The precious jewel of thy home return.

BOLINGBROKE

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 he bites, but lanceth not the sore.

JOHN OF GAUNT

Come, come, my son, I’ll bring thee on thy way.

Had I thy youth and cause, I would not stay.

BOLINGBROKE

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 banished, yet a trueborn Englishman.

Exeunt

1.4 Enter King Richard with ⌈Green and Bagot⌉ at one door, and the Lord Aumerle at another

KING RICHARD

We did observe.—Cousin Aumerle,

How far brought you high Hereford on his way?

AUMERLE

I brought high Hereford, if you call him so,

But to the next highway, and there I left him.

KING RICHARD

And say, what store of parting tears were shed?

AUMERLE

Faith, none for me, except the north-east wind,

Which then grew bitterly against our faces,

Awaked the sleeping rheum, and so by chance

Did grace our hollow parting with a tear.

KING RICHARD

What said our cousin when you parted with him?

AUMERLE

‘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 words seemed buried in my sorrow’s grave.

Marry, would the word ‘farewell’ have lengthened

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.

KING RICHARD

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 oysterwench.

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.

KING RICHARD

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.

KING RICHARD Where lies he?

BUSHY At Ely House.

KING RICHARD

Now put it, God, 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

2.1 Enter John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, sick, ⌈carried in a chair,⌉ with the Duke of York

JOHN OF 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.

JOHN OF 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.