Page 2878 - Shakespeare - Vol. 1

My inch of taper will be burnt and done,
And blindfold death not let me see my son.

RICHARD

Why, uncle, thou hast many years to live. [225]

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. [230]
Thy word is current with him for my death,
But dead, thy kingdom cannot buy my breath.

RICHARD

Thy son is banished upon good advice
Whereto thy tongue a party-verdict gave.
Why at our justice seem’st thou then to lour? [235]

GAUNT

Things sweet to taste prove in digestion sour.
You urged me as a judge, but I had rather
You would have bid me argue like a father.
O, had it been a stranger, not my child,
To smooth his fault I should have been more mild. [240]
A partial slander sought I to avoid,
And in the sentence my own life destroy’d.
Alas, I look’d when some of you should say
I was too strict, to make mine own away,
But you gave leave to my unwilling tongue [245]
Against my will to do myself this wrong.

RICHARD

Cousin, farewell - and, uncle, bid him so.
Six years we banish him, and he shall go.

Exit [with train].
Flourish.

AUMERLE