Shall not regreet our fair dominions,

But tread the stranger paths of banishment.

Boling. Your will be done: This must my comfort be,
That sun that warms you here, shall shine on me;

And those his golden beams, to you here lent,
Shall point on me, and gild my banishment.

K. Rich. Norfolk, for thee remains a heavier doom,
Which I with some unwillingness pronounce:
The sly slow hours shall not determinate
The dateless limit of thy dear exile ;-
The hopeless word of, never to return,
Breathe I against thee, upon pain of life.

Nor. A heavy sentence, my most sovereign liege,
And all unlook'd for from your highness' mouth:
A dearer merit, not so deep a maim

As to be cast forth in the common air,

Have I deserved at your highness' hands.

The language I have learn'd these forty years,
My native English, now I must forego :

And now my tongue's use is to me no more
Than an unstringed viol, or a harp;

Or like a cunning instrument cas'd up,

Or, being open, put into his hands

That knows no touch to tune the harmony.
Within my mouth you have engaol'd my tongue,
Doubly portcullis'd with my teeth and lips;
And dull, unfeeling, barren ignorance

Is made my gaoler to attend on me.
I am too old to fawn upon a nurse,

Too far in years to be a pupil now;

What is thy sentence, then, but speechless death,
Which robs my tongue from breathing native breath?
K. Rich. It boots thee not to be compassionate;
After our sentence plaining comes too late.

Nor. Then thus I turn me from my country's light,
To dwell in solemn shades of endless night.

K. Rich. Return again, and take an oath with thee.
Lay on our royal sword your banish'd hands;
Swear by the duty that you owe to heaven,
(Our part therein we banish with yourselves,)
To keep the oath that we administer :-

You never shall (so help you truth and heaven !)
Embrace each other's love in banishment;

Nor ever look upon each other's face ;

[Retiring

By this time, had the king permitted us,
One of our souls had wander'd in the air,
Banish'd this frail sepulchre of our flesh,
As now our flesh is banish'd from this land;
Confess thy treasons ere thou fly this realm;
Since thou hast far to go, bear not along
The clogging burthen of a guilty soul.

Nor. No, Bolingbroke; if ever I were traitor
My name be blotted from the book of life,
And I from heaven banish'd as from hence !
But what thou art, heaven, thou, and I do know ;
And all too soon, I fear, the king shall rue.
Farewell, my liege :-Now no way can I stray;
Save back to England; all the world's my way.

K. Rich. Uncle, even in the glasses of thine eyes

I see thy grieved heart; thy sad aspect
Hath from the number of his banish'd years

Pluck'd four away :-Six frozen winters spent,

Return [to Boling.] with welcome home from banishment.
Boling. How long a time lies in one little word!

Four lagging winters, and four wanton springs
End in a word: Such is the breath of kings.
Gaunt. I thank my liege, that, in regard of me,
He shortens four years of my son's exile e;
But little vantage shall I
For ere the six years that he hath to spend

reap thereby ;

Can change their moons, and bring their times about.
My oil-dried lamp, and time-bewasted light,
Shall be extinct with age and endless night;
My inch of taper will be burnt and done,
And blindfold death not let me see my son.

K. Rich. Why, uncle, thou hast many years to live.
Gaunt. But not a minute, king, that thou canst give;
Shorten my days thou canst with sullen sorrow,
And pluck nights from me, but not lend a morrow:
Thou canst help time to furrow me with age,
But stop no wrinkle in his pilgrimage;
Thy word is current with him for my death:
But, dead, thy kingdom cannot buy my breath.

K. Rich. Thy son is banish'd upon good advice,
Whereto thy tongue a party-verdict gave;
Why at our justice seem'st thou then to lower?

Gaunt. Things sweet to taste prove in digestion sour.

You urg'd me as a judge; but I had rather

You would have bid me argue like a father

[O, had it been a stranger, not my child,

To smooth his fault I should have been more mild.

A partial slander sought I to avoid,

And in the sentence my own life destroy'd.]
Alas, I look'd when some of you should say,
I was too strict, to make mine own away;

[Exit.

But you gave leave to mine unwilling tongue,
Against my will, to do myself this wrong.

K. Rich. Cousin, farewell :—and, uncle, bid him so;
Six years we banish him, and he shall go.

[Flourish. Exeunt K. Richard and Train.

Aum. Cousin, farewell: what presence must not know, From where you do remain, let paper show.

Mar. My lord, no leave take I; for I will ride

As far as land will let me by your side.

Gaunt. O, to what purpose dost thou hoard thy words,
That thou return'st no greeting to thy friends?
Boling. I have too few to take my leave of you,
When the tongue's office should be prodigal
To breathe the abundant dolour of the heart.

Gaunt. Thy grief is but thy absence for a time.
Boling. Joy absent, grief is present for that time.
Gaunt. What is six winters? they are quickly gone.
Boling. To men in joy; but grief makes one hour ten.
Gaunt. Call it a travel that thou tak'st for pleasure.
Boling. My heart will sigh when I miscall it so,

Which finds it an enforced pilgrimage.

Gaunt. The sullen passage of thy weary steps

Esteem a foil, wherein thou art to set

The precious jewel of thy home-return.

[Boling. Nay, rather, every tedious stride I make Will but remember me, what a deal of world

I wander from the jewels that I love.

Must I not serve a long apprenticehood
To foreign passages; and in the end,
Having my freedom, boast of nothing else
But that I was a journeyman to grief?

Gaunt. All places that the eye of heaven visits
Are to a wise man ports and happy havens :
Teach thy necessity to reason thus ;

There is no virtue like necessity.
Think not, the king did banish thee;

But thou the king: Woe doth the heavier sit,
Where it perceives it is but faintly borne.
Go, say I sent thee forth to purchase honour,
And not, the king exil'd thee: or suppose,
Devouring pestilence hangs in our air,
And thou art flying to a fresher clime.
Look, what thy soul holds dear, imagine it

To lie that way thou go'st, not whence thou com'st.

Suppose the singing birds, musicians;

The grass whereon thou tread'st, the presence strew'd ;

The flowers, fair ladies; and thy steps, no more

Than a delightful measure or a dance:

For gnarling sorrow hath less power to bite
The man that mocks at it, and sets it light.]
Boling. 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 it bites but lanceth not the sore.

Gaunt. Come, come, my son, I'll bring thee on thy way:
Had I thy youth and cause, I would not stray.

Boling. 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 banish'd, yet a true-born Englishman.

[Exit.

115. THE RETURN OF BOLINGBROKE.

Scene-The Coast of Wales. A Castle in View.

SHAKSPERE.

Enter King Richard, Bishop of Carlisle, Aumerle, and Soldiers.

K. Rich. Barkloughly castle call you this at hand? Aum. Yea, my lord. How brooks your grace the air, After your late tossing on the breaking seas?

K. Rich. Needs must I like it well; I weep

To stand upon my kingdom once again.
Dear earth, I do salute thee with my hand,

for joy,

Though rebels wound thee with their horses' hoofs:
As a long-parted mother with her child

Plays fondly with her tears and smiles, in meeting;
So, weeping, smiling, greet I thee, my earth,
And do thee favour with my royal hands.
Feed not thy sovereign's foe, my gentle earth,
Nor with thy sweets comfort his ravenous sense:
But let thy spiders, that suck up thy venom,
And heavy-gaited toads, lie in their way;
Doing annoyance to the treacherous feet
Which with usurping steps do trample thee.
Yield stinging nettles to mine enemies :

And when they from thy bosom pluck a flower,
Guard it, I pray thee, with a lurking adder,
Whose double tongue may with a mortal touch
Throw death upon thy sovereign's enemies.

Mock not my senseless conjuration, lords;

This earth shall have a feeling, and these stones

Prove armed soldiers, ere her native king

Shall falter under foul rebellion's arms.

Bishop. Fear not, my lord; that Power that made you king

Hath power to keep you king, in spite of all.

[The means that heaven yields must be embrac'd,

And not neglected; else, if heaven would,

And we will not, heaven's offer we refuse:
The proffer'd means of succour and redress.]

Aum. He means, my lord, that we are too remiss ;
Whilst Bolingbroke, through our security,

Grows strong and great, in substance, and in friends.

K. Rich. Discomfortable cousin! know'st thou not.
That, when the searching eye of heaven is hid
Behind the globe, and lights the lower world,
Then thieves and robbers range abroad unseen,
In murthers, and in outrage, bloody here;
But when, from under this terrestrial ball,
He fires the proud tops of the eastern pines,
And darts his light through every guilty hole,
Then murthers, treasons, and detested sins,

The cloak of night being pluck'd from off their backs,
Stand bare and naked, trembling at themselves?
So when this thief, this traitor, Bolingbroke,-
Who all this while hath revell'd in the night,
Whilst we were wand'ring with the antipodes,-
Shall see us rising in our throne the east,
His treasons will sit blushing in his face,
Not able to endure the sight of day,
But, self-affrighted, tremble at his sin.
Not all the water in the rough rude sea
Can wash the balm from an anointed king:
The breath of worldly men cannot depose
The deputy elected by the Lord:

For every man that Bolingbroke hath press'd,
To lift shrewd steel against our golden crown,
Heaven for his Richard hath in heavenly pay
A glorious angel; then, if angels fight,

Weak men must fall; for heaven still guards the right.
Enter Salisbury.

Welcome, my lord; How far off lies your power?
Sal. Nor near, nor farther off, my gracious lord,
Than this weak arm: Discomfort guides my tongue,
And bids me speak of nothing but despair.
One day too late, I fear, my noble lord,

Hath clouded all thy happy days on earth:
O, call back yesterday, bid time return,

And thou shalt have twelve thousand fighting men :
To-day, to-day, unhappy day, too late,

O'erthrows thy joys, friends, fortune, and thy state
For all the Welshmen, hearing thou wert dead,

Are gone to Bolingbroke, dispers'd, and fled.

Aum. Comfort, my liege: why looks your grace so pale? K. Rich. But now, the blood of twenty thousand men Did triumph in my face, and they are fled; And, till so much blood thither come again,

Have I not reason to look pale and dead? All souls that will be safe fly from my side

EE