Enter Lord Marshal and the Duke Aumerle LORD MARSHAL        My lord Aumerle, is Harry Hereford armed? AUMERLE                   Yea, at all points, and longs to enter in. LORD MARSHAL        The Duke of Norfolk, sprightfully and bold, Stays but the summons of the appellant’s trumpet. AUMERLE                   Why then, the champions are prepared and stay For nothing but […]

DUCHESS       Yet one word more. Grief boundeth where it falls, Not with the empty hollowness, but weight. I take my leave before I have begun, For sorrow ends not when it seemeth done. Commend me to thy brother, Edmund York. Lo, this is all. Nay, yet depart not so; Though this be all, do not […]

DUCHESS                               Farewell, old Gaunt. Thou goest to Coventry, there to behold Our cousin Hereford and fell Mowbray fight. O, sit my husband’s wrongs on Hereford’s spear That it may enter butcher Mowbray’s breast! Or if misfortune miss the first career, Be Mowbray’s sins so heavy in his bosom That they may break his foaming courser’s […]

GAUNT            God’s is the quarrel, for God’s substitute, His deputy anointed in his sight, Hath caused his death, the which if wrongfully Let heaven revenge, for I may never lift An angry arm against his minister. DUCHESS       Where then, alas, may I complain myself? GAUNT            To God, the widow’s champion and defence. DUCHESS       Why then […]

DUCHESS       Ah Gaunt, his blood was thine! That bed, that womb, That mettle, that self mould that fashioned thee, Made him a man; and though thou liv’st and breath’st, Yet art thou slain in him. Thou dost consent In some large measure to thy father’s death In that thou seest thy wretched brother die, Who […]

DUCHESS       Finds brotherhood in thee no sharper spur? Hath love in thy old blood no living fire? Edward’s seven sons, whereof thyself art one, Were as seven vials of his sacred blood, Or seven fair branches springing from one root. Some of those seven are dried by nature’s course, Some of those branches by the […]

Enter John of Gaunt with the Duchess of Gloucester. GAUNT            Alas, the part I had in Woodstock’s blood Doth more solicit me than your exclaims To stir against the butchers of his life. But since correction lieth in those hands Which made the fault that we cannot correct, Put we our quarrel to the will […]

RICHARD        We were not born to sue, but to command, Which, since we cannot do to make you friends, Be ready, as your lives shall answer it, At Coventry, upon Saint Lambert’s Day. There shall your swords and lances arbitrate The swelling difference of your settled hate. Since we cannot atone you, we shall see […]

RICHARD                    Cousin, throw up your gage. Do you begin. BOLINGBROKE          O, God defend my soul from such deep sin! Shall I seem crestfallen in my father’s sight, Or with pale beggar fear impeach my height Before this out-dared dastard? Ere my tongue Shall wound my honour with such feeble wrong, Or sound so base a […]

MOWBRAY                             Take but my shame And I resign my gage. My dear dear lord, The purest treasure mortal times afford Is spotless reputation; that away, Men are but gilded loam or painted clay. A jewel in a ten-times-barred-up chest Is a bold spirit in a loyal breast. Mine honour is my life, both grow in […]