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. KING RICHARD II Why uncle, thou hast many years to live. JOHN OF 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. KING RICHARD II Thy son is banish'd upon good advice, Whereto thy tongue a party-verdict gave:
Why at our justice seem'st thou then to lour? JOHN OF GAUNT Things sweet to taste prove in digestion sour.
You urged 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 my unwilling tongue Against my will to do myself this wrong. KING RICHARD II Cousin, farewell; and, uncle, bid him so:
Six years we banish him, and he shall go.
Flourish. Exeunt KING RICHARD II and train DUKE OF AUMERLE Cousin, farewell: what presence must not know, From where you do remain let paper show. Lord Marshal My lord, no leave take I; for I will ride, As far as land will let me, by your side. JOHN OF GAUNT O, to what purpose dost thou hoard thy words, That thou return'st no greeting to thy friends? HENRY BOLINGBROKE 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. JOHN OF GAUNT Thy grief is but thy absence for a time. HENRY BOLINGBROKE Joy absent, grief is present for that time. JOHN OF GAUNT What is six winters? they are quickly gone. HENRY BOLINGBROKE To men in joy; but grief makes one hour ten. JOHN OF GAUNT Call it a travel that thou takest for pleasure. HENRY BOLINGBROKE My heart will sigh when I miscall it so, Which finds it an inforced pilgrimage. JOHN OF GAUNT The sullen passage of thy weary steps Esteem as foil wherein thou art to set The precious jewel of thy home return. HENRY BOLINGBROKE 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? JOHN OF 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 exiled 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 comest:
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;
For gnarling sorrow hath less power to bite The man that mocks at it and sets it light. HENRY BOLINGBROKE 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 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 he bites, but lanceth not the sore. JOHN OF GAUNT Come, come, my son, I'll bring thee on thy way:
Had I thy youth and cause, I would not stay. HENRY BOLINGBROKE 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 trueborn Englishman.
