Authors: William Shakespeare
GREEN
Well, he is gone, and with him go these thoughts.
Now for the rebels which
stand out
37
in Ireland.
Expedient manage
38
must be made, my liege,
Ere further
leisure
39
yield them further means
For their advantage and your highness’ loss.
KING RICHARD
We will ourself in person to this war,
And, for our coffers with too great a court
And liberal
largesse
43
are grown somewhat light,
We are enforced to
farm
44
our royal realm,
The revenue whereof shall furnish us
For our affairs in hand. If that
come short
46
,
Our
substitutes
47
at home shall have blank charters,
Whereto, when they shall know what men are rich,
They shall
subscribe them
49
for large sums of gold
And send
them
50
after to supply our wants,
For we will make for Ireland
presently
51
.
Enter Bushy
Bushy, what news?
BUSHY
Old John of Gaunt is very sick, my lord,
Suddenly taken, and hath sent post haste
To entreat your majesty to visit him.
KING RICHARD
Where lies he?
BUSHY
At
Ely House
57
.
KING RICHARD
Now put it, heaven, in his physician’s mind
To help him to his grave immediately!
The
lining
60
of his coffers shall make coats
To deck our soldiers for these Irish wars.
Come, gentlemen, let’s all go visit him.
Pray heaven we may make haste, and come too late!
[
Exeunt
]
Location:
London, Ely House
Enter Gaunt,
sick
, with York
[
and Attendants
]
GAUNT
Will the king come, that I may breathe my last
In wholesome counsel to his
unstaid
2
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
listened
9
more
Than they whom youth and ease have taught to
gloze
10
.
More are men’s ends
marked
11
than their lives before.
The setting sun and music is the
close
12
,
As the
last
13
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
16
tale may yet undeaf his ear.
YORK
No, it is stopped with other flatt’ring sounds,
As praises, of his
state
18
: then there are found
Lascivious
metres
19
, to whose venom sound
The open ear of youth doth always listen,
Report of fashions in
proud
21
Italy,
Whose manners still our
tardy apish
22
nation
Limps after in base imitation.
Where doth the world thrust forth a
vanity
24
—
So
25
it be new, there’s no respect how vile —
That is not quickly
buzzed
26
into his ears?
That
27
all too late comes counsel to be heard,
Where
will doth mutiny with wit’s regard
28
.
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 inspired
31
And thus
expiring
32
do foretell of him.
His rash fierce blaze of
riot
33
cannot last,
For violent fires soon burn out themselves.
Small
35
showers last long, but sudden storms are short.
He tires
betimes
36
that spurs too fast betimes.
With eager feeding food doth choke the feeder.
Light vanity
38
, insatiate cormorant,
Consuming
means
39
soon preys upon itself.
This royal throne of kings, this
sceptred
40
isle,
This
earth of majesty
41
, 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
45
of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the
office
47
of a wall,
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands,
This blessèd
plot
50
, this earth, this realm, this England,
This nurse, this
teeming
51
womb of royal kings,
Feared
by their breed
52
and famous for their birth,
Renownèd for their deeds as far from home,
For Christian service and true chivalry,
As is the
sepulchre
55
in stubborn Jewry
Of the
world’s ransom, blessèd Mary’s son
56
:
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
60
or pelting farm.
England,
bound in
61
with the triumphant sea,
Whose rocky shore beats back the
envious
62
siege
Of watery
Neptune
63
, is now bound in with shame,
With
inky blots and rotten parchment bonds
64
.
That England, that was
wont
65
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, Queen, Aumerle, Bushy, Green, Bagot, Ross and Willoughby
YORK
The king is come. Deal mildly with his youth,
For young hot colts being raged do rage the more.
QUEEN
How fares our noble uncle Lancaster?
KING RICHARD
What comfort, man? How is’t with agèd Gaunt?
GAUNT
O, how that name befits my
composition
73
!
Old Gaunt indeed, and gaunt in being old.
Within me grief hath kept a tedious fast,
And who abstains from
meat
76
that is not gaunt?
For sleeping England long time have I
watched
77
.
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
83
nought but bones.
KING RICHARD
Can sick men play so
nicely
84
with their names?
GAUNT
No, misery makes sport
to mock
85
itself.
Since thou dost seek to
kill my name
86
in me,
I mock my name, great king, to flatter thee.
KING RICHARD
Should dying men flatter those that live?
GAUNT
No, no, men living flatter those that die.
KING RICHARD
Thou, now a-dying, say’st thou flatter’st me.
GAUNT
O no, thou diest, though I the sicker be.
KING RICHARD
I am in health, I breathe, I see thee ill.
GAUNT
Now he that made me knows I
see thee ill
93
:
Ill in myself to see, and in thee seeing ill.
Thy death-bed is no lesser than the land
Wherein thou liest in reputation sick.
And thou, too careless patient as thou art,
Commit’st thy anointed body to the cure
Of those physicians that first wounded thee.
A thousand flatterers sit within thy crown,
Whose
compass
101
is no bigger than thy head.
And yet, encagèd in so small a
verge
102
,
The
waste
103
is no whit lesser than thy land.
O, had thy
grandsire
104
with a prophet’s eye
Seen how his son’s son should destroy
his sons
105
,
From
forth
106
thy reach he would have laid thy shame,
Deposing
107
thee before thou wert possessed,
Which art possessed now to depose thyself.
Why,
cousin
109
, were thou regent of the world,
It were a shame to let his land by lease.
But
for thy world enjoying but this land
111
,
Is it not more than shame to shame it so?
Landlord of England art thou and not king.
Thy
state of law
114
is bondslave to the law, and—
KING RICHARD
And thou, a lunatic lean-witted fool,
Presuming on
116
an ague’s privilege,
Dar’st with thy
frozen
117
admonition
Make pale our cheek, chasing the royal blood
With fury from his native residence?
Now, by my
seat
120
’s right royal majesty,
Wert thou not brother to great Edward’s son,
This tongue that runs so
roundly
122
in thy head
Should run thy head from thy
unreverent
123
shoulders.
GAUNT
O, spare me not, my brother’s — Edward’s — son,
For that
125
I was his father Edward’s son.
That blood already, like the
pelican
126
,
Thou hast
tapped out
127
and drunkenly caroused.
My brother Gloucester, plain well-meaning soul —
Whom
fair
129
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
133
be like crookèd 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.
Carried off by Attendants
Exit
KING RICHARD
And let them die that age and
sullens
139
have,
For both hast thou, and both
become
140
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
143
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
151
.
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
155
must be.
So much for that. Now for our Irish wars:
We must
supplant
157
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
160
,
Towards our assistance we do
seize
161
to us
The
plate
162
, coin, revenues and movables,
Whereof our uncle Gaunt did stand possessed.
YORK
How long shall I be patient? O, how long
Shall tender duty make me suffer wrong?
Not Gloucester’s death, nor Hereford’s banishment,
Nor
Gaunt’s rebukes
167
, nor England’s private wrongs,
Nor the prevention of poor
Bullingbrook
About his marriage
168
, nor my own disgrace
Have ever made me sour my patient cheek,
Or
bend one wrinkle
171
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 raged more fierce,
In peace was never gentle lamb more mild,
Than was that young and princely gentleman.
His face thou hast, for even so looked he,
Accomplished with the number of thy hours
178
.
But when he frowned, 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, pleased
Not to be pardoned, am content
withal
190
.
Seek you to
seize
191
and grip into your hands
The
royalties
192
and rights of banished Hereford?
Is not Gaunt dead? And doth not Hereford live?
Was not Gaunt just? And is not Harry
true
194
?
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
198
charters and his customary rights:
Let not tomorrow then
ensue
199
today.
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 right,
Call in his letters patents
204
that he hath
By his attorneys-general to sue
His livery
205
, and deny his offered
homage
206
,
You
pluck
207
a thousand dangers on your head,
You lose a thousand well-disposèd hearts
And
prick
209
my tender patience to those thoughts
Which honour and allegiance cannot think.