Gaunt. What is six winters? they are quickly

gone.

Boling. To men in joy; but grief makes one hour ten.

Gaunt. Call it a travel that thou tak'st for

pleasure.

Boling. My heart will sigh when I miscall it so, Which finds it an enforced pilgrimage.

Gaunt. The sullen passage of thy weary steps Esteem a foil, wherein thou art to set The precious jewel of thy home-return.

Boling. Nay, rather, every tedious stride I make

Will but remember me, what a deal of world
I wander from the jewels that I love.
Must I not serve a long apprenticehood
To foreign passages; and in the end,
Having my freedom, boast of nothing else
But that I was a journeyman to grief?

Gaunt. All places that the eye of heaven visits Are to a wise man ports and happy havens : Teach thy necessity to reason thus ;

There is no virtue like necessity.

Think not, the king did banish thee;

But thou the king. Woe doth the heavier sit,
Where it perceives it is but faintly borne.
Go, say I sent thee forth to purchase honour,
And not, the king exiled thee: or suppose
Devouring pestilence hangs in our air,
And thou art flying to a fresher clime.
Look, what thy soul holds dear, imagine it
To lie that way thou go'st, not whence thou
com'st.

Suppose the singing birds, musicians;

The grass whereon thou tread'st, the presence strew'd ;

The flowers, fair ladies; and thy steps, no more
Than a delightful measure or a dance :
For gnarling sorrow hath less power to bite
The man that mocks at it, and sets it light.
Boling. 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 it bites but lanceth not the sore. -
Gaunt. Come, come, my son, I'll bring thee
on thy way:

Had I thy youth and cause, I would not stay. Boling. 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 banish'd, yet a true-born Englishman.
[Exeunt.

SCENE IV.-A Room in the King's Palace.

Enter KING RICHARD, BAGOT, and GREEN; Aumerle following.

K. Rich. We did observe.-Cousin Aumerle, How far brought you high Hereford on his way? Aum. I brought high Hereford, if you call

him so,

But to the next highway, and there I left him. K. Rich. And, say, what store of parting tears were shed?

Aum. 'Faith, none for me, except the northeast wind,

Which then blew bitterly against our face,
Awaked the sleeply rheum; and so, by chance,
Did grace our hollow parting with a tear.
K. Rich. What said our cousin when you
parted with him?

Aum. 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 word seem'd buried in my sorrow's grave. Marry, would the word farewell have lengthen'd 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.
K. Rich. 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 oyster-wench;
A brace of draymen bid-God speed him well,
And had the tribute of his supple knee,
With-Thanks, my countrymen, my loving
friends;

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.
K. Rich. 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.

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.
Come, gentlemen, let's all go visit him :

Pray God, we may make haste, and come too

late!

All. Amen.

[Exeunt.

ACT II.

SCENE I.-London. A Room in Ely House.

GAUNT on a couch; the DUKE OF YORK and others standing by him.

Gaunt.

ILL 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 ;

For they breathe truth, that breathe their words in pain.

He, that no more must say, is listen'd more

Than they whom youth and ease have taught to glose;

More are men's ends mark'd, 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,
My death's sad tale may yet undeaf his ear.
York. No; it is stopp'd with other flattering
sounds,