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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, to flatter thec.
K. Rich. Should dying men flatter with those
that live?

Gaunt. No, no; men living flatter those that

die.

1K. Rich. Thou, now a dying, say'st

flatter'st me.

thou

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

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thee ill;

Ill in myself to see and in thee seeing ill.
Thy death-bed is no lesser than thy land,
Wherein thou liest in reputation sick;
And thou, too careless patient as thou art,
Commit'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;
Aud 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;

Depo

Deposing thee before thou wert possessed,
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 now, not King:
Thy state of law is bondslave to the law;
And thou

K. Rich. a lunatick lean-witted fool,
Presuming on an ague's privilege,
Dar'st with thy frozen admonition

Make pale our cheek; chasing the royal blood,
With fury, from his native residence.
Now by my seat's right royal majesty,

Wert thou not brother to great Edward's son,
This tongue that runs so roundly in thy head,
Should run thy head from thy unreverend shoul-

ders.

Gaunt. O, spare me not, my brother Edward's

son,

For that I was his father Edward's son ;
That blood already, like the pelican,
Hast thou tapp'd out, and drunkenly carous'd:
My brother Gloster, plain well-meaning soul,
(Whom fair befal in heaven'mongst happy souls!)
May be a precedent and witness good,

That thou respect'st not spilling Edward's blood:
Join with the present sickness that I have;
And thy unkindness be like crooked age,
To crop at once a too-long wither'd flower.
Live in thy shame, but die not shame with thee !-
These words hereafter thy tormentors be!
Convey me to my bed, then to my grave:
Love they to live, that love and honour have.
[Exit, borne out by his Attendants.

VOL. VIII.

9

K. Rich. And let them die, that age and sul-
lens have;

For both hast thou, and both become the grave.
York. 'Beseech your Majesty, impute his words
To wayward sickliness and age in him:
He loyes 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 Majesty.
K. Rich. What says he now?

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;
Which live like venom, where no venom else,
But only they, hath privilege to live.

Aud, for these great affairs do ask some charge,
Towards our assistance, we do scize to us
The plate, coin, revenues, and moveables,
Where of our uncle Gaunt did stand possess'd.
York. How long shall I be patient? Ah, how
long

Shall tender duty make me suffer wrong?
Not Gloster's death, nor Hereford's banishment,

Not Gaunt's rebukes, nor England's private wrongs,

Nor the prevention of poor Bolingbroke
About his marriage, nor my own disgrace,
Have ever made me sour my patient check,
Or bend one wrinkle on my Sovereign's face. -
I am the last of noble Edward's sous,

Of whom thy father, Prince of Wales, was first ;
In war was never lion rag'd more fierce,
In peace was never gentle lamb more mild,
Than was that young and princely gentleman:
His face thou hast, for even so look'd he,
Accomplish'd with the number of thy hours;
But, when he frown'd, it was against the French,
Aud not against his friends: his noble hand
Did win what he did spend, and spent not that
Which his triumphant father's hand had won:
His hands were guilty of no kindred's blood,
But bloody with the enemies of his kin.
O, Richard! York is too far gone with grief,
Or else he never would compare between.

K. Rich. Why, uncle, what's the matter?
York. O, my Liege,

Pardon me, if you please; if not, I pleas'd
Not to be pardon'd, am content withal.

Seek you to seize, and gripe into your hands,
The royalties and rights of banish'd Hereford?
Is not Gaunt dead? and doth not Hereford live?
Was not Gaunt just? and his not Harry true?
Did not the one deserve to have an heir?
Is not his heir a well-deserving son?

Take Hereford's rights away, and take from time
His charters, and his customary rights;
Let not to-morrow then ensue to-day?
Be not thyself, for how art thou a king,
But by fair sequence and succession?

Now, afore God (God forbid, I say true!)
If you do wrongfully seize Hereford's rights,
Call in the letters patents that he hath
By his attornies-general to sue

His livery, and deny his offer'd homage,
You pluck a thousand dangers on your head,
You lose a thousand well-disposed hearts,
And prick my tender patience to those thoughts
Which honour and allegiance cannot think.
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 none 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 'tis time, I trow;
And we create, in absence of ourself,
Our uncle York lord governor of England,
For he his just, and always lov'd us well.
Come on, our Queen; to-morrow must we part;
Be merry, foy our time of stay is short.

[Flourish. [Exeunt King, Queen, BUSHY, AUMERLE, GREEN, and BAGOT.

North. Well, Lords, the Duke of Lancaster is dead.

Ross. And living too; for now his son is Duke. Willo. Barely in title, not in revenue.

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