Hard BreXit

Confound their politics

Frustrate their knavish tricks
On Thee our hopes we fix
God save us all

Life style is defined by others, opportunity is defined by others... you don't have to be black to be a n***** in this society.

most people in America are n*****s.

Self-Love is Not So Vile a Sin as Self-Neglecting.

KING OF FRANCE

From our brother England?

EXETER

From him; and thus he greets your majesty.

He wills you, in the name of God Almighty,

That you divest yourself, and lay apart

The borrow'd glories that by gift of heaven,

By law of nature and of nations, 'long

To him and to his heirs; namely, the crown

And all wide-stretched honours that pertain

By custom and the ordinance of times

Unto the crown of France. That you may know

'Tis no sinister nor no awkward claim,

Pick'd from the worm-holes of long-vanish'd days,

Nor from the dust of old oblivion raked,

He sends you this most memorable line,

In every branch truly demonstrative;

Willing to overlook this pedigree:

And when you find him evenly derived

From his most famed of famous ancestors,

Edward the Third, he bids you then resign

Your crown and kingdom, indirectly held

From him the native and true challenger.

KING OF FRANCE

Or else what follows?

EXETER

Bloody constraint; for if you hide the crown

Even in your hearts, there will he rake for it:

Therefore in fierce tempest is he coming,

In thunder and in earthquake, like a Jove,

That, if requiring fail, he will compel;

And bids you, in the bowels of the Lord,

Deliver up the crown, and to take mercy

On the poor souls for whom this hungry war

Opens his vasty jaws; and on your head

Turning the widows' tears, the orphans' cries

The dead men's blood, the pining maidens groans,

For husbands, fathers and betrothed lovers,

That shall be swallow'd in this controversy.

This is his claim, his threatening and my message;

Unless the Dauphin be in presence here,

To whom expressly I bring greeting too.

KING OF FRANCE

For us, we will consider of this further:

To-morrow shall you bear our full intent

Back to our brother England.

DAUPHIN

For the Dauphin,

I stand here for him: what to him from England?

EXETER

Scorn and defiance; slight regard, contempt,

And any thing that may not misbecome

The mighty sender, doth he prize you at.

Thus says my king; an' if your father's highness

Do not, in grant of all demands at large,

Sweeten the bitter mock you sent his majesty,

He'll call you to so hot an answer of it,

That caves and womby vaultages of France

Shall chide your trespass and return your mock

In second accent of his ordnance.

DAUPHIN

Say, if my father render fair return,

It is against my will; for I desire

Nothing but odds with England: to that end,

As matching to his youth and vanity,

I did present him with the Paris balls.

EXETER

He'll make your Paris Louvre shake for it,

Were it the mistress-court of mighty Europe:

And, be assured, you'll find a difference,

As we his subjects have in wonder found,

Between the promise of his greener days

And these he masters now: now he weighs time

Even to the utmost grain: that you shall read

In your own losses, if he stay in France.

KING OF FRANCE

To-morrow shall you know our mind at full.

EXETER

Dispatch us with all speed, lest that our king

Come here himself to question our delay;

For he is footed in this land already.

KING OF FRANCE

You shall be soon dispatch's with fair conditions:

A night is but small breath and little pause

To answer matters of this consequence.

Flourish. Exeunt

Say, then, to Caesar,

Our ancestor was that Mulmutius which

Ordain'd our laws, whose use the sword of Caesar

Hath too much mangled; whose repair and franchise

Shall, by the power we hold, be our good deed,

Though Rome be therefore angry: Mulmutius made our laws,

Who was the first of Britain which did put

His brows within a golden crown and call'd

Himself a King.

ACT III

SCENE I. Britain. A hall in Cymbeline's palace.

Enter in state, CYMBELINE, QUEEN, CLOTEN, and Lords at one door, and at another, CAIUS LUCIUS and Attendants 

CYMBELINE 

Now say, what would Augustus Caesar with us?

CAIUS LUCIUS 

When Julius Caesar, whose remembrance yet

Lives in men's eyes and will to ears and tongues

Be theme and hearing ever, was in this Britain

And conquer'd it, Cassibelan, thine uncle,--

Famous in Caesar's praises, no whit less

Than in his feats deserving it--for him

And his succession granted Rome a tribute,

Yearly three thousand pounds, which by thee lately

Is left untender'd.

QUEEN 

And, to kill the marvel,

Shall be so ever.

CLOTEN 

There be many Caesars,

Ere such another Julius. Britain is

A world by itself; and we will nothing pay

For wearing our own noses.

QUEEN 

That opportunity

Which then they had to take from 's, to resume

We have again. Remember, sir, my liege,

The kings your ancestors, together with

The natural bravery of your isle, which stands

As Neptune's park, ribbed and paled in

With rocks unscalable and roaring waters,

With sands that will not bear your enemies' boats,

But suck them up to the topmast. A kind of conquest

Caesar made here; but made not here his brag

Of 'Came' and 'saw' and 'overcame: ' with shame--

That first that ever touch'd him--he was carried

From off our coast, twice beaten; and his shipping--

Poor ignorant baubles!-- upon our terrible seas,

Like egg-shells moved upon their surges, crack'd

As easily 'gainst our rocks: for joy whereof

The famed Cassibelan, who was once at point--

O giglot fortune!--to master Caesar's sword,

Made Lud's town with rejoicing fires bright

And Britons strut with courage.

CLOTEN 

Come, there's no more tribute to be paid: our

kingdom is stronger than it was at that time; and,

as I said, there is no moe such Caesars: other of

them may have crook'd noses, but to owe such

straight arms, none.

CYMBELINE 

Son, let your mother end.

CLOTEN 

We have yet many among us can gripe as hard as

Cassibelan: I do not say I am one; but I have a

hand. Why tribute? why should we pay tribute? If

Caesar can hide the sun from us with a blanket, or

put the moon in his pocket, we will pay him tribute

for light; else, sir, no more tribute, pray you now.

CYMBELINE 

You must know,

Till the injurious Romans did extort

This tribute from us, we were free:

Caesar's ambition,

Which swell'd so much that it did almost stretch

The sides o' the world, against all colour here

Did put the yoke upon 's; which to shake off

Becomes a warlike people, whom we reckon

Ourselves to be.

CLOTEN Lords 

We do.

CYMBELINE 

Say, then, to Caesar,

Our ancestor was that Mulmutius which

Ordain'd our laws, whose use the sword of Caesar

Hath too much mangled; whose repair and franchise

Shall, by the power we hold, be our good deed,

Though Rome be therefore angry: Mulmutius made our laws,

Who was the first of Britain which did put

His brows within a golden crown and call'd

Himself a king.

CAIUS LUCIUS 

I am sorry, Cymbeline,

That I am to pronounce Augustus Caesar--

Caesar, that hath more kings his servants than

Thyself domestic officers--thine enemy:

Receive it from me, then: war and confusion

In Caesar's name pronounce I 'gainst thee: look

For fury not to be resisted. Thus defied,

I thank thee for myself.

CYMBELINE 

Thou art welcome, Caius.

Thy Caesar knighted me; my youth I spent

Much under him; of him I gather'd honour;

Which he to seek of me again, perforce,

Behoves me keep at utterance. I am perfect

That the Pannonians and Dalmatians for

Their liberties are now in arms; a precedent

Which not to read would show the Britons cold:

So Caesar shall not find them.

CAIUS LUCIUS 

Let proof speak.

CLOTEN 

His majesty bids you welcome. Make

pastime with us a day or two, or longer: if

you seek us afterwards in other terms, you

shall find us in our salt-water girdle: if you

beat us out of it, it is yours; if you fall in

the adventure, our crows shall fare the better

for you; and there's an end.

CAIUS LUCIUS 

So, sir.

CYMBELINE 

I know your master's pleasure and he mine:

All the remain is 'Welcome!'

Exeunt

BreXit : Black Wednesday

 A Documentary About the Crash of the Pound Sterling in the European Exchange Rate Mechanism

An Ode to Negative Equity

Freude, schöner Götterfunken,

Tochter aus Elysium,

Wir betreten feuertrunken,

Himmlische, dein Heiligtum!

Deine Zauber binden wieder

Was die Mode streng geteilt*;

Alle Menschen werden Brüder*

Wo dein sanfter Flügel weilt.

Wem der große Wurf gelungen

Eines Freundes Freund zu sein;

Wer ein holdes Weib errungen

Mische seinen Jubel ein!

Ja, wer auch nur eine Seele

Sein nennt auf dem Erdenrund!

Und wer's nie gekonnt, der stehle

Weinend sich aus diesem Bund!

Freude trinken alle Wesen

An den Brüsten der Natur;

Alle Guten, alle Bösen

Folgen ihrer Rosenspur.

Küsse gab sie uns und Reben,

Einen Freund, geprüft im Tod;

Wollust ward dem Wurm gegeben

und der Cherub steht vor Gott.

Froh, wie seine Sonnen fliegen

Durch des Himmels prächt'gen Plan

Laufet, Brüder, eure Bahn,

Freudig, wie ein Held zum siegen.

Seid umschlungen, Millionen!

Diesen Kuß der ganzen Welt!

Brüder, über'm Sternenzelt

Muß ein lieber Vater wohnen.

Ihr stürzt nieder, Millionen?

Ahnest du den Schöpfer, Welt?

Such' ihn über'm Sternenzelt!

Über Sternen muß er wohnen

BreXit - Bernard Connolly

"I don't know how people who are in favour of the European Union can sleep at night."

"I don't know how people who are in favour of the European Union can sleep at night - because what they are doing is creating a set of social tensions by eliminating a political sense of national identity,

 they force human beings....

to seek a sense of belonging 

in something else... 

There is an ethnic sense, racial, religious, linguistic....

We are starting to see that, unfortunately, happening in Europe."

"A human life, I think, should be well rooted in some spot of a native land, where it may get the love of tender kinship for the face of the earth, for the labors men go forth to, for the sounds and accents that haunt it, for whatever will give that early home a familiar unmistakable difference amidst the future widening of knowledge. 

The best introduction to astronomy is to think of the nightly heavens as a little lot of stars belonging to one's own homestead." 

- George Eliot

"For Mazzini, a nationality means a race, a fixed array of behavior like a breed of dog or a species of animal. 

He is not thinking of a national community united by a literate language and a classical culture to which any person can become assimilated through a political choice. 

For Mazzini, Race is unchangeable, 

and Race is Destiny. 

It is a matter of Blood and Soil. 

Cats fight Dogs.

French fight Germans.

Germans fight Poles.

…and so on through 

all eternity. 

These hatreds are the main datum 

of sensory perception.

Each of Mazzini’s organizations demands immediate national liberation for its own ethnic group on the basis of aggressive chauvinism and expansionism. 

Mazzini’s warhorse is 

The Territorial Imperative. 

Each is obsessed with 

borders and territory, 

and each finds a way to oppose 

and sabotage dirigist economic development. 

Each one is eager to submerge and 

repress other national groupings 

in pursuit of its own 

mystical destiny. 

This is Mazzini’s racist gospel of Universal Ethnic Cleansing."

http://spikethenews.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/lord-palmerstons-multicultural-human.html

BreXit : For I am Welsh, You Know..

"For I am Welsh, you know, good my countryman...."

Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot,

But he'll remember with advantages

What feats he did that day: then shall our names.

Familiar in his mouth as household words

Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter,

Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,

Be in their flowing cups freshly remember'd.

This story shall the good man teach his son;

And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,

From this day to the ending of the world,

But we in it shall be remember'd;

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;

For he to-day that sheds his blood with me

Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,

This day shall gentle his condition:

And gentlemen in England now a-bed

Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,

And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks

That fought with us 

Upon Saint Crispin's Day!

SCENE VII. Another part of the field.

Enter FLUELLEN and GOWER

FLUELLEN

Kill the boys and the luggage! 'tis expressly
against the law of arms: 'tis as arrant a piece of
knavery, mark you now, as can be offer't; in your
conscience, now, is it not?

GOWER

'Tis certain there's not a boy left alive; and the
cowardly rascals that ran from the battle ha' done
this slaughter: besides, they have burned and
carried away all that was in the king's tent;
wherefore the king, most worthily, hath caused every
soldier to cut his prisoner's throat. O, 'tis a
gallant king!

FLUELLEN

Ay, he was born at Monmouth, Captain Gower. What
call you the town's name where Alexander the Big was born!

GOWER

Alexander the Great.

FLUELLEN

Why, I pray you, is not big great? the big, or the
great, or the mighty, or the huge, or the
magnanimous, are all one reckonings, save the phrase
is a little variations.

GOWER

I think Alexander the Great was born in Macedon; his
father was called Philip of Macedon, as I take it.

FLUELLEN

I think it is in Macedon where Alexander is born. I
tell you, captain, if you look in the maps of the
'orld, I warrant you sall find, in the comparisons
between Macedon and Monmouth, that the situations,
look you, is both alike. There is a river in
Macedon; and there is also moreover a river at
Monmouth: it is called Wye at Monmouth; but it is
out of my prains what is the name of the other
river; but 'tis all one, 'tis alike as my fingers is
to my fingers, and there is salmons in both. If you
mark Alexander's life well, Harry of Monmouth's life
is come after it indifferent well; for there is
figures in all things. Alexander, God knows, and
you know, in his rages, and his furies, and his
wraths, and his cholers, and his moods, and his
displeasures, and his indignations, and also being a
little intoxicates in his prains, did, in his ales and
his angers, look you, kill his best friend, Cleitus.

GOWER

Our king is not like him in that: he never killed
any of his friends.

FLUELLEN

It is not well done, mark you now take the tales out
of my mouth, ere it is made and finished. I speak
but in the figures and comparisons of it: as
Alexander killed his friend Cleitus, being in his
ales and his cups; so also Harry Monmouth, being in
his right wits and his good judgments, turned away
the fat knight with the great belly-doublet: he
was full of jests, and gipes, and knaveries, and
mocks; I have forgot his name.

GOWER

Sir John Falstaff.

FLUELLEN

That is he: I'll tell you there is good men born at Monmouth.

GOWER

Here comes his majesty.

Alarum. Enter KING HENRY, and forces; WARWICK, GLOUCESTER, EXETER, and others

KING HENRY V

I was not angry since I came to France
Until this instant. Take a trumpet, herald;
Ride thou unto the horsemen on yon hill:
If they will fight with us, bid them come down,
Or void the field; they do offend our sight:
If they'll do neither, we will come to them,
And make them skirr away, as swift as stones
Enforced from the old Assyrian slings:
Besides, we'll cut the throats of those we have,
And not a man of them that we shall take
Shall taste our mercy. Go and tell them so.

Enter MONTJOY

EXETER

Here comes the herald of the French, my liege.

GLOUCESTER

His eyes are humbler than they used to be.

KING HENRY V

How now! what means this, herald? know'st thou not
That I have fined these bones of mine for ransom?
Comest thou again for ransom?

MONTJOY

No, great king:
I come to thee for charitable licence,
That we may wander o'er this bloody field
To look our dead, and then to bury them;
To sort our nobles from our common men.
For many of our princes--woe the while!--
Lie drown'd and soak'd in mercenary blood;
So do our vulgar drench their peasant limbs
In blood of princes; and their wounded steeds
Fret fetlock deep in gore and with wild rage
Yerk out their armed heels at their dead masters,
Killing them twice. O, give us leave, great king,
To view the field in safety and dispose
Of their dead bodies!

KING HENRY V

I tell thee truly, herald,
I know not if the day be ours or no;
For yet a many of your horsemen peer
And gallop o'er the field.

MONTJOY

The day is yours.

KING HENRY V

Praised be God, and not our strength, for it!
What is this castle call'd that stands hard by?

MONTJOY

They call it Agincourt.

KING HENRY V

Then call we this the field of Agincourt,
Fought on the day of Crispin Crispianus.

FLUELLEN

Your grandfather of famous memory, an't please your
majesty, and your great-uncle Edward the Black
Prince of Wales, as I have read in the chronicles,
fought a most prave pattle here in France.

KING HENRY V

They did, Fluellen.

FLUELLEN

Your majesty says very true: if your majesties is
remembered of it, the Welshmen did good service in a
garden where leeks did grow, wearing leeks in their
Monmouth caps; which, your majesty know, to this
hour is an honourable badge of the service; and I do
believe your majesty takes no scorn to wear the leek
upon Saint Tavy's day.

KING HENRY V

I wear it for a memorable honour;
For I am Welsh, you know, good countryman.

FLUELLEN

All the water in Wye cannot wash your majesty's
Welsh plood out of your pody, I can tell you that:
God pless it and preserve it, as long as it pleases
his grace, and his majesty too!

KING HENRY V

Thanks, good my countryman.

FLUELLEN

By Jeshu, I am your majesty's countryman, I care not
who know it; I will confess it to all the 'orld: I
need not to be ashamed of your majesty, praised be
God, so long as your majesty is an honest man.

KING HENRY V

God keep me so! Our heralds go with him:
Bring me just notice of the numbers dead
On both our parts. Call yonder fellow hither.

Points to WILLIAMS. Exeunt Heralds with Montjoy

EXETER

Soldier, you must come to the king.

KING HENRY V

Soldier, why wearest thou that glove in thy cap?

WILLIAMS

An't please your majesty, 'tis the gage of one that
I should fight withal, if he be alive.

KING HENRY V

An Englishman?

WILLIAMS

An't please your majesty, a rascal that swaggered
with me last night; who, if alive and ever dare to
challenge this glove, I have sworn to take him a box
o' th' ear: or if I can see my glove in his cap,
which he swore, as he was a soldier, he would wear
if alive, I will strike it out soundly.

KING HENRY V

What think you, Captain Fluellen? is it fit this
soldier keep his oath?

FLUELLEN

He is a craven and a villain else, an't please your
majesty, in my conscience.

KING HENRY V

It may be his enemy is a gentleman of great sort,
quite from the answer of his degree.

FLUELLEN

Though he be as good a gentleman as the devil is, as
Lucifer and Belzebub himself, it is necessary, look
your grace, that he keep his vow and his oath: if
he be perjured, see you now, his reputation is as
arrant a villain and a Jacksauce, as ever his black
shoe trod upon God's ground and his earth, in my
conscience, la!

KING HENRY V

Then keep thy vow, sirrah, when thou meetest the fellow.

WILLIAMS

So I will, my liege, as I live.

KING HENRY V

Who servest thou under?

WILLIAMS

Under Captain Gower, my liege.

FLUELLEN

Gower is a good captain, and is good knowledge and
literatured in the wars.

KING HENRY V

Call him hither to me, soldier.

WILLIAMS

I will, my liege.

Exit

KING HENRY V

Here, Fluellen; wear thou this favour for me and
stick it in thy cap: when Alencon and myself were
down together, I plucked this glove from his helm:
if any man challenge this, he is a friend to
Alencon, and an enemy to our person; if thou
encounter any such, apprehend him, an thou dost me love.

FLUELLEN

Your grace doo's me as great honours as can be
desired in the hearts of his subjects: I would fain
see the man, that has but two legs, that shall find
himself aggrieved at this glove; that is all; but I
would fain see it once, an please God of his grace
that I might see.

KING HENRY V

Knowest thou Gower?

FLUELLEN

He is my dear friend, an please you.

KING HENRY V

Pray thee, go seek him, and bring him to my tent.

FLUELLEN

I will fetch him.

Exit

KING HENRY V

My Lord of Warwick, and my brother Gloucester,
Follow Fluellen closely at the heels:
The glove which I have given him for a favour
May haply purchase him a box o' th' ear;
It is the soldier's; I by bargain should
Wear it myself. Follow, good cousin Warwick:
If that the soldier strike him, as I judge
By his blunt bearing he will keep his word,
Some sudden mischief may arise of it;
For I do know Fluellen valiant
And, touched with choler, hot as gunpowder,
And quickly will return an injury:
Follow and see there be no harm between them.
Go you with me, uncle of Exeter.

Exeunt

BreXit : Gaunt

"Landlord of England art thou now, not king:
Thy state of law is bondslave to the law; And thou--"

John of Gaunt (Patrick Stewart) is dying. 

He criticises Richard (Ben Wishaw) for 

being surrounded by a thousand flatterers and for being landlord of England rather than King.

"This royal throne of kings, this scepter'd isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise,
This fortress built by Nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war,
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall,
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands,
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England,
This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings,
Fear'd by their breed and famous by their birth,
Renowned for their deeds as far from home,
For Christian service and true chivalry,
As is the sepulchre in stubborn Jewry,
Of the world's ransom, blessed Mary's Son,
This land of such dear souls, this dear dear land,
Dear for her reputation through the world,
Is now leased out, I die pronouncing it,
Like to a tenement or pelting farm:
England, bound in with the triumphant sea
Whose rocky shore beats back the envious siege
Of watery Neptune, is now bound in with shame,
With inky blots and rotten parchment bonds:
That England, that was wont to conquer others,
Hath made a shameful conquest of itself.
Ah, would the scandal vanish with my life,
How happy then were my ensuing death!"

SCENE I. Ely House.

Enter JOHN OF GAUNT sick, with the DUKE OF YORK, & c

JOHN OF GAUNT

Will the king come, that I may breathe my last
In wholesome counsel to his unstaid youth?

DUKE OF YORK

Vex not yourself, nor strive not with your breath;
For all in vain comes counsel to his ear.

JOHN OF GAUNT

O, but they say the tongues of dying men
Enforce attention like deep harmony:
Where words are scarce, they are seldom spent in vain,
For they breathe truth that breathe their words in pain.
He that no more must say is listen'd more
Than they whom youth and ease have taught to glose;
More are men's ends mark'd than their lives before:
The setting sun, and music at the close,
As the last taste of sweets, is sweetest last,
Writ in remembrance more than things long past:
Though Richard my life's counsel would not hear,
My death's sad tale may yet undeaf his ear.

DUKE OF YORK

No; it is stopp'd with other flattering sounds,
As praises, of whose taste the wise are fond,
Lascivious metres, to whose venom sound
The open ear of youth doth always listen;
Report of fashions in proud Italy,
Whose manners still our tardy apish nation
Limps after in base imitation.
Where doth the world thrust forth a vanity--
So it be new, there's no respect how vile--
That is not quickly buzzed into his ears?
Then all too late comes counsel to be heard,
Where will doth mutiny with wit's regard.
Direct not him whose way himself will choose:
'Tis breath thou lack'st, and that breath wilt thou lose.

JOHN OF GAUNT

Methinks I am a prophet new inspired
And thus expiring do foretell of him:
His rash fierce blaze of riot cannot last,
For violent fires soon burn out themselves;
Small showers last long, but sudden storms are short;
He tires betimes that spurs too fast betimes;
With eager feeding food doth choke the feeder:
Light vanity, insatiate cormorant,
Consuming means, soon preys upon itself.
This royal throne of kings, this scepter'd isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise,
This fortress built by Nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war,
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall,
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands,
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England,
This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings,
Fear'd by their breed and famous by their birth,
Renowned for their deeds as far from home,
For Christian service and true chivalry,
As is the sepulchre in stubborn Jewry,
Of the world's ransom, blessed Mary's Son,
This land of such dear souls, this dear dear land,
Dear for her reputation through the world,
Is now leased out, I die pronouncing it,
Like to a tenement or pelting farm:
England, bound in with the triumphant sea
Whose rocky shore beats back the envious siege
Of watery Neptune, is now bound in with shame,
With inky blots and rotten parchment bonds:
That England, that was wont to conquer others,
Hath made a shameful conquest of itself.
Ah, would the scandal vanish with my life,
How happy then were my ensuing death!

Enter KING RICHARD II and QUEEN, DUKE OF AUMERLE, BUSHY, GREEN, BAGOT, LORD ROSS, and LORD WILLOUGHBY

DUKE OF YORK

The king is come: deal mildly with his youth;
For young hot colts being raged do rage the more.

QUEEN

How fares our noble uncle, Lancaster?

KING RICHARD II

What comfort, man? how is't with aged Gaunt?

JOHN OF GAUNT

O how that name befits my composition!
Old Gaunt indeed, and gaunt in being old:
Within me grief hath kept a tedious fast;
And who abstains from meat that is not gaunt?
For sleeping England long time have I watch'd;
Watching breeds leanness, leanness is all gaunt:
The pleasure that some fathers feed upon,
Is my strict fast; I mean, my children's looks;
And therein fasting, hast thou made me gaunt:
Gaunt am I for the grave, gaunt as a grave,
Whose hollow womb inherits nought but bones.

KING RICHARD II

Can sick men play so nicely with their names?

JOHN OF GAUNT

No, misery makes sport to mock itself:
Since thou dost seek to kill my name in me,
I mock my name, great king, to flatter thee.

KING RICHARD II

Should dying men flatter with those that live?

JOHN OF GAUNT

No, no, men living flatter those that die.

KING RICHARD II

Thou, now a-dying, say'st thou flatterest me.

JOHN OF GAUNT

O, no! thou diest, though I the sicker be.

KING RICHARD II

I am in health, I breathe, and see thee ill.

JOHN OF GAUNT

Now He that made me knows I see thee ill;
Ill in myself to see, and in thee seeing ill.
Thy death-bed is no lesser than thy land
Wherein thou liest in reputation sick;
And thou, too careless patient as thou art,
Commit'st thy anointed body to the cure
Of those physicians that first wounded thee:
A thousand flatterers sit within thy crown,
Whose compass is no bigger than thy head;
And yet, incaged in so small a verge,
The waste is no whit lesser than thy land.
O, had thy grandsire with a prophet's eye
Seen how his son's son should destroy his sons,
From forth thy reach he would have laid thy shame,
Deposing thee before thou wert possess'd,
Which art possess'd now to depose thyself.
Why, cousin, wert thou regent of the world,
It were a shame to let this land by lease;
But for thy world enjoying but this land,
Is it not more than shame to shame it so?
Landlord of England art thou now, not king:
Thy state of law is bondslave to the law; And thou--

KING RICHARD II

A lunatic lean-witted fool,
Presuming on an ague's privilege,
Darest with thy frozen admonition
Make pale our cheek, chasing the royal blood
With fury from his native residence.
Now, by my seat's right royal majesty,
Wert thou not brother to great Edward's son,
This tongue that runs so roundly in thy head
Should run thy head from thy unreverent shoulders.

JOHN OF GAUNT

O, spare me not, my brother Edward's son,
For that I was his father Edward's son;
That blood already, like the pelican,
Hast thou tapp'd out and drunkenly caroused:
My brother Gloucester, plain well-meaning soul,
Whom fair befal in heaven 'mongst happy souls!
May be a precedent and witness good
That thou respect'st not spilling Edward's blood:
Join with the present sickness that I have;
And thy unkindness be like crooked age,
To crop at once a too long wither'd flower.
Live in thy shame, but die not shame with thee!
These words hereafter thy tormentors be!
Convey me to my bed, then to my grave:
Love they to live that love and honour have.

Exit, borne off by his Attendants

KING RICHARD II

And let them die that age and sullens have;
For both hast thou, and both become the grave.

DUKE OF YORK

I do beseech your majesty, impute his words
To wayward sickliness and age in him:
He loves you, on my life, and holds you dear
As Harry Duke of Hereford, were he here.

KING RICHARD II

Right, you say true: as Hereford's love, so his;
As theirs, so mine; and all be as it is.

Enter NORTHUMBERLAND

NORTHUMBERLAND

My liege, old Gaunt commends him to your majesty.

KING RICHARD II

What says he?

NORTHUMBERLAND

Nay, nothing; all is said
His tongue is now a stringless instrument;
Words, life and all, old Lancaster hath spent.

DUKE OF YORK

Be York the next that must be bankrupt so!
Though death be poor, it ends a mortal woe.

KING RICHARD II

The ripest fruit first falls, and so doth he;
His time is spent, our pilgrimage must be.
So much for that. Now for our Irish wars:
We must supplant those rough rug-headed kerns,
Which live like venom where no venom else
But only they have privilege to live.
And for these great affairs do ask some charge,
Towards our assistance we do seize to us
The plate, corn, revenues and moveables,
Whereof our uncle Gaunt did stand possess'd.

DUKE OF YORK

How long shall I be patient? ah, how long
Shall tender duty make me suffer wrong?
Not Gloucester's death, nor Hereford's banishment
Not Gaunt's rebukes, nor England's private wrongs,
Nor the prevention of poor Bolingbroke
About his marriage, nor my own disgrace,
Have ever made me sour my patient cheek,
Or bend one wrinkle on my sovereign's face.
I am the last of noble Edward's sons,
Of whom thy father, Prince of Wales, was first:
In war was never lion raged more fierce,
In peace was never gentle lamb more mild,
Than was that young and princely gentleman.
His face thou hast, for even so look'd he,
Accomplish'd with the number of thy hours;
But when he frown'd, it was against the French
And not against his friends; his noble hand
Did will what he did spend and spent not that
Which his triumphant father's hand had won;
His hands were guilty of no kindred blood,
But bloody with the enemies of his kin.
O Richard! York is too far gone with grief,
Or else he never would compare between.

KING RICHARD II

Why, uncle, what's the matter?

DUKE OF YORK

O my liege,
Pardon me, if you please; if n ot, I, pleased
Not to be pardon'd, am content withal.
Seek you to seize and gripe into your hands
The royalties and rights of banish'd Hereford?
Is not Gaunt dead, and doth not Hereford live?
Was not Gaunt just, and is not Harry true?
Did not the one deserve to have an heir?
Is not his heir a well-deserving son?
Take Hereford's rights away, and take from Time
His charters and his customary rights;
Let not to-morrow then ensue to-day;
Be not thyself; for how art thou a king
But by fair sequence and succession?
Now, afore God--God forbid I say true!--
If you do wrongfully seize Hereford's rights,
Call in the letters patent that he hath
By his attorneys-general to sue
His livery, and deny his offer'd homage,
You pluck a thousand dangers on your head,
You lose a thousand well-disposed hearts
And prick my tender patience, to those thoughts
Which honour and allegiance cannot think.

KING RICHARD II

Think what you will, we seize into our hands
His plate, his goods, his money and his lands.

DUKE OF YORK

I'll not be by the while: my liege, farewell:
What will ensue hereof, there's none can tell;
But by bad courses may be understood
That their events can never fall out good.Exit

KING RICHARD II

Go, Bushy, to the Earl of Wiltshire straight:
Bid him repair to us to Ely House
To see this business. To-morrow next
We will for Ireland; and 'tis time, I trow:
And we create, in absence of ourself,
Our uncle York lord governor of England;
For he is just and always loved us well.
Come on, our queen: to-morrow must we part;
Be merry, for our time of stay is short

Flourish. 

Exeunt KING RICHARD II, QUEEN, DUKE OF AUMERLE, BUSHY, GREEN, and BAGOT

NORTHUMBERLAND

Well, lords, the Duke of Lancaster is dead.

LORD ROSS

And living too; for now his son is duke.

LORD WILLOUGHBY

Barely in title, not in revenue.

NORTHUMBERLAND

Richly in both, if justice had her right.

LORD ROSS

My heart is great; but it must break with silence,
Ere't be disburden'd with a liberal tongue.

NORTHUMBERLAND

Nay, speak thy mind; and let him ne'er speak more
That speaks thy words again to do thee harm!

LORD WILLOUGHBY

Tends that thou wouldst speak to the Duke of Hereford?
If it be so, out with it boldly, man;
Quick is mine ear to hear of good towards him.

LORD ROSS

No good at all that I can do for him;
Unless you call it good to pity him,
Bereft and gelded of his patrimony.

NORTHUMBERLAND

Now, afore God, 'tis shame such wrongs are borne
In him, a royal prince, and many moe
Of noble blood in this declining land.
The king is not himself, but basely led
By flatterers; and what they will inform,
Merely in hate, 'gainst any of us all,
That will the king severely prosecute
'Gainst us, our lives, our children, and our heirs.

LORD ROSS

The commons hath he pill'd with grievous taxes,
And quite lost their hearts: the nobles hath he fined
For ancient quarrels, and quite lost their hearts.

LORD WILLOUGHBY

And daily new exactions are devised,
As blanks, benevolences, and I wot not what:
But what, o' God's name, doth become of this?

NORTHUMBERLAND

Wars have not wasted it, for warr'd he hath not,
But basely yielded upon compromise
That which his noble ancestors achieved with blows:
More hath he spent in peace than they in wars.

LORD ROSS

The Earl of Wiltshire hath the realm in farm.

LORD WILLOUGHBY

The king's grown bankrupt, like a broken man.

NORTHUMBERLAND

Reproach and dissolution hangeth over him.

LORD ROSS

He hath not money for these Irish wars,
His burthenous taxations notwithstanding,
But by the robbing of the banish'd duke.

NORTHUMBERLAND

His noble kinsman: most degenerate king!
But, lords, we hear this fearful tempest sing,
Yet see no shelter to avoid the storm;
We see the wind sit sore upon our sails,
And yet we strike not, but securely perish.

LORD ROSS

We see the very wreck that we must suffer;
And unavoided is the danger now,
For suffering so the causes of our wreck.

NORTHUMBERLAND

Not so; even through the hollow eyes of death
I spy life peering; but I dare not say
How near the tidings of our comfort is.

LORD WILLOUGHBY

Nay, let us share thy thoughts, as thou dost ours.

LORD ROSS

Be confident to speak, Northumberland:
We three are but thyself; and, speaking so,
Thy words are but as thoughts; therefore, be bold.

NORTHUMBERLAND

Then thus: I have from Port le Blanc, a bay
In Brittany, received intelligence
That Harry Duke of Hereford, Rainold Lord Cobham,
That late broke from the Duke of Exeter,
His brother, Archbishop late of Canterbury,
Sir Thomas Erpingham, Sir John Ramston,
Sir John Norbery, Sir Robert Waterton and Francis Quoint,
All these well furnish'd by the Duke of Bretagne
With eight tall ships, three thousand men of war,
Are making hither with all due expedience
And shortly mean to touch our northern shore:
Perhaps they had ere this, but that they stay
The first departing of the king for Ireland.
If then we shall shake off our slavish yoke,
Imp out our drooping country's broken wing,
Redeem from broking pawn the blemish'd crown,
Wipe off the dust that hides our sceptre's gilt
And make high majesty look like itself,
Away with me in post to Ravenspurgh;
But if you faint, as fearing to do so,
Stay and be secret, and myself will go.

LORD ROSS

To horse, to horse! urge doubts to them that fear.

LORD WILLOUGHBY

Hold out my horse, and I will first be there.

Exeunt