第三回：仗著年輕有資本的理查二世

JOHN OF 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; And thou, too careless patient as thou art, Commit'st thy anointed body to the cure Of those physicians that first wounded thee: A thousand flatterers sit within thy crown, 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 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. 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? Landlord of England art thou now, not king: Thy state of law is bondslave to the law; And thou—

那造下我來的上帝知道我看見你的病狀多麽險惡。我的眼力雖然因久病而衰弱，但我看得出你已走上邪途。你負著你的重創的名聲躺在你的國土之上，你的國土就是你的斃命的臥床；像一個過分粗心的病人，你把你那仰蒙聖恩膏沐的身體交給那些最初傷害妳的庸醫診治；在你那僅堪復頂的王冠之內，坐著一千個諂媚的佞人，憑借這小小的範圍，侵蝕你廣大的國土。啊！要是你的祖父能夠預先看到他的孫兒將要怎樣摧殘他的骨肉，他一定會早早把你廢黜，免得恥辱降臨到你的身上，可是現在恥辱已經占領了你，你的王冠將要喪失在你自己的手裏。嘿，侄兒，即使你是全世界的統治者，出租這一塊國土也是一件可羞的事；可是只有這一塊國土是你所享有的世界，這樣的行為不是羞上加羞嗎？你現在是英格蘭的地主，不是它的國王；你在法律上的地位是一個必須受法律拘束的奴隸，而且—