Richard II by William Shakespeare

Act 2 - Scene 1

Ely House.

John of Gaunt : Will the king come, that I may breathe my last [p]In wholesome counsel
to his unstaid youth?

Edmund of Langley : Vex not yourself, nor strive not with your breath; [p]For all in vain
comes counsel to his ear.

John of Gaunt : O, but they say the tongues of dying men [p]Enforce attention like
deep harmony: [p]Where words are scarce, they are seldom spent in
vain, [p]For they breathe truth that breathe their words in
pain. [p]He that no more must say is listen'd more [p]Than they whom
youth and ease have taught to glose; [p]More are men's ends mark'd
than their lives before: [p]The setting sun, and music at the
close, [p]As the last taste of sweets, is sweetest last, [p]Writ in
remembrance more than things long past: [p]Though Richard my life's
counsel would not hear, [p]My death's sad tale may yet undeaf his
ear.

Edmund of Langley : No; it is stopp'd with other flattering sounds, [p]As praises, of
whose taste the wise are fond, [p]Lascivious metres, to whose venom
sound [p]The open ear of youth doth always listen; [p]Report of
fashions in proud Italy, [p]Whose manners still our tardy apish
nation [p]Limps after in base imitation. [p]Where doth the world
thrust forth a vanity-- [p]So it be new, there's no respect how
vile-- [p]That is not quickly buzzed into his ears? [p]Then all too
late comes counsel to be heard, [p]Where will doth mutiny with wit's
regard. [p]Direct not him whose way himself will choose: [p]'Tis
breath thou lack'st, and that breath wilt thou lose.

John of Gaunt : Methinks I am a prophet new inspired [p]And thus expiring do foretell
of him: [p]His rash fierce blaze of riot cannot last, [p]For violent
fires soon burn out themselves; [p]Small showers last long, but sudden
storms are short; [p]He tires betimes that spurs too fast
betimes; [p]With eager feeding food doth choke the feeder: [p]Light
vanity, insatiate cormorant, [p]Consuming means, soon preys upon
itself. [p]This royal throne of kings, this scepter'd isle, [p]This
earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, [p]This other Eden,
demi-paradise, [p]This fortress built by Nature for herself [p]Against
infection and the hand of war, [p]This happy breed of men, this little
world, [p]This precious stone set in the silver sea, [p]Which serves
it in the office of a wall, [p]Or as a moat defensive to a
house, [p]Against the envy of less happier lands, [p]This blessed
plot, this earth, this realm, this England, [p]This nurse, this
teeming womb of royal kings, [p]Fear'd by their breed and famous by
their birth, [p]Renowned for their deeds as far from home, [p]For
Christian service and true chivalry, [p]As is the sepulchre in
stubborn Jewry, [p]Of the world's ransom, blessed Mary's Son, [p]This
land of such dear souls, this dear dear land, [p]Dear for her
reputation through the world, [p]Is now leased out, I die pronouncing
it, [p]Like to a tenement or pelting farm: [p]England, bound in with
the triumphant sea [p]Whose rocky shore beats back the envious
siege [p]Of watery Neptune, is now bound in with shame, [p]With inky
blots and rotten parchment bonds: [p]That England, that was wont to
conquer others, [p]Hath made a shameful conquest of itself. [p]Ah,
would the scandal vanish with my life, [p]How happy then were my
ensuing death! [p][Enter KING RICHARD II and QUEEN, DUKE OF
AUMERLE,] [p]BUSHY, GREEN, BAGOT, LORD ROSS, and LORD WILLOUGHBY]

Edmund of Langley : The king is come: deal mildly with his youth; [p]For young hot colts
being raged do rage the more.

Queen : How fares our noble uncle, Lancaster?

King Richard II : What comfort, man? how is't with aged Gaunt?

John of Gaunt : O how that name befits my composition! [p]Old Gaunt indeed, and gaunt
in being old: [p]Within me grief hath kept a tedious fast; [p]And who
abstains from meat that is not gaunt? [p]For sleeping England long
time have I watch'd; [p]Watching breeds leanness, leanness is all
gaunt: [p]The pleasure that some fathers feed upon, [p]Is my strict
fast; I mean, my children's looks; [p]And therein fasting, hast thou
made me gaunt: [p]Gaunt am I for the grave, gaunt as a grave, [p]Whose
hollow womb inherits nought but bones.

King Richard II : Can sick men play so nicely with their names?

John of Gaunt : No, misery makes sport to mock itself: [p]Since thou dost seek to kill
my name in me, [p]I mock my name, great king, to flatter thee.

King Richard II : Should dying men flatter with those that live?

John of Gaunt : No, no, men living flatter those that die.

King Richard II : Thou, now a-dying, say'st thou flatterest me.

John of Gaunt : O, no! thou diest, though I the sicker be.

King Richard II : I am in health, I breathe, and see thee ill.

John of Gaunt : Now He that made me knows I see thee ill; [p]Ill in myself to see, and
in thee seeing ill. [p]Thy death-bed is no lesser than thy
land [p]Wherein thou liest in reputation sick; [p]And thou, too
careless patient as thou art, [p]Commit'st thy anointed body to the
cure [p]Of those physicians that first wounded thee: [p]A thousand
flatterers sit within thy crown, [p]Whose compass is no bigger than
thy head; [p]And yet, incaged in so small a verge, [p]The waste is no
whit lesser than thy land. [p]O, had thy grandsire with a prophet's
eye [p]Seen how his son's son should destroy his sons, [p]From forth
thy reach he would have laid thy shame, [p]Deposing thee before thou
wert possess'd, [p]Which art possess'd now to depose thyself. [p]Why,
cousin, wert thou regent of the world, [p]It were a shame to let this
land by lease; [p]But for thy world enjoying but this land, [p]Is it
not more than shame to shame it so? [p]Landlord of England art thou
now, not king: [p]Thy state of law is bondslave to the law; And
thou--

King Richard II : A lunatic lean-witted fool, [p]Presuming on an ague's
privilege, [p]Darest with thy frozen admonition [p]Make pale our
cheek, chasing the royal blood [p]With fury from his native
residence. [p]Now, by my seat's right royal majesty, [p]Wert thou not
brother to great Edward's son, [p]This tongue that runs so roundly in
thy head [p]Should run thy head from thy unreverent shoulders.

John of Gaunt : O, spare me not, my brother Edward's son, [p]For that I was his father
Edward's son; [p]That blood already, like the pelican, [p]Hast thou
tapp'd out and drunkenly caroused: [p]My brother Gloucester, plain
well-meaning soul, [p]Whom fair befal in heaven 'mongst happy
souls! [p]May be a precedent and witness good [p]That thou respect'st
not spilling Edward's blood: [p]Join with the present sickness that I
have; [p]And thy unkindness be like crooked age, [p]To crop at once a
too long wither'd flower. [p]Live in thy shame, but die not shame with
thee! [p]These words hereafter thy tormentors be! [p]Convey me to my
bed, then to my grave: [p]Love they to live that love and honour
have.

King Richard II : And let them die that age and sullens have; [p]For both hast thou, and
both become the grave.

Edmund of Langley : I do beseech your majesty, impute his words [p]To wayward sickliness
and age in him: [p]He loves you, on my life, and holds you dear [p]As
Harry Duke of Hereford, were he here.

King Richard II : Right, you say true: as Hereford's love, so his; [p]As theirs, so
mine; and all be as it is.

King Richard II : What says he?

Edmund of Langley : Be York the next that must be bankrupt so! [p]Though death be poor, it
ends a mortal woe.

King Richard II : The ripest fruit first falls, and so doth he; [p]His time is spent,
our pilgrimage must be. [p]So much for that. Now for our Irish
wars: [p]We must supplant those rough rug-headed kerns, [p]Which live
like venom where no venom else [p]But only they have privilege to
live. [p]And for these great affairs do ask some charge, [p]Towards
our assistance we do seize to us [p]The plate, corn, revenues and
moveables, [p]Whereof our uncle Gaunt did stand possess'd.

Edmund of Langley : How long shall I be patient? ah, how long [p]Shall tender duty make me
suffer wrong? [p]Not Gloucester's death, nor Hereford's
banishment [p]Not Gaunt's rebukes, nor England's private
wrongs, [p]Nor the prevention of poor Bolingbroke [p]About his
marriage, nor my own disgrace, [p]Have ever made me sour my patient
cheek, [p]Or bend one wrinkle on my sovereign's face. [p]I am the last
of noble Edward's sons, [p]Of whom thy father, Prince of Wales, was
first: [p]In war was never lion raged more fierce, [p]In peace was
never gentle lamb more mild, [p]Than was that young and princely
gentleman. [p]His face thou hast, for even so look'd
he, [p]Accomplish'd with the number of thy hours; [p]But when he
frown'd, it was against the French [p]And not against his friends; his
noble hand [p]Did will what he did spend and spent not that [p]Which
his triumphant father's hand had won; [p]His hands were guilty of no
kindred blood, [p]But bloody with the enemies of his kin. [p]O
Richard! York is too far gone with grief, [p]Or else he never would
compare between.

King Richard II : Why, uncle, what's the matter?

Edmund of Langley : O my liege, [p]Pardon me, if you please; if not, I, pleased [p]Not to
be pardon'd, am content withal. [p]Seek you to seize and gripe into
your hands [p]The royalties and rights of banish'd Hereford? [p]Is not
Gaunt dead, and doth not Hereford live? [p]Was not Gaunt just, and is
not Harry true? [p]Did not the one deserve to have an heir? [p]Is not
his heir a well-deserving son? [p]Take Hereford's rights away, and
take from Time [p]His charters and his customary rights; [p]Let not
to-morrow then ensue to-day; [p]Be not thyself; for how art thou a
king [p]But by fair sequence and succession? [p]Now, afore God--God
forbid I say true!-- [p]If you do wrongfully seize Hereford's
rights, [p]Call in the letters patent that he hath [p]By his
attorneys-general to sue [p]His livery, and deny his offer'd
homage, [p]You pluck a thousand dangers on your head, [p]You lose a
thousand well-disposed hearts [p]And prick my tender patience, to
those thoughts [p]Which honour and allegiance cannot think.

King Richard II : Think what you will, we seize into our hands [p]His plate, his goods,
his money and his lands.

Edmund of Langley : I'll not be by the while: my liege, farewell: [p]What will ensue
hereof, there's none can tell; [p]But by bad courses may be
understood [p]That their events can never fall out good.

King Richard II : Go, Bushy, to the Earl of Wiltshire straight: [p]Bid him repair to us
to Ely House [p]To see this business. To-morrow next [p]We will for
Ireland; and 'tis time, I trow: [p]And we create, in absence of
ourself, [p]Our uncle York lord governor of England; [p]For he is just
and always loved us well. [p]Come on, our queen: to-morrow must we
part; [p]Be merry, for our time of stay is short [p][Flourish. Exeunt
KING RICHARD II, QUEEN, DUKE OF] [p]AUMERLE, BUSHY, GREEN, and BAGOT]

Lord Ross : And living too; for now his son is duke.

Lord Willoughby : Barely in title, not in revenue.

Lord Ross : My heart is great; but it must break with silence, [p]Ere't be
disburden'd with a liberal tongue.

Lord Willoughby : Tends that thou wouldst speak to the Duke of Hereford? [p]If it be so,
out with it boldly, man; [p]Quick is mine ear to hear of good towards
him.

Lord Ross : No good at all that I can do for him; [p]Unless you call it good to
pity him, [p]Bereft and gelded of his patrimony.

Lord Ross : The commons hath he pill'd with grievous taxes, [p]And quite lost
their hearts: the nobles hath he fined [p]For ancient quarrels, and
quite lost their hearts.

Lord Willoughby : And daily new exactions are devised, [p]As blanks, benevolences, and I
wot not what: [p]But what, o' God's name, doth become of this?

Lord Ross : The Earl of Wiltshire hath the realm in farm.

Lord Willoughby : The king's grown bankrupt, like a broken man.

Lord Ross : He hath not money for these Irish wars, [p]His burthenous taxations
notwithstanding, [p]But by the robbing of the banish'd duke.

Lord Ross : We see the very wreck that we must suffer; [p]And unavoided is the
danger now, [p]For suffering so the causes of our wreck.

Lord Willoughby : Nay, let us share thy thoughts, as thou dost ours.

Lord Ross : Be confident to speak, Northumberland: [p]We three are but thyself;
and, speaking so, [p]Thy words are but as thoughts; therefore, be
bold.

Lord Ross : To horse, to horse! urge doubts to them that fear.

Lord Willoughby : Hold out my horse, and I will first be there.

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Next: Act 2 - Scene 2

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