The Illustrated Works of Shakespeare/Illustrated Works of Shakespeare, The (1990)(Animated Pixels)[!][CDTV-PC].iso/shakes/text/06/02_01

Text File | 1991-04-10 | 15KB | 374 lines

London. Ely House.
 Enter JOHN OF GAUNT sick, with the DUKE OF YORK and ATTENDANTS.

Gaunt    Will the king come, that I may breathe my last
    In wholesome counsel to his unstaid youth?

Duke of 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 listened more
    Than they whom youth and ease have taught to glose;
    More are men's ends marked 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.

Duke of York    No, it is stopped with other flattering sounds,
    As praises, of whose taste the wise are fond,
    Lascivious metres, to whose venom sound
    The open ear of youth doth always listen,
    Report of fashions in proud Italy,
    Whose manners still our tardy-apish nation
    Limps after in base imitation.
    Where doth the world thrust forth a vanity,
    - So it be new there's no respect how vile-
    That is not quickly buzzed into his ears?
    Then all too late comes counsel to be heard,
    Where will doth mutiny with wit's regard.
    Direct not him whose way himself will choose:
    'Tis breath thou lack'st, and that breath wilt thou lose.

Gaunt    Methinks I am a prophet new inspired,
    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;
    He tires betimes that spurs too fast betimes;
    With eager feeding food doth choke the feeder;
    Light vanity, insatiate cormorant,
    Consuming means, soon preys upon itself.
    This royal throne of kings, this scept'red isle,
    This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
    This other Eden, demi-paradise,
    This fortress built by Nature for herself
    Against infection and the hand of war,
    This happy breed of men, this little world,
    This precious stone set in the silver sea,
    Which serves it in the office of a wall,
    Or as a moat defensive to a house,
    Against the envy of less happier lands,
    This blessd plot, this earth, this realm, this England,
    This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings,
    Feared by their breed and famous by their birth,
    Renownd for their deeds as far from home,
    For Christian service and true chivalry,
    As is the sepulchre in stubborn Jewry
    Of the world's ransom, blessd Mary's son;
    This land of such dear souls, this dear dear land,
    Dear for her reputation through the world,
    Is now leased out - I die pronouncing it-
    Like to a tenement or pelting farm.
    England, bound in with the triumphant sea,
    Whose rocky shore beats back the envious siege
    Of watery Neptune, is now bound in with shame,
    With inky blots and rotten parchment bonds.
    That England, that was wont to conquer others,
    Hath made a shameful conquest of itself.
    Ah, would the scandal vanish with my life,
    How happy then were my ensuing death!

           Enter KING and QUEEN, AUMERLE, BUSHY, GREEN, BAGOT,
                          ROSS, and WILLOUGHBY.

Duke of York    The king is come; deal mildly with his youth,
    For young hot colts being raged do rage the more.

Queen    How fares our noble uncle, Lancaster?

King Richard    What comfort, man? How is't with agd 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 watched,
    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.

King Richard    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.

King Richard    Should dying men flatter with those that live?

Gaunt    No, no, men living flatter those that die.

King Richard    Thou now a-dying sayst thou flatter'st me.

Gaunt    Oh no, thou diest, though I the sicker be.

King Richard    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 deathbed is no lesser than thy 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, incagd 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 possessed,
    Which art possessed 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-

King Richard                A lunatic 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 unreverent shoulders.

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 tapped out and drunkenly caroused.
    My brother Gloucester, plain well-meaning soul,
    - Whom fair befall 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 withered 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 by ATTENDANTS.

King Richard    And let them die that age and sullens have,
    For both hast thou, and both become the grave.

Duke of 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.

King Richard    Right, you say true: as Hereford's love, so his;
    As theirs, so mine; and all be as it is.

                          Enter NORTHUMBERLAND.

Northumberland        My liege, old Gaunt commends him to your majesty.

King Richard        What says he?

Northumberland        Nay, nothing; all is said.
        His tongue is now a stringless instrument;
        Words, life, and all, old Lancaster hath spent.

Duke of York        Be York the next that must be bankrupt so!
        Though death be poor, it ends a mortal woe.

King Richard        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 have privilege to live.
        And for these great affairs do ask some charge,
        Towards our assistance we do seize to us
        The plate, coin, revenues, and moveables,
        Whereof our uncle Gaunt did stand possessed.

Duke of York        How long shall I be patient? Ah, how long
        Shall tender duty make me suffer wrong?
        Not Gloucester's death, nor Hereford's banishment,
        Nor 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 cheek,
        Or bend one wrinkle on my sovereign's face.
        I am the last of noble Edward's sons,
        Of whom thy father, Prince of Wales, was first.
        In war was never lion raged more fierce,
        In peace was never gentle lamb more mild,
        Than was that young and princely gentleman.
        His face thou hast, for even so looked he,
        Accomplished with the number of thy hours;
        But when he frowned, it was against the French,
        And 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 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.

King Richard        Why, uncle, what's the matter?

Duke of York                                        O my liege,
        Pardon me, if you please; if not, I, pleased
        Not to be pardoned, am content withal.
        Seek you to seize and gripe into your hands
        The royalties and rights of banished Hereford?
        Is not Gaunt dead, and doth not Hereford live?
        Was not Gaunt just, and is 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 tomorrow then ensue today;
        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 attorneys-general to sue
        His livery, and deny his offered homage,
        You pluck a thousand dangers on your head,
        You lose a thousand well-disposd hearts,
        And prick my tender patience to those thoughts
        Which honour and allegiance cannot think.

King Richard        Think what you will, we seize into our hands
        His plate, his goods, his money, and his lands.

Duke of 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.
King Richard        Go, Bushy, to the Earl of Wiltshire straight:
        Bid him repair to us to Ely House
        To see this business. Tomorrow 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 is just, and always loved us well.
        Come on, our queen, tomorrow must we part;
        Be merry, for our time of stay is short.
                               [Flourish. Exeunt KING, QUEEN, &c.

                Manet NORTHUMBERLAND, WILLOUGHBY and ROSS.

Northumberland        Well, lords, the Duke of Lancaster is dead.

Ross        And living too, for now his son is duke.

Willoughby        Barely in title, not in revenues.

Northumberland        Richly in both, if justice had her right.

Ross        My heart is great, but it must break with silence,
        Ere't be disburdened with a liberal tongue.

Northumberland        Nay, speak thy mind, and let him ne'er speak more
        That speaks thy words again to do thee harm.

Willoughby        Tends that thou'dst speak to the Duke of Hereford?
        If it be so, out with it boldly, man;
        Quick is mine ear to hear of good towards him.

Ross        No good at all that I can do for him,
        Unless you call it good to pity him,
        Bereft and gelded of his patrimony.

Northumberland        Now, afore God, 'tis shame such wrongs are borne
        In him, a royal prince, and many more
        Of noble blood in this declining land.
        The king is not himself, but basely led
        By flatterers; and what they will inform,
        Merely in hate, 'gainst any of us all,
        That will the king severely prosecute
        'Gainst us, our lives, our children, and our heirs.

Ross        The commons hath he pilled with grievous taxes,
        And quite lost their hearts: the nobles hath he fined
        For ancient quarrels, and quite lost their hearts.

Willoughby        And daily new exactions are devised,
        As blanks, benevolences, and I wot not what:
        But what, o'God's name, doth become of this?

Northumberland        Wars hath not wasted it, for warred he hath not,
        But basely yielded upon compromise
        That which his ancestors achieved with blows:
        More hath he spent in peace than they in wars.

Ross        The Earl of Wiltshire hath the realm in farm.

Willoughby        The king's grown bankrupt like a broken man.

Northumberland        Reproach and dissolution hangeth over him.

Ross        He hath not money for these Irish wars,
        His burdenous taxations notwithstanding,
        But by the robbing of the banished duke.

Northumberland        His noble kinsman - most degenerate king!
        But, lords, we hear this fearful tempest sing,
        Yet seek no shelter to avoid the storm;
        We see the wind sit sore upon our sails,
        And yet we strike not, but securely perish.

Ross        We see the very wrack that we must suffer,
        And unavoided is the danger now,
        For suffering so the causes of our wrack.

Northumberland        Not so, even through the hollow eyes of death
        I spy life peering; but I dare not say
        How near the tidings of our comfort is.

Willoughby        Nay, let us share thy thoughts as thou dost ours.

Ross        Be confident to speak, Northumberland.
        We three are but thyself, and, speaking so,
        Thy words are but as thoughts; therefore be bold.

Northumberland        Then thus: I have from le Port Blanc,
        A bay in Brittaine, received intelligence
        That Harry Duke of Hereford, Rainold Lord Cobham,
        ^    ^        ^        ^        ^        ^
        That late broke from the Duke of Exeter,
        His brother, Archbishop late of Canterbury,
        Sir Thomas Erpingham, Sir John Ramston,
        Sir John Norbery, Sir Robert Waterton, and Francis
Quoint,
        All these well furnished by the Duke of Brittaine
        With eight tall ships, three thousand men of war,
        Are making hither with all due expedience,
        And shortly mean to touch our northern shore.
        Perhaps they had ere this, but that they stay
        The first departing of the king for Ireland.
        If then we shall shake of four slavish yoke,
        Imp out our drooping country's broken wing,
        Redeem from broking pawn the blemished crown,
        Wipe off the dust that hides our sceptre's gilt,
        And make high majesty look like itself,
        Away with me in post to Ravenspurgh;
        But if you faint, as fearing to do so,
        Stay and be secret, and myself will go.

Ross        To horse, to horse! Urge doubts to them that fear.

Willoughby        Hold out my horse, and I will first be there.
                                                    [Exeunt.