Faculty of English

Enter Bushy RICHARD        Bushy, what news? BUSHY            Old John of Gaunt is grievous sick, my lord, Suddenly taken, and hath sent post haste To entreat your majesty to visit him. RICHARD        Where lies he? BUSHY            At Ely House. RICHARD        Now put it, God, in his physician’s mind To help him to his grave immediately. The […]

RICHARD        We will ourself in person to this war, And, for our coffers with too great a court And liberal largesse are grown somewhat light, We are enforced to farm our royal realm, The revenue whereof shall furnish us For our affairs in hand. If that come short, Our substitutes at home shall have blank […]

RICHARD        Off goes his bonnet to an oyster-wench, A brace of draymen bid God speed him well And had the tribute of his supple knee, With ‘Thanks, my countrymen, my loving friends’, As were our England in reversion his, And he our subjects’ next degree in hope. GREEN            Well, he is gone, and with him […]

RICHARD        He is our cousin, cousin, but ’tis doubt, When time shall call him home from banishment, Whether our kinsman come to see his friends. Ourself and Bushy, Bagot here and Green, Observed his courtship to the common people, How he did seem to dive into their hearts With humble and familiar courtesy, What reverence […]

RICHARD        What said our cousin when you parted with him? AUMERLE       ‘Farewell’. And for my heart disdainèd that my tongue Should so profane the word, that taught me craft To counterfeit oppression of such grief That words seemed buried in my sorrow’s grave. Marry, would the word ‘farewell’ have lengthened hours And added years to […]

Enter [Richard] with Green and Bagot at one door, and Aumerle at another RICHARD        We did observe.—Cousin Aumerle, How far brought you high Hereford on his way? AUMERLE       I brought high Hereford, if you call him so, But to the next highway, and there I left him. RICHARD        And say what store of parting tears […]

BOLINGBROKE          O, who can hold a fire in his hand By thinking on the frosty Caucasus? Or cloy the hungry edge of appetite By bare imagination of a feast? Or wallow naked in December snow By thinking on fantastic summer’s heat? O no, the apprehension of the good Gives but the greater feeling to the […]

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, […]

GAUNT                        Thy grief is but thy absence for a time. BOLINGBROKE          Joy absent, grief is present for that time. GAUNT                        What is six winters? They are quickly gone. BOLINGBROKE          To men in joy, but grief makes one hour ten. GAUNT                        Call it a travel that thou tak’st for pleasure. BOLINGBROKE          My heart will sigh when […]

AUMERLE                   Cousin, farewell. What presence must not know, From where you do remain let paper show.          [Exit] LORD MARSHAL        My lord, no leave take I, for I will ride As far as land will let me by your side. GAUNT                        O, to what purpose dost thou hoard thy words That thou return’st no greeting […]