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 com’st.

Suppose the singing birds musicians,

The grass whereon thou tread’st the presence strewed,

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. (1.3.275-293)

Gaunt’s last attempt: old-fashioned positive thinking. This banishment will be more bearable if Bolingbroke reinterprets it on his own terms. After all, the wise man regards all places that the eye of heaven visits, that is, everywhere under the sun, as (potentially) ports and happy havens, places of welcome and safety. And needs must: Bolingbroke must make a virtue of necessity, and convince himself to see things in a positive light. He can, for example, tell himself that he banished the King, not vice versa (this may raise a laugh, or at least a wry smile from Bolingbroke). (Coriolanus will take this position much more extremely a decade or so later; it doesn’t end well.) Woe, suffering and sadness, feels worse, heavier if it’s met faintly, not robustly: you have to stand up to it, take a stand, reclaim some agency. (Gaunt sounds surprisingly modern here.) Or here’s another idea: forget about the banishment thing entirely, and imagine instead that you’re going abroad at my prompting, to win fame and fortune, purchase honour. Or imagine there’s plague at home,* a devouring pestilence hanging in our air, and you’re flying away to a fresher clime, for your better health and prosperity. Or—another tactic—think about the things you value most, and imagine that they’re ahead of you, not being left behind. And a final flight of fancy: imagine that the singing birds along the way are musicians, that you’re walking through a beautiful royal presence chamber freshly strewn with rushes and fragrant herbs (rather than on rough grass), that the flowers by the wayside are fair ladies, and you’re dancing along, not trudging your lonely way into exile. A last home truth, after the touch of levity: gnarling sorrow hath less power to bite the man that mocks at it and sets it light. You’ll feel better if you can make the best of this, find humour, the glass half full, the bright side. (And I might feel better too, and worry less, is perhaps also Gaunt’s message here.)

* prescient, much, as I write in self-imposed and all-too-temporary exile/respite from the UK, safe in NZ