| ACT I SCENE II | The DUKE OF LANCASTER'S palace. | |
| | Enter JOHN OF GAUNT with DUCHESS. | |
| JOHN OF GAUNT | Alas, the part I had in Woodstock's blood | |
| | Doth more solicit me than your exclaims, | |
| | To stir against the butchers of his life! | |
| | But since correction lieth in those hands | 5 |
| | 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, | |
| | Will rain hot vengeance on offenders' heads. | |
| DUCHESS | Finds brotherhood in thee no sharper spur? | 10 |
| | 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, | |
| | Or seven fair branches springing from one root: | |
| | Some of those seven are dried by nature's course, | 15 |
| | 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, | |
| | One flourishing branch of his most royal root, | |
| | Is crack'd, and all the precious liquor spilt, | 20 |
| | Is hack'd down, and his summer leaves all faded, | |
| | By envy's hand and murder's bloody axe. | |
| | Ah, Gaunt, his blood was thine! that bed, that womb, | |
| | That metal, that self-mould, that fashion'd thee | |
| | Made him a man; and though thou livest and breathest, | 25 |
| | 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, | |
| | Who was the model of thy father's life. | |
| | Call it not patience, Gaunt; it is despair: | 30 |
| | In suffering thus thy brother to be slaughter'd, | |
| | Thou showest the naked pathway to thy life, | |
| | Teaching stern murder how to butcher thee: | |
| | That which in mean men we intitle patience | |
| | Is pale cold cowardice in noble breasts. | 35 |
| | What shall I say? to safeguard thine own life, | |
| | The best way is to venge my Gloucester's death. | |
| JOHN OF GAUNT | God's is the quarrel; for God's substitute, | |
| | His deputy anointed in His sight, | |
| | Hath caused his death: the which if wrongfully, | 40 |
| | Let heaven revenge; for I may never lift | |
| | An angry arm against His minister. | |
| DUCHESS | Where then, alas, may I complain myself? | |
| JOHN OF GAUNT | To God, the widow's champion and defence. | |
| DUCHESS | Why, then, I will. Farewell, old Gaunt. | 45 |
| | Thou goest to Coventry, there to behold | |
| | Our cousin Hereford and fell Mowbray fight: | |
| | O, sit my husband's wrongs on Hereford's spear, | |
| | That it may enter butcher Mowbray's breast! | |
| | Or, if misfortune miss the first career, | 50 |
| | Be Mowbray's sins so heavy in his bosom, | |
| | They may break his foaming courser's back, | |
| | And throw the rider headlong in the lists, | |
| | A caitiff recreant to my cousin Hereford! | |
| | Farewell, old Gaunt: thy sometimes brother's wife | 55 |
| | With her companion grief must end her life. | |
| JOHN OF GAUNT | Sister, farewell; I must to Coventry: | |
| | As much good stay with thee as go with me! | |
| DUCHESS | Yet one word more: grief boundeth where it falls, | |
| | Not with the empty hollowness, but weight: | 60 |
| | I take my leave before I have begun, | |
| | For sorrow ends not when it seemeth done. | |
| | Commend me to thy brother, Edmund York. | |
| | Lo, this is all:--nay, yet depart not so; | |
| | Though this be all, do not so quickly go; | 65 |
| | I shall remember more. Bid him--ah, what?-- | |
| | With all good speed at Plashy visit me. | |
| | Alack, and what shall good old York there see | |
| | But empty lodgings and unfurnish'd walls, | |
| | Unpeopled offices, untrodden stones? | 70 |
| | And what hear there for welcome but my groans? | |
| | Therefore commend me; let him not come there, | |
| | To seek out sorrow that dwells every where. | |
| | Desolate, desolate, will I hence and die: | |
| | The last leave of thee takes my weeping eye. | 75 |
| | Exeunt | |
