The life and death of King Richard the Second
Page: 16

Watching breeds leannesse, leannesse is all gaunt.
The pleasure that some Fathers feede vpon,
Is my strict fast, I meane my Childrens lookes,
And therein fasting, hast thou made me gaunt:
Gaunt am I for the graue, gaunt as a graue,
Whose hollow wombe inherits naught but bones

Ric. Can sicke men play so nicely with their names?
Gau. No, misery makes sport to mocke it selfe:
Since thou dost seeke to kill my name in mee,
I mocke my name (great King) to flatter thee

Ric. Should dying men flatter those that liue?
Gau. No, no, men liuing flatter those that dye

Rich. Thou now a dying, sayst thou flatter'st me

Gau. Oh no, thou dyest, though I the sicker be

Rich. I am in health, I breath, I see thee ill

Gau. Now he that made me, knowes I see thee ill:
Ill in my selfe to see, and in thee, seeing ill,
Thy death-bed is no lesser then the Land,
Wherein thou lyest in reputation sicke,
And thou too care-lesse patient as thou art,
Commit'st thy 'anointed body to the cure
Of those Physitians, that first wounded thee.
A thousand flatterers sit within thy Crowne,
Whose compasse is no bigger then thy head,
And yet incaged in so small a Verge,
The waste is no whit lesser then thy Land:
Oh had thy Grandsire with a Prophets eye,
Seene how his sonnes sonne, should destroy his sonnes,
From forth thy reach he would haue laid thy shame,
Deposing thee before thou wert possest,
Which art possest now to depose thy selfe.
Why (Cosine) were thou Regent of the world,
It were a shame to let his Land by lease:
But for thy world enioying but this Land,
Is it not more then shame, to shame it so?
Landlord of England art thou, and not King:
Thy state of Law, is bondslaue to the law,
And-
Rich. And thou, a lunaticke leane-witted foole,
Presuming on an Agues priuiledge,
Dar'st with thy frozen admonition
Make pale our cheeke, chasing the Royall blood
With fury, from his natiue residence?
Now by my Seates right Royall Maiestie,
Wer't thou not Brother to great Edwards sonne,
This tongue that runs so roundly in thy head,
Should run thy head from thy vnreuerent shoulders