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JOHN OF 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 bondslave to the law; And thou-- |
KING RICHARD II: |
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. |
JOHN OF 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 caroused: |
My brother Gloucester, plain well-meaning soul, |
Whom fair befal 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 be like crooked age, |
To crop at once a too long wither'd 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. |
KING RICHARD II: |
And let them die that age and sullens have; |
For both hast thou, and both become the grave. |
DUKE OF 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 Duke of Hereford, were he here. |
KING RICHARD II: |
Right, you say true: as Hereford's love, so his; |
As theirs, so mine; and all be as it is. |
NORTHUMBERLAND: |
My liege, old Gaunt commends him to your majesty. |
KING RICHARD II: |
What says he? |
NORTHUMBERLAND: |
Nay, nothing; all is said |
His tongue is now a stringless instrument; |
Words, life and all, old Lancaster hath spent. |
DUKE OF YORK: |
Be York the next that must be bankrupt so! |
Though death be poor, it ends a mortal woe. |
KING RICHARD II: |
The ripest fruit first falls, and so doth he; |
His time is spent, our pilgrimage must be. |
So much for that. Now for our Irish wars: |
We must supplant 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, |
Towards our assistance we do seize to us |
The plate, corn, revenues and moveables, |
Whereof our uncle Gaunt did stand possess'd. |
DUKE OF YORK: |
How long shall I be patient? ah, how long |
Shall tender duty make me suffer wrong? |
Not Gloucester's death, nor Hereford's banishment |
Not Gaunt's rebukes, nor England's private wrongs, |
Nor the prevention of poor Bolingbroke |
About his marriage, nor my own disgrace, |
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