Internet Shakespeare Editions

Author: William Shakespeare
Editor: Catherine Lisak
Not Peer Reviewed

Richard II (Modern)

[1.2]
Enter John of Gaunt with the Duchess of Gloucester.
Gaunt
Alas, the part I had in Woodstock's blood
Doth more solicit me than your exclaims
220To 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,
225Will rain hot vengeance on offenders' heads.
Duchess of Gloucester
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,
230Or 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,
235One flourishing branch of his most royal root,
Is cracked, and all the precious liquor spilt,
Is hacked down, and his summer leaves all faded
By envy's hand and murder's bloody ax.
Ah, Gaunt, his blood was thine! That bed, that womb,
240That mettle, that self mold that fashioned thee
Made him a man; and though thou liv'st and breath'st,
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,
245Who was the model of thy father's life.
Call it not patience, Gaunt. It is despair.
In suff'ring thus thy brother to be slaughtered,
Thou showest the naked pathway to thy life,
Teaching stern murder how to butcher thee.
250That which in mean men we entitle 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.
Gaunt
God's is the quarrel; for God's substitute,
255His 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 of Gloucester
Where then, alas, may I complain myself?
260Gaunt
To God, the widow's champion and defense.
Duchess of Gloucester
Why then I will. Farewell, old Gaunt.
Thou goest to Coventry, there to behold
Our cousin Hereford and fell Mowbray fight.
Oh, set my husband's wrongs on Hereford's spear,
265That it may enter butcher Mowbray's breast!
Or if misfortune miss the first career,
Be Mowbray's sins so heavy in his bosom
That they may break his foaming courser's back
And throw the rider headlong in the lists,
270A caitiff recreant to my cousin Hereford!
Farewell, old Gaunt. Thy sometime brother's wife,
With her companion, grief, must end her life.
[She starts to leave.]
Gaunt
Sister, farewell. I must to Coventry.
As much good stay with thee as go with me.
[He starts to leave.]
275Duchess of Gloucester
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.
280Lo, 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 Pleshy visit me,
Alack, and what shall good old York there see
285But empty lodgings and unfurnished 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 everywhere.
290Desolate, desolate, will I hence and die.
The last leave of thee takes my weeping eye.Exeunt.