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Must I not serve a long apprenticehood

To foreign passages; and in the end,

Having my freedom, boast of nothing else

But that I was a journeyman to grief?

GAUNT.

All places that the eye of heaven visits

Are to a wise man ports and happy havens.

Teach thy necessity to reason thus:

There is no virtue like necessity.

Think not the King did banish thee,

But thou the King. Woe doth the heavier sit

Where it perceives it is but faintly home.

Go, say I sent thee forth to purchase honour,

And not the King exil'd thee; or suppose

Devouring pestilence hangs in our air

And thou art flying to a fresher clime.

Look what thy soul holds dear, imagine it

To lie that way thou goest, not whence thou com'st.

Suppose the singing birds musicians,

The grass whereon thou tread'st the presence strew'd,

The flowers fair ladies, and thy steps no more

Than a delightful measure or a dance;

For gnarling sorrow hath less power to bite

The man that mocks at it and sets it light.

BOLINGBROKE.

O, who can hold a fire in his hand

By thinking on the frosty Caucasus?

Or cloy the hungry edge of appetite

By bare imagination of a feast?

Or wallow naked in December snow

By thinking on fantastic summer's heat?

O, no! the apprehension of the good

Gives but the greater feeling to the worse.

Fell sorrow's tooth doth never rankle more

Than when he bites, but lanceth not the sore.

GAUNT.

Come, come, my son, I'll bring thee on thy way.

Had I thy youtli and cause, I would not stay.

BOLINGBROKE.

Then, England's ground, farewell; sweet soil,

adieu;

My mother, and my nurse, that bears me yet!

Where'er I wander, boast of this I can:

Though banish'd, yet a trueborn English man. Exeunt

SCENE 4. London. The court

Enter the KING, with BAGOT and GREEN, at one door; and the DUKE OF AUMERLE at another

KING RICHARD. We did observe. Cousin Aumerle,

How far brought you high Hereford on his way?

AUMERLE.

I brought high Hereford, if you call him so,

But to the next high way, and there I left him.

KING RICHARD.

And say, what store of parting tears were shed?

AUMERLE.

Faith, none for me; except the north-east wind,

Which then blew bitterly against our faces,

Awak'd the sleeping rheum, and so by chance

Did grace our hollow parting with a tear.

KING RICHARD.

What said our cousin when you parted with him?

AUMERLE.

'Farewell.'

And, for my heart disdained that my tongue

Should so profane the word, that taught me craft

To counterfeit oppression of such grief

That words seem'd buried in my sorrow's grave.

Marry, would the word 'farewell' have length'ned hours

And added years to his short banishment,

He should have had a volume of farewells;

But since it would not, he had none of me.

KING RICHARD.

He is our cousin, cousin; but 'tis doubt,

When time shall call him home from banishment,

Whether our kinsman come to see his friends.

Ourself, and Bushy, Bagot here, and Green,

Observ'd his courtship to the common people;

How he did seem to dive into their hearts

With humble and familiar courtesy;

What reverence he did throw away on slaves,

Wooing poor craftsmen with the craft of smiles

And patient underbearing of his fortune,

As 'twere to banish their affects with him.

Off goes his bonnet to an oyster-wench;

A brace of draymen bid God speed him well

And had the tribute of his supple knee,

With 'Thanks, my countrymen, my loving friends';

As were our England in reversion his,

And he our subjects' next degree in hope.

GREEN.

Well, he is gone; and with him go these thoughts!

Now for the rebels which stand out in Ireland,

Expedient manage must be made, my liege,

Ere further leisure yicld them further means

For their advantage and your Highness' loss.

KING RICHARD.

We will ourself in person to this war;

And, for our coffers, with too great a court

And liberal largess, are grown somewhat light,

We are enforc'd to farm our royal realm;

The revenue whereof shall furnish us

For our affairs in hand. If that come short,

Our substitutes at home shall have blank charters;

Whereto, when