YORK

No, it is stopped with other, flattering sounds,

As praises of whose taste the wise are feared,

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.

JOHN OF 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 sceptred 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 blessèd plot, this earth, this realm, this England,

This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings,

Feared by their breed and famous by their birth,

Renowned 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, blessed 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 wat’ry 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 Richard and the Queen; ⌈the Duke of Aumerle,⌉ Bushy, ⌈Green, Bagot,⌉ Lord Ross, and Lord Willoughby

YORK

The King is come. Deal mildly with his youth,

For young hot colts, being reined, do rage the more.

QUEEN

How fares our noble uncle Lancaster?

KING RICHARD

What comfort, man? How is’t with aged Gaunt?

JOHN OF GAUNT

O, how that name befits my composition I

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 naught but bones.

KING RICHARD

Can sick men play so nicely with their names?

JOHN OF 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?

JOHN OF GAUNT

No, no, men living flatter those that die.

KING RICHARD

Thou now a-dying sayst thou flatt’rest me.

JOHN OF GAUNT

O no: thou diest, though I the sicker be.

KING RICHARD

I am in health; I breathe, and see thee ill.

JOHN OF 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, encagèd 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.