Or daring-hardy, as to touch the lists! Except the marshal, and such officers Appointed to direct these fair designs. Boling. Lord Marshal, let me kiss my hand,

And bow my knee before his majesty!

And dares him to set forward to the fight.

For Mowbray, and myself, are like two men,
That vow a long and weary pilgrimage;
Then let us take a ceremonious leave,
And loving farewell of our several friends.

Mar. The appellant in all duty greets your highness, And craves to kiss your hand, and take his leave.

K. Rich. We will descend, and fold him in our arms. Cousin of Hereford, as thy cause is right, So be thy fortune in this royal fight! Farewell, my blood; which if to-day thou shed, Lament we may, but not revenge thee dead. Boling. O, let no noble eye profane a tear For me, if I be gor'd with Mowbray's spear! As confident, as is the falcon's flight Against a bird, do I with Mowbray fight.

Mar. Sound, trumpets; and set forward, combatants! [A charge sounded. Stay, the king hath thrown his warder down. K. Rich. Let them lay by their helmets and their

spears,

And both return back to their chairs again! Withdraw with us and let the trumpets sound, While we return these dukes what we decree!

Draw near,

Of you, my noble consin, lord Aumerle; -
Not sick, although I have to do with death,
But lusty, young, and cheerly drawing breath.-
Lo, as at English feasts, so I regreet

The daintiest last, to make the end more sweet:

O thou, the earthly author of my blood,- [To Gaunt.
Whose youthful spirit, in me regenerate,
Doth with a two-fold vigour lift me up
To reach at victory above my head,
Add proof unto mine armour with thy prayers,
And with thy blessings steel my lance's point,
That it may enter Mowbray's waxen coat,
And furbish new the name of John of Gaunt,
Even in the lusty 'haviour of his son.

Gaunt. Heaven in thy good cause make thee
rous!

Be swift like lightning in the execution;
And let thy blows, doubly redoubled,
Fall like amazing thunder on the casque
Of thy adverse pernicious enemy!
Rouse up thy youthful blood, be valiant and live!
Boling. Mine innocency, and Saint George to thrive!
[He takes his seat.
Nor. [Rising.]However heaven, or fortune, cast my lot
There lives or dies, true to king Richard's throne,
A loyal, just, and upright gentleman.
Never did captive with a freer heart
Cast off his chains of bondage, and embrace
His golden uncontroll'd enfranchisement,
More than my dancing soul doth celebrate
This feast of battle with mine adversary.-
Most mighty liege, and my companion peers,
Take from my mouth the wish of happy years!
As gentle and as jocund, as to jest,
Go Ito fight. Truth hath a quiet breast.

K. Rich. Farewell, my lord! securely I espy
Virtue with valour couched in thine eye.-
Order the trial, marshal, and begin!

[The King and the Lords return to their seats. Mar. Harry of Hereford, Lancaster, and Derby, Receive thy lance; and God defend the right! Boling. [Rising.] Strong as a tower in hope, I cry

Amen.

Mar. Go bear this lance [To an Officer.] to Thomas, duke of Norfolk!

1 Her. Harry of Hereford, Lancaster, and Derby, Stands here for God, his sovereign, and himself, On pain to be found false and recreant,

To prove the duke of Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray,
A traitor to his God, his king, and him,

But tread the stranger paths of banishment.
Boling. Your will be done! This must my comfort be,
That sun, that warms you here, shall shine on me ;
And those his golden beams, to you here lent,
Shall point on me, and gild my banishment.
K. Rich. Norfolk, for thee remains a heavier doom,
Which I with some unwillingness pronounce.
The fly-slow hours shall not determinate
The dateless limit of thy dear exile.
The hopeless word of-never to return
Breathe I against thee, upon pain of life.

Nor. A heavy sentence, my most sovereign liege,
And all unlook'd for from your highness' mouth!
A dearer merit, not so deep a maim,

As to be cast forth in the common air,
Have I deserved at your highness' hand.
The language, I have learn'd these forty years,
My native English, now I must forego,
And now my tongue's use is to me no more,
Than an unstringed viol, or a harp,
Or like a cunning instrument cas'd up,
Or, being open, put into his hands,
That knows no touch to tune the harmony.
Within my month you have engaol'd my tongue,
Doubly portcullis'd, with my teeth, and lips;
And dull, nnfeeling, barren ignorance,
Is made my gaoler, to attend on me.
am too old, to fawn upon a nurse,
Too far in years, to be a pupil now:
What is thy sentence then, but speechless death,
Which robs my tongue from breathing native breath?
K. Rich. It boots thee not to be compassionate;
After our sentence, plaining comes too late.
Nor. Then thus I turn me from my country's light,
To dwell in solemn shades of endless night.[Retiring.

I

K. Rich. Return again, and take an oath with thee!
Lay on our royal sword your banish'd hands!
Swear by the duty, that you owe to heaven,
(Our part therein we banish with yourselves,)
To keep the oath, that we administer!-

You never shall (so help you truth and heaven !)
Embrace each other's love in banishment,
Nor never look upon each other's face;
Nor never write, regreet, nor reconcile
This lowering tempest of your home-bred hate,
Nor never by advised purpose meet,
To plot, contrive, or complot any ill,
'Gainst us, our state, our subjects, or our land.
Boling. I swear.

Nor. And I, to keep all this.

Boling. Norfolk, so far as to mine enemy :-
By this time, had the king permitted us,
One of our souls had wander'd in the air,
Banish'd this frail sepulchre of our flesh,
As now our flesh is banish'd from this land.
Confess thy treasons, ere thou fly the realm!
Since thou hast far to go, bear not along
The clogging burden of a guilty soul.

Nor. No, Bolingbroke; if ever I were traitor,
My name be blotted from the book of life,
And I from heaven banish'd, as from hence!
But what thou art, heaven, thou, and I do know,
And all too soon, I fear, the king shall rue.-
Farewell, my liege! - Now no way can I stray;
Save back to England, all the world's my way. [Exit.
K. Rich. Uncle, even in the glasses of thine eyes
I see thy grieved heart: thy sad aspect
Hath from the number of his banish'd years
Pluck'd four away.-Six frozen winters spent,
Return [To Bolingbroke.] with welcome home from
banishment!

Boling. How long a time lies in one little word! Four lagging winters, and four wanton springs, End in a word. Such is the breath of kings.

Gaunt. I thank my liege, that, in regard of me,
He shortens four years of my son's exile.
But little vantage shall I reap thereby ;
For, ere the six years, that he hath to spend,

Can change their moons, and bring their times about,
My oil-dried lamp, and time-bewasted light,
Shall be extinct with age, and endless night.
My inch of taper will be burnt and done,
And blindfold death not let me see my son.
K. Rich. Why, uncle, thou hast many years to live.
Gaunt. But not a minute, king, that thou canst give.
Shorten my days thou canst with sullen sorrow,
And pluck nights from me, but not lend a morrow:
Thou canst help time to furrow me with age,
But stop no wrinkle in his pilgrimage:
Thy word is current with him for my death;
But, dead, thy kingdom cannot buy my breath.
K. Rich. Thy son is banish'd upon good advice,
Whereto thy tongue a party-verdict gave:
Why at our justice seem'st thou then to lower?
Gaunt. Things sweet to taste, prove in digestion sour.
You urg'd me as a judge; but I had rather,
You would have bid me argue like a father. -
O, had it been a stranger, not my child,

To smooth his fault 1 should have been more mild.
A partial slander sought I to avoid,
And in the sentence my own life destroy'd.
Alas, I look'd, when some of you should say,
I was too strict, to make mine own away!
But you gave leave to my unwilling tongue,
Against my will, to do myself this wrong.

K. Rich, Cousin, farewell!— and, uncle, bid him so! Six years we banish him, and he shall go.

[Flourish. Exeunt K. Richard and train.

Aum.Cousin,farewell!What presence must not know, From where you do remain, let paper show! Mar. My lord, no leave take I; for I will ride, As far, as land will let me, by your side. Gaunt.0,to what purpose dost thou hoard thy words, That thou return'st no greeting to thy friends? Boling. I have too few to take my leave of you, When the tongue's office should be prodigal, To breathe the abundant dolour of the heart. Gaunt. Thy grief is but thy absence for a time. Boling. Joy absent, grief is present for that time. Gaunt. What is six winters? they are quickly gone. Boling. To men in joy ; but grief makes one hour ten. Gaunt. Call it a travel, that thou tak'st for pleasure! Boling. My heart will sigh, when I miscall it so, Which finds it an enforced pilgrimage.

Gaunt. The sullen passage of thy weary steps
Esteem a foil, wherein thou art to set
The precious jewel of thy home-return!
Boling. Nay, rather, every tedious stride, I make,
Will but remember me, what a deal of world
1 wander from the jewels, that I love.
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,
Are to a wise man ports and happy heavens.
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,
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!
Look, what thy soul holds dear, imagine it
To lie that way, thou go'st, not whence thou com'st!
Suppose the singing bird, musicians;

The grass,whereon thou tread'st, the presence strew'd;
The flowers; fair ladies, and thy steps no more,
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.
Boling. O, who can hold a fire in his hand,
By thinking on the frosty Caucasus?
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
Gives but the greater feeling to the worse:
Fell sorrow's tooth doth never rankle more,
Than when it bites, but lanceth not the sore.
Gaunt.Come,come,my son, I'll bring thee on thy way:
Had 1 thy youth, and cause, I would not stay.
Boling. Then, England's ground, farewell! sweet
soil, adieu!

My mother, and my nurse, that bears me yet!
Where-e'er I wander, boast of this I can:
Though banish'd, yet a true-born Englishman.

[Exeunt.

SCENE IV. The same. A room in the King's castle. Enter King RICHARD, BAGOT, and GREEN; AUMEKLE, following.

K. Rich. We did observe. Cousin Aumerle, How far brought you high Hereford on his way? Aum. I brought high Hereford, if you call him so, But to the next highway, and there I left him. K. Rich. And, say, what store of parting tears were shed?

For young hot colts, being rag'd, do rage the more.
Queen. How fares our noble uncle, Lancaster?
K. Rich. What comfort, man? How is't with aged
Gaunt?

Gaunt. 0, how that name befits my composition!
Old Gaunt, indeed; and gaunt in being old;
Within me grief hath kept a tedious fast;
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;
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.

K. Rich. 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.

K. Rich. Should dying men flatter with those that live?

Gaunt. No, no; men living flatter those that die.
K. Rich. Thou, now a dying, say'st, thou flatter'st

me.

Gaunt. Oh! no; thou diest, though I the sicker be. K. Rich. 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 the 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

--

K. Rich. A lunatic, lean-witted fool,
Presumingo n an ague's privilege,
Dar'st 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 unreverend shoulders.
Gaunt, 0, 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 Gloster, plain well-meaning soul,
(Whom fair befal 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 wither'd 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.

K. Rich. And let them die, that age and sullens have!
For both hast thou, and both become the grave.
York. '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 lie here.

K. Rich. Right; you say true: as Hereford's love, so his;

As theirs, so mine; and all be, as it is!
Enter NORTHUMBERLAND,

North. My liege, old Gaunt commends him to your majesty.

K. Rich. What says he now?

North. 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.

K. Rich. 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, hath privilege to live.
And for these great affairs do ask some charge,
Towards our assistance, we do seize to us
The plate, coiu, 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 Gloster's death, nor Hereford's banishment,
Not 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,
Aud 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's 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.
K. Rich. Why, uncle, what's the matter?
York. O, my liege,

Pardon me, if you please! if not, I, pleas'd
Not to be pardon'd, 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 patent, that he hath

By his attornies-general to sue

His livery, and deny his offer'd homage,