Faculty of English

YORK              I’ll not be by the while. My liege, farewell. What will ensue hereof there’s none can tell. But by bad courses may be understood That their events can never fall out good.              Exit. RICHARD        Go, Bushy, to the Earl of Wiltshire straight, Bid him repair to us to Ely House To see this business. […]

YORK              Take Hereford’s rights away and take from time His charters and his customary rights, Let not tomorrow then ensue today, Be not thyself—for how art thou a king But by fair sequence and succession? Now, afore God—God forbid I say true— If you do wrongfully seize Hereford’s rights, Call in the letters patents that […]

YORK              O Richard! York is too far gone with grief, Or else he never would compare between— RICHARD        Why uncle, what’s the matter? YORK                                                              O my liege, Pardon me if you please; if not, I, pleased Not to be pardoned, am content withal. Seek you to seize and gripe into your hands The royalties and […]

YORK              I am the last of noble Edward’s sons, Of whom thy father, Prince of Wales, was first. In war was never lion raged more fierce, In peace was never gentle lamb more mild Than was that young and princely gentleman. His face thou hast, for even so looked he, Accomplished with the number of […]

YORK              How long shall I be patient? Ah, how long Shall tender duty make me suffer wrong? Not Gloucester’s death nor Hereford’s banishment, Nor Gaunt’s rebukes nor England’s private wrongs, Nor the prevention of poor Bolingbroke About his marriage, nor my own disgrace, Have ever made me sour my patient cheek Or bend one […]

RICHARD        The ripest fruit first falls and so doth he. His time is spent—our pilgrimage must be. So much for that. Now for our Irish wars: We must supplant those rough rug-headed kerns, Which live like venom where no venom else, But only they, have privilege to live. And for these great affairs do ask […]

RICHARD                    And let them die that age and sullens have, For both hast thou and both become the grave. YORK                          I do beseech your majesty, impute his words To wayward sickliness and age in him. He loves you, on my life, and holds you dear As Harry Duke of Hereford, were he here. […]

GAUNT           O spare me not, my brother Edward’s son, For that I was his father Edward’s son. That blood already, like the pelican, Hast thou tapped out and drunkenly caroused. My brother Gloucester, plain well-meaning soul— Whom fair befall in heaven ’mongst happy souls— May be a precedent and witness good That thou respect’st not […]

GAUNT           Landlord of England art thou now, not king, Thy state of law is bondslave to the law, And thou— RICHARD                                —a lunatic, lean-witted fool, Presuming on an ague’s privilege, Dar’st with thy frozen admonition Make pale our cheek, chasing the royal blood With fury from his native residence. Now, by my seat’s right royal […]

GAUNT           O, had thy grandsire with a prophet’s eye Seen how his son’s son should destroy his sons, From forth thy reach he would have laid thy shame, Deposing thee before thou were possessed, Which art possessed now to depose thyself. Why, cousin, wert thou regent of the world It were a shame to let […]