Page 2880 - Shakespeare - Vol. 1

BOLINGBROKE

Nay, rather every tedious stride I make
Will but remember me what a deal of world
I wander from the jewels that I love. [270]
Must I not serve a long apprenticehood
To foreign passages, and in the end,
Having my freedom, boast of nothing else
But that I was a journeyman to grief?

GAUNT

All places that the eye of heaven visits [275]
Are to a wise man ports and happy havens.
Teach thy necessity to reason thus:
There is no virtue like necessity.
Think not the King did banish thee,
But thou the King. Woe doth the heavier sit [280]
Where it perceives it is but faintly borne.
Go, say I sent thee forth to purchase honour,
And not the King exil’d thee; or suppose
Devouring pestilence hangs on our air
And thou art flying to a fresher clime. [285]
Look what thy soul holds dear, imagine it
To lie that way thou goest, not whence thou comest.
Suppose the singing birds musicians,
The grass whereon thou tread’st the presence strew’d,
The flowers fair ladies, and thy steps no more [290]
Than a delightful measure or a dance;
For gnarling sorrow hath less power to bite
The man that mocks at it and sets it light.

BOLINGBROKE

O, who can hold a fire in his hand
By thinking on the frosty Caucasus, [295]
Or cloy the hungry edge of appetite
By bare imagination of a feast,
Or wallow naked in December snow
By thinking on fantastic summer’s heat?
O no, the apprehension of the good [300]
Gives but the greater feeling to the worse.
Fell sorrow’s tooth doth never rankle more
Than when he bites, but lanceth not the sore.