Disclaiming here the kindred of a king;
And lay aside my high blood's royalty,
Which fear, not reverence, makes thee to except:
If guilty dread hath left thee so much strength,
As to take up mine honour's pawn, then stoop;
By that, and all the rites of knighthood else,
Will I make good against thee, arm to arm,
What I have spoke, or thou canst worse devise.
Nor. I take it up; and, by that sword I swear,
Which gently lay'd my knighthood on my shoulder,
I'll answer thee in any fair degree,
Or chivalrous design of knightly trial:
And, when I mount, alive may I not light,
If I be traitor, or unjustly fight!

K. Rich. What doth our cousin lay to
bray's charge?

It must be great, that can inherit1 us
So much as of a thought of ill in him.

Boling. Look, what I speak my life shall prove it true;

That Mowbray hath receiv'd eight thousand nobles,
In name of lendings for your highness' soldiers;
The which he hath detain'd for lewd2 employments,
Like a false traitor, and injurious villain.
Besides I say, and will in battle prove,-
Or here, or elsewhere, to the farthest verge
That ever was survey'd by English eye,-
That all the treasons, for these eighteen years
Complotted and contrived in this land,
Fetch from false Mowbray their first head and
spring.

Further I say, and further will maintain
Upon his bad life, to make all this good,-
That he did plot the duke of Gloster's death;
Suggest his soon-believing adversaries;
And, consequently, like a traitor coward,
Sluic'd out his innocent soul through streams
blood:

Which blood, like sacrificing Abel's, cries,
Even from the tongueless caverns of the earth,
To me for justice, and rough chastisement;
And by the glorious worth of my descent,
This arm shall do it, or this life be spent.

K. Rich. How high a pitch his resolution

soars !

Thomas of Norfolk, what say'st thou to this?

Nor. O, let my sovereign turn away his face, And bid his ears a little while be deaf, Till I have told this slander of his blood,4 How God, and good men, hate so foul a liar.

K. Rich. Mowbray, impartial are our eyes,

cars:

Were he my brother, nay, my kingdom's heir,
(As he is but my father's brother's son,)
Now by my sceptre's awe I inake a vow,
Such neighbour nearness to our sacred blood
Should nothing privilege him, nor partialize
The unstooping firmness of my upright soul;
He is our subject, Mowbray, so art thou;
Free speech, and fearless, I to thee allow.

Even in the best blood chamber'd in his bosom:
In haste whereof, most heartily I pray
Your highness to assign our trial day.

K. Rich. Wrath-kindled gentlemen, be rul'd by

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 disgrac'd, impeach'd, and baffled here;
Pierc'd to the soul with slander's venom'd spear;
The which no balm can cure, but his heart-blood
Which breath'd this poison.

K. Rich.
Rage must be withstood:
Give me his gage :-Lions make leopards tame.
Nor. Yea, but not change their spots: take but

my shame,

Nor. Then, Bolingbroke, as low as to thy heart, Through the false passage of thy throat, thou liest! Three parts of that receipt I had for Calais, Disburs'd I duly to his highness' soldiers: The other part reserv'd I by consent; For that my sovereign liege was in my debt, Upon remainder of a dear account,

Since last I went to France to fetch his queen : Now swallow down that lie.For Gloster's death,

I slew him not; but to my own disgrace,

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

Boling. O, God defend my soul from such foul sin!

Shall I seem crest-fallen in my father's sight? Or with pale beggar-fear impeach my height Before this outdar'd dastard! Ere my tongue Shall wound my honour with such feeble wrong, Or sourd 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. (6) Arrogant.

(7) No advantage in delay.

Thus plated in habiliments of war; And formally according to our law Deposc him in the justice of his cause.

Cast off his chains of bondage, and embrace His golden uncontroll'd enfranchisement, More than my dancing soul doth celebrate

thou hither,

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 gor'd with Mowbray's spear;
As confident, as is the falcon's flight

Against a bird, do I with Mowbray fight.--
My loving lord, [To Lord Marshal.] 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,-

[To Gaunt.

Whose youthful spirit, in me regenerate,
Doth with a two-fold vigour lift me up
To reach at victory above my head,-
Add proof unto my 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 of Gaunt,
Even in the lusty 'haviour of his son.
Gaunt. Heaven 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 casque3
Of thy adverse pernicious enemy:
Rouse up the youthful blood, be valiant, and live.
Boling. Mine innocency, and Saint George to
thrive!
[He takes his seat.
Nor. [Rising.] However heaven, or fortune, cast
my lot,

There lives or dics, true to kin? Richard's throne,
A loyal, just, and upright gentleman:
Never did captive with a freer heart

(1) Yielding. (2) Brighten up. (3) Helmet. (4) Play a part in a mask.

Most mighty liege,-and my companion peers,
Take from my mouth the wish of happy years:
As gentle and as jocund, as to jest,4"
Go I to fight; Truth hath a quiet breast.

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

[The King and the Lords return to their seats. Mar: Harry of Hereford, Lancaster, and Derby, Receive thy lance: and God defend the right! Boling. [Rising.] Strong as a tower in hope, I

cry-amen.

Mar. Go bear this lance [To an officer.] to Thomas duke of Norfolk.

1 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.

2 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.

Jar. Sound, trumpets; and set forward, com-
batants.
A charge sounded.
Stay, the king hath thrown his warders 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, [To the combatants. 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 aspéct Of civil wounds plough'd up with neighbours' swords;

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

To wake our peace, which in our country's cradle
Draws the sweet infant breath of gentle sleep;
Which so rous'd up with boisterous 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 kindred's blood;-
Therefore, we banish you our territories:--
You, cousin Hereford, upon pain of death,
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 com-
fort 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 some unwillingness pronounce: The fly-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.
Nor. 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' hand.
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 cas'd up,
Or, being open, put into his hands

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
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.
Nor. Then thus I turn me from my country's
light,

To dwell in solemn shades of endless night.

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 lower?
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 it been a stranger, not my child,

thee.

Lay on our royal sword your banish'd hands;
Swear by the duty that you owe to heaven,
(Our part therein we banish with yourselves,)
To keep the oath that we administer:-

You never shall (so help you truth and heaven!)
Embrace each other's love in banishment;
Nor never look upon each other's face;
Nor never write, regreet, nor reconcile

This lowering tempest of your home-bred hate;
Nor never by advised3 purpose meet,
To plot, contrive, or complot any ill,

'Gainst us, our state, our subjects, or our land.
Boling. I swear.

Nor. 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 burden of a guilty soul.

Nor. 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, heaven, 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 aspéct Hath from the number of his banish'd years Pluck'd four away;-Six frozen winters spent, Return [To Boling.] 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.

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 K. Rich. and 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 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.

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

Gaunt. Call it a travel that thou tak'st 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, 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 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?

I

Gaunt. All places that the eye of heaven visits Are to a wise man ports and happy havens:

(5) Had a part or share.
(6) Reproach of partiality.

(7) Grief.

Teach thy necessity to reason thus;
There is no virtue like necessity.
Think not, the king did banish thee;
But thou the king: Wo 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 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 go'st, not whence thou com'st:
Suppose the singing birds, musicians;

The grass whereon thou tread'st, the presence1 strew'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.
Boling. 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 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.

[Exeunt. SCENE IV.-The same. A room in the king's castle. Enter King Richard, Bagot, and Green; Aumerle following.

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 by 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 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,
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;
(1) Presence-chamber at court. (2) Growling.

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.

SCENE 1-London. A room in Ely-house. Gaunt on a couch; the Duke of York, and others, standing by him.

Gaunt. Will the king come? that I may breathe my last,

In wholesome counsel to his unstaied 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 listen'd 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 life's counsel would not hear,
(4) Because, (5) Flatter.

(3) Expeditious.