him, a royal
prince, and many moe
Of noble blood in this declining land.
The King is not himself, but basely led
By
flatterers; and what they will inform,
Merely in hate, 'gainst any of us an,
That will the King
severely prosecute
'Gainst us, our lives, our children, and our heirs.
ROSS. The commons hath he pill'd with
grievous taxes;
And quite lost their hearts; the nobles hath he find
For ancient quarrels and quite lost their hearts.
WILLOUGHBY. And daily new exactions are devis'd,
As blanks, benevolences, and I wot not what;
But what, a God's name, doth become of this?
NORTHUMBERLAND. Wars hath not wasted it, for warr'd he hath not,
But basely yielded upon compromise
That which his noble ancestors achiev'd with blows.
More hath he spent in peace than they in wars.
ROSS. The Earl of Wiltshire hath the realm in farm.
WILLOUGHBY. The King's grown
bankrupt like a broken man.
NORTHUMBERLAND. Reproach and
dissolution hangeth over him.
ROSS. He hath not money for these Irish wars,
His burdenous taxations notwithstanding,
But by the robbing of the banish'd Duke.
NORTHUMBERLAND. His noble kinsman-most
degenerate king!
But, lords, we hear this
fearfultempest sing,
Yet seek no shelter to avoid the storm;
We see the wind sit sore upon our sails,
And yet we strike not, but
securely perish.
ROSS. We see the very wreck that we must suffer;
And unavoided is the danger now
For
suffering so the causes of our wreck.
NORTHUMBERLAND. Not so; even through the hollow eyes of death
I spy life peering; but I dare not say
How near the
tidings of our comfort is.
WILLOUGHBY. Nay, let us share thy thoughts as thou dost ours.
ROSS. Be
confident to speak, Northumberland.
We three are but thyself, and,
speaking so,
Thy words are but as thoughts;
therefore be bold.
NORTHUMBERLAND. Then thus: I have from Le Port Blanc, a bay