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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;

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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.
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 death:
my
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.]a

Alas, I look'd when some of

you

should say,
I was too strict, to make mine own away;
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.

[Exit.

Exeunt K. RICHARD and Train. These four lines, enclosed in brackets, are omitted in the folio.

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 exi!'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 :

* Foil or foyl, the thin plate or leaf of metal used in setting jewellery.

For gnarling sorrow hath less power to bite
The man that mocks at it, and sets it light.]a
BOLING. O, who can hold a fire in his hand,
By thinking on the frosty Caucasus 13?
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 stay.

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.

[Exeunt.

SCENE IV.-A Room in the King's Palace.

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

K. RICH. We did observe.-Cousin Aumerle,

How far brought you high Hereford on his way?
AUM. I brought high Hereford, if you call him so,

But to the next highway, and there I left him.
K. RICH. And, say, what store of parting tears were shed?
AUM. 'Faith, none for me, except the north-east wind,
Which then blew bitterly against our face,

Awak'd the sleepy rheum; and so, by chance,
Did grace our hollow parting with a tear.

K. RICH. What said our cousin when you parted with him?
AUM. Farewell:

And, for my heart disdained that my tongue

Should so profane the word, that taught me craft

To counterfeit oppression of such grief,

That word seem'd buried in my sorrow's grave.

Marry, would the word farewell have lengthen'd hours,

And added years to his short banishment,

• The twenty-six lines between brackets are omitted in the folio. They are in the first quarto

of 1597, and are continued in the subsequent quartos.

None for me-none on my part.

He should have had a volume of farewells;
But, since it would not, he had none of me.
K. RICH. He is our cousin, cousin; but 't is doubt,
When time shall call him home from banishment,
Whether our kinsman come to see his friends.
Ourself and Bushy, Bagot here, and Green,
Observ'd his courtship to the common people :-
How he did seem to dive into their hearts,
With humble and familiar courtesy ;
What reverence he did throw away on slaves;
Wooing poor craftsmen with the craft of smiles,
And patient underbearing of his fortune,

As 't were to banish their affects with him.

Off goes his bonnet to an oyster-wench;

A brace of draymen bid-God speed him well,

And had the tribute of his supple knee,

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With-Thanks, my countrymen, my loving friends;
As were our England in reversion his,

And he our subjects' next degree in hope.

GREEN. Well, he is gone; and with him go these thoughts.
Now for the rebels, which stand out in Ireland;
Expedient manage must be made, my liege,
Ere further leisure yield them further means,
For their advantage, and your highness' loss.
K. RICH. We will ourself in person to this war.
And, for our coffers, with too great a court,
And liberal largess, are grown somewhat light,
We are enforc'd to farm our royal realm;
The revenue whereof shall furnish us

For our affairs in hand: If that come short,
Our substitute at home shall have blank charters;
Whereto, when they shall know what men are rich,
They shall subscribe them for large sums of gold,
And send them after to supply our wants;
For we will make for Ireland presently.

Enter BUSHY.

Bushy, what news?

BUSHY. Old John of Gaunt is grievous sick, my lord;
Suddenly taken; and hath sent post haste,

To entreat your majesty to visit him.

K. RICH. Where lies he?

• Expedient—prompt-suitable-disengaged from entanglements.

BUSHY. At Ely-house.

K. RICH. Now put it, heaven, in his physician's mind,
To help him to his grave immediately!

The lining of his coffers shall make coats

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