William Shakespeare: The Tragedy of King Richard the Second

ACT 2 1. SCENE I. London. An Apartment in Ely House. (continued)

KING RICHARD.
And thou 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 majesty,
Wert thou not brother to great Edward's son,--
This tongue that runs so roundly in thy head
Should run thy head from thy unreverent shoulders.

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 tapp'd out, and drunkenly carous'd:
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 spilling Edward's blood:
Join with the present sickness that I have;
And thy unkindness be like crooked age,
To crop at once a too-long withered flower.
Live in thy shame, but die not shame with thee!
These words hereafter thy tormentors be!
Convey me to my bed, then to my grave:
Love they to live that love and honour have.

[Exit, bourne out by his Attendants.]

KING 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.

KING RICHARD.
Right, you say true: as Hereford's love, so his;
As theirs, so mine; and all be as it is.

[Enter NORTHUMBERLAND.]

NORTHUMBERLAND.
My liege, old Gaunt commends him to your Majesty.

KING RICHARD.
What says he?

NORTHUMBERLAND.
Nay, nothing; all is said:
His tongue is now a stringless instrument;
Words, life, and all, old Lancaster hath spent.

YORK.
Be York the next that must be bankrupt so!
Though death be poor, it ends a mortal woe.