BOLINGBROKE.
I swear.
MOWBRAY.
And I, to keep all this.
BOLINGBROKE.
Norfolk, so far as to mine enemy:
By this time, had the King permitted us,
One of our souls had wandered in the air,
Banished this frail sepulchre of our flesh,
As now our flesh is banished from this land.
Confess thy treasons ere thou fly the realm.
Since thou hast far to go, bear not along
The clogging burden of a guilty soul.
MOWBRAY.
No, Bolingbroke. If ever I were traitor,
My name be blotted from the book of life,
And I from heaven banished as from hence!
But what thou art, God, thou, and I do know;
And all too soon, I fear, the King shall rue.
Farewell, my liege. Now no way can I stray;
Save back to England, all the world’s my way.
[Exit.]
KING RICHARD.
Uncle, even in the glasses of thine eyes
I see thy grieved heart. Thy sad aspect
Hath from the number of his banished years
Plucked four away. [To Bolingbroke.] Six frozen winters spent,
Return with welcome home from banishment.
BOLINGBROKE.
How long a time lies in one little word!
Four lagging winters and four wanton springs
End in a word: such is the breath of kings.
GAUNT.
I thank my liege that in regard of me
He shortens four years of my son’s exile;
But little vantage shall I reap thereby,
For, ere the six years that he hath to spend
Can change their moons and bring their times about,
My oil-dried lamp and time-bewasted light
Shall be extinct with age and endless night;
My inch of taper will be burnt and done,
And blindfold death not let me see my son.
KING RICHARD.
Why, uncle, thou hast many years to live.
GAUNT.
But not a minute, king, that thou canst give.
Shorten my days thou canst with sullen sorrow,
And pluck nights from me, but not lend a morrow.
Thou canst help time to furrow me with age,
But stop no wrinkle in his pilgrimage;
Thy word is current with him for my death,
But dead, thy kingdom cannot buy my breath.