The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [Vol. 4 of 9]

K. Rich. Marshal, ask yonder knight in arms,[821]
Both who he is and why he cometh hither
Thus plated in habiliments of war,[822]
And formally, according to our law,[823]
Depose him in the justice of his cause.30

Mar. What is thy name? and wherefore comest thou hither,
Before King Richard in his royal lists?
Against whom comest thou? and what's thy quarrel?[824]
Speak like a true knight, so defend thee heaven!

Boling. Harry of Hereford, Lancaster and Derby [825]35
Am I; who ready here do stand in arms,[826]
To prove, by God's grace and my body's valour,[827]
In lists, on Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk,[828]
That he is a traitor, foul and dangerous,[829]
To God of heaven, King Richard and to me;40
And as I truly fight, defend me heaven!

Mar. On pain of death, no person be so bold
Or daring-hardy as to touch the lists,[830]
Except the marshal and such officers
Appointed to direct these fair designs.45

Boling. Lord marshal, let me kiss my sovereign's hand,
And bow my knee before his majesty:
For Mowbray and myself are like two men
That vow a long and weary pilgrimage;
Then let us take a ceremonious leave50
And loving farewell of our several friends.

Mar. The appellant in all duty greets your highness,[831]
And craves to kiss your hand and take his leave.

K. Rich. We will descend and fold him in our arms.
Cousin of Hereford, as thy cause is right,[832]55
So be thy fortune in this royal fight!
Farewell, my blood; which if to-day thou shed,
Lament we may, but not revenge thee dead.[833]

Boling. O, let no noble eye profane a tear
For me, if I be gored with Mowbray's spear:[834]60
As confident as is the falcon's flight
Against a bird, do I with Mowbray fight.
My loving lord, I take my leave of you;
Of you, my noble cousin, Lord Aumerle;
Not sick, although I have to do with death,[835]65
But lusty, young, and cheerly drawing breath.[835][836]
Lo, as at English feasts, so I regreet[835]
The daintiest last, to make the end most sweet:[835][837]
O thou, the earthly author of my blood,[838]
Whose youthful spirit, in me regenerate,70
Doth with a twofold vigour lift me up [839]
To reach at victory above my head,[840]
Add proof unto mine armour with thy prayers;
And with thy blessings steel my lance's point,
That it may enter Mowbray's waxen coat,[841]75
And furbish new the name of John a Gaunt,[842]
Even in the lusty haviour of his son.[843]

Gaunt. God in thy good cause make thee prosperous![844]
Be swift like lightning in the execution;
And let thy blows, doubly redoubled,[845]80
Fall like amazing thunder on the casque
Of thy adverse pernicious enemy:[846]
Rouse up thy youthful blood, be valiant and live.[847]

Boling. Mine innocency and Saint George to thrive![848]

Mow. However God or fortune cast my lot,[844]85
There lives or dies, true to King Richard's throne,[849]
A loyal, just and upright gentleman:
Never did captive with a freer heart [850]
Cast off his chains of bondage and embrace
His golden uncontroll'd enfranchisement.90
More than my dancing soul doth celebrate [851]
This feast of battle with mine adversary.
Most mighty liege, and my companion peers,
Take from my mouth the wish of happy years:[852]
As gentle and as jocund as to jest [853]95
Go I to fight: truth hath a quiet breast.

K. Rich. Farewell, my lord: securely I espy
Virtue with valour couched in thine eye.
Order the trial, marshal, and begin.

Mar. Harry of Hereford, Lancaster and Derby,100
Receive thy lance; and God defend the right![844][854]

Boling. Strong as a tower in hope, I cry amen.

Mar. Go bear this lance to Thomas, Duke of Norfolk.[855]

First Her. Harry of Hereford, Lancaster and Derby,[856]
Stands here for God, his sovereign and himself,105
On pain to be found false and recreant,
To prove the Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray,
A traitor to his God, his king and him;[857]
And dares him to set forward to the fight.[858]

Sec. Her. Here standeth Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk,[859]110
On pain to be found false and recreant,
Both to defend himself and to approve [860]
Henry of Hereford, Lancaster, and Derby,
To God, his sovereign and to him disloyal;
Courageously and with a free desire115
Attending but the signal to begin.

Mar. Sound, trumpets; and set forward, combatants.

[A charge sounded.[861]

Stay, the king hath thrown his warder down.[862]

K. Rich. Let them lay by their helmets and their spears,
And both return back to their chairs again:120
Withdraw with us: and let the trumpets sound
While we return these dukes what we decree.

[A long flourish.[863]

Draw near,[864][865]
And list what with our council we have done.[865]
For that our kingdom's earth should not be soil'd125
With that dear blood which it hath fostered;[866]
And for our eyes do hate the dire aspect
Of civil wounds plough'd up with neighbours' sword;[867]
And for we think the eagle-winged pride [868]
Of sky-aspiring and ambitious thoughts,[868]130
With rival-hating envy, set on you[868][869]
To wake our peace, which in our country's cradle[868][870]
Draws the sweet infant breath of gentle sleep;[868][871]
Which so roused up with boisterous untuned drums,[872][873][874]
With harsh-resounding trumpets' dreadful bray,[874][875]135
And grating shock of wrathful iron arms,[874][876]
Might from our quiet confines fright fair peace,[873][874][877]
And make us wade even in our kindred's blood;[874][878]
Therefore, we banish you our territories:
You, cousin Hereford, upon pain of life,[879]140
Till twice five summers have enrich'd our fields [880]
Shall not regreet our fair dominions,[881]
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;145
And those his golden beams to you here lent [882]
Shall point on me and gild my banishment.

K. Rich. Norfolk, for thee remains a heavier doom,[883]
Which I with some unwillingness pronounce:
The sly slow hours shall not determinate [884]150
The dateless limit of thy dear exile;[885]
The hopeless word of 'never to return'
Breathe I against thee, upon pain of life.[886]

Mow. A heavy sentence, my most sovereign liege,
And all unlook'd for from your highness' mouth:155
A dearer merit, not so deep a maim [887]
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,[888]
My native English, now I must forego:160
And now my tongue's use is to me no more
Than an unstringed viol or a harp;
Or like a cunning instrument cased up,
Or, being open, put into his hands
That knows no touch to tune the harmony:165
Within my mouth you have engaol'd my tongue,[889][890]
Doubly portcullis'd with my teeth and lips;[889][891]
And dull unfeeling barren ignorance[889]
Is made my gaoler to attend on me.[889][892]
I am too old to fawn upon a nurse,170
Too far in years to be a pupil now:
What is thy sentence then but speechless death,[893]
Which robs my tongue from breathing native breath?

K. Rich. It boots thee not to be compassionate:[894]
After our sentence plaining comes too late.[895]175

Mow. Then thus I turn me from my country's light,
To dwell in solemn shades of endless night.[896]

K. Rich. Return again, and take an oath with thee.[897]
Lay on our royal sword your banish'd hands;
Swear by the duty that you owe to God—[898][899]180
Our part therein we banish with yourselves—
To keep the oath that we administer:
You never shall, so help you truth and God![899][900]
Embrace each other's love in banishment;
Nor never look upon each other's face;[901]185
Nor never write, regreet, nor reconcile[901][902]
This louring tempest of your home-bred hate;[903]
Nor never by advised purpose meet[901]
To plot, contrive, or complot any ill [904]
'Gainst us, our state, our subjects, or our land.190

Boling. I swear.[905]

Mow. And I, to keep all this.[906]

Boling. Norfolk, so far as to mine enemy:—[907]
By this time, had the king permitted us,
One of our souls had wander'd in the air,195
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;[908]
Since thou hast far to go, bear not along
The clogging burthen of a guilty soul.200

Mow. 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;[899]
And all too soon, I fear, the king shall rue.205
Farewell, my liege. Now no way can I stray;[909]
Save back to England, all the world's my way.[909][910] [Exit.

K. Rich. Uncle, even in the glasses of thine eyes [911]
I see thy grieved heart: thy sad aspect
Hath from the number of his banish'd years210
Pluck'd four away. [To Boling.] Six frozen winters spent,[912]
Return 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.[913]215

Gaunt. I thank my liege, that in regard of me [914]
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 [915]
Can change their moons and bring their times about,[916]220
My oil-dried lamp and time-bewasted light
Shall be extinct with age and endless night;[917]
My inch of taper will be burnt and done,[918]
And blindfold death not let me see my son.

K. Rich. Why, uncle, thou hast many years to live.225

Gaunt. But not a minute, king, that thou canst give:
Shorten my days thou canst with sullen sorrow,[919]
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;230
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,[920]
Whereto thy tongue a party-verdict gave:[921]
Why at our justice seem'st thou then to lour?[922]235

Gaunt. Things sweet to taste prove in digestion sour.[923]
You urged me as a judge; but I had rather [924]
You would have bid me argue like a father.
O, had it been a stranger, not my child,[925][926]
To smooth his fault I should have been more mild:[925][927]240
A partial slander sought I to avoid,[925][928]
And in the sentence my own life destroy'd.[925]
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 tongue245
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 King Richard and train.[929]

Aum. Cousin, farewell: what presence must not know,[930]
From where you do remain let paper show.250

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?[931]

Boling. I have too few to take my leave of you,255
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.260

Boling. To men in joy; but grief makes one hour ten.[932]

Gaunt. Call it a travel that thou takest for pleasure.

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

Gaunt. The sullen passage of thy weary steps265
Esteem as foil wherein thou art to set [933]
The precious jewel of thy home return.

Boling. Nay, rather, every tedious stride I make [934][935]
Will but remember me what a deal of world[934][935][936]
I wander from the jewels that I love.[934][935]270
Must I not serve a long apprenticehood[934][935]
To foreign passages, and in the end,[934][935]
Having my freedom, boast of nothing else[934][935]
But that I was a journeyman to grief?[934][935]

Gaunt. All places that the eye of heaven visits[934]275
Are to a wise man ports and happy havens.[934][937]
Teach thy necessity to reason thus;[934]
There is no virtue like necessity.[934]
Think not the king did banish thee,[934][938][939]
But thou the king. Woe doth the heavier sit,[934][938][940]280
Where it perceives it is but faintly borne.[934][938]
Go, say I sent thee forth to purchase honour[934]
And not the king exiled thee; or suppose[934]
Devouring pestilence hangs in our air[934]
And thou art flying to a fresher clime:[934]285
Look, what thy soul holds dear, imagine it[934]
To lie that way thou go'st, not whence thou comest:[934]
Suppose the singing birds musicians,[934]
The grass whereon thou tread'st the presence strew'd,[934][941]
The flowers fair ladies, and thy steps no more[934]290
Than a delightful measure or a dance;[934]
For gnarling sorrow hath less power to bite[934][942]
The man that mocks at it and sets it light.[934][942]

Boling. O, who can hold a fire in his hand [943]
By thinking on the frosty Caucasus?295
Or cloy the hungry edge of appetite
By bare imagination of a feast?
Or wallow naked in December snow [944]
By thinking on fastastic summer's heat?
O, no! the apprehension of the good300
Gives but the greater feeling to the worse:[945]
Fell sorrow's tooth doth never rankle more [946]
Than when he bites, but lanceth not the sore.[947]

Gaunt. Come, come, my son, I'll bring thee on thy way:
Had I thy youth and cause, I would not stay.305

Boling. Then, England's ground, farewell; sweet soil, adieu;
My mother, and my nurse, that bears me yet![948]
Where'er I wander, boast of this I can,
Though banish'd, yet a trueborn Englishman. [Exeunt.[949]

Scene IV. The court.

Enter the King, with Bagot and Green at one door; and the Duke of Aumerle at another.[950]

The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [Vol. 4 of 9]

About This Book

Scene IV. The court.