K. Rich. Where lies he? Bushy. At Ely House. K. Rich. Now put it, heaven, 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. Pray God, we may make haste, and come too late! [Exeunt. SCENE L-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 unstaid 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 ; Than they whom youth and ease have taught to glose; As the last taste of sweets, is sweetest last, York. No; it is stopp'd with other flattering sounds, Whose manners still our tardy apish nation (So it be new, Where doth the world thrust forth a vanity Direct not him, whose way himself will choose; And thus, expiring, do foretell of him : His rash fierce blaze of riot cannot last; For violent fires soon burn out themselves; Small showers last long, but sudden storms are short; Consuming means, soon preys upon itself. Against the envy of less happier lands; This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England, England, bound in with the triumphant sea, Enter KING RICHARD and QUEEN; AUMERLE, BUSHY, GREEN, 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? Old Gaunt, indeed; and gaunt in being old: Gaunt am I for the grave, gaunt as a grave, K. Rich. Can sick men play so nicely with their names ? I mock my name, great king, to 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 flatter'st me. Gaunt. O, 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, Is it not more than shame to shame it so ? Landlord of England art thou, and not king: Thy state of law is bondslave to the law; And K. Rich. And thou a lunatic lean-witted fool, Presuming on an ague's privilege, |