The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works
Page 118
Farewell, my blood, which if today thou shed,
Lament we may, but not revenge thee dead.
BOLINGBROKE
O, let no noble eye profane a tear
For me if I be gored with Mowbray’s spear.
As confident as is the falcon’s flight
Against a bird do I with Mowbray fight.
(To the Lord Marshal) My loving lord, I take my leave of you;
(To Aumerle) 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.
(To Gaunt, ⌈kneeling⌉ O thou, the earthly author of my blood,
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 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.
JOHN OF 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.
Rouse up thy youthful blood, be valiant, and live.
BOLINGBROKE ⌈standing⌉
Mine innocence and Saint George to thrive!
MOWBRAY ⌈standing⌉
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 uncontrolled 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.
KING RICHARD
Farewell, my lord. Securely I espy
Virtue with valour couched in thine eye.—
Order the trial, Marshal, and begin.
LORD MARSHAL
Harry of Hereford, Lancaster, and Derby,
Receive thy lance; and God defend the right!
⌈An officer bears a lance to Bolingbroke⌉
BOLINGBROKE
Strong as a tower in hope, I cry ‘Amen!’
LORD MARSHAL (to an officer)
Go bear this lance to Thomas, Duke of Norfolk.
⌈An officer bears a lance to Mowbray⌉
FIRST HERALD
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.
SECOND HERALD
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.
LORD MARSHAL
Sound trumpets, and set forward combatants!
⌈A charge is sounded.⌉
King Richard throws down his warder
Stay, the King hath thrown his warder down.
KING RICHARD
Let them lay by their helmets and their spears,
And both return back to their chairs again.
⌈Bolingbroke and Mowbray disarm and sit⌉
(To the nobles) Withdraw with us, and let the trumpets sound
While we return these dukes what we decree.
A long flourish, during which King Richard and his nobles withdraw and hold council, ⌈then come forward]. King Richard addresses Bolingbroke and Mowbray
Draw near, and list what with our council we have
done.
For that our kingdom’s earth should not be soiled
With that dear blood which it hath fostered,
And for our eyes do hate the dire aspect
Of civil wounds ploughed up with neighbours’ swords,
Which, so roused up with boist’rous untuned 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 life,
Till twice five summers have enriched our fields
Shall not regreet our fair dominions,
But tread the stranger paths of banishment.
BOLINGBROKE
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.
KING RICHARD
Norfolk, for thee remains a heavier doom,
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.
MOWBRAY
A heavy sentence, my most sovereign liege,
And all unlooked-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 learnt these forty years,
My native English, now I must forgo,
And now my tongue’s use is to me no more
Than an unstringèd viol or a harp,
Or like a cunning instrument cased up,
Or, being open, put into his hands
That knows no touch to tune the harmony.
Within my mouth you have enjailed my tongue,
Doubly portcullised with my teeth and lips,
And dull unfeeling barren ignorance
Is made my jailer 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?
KING RICHARD
It boots thee not to be compassionate.
After our sentence, plaining comes too late.
MOWBRAY
Then thus I turn me from my country’s light,
To dwell in solemn shades of endless night.
KING RICHARD
Return again, and take an oath with thee.
(To both) Lay on our royal sword your banished 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 low‘ring tempest of your home-bred hate,
Nor never by advised purpose meet
To plot, contrive, or complot any ill
’Gainst us, o
ur state, our subjects, or our land.
BOLINGBROKE
I swear.
MOWBRAY And I, to keep all this.
BOLINGBROKE
Norfolk, so far as to mine enemy:
By this time, had the King permitted us,
One of our souls had wandered in the air,
Banished this frail sepulchre of our flesh,
As now our flesh is banished 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.
MOWBRAY
No, Bolingbroke, if ever I were traitor,
My name be blotted from the book of life,
And I from heaven banished 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
KING RICHARD
Uncle, even in the glasses of thine eyes
I see thy grieved heart. Thy sad aspect
Hath from the number of his banished years
Plucked four away. (To Bolingbroke) Six frozen winters
spent,
Return with welcome home from banishment.
BOLINGBROKE
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.
JOHN OF 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.
KING RICHARD
Why, uncle, thou hast many years to live.
JOHN OF GAUNT
But not a minute, King, that thou canst give.
Shorten my days thou canst with sudden 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.
KING RICHARD
Thy son is banished upon good advice,
Whereto thy tongue a party verdict gave.
Why at our justice seem’st thou then to lour?
JOHN OF 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.
Alas, I looked 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.
KING RICHARD
Cousin, farewell; and uncle, bid him so.
Six years we banish him, and he shall go.
⌈Flourish.⌉ Exeunt all but Aumerle, the Lord Marshal, John of Gaunt, and Bolingbroke
AUMERLE (to Bolingbroke)
Cousin, farewell. What presence must not know,
From where you do remain let paper show.
[Exit]
LORD MARSHAL (to Bolingbroke)
My lord, no leave take I, for I will ride
As far as land will let me by your side.
JOHN OF GAUNT (to Bolingbroke)
O, to what purpose dost thou hoard thy words,
That thou return’st no greeting to thy friends?
BOLINGBROKE
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.
JOHN OF GAUNT
Thy grief is but thy absence for a time.
BOLINGBROKE
Joy absent, grief is present for that time.
JOHN OF GAUNT
What is six winters? They are quickly gone.
BOLINGBROKE
To men in joy, but grief makes one hour ten.
JOHN OF GAUNT
Call it a travel that thou tak’st for pleasure.
BOLINGBROKE
My heart will sigh when I miscall it so,
Which finds it an enforced pilgrimage.
JOHN OF GAUNT
The sullen passage of thy weary steps
Esteem as foil wherein thou art to set
The precious jewel of thy home return.
BOLINGBROKE
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 he bites, but lanceth not the sore.
JOHN OF GAUNT
Come, come, my son, I’ll bring thee on thy way.
Had I thy youth and cause, I would not stay.
BOLINGBROKE
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 banished, yet a trueborn Englishman.
Exeunt
1.4 Enter King Richard with ⌈Green and Bagot⌉ at one door, and the Lord Aumerle at another
KING RICHARD
We did observe.—Cousin Aumerle,
How far brought you high Hereford on his way?
AUMERLE
I brought high Hereford, if you call him so,
But to the next highway, and there I left him.
KING RICHARD
And say, what store of parting tears were shed?
AUMERLE
Faith, none for me, except the north-east wind,
Which then grew bitterly against our faces,
Awaked the sleeping rheum, and so by chance
Did grace our hollow parting with a tear.
KING RICHARD
What said our cousin when you parted with him?
AUMERLE
‘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 seemed buried in my sorrow’s grave.
Marry, would the word ‘farewell’ have lengthened
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.
KING RICHARD
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
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 oysterwench.
A brace of draymen bid God speed him well,
And had the tribute of his supple knee
With ‘Thanks, my countrymen, my loving friends’,
&n
bsp; 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.
KING RICHARD
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 enforced 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
Bushy, what news?
BUSHY
Old John of Gaunt is grievous sick, my lord,
Suddenly taken, and hath sent post-haste
To entreat your majesty to visit him.
KING RICHARD Where lies he?
BUSHY At Ely House.
KING RICHARD
Now put it, God, in his physician’s mind
To help him to his grave immediately.
The lining of his coffers shall make coats
To deck our soldiers for these Irish wars.
Come, gentlemen, let’s all go visit him.
Pray God we may make haste and come too late!
Exeunt
2.1 Enter John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, sick, ⌈carried in a chair,⌉ with the Duke of York
JOHN OF GAUNT
Will the King come, that I may breathe my last
In wholesome counsel to his unstaid youth?
YORK
Vex not yourself, nor strive not with your breath,
For all in vain comes counsel to his ear.
JOHN OF 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 listened more
Than they whom youth and ease have taught to glose.
More are men’s ends marked 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,