Richard II by William Shakespeare
Act 1 - Scene 2
The DUKE OF LANCASTER’S palace.
John of Gaunt : Alas, the part I had in Woodstock's blood
[p]Doth more solicit me than
your exclaims,
[p]To stir against the butchers of his life!
[p]But
since correction lieth in those hands
[p]Which made the fault that we
cannot correct,
[p]Put we our quarrel to the will of heaven;
[p]Who,
when they see the hours ripe on earth,
[p]Will rain hot vengeance on
offenders' heads.
Duchess of Gloucester : Finds brotherhood in thee no sharper spur?
[p]Hath love in thy old
blood no living fire?
[p]Edward's seven sons, whereof thyself art
one,
[p]Were as seven vials of his sacred blood,
[p]Or seven fair
branches springing from one root:
[p]Some of those seven are dried by
nature's course,
[p]Some of those branches by the Destinies
cut;
[p]But Thomas, my dear lord, my life, my Gloucester,
[p]One vial
full of Edward's sacred blood,
[p]One flourishing branch of his most
royal root,
[p]Is crack'd, and all the precious liquor spilt,
[p]Is
hack'd down, and his summer leaves all faded,
[p]By envy's hand and
murder's bloody axe.
[p]Ah, Gaunt, his blood was thine! that bed, that
womb,
[p]That metal, that self-mould, that fashion'd thee
[p]Made him
a man; and though thou livest and breathest,
[p]Yet art thou slain in
him: thou dost consent
[p]In some large measure to thy father's
death,
[p]In that thou seest thy wretched brother die,
[p]Who was the
model of thy father's life.
[p]Call it not patience, Gaunt; it is
despair:
[p]In suffering thus thy brother to be slaughter'd,
[p]Thou
showest the naked pathway to thy life,
[p]Teaching stern murder how to
butcher thee:
[p]That which in mean men we intitle patience
[p]Is pale
cold cowardice in noble breasts.
[p]What shall I say? to safeguard
thine own life,
[p]The best way is to venge my Gloucester's death.
John of Gaunt : God's is the quarrel; for God's substitute,
[p]His deputy anointed in
His sight,
[p]Hath caused his death: the which if wrongfully,
[p]Let
heaven revenge; for I may never lift
[p]An angry arm against His
minister.
Duchess of Gloucester : Where then, alas, may I complain myself?
John of Gaunt : To God, the widow's champion and defence.
Duchess of Gloucester : Why, then, I will. Farewell, old Gaunt.
[p]Thou goest to Coventry,
there to behold
[p]Our cousin Hereford and fell Mowbray fight:
[p]O,
sit my husband's wrongs on Hereford's spear,
[p]That it may enter
butcher Mowbray's breast!
[p]Or, if misfortune miss the first
career,
[p]Be Mowbray's sins so heavy in his bosom,
[p]They may break
his foaming courser's back,
[p]And throw the rider headlong in the
lists,
[p]A caitiff recreant to my cousin Hereford!
[p]Farewell, old
Gaunt: thy sometimes brother's wife
[p]With her companion grief must
end her life.
John of Gaunt : Sister, farewell; I must to Coventry:
[p]As much good stay with thee
as go with me!
Duchess of Gloucester : Yet one word more: grief boundeth where it falls,
[p]Not with the
empty hollowness, but weight:
[p]I take my leave before I have
begun,
[p]For sorrow ends not when it seemeth done.
[p]Commend me to
thy brother, Edmund York.
[p]Lo, this is all:--nay, yet depart not
so;
[p]Though this be all, do not so quickly go;
[p]I shall remember
more. Bid him--ah, what?--
[p]With all good speed at Plashy visit
me.
[p]Alack, and what shall good old York there see
[p]But empty
lodgings and unfurnish'd walls,
[p]Unpeopled offices, untrodden
stones?
[p]And what hear there for welcome but my groans?
[p]Therefore
commend me; let him not come there,
[p]To seek out sorrow that dwells
every where.
[p]Desolate, desolate, will I hence and die:
[p]The last
leave of thee takes my weeping eye.
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Next: Act 1 - Scene 3
