Complete Plays, The

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Complete Plays, The Page 157

by William Shakespeare


  Duke of Gloucester.

  Lady attending on the Queen

  Lords, Heralds, Officers, Soldiers, Keeper, Messenger, Groom, and other Attendants

  Scene: England and Wales

  ACT I

  SCENE I. LONDON. KING RICHARD II’S PALACE.

  Enter King Richard II, John Of Gaunt, with other Nobles and Attendants

  King Richard II

  Old John of Gaunt, time-honour’d Lancaster,

  Hast thou, according to thy oath and band,

  Brought hither Henry Hereford thy bold son,

  Here to make good the boisterous late appeal,

  Which then our leisure would not let us hear,

  Against the Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray?

  John Of Gaunt

  I have, my liege.

  King Richard II

  Tell me, moreover, hast thou sounded him,

  If he appeal the duke on ancient malice;

  Or worthily, as a good subject should,

  On some known ground of treachery in him?

  John Of Gaunt

  As near as I could sift him on that argument,

  On some apparent danger seen in him

  Aim’d at your highness, no inveterate malice.

  King Richard II

  Then call them to our presence; face to face,

  And frowning brow to brow, ourselves will hear

  The accuser and the accused freely speak:

  High-stomach’d are they both, and full of ire,

  In rage deaf as the sea, hasty as fire.

  Enter Henry Bolingbroke and Thomas Mowbray

  Henry Bolingbroke

  Many years of happy days befal

  My gracious sovereign, my most loving liege!

  Thomas Mowbray

  Each day still better other’s happiness;

  Until the heavens, envying earth’s good hap,

  Add an immortal title to your crown!

  King Richard II

  We thank you both: yet one but flatters us,

  As well appeareth by the cause you come;

  Namely to appeal each other of high treason.

  Cousin of Hereford, what dost thou object

  Against the Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray?

  Henry Bolingbroke

  First, heaven be the record to my speech!

  In the devotion of a subject’s love,

  Tendering the precious safety of my prince,

  And free from other misbegotten hate,

  Come I appellant to this princely presence.

  Now, Thomas Mowbray, do I turn to thee,

  And mark my greeting well; for what I speak

  My body shall make good upon this earth,

  Or my divine soul answer it in heaven.

  Thou art a traitor and a miscreant,

  Too good to be so and too bad to live,

  Since the more fair and crystal is the sky,

  The uglier seem the clouds that in it fly.

  Once more, the more to aggravate the note,

  With a foul traitor’s name stuff I thy throat;

  And wish, so please my sovereign, ere I move,

  What my tongue speaks my right drawn sword may prove.

  Thomas Mowbray

  Let not my cold words here accuse my zeal:

  ’Tis not the trial of a woman’s war,

  The bitter clamour of two eager tongues,

  Can arbitrate this cause betwixt us twain;

  The blood is hot that must be cool’d for this:

  Yet can I not of such tame patience boast

  As to be hush’d and nought at all to say:

  First, the fair reverence of your highness curbs me

  From giving reins and spurs to my free speech;

  Which else would post until it had return’d

  These terms of treason doubled down his throat.

  Setting aside his high blood’s royalty,

  And let him be no kinsman to my liege,

  I do defy him, and I spit at him;

  Call him a slanderous coward and a villain:

  Which to maintain I would allow him odds,

  And meet him, were I tied to run afoot

  Even to the frozen ridges of the Alps,

  Or any other ground inhabitable,

  Where ever Englishman durst set his foot.

  Mean time let this defend my loyalty,

  By all my hopes, most falsely doth he lie.

  Henry Bolingbroke

  Pale trembling coward, there I throw my gage,

  Disclaiming here the kindred of the king,

  And lay aside my high blood’s royalty,

  Which fear, not reverence, makes thee to except.

  If guilty dread have left thee so much strength

  As to take up mine honour’s pawn, then stoop:

  By that and all the rites of knighthood else,

  Will I make good against thee, arm to arm,

  What I have spoke, or thou canst worse devise.

  Thomas Mowbray

  I take it up; and by that sword I swear

  Which gently laid my knighthood on my shoulder,

  I’ll answer thee in any fair degree,

  Or chivalrous design of knightly trial:

  And when I mount, alive may I not light,

  If I be traitor or unjustly fight!

  King Richard II

  What doth our cousin lay to Mowbray’s charge?

  It must be great that can inherit us

  So much as of a thought of ill in him.

  Henry Bolingbroke

  Look, what I speak, my life shall prove it true;

  That Mowbray hath received eight thousand nobles

  In name of lendings for your highness’ soldiers,

  The which he hath detain’d for lewd employments,

  Like a false traitor and injurious villain.

  Besides I say and will in battle prove,

  Or here or elsewhere to the furthest verge

  That ever was survey’d by English eye,

  That all the treasons for these eighteen years

  Complotted and contrived in this land

  Fetch from false Mowbray their first head and spring.

  Further I say and further will maintain

  Upon his bad life to make all this good,

  That he did plot the Duke of Gloucester’s death,

  Suggest his soon-believing adversaries,

  And consequently, like a traitor coward,

  Sluiced out his innocent soul through streams of blood:

  Which blood, like sacrificing Abel’s, cries,

  Even from the tongueless caverns of the earth,

  To me for justice and rough chastisement;

  And, by the glorious worth of my descent,

  This arm shall do it, or this life be spent.

  King Richard II

  How high a pitch his resolution soars!

  Thomas of Norfolk, what say’st thou to this?

  Thomas Mowbray

  O, let my sovereign turn away his face

  And bid his ears a little while be deaf,

  Till I have told this slander of his blood,

  How God and good men hate so foul a liar.

  King Richard II

  Mowbray, impartial are our eyes and ears:

  Were he my brother, nay, my kingdom’s heir,

  As he is but my father’s brother’s son,

  Now, by my sceptre’s awe, I make a vow,

  Such neighbour nearness to our sacred blood

  Should nothing privilege him, nor partialize

  The unstooping firmness of my upright soul:

  He is our subject, Mowbray; so art thou:

  Free speech and fearless I to thee allow.

  Thomas Mowbray

  Then, Bolingbroke, as low as to thy heart,

  Through the false passage of thy throat, thou liest.

  Three parts of that receipt I had for Calais

  Disbursed I duly to his highness’ soldier
s;

  The other part reserved I by consent,

  For that my sovereign liege was in my debt

  Upon remainder of a dear account,

  Since last I went to France to fetch his queen:

  Now swallow down that lie. For Gloucester’s death,

  I slew him not; but to my own disgrace

  Neglected my sworn duty in that case.

  For you, my noble Lord of Lancaster,

  The honourable father to my foe

  Once did I lay an ambush for your life,

  A trespass that doth vex my grieved soul

  But ere I last received the sacrament

  I did confess it, and exactly begg’d

  Your grace’s pardon, and I hope I had it.

  This is my fault: as for the rest appeall’d,

  It issues from the rancour of a villain,

  A recreant and most degenerate traitor

  Which in myself I boldly will defend;

  And interchangeably hurl down my gage

  Upon this overweening traitor’s foot,

  To prove myself a loyal gentleman

  Even in the best blood chamber’d in his bosom.

  In haste whereof, most heartily I pray

  Your highness to assign our trial day.

  King Richard II

  Wrath-kindled gentlemen, be ruled by me;

  Let’s purge this choler without letting blood:

  This we prescribe, though no physician;

  Deep malice makes too deep incision;

  Forget, forgive; conclude and be agreed;

  Our doctors say this is no month to bleed.

  Good uncle, let this end where it begun;

  We’ll calm the Duke of Norfolk, you your son.

  John Of Gaunt

  To be a make-peace shall become my age:

  Throw down, my son, the Duke of Norfolk’s gage.

  King Richard II

  And, Norfolk, throw down his.

  John Of Gaunt

  When, Harry, when?

  Obedience bids I should not bid again.

  King Richard II

  Norfolk, throw down, we bid; there is no boot.

  Thomas Mowbray

  Myself I throw, dread sovereign, at thy foot.

  My life thou shalt command, but not my shame:

  The one my duty owes; but my fair name,

  Despite of death that lives upon my grave,

  To dark dishonour’s use thou shalt not have.

  I am disgraced, impeach’d and baffled here,

  Pierced to the soul with slander’s venom’d spear,

  The which no balm can cure but his heart-blood

  Which breathed this poison.

  King Richard II

  Rage must be withstood:

  Give me his gage: lions make leopards tame.

  Thomas Mowbray

  Yea, but not change his spots: take but my shame.

  And I resign my gage. My dear dear lord,

  The purest treasure mortal times afford

  Is spotless reputation: that away,

  Men are but gilded loam or painted clay.

  A jewel in a ten-times-barr’d-up chest

  Is a bold spirit in a loyal breast.

  Mine honour is my life; both grow in one:

  Take honour from me, and my life is done:

  Then, dear my liege, mine honour let me try;

  In that I live and for that will I die.

  King Richard II

  Cousin, throw up your gage; do you begin.

  Henry Bolingbroke

  O, God defend my soul from such deep sin!

  Shall I seem crest-fall’n in my father’s sight?

  Or with pale beggar-fear impeach my height

  Before this out-dared dastard? Ere my tongue

  Shall wound my honour with such feeble wrong,

  Or sound so base a parle, my teeth shall tear

  The slavish motive of recanting fear,

  And spit it bleeding in his high disgrace,

  Where shame doth harbour, even in Mowbray’s face.

  Exit John Of Gaunt

  King Richard II

  We were not born to sue, but to command;

  Which since we cannot do to make you friends,

  Be ready, as your lives shall answer it,

  At Coventry, upon Saint Lambert’s day:

  There shall your swords and lances arbitrate

  The swelling difference of your settled hate:

  Since we can not atone you, we shall see

  Justice design the victor’s chivalry.

  Lord marshal, command our officers at arms

  Be ready to direct these home alarms.

  Exeunt

  SCENE II. THE DUKE OF LANCASTER’S PALACE.

  Enter John Of Gaunt with Duchess

  John Of Gaunt

  Alas, the part I had in Woodstock’s blood

  Doth more solicit me than your exclaims,

  To stir against the butchers of his life!

  But since correction lieth in those hands

  Which made the fault that we cannot correct,

  Put we our quarrel to the will of heaven;

  Who, when they see the hours ripe on earth,

  Will rain hot vengeance on offenders’ heads.

  Duchess

  Finds brotherhood in thee no sharper spur?

  Hath love in thy old blood no living fire?

  Edward’s seven sons, whereof thyself art one,

  Were as seven vials of his sacred blood,

  Or seven fair branches springing from one root:

  Some of those seven are dried by nature’s course,

  Some of those branches by the Destinies cut;

  But Thomas, my dear lord, my life, my Gloucester,

  One vial full of Edward’s sacred blood,

  One flourishing branch of his most royal root,

  Is crack’d, and all the precious liquor spilt,

  Is hack’d down, and his summer leaves all faded,

  By envy’s hand and murder’s bloody axe.

  Ah, Gaunt, his blood was thine! that bed, that womb,

  That metal, that self-mould, that fashion’d thee

  Made him a man; and though thou livest and breathest,

  Yet art thou slain in him: thou dost consent

  In some large measure to thy father’s death,

  In that thou seest thy wretched brother die,

  Who was the model of thy father’s life.

  Call it not patience, Gaunt; it is despair:

  In suffering thus thy brother to be slaughter’d,

  Thou showest the naked pathway to thy life,

  Teaching stern murder how to butcher thee:

  That which in mean men we intitle patience

  Is pale cold cowardice in noble breasts.

  What shall I say? to safeguard thine own life,

  The best way is to venge my Gloucester’s death.

  John Of Gaunt

  God’s is the quarrel; for God’s substitute,

  His deputy anointed in His sight,

  Hath caused his death: the which if wrongfully,

  Let heaven revenge; for I may never lift

  An angry arm against His minister.

  Duchess

  Where then, alas, may I complain myself?

  John Of Gaunt

  To God, the widow’s champion and defence.

  Duchess

  Why, then, I will. Farewell, old Gaunt.

  Thou goest to Coventry, there to behold

  Our cousin Hereford and fell Mowbray fight:

  O, sit my husband’s wrongs on Hereford’s spear,

  That it may enter butcher Mowbray’s breast!

  Or, if misfortune miss the first career,

  Be Mowbray’s sins so heavy in his bosom,

  They may break his foaming courser’s back,

  And throw the rider headlong in the lists,

  A caitiff recreant to my cousin Hereford!

  Farewell, ol
d Gaunt: thy sometimes brother’s wife

  With her companion grief must end her life.

  John Of Gaunt

  Sister, farewell; I must to Coventry:

  As much good stay with thee as go with me!

  Duchess

  Yet one word more: grief boundeth where it falls,

  Not with the empty hollowness, but weight:

  I take my leave before I have begun,

  For sorrow ends not when it seemeth done.

  Commend me to thy brother, Edmund York.

  Lo, this is all:— nay, yet depart not so;

  Though this be all, do not so quickly go;

  I shall remember more. Bid him — ah, what?—

  With all good speed at Plashy visit me.

  Alack, and what shall good old York there see

  But empty lodgings and unfurnish’d walls,

  Unpeopled offices, untrodden stones?

  And what hear there for welcome but my groans?

  Therefore commend me; let him not come there,

  To seek out sorrow that dwells every where.

  Desolate, desolate, will I hence and die:

  The last leave of thee takes my weeping eye.

  Exeunt

  SCENE III. THE LISTS AT COVENTRY.

  Enter the Lord Marshal and the Duke Of Aumerle

  Lord Marshal

  My Lord Aumerle, is Harry Hereford arm’d?

  Duke Of Aumerle

  Yea, at all points; and longs to enter in.

  Lord Marshal

  The Duke of Norfolk, sprightfully and bold,

  Stays but the summons of the appellant’s trumpet.

  Duke Of Aumerle

  Why, then, the champions are prepared, and stay

  For nothing but his majesty’s approach.

  The trumpets sound, and King Richard enters with his nobles, John Of Gaunt, Bushy, Bagot, Green, and others. When they are set, enter Thomas Mowbray in arms, defendant, with a Herald

  King Richard II

  Marshal, demand of yonder champion

  The cause of his arrival here in arms:

  Ask him his name and orderly proceed

  To swear him in the justice of his cause.

  Lord Marshal

  In God’s name and the king’s, say who thou art

  And why thou comest thus knightly clad in arms,

  Against what man thou comest, and what thy quarrel:

  Speak truly, on thy knighthood and thy oath;

  As so defend thee heaven and thy valour!

  Thomas Mowbray

  My name is Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk;

  Who hither come engaged by my oath —

  Which God defend a knight should violate!—

  Both to defend my loyalty and truth

  To God, my king and my succeeding issue,

  Against the Duke of Hereford that appeals me

  And, by the grace of God and this mine arm,

 

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