The arden shakespeare co.., p.294
The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works, page 294
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Esteem as foil wherein thou art to set
The precious jewel of thy home return.
BOLINGBROKE Nay, rather, every tedious stride I make
Will but remember me what a deal of world
I wander from the jewels that I love.
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Must I not serve a long apprenticehood
To foreign passages, and in the end,
Having my freedom, boast of nothing else
But that I was a journeyman to grief?
GAUNT All places that the eye of heaven visits
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Are to a wise man ports and happy havens.
Teach thy necessity to reason thus –
There is no virtue like necessity.
Think not the king did banish thee,
But thou the king. Woe doth the heavier sit
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Where it perceives it is but faintly borne.
Go, say I sent thee forth to purchase honour,
And not the king exil’d thee; or suppose
Devouring pestilence hangs in our air,
And thou art flying to a fresher clime.
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Look what thy soul holds dear, imagine it
To lie that way thou goest, not whence thou com’st.
Suppose the singing birds musicians,
The grass whereon thou tread’st the presence strew’d,
The flowers fair ladies, and thy steps no more
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Than a delightful measure or a dance;
For gnarling sorrow hath less power to bite
The man that mocks at it and sets it light.
BOLINGBROKE O, who can hold a fire in his hand
By thinking on the frosty Caucasus?
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Or cloy the hungry edge of appetite
By bare imagination of a feast?
Or wallow naked in December snow
By thinking on fantastic summer’s heat?
O no, the apprehension of the good
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Gives but the greater feeling to the worse.
Fell sorrow’s tooth doth never rankle more
Than when he bites, but lanceth not the sore.
GAUNT Come, come, my son, I’ll bring thee on thy way,
Had I thy youth and cause, I would not stay.
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BOLINGBROKE
Then, England’s ground, farewell; sweet soil, adieu,
My mother and my nurse that bears me yet!
Where’er I wander boast of this I can,
Though banish’d, yet a true-born Englishman.
Exeunt.
1.4 Enter the KING with BAGOT and GREENE at one door; and the LORD AUMERLE at another.
RICHARD We did observe. Cousin Aumerle,
How far brought you high Herford on his way?
AUMERLE I brought high Herford, if you call him so,
But to the next highway, and there I left him.
RICHARD
And say, what store of parting tears were shed?
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AUMERLE
Faith, none for me, except the north-east wind,
Which then blew bitterly against our faces,
Awak’d the sleeping rheum, and so by chance
Did grace our hollow parting with a tear.
RICHARD
What said our cousin when you parted with him?
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AUMERLE ‘Farewell’ –
And, for my heart disdained that my tongue
Should so profane the word, that taught me craft
To counterfeit oppression of such grief
That words seem’d buried in my sorrow’s grave.
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Marry, would the word ‘farewell’ have length’ned hours
And added years to his short banishment,
He should have had a volume of farewells;
But since it would not, he had none of me.
RICHARD He is our cousin, cousin, but ’tis doubt,
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When time shall call him home from banishment,
Whether our kinsman come to see his friends.
Ourself and Bushy
Observ’d his courtship to the common people,
How he did seem to dive into their hearts
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With humble and familiar courtesy;
What reverence he did throw away on slaves,
Wooing poor craftsmen with the craft of smiles
And patient underbearing of his fortune,
As ’twere to banish their affects with him.
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Off goes his bonnet to an oyster-wench;
A brace of draymen bid God speed him well,
And had the tribute of his supple knee,
With ‘Thanks, my countrymen, my loving friends’ –
As were our England in reversion his,
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And he our subjects’ next degree in hope.
GREENE
Well, he is gone; and with him go these thoughts.
Now for the rebels which stand out in Ireland,
Expedient manage must be made, my liege,
Ere further leisure yield them further means
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For their advantage and your Highness’ loss.
RICHARD We will ourself in person to this war;
And for our coffers, with too great a court
And liberal largess, are grown somewhat light,
We are inforc’d to farm our royal realm,
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The revenue whereof shall furnish us
For our affairs in hand. If that come short,
Our substitutes at home shall have blank charters,
Whereto, when they shall know what men are rich,
They shall subscribe them for large sums of gold,
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And send them after to supply our wants;
For we will make for Ireland presently.
Enter BUSHY.
Bushy, what news?
BUSHY Old John of Gaunt is grievous sick, my lord,
Suddenly taken, and hath sent post-haste
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To intreat your Majesty to visit him.
RICHARD Where lies he?
BUSHY At Ely House.
RICHARD Now put it, God, in the physician’s mind
To help him to his grave immediately!
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The lining of his coffers shall make coats
To deck our soldiers for these Irish wars.
Come, gentlemen, let’s all go visit him,
Pray God we may make haste and come too late!
ALL Amen. Exeunt.
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2.1 Enter JOHN OF GAUNT sick, with the DUKE OF YORK, etc.
GAUNT Will the king come that I may breathe my last
In wholesome counsel to his unstaid youth?
YORK
Vex not yourself, nor strive not with your breath;
For all in vain comes counsel to his ear.
GAUNT O, but they say the tongues of dying men
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Inforce attention like deep harmony.
Where words are scarce they are seldom spent in vain,
For they breathe truth that breathe their words in pain.
He that no more must say is listened more
Than they whom youth and ease have taught to glose;
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More are men’s ends mark’d than their lives before.
The setting sun, and music at the close,
As the last taste of sweets, is sweetest last,
Writ in remembrance more than things long past:
Though Richard my life’s counsel would not hear,
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My death’s sad tale may yet undeaf his ear.
YORK No, it is stopp’d with other flattering sounds,
As praises, of whose taste the wise are fond,
Lascivious metres, to whose venom sound
The open ear of youth doth always listen,
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Report of fashions in proud Italy,
Whose manners still our tardy-apish nation
Limps after in base imitation.
Where doth the world thrust forth a vanity –
So it be new, there’s no respect how vile –
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That is not quickly buzz’d into his ears?
Then all too late comes counsel to be heard,
Where will doth mutiny with wit’s regard.
Direct not him whose way himself will choose:
’Tis breath thou lack’st and that breath wilt thou lose.
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GAUNT Methinks I am a prophet new inspir’d,
And thus expiring do foretell of him:
His rash fierce blaze of riot cannot last.
For violent fires soon burn out themselves;
Small showers last long, but sudden storms are short;
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He tires betimes that spurs too fast betimes;
With eager feeding food doth choke the feeder;
Light vanity, insatiate cormorant,
Consuming means, soon preys upon itself.
This royal throne of kings, this scept’red isle,
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This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise,
This fortress built by Nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war,
This happy breed of men, this little world,
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This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall,
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands;
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England,
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This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings,
Fear’d by their breed, and famous by their birth,
Renowned for their deeds as far from home,
For Christian service and true chivalry,
As is the sepulchre in stubborn Jewry
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Of the world’s ransom, blessed Mary’s son;
This land of such dear souls, this dear dear land,
Dear for her reputation through the world,
Is now leas’d out – I die pronouncing it –
Like to a tenement or pelting farm.
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England, bound in with the triumphant sea,
Whose rocky shore beats back the envious siege
Of wat’ry Neptune, is now bound in with shame,
With inky blots and rotten parchment bonds;
That England, that was wont to conquer others,
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Hath made a shameful conquest of itself.
Ah, would the scandal vanish with my life,
How happy then were my ensuing death!
Enter KING, QUEEN, AUMERLE, BUSHY, GREENE, BAGOT, ROSS and WILLOUGHBY.
YORK The king is come, deal mildly with his youth,
For young hot colts being rein’d do rage the more.
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QUEEN How fares our noble uncle, Lancaster?
RICHARD
What comfort, man? how is’t with aged Gaunt?
GAUNT O, how that name befits my composition!
Old Gaunt indeed, and gaunt in being old.
Within me grief hath kept a tedious fast,
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And who abstains from meat that is not gaunt?
For sleeping England long time have I watch’d,
Watching breeds leanness, leanness is all gaunt.
The pleasure that some fathers feed upon
Is my strict fast – I mean my children’s looks,
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And therein fasting hast thou made me gaunt.
GAUNT am I for the grave, gaunt as a grave,
Whose hollow womb inherits nought but bones.
RICHARD Can sick men play so nicely with their names?
GAUNT No, misery makes sport to mock itself:
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Since thou dost seek to kill my name in me,
I mock my name, great king, to flatter thee.
RICHARD Should dying men flatter with those that live?
GAUNT No, no, men living flatter those that die.
RICHARD Thou now a-dying sayest thou flatterest me.
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GAUNT Oh no, thou diest, though I the sicker be.
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,
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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,
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