King Richard II | Page 9

And in the
sentence my own life destroy'd. Alas! I look'd when some of you
should say I was too strict to make mine own away; But you gave leave
to my unwilling tongue Against my will to do myself this wrong.
KING RICHARD. Cousin, farewell; and, uncle, bid him so: Six years
we banish him, and he shall go.
[Flourish. Exit KING RICHARD and Train.]
AUMERLE. Cousin, farewell: what presence must not know, From
where you do remain let paper show.
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 to thy friends?
BOLINGBROKE. I have too few to take my leave of you, When the
tongue's office should be prodigal To breathe the abundant dolour of
the heart.
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 I miscall it so, Which finds
it an enforced pilgrimage.
GAUNT. The sullen passage of thy weary steps Esteem as foil wherein
thou art to set The precious jewel of thy home return.
BOLINGBROKE. Nay, rather, every tedious stride I make Will but
remember me what a deal of world I wander from the jewels that I love.
Must I not serve a long apprenticehood To foreign passages, and in the
end, Having my freedom, boast of nothing else But that I was a
journeyman to grief?
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, say I sent thee forth to purchase honour, And not the King exil'd
thee; or suppose Devouring pestilence hangs in our air, And thou art
flying to a fresher clime. Look, what thy soul holds dear, imagine it To
lie that way thou go'st, not whence thou com'st. Suppose the singing
birds musicians, The grass whereon thou tread'st the presence strew'd,
The flowers fair ladies, and thy steps no more Than a delightful
measure or a dance; For gnarling sorrow hath less power to bite The
man that mocks at it and sets it light.
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 worse: Fell sorrow's tooth doth
never rankle more Than when it bites, but lanceth not the sore.
GAUNT. Come, come, my son, I'll bring thee on thy way. Had I thy
youth and cause, I would not stay.
BOLINGBROKE. Then, England's ground, farewell; sweet soil, adieu;
My mother, and my nurse, that bears me yet! Where'er I wander, boast
of this I can, Though banish'd, yet a true-born Englishman.
[Exeunt.]

SCENE IV. London. A Room in the King's Castle
[Enter KING RICHARD, BAGOT, and GREEN, at one door;
AUMERLE at another.]
KING 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.
KING RICHARD. And say, what store of parting tears were shed?
AUMERLE. Faith, none for me; except the north-east wind, Which
then blew bitterly against our faces, Awak'd the sleeping rheum, and so
by chance Did grace our hollow parting with a tear.
KING RICHARD. What said our cousin when you parted with him?
AUMERLE. 'Farewell:' And, for my heart disdained that my tongue
Should so profane the word, that taught me craft To counterfeit
oppression of such grief That words seem'd buried in my sorrow's
grave. Marry, would the word 'farewell' have lengthen'd hours And
added years to his short banishment, He should have had a volume of
farewells; But since it would not, he had none of me.
KING 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, Observ'd his
courtship to the common people, How he did seem to dive into their
hearts With humble and familiar courtesy, What reverence he did throw
away on