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, K. RICH. We will ourself in person to this war. For our affairs in hand: If that come short, Bushy, what news? Enter BUSHY. BUSHY. Old John of Gaunt is grievous sick, my icrd· To entreat your majesty to visit him. 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! [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. Will the king come? that I may brc. the 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; YORK. No; it is stopp'd with other flattering sounds, Where doth the world thrust forth a vanity, 'T is breath thou lack'st, and that breath wilt thou lose. And thus, expiring, do foretell of him: 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, Against the envy of less happier lands; This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England, 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, 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 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, 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, 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. |