Enter King Richard, Queen, Aumerle, Bufhy, Green, Bagot, Rofs, and Willoughby.
York. The King is come, deal mildly with his youth:
For young hot colts, being rag'd, do rage the more.
Queen. How fares our noble uncle, Lancaster?
K. Rich. What comfort, man? How is't with aged
Gaunt?
Gaunt. Oh, how that Name befits my compofition!
Old Gaunt, indeed, and gaunt in being old;
Within me grief hath kept a tedious fast,
And who abitains from meat, that is not gaunt?
For fleeping England long time have I watch'd,
Watching breeds leannefs, leannefs is all gaunt;
The pleasure, that fome fathers feed upon,
Is my ftrict faft; I mean, my children's looks;
And, therein fafting, thou haft made me gaunt;
Gaunt am I for the Grave, gaunt as a Grave,
Whofe hollow womb inherits nought but bones.
K. Rich. Can fick men play fo nicely with their
names?
Gaunt. No, mifery makes fport to mock itself:
Since thou doft feek to kill my name in me,'
I mock my name, great King, to flatter thee.
K. Rich. Should dying men flatter those that live?
Gaunt. No, no, men living flatter thofe that die.
K. Rich. Thou, now a dying, fay'ft, thou flatter'st
Gaunt. Oh! no, thou dyeft, though I ficker be.
K. Rich. I am in health, I breathe, I see thee ill.
Gaunt. Now he, that made me, knows, I fee
thee ill.
Ill in myself, but feeing thee too, ill.
Thy death-bed is no leffer than the Land,
Wherein thou lieft in Reputation fick ;
And thou, too carelefs Patient as thou art,
Giv'ft thy anointed body to the cure
Of those physicians, that firft wounded thee.
A thousand flatt'rers fit within thy Crown,
Whose compafs is no bigger than thy head,
And yet incaged in fo fmall a verge,
Thy wafte is no whit leffer than thy Land.
Oh, had thy Grandfire, with a prophet's eye.
Seen how his fon's fon fhould deftroy his fons;
From forth thy reach he would have laid thy fhame,
Depofing thee before thou wert poffeft;
Who art poffefs'd now, to depofe thyself.
Why, coufin, wert thou Regent of the world,
It were a fhame to let this Land by leafe;
But for thy world enjoying but this Land,
Is it not more than fhame to fhame it fo?
Landlord of England art thou now, not King:
7 Thy ftate of law is bondflave to the law;
K. Rich. And thou, a lunatick lean-witted fool, Prefuming on an ague's privilege,
? Thy ftate of law is bondflave to the law:] State of law, i. e. legal fov'rainty. But the Oxford Editor alters it to the ftate o'er law, i. e. abfolute fov'rainty. A doctrine, which, if our poet ever learnt at all, he learnt not in the reign when this play was written, Queen Elizabeth's, but in the reign after it, King James's. By bondЛlave to the law, the poet means his being inflaved to his favourite fubjects. WARBURTON.
This fentiment, whatever it be, is obfcurely expreffed. I understand it differently from the learned commentator, being perhaps not quite fo zealous for ShakeSpeare's political reputation. The
reafoning of Gaunt, I think, is this: By Jetting thy royalties to farm, thou hast reduced thyself to a flate below fovereignty, thou art now no longer king but landlord of England, fubject to the fame restraint and limitations as other landlords; by making thy condition a ftate of law, a condition upon which the common rules, of law can operate, thou art become a bondslave to the law; thou haft made thyself amenable to laws from which thou wert. originally exempt.
Whether this interpretation be true or no, it is plain that Dr. Warburton's explanation of bondflave to the law, is not true.
Dar'ft with thy frozen admonition
Make pale our cheek; chafing the royal blood
With fury from his native refidence.
Now by my Seat's right-royal Majesty,
Wert thou not Brother to Great Edward's fon,
This tongue that runs fo roundly in thy head,
Should run thy head from thy unreverend fhoulders.
Gaunt. Oh, spare me not, my brother Edward's fon,
For that I was his father Edward's fon.
That blood already, like the Pelican,
Haft thou tapt out, and drunkenly carows'd.
My brother Glofter, plain well-meaning foul
(Whom fair befal in heav'n 'mong'ft happy fouls!).
May be a precedent and witness good,
That thou respect'st not spilling Edward's blood.
Join with the present Sickness that I have,
And thy unkindness be like crooked age,
To crop at once a too-long-wither'd flower.
Live in thy fhame, but die not fhame with thee!
These words hereafter thy tormentors be!
Convey me to my Bed, then to my Grave:
Love they to live, that love and honour have.
[Exit, borne out.
K. Rich. And let them die, that Age and Sullens
For both haft thou, and both become the Grave.
York. I do befeech your Majefty, impute
And thy unkindness be like
crooked age.
To crop at once a too-long wi
ther'd flow'r.] Thus ftand thefe lines in all the copies, but I think there is an errour. Why fhould Gaunt, already old, call on any thing like age to end him? How can age be faid to crop at once? How is the idea of crookedness connected with that of cropping? I fuppofe the poet
And thy unkindness be time's crooked edge To crop at once That is, let thy unkindness be time's fcythe to crop.
Edge was eafily confounded by the ear with age, and one miftake once admitted made way for another.
9 Love they.] That is, let them love.
His words to wayward ficklinefs, and age.
He loves you, on my life; and holds
you dear
As Harry Duke of Hereford, were he here.
K. Rich. Right, you fay true; as Hereford's love, fo his;
As theirs, fo mine; and all be, as it is.
North. My Liege, old Gaunt commends him to your Majesty.
K. Rich. What fays old Gaunt?
North. Nay, nothing; all is faid.
tongue is now a stringless instrument,
Words, life, and all, old Lancaster hath fpent.
York. Be York the next, that must be bankrupt fo! Though death be poor, it ends a mortal woe.
K. Rich. The ripeft fruit firft falls, and fo doth he;
His time is fpent, our pilgrimage must be.
So much for that. Now for our Irish wars;
We must fupplant thofe rough rug-headed Kerns,
Which live like venom, where no venom else,
But only they, have privilege to live.
And, for thefe great affairs do afk fome charge,
To'rds our affiftance we do feize to us.
The plate, coin, revenues, and moveables,
Whereof our uncle Gaunt did stand poffeft.
York. How long fhall I be patient? Oh, how long
Shall tender Duty make me fuffer wrong?
Not Glofter's death, not Hereford's Banishment,
Not Gaunt's rebukes, nor England's private wrongs,
Nor the prevention of poor Bolingbroke
About his marriage, nor my own difgrace,
Have ever made me fow'r my patient cheek;
Or bend one wrinkle on my Sovereign's face.
I am the last of noble Edward's fons,
Of whom thy father, Prince of Wales, was firft;
In war, was never Lion rag'd more fierce,
In peace, was never gentle Lamb more mild,
Than was that young and princely Gentleman:
His face thou haft, for even fo look'd he,
Accomplish'd with the number of thy hours.
But when he frown'd, it was against the French,
And not against his friends; his noble hand
Did win what he did spend; and spent not That,
Which his triumphant father's hand had won.
His hands were guilty of no kindred's blood,
But bloody with the enemies of his kin.
Oh, Richard! York is too far gone with grief,
Or else he never would compare between.
K. Rich. Why, uncle, what's the matter?
York. O my Liege,
Pardon me, if you pleafe; if not, I, pleas'd
Not to be pardon'd, am content withal.
Seek you to feize, and gripe into your hands,
The Royalties and Rights of banish'd Hereford?
Is not Gaunt dead, and doth not Hereford live?
Was not Gaunt jeft, and is not Harry true?
Did not the one deferve to have an heir?
Is not his heir a well-deferving fon?
Take Hereford's Rights away, and take from time
His Charters, and his customary Rights;
Let not to-morrow then enfue to day;
Be not thyfelf; for how art thou a King,
But by fair fequence and fucceffion?
If you do wrongfully feize Hereford's Right,
Call in his letters patents that he hath,
By his attorneys-general to fue
His livery, and deny his offer'd homage;
You pluck a thoufand dangers on your head;
You lose a thoufand well-difpofed hearts;
And prick my tender patience to thofe thoughts,
Deny his offer'd homage.] mage, by which he is to hold his
That is, refufe to admit the o- lands.
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