York.
The King is come, deal mildly with his youth;
For young hot colts, ^{d note}inrag'd, do rage the more.

Queen.
How fares our noble uncle, Lancaster?

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

Gaunt.
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 ^{e note}head,

And yet ingaged 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 possest 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, and not King:
Thy state of law, is bondslave to the law,
And—

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 unreverent 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 '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.

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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