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.

K. Rich. Cousin, throw up your gage; do you begin.

Boling. 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 189
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.
[Exit Gaunt.

K. Rich. 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 200
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. [Exeunt.

SCENE II. The DUKE OF LANCASTER's palace.

Enter JOHN OF GAUNT with the DUCHESS
OF GLOUCESTER.

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.
Duch. 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,

10

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,

21

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:

With her companion grief must end her life.

Gaunt. Sister, farewell; I must to Coventry : As much good stay with thee as go with me! Duch. Yet one word more: grief boundeth where it falls,

60

Not with the empty hollowness, but weight:
I take my leave before I have begun,
For sorrow ends not when it seemeth done.
Commend me to thy brother, Edmund York.
Lo, this is all-nay, yet depart not so;
Though this be all, do not so quickly go;
I shall remember more. Bid him-ah, what?-
With all good speed at Plashy visit me.
Alack, and what shall good old York there see
But empty lodgings and unfurnish'd walls,
Unpeopled offices, untrodden stones?

And what hear there for welcome but my groans?

70

Therefore commend me; let him not come there,
To seek out sorrow that dwells every where.
Desolate, desolate, will I hence and die:
The last leave of thee takes my weeping eye.

SCENE III.

[Exeunt.

The lists at Coventry. Enter the Lord Marshal and the DUKE OF AUMERLE.

Mar. My Lord Aumerle, is Harry Hereford arm'd?

Aum. Yea, at all points; and longs to enter in. Mar. The Duke of Norfolk, sprightfully and bold,

Stays but the summons of the appellant's trumpet. Aum. Why, then, the champions are prepared,

and stay

For nothing but his majesty's approach.

The trumpets sound, and the KING enters with his nobles, GAUNT, BUSHY, BAGOT, GREEN, and others. When they are set, enter MowBRAY in arms, defendant, with a Herald.

K. Rich. Marshal, demand of yonder champion

ro

The cause of his arrival here in arms:
Ask him his name and orderly proceed
To swear him in the justice of his cause.
Mar. In God's name and the king's, say who
thou art

And why thou comest thus knightly clad in arms, Against what man thou comest, and what thy quarrel:

Speak truly, on thy knighthood and thy oath;
As so defend thee heaven and thy valour!
Mow. My name is Thomas Mowbray, Duke
of Norfolk;

Who hither come engaged by my oath-
Which God defend a knight should violate!-
Both to defend my loyalty and truth

20

To God, my king and my succeeding issue,
Against the Duke of Hereford that appeals me;
And, by the grace of God and this mine arm,
To prove him, in defending of myself,
A traitor to my God, my king, and me:
And as truly fight, defend me heaven!
The trumpets sound. Enter Bolingbroke,
appellant, in armour, with a Herald.

K. Rich. Marshal, ask yonder knight in arms,
Both who he is and why he cometh hither
Thus plated in habiliments of war,
And formally, according to our law,
Depose him in the justice of his cause.

30

Mar. What is thy name? and wherefore comest thou hither,

Before King Richard in his royal lists? Against whom comest thou? and what's thy quarrel?

Speak like a true knight, so defend thee heaven!
Boling. Harry of Hereford, Lancaster and
Derby

Am I; who ready here do stand in arms,
To prove, by God's grace and my body's valour,
In lists, on Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk,
That he is a traitor, foul and dangerous,
To God of heaven, King Richard and to me; 40
And as I truly fight, defend me heaven!

Mar. On pain of death, no person be so bold
Or daring-hardy as to touch the lists,
Except the marshal and such officers
Appointed to direct these fair designs.

Boling. Lord marshal, let me kiss my sovereign's hand,

And bow my knee before his majesty:
For Mowbray and myself are like two men
That vow a long and weary pilgrimage;
Then let us take a ceremonious leave
And loving farewell of our several friends.
Mar. The appellant in all duty greets your
highness,

50

And craves to kiss your hand and take his leave. K. Rich. We will descend and fold him in

our arms.

Cousin of Hereford, as thy cause is right,
So be thy fortune in this royal fight!
Farewell, my blood; which if to-day thou shed,

Lament we may, but not revenge thee dead.
Boling. O, let no noble eye profane a tear
For me, if I be gored with Mowbray's spear: 60
As confident as is the falcon's flight
Against a bird, do I with Mowbray fight.
My loving lord, I take my leave of you;
Of you, my noble cousin, Lord Aumerle;
Not sick, although I have to do with death,
But lusty, young, and cheerly drawing breath.
Lo, as at English feasts, so I regreet
The daintiest last, to make the end most sweet:
O thou, the earthly author of my blood,
Whose youthful spirit, in me regenerate,
Doth with a twofold vigour lift me up
To reach at victory above my head,
Add proof unto mine armour with thy prayers;
And with thy blessings steel my lance's point,
That it may enter Mowbray's waxen coat,
And furbish new the name of John a Gaunt,
Even in the lusty haviour of his son.

70

Gaunt. God in thy good cause make thee prosperous!

Be swift like lightning in the execution;
And let thy blows, doubly redoubled,
Fall like amazing thunder on the casque

Of thy adverse pernicious enemy:

80

Rouse up thy youthful blood, be valiant and live. Boling. Mine innocency and Saint George to thrive!

Mow. However God or fortune cast my lot, There lives or dies, true to King Richard's throne,

A loyal, just and upright gentleman:
Never did captive with a freer heart
Cast off his chains of bondage and embrace
His golden uncontroll'd enfranchisement,
More than my dancing soul doth celebrate
This feast of battle with mine adversary.
Most mighty liege, and my companion peers,
Take from my mouth the wish of happy years:
As gentle and as jocund as to jest

Go I to fight: truth hath a quiet breast.

90

K. Rich. Farewell, my lord: securely I espy Virtue with valour couched in thine eye. Order the trial, marshal, and begin.

Mar. Harry of Hereford, Lancaster and Derby,

100

Receive thy lance; and God defend the right! Boling. Strong as a tower in hope, I cry

amen.

Mar. Go bear this lance to Thomas, Duke of Norfolk.

First Her. Harry of Hereford, Lancaster and Derby,

Stands here for God, his sovereign and himself,
On pain to be found false and recreant,

To prove the Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray,
A traitor to his God, his king and him;
And dares him to set forward to the fight.
Sec. 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 Hereford, 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: 120
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 neighbours' sword;

And for we think the eagle-winged pride
Of sky-aspiring and ambitious thoughts,
With rival-hating envy, set on you

130

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

Draws the sweet infant breath of gentle sleep; Which so roused up with boisterous untuned drums,

With harsh-resounding trumpets' dreadful bray, And grating shock of wrathful iron arms,

140

Might from our quiet confines fright fair peace
And make us wade even in our kindred's blood;
Therefore, we banish you our territories:
You, cousin Hereford, 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.
Boling. 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,

150

Which I with some 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 learn'd these forty years,
My native English, now I must forego:

And now my tongue's use is to me no more Than an unstringed viol or a harp,

Or like a cunning instrument cased up,

Or, being open, put into his hands

160

That knows no touch to tune the harmony:
Within my mouth you have engaol'd my tongue,
Doubly portcullis'd with my teeth and lips;
And dull unfeeling barren ignorance

170

Is made my gaoler 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 you 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 louring tempest of your home-bred hate;
Nor never by advised purpose meet

180

To plot, contrive, or complot any ill 'Gainst us, our state, our subjects, or our land. 190 Boling. I swear.

Mow. And I, to keep all this.

Boling. Norfolk, so far as to mine enemy:By this time, had the king permitted us, One of our souls had wander'd 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.

200

Mow. No, Bolingbroke: 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 210 Pluck'd four away. [To Boling.] Six frozen winters spent,

Return with welcome home from banishment. Boling. 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.

220

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 lour?

230

Gaunt. Things sweet to taste prove in digestion sour.

241

You urged me as a judge; but I had rather
You would have bid me argue like a father.
O, had it 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 destroy'd.
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. Exeunt King Richard and train. Aum. Cousin, farewell: what presence must not know,

From where you do remain let paper show.

250

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 return'st no greeting to thy friends?
Boling. I have too few to take my leave of you,
When the tongue's office should be prodigal
To breathe the abundant dolour of the heart.

Gaunt. Thy grief is but thy absence for a time.
Boling. Joy absent, grief is present for that time.
Gaunt. What is six winters? they are quickly
gone.

260

Boling. To men in joy; but grief makes one hour ten.

Gaunt. Call it a travel that thou takest for pleasure.

Boling. My heart will sigh when I miscall it so, Which finds it an inforced pilgrimage.

270

Gaunt. The sullen passage of thy weary steps
Esteem as foil wherein thou art to set
The precious jewel of thy home return.
Boling. 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, 280
Where it perceives it is but faintly borne.
Go, say I sent thee forth to purchase honour
And not the king exiled 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 go'st, not whence thou

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:

300

Had I thy youth and cause, I would not stay. Boling. Then, England's ground, farewell; sweet soil, adieu;

My mother, and my nurse, that bears me yet!
Where'er I wander, boast of this I can,
Though banish'd, yet a trueborn Englishman.
[Exeunt.

SCENE IV. The court. Enter the KING, with BAGOT and GREEN at one door; and the DUKE OF AUMERLE at another. K. Rich. We did observe. Cousin Aumerle, How far brought you high Hereford on his way? Aum. I brought high Hereford, if you call him so,

But to the next highway, 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,
Awaked 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:'

ΙΟ

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 lengthen'd
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, cousin; but 'tis
doubt,

20

When time shall call him home from banishment,
Whether our kinsman come to see his friends.
Ourself and Bushy, Bagot here and Green
Observed 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.

30

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,

Where doth the world thrust forth a vanitySo it be new, there's no respect how vileThat 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. 30

Gaunt. Methinks I am a prophet new inspired
And thus expiring do foretell of him:
His rash fierce blaze of riot cannot last,
For violent fires soon burn out themselves;
Small showers 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 scepter'd isle, 40
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,

50

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 leased 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 watery Neptune, is now bound in with shame,
With inky blots and rotten parchment bonds:

60

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 listen'd more

Than they whom youth and ease have taught to glose;

ΙΟ

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 life'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.

20

Hath made a shameful conquest of itself.
Ah, would the scandal vanish with my life,
How happy then were my ensuing death!
Enter KING RICHARD and QUEEN, AUMERLE,
BUSHY, GREEN, BAGOT, Ross, and WIL-

LOUGHBY.

York. The king is come: deal mildly with his youth;

69 For young hot colts being traged 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; 80
And therein fasting, hast thou made me gaunt:
Gaunt am I for the grave, gaunt as a grave,