RICHARD        Thy son is banished upon good advice, Whereto thy tongue a party-verdict gave. Why at our justice seem’st thou then to lour? 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 […]

RICHARD        Why, uncle, thou hast many years to live. 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 […]

GAUNT            I thank my liege that in regard of me He shortens four years of my son’s exile. But little vantage shall I reap thereby, 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 […]

RICHARD                    Uncle, even in the glasses of your eyes I see thy grievèd heart. Thy sad aspect Hath from the number of his banished years Plucked four away. [To Bolingbroke] Six frozen winters spent, Return with welcome home from banishment. BOLINGBROKE          How long a time lies in one little word! Four lagging winters and four […]

BOLINGBROKE          Norfolk, so far as to mine enemy: By this time, had the King permitted us, One of our souls had wandered in the air, Banished this frail sepulchre of our flesh, As now our flesh is banished from this land. Confess thy treasons ere thou fly the realm— Since thou hast far to go, […]

RICHARD                    It boots thee not to be compassionate. After our sentence, plaining comes too late. MOWBRAY                 Then thus I turn me from my country’s light To dwell in solemn shades of endless night. RICHARD                    Return again and take an oath with thee. [To both Mowbray and Bolingbroke] Lay on our royal sword your banished hands: […]

MOWBRAY     The language I have learned these forty years, My native English, now I must forgo, And now my tongue’s use is to me no more Than an unstringèd viol or a harp, Or like a cunning instrument cased up Or, being open, put into his hands That knows no touch to tune the harmony. […]

RICHARD        Norfolk, for thee remains a heavier doom, Which I with some unwillingness pronounce. The sly slow hours shall not determinate The dateless limit of thy dear exile; The hopeless word of ‘never to return’ Breathe I against thee, upon pain of life. MOWBRAY     A heavy sentence, my most sovereign liege, And all unlooked for […]

RICHARD                    You, cousin Hereford, upon pain of life, Till twice five summers have enriched our fields Shall not regreet our fair dominions, But tread the stranger paths of banishment. BOLINGBROKE          Your will be done. This must my comfort be: The sun that warms you here shall shine on me And those his golden beams to […]

RICHARD        Draw near, And list what with our council we have done. For that our kingdom’s earth should not be soiled With that dear blood which it hath fosterèd, And for our eyes do hate the dire aspect Of civil wounds ploughed up with neighbour’s sword, And for we think the eagle-wingèd pride Of sky-aspiring […]