Act II, Scene i:
London. An Apartment in Ely House.

[GAUNT on a couch; the DUKE OF YORK and Others standing by him.]

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

Enforce 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 listen'd more

Than they whom youth and ease have taught to glose;

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,

My death's sad tale may yet undeaf his ear.

YORK:

No; it is stopp'd with other flattering sounds,

As praises of his state: then there are fond,

Lascivious metres, to whose venom sound

The open ear of youth doth always listen:

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,—

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.

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;

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 scepter'd isle,

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,

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,

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

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:

England, bound in with the triumphant sea,

Whose rocky shore beats back the envious siege

Of watery Neptune, is now bound in with shame,

With inky blots, and rotten parchment bonds:

That England, that was wont to conquer others,

Hath made a shameful conquest of itself.

Ah! would the scandal vanish with my life,

How happy then were my ensuing death.

[Enter KING RICHARD and QUEEN; AUMERLE, BUSHY, GREEN, BAGOT,ROSS, and WILLOUGHBY.]

YORK:

The King is come: deal mildly with his youth;

For young hot colts, being rag'd, do rage the more.

QUEEN:

How fares our noble uncle, Lancaster?

KING 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;

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.

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,

Committ'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—

KING RICHARD:

And thou a lunatic lean-witted fool,

Presuming on 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 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, bourne 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:

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'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.

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 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-patents that he hath

By his attorneys-general to sue

His livery, and deny his offer'd 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.

[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 all,

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 fin'd

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, o' 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 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 fearful tempest 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 wrack that we must suffer;

And unavoided is the danger now,

For suffering so the causes of our wrack.

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

In Brittany, receiv'd intelligence

That Harry Duke of Hereford, Rainold Lord Cobham,

That late broke from the Duke of Exeter,

His brother, Archbishop late of Canterbury,

Sir Thomas Erpingham, Sir John Ramston,

Sir John Norbery, Sir Robert Waterton, and Francis Quoint,

All these well furnish'd by the Duke of Britaine,

With eight tall ships, three thousand men of war,

Are making hither with all due expedience,

And shortly mean to touch our northern shore.

Perhaps they had ere this, but that they stay

The first departing of the king for Ireland.

If then we shall shake off our slavish yoke,

Imp out our drooping country's broken wing,

Redeem from broking pawn the blemish'd crown,

Wipe off the dust that hides our sceptre's gilt,

And make high majesty look like itself,

Away with me in post to Ravenspurgh;

But if you faint, as fearing to do so,

Stay and be secret, and myself will go.

ROSS:

To horse, to horse! Urge doubts to them that fear.

WILLOUGHBY:

Hold out my horse, and I will first be there.

[Exeunt.]