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 ^note taught to glose;
More are men's ends mark'd than their lives before:
  The setting sun, and music at the close ^note,
As the last taste of sweets, is sweetest last ^note,
Writ in remembrance more than things long past:
Though Richard my life's ^note counsel would not hear,
My death's sad tale may yet undeaf his ear. ^note

York.
No; it ^note is stopp'd with other flattering sounds ^note,
As praises, of whose taste the wise are fond ^note,

Lascivious metres ^note, to whose venom sound ^note
The open ear ^note of youth doth always listen;
Report ^note of fashions in proud Italy,
Whose manners still our tardy apish ^note nation
Limps after in base ^note 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 ^note ears?
Then ^note 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 ^note. ^note

Gaunt.
Methinks I am a prophet new inspired
And thus expiring do foretell of him:
His rash fierce blaze of riot cannot last,
For violent fires soon burn ^note 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 ^note 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 ^note;
This fortress built by Nature for herself
Against infection ^note and the hand of war;

This happy breed of men ^note, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall,
Or as a ^note moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier ^note lands;
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England ^note,
This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings,
Fear'd by their breed and famous by ^note their birth, ^note
Renowned for ^note their deeds as far from home,
For Christian ^note service and true chivalry,
As is the sepulchre in stubborn Jewry ^note
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 leased out, I die pronouncing it,
Like to a tenement or ^note pelting farm:
England, bound in with the triumphant sea,
Whose rocky shore beats back the envious siege ^note
Of watery Neptune, is now ^note bound in with shame,
With inky blots ^note and rotten parchment bonds:
That England, that was wont to conquer others,
Hath made a shameful conquest of itself.
Ah, ^note would the scandal vanish ^note with my life,
How happy then were my ensuing death!

Enter ^note King Richard and Queen, Aumerle, Bushy, Green, Bagot, Ross, ^note and Willoughby. ^note

York.
The king is come: deal mildly with his youth;
For young hot colts being raged ^note do rage the more.

Queen.
How fares our noble uncle, Lancaster?

K. Rich.
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 ^note 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 ^note my name, great king, to flatter thee.

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

Gaunt.
No, no, men living flatter those that die.

K. Rich.
Thou, now a-dying, say'st thou flatterest ^note me.

Gaunt.
O, no! thou diest, though I the sicker be.

K. Rich.
I am in health, I breathe, and see ^note thee ill.

Gaunt.
Now, He that made me knows I see thee ill ^note;

Ill in myself to see ^note, and ^note in thee seeing ill ^note.
Thy death-bed is no lesser than thy land ^note
Wherein thou liest in reputation sick;
And thou, too careless patient as thou art,
Commit'st ^note 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 ^note;
And yet, incaged ^note in so small a verge,
The ^note 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 ^note art possess'd now to depose thyself.
Why, cousin, wert ^note thou regent of the world,
It were a shame to let this ^note 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 ^note king:
Thy state of law ^note is bondslave to the law;
And thou—

K. Rich.
A lunatic ^note lean-witted fool,
Presuming on an ague's privilege,
Darest with thy frozen admonition
Make pale our cheek, chasing ^note the royal blood

With fury from his native residence. ^note
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 ^note shoulders.

Gaunt.
O, spare me not, my brother ^note Edward's son,
For that I was his father Edward's son;
That blood already, like the pelican,
Hast thou ^note tapp'd out ^note and drunkenly caroused:
My brother Gloucester, plain well-meaning soul,
Whom fair befal in heaven 'mongst happy souls!
May be a precedent and witness good
That thou respect'st ^note not spilling Edward's blood:
Join with the present sickness that I have; ^note
And thy unkindness be like crooked age ^note,
To crop at once a too long wither'd flower.
Live ^note 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 off by his Attendants ^note.

K. Rich.
And let them die that age and sullens have;
For both hast thou, and both become the grave ^note.

York. ^note
I do beseech ^note 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.

K. Rich.
Right, you say true: as Hereford's love, so his;
As theirs, so mine; and all ^note be as it is. Enter Northumberland. ^{note note}

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

K. Rich.
What says he? ^note

North.
Nay ^note, nothing ^note; 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 ^note rough rug-headed kerns ^note,
Which live like venom where no venom else
But only they have ^note privilege to live.
And for these great affairs do ask some charge,
Towards our assistance we do seize to us
The plate, coin, revenues ^note and moveables,
Whereof our uncle Gaunt did stand possess'd.

York.
How long shall I be patient? ah ^note, how long
Shall tender duty make me suffer wrong?
Not Gloucester's death, nor ^note 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 ^note Edward's sons,
Of whom thy father, Prince of Wales, was first:
In war ^note was never lion raged ^note 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 ^note 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 ^note 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. ^note

K. Rich.
Why, uncle, what's the matter?

York.
O my liege,
Pardon me, if you please; if not, I, pleased
Not to be pardon'd, am content withal. ^{note note}
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 ^note 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!— ^note
If you do wrongfully seize Hereford's rights ^note,
Call in the ^note 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 ^note a thousand well-disposed hearts
And prick my tender patience to those thoughts
Which honour and allegiance cannot think.

K. Rich.
Think what you will, we seize ^note into our hands
His plate, his goods, his money and his lands ^note.

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.

K. Rich.
Go, Bushy, to the Earl of Wiltshire straight:
Bid him repair to us to Ely House
To see this business ^note. 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 loved us well.
Come on, our queen: to-morrow must we part;
Be merry, for our time of stay is short. [Flourish. Exeunt ^note King, Queen, Aumerle, Bushy, Green, and Bagot. ^note

North.
Well, lords, the Duke of Lancaster is dead.

Ross.
And living too; for now his son is duke.

Willo.
Barely in title, not in revenue ^note.

North.
Richly in both, if justice had her right.

Ross.
My heart is great; but it must break with silence,
Ere't be disburden'd with a liberal tongue.

North.
Nay, speak thy mind; and let him ne'er speak more
That speaks thy words again to do thee harm!

Willo.
Tends that thou wouldst ^note speak to the Duke ^note 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.

North.
Now, afore God ^note, 'tis ^note shame such wrongs are borne
In him a royal prince and many moe ^note
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 ^note us, our lives ^note, our children, and our heirs.

Ross.
The commons hath he pill'd ^note with grievous taxes,
And quite ^note lost their hearts: the nobles hath he fined
For ancient quarrels, and quite lost their hearts ^note.

Willo.
And daily new exactions are devised,
As blanks, benevolences, and I ^note wot not what:

But ^note what, o' ^note God's name, doth become of this?

North.
Wars have ^note not wasted it, for warr'd he hath not,
But basely yielded upon compromise
That which his noble ^note ancestors achieved with blows:
More hath he spent in peace than they in wars. ^note

Ross.
The Earl of Wiltshire hath the realm in farm.

Willo.
The king's ^note grown bankrupt, like a broken man.

North.
Reproach and dissolution ^note hangeth over ^note him.

Ross.
He hath not money for these Irish wars,
His burthenous taxations notwithstanding,
But by the robbing of the banish'd duke.

North.
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 ^note,
And yet we strike not, but securely perish.

Ross.
We see the very wreck that we must suffer;
And unavoided is ^note the danger now,
For suffering so the causes of our wreck.

North.
Not so; even through the hollow eyes of death
I spy ^note life peering ^note; but I dare not say
How near the tidings of our comfort is.

Willo.
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 ^note; therefore, be bold.

North. ^note
Then thus ^note: I have from Port le Blanc, a bay

In Brittany ^note, received ^note intelligence
That Harry Duke of ^note Hereford, Rainold ^note Lord Cobham,


That late broke from the Duke of Exeter,
His brother ^note, Archbishop late of Canterbury,
Sir Thomas Erpingham, Sir John Ramston ^note,
Sir John Norbery, Sir Robert Waterton and Francis Quoint ^note,
All these well furnish'd by the Duke of Bretagne
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 ^note yoke,
Imp out our drooping country's broken wing,
Redeem from broking ^note pawn the blemish'd crown,
Wipe off the dust that hides our ^note sceptre's gilt ^note
And make high majesty look like itself,
Away with me in post ^note 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.

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

^note

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