K. Rich. Thou, now a-dying, sayst thou flatter'st me.
Gaunt. O, no! thou diest, though I the sicker be.
K. Rich. I am in health, I breathe, and see thee ill. 92
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: 96
And thou, too careless patient as thou art,
Committ'st thy anointed body to the cure
Of those physicians that first wounded thee:
A thousand flatterers sit within thy crown, 100
Whose compass is no bigger than thy head;
And yet, incaged in so small a verge,
The waste is no whit lesser than thy land.
O! had thy grandsire, with a prophet's eye, 104
Seen how his son's son should destroy his sons,
From forth thy reach he would have laid thy shame,
Deposing thee before thou wert possess'd,
Which art possess'd now to depose thyself. 108
Why, cousin, wert thou regent of the world,
It were a shame to let this land by lease;
But for thy world enjoying but this land,
Is it not more than shame to shame it so? 112
Landlord of England art thou now, not king:
Thy state of law is bond-slave to the law,
And—
K. Rich. And thou a lunatic lean-witted fool,
Presuming on an ague's privilege, 116
Dar'st with thy frozen admonition
94 Cf. n.
101 compass: circumference
102 verge: circle
103 waste; cf. n.
107 possess'd; cf. n.
114 state of law: legal status; cf. n.
