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 wat’ry 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 and Queen; Aumerle, Bushy, Green, Bagot, Ross and Willoughby.

King Richard

Queen; Aumerle, Bushy, Green, Bagot, Ross

Willoughby

 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. What comfort, man? How is’t with aged Gaunt? 

 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 watched; 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. Can sick men play so nicely with their names? 

 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. Should dying men flatter with those that live? 

 GAUNT. No, no, men living flatter those that die. 

 KING RICHARD. Thou, now a-dying, sayest thou flatterest me. 

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

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

 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, Committ’st thy anointed body to the cure Of those physicians that first wounded thee. A 

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