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  • Title: Richard II (Quarto 1, 1597)
  • Editor: Catherine Lisak

    • ISBN: 978-1-55058-436-3

    Copyright Internet Shakespeare Editions. This text may be freely used for educational, non-proift purposes; for all other uses contact the Coordinating Editor.
    Author: William Shakespeare
    Editor: Catherine Lisak
    Peer Reviewed

    Richard II (Quarto 1, 1597)

    The Tragedie of
    Au. Cosin farewel, what presence must not know,
    540From where you doe remaine let paper shew.
    Mar. My Lord, no leaue take I, for I will ride
    As farre as land will let me by your side.
    Gaunt. Oh to what purpose doest thou hoard thy words,
    That thou returnest no greeting to thy friends?
    545Bull. I haue too few to take my leaue of you,
    When the tongues office should be prodigall,
    To breathe the aboundant dolor of the heart.
    Gaunt. Thy griefe is but thy absence for a time.
    Bull. Ioy absent, griefe is present for that time.
    550Gaunt. What is sixe winters? they are quickly gone.
    Bul. To men in ioy, but griefe makes one hower ten.
    Gaun. Call it a trauaile that thou takst for pleasure.
    Bul. My heart will sigh when I miscall it so,
    Which findes it an inforced pilgrimage.
    555Gaun. The sullen passage of thy weary steps,
    Esteeme as foyle wherein thou art to set,
    The pretious Iewell of thy home returne.
    557.1Bul. Nay rather euery tedious stride I make,
    Will but remcmber me what a deale of world:
    I wander from the Iewels that I loue.
    Must I not serue a long apprentishood,
    557.5To forreine passages, and in the end,
    Hauing my freedome, boast of nothing else,
    But that I was a iourneyman to griefe.
    Gaun. All places that the eie of heauen visits,
    Are to a wiseman portes and happie hauens:
    557.10Teach thy necessity to reason thus,
    There is no vertue like necessity,
    Thinke not the King did banish thee,
    But thou the King. Woe doth the heauier sit,
    Where it perceiues it is but faintly borne:
    557.15Go, say I sent thee foorth to purchase honour,
    And not the King exilde thee; or suppose,
    Deuouring pestilence hangs in our aire,
    And thou art flying to a fresher clime:
    Looke
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