Richard II

[Guru]

HENRY BOLINGBROKE

Norfolk, so far as to mine enemy:--
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 the realm;
Since thou hast far to go, bear not along
The clogging burthen of a guilty soul.

 

[Guru]

THOMAS MOWBRAY

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, God, 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.
Exit

 

[Guru]

KING RICHARD II

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.
To HENRY BOLINGBROKE

Six frozen winter spent,
Return with welcome home from banishment.

 

[Guru]

HENRY BOLINGBROKE

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.

 

[Guru]

JOHN OF GAUNT

I thank my liege, that in regard of me
He shortens four years of my son's exile:
But little vantage shall I reap thereby;
For, ere the six 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 see my son.

 

[Guru]

KING RICHARD II

Why uncle, thou hast many years to live.

 

[Guru]

JOHN OF 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.

 

[Guru]

KING RICHARD II

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

 

[Guru]

JOHN OF GAUNT

Things sweet to taste prove in digestion sour.
You urged 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;
But you gave leave to my unwilling tongue
Against my will to do myself this wrong.

 

[Guru]

KING RICHARD II

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

Flourish. Exeunt KING RICHARD II and train

 

[Guru]

DUKE OF AUMERLE

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

 

[Guru]

Lord Marshal

My lord, no leave take I; for I will ride,
As far as land will let me, by your side.

 

[Guru]

JOHN OF GAUNT

O, to what purpose dost thou hoard thy words,
That thou return'st no greeting to thy friends?

 

[Guru]

HENRY BOLINGBROKE

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.

 

[Guru]

JOHN OF GAUNT

Thy grief is but thy absence for a time.

 

[Guru]

HENRY BOLINGBROKE

Joy absent, grief is present for that time.

 

[Guru]

JOHN OF GAUNT

What is six winters? they are quickly gone.

 

[Guru]

HENRY BOLINGBROKE

To men in joy; but grief makes one hour ten.

 

[Guru]

JOHN OF GAUNT

Call it a travel that thou takest for pleasure.

 

[Guru]

HENRY BOLINGBROKE

My heart will sigh when I miscall it so,
Which finds it an inforced pilgrimage.

 

[Guru]

HENRY BOLINGBROKE

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?

 

[Guru]

JOHN OF 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 exiled 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 comest:
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.

 

[Guru]

JOHN OF GAUNT

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

 

[Guru]

HENRY 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 banish'd, yet a trueborn Englishman.
Exeunt

 

[Guru]

SCENE IV. The court.

Enter KING RICHARD II, with BAGOT and GREEN at one door; and the DUKE OF AUMERLE at another