BOLINGBROKE O, let no noble eye profane a tear
For me, if I be gored with Mowbray’s spear.
As confident as is the falcon’s flight
Against a bird do I with Mowbray fight.
[To Lord Marshal] My loving lord, I take my leave of you,
[To Aumerle] Of you, my noble cousin, Lord Aumerle,
Not sick although I have to do with death,
But lusty, young and cheerly drawing breath.
Lo, as at English feasts, so I regreet
The daintiest last to make the end most sweet. (1.3.59-68)
Bolingbroke is in control, rhetorically, emotionally, and morally. It would be not merely awkward but profanity for anyone, let alone the noble, let alone the King, to mourn him if he were to be defeated by Mowbray, because defeat would mean that he was in the wrong, a traitor, a villain. He vividly imagines the violence of such a defeat, being gored with Mowbray’s spear, gored meaning pierced, but also evoking gore as a noun, as blood. But it’s not going to happen: he is as confident as a fierce, powerful, lordly falcon going after a mere bird; he will be swift, strong, unhesitating, in control. Observing protocol, he takes his leave first of the Lord Marshal, but then at far greater length of Aumerle, his cousin (and the King’s). He’s witty even as he asserts his fitness, his youth, his high spirits: he is lusty, young and cheerly drawing breath; not sick although he has to do with death. (He’s not afraid of death; he contemplates it with complete equanimity.) But there is one person present to who Bolingbroke must particularly speak his farewell, the most important and highly charged leave-taking. He likens it to an English feast, which ends with sweetmeats—with dessert, rather than more savoury food as was customary in other countries—he is saving the best address until last, to make the end (which could be the end of his speech, or the end of his life) most sweet. (The rather odd regreet here means to salute, address; it’s mostly here to allow the neat series of rhyming couplets to continue, and in particular to facilitate that poignant emphasis on sweet.)
