King Richard II - Уильям Шекспир

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moons and bring their times about,

          My oil-dried lamp and time-bewasted light

          Shall be extinct with age and endless night;

          My inch of taper will be burnt and done,

          And blindfold death not let me see my son.

        KING RICHARD. Why, uncle, thou hast many years to live.

        GAUNT. But not a minute, King, that thou canst give:

          Shorten my days thou canst with sullen sorrow

          And pluck nights from me, but not lend a morrow;

          Thou can'st help time to furrow me with age,

          But stop no wrinkle in his pilgrimage;

          Thy word is current with him for my death,

          But dead, thy kingdom cannot buy my breath.

        KING RICHARD. Thy son is banish'd upon good advice,

          Whereto thy tongue a party-verdict gave.

          Why at our justice seem'st thou then to lour?

        GAUNT. Things sweet to taste prove in digestion sour.

          You urg'd me as a judge; but I had rather

          You would have bid me argue like a father.

          O, had it been a stranger, not my child,

          To smooth his fault I should have been more mild.

          A partial slander sought I to avoid,

          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 with 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 returnest 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 home.

          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 goest, 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 he bites, but lanceth not the sore.

        GAUNT. Come, come, my son, I'll bring thee on thy way.

          Had I thy youtli 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 trueborn English man. [Exeunt]

      SCENE 4 London. The court

      [Enter the KING, with BAGOT and GREEN, at one door; and the DUKE OF 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 high way, 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

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