This royal throne of kings, this sceptered isle, K. Rich. Should dying men flatter with those This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,

that live? This other Eden, demi-paradise;

Gaunt. No, no: men living flatter those that die. This fortress, built by nature for herself

K. Rich. Thou, now a dying, sayst thou flatAgainst infection and the hand of war;

ter'st me. This happy breed of men, this little world;

Gaunt. Oh no: thou diest, though I the sicker be This precious stone set in the silver sea

K. Rich. I am in health; I breathe, and see (Which serves it in the office of a wall,

thee ill. Or as a moat defensive to a house,

Gaunt. Now, He that made me knows I see Against the envy of less happier lands);

thee ill:
This blesséd plot, this earth, this realm, this Eng. | Ill in myself to see, and in thee seeing ill.
land,

Thy death-bed is no lesser than thy land,
This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings, Wherein thou liest in reputation sick:
Feared by their breed and famous by their birth, And thou, too careless patient as thou art,
Renowned for their deeds as far from home Committ'st thy anointed body to the cure
(For Christian service and true chivalry)

Of those physicians that first wounded thee. As is the sepulchre, in stubborn Jewry,

A thousand flatterers sit within thy crown, Of the world's ransom, blesséd Mary's son: Whose compass is no bigger than thy head: This land of such dear souls, this dear dear land, And yet, incaged in so small a verge, Dear for her reputation through the world, The waste is no whit lesser than thy land. Is now leased out (I die pronouncing it)

O had thy grandsire, with a prophet's eye, Like to a tenement or pelting farm :

Seen how his son's son should destroy his sons, England, bound in with the triumphant sea, From forth thy reach he would have laid thy Whose rocky shore beats back the envious siege

shame; Of watery Neptune, is now bound in with shame, Deposing thee before thou wert possessed, With inky blots, and rotten parchment bonds : Which art possessed now to depose thyself. That England, that was wont to conquer others, Why, cousin, wert thou regent of the world, llath made a shameful conquest of itself: It were a shame to let this land by lease: O, would the scandal vanish with my life,

But for thy world enjoying but this land, How happy then were my ensuing death! Is it not more than shame to shame it so?

Landlord of England art thou now, not King: Enter King Richard and Queen; Aumerle,

Thy state of law is bondslave to the law; Busiiy, Green, Bagot, Ross, and · Wil

And thou LOUGHBY.

K. Rich. -A lunatic, lean-witted fool, York. The King is come: deal mildly with his Presuming on an ague's privilege, youth;

Dar'st with thy frozen adınonition
For young hot colts, being raged, do rage the more. Make pale our cheek; chasing the royal blood,

Queen. How fares our noble uncle, Lancaster? With fury, from his native residence.
K. Rich. What comfort, man? How is 't with Now by my seat's right royal majesty,
agéd Gaunt?

Wert thou not brother to great Edward's son, Gaunt. O, how that name befits my composi This tongue that runs so roundly in thy head tion!

Should run thy head from thy unreverend shoulOld Gaunt, indeed! and gaunt in being old.

ders. Witliin me grief hath kept a tedious fast:

Gaunt. O, spare me not, my brother Edward's And who abstains from meat that is not gaunt? For sleeping England long time have I watched: For that I was his father Edward's son: Watching breeds leanness, leanness is all gaunt. That blood already, like the pelican, The pleasure that some fathers feed upon Hast thou tapped out and drunkenly caroused. Is my strict fast: I mean my children's looks: My brother Gloster, plain well-meaning scul, And, therein fasting, hast thou made me gaunt. (Whom fair befal in heaven 'mongst happy souls!) Gaunt am I for the grave, gaunt as a grave, May be a precedent and witness good Whose hollow womb inherits nought but bones. That thou respect'st not spilling Edward's blood. K. Rich. Can sick men play so nicely with their Join with the present sickness that I have: names?

And thy unkindness be like crooked age, Gannt. No: misery makes sport to mock itself. To crop at once a too-long-withered flower. Since thou dost seek to kill my name in me, Live in thy shame, but die not shame with thee! I mock my name, great King, to flatter thee. These words hereafter thy tormentors be.

Convey me to my bed, then to my grave: His tongue is now a stringless instrument: Love they to live that love and honour have. Words, life, and all, old Lancaster hath spent.

[Exit, borne out by his Attendants. York. Be York the next that must be bankK. Rich. And let them die that age and sul

rupt so! lens have :

Though death be poor, it ends a mortal woe. For both hast thou, and both become the grave. K. Rich. The ripest fruit first falls, and so York. I do beseech your majesty, impute his

doth he: words

His time is spent; our pilgrimage must be. To wayward sickliness and age in him :

So much for that.-Now for our Irish wars : He loves you, on my life, and holds you dear We must supplant those rough rug-headed kerns, As Harry Duke of Hereford, were he here. Which live like venom where no venom else K. Rich. Right; you say true:-as Hereford's But only they hath privilege to live. love, so his :

And, for these great affairs do ask some charge, As theirs, so mine : and all b? as it is.

Towards our assistance we do seize to us

The plate, coin, revenues and moveables
Enter NORTHUMBERLAND.

Whereof our uncle Gaunt did stand possessed. North. My liege, old Gaunt commends him York. How long shall I be patient? Ah, how to your majesty.

long K. Rich. What says he ?

Shall tender duty make me suffer wrong? North

Nay, nothing: all is said. ! Not Gloster's death, nor Hereford's banishment, VOL. III.

be

in:-most degenerate Queen. To please the King, I did: to please

myself
arful tempest sing, I cannot do it: yet I know no cause
id the storm :

Why I should welcome such a guest as grief, upon our sails,

Save bidding farewell to so sweet a guest ut securely perish. As my sweet Richard :—yet again, methinks, Ty wreck that we must Some unborn sorrow, ripe in fortune's womb,

Is coming towards me, and my inward soul langer now,

With nothing trembles: at something it grieves, uses of our wreck.

More than with parting from my lord the King. en through the hollow eyes Bushy. Each substance of a grief hath twenty

shadows, it I dare not say

Which shew like grief itself, but are not so: 5 of our comfort is.

For sorrow's eye, glazéd with blinding tears w share thy thoughts, as thou Divides one thing entire to many objects:

Like perspectives, which rightly gazed upon nt to speak, Northumberland. Shew nothing but confusion; eyed awry, lyself; and speaking so, Distinguish form :--so your sweet majesty, 15 thoughts: therefore be bold. Looking awry upon your lord's departure, 23:-I have from Port le Blanc Finds shapes of griefs, more than himself, to wail :

Which, looked on as it is, is nought but shadows ired intelligence

Of what it is not. Then, thrice-gracious queen, -ford, Reignold Lord Cobham More than your lord's departure weep not : urd Earl of Arundel),

more's not seen: from the Duke of Exeter, Or if it be, 't is with false sorrow's eye, ·libishop late of Canterbury, Which, for things true, weeps things imaginary. ngham, Sir John Ramston, Queen. It may be so; but yet my inward soul ry, Sir Robert Waterton, and Persuades me it is otherwise. Howe'er it be, Quoint,

I cannot but be sad: so heavy sad rnished by the Duke of Bretagne As (though in thinking on no thought I think) hips, three thousand men of war, Makes me with heavy nothing faint and shrink. Hier with all due expedience,

Bushy. 'T is nothing but conceit, my gracious in to touch our northern shore:

lady. d ere this, but that they stay Queen. 'Tis nothing less. Conceit is still ure of the King for Ireland.

derived all shake off our slavish yoke, From some forefather grief: mine is not so; . ?oping country's broken wing, For nothing hath begot my something grief, roking pawn the blemished crown, Or something hath the nothing that I grieve.

1st that hides our sceptre's gilt, "T is in reversion that I do possess; „h majesty look like itself,

But what it is, that is not yet known; what , in post to Ravenspurg :

I cannot name: 't is nameless woe, I wot. it, as fearing to do so,

Enter GREEN. cret, and myself will go. urse, to horse! urge doubts to them / Green. God save your majesty!—and well

met, gentlemen.out my horse, and I will first be I hope the King is not yet shipped for Ireland.

[Exeunt. Queen. Why hop'st thou so? 't is better hope

he is : For his designs crave ha ie; his laste good hope:

Then wherefore dost thou hope he is not shipped ? e same. A Roum in the Palace. Green. That he, our hope, might have retired

his power, veen, Busuy, and Bagot. And driven into despair an enemy's hope, m, your majesty is too much sad: | Who strongly hath set footing in this land :when you parted with the King, The banished Bolingbroke repeals himself, -harming heaviness,

And with uplifted arms is safe arrived cheerful disposition.

At Ravenspurg.

KING RICHARD THE SECOND. ACT II.-SCENE I.

Not Gaunt's rebukes, nor England's private We will for Ireland : and 't is time, I trow. wrongs,

And we create, in absence of ourself, Nor the prevention of poor Boling broke

Our uncle York lord governor of England; About his marriage, nor my own disgrace,

For he is just, and always loved us well. Have ever made me sour my patient cheek, Come on, our Queen: to-morrow must we part: Or bend one wrinkle on my sovereign's face. Be merry, for our time of stay is short. (Flourish. I am the last of noble Edward's sons,

[Exeunt King, Queen, Bushy, AUMERLE, Of whom thy father, Prince of Wales, was first :

Green, and Bagot. In war was never lion raged more fierce,

North. Well, lords, the Duke of Lancaster is In peace was never gentle lamb more mild,

dead. Than was that young and princely gentleman. Ross. And living too; for now his son is duke His face thou hast; for even so looked he

Willo. Barely in title, not in revenue. Accomplished with the number of thy hours : North. Richly in both, if justice had her right. But when he frowned, it was against the French, Ross. My heart is great: but it must break And not against his friends: his noble hand

with silence, Did win what he did spend, and spent not that | Ere't be disburdened with a liberal tongue. Which bis triumphant father's hand had won: North. Nay, speak thy mind: and let hiin His hands were guilty of no kindred's blood,

ne'er speak more But bloody with the enemies of his kin.

That speaks thy words again, to do thee harm! O Richard ! York is too far gone with grief, Willo. Tends that thou 'dst speak to the Duke Or else he never would compare between.

of Hereford ? K. Rich. Why, uncle, what's the matter? If it be so, out with it boldly, man: York. O my liege,

Quick is mine ear to hear of good towards him, Pardon me, if you please : if not, I (pleased Ross. No good at all that I can do for him : Not to be pardoned) am content withal.

Unless you call it good to pity him, Seek you to seize and gripe into your hands Bereft and gelded of his patrimony. The royalties and rights of banished Hereford ? . North. Now, afore heaven, 't is shame such Is not Gaunt dead; and doth not Hereford live?

wrongs are borne Was not Gaunt just; and is not Harry true ? In him (a royal prince) and many more Did not the one deserve to have an heir:

Of noble blood in this declining land. Is not his heir a well-deserving son ?

The King is not himself, but basely led Take Hereford's rights away, and take from time | By flatterers : and what they will inform, His charters and his customary rights :

Merely in hate, 'gainst any of us all, Let not to-morrow then ensuie to-day :

That will the King severely prosecute Be not thyself; for how art thou a king

'Gainst us, our lives, our children, and our heirs. But by fair sequence and succession ?

Ross. The commons hath he pilled with grievous Now, afore God, (God forbid I say true !)

taxes, If you do wrongfully seize Hereford's rights, And quite lost their hearts: the nobles hath he Call in the letters-patent that he hath

fined By his attorneys-general to sue

For ancient quarrels, and quite lost their hearts. His livery, and deny his offered homage,

Willo. And daily new exactions are devised: You pluck a thousand dangers on your head; As blanks, benevolences, and I wot not what. You lose a thousand well-disposéd hearts, But what, o' God's name, doth become of this? And prick my tender patience to those thoughts | North. Wars have not wasted it; for warred Which honour and allegiance cannot think.

he hath not,
K. Rich. Think what you will : we seize into | But basely yielded upon compromise
our hands

That which his ancestors achieved with blows: His plate, his goods, his money, and his lands. More hath he spent in peace than they in wars. York. I'll not be by the while. My liege, Ross. The Earl of Wiltshire hath the realm in farewell.

farm. What will ensue hereof there's none can tell: Willo. The King's grown bankrupt, like a But by bad courses may be understood

broken man. That their events can never fall out good. (Exit. North. Reproach and dissolution hangeth orer K. Rich. Go Bushy, to the Earl of Wiltshire

him. straight :

Ross. He hath not money for these Irish wars Bid him repair to us to Ely House,

(His burdenous taxations notwithstanding), To see this business. To-morrow next

But by the robbing of the banished duke.