The Tragedy of King Richard the Second Read Online

HER.

Here standeth Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk,

On pain to be found false and recreant,

Both to defend himself and to approve

Henry of Herford, Lancaster, and Derby

To God, his sovereign, and to him disloyal,

Courageously, and with a free desire,

Attending but the signal to begin.

MAR.

Sound, trumpets, and set forward, combatants.

[A charge sounded.]

Stay, the King hath thrown his warder down.

K. RICH.

Let them lay by their helmets and their spears,

And both return back to their chairs again.

Withdraw with us, and let the trumpets sound

While we return these dukes what we decree.

[A long flourish.]

Draw near,

And list what with our Council we have done:

For that our kingdom's earth should not be soil'd

With that dear blood which it hath fostered;

And for our eyes do hate the dire aspect

Of civil wounds plough'd up with neighbors' sword;

And for we think the eagle-winged pride

Of sky-aspiring and ambitious thoughts,

With rival-hating envy, set on you

To wake our peace, which in our country's cradle

Draws the sweet infant breath of gentle sleep;

Which so rous'd up with boist'rous untun'd drums,

With harsh-resounding trumpets' dreadful bray,

And grating shock of wrathful iron arms,

Might from our quiet confines fright fair peace,

And make us wade even in our kinred's blood:

Therefore we banish you our territories.

You, cousin Herford, upon pain of life,

Till twice five summers have enrich'd our fields

Shall not regreet our fair dominions,

But tread the stranger paths of banishment.

BULL.

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.

K. RICH.

Norfolk, for thee remains a heavier doom,

Which I with same unwillingness pronounce:

The sly, slow hours shall not determinate

The dateless limit of thy dear exile;

The hopeless word of ›never to return‹

Breathe I against thee, upon pain of life.

MOW.

A heavy sentence, my most sovereign liege,

And all unlook'd for from your Highness' mouth.

A dearer merit, not so deep a maim

As to be cast forth in the common air,

Have I deserved at your Highness' hands.

The language I have learnt these forty years,

My native English, now I must forgo,

And now my tongue's use is to me no more

Than an unstringed viol or a harp,

Or like a cunning instrument cas'd up,

Or being open, put into his hands

That knows no touch to tune the harmony.

Within my mouth you have enjail'd my tongue,

Doubly portcullis'd 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?

K. RICH.

It boots thee not to be compassionate,

After our sentence plaining comes too late.

MOW.

Then thus I turn me from my country's light,

To dwell in solemn shades of endless night.

K. RICH.

Return again, and take an oath with thee.

Lay on our royal sword your banish'd hands;

Swear by the duty that y' owe to God

(Our part therein we banish with yourselves)

To keep the oath that we administer:

You never shall, so help you truth and God,

Embrace each other's love in banishment,

Nor never look upon each other's face,

Nor never write, regreet, nor reconcile

This low'ring tempest of your home-bred hate,

Nor never by advised purpose meet

To plot, contrive, or complot any ill

'Gainst us, our state, our subjects, or our land.

BULL.

I swear.

MOW.

And I, to keep all this.

BULL.

Norfolk, so fare as to mine enemy:

By this time, had the King permitted us,

One of our souls had wand'red in the air,

Banish'd this frail sepulchre of our flesh,

As now our flesh is banish'd from this land;

Confess thy treasons ere thou fly the realm;

Since thou hast far to go, bear not along

The clogging burthen of a guilty soul.

MOW.

No, Bullingbrook, if ever I were traitor,

My name be blotted from the book of life,

And I from heaven banish'd as from hence!

But what thou art, God, thou, and I do know,

And all too soon, I fear, the King shall rue.

Farewell, my liege, now no way can I stray;

Save back to England, all the world's my way.

Exit.

K. RICH.

Uncle, even in the glasses of thine eyes

I see thy grieved heart. Thy sad aspect

Hath from the number of his banish'd years

Pluck'd four away.

[To Bullingbrook.]

Six frozen winters spent,

Return with welcome home from banishment.

BULL.

How long a time lies in one little word!

Four lagging winters and four wanton 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 shall I reap thereby;

For ere the six years that he hath to spend

Can change their moons and bring their times about,

My oil-dried lamp and time-bewasted light

Shall be extinct with age and endless [night];

My inch of taper will be burnt and done,

And blindfold Death not let me see my son.

K. RICH.

Why, uncle, thou hast many years to live.

GAUNT.

But not a minute, King, that thou canst give.

Shorten my days thou canst with sullen 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;

Thy word is current with him for my death,

But dead, thy kingdom cannot buy my breath.

K. RICH.

Thy son is banish'd upon good advice,

Whereto thy tongue a party-verdict gave.

Why at our justice seem'st thou then to low'r?

GAUNT.

Things sweet to taste prove in digestion sour.

You urg'd me as a judge, but I had rather

You would have bid me argue like a father.

O, had't been a stranger, not my child,

To smooth his fault I should have been more mild.

A partial slander sought I to avoid,

And in the sentence my own life destroyed.

Alas, I look'd when some of you should say

I was too strict to make mine own away;

But you gave leave to my unwilling tongue

Against my will to do myself this wrong.

K. RICH.

Cousin, farewell; and, uncle, bid him so.

Six years we banish him, and he shall go.

[Flourish.] Exit [with his Train].

AUM.

Cousin, farewell! What presence must not know,

From where you do remain let paper show.

MAR.

My lord, no leave take I, for I will ride,

As far as land will let me, by your side.

GAUNT.

O, to what purpose dost thou hoard thy words,

That thou returnest no greeting to thy friends?

BULL.

I have too few to take my leave of you,

When the tongue's office should be prodigal

To breathe the abundant dolor of the heart.

GAUNT.

Thy grief is but thy absence for a time.

BULL.

Joy absent, grief is present for that time.

GAUNT.

What is six winters? they are quickly gone.

BULL.

To men in joy, but grief makes one hour ten.

GAUNT.

Call it a travel that thou tak'st for pleasure.

BULL.

My heart will sigh when I miscall it so,

Which finds it an enforced pilgrimage.

GAUNT.

The sullen passage of thy weary steps

Esteem as foil wherein thou art to set

The precious jewel of thy home return.

BULL.

Nay rather, every tedious stride I make

Will but remember me what a deal of world

I wander from the jewels that I love.

Must I not serve a long apprenticehood

To foreign passages, and in the end,

Having my freedom, boast of nothing else

But that I was a journeyman to grief?

GAUNT.

All places that the eye of heaven visits

Are to a wise man ports and happy havens.

Teach thy necessity to reason thus:

There is no virtue like necessity.

Think not the King did banish thee,

But thou the King. Woe doth the heavier sit

Where it perceives it is but faintly borne.

Go, say I sent thee forth to purchase honor,

And not the King exil'd thee; or suppose

Devouring pestilence hangs in our air,

And thou art flying to a fresher clime.

Look what thy soul holds dear, imagine it

To lie that way thou goest, not whence thou com'st.

Suppose the singing birds musicians,

The grass whereon thou tread'st the presence strow'd,

The flowers fair ladies, and thy steps no more

Than a delightful measure or a dance,

For gnarling sorrow hath less power to bite

The man that mocks at it and sets it light.

BULL.

O, who can hold a fire in his hand

By thinking on the frosty Caucasus?

Or cloy the hungry edge of appetite

By bare imagination of a feast?

Or wallow naked in December snow

By thinking on fantastic summer's heat?

O no, the apprehension of the good

Gives but the greater feeling to the worse.

Fell Sorrow's tooth doth never rankle more

Than when he bites, but lanceth not the sore.

GAUNT.

Come, come, my son, I'll bring thee on thy way;

Had I thy youth and cause, I would not stay.

BULL.

Then England's ground, farewell, sweet soil, adieu;

My mother, and my nurse, that bears me yet!

Where e'er I wander, boast of this I can,

Though banish'd, yet a true-born Englishman.

Exeunt.

[Scene IV]

Enter the King with [Green and Bagot] at one door and the Lord Aumerle at another.

K. RICH.

We did observe. Cousin Aumerle,

How far brought you high Herford on his way?

AUM.

I brought high Herford, if you call him so,

But to the next high way, and there I left him.

K. RICH.

And say, what store of parting tears were shed?

AUM.

Faith, none for me, except the northeast wind,

Which then blew bitterly against our faces,

Awak'd the sleeping rheum, and so by chance

Did grace our hollow parting with a tear.

K. RICH.

What said our cousin when you parted with him?

AUM.

»Farewell!«

And for my heart disdained that my tongue

Should so profane the word, that taught me craft

To counterfeit oppression of such grief

That words seem'd buried in my sorrow's grave.

Marry, would the word ›farewell‹ have length'ned 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.

K. RICH.

He is our cousin's cousin, but 'tis doubt,

When time shall call him home from banishment,

Whether our kinsman come to see his friends.

Ourself and Bushy, [Bagot here and Green,]

Observ'd his courtship to the common people,

How he did seem to dive into their hearts

With humble and familiar courtesy,

What reverence he did throw away on slaves,

Wooing poor craftsmen with the craft of smiles

And patient underbearing of his fortune,

As 'twere to banish their affects with him.

Off goes his bonnet to an oyster-wench,

A brace of draymen bid God speed him well,

And had the tribute of his supple knee,

With »Thanks, my countrymen, my loving friends,«

As were our England in reversion his,

And he our subjects' next degree in hope.

GREEN.

Well, he is gone, and with him go these thoughts.

Now for the rebels which stand out in Ireland,

Expedient manage must be made, my liege,

Ere further leisure yield them further means

For their advantage and your Highness' loss.

K. RICH.

We will ourself in person to this war,

And for our coffers, with too great a court

And liberal largess, are grown somewhat light,

We are enforc'd to farm our royal realm,

The revenue whereof shall furnish us

For our affairs in hand. If that come short,

Our substitutes at home shall have blank charters,

Whereto, when they shall know what men are rich,

They shall subscribe them for large sums of gold,

And send them after to supply our wants,

For we will make for Ireland presently.

Enter Bushy.

[Bushy, what news?]

BUSHY.

Old John of Gaunt is grievous sick, my lord,

Suddenly taken, and hath sent post-haste

To entreat your Majesty to visit him.

K. RICH.

Where lies he?

BUSHY.

At Ely House.

K. RICH.

Now put it, God, in the physician's mind

To help him to his grave immediately!

The lining of his coffers shall make coats

To deck our soldiers for these Irish wars.

Come, gentlemen, let's all go visit him.

Pray God we may make haste and come too late!

[ALL.]

Amen.

Exeunt.

Act II,

[Scene I]

Enter John of Gaunt, sick, with the Duke of York, etc.

GAUNT.

Will the King come, that I may breathe my last

In wholesome counsel to his unstayed 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 more

Than they whom youth and ease have taught to glose.

More are men's ends mark'd than their lives before.

The setting sun, and music at the close,

As the last taste of sweets, is sweetest last,

Writ in remembrance more than things long past.

Though Richard my live's counsel would not hear,

My death's sad tale may yet undeaf his ear.

YORK.

No, it is stopp'd with other flattering sounds,

As praises, of whose taste the wise are [fond],

Lascivious metres, to whose venom sound

The open ear of youth doth always listen;

Report of fashions in proud Italy,

Whose manners still our tardy, apish nation

Limps after in base imitation.

Where doth the world thrust forth a vanity –

So it be new, there's no respect how vile –

That is not quickly buzz'd into his ears?

Then all too late comes counsel to be heard,

Where will doth mutiny with wit's regard.

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 inspir'd,

And thus expiring do foretell of him:

His rash fierce blaze of riot cannot last,

For violent fires soon burn out themselves;

Small show'rs last long, but sudden storms are short;

He tires betimes that spurs too fast betimes;

With eager feeding food doth choke the feeder;

Light vanity, insatiate cormorant,

Consuming means, soon preys upon itself.

This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle,

This earth of majesty, 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 of men, this little world,

This precious stone set in the silver sea,

Which serves it in the office of a wall,

Or as [a] moat defensive to a house,

Against the envy of less happier lands;

This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England,

This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings,

Fear'd by their breed, and famous by their birth,

Renowned for their deeds as far from home,

For Christian service and true chivalry,

As is the sepulchre in stubborn Jewry

Of the world's ransom, blessed Mary's Son;

This land of such dear souls, this dear dear land,

Dear for her reputation through the world,

Is now leas'd out – I die pronouncing it –

Like to a tenement or pelting farm.

England, bound in with the triumphant sea,

Whose rocky shore beats back the envious siege

Of wat'ry Neptune, is now bound in with shame,

With inky blots and rotten parchment bonds;

That England, that was wont 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 and Queen, etc. [Aumerle, Bushy, Green, Bagot, Ross, and Willoughby].

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.

O 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, hast thou 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 itself:

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 with those that live?

GAUNT.

No, no, men living flatter those that die.

K. RICH.

Thou, now a-dying, sayest thou flatterest me.

GAUNT.

O no, thou diest, though I the sicker be.

K. RICH.

I am in health, I breathe, and see thee ill.

GAUNT.

Now He that made me knows I see thee ill,

Ill in myself to see, and in thee, seeing ill.

Thy death-bed is no lesser than thy 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 is no bigger than thy head,

And yet, [incaged] in so small a verge,

The waste is no whit lesser than thy land.

O 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 possess'd,

Which art possess'd now to depose thyself.

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,

Thy state of law is bond-slave to the law,

And thou –

K. RICH.

A lunatic lean-witted fool,

Presuming on an ague's privilege,

Darest 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.

O, 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 tapp'd out and drunkenly carous'd.

My brother Gloucester, plain well-meaning soul,

Whom fair befall in heaven 'mongst happy souls,

May be a president 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 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 honor have.

Exit [borne off by his Attendants].

K.