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 : 23

Why at our justice seem'st thou, then, to lour?

Gaunt. Things sweet to taste prove in digestion sour.
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 24 his fault I should have been more mild:
A partial slander 25 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 26 mine own away;
But you gave leave to mine 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 27 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 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 th' abundant dolour of the heart.

23 "Your tongue had a part or share in the verdict I pronounced."

24 To smooth for to extenuate. Sometimes it is to flatter.

25 "A partial slander" is a slanderous charge of partiality.

26 The infinitive to make is here used gerundively; equivalent to in making. See Hamlet, page 169, note I.

27 Presence for majesty, and used because the King's presence has hitherto prevented Aumerle from speaking.

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.
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 enforced pilgrimage.

Gaunt. The sullen passage of thy weary steps Esteem a foil,28 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,29 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 30 visits

Are to a wise man ports and happy havens.31

28 Foil is that which sets off something, or makes it show to advantage. See Hamlet, page 225, note 49.

29 Passages for journeyings; passings to and fro.

30 This seems to have been a favourite metaphor with the poets for the Sun. So in The Faerie Queen, i. 3, 4:

From her fayre head her fillet she undight,
And layd her stole aside: her angel's face,
As the great eye of heaven, shined bright,
And made a sunshine in the shady place.

31 The Poet probably had in mind Euphues' exhortation to Botomio to take his exile patiently: “Nature hath given to man a country no more than she hath a house, or lands, or livings. Socrates would neither call himself an Athenian, neither a Grecian, but a citizen of the world. Plato would never accompt him banished that had the sunne, fire, ayre, water, and earth that he had before; where he felt the winter's blast and the summer's blaze; where the same sunne and the same moone shined; whereby he noted that

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 honour,
And not the King exíl'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 go'st, not whence thou comest:
Suppose the singing-birds musicians,

The grass whereon thou tread'st the presence strew'd,32
The flowers fair ladies, and thy steps no more
Than a delightful measure 33 or a dance;
For gnarling sorrow hath less power to bite
The man that mocks at it and sets it light.
Boling. O, who can hold a fire 34 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 35 heat?

O, no! the apprehension of the good

every place was a country to a wise man, and all parts a palace to a quiet mind."

32 The presence-chamber, which used to be strewed with rushes for carpeting. The Poet repeatedly notes the use of such carpeting.

83 A measure was a dignified sort of dance; described in Much Ado, as "full of state and ancientry."— Gnarling, next line, is snarling or growling, 34 Here, as often, fire is two syllables.

35 "Fantastic Summer" is probably a summer existing only in imagination or in fantasy.

Gives but the greater feeling to the worse:
Fell sorrow's tooth doth never rankle more
Than when it 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.

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 true-born Englishman.36

SCENE IV. - The Court.

[Exeunt.

Enter King RICHARD, BAGOT, and GREEN; AUMERLE following.

K. Rich. We did observe.' — Cousin Aumerle, How far brought2 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 ;3 except the north-east wind,

36 The Duke of Norfolk departed sorrowfully out of the realm into Almain, and at the last came to Venice, where he, for thought and melancholy, deceased. The Duke of Hereford took his journey over into Calais, and from thence into France, where he remained. A wonder it was to see what a number of people ran after him in every town and street where he came, before he took to sea, lamenting and bewailing his departure, as who would say that, when he departed, the only shield and comfort of the commonwealth was faded and gone.-HOLINSHED.

1 The King here speaks to Green and Bagot, who are supposed to have been talking to him of Bolingbroke's "courtship to the common people." 2 To bring was in frequent use for to attend, to escort.

3 For me here means on my side, or my part.

Which then blew bitterly against our faces,

Awaked the sleeping rheum,4 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,5 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,6
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,

4 Rheum was used for the secretions of the eyes, the nose, and the mouth,

indifferently. Here, of course, tears.

5 Marry was continually used as a general intensive, equivalent to in

deed, verily, &c. Originally an oath by the Virgin Mary.

6 "'Tis doubt" for "'tis doubtful." Repeatedly so.

7 Affects for affections. A frequent usage,