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?

K. Rich.
What comfort, man? How is't with aged Gaunt?

Gaunt.
Oh, 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, thou hast 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 it self:
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 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 dyest, though I sicker be.

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

Gaunt.
Now he, that made me, knows, I see thee ill.

Ill in my self, but seeing thee too, ill.
Thy death-bed is no lesser than the Land,
Wherein thou liest in Reputation sick;
And thou, too careless Patient as thou art,
Giv'st thy anointed body to the cure
Of those physicians, that first wounded thee:
A thousand flatt'rers sit within thy Crown,
Whose compass is no bigger than thy head,
^{1 note}And yet incaged in so small a verge,
Thy waste is no whit lesser than thy Land.
Oh, 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 possest;
Who art possess'd now, to depose thy self.
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:
^{2 note}Thy state of law is bondslave to the law;
And Thou—

K. Rich.
And thou, a lunatick 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 unreverend shoulders.

Gaunt.
Oh, 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 tapt out, and drunkenly carows'd.
My brother Glo'ster, plain well-meaning soul,
(Whom fair befal in heav'n 'mong'st happy souls!)
May be a precedent and witness good,
That thou respects 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.

K. Rich.
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:
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 be, as it is.

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