Richard II:
What comfort, man? How is’t with aged Gaunt?

John of Gaunt:
O how that name befits my composition!
Old Gaunt indeed, and gaunt in being old.
Within me grief hath kept a tedious fast;
And who abstains from meat that is not gaunt?
For sleeping England long time have I watch’d,
Watching breeds leanness, leanness is all gaunt.
The pleasure that some fathers feed upon
Is my strict fast—I mean, my children’s looks;
And therein fasting, hast thou made me gaunt.
Gaunt am I for the grave, gaunt as a grave,
Whose hollow womb inherits nought but bones.

Richard II:
Can sick men play so nicely with their names?

John of Gaunt:
No, misery makes sport to mock itself:
Since thou dost seek to kill my name in me,
I mock my name, great King, to flatter thee.

Richard II:
Should dying men flatter with those that live?

John of Gaunt:
No, no, men living flatter those that die.

Richard II:
Thou, now a-dying, sayest thou flatterest me.

John of Gaunt:
O no, thou diest, though I the sicker be.

Photo:
Published: Armitage-Smith, Sydney (1905) John of Gaunt: King of Castile and Leon, Duke of Aquitaine and Lancaster, Earl of Derby, Lincoln, and Leicester, Seneschal of England Archibald Constable, p. 100

Michael N. Yacoub