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King Henry IV, Part 2: Act 4 Scene 5

Scene V Another chamber.

[KING HENRY IV lying on a bed: CLARENCE,

GLOUCESTER, WARWICK, and others in attendance]

KING HENRY IV

Let there be no noise made, my gentle friends;

Unless some dull and favourable hand

Will whisper music to my weary spirit.

WARWICK

Call for the music in the other room.

KING HENRY IV

Set me the crown upon my pillow here.

CLARENCE

His eye is hollow, and he changes much.

WARWICK

Less noise, less noise!

[Enter PRINCE HENRY]

PRINCE HENRY

Who saw the Duke of Clarence?

CLARENCE

I am here, brother, full of heaviness.

PRINCE HENRY

How now! rain within doors, and none abroad!

How doth the king?

GLOUCESTER

Exceeding ill.

PRINCE HENRY

Heard he the good news yet?

Tell it him.

GLOUCESTER

He alter'd much upon the hearing it.

PRINCE HENRY

If he be sick with joy, he'll recover without physic.

WARWICK

Not so much noise, my lords: sweet prince,

speak low;

The king your father is disposed to sleep.

CLARENCE

Let us withdraw into the other room.

WARWICK

Will't please your grace to go along with us?

PRINCE HENRY

No; I will sit and watch here by the king.

[Exeunt all but PRINCE HENRY]

Why doth the crown lie there upon his pillow,

Being so troublesome a bedfellow?

O polish'd perturbation! golden care!

That keep'st the ports of slumber open wide

To many a watchful night! sleep with it now!

Yet not so sound and half so deeply sweet

As he whose brow with homely biggen bound

Snores out the watch of night. O majesty!

When thou dost pinch thy bearer, thou dost sit

Like a rich armour worn in heat of day,

That scalds with safety. By his gates of breath

There lies a downy feather which stirs not:

Did he suspire, that light and weightless down

Perforce must move. My gracious lord! my father!

This sleep is sound indeed, this is a sleep

That from this golden rigol hath divorced

So many English kings. Thy due from me

Is tears and heavy sorrows of the blood,

Which nature, love, and filial tenderness,

Shall, O dear father, pay thee plenteously:

My due from thee is this imperial crown,

Which, as immediate as thy place and blood,

Derives itself to me. Lo, here it sits,

Which God shall guard: and put the world's whole strength

Into one giant arm, it shall not force

This lineal honour from me: this from thee

Will I to mine leave, as 'tis left to me.

[Exit]

KING HENRY IV

Warwick! Gloucester! Clarence!

[Re-enter WARWICK, GLOUCESTER, CLARENCE, and the rest]

CLARENCE

Doth the king call?

WARWICK

What would your majesty? How fares your grace?

KING HENRY IV

Why did you leave me here alone, my lords?

CLARENCE

We left the prince my brother here, my liege,

Who undertook to sit and watch by you.

KING HENRY IV

The Prince of Wales! Where is he? let me see him:

He is not here.

WARWICK

This door is open; he is gone this way.

GLOUCESTER

He came not through the chamber where we stay'd.

KING HENRY IV

Where is the crown? who took it from my pillow?

WARWICK

When we withdrew, my liege, we left it here.

KING HENRY IV

The prince hath ta'en it hence: go, seek him out.

Is he so hasty that he doth suppose

My sleep my death?

Find him, my Lord of Warwick; chide him hither.

[Exit WARWICK]

This part of his conjoins with my disease,

And helps to end me. See, sons, what things you are!

How quickly nature falls into revolt

When gold becomes her object!

For this the foolish over-careful fathers

Have broke their sleep with thoughts, their brains with care,

Their bones with industry;

For this they have engrossed and piled up

The canker'd heaps of strange-achieved gold;

For this they have been thoughtful to invest

Their sons with arts and martial exercises:

When, like the bee, culling from every flower

The virtuous sweets,

Our thighs pack'd with wax, our mouths with honey,

We bring it to the hive, and, like the bees,

Are murdered for our pains. This bitter taste

Yield his engrossments to the ending father.

[Re-enter WARWICK]

Now, where is he that will not stay so long

Till his friend sickness hath determined me?

WARWICK

My lord, I found the prince in the next room,

Washing with kindly tears his gentle cheeks,

With such a deep demeanor in great sorrow

That tyranny, which never quaff'd but blood,

Would, by beholding him, have wash'd his knife

With gentle eye-drops. He is coming hither.

KING HENRY IV

But wherefore did he take away the crown?

[Re-enter PRINCE HENRY]

Lo, where he comes. Come hither to me, Harry.

Depart the chamber, leave us here alone.

[Exeunt WARWICK and the rest]

PRINCE HENRY

I never thought to hear you speak again.

KING HENRY IV

Thy wish was father, Harry, to that thought:

I stay too long by thee, I weary thee.

Dost thou so hunger for mine empty chair

That thou wilt needs invest thee with my honours

Before thy hour be ripe? O foolish youth!

Thou seek'st the greatness that will o'erwhelm thee.

Stay but a little; for my cloud of dignity

Is held from falling with so weak a wind

That it will quickly drop: my day is dim.

Thou hast stolen that which after some few hours

Were thine without offence; and at my death

Thou hast seal'd up my expectation:

Thy life did manifest thou lovedst me not,

And thou wilt have me die assured of it.

Thou hidest a thousand daggers in thy thoughts,

Which thou hast whetted on thy stony heart,

To stab at half an hour of my life.

What! canst thou not forbear me half an hour?

Then get thee gone and dig my grave thyself,

And bid the merry bells ring to thine ear

That thou art crowned, not that I am dead.

Let all the tears that should bedew my hearse

Be drops of balm to sanctify thy head:

Only compound me with forgotten dust

Give that which gave thee life unto the worms.

Pluck down my officers, break my decrees;

For now a time is come to mock at form:

Harry the Fifth is crown'd: up, vanity!

Down, royal state! all you sage counsellors, hence!

And to the English court assemble now,

From every region, apes of idleness!

Now, neighbour confines, purge you of your scum:

Have you a ruffian that will swear, drink, dance,

Revel the night, rob, murder, and commit

The oldest sins the newest kind of ways?

Be happy, he will trouble you no more;

England shall double gild his treble guilt,

England shall give him office, honour, might;

For the fifth Harry from curb'd licence plucks

The muzzle of restraint, and the wild dog

Shall flesh his tooth on every innocent.

O my poor kingdom, sick with civil blows!

When that my care could not withhold thy riots,

What wilt thou do when riot is thy care?

O, thou wilt be a wilderness again,

Peopled with wolves, thy old inhabitants!

PRINCE HENRY

O, pardon me, my liege! but for my tears,

The moist impediments unto my speech,

I had forestall'd this dear and deep rebuke

Ere you with grief had spoke and I had heard

The course of it so far. There is your crown;

And He that wears the crown immortally

Long guard it yours! If I affect it more

Than as your honour and as your renown,

Let me no more from this obedience rise,

Which my most inward true and duteous spirit

Teacheth, this prostrate and exterior bending.

God witness with me, when I here came in,

And found no course of breath within your majesty,

How cold it struck my heart! If I do feign,

O, let me in my present wildness die

And never live to show the incredulous world

The noble change that I have purposed!

Coming to look on you, thinking you dead,

And dead almost, my liege, to think you were,

I spake unto this crown as having sense,

And thus upbraided it: 'The care on thee depending

Hath fed upon the body of my father;

Therefore, thou best of gold art worst of gold:

Other, less fine in carat, is more precious,

Preserving life in medicine potable;

But thou, most fine, most honour'd: most renown'd,

Hast eat thy bearer up.' Thus, my most royal liege,

Accusing it, I put it on my head,

To try with it, as with an enemy

That had before my face murder'd my father,

The quarrel of a true inheritor.

But if it did infect my blood with joy,

Or swell my thoughts to any strain of pride;

If any rebel or vain spirit of mine

Did with the least affection of a welcome

Give entertainment to the might of it,

Let God for ever keep it from my head

And make me as the poorest vassal is

That doth with awe and terror kneel to it!

KING HENRY IV

O my son,

God put it in thy mind to take it hence,

That thou mightst win the more thy father's love,

Pleading so wisely in excuse of it!

Come hither, Harry, sit thou by my bed;

And hear, I think, the very latest counsel

That ever I shall breathe. God knows, my son,

By what by-paths and indirect crook'd ways

I met this crown; and I myself know well

How troublesome it sat upon my head.

To thee it shall descend with bitter quiet,

Better opinion, better confirmation;

For all the soil of the achievement goes

With me into the earth. It seem'd in me

But as an honour snatch'd with boisterous hand,

And I had many living to upbraid

My gain of it by their assistances;

Which daily grew to quarrel and to bloodshed,

Wounding supposed peace: all these bold fears

Thou see'st with peril I have answered;

For all my reign hath been but as a scene

Acting that argument: and now my death

Changes the mode; for what in me was purchased,

Falls upon thee in a more fairer sort;

So thou the garland wear'st successively.

Yet, though thou stand'st more sure than I could do,

Thou art not firm enough, since griefs are green;

And all my friends, which thou must make thy friends,

Have but their stings and teeth newly ta'en out;

By whose fell working I was first advanced

And by whose power I well might lodge a fear

To be again displaced: which to avoid,

I cut them off; and had a purpose now

To lead out many to the Holy Land,

Lest rest and lying still might make them look

Too near unto my state. Therefore, my Harry,

Be it thy course to busy giddy minds

With foreign quarrels; that action, hence borne out,

May waste the memory of the former days.

More would I, but my lungs are wasted so

That strength of speech is utterly denied me.

How I came by the crown, O God forgive;

And grant it may with thee in true peace live!

PRINCE HENRY

My gracious liege,

You won it, wore it, kept it, gave it me;

Then plain and right must my possession be:

Which I with more than with a common pain

'Gainst all the world will rightfully maintain.

[Enter Lord John of LANCASTER]

KING HENRY IV

Look, look, here comes my John of Lancaster.

LANCASTER

Health, peace, and happiness to my royal father!

KING HENRY IV

Thou bring'st me happiness and peace, son John;

But health, alack, with youthful wings is flown

From this bare wither'd trunk: upon thy sight

My worldly business makes a period.

Where is my Lord of Warwick?

PRINCE HENRY

My Lord of Warwick!

[Enter WARWICK, and others]

KING HENRY IV

Doth any name particular belong

Unto the lodging where I first did swoon?

WARWICK

'Tis call'd Jerusalem, my noble lord.

KING HENRY IV

Laud be to God! even there my life must end.

It hath been prophesied to me many years,

I should not die but in Jerusalem;

Which vainly I supposed the Holy Land:

But bear me to that chamber; there I'll lie;

In that Jerusalem shall Harry die.

[Exeunt]