For violent fires soon burn out themselves; Small showers last long, but sudden storms are short; Consuming means, soon preys upon itself. This fortress, built by nature for herself, This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this Engiand, Enter KING RICHARD and QUEEN; AUMERLE, BUSHY, GREEN, BAGOT, ROSS, and WILLOUGHBY. YORK. The king is come: deal mildly with his youth; For young hot colts, being rag'd, do rage the more QUEEN. How fares our noble uncle, Lancaster? K. RICH. What comfort, man? How is 't with aged Gaunt? GAUNT. O, how that name befits my composition! Old Gaunt, indeed; and gaunt in being old: Within me grief hath kept a tedious fast; And who abstains from meat, that is not gaunt? For sleeping England long time have I watch'd; Watching breeds leanness, leanness is all gaunt: The pleasure that some fathers feed upon Is my strict fast,-I mean my children's looks; And, therein fasting, hast thou made me gaunt; Gaunt am I for the grave, gaunt as a grave, Whose hollow womb inherits nought but bones. K. RICH. Can sick men play so nicely with their names? GAUNT. No, misery makes sport to mock itself: Since thou dost seek to kill my name in me, I mock my name, great king, tỏ flatter thee. K. RICH. Should dying men flatter with those that live? GAUNT. No, no; men living flatter those that die. K. RICH. Thou, now a-dying, say'st thou flatterest me GAUNT. Oh! no; thou diest, though I the sicker be. K. RICH. I am in health, I breathe, and see thee ill. GAUNT. Now, He that made me knows I see thee ill; Ill in myself to see, and in thee seeing ill. Thy death-bed is no lesser than the land Wherein thou liest in reputation sick: And thou, too careless patient as thou art, Committ'st thy anointed body to the cure Of those physicians that first wounded thee. A thousand flatterers sit within thy crown, Whose compass is no bigger than thy head; And yet, incaged in so small a verge, The waste is no whit lesser than thy land. O, had thy grandsire, with a prophet's eye, Seen how his son's son should destroy his sons, From forth thy reach he would have laid thy shame, Deposing thee before thou wert possess'd, Which art possess'd now to depose thyself. Why, cousin, wert thou regent of the world, It were a shame to let this land by lease: But, for thy world, enjoying but this land, K. RICH. And thou a lunatic lean-witted fool, Dar'st with thy frozen admonition Make pale our cheek; chasing the royal blood, This tongue, that runs so roundly in thy head, Should run thy head from thy unreverend shoulders. That blood already, like the pelican, Hast thou tapp'd out, and drunkenly carous'd: That thou respect'st not spilling Edward's blood; Live in thy shame, but die not shame with thee!— Love they to live, that love and honour have. [Exit, borne out by his Attendants. K. RICH. And let them die, that age and sullens have; For both hast thou, and both become the grave. YORK. I do beseech your majesty, impute his words To wayward sickliness and age in him: He loves you, on my life, and holds you dear As Harry duke of Hereford, were he here. K. RICH. Right; you say true: as Hereford's love, so his: As theirs, so mine; and all be as it is. Enter NORTHUMBERLAND. NORTH. My liege, old Gaunt commends him to your ma jesty. K. RICH. What says he? NORTH. Nay, nothing; all is said! His tongue is now a stringless instrument; Words, life, and all, old Lancaster hath spent. YORK. Be York the next that must be bankrupt so! Though death be poor, it ends a mortal woe. K. RICH. The ripest fruit first falls, and so doth he; His time is spent, our pilgrimage must be: So much for that. Now for our Irish wars: We must supplant those rough rug-headed kerns, And, for these great affairs do ask some charge, YORK. How long shall I be patient? Ah, how long Not Gloster's death, nor Hereford's banishment, Of whom thy father, prince of Wales, was first; But bloody with the enemies of his kin. K. RICH. Why, uncle, what's the matter? O, my liege, Pardon me, if you please; if not, I, pleas'd Take Hereford's rights away, and take from time His livery, and deny his offer'd homage, You pluck a thousand dangers on your head, And prick my tender patience to those thoughts K. RICH. Think what you will; we seize into our hands His plate, his goods, his money, and his lands. YORK. I'll not be by the while: My liege, farewell: What will ensue hereof there 's aone can tell; But by bad courses may be understood, That their events can never fall out good. [Exit, K. RICH. Go, Bushy, to the earl of Wiltshire straight; Bid him repair to us to Ely House To see this business: To-morrow next We will for Ireland; and 't is time, I trow; |