Enter JOHN OF GAUNT sick, with the DUKE OF YORK, & c JOHN OF GAUNT Will the king come, that I may breathe my last In wholesome counsel to his unstaid youth? DUKE OF YORK Vex not yourself, nor strive not with your breath;
For all in vain comes counsel to his ear. JOHN OF GAUNT O, but they say the tongues of dying men Enforce attention like deep harmony:
Where words are scarce, they are seldom spent in vain, For they breathe truth that breathe their words in pain.
He that no more must say is listen'd more Than they whom youth and ease have taught to glose;
More are men's ends mark'd than their lives before:
The setting sun, and music at the close, As the last taste of sweets, is sweetest last, Writ in remembrance more than things long past:
Though Richard my life's counsel would not hear, My death's sad tale may yet undeaf his ear. DUKE OF YORK No; it is stopp'd with other flattering sounds, As praises, of whose taste the wise are fond, Lascivious metres, to whose venom sound The open ear of youth doth always listen;
Report of fashions in proud Italy, Whose manners still our tardy apish nation Limps after in base imitation.
Where doth the world thrust forth a vanity--So it be new, there's no respect how vile--That is not quickly buzzed into his ears?
Then all too late comes counsel to be heard, Where will doth mutiny with wit's regard.
Direct not him whose way himself will choose:
'Tis breath thou lack'st, and that breath wilt thou lose. JOHN OF GAUNT Methinks I am a prophet new inspired And thus expiring do foretell of him:
His rash fierce blaze of riot cannot last, For violent fires soon burn out themselves;
Small showers last long, but sudden storms are short;
He tires betimes that spurs too fast betimes;
With eager feeding food doth choke the feeder:
Light vanity, insatiate cormorant, Consuming means, soon preys upon itself.
This royal throne of kings, this scepter'd isle, This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, This other Eden, demi-paradise, This fortress built by Nature for herself Against infection and the hand of war, This happy breed of men, this little world, This precious stone set in the silver sea, Which serves it in the office of a wall, Or as a moat defensive to a house, Against the envy of less happier lands, This blessed 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 Christian service and true chivalry, As is the sepulchre in stubborn Jewry, Of the world's ransom, blessed Mary's Son, This land of such dear souls, this dear dear land, Dear for her reputation through the world, Is now leased out, I die pronouncing it, Like to a tenement or pelting farm:
England, bound in with the triumphant sea Whose rocky shore beats back the envious siege 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 shameful conquest of itself.
Ah, would the scandal vanish with my life, How happy then were my ensuing death!
Enter KING RICHARD II and QUEEN, DUKE OF AUMERLE, BUSHY, GREEN, BAGOT, LORD ROSS, and LORD WILLOUGHBY DUKE OF YORK The king is come: deal mildly with his youth;
For young hot colts being raged do rage the more. QUEEN How fares our noble uncle, Lancaster? KING RICHARD II What comfort, man? how is't with aged Gaunt? JOHN OF GAUNT O how that name befits my composition!
Old Gaunt indeed, and gaunt in being old:
Within me grief hath kept a tedious fast;
And who abstains from meat that is not gaunt?
For sleeping England long time have I watch'd;
Watching breeds leanness, leanness is all gaunt:
The pleasure that some fathers feed upon, Is my strict fast; I mean, my children's looks;
And therein fasting, hast thou made me gaunt:
Gaunt am I for the grave, gaunt as a grave, Whose hollow womb inherits nought but bones. KING RICHARD II Can sick men play so nicely with their names? JOHN OF GAUNT No, misery makes sport to mock itself:
Since thou dost seek to kill my name in me, I mock my name, great king, to flatter thee. KING RICHARD II Should dying men flatter with those that live? JOHN OF GAUNT No, no, men living flatter those that die. KING RICHARD II Thou, now a-dying, say'st thou flatterest me. JOHN OF GAUNT O, no! thou diest, though I the sicker be. KING RICHARD II I am in health, I breathe, and see thee ill. JOHN OF GAUNT Now He that made me knows I see thee ill;
Ill in myself to see, and in thee seeing ill.
Thy death-bed is no lesser than thy land Wherein thou liest in reputation sick;
And thou, too careless patient as thou art, Commit'st thy anointed body to the cure Of those physicians that first wounded thee:
A thousand flatterers sit within thy crown, Whose compass is no bigger than thy head;
And yet, incaged in so small a verge, The waste is no whit lesser than thy land.
O, had thy grandsire with a prophet's eye Seen how his son's son should destroy his sons, From forth thy reach he would have laid thy shame, Deposing thee before thou wert possess'd, Which art possess'd now to depose thyself.
Why, cousin, 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 shame it so?
Landlord of England art thou now, not king:
Thy state of law is bondslave to the law; And thou-- KING RICHARD II A lunatic lean-witted fool, Presuming on an ague's privilege, Darest with thy frozen admonition Make pale our cheek, chasing the royal blood With fury from his native residence.
Now, by my seat's right royal majesty, Wert thou not brother to great Edward's son, This tongue that runs so roundly in thy head Should run thy head from thy unreverent shoulders. JOHN OF GAUNT O, spare me not, my brother Edward's son, For that I was his father Edward's son;
That blood already, like the pelican, Hast thou tapp'd out and drunkenly caroused:
My brother Gloucester, plain well-meaning soul, Whom fair befal in heaven 'mongst happy souls!