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(So it be new, there's no respect how vile,)
That is not quickly buzz'd into his ears?
Then all too late comes counfel to be heard,
Where will doth mutiny with wit's regard.

Direct not him, whofe way himself will choofe;

'Tis breath thou lack'st, and that breath wilt thou lofe, Gaunt. Methinks, I am a prophet new inspir'd; And thus, expiring, do foretell of him :

His rafh fierce blaze of riot cannot last;

For violent fires foon burn out themselves:
Small showers last long, but sudden storms are short
He tires betimes, that fpurs too fast betimes;
With eager feeding, food doth choke the feeder:
Light vanity, infatiate cormorant,

Confuming means, foon preys upon itself.
This royal throne of kings, this scepter'd isle,
This earth of majesty, this feat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradife ;

This fortrefs, built by nature for herself,
Against infection, and the hand of war;
This happy breed of men, this little world;
This precious ftone set in the silver sea,
Which ferves it in the office of a wall,
Or as a moat defenfive to a house,
Against the envy of lefs happier lands;

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This bleffed plot, this earth, this realm, this England,
This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings,
Fear'd by their breed, and famous by their birth,
Renowned for their deeds as far from home,
(For Chriftian fervice, and true chivalry,)
As is the fepulcher in ftubborn Jewry,
Of the world's ranfom, bleffed Mary's fon :
This land of fuch dear fouls, this dear dear land,
Dear for her reputation through the world,

Is now leas'd out (I die pronouncing it,)
Like to a tenement, or pelting farm :
England, bound in with the triumphant sea,
Whofe rocky fhore beats back the envious fiege
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 fhameful conquest of itself:

O, would the scandal vanish with my life,
How happy then were my enfuing death!

Enter King RICHARD, and Queen; AUMERLE, BUSHY, GREEN, BAGOT, Ross, and WILLOUGHBY.

York. The king is come: deal mildly with his youth; For young hot colts, being rag'd, do rage the more. Queen. How fares our noble uncle, Lancaster?

K. Rich. What comfort, man? How is't with aged

Gaunt ?

Gaunt. O, how that name befits my compofition!
Old Gaunt, indeed; and gaunt in being old :
Within me grief hath kept a tedious faft;

And who abftains from meat that is not gaunt?
For fleeping England long time have I watch'd ;
Watching breeds leannefs, leannefs is all gaunt:
The pleasure, that fome fathers feed upon,

Is

my strict fast, I mean-my children's looks; And, therein fafting, hast thou made me gaunt: Gaunt am I for the grave, gaunt as a grave, Whofe hollow womb inherits nought but bones.

K. Rich. Can fick men play so nicely with their names?
Gaunt. No, mifery makes sport to mock itself:

Since thou doft seek to kill my name in me,
Į mock my name, great king, to flatter thee.

K. Rich.

K. Rich. Should dying men flatter with those that live?
Gaunt. No, no; men living flatter those that die.
K. Rich. Thou, now a dying, fay'st-thou flatter'ft me.
Gaunt. Oh! no; thou diest, though I the sicker be.
K. Rich. I am in health, I breathe, and fee thee ill.
Gaunt. Now, He that made me, knows I fee thee ill;
Ill in myself to fee, and in thee seeing ill.
Thy death-bed is no lesser than thy land,
Wherein thou lieft in reputation sick;
And thou, too careless patient as thou art,
Commit'ft thy anointed body to the cure
Of those physicians that first wounded thee:
A thousand flatterers fit within thy crown,
Whose compass is no bigger than thy head;
And yet, incaged in so small a verge,
The wafte is no whit lesser than thy land.
O, had thy grandfire, with a prophet's eye,
Seen how his fon's fon should destroy his fons,
From forth thy reach he would have laid thy fhame;
Depofing thee before thou wert poffefs'd,
Which art poffefs'd now to depofe thyself.

Why, coufin, 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 fhame it fo?
Landlord of England art thou now, not king:
Thy state of law is bondslave to the law

And thou

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K. Rich.

--a lunatick lean-witted fool,

Prefuming on an ague's privilege,

Dar'ft with thy frozen admonition

Make pale our cheek; chafing the royal blood,

With fury, from his native refidence.

Now by my feat's right royal majesty,

Wert thou not brother to great Edward's fon,
This tongue that runs fo roundly in thy head,
Should run thy head from thy unreverend shoulders.
Gaunt. O, fpare me not, my brother Edward's fon,
For that I was his father Edward's fon;

That blood already, like the pelican,

Haft thou tapp'd out, and drunkenly carous'd :
My brother Glofter, plain well-meaning foul,
(Whom fair befal in heaven 'mongst happy souls!)
May be a precedent and witness good,

That thou respect'ft 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 wither'd 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 out by his Attendants.

K. Rich. And let them die, that age and fullens have; For both haft thou, and both become the grave.

York. 'Beseech your majesty, impute his words

To wayward fickliness and age in him:

He loves you, on my life, and holds you dear
As Harry duke of Hereford, were he here.

K. Rich. Right; you fay true: as Hereford's love, so his : As theirs, fo mine; and all be as it is.

Enter NORTHUMBERLAND.

North. My liege, old Gaunt commends him to your

majesty.

K. Rich. What fays he now?

North.

Nay, nothing; all is faid:

His tongue is now a stringless instrument;

Words, life, and all, old Lancaster hath spent.
York. Be York the next that must be bankrupt fo!
Though death be poor, it ends a mortal woe.

K. Rich. 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 fupplant those rough rug-headed kerns,
Which live like venom, where no venom else,
But only they, hath privilege to live.

And, for these great affairs do ask some charge,
Towards our affiftance, we do feize to us
The plate, coin, revenues, and moveables,
Whereof our uncle Gaunt did ftand poffefs'd.

York. How long fhall I be patient? Ah, how long
Shall tender duty make me fuffer wrong?

Not Glofter's death, nor Hereford's banishment,
Not Gaunt's rebukes, nor England's private wrongs,
Nor the prevention of poor Bolingbroke
About his marriage, nor my own difgrace,
Have ever made me four my patient cheek,
Or bend one wrinkle on my fovereign's face.-
I am the last of noble Edward's fons,

Of whom thy father, prince of Wales, was first;
In war was never lion rag'd more fierce,
In peace was never gentle lamb more mild,
Than was that young and princely gentleman :
His face thou haft, for even fo look'd he,
Accomplish'd with the number of thy hours;
But, when he frown'd, it was against the French,
And not against his friends: his noble hand
Did win what he did fpend, and spent not that
Which his triumphant father's hand had won :
His hands were guilty of no kindred's blood,

But

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