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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,

'Gainst us, our state, our subjects, or our land. Boling. I swear.

Nor. And I, to keep all this.

Boling. Norfolk, so fare 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 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 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.
K. Rich. Uncle, even in the glasses of thine eyes

I see thy grieved heart; thy sad 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 banish

ment.

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 exíle ;

q

advised] i. e. Concerted, deliberated.

so fare as to mine enemy;] This is the old reading, the modern editors all read, so far as to mine enemy, which they cannot find a meaning for. The words, so fare as to mine enemy, addressed from Bolingbroke to Norfolk on his departure, bear a very easy interpretation :-May you meet with all the good in your banishment, that I can wish to my enemy.

s Exit Norfolk.] The duke of Norfolk after his banishment returned to Venice, "where," says Holinshed, "for thought and melancholy, he deceased.”— MALONE.

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 my death:
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.
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. Exeunt K. RICHARD and Train. 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?

A partial slander-] That is, the reproach of partiality. This is a just picture of the struggle between principle and affection.-JOHNSON.

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 enforc'd 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 doth 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 exil'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 :

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the presence strew'd;] An allusion to the ancient practice of strewing rushes over the floor of the presence chamber.-HENLEY.

measure,] A formal court dance.

For gnarling sorrow hath less power to bite
The man that mocks at it, and sets it light.
Boling. O, who can hold a fire in his hand,
By thinking on the frosty Caucasus?
Or cloy the hungry edge of appetite,
By bare imagination of a feast?

Or wallow naked in December snow,
By thinking on fantastick 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, My mother, and my nurse, that bears me yet! Where-e'er I wander, boast of this I can,

[adieu;

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

SCENE IV.

The same. A Room in the King's Castle.

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?

y

Aum. 'Faith, none for me; except the north-east wind,

yèt a trueborn Englishman.] Here the first act ought to end, that between the first and second acts there may be time for John of Gaunt to accompany his son, return, and fall sick. Then the first scene of the second act begins with a natural conversation, interrupted by a message from John of Gaunt, by which the king is called to visit him, which visit is paid in the following scene. As the play is now divided, more time passes between the two last scenes of the first act, than between the first act and the second.JOHNSON.

'Faith, none for me:] i, e. None on my part.

Which then blew bitterly against our faces,
Awak'd the sleeping 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 words seem'd buried in my sorrow's grave.
Marry, would the word farewell have lengthen'd hours,
And added years to his short banishment,

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 'tis 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 'twere, 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,"
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.

-affects-] i. e. Affections.

b the tribute of his supple knee,] To illustrate this phrase, it should be remembered that courtseying, (the act of reverence now confined to women,) was anciently practised by men.-STEEVENS.

C

Expedient-] i. e. Expeditious.

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