And now my tongue's ufe is to me no more,

Than an unftringed 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 fentence then, but speechless death,
Which robs my tongue from breathing native breath?
K. Rich. It boots thee not to be compaffionate;
After our sentence plaining comes too late.

Nor. Then thus I turn me from my country's light,
To dwell in folemn fhades of endless night. [Retiring.
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 adminifter:-
You never shall (fo help you truth and heaven!)
Embrace each other's love in banishment;

Nor never look upon each other's face;

Nor never write, regreet, nor reconcile

This lowering tempest of your home-bred hate;
Nor never by advised purpose meet,

To plot, contrive or complot any ill,

'Gainft us, our state, our fubjects, or our land. Boling. I fwear.

Nor. And I, to keep all this.

Boling. Norfolk, fo far as to mine enemy ;By this time, had the king permitted us,

One

One of our fouls had wander'd in the air,
Banish'd this frail fepulcher of our flesh,
As now our flesh is banish'd from this land:
Confefs thy treasons, ere thou Ay the realm;
Since thou haft far to go, bear not along
The clogging burden 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 foon, I fear, the king shall rue.-
Farewell, my liege:-Now no way can I ftray;
Save back to England, all the world's my way.
K. Rich. Uncle, even in the glaffes of thine eyes

I see thy grieved heart: thy fad aspéct
Hath from the number of his banish'd years
Pluck'd four away;-Six frozen winters spent,

[Exit.

Return [To BOLING.] with welcome home from banishment,
Boling. How long a time lies in one little word!
Four lagging winters, and four wanton fprings,
End in a word; fuch is the breath of kings.

Gaunt. I thank my liege, that, in regard of me,
He shortens four years of my son's exíle :
But little vantage shall I reap thereby ;

For, ere the fix years, that he hath to spend,

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 fee my fon.

K. Rich. Why, uncle, thou haft many years to live.
Gaunt. But not a minute, king, that thou canst give :
Shorten my days thou canst with fullen forrow,
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 fon is banish'd upon good advice,
Whereto thy tongue a party-verdict gave;

Why at our juftice feem'st thou then to lower?

Gaunt. Things sweet to taste, prove in digestion four. 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 fmooth his fault I fhould have been more mild:
A partial flander sought I to avoid,

And in the fentence my own life destroy'd.
Alas, I look'd, when fome of you should say,
I was too ftrict, to make mine own away;
But you gave leave to my unwilling tongue,
Against my will, to do myself this wrong.

K. Rich. Coufin, farewell:-and, uncle, bid him fo;
Six years we banish him, and he shall go.

[Flourish. Exeunt K. RICHARD and Train. Aum. Coufin, 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 fide.

Gaunt. O, to what purpose doft thou hoard thy words, That thou return't 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 abfent, grief is present for that time. Gaunt. What is fix winters? they are quickly gone. Boling. To men in joy; but grief makes one hour ten.

Gaunt.

Gaunt. Call it à travel that thou tak'st for pleasure. Boling. My heart will figh, when I miscall it so, Which finds it an enforced pilgrimage.

Gaunt. The fullen paffage of thy weary steps
Efteem a foil, wherein thou art to fet

The precious jewel of thy home-return.
Boling. Nay, rather, every tedious ftride I make
Will but remember me, what a deal of world
I wander from the jewels that I love.
Muft I not serve a long apprenticehood
To foreign paffages; 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 vifits,
Are to, a wife man ports and happy havens :
Teach thy neceffity to reason thus ;
There is no virtue like neceffity.

Think not, the king did banish thee;

But thou the king: Woe doth the heavier fit,
Where it perceives it is but faintly borne.
Go, fay-I sent thee forth to purchase honour,
And not-the king exíl'd thee: or suppose,
Devouring peftilence 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'ft, not whence thou com'ft:

Suppose the finging birds, musicians;

The grafs whereon thou tread'ft, the prefence ftrew'd ;
The flowers, fair ladies; and thy steps, no more
Than a delightful measure, or a dance :
For gnarling forrow hath less power to bite
The man that mocks at it, and fets it light.

Boling. O, who can hold a fire in his hand,
By thinking on the frofty Caucafus ?

Or cloy the hungry edge of appetite,
By bare imagination of a feast?

Or wallow naked in December fnow,
By thinking on fantastick fummer's heat?
O, no! the apprehenfion of the good,
Gives but the greater feeling to the worse :
Fell forrow's tooth doth never rankle more,
Than when it bites, but lanceth not the fore.

Gaunt. Come, come, my fon, I'll bring thee on thy way :

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

Boling. Then, England's ground, farewell; fweet foil, adieu;

My mother, and my nurse, that bears me yet!
Where-e'er I wander, boaft of this I can,-

Though banish'd, yet a trueborn Englishman. [Exeunt.

SCENE IV.

The fame. A Room in the King's Gaftle.

Enter King RICHARD, BAGOT, and GREEN; AUMERLE following.

K. Rich. We did obferve.-Coufin Aumerle,
How far brought you high Hereford on his way ?
Aum. I brought high Hereford, if you call him fo,
But to the next highway, and there I left him.

K. Rich. And, fay, what ftore of parting tears were shed ? Aum. 'Faith, none by me: except the north-east wind, Which then blew bitterly against our faces,

Awak'd the fleeping rheum; and fo, by chance,

Did grace our hollow parting with a tear.

K. Rich.