Authors: William Shakespeare
SECOND HERALD
Here standeth Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk,
On pain to be found false and recreant,
Both to defend himself and to
approve
112
Henry of Hereford, Lancaster and Derby,
To God, his sovereign and to
him
114
disloyal,
Courageously and with a free desire
Attending
116
but the signal to begin.
A charge sounded
LORD MARSHAL
Sound trumpets, and set forward, combatants.
Stay
118
, the king hath thrown his warder down.
KING RICHARD
Let them
lay by
119
their helmets and their spears,
And both return back to their chairs again.
Withdraw with us, and let the trumpets sound
While we
return
122
these dukes what we decree.
A long flourish
Draw near, and
list
123
what with our council we have done.
For that
124
our kingdom’s earth should not be soiled
With that
dear
125
blood which it hath fosterèd,
And
for
126
our eyes do hate the dire aspect
Of civil wounds ploughed up with neighbours’ swords,
Which so roused up with
boist’rous
128
untuned drums,
With harsh resounding trumpets’ dreadful bray,
And grating
shock
130
of wrathful iron arms,
Might from our quiet confines fright fair peace
And make us wade even in our kindred’s blood:
Therefore, we banish you our territories.
You, cousin Hereford, upon pain of death,
Till twice five summers have enriched our fields
Shall not
regreet
136
our fair dominions,
But tread the
stranger
137
paths of banishment.
BULLINGBROOK
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.
KING RICHARD
Norfolk, for thee remains a heavier doom,
Which I with some unwillingness pronounce:
The
sly
144
slow hours shall not determinate
The
dateless limit
145
of thy dear exile.
The hopeless word of ‘never to return’
Breathe I against thee, upon pain of
life
147
.
MOWBRAY
A heavy sentence, my most sovereign liege,
And all
unlooked for
149
from your highness’ mouth.
A dearer
merit
150
, not so deep a maim
As to be cast forth in the
common
151
air,
Have I deservèd at your highness’ hands.
The language I have learned these forty years,
My native English, now I must forgo,
And now my tongue’s use is to me no more
Than an unstringèd viol or a harp,
Or like a
cunning
157
instrument cased up,
Or, being
open
158
, put into his hands
That knows no
touch
159
to tune the harmony.
Within my mouth you have enjailed my tongue,
Doubly
portcullised
161
with my teeth and lips,
And dull unfeeling barren ignorance
Is made my jailer to attend on me.
I 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?
KING RICHARD
It
boots
168
thee not to be compassionate.
After our sentence,
plaining
169
comes too late.
MOWBRAY
Then thus I turn me from my country’s light
To dwell in
solemn
171
shades of endless night.
Starts to go
KING RICHARD
Return again, and take an oath with thee.
Lay on our royal sword your banished hands;
Swear by the duty that you owe to heaven —
Our part therein
175
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 ever look upon each other’s face,
Nor ever write,
regreet
180
, or reconcile
This
louring
181
tempest of your home-bred hate,
Nor ever by
advisèd
182
purpose meet
To plot, contrive, or
complot
183
any ill
Gainst us, our state, our subjects, or our land.
BULLINGBROOK
I swear.
MOWBRAY
And I, to keep all this.
BULLINGBROOK
Norfolk,
so far as
187
to mine enemy:
By this time, had the king permitted us,
One of our souls had wandered in the air,
Banished this frail
sepulchre
190
of our flesh,
As now our flesh is banished from this land.
Confess thy treasons ere thou
fly
192
this realm:
Since thou hast far to go, bear not along
The
clogging
194
burden of a guilty soul.
MOWBRAY
No, Bullingbrook. If ever I were traitor,
My name be blotted from the book of life,
And I from heaven banished as from hence!
But what thou art, heaven, thou, and I do know,
And all too soon, I fear, the king shall
rue
199
.
Farewell, my liege, now no way can I
stray
200
:
Save
201
back to England, all the world’s my way.
Exit
KING RICHARD
Uncle, even in the
glasses
202
of thine eyes
To Gaunt
I see thy grievèd heart. Thy sad
aspect
203
Hath from the number of his banished years
Plucked four away.— Six frozen winters spent,
To Bullingbrook
Return with welcome home from banishment.
BULLINGBROOK
How long a time lies in one little word!
Four lagging winters and four
wanton
208
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
212
shall I reap thereby,
For ere the six years that he hath to spend
Can change their moons and bring their
times
214
about
My
oil-dried
215
lamp and time-bewasted light
Shall be
extinct
216
with age and endless night.
My inch of
taper
217
will be burnt and done,
And
blindfold death
218
not let me see my son.
KING RICHARD
Why uncle, thou hast many years to live.
GAUNT
But not a minute, king, that thou canst give.
Shorten my days thou canst with sudden 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
224
.
Thy word is
current
225
with him for my death,
But
dead
226
, thy kingdom cannot buy my breath.
KING RICHARD
Thy son is banished upon good
advice
227
,
Whereto thy tongue a
party-verdict
228
gave.
Why at our justice seem’st thou then to
lour
229
?
GAUNT
Things sweet to taste prove in digestion sour.
You urged me as a judge, but I had rather
You would have bid me argue like a father.
Alas, I
looked when
233
some of you should say
I was too strict to
make mine own away
234
.
But you gave
leave
235
to my unwilling tongue,
Against my will to do myself this wrong.
KING RICHARD
Cousin, farewell, and, uncle, bid him so.
Six years we banish him, and he shall go.
Flourish. Exeunt
[
Richard and Attendants
]
AUMERLE
Cousin, farewell. What
presence must not know
239
,
To Bullingbrook
From where you do remain let
paper
240
show.
LORD MARSHAL
My lord, no leave take I, for I will ride
To Bullingbrook
As far as land will let me, by your side.
GAUNT
O, to what purpose dost thou hoard thy words
To Bullingbrook
That thou return’st no greeting to thy friends?
BULLINGBROOK
I have too
few
245
to take my leave of you,
When the tongue’s
office
246
should be prodigal
To
breathe
247
th’abundant dolour of the heart.
GAUNT
Thy
grief
248
is but thy absence for a time.
BULLINGBROOK
Joy absent, grief is present for that time.
GAUNT
What is six winters? They are quickly gone.
BULLINGBROOK
To men in joy. But grief makes one hour ten.
GAUNT
Call it a
travel
252
that thou tak’st for pleasure.
BULLINGBROOK
My heart will sigh when I
miscall
253
it so,
Which finds it an enforcèd pilgrimage.
GAUNT
The
sullen
255
passage of thy weary steps
Esteem as foil
256
wherein thou art to set
The precious jewel of thy home return.
BULLINGBROOK
O, who can hold a fire in his hand
By thinking on the frosty
Caucasus
259
?
Or
cloy
260
the hungry edge of appetite
By bare imagination of a feast?
Or wallow naked in December snow
By thinking on
fantastic
263
summer’s heat?
O, no, the
apprehension
264
of the good
Gives but the greater feeling to the worse.
Fell
266
sorrow’s tooth doth never rankle more
Than when it bites, but
lanceth
267
not the sore.
GAUNT
Come, come, my son, I’ll
bring
268
thee on thy way.
Had I thy youth and cause, I would not stay.
BULLINGBROOK
Then England’s ground, farewell. Sweet soil,
adieu
270
.
My mother, and my nurse, which bears me yet!
Where’er I wander, boast of this I can,
Though banished, yet a trueborn Englishman.
[
Exeunt
]
Location:
the royal court
Enter King, Aumerle, Green and Bagot
KING RICHARD
We did observe
1
.— Cousin Aumerle,
How far brought you
high
2
Hereford on his way?
AUMERLE
I brought high Hereford, if you call him so,
But to the
next
4
highway, and there I left him.
KING RICHARD
And say, what
store
5
of parting tears were shed?
AUMERLE
Faith, none
for me
6
, except the north-east wind,
Which then blew bitterly against our face,
Awaked the sleepy
rheum
8
, and so by chance
Did grace our
hollow
9
parting with a tear.
KING RICHARD
What said our cousin when you parted with him?
AUMERLE
‘Farewell’. And,
for
11
my heart disdainèd that my tongue
Should so profane the word, that taught me
craft
12
To
counterfeit
13
oppression of such grief
That word seemed buried in my sorrow’s grave.
Marry
15
, would the word ‘farewell’ have lengthened hours
And added years to his short banishment,
He should have had a volume of farewells,
But since it would not, he had none of me.
KING RICHARD
He is our
cousin
19
, cousin, but ’tis doubt,
When time shall call him home from banishment,
Whether our kinsman come to see his
friends
21
.
Ourself and Bushy, Bagot here, and Green
Observed his courtship to the common people.
How he did seem to dive into their hearts
With humble and familiar courtesy,
What
reverence
26
he did throw away on slaves,
Wooing poor craftsmen with the craft of smiles
And patient
underbearing
28
of his fortune,
As ’twere to
banish their affects with him
29
.
Off goes his
bonnet
30
to an oyster-wench.
A
brace of draymen
31
bid God speed him well
And had the tribute of his
supple
32
knee,
With ‘Thanks, my countrymen, my loving friends’,
As were our England
in reversion
34
his,
And he
our subjects’ next degree in hope
35
.