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King Richard II: Act I, Scene 2

King Richard II
Act I, Scene 2

The Duke of Lancaster’s palace.

  1. Enter John of Gaunt with the Duchess of Gloucester.

Gaunt

1 - 8
  1. Alas, the part I had in Woodstock’s blood
  2. Doth more solicit me than your exclaims
  3. To stir against the butchers of his life!
  4. But since correction lieth in those hands
  5. Which made the fault that we cannot correct,
  6. Put we our quarrel to the will of heaven,
  7. Who, when they see the hour’s ripe on earth,
  8. Will rain hot vengeance on offenders’ heads.

Duchess of Gloucester

9 - 36
  1. Finds brotherhood in thee no sharper spur?
  2. Hath love in thy old blood no living fire?
  3. Edward’s seven sons, whereof thyself art one,
  4. Were as seven vials of his sacred blood,
  5. Or seven fair branches springing from one root.
  6. Some of those seven are dried by nature’s course,
  7. Some of those branches by the Destinies cut;
  8. But Thomas, my dear lord, my life, my Gloucester,
  9. One vial full of Edward’s sacred blood,
  10. One flourishing branch of his most royal root,
  11. Is crack’d, and all the precious liquor spilt,
  12. Is hack’d down, and his summer leaves all faded,
  13. By envy’s hand and murder’s bloody axe.
  14. Ah, Gaunt, his blood was thine! That bed, that womb,
  15. That mettle, that self mould, that fashioned thee
  16. Made him a man; and though thou livest and breathest,
  17. Yet art thou slain in him. Thou dost consent
  18. In some large measure to thy father’s death,
  19. In that thou seest thy wretched brother die,
  20. Who was the model of thy father’s life.
  21. Call it not patience, Gaunt, it is despair.
  22. In suff’ring thus thy brother to be slaught’red,
  23. Thou showest the naked pathway to thy life,
  24. Teaching stern murder how to butcher thee.
  25. That which in mean men we entitle patience
  26. Is pale cold cowardice in noble breasts.
  27. What shall I say? To safeguard thine own life
  28. The best way is to venge my Gloucester’s death.

Gaunt

37 - 41
  1. God’s is the quarrel, for God’s substitute,
  2. His deputy anointed in His sight,
  3. Hath caus’d his death, the which if wrongfully,
  4. Let heaven revenge, for I may never lift
  5. An angry arm against His minister.

Duchess of Gloucester

42
  1. Where then, alas, may I complain myself?

Gaunt

43
  1. To God, the widow’s champion and defense.

Duchess of Gloucester

44 - 55
  1. Why then I will. Farewell, old Gaunt!
  2. Thou goest to Coventry, there to behold
  3. Our cousin Herford and fell Mowbray fight.
  4. O, sit my husband’s wrongs on Herford’s spear,
  5. That it may enter butcher Mowbray’s breast!
  6. Or if misfortune miss the first career,
  7. Be Mowbray’s sins so heavy in his bosom
  8. That they may break his foaming courser’s back,
  9. And throw the rider headlong in the lists,
  10. A caitiff recreant to my cousin Herford!
  11. Farewell, old Gaunt! Thy sometimes brother’s wife
  12. With her companion, grief, must end her life.

Gaunt

56 - 57
  1. Sister, farewell, I must to Coventry.
  2. As much good stay with thee as go with me!

Duchess of Gloucester

58 - 74
  1. Yet one word more! Grief boundeth where it falls,
  2. Not with the empty hollowness, but weight.
  3. I take my leave before I have begun,
  4. For sorrow ends not when it seemeth done.
  5. Commend me to thy brother, Edmund York.
  6. Lo this is allnay, yet depart not so;
  7. Though this be all, do not so quickly go;
  8. I shall remember more. Bid himah, what?—
  9. With all good speed at Plashy visit me.
  10. Alack, and what shall good old York there see
  11. But empty lodgings and unfurnish’d walls,
  12. Unpeopled offices, untrodden stones?
  13. And what hear there for welcome but my groans?
  14. Therefore commend me; let him not come there
  15. To seek out sorrow that dwells every where.
  16. Desolate, desolate, will I hence and die:
  17. The last leave of thee takes my weeping eye.
  1. Exeunt.
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