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And, Norfolk, throw down his. |
JOHN OF GAUNT: |
When, Harry, when? |
Obedience bids I should not bid again. |
KING RICHARD II: |
Norfolk, throw down, we bid; there is no boot. |
THOMAS MOWBRAY: |
Myself I throw, dread sovereign, at thy foot. |
My life thou shalt command, but not my shame: |
The one my duty owes; but my fair name, |
Despite of death that lives upon my grave, |
To dark dishonour's use thou shalt not have. |
I am disgraced, impeach'd and baffled here, |
Pierced to the soul with slander's venom'd spear, |
The which no balm can cure but his heart-blood |
Which breathed this poison. |
KING RICHARD II: |
Rage must be withstood: |
Give me his gage: lions make leopards tame. |
THOMAS MOWBRAY: |
Yea, but not change his spots: take but my shame. |
And I resign my gage. My dear dear lord, |
The purest treasure mortal times afford |
Is spotless reputation: that away, |
Men are but gilded loam or painted clay. |
A jewel in a ten-times-barr'd-up chest |
Is a bold spirit in a loyal breast. |
Mine honour is my life; both grow in one: |
Take honour from me, and my life is done: |
Then, dear my liege, mine honour let me try; |
In that I live and for that will I die. |
KING RICHARD II: |
Cousin, throw up your gage; do you begin. |
HENRY BOLINGBROKE: |
O, God defend my soul from such deep sin! |
Shall I seem crest-fall'n in my father's sight? |
Or with pale beggar-fear impeach my height |
Before this out-dared dastard? Ere my tongue |
Shall wound my honour with such feeble wrong, |
Or sound so base a parle, my teeth shall tear |
The slavish motive of recanting fear, |
And spit it bleeding in his high disgrace, |
Where shame doth harbour, even in Mowbray's face. |
KING RICHARD II: |
We were not born to sue, but to command; |
Which since we cannot do to make you friends, |
Be ready, as your lives shall answer it, |
At Coventry, upon Saint Lambert's day: |
There shall your swords and lances arbitrate |
The swelling difference of your settled hate: |
Since we can not atone you, we shall see |
Justice design the victor's chivalry. |
Lord marshal, command our officers at arms |
Be ready to direct these home alarms. |
JOHN OF GAUNT: |
Alas, the part I had in Woodstock's blood |
Doth more solicit me than your exclaims, |
To stir against the butchers of his life! |
But since correction lieth in those hands |
Which made the fault that we cannot correct, |
Put we our quarrel to the will of heaven; |
Who, when they see the hours ripe on earth, |
Will rain hot vengeance on offenders' heads. |
DUCHESS: |
Finds brotherhood in thee no sharper spur? |
Hath love in thy old blood no living fire? |
Edward's seven sons, whereof thyself art one, |
Were as seven vials of his sacred blood, |
Or seven fair branches springing from one root: |
Some of those seven are dried by nature's course, |
Some of those branches by the Destinies cut; |
But Thomas, my dear lord, my life, my Gloucester, |
One vial full of Edward's sacred blood, |
One flourishing branch of his most royal root, |
Is crack'd, and all the precious liquor spilt, |
Is hack'd down, and his summer leaves all faded, |
By envy's hand and murder's bloody axe. |
Ah, Gaunt, his blood was thine! that bed, that womb, |
That metal, that self-mould, that fashion'd thee |
Made him a man; and though thou livest and breathest, |
Yet art thou slain in him: thou dost consent |
In some large measure to thy father's death, |
In that thou seest thy wretched brother die, |
Who was the model of thy father's life. |
Call it not patience, Gaunt; it is despair: |
In suffering thus thy brother to be slaughter'd, |
Thou showest the naked pathway to thy life, |
Teaching stern murder how to butcher thee: |
That which in mean men we intitle patience |
Is pale cold cowardice in noble breasts. |
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