The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works

by William Shakespeare

  KING HENRY

  And how accompanied? Canst thou tell that?

  CLARENCE

  With Poins and other his continual followers.

  KING HENRY

  Most subject is the fattest soil to weeds,

  And he, the noble image of my youth,

  Is overspread with them; therefore my grief

  Stretches itself beyond the hour of death.

  The blood weeps from my heart when I do shape

  In forms imaginary th’unguided days

  And rotten times that you shall look upon 60

  When I am sleeping with my ancestors;

  For when his headstrong riot hath no curb,

  When rage and hot blood are his counsellors,

  When means and lavish manners meet together,

  O, with what wings shall his affections fly

  Towards fronting peril and opposed decay?

  WARWICK

  My gracious lord, you look beyond him quite.

  The Prince but studies his companions,

  Like a strange tongue, wherein, to gain the language,

  ’Tis needful that the most immodest word

  Be looked upon and learnt, which once attained,

  Your highness knows, comes to no further use

  But to be known and hated; so, like gross terms,

  The Prince will in the perfectness of time

  Cast off his followers, and their memory

  Shall as a pattern or a measure live

  By which his grace must mete the lives of other,

  Turning past evils to advantages.

  KING HENRY

  ’Tis seldom when the bee doth leave her comb

  In the dead carrion.

  Enter the Earl of Westmorland

  Who’s here? Westmorland? 80

  WESTMORLAND

  Health to my sovereign, and new happiness

  Added to that that I am to deliver I

  Prince John your son doth kiss your grace’s hand.

  Mowbray, the Bishop Scrope, Hastings, and all

  Are brought to the correction of your law.

  There is not now a rebel’s sword unsheathed,

  But peace puts forth her olive everywhere.

  The manner how this action hath been borne

  Here at more leisure may your highness read,

  With every course in his particular.

  He gives the King papers

  KING HENRY

  O Westmorland, thou art a summer bird

  Which ever in the haunch of winter sings

  The lifting up of day.

  Enter Harcourt

  Look, here’s more news.

  HARCOURT

  From enemies heaven keep your majesty;

  And when they stand against you, may they fall

  As those that I am come to tell you of!

  The Earl Northumberland and the Lord Bardolph,

  With a great power of English and of Scots,

  Are by the sheriff of Yorkshire overthrown.

  The manner and true order of the fight

  This packet, please it you, contains at large.

  He gives the King papers

  KING HENRY

  And wherefore should these good news make me sick?

  Will fortune never come with both hands full,

  But write her fair words still in foulest letters?

  She either gives a stomach and no food—

  Such are the poor in health—or else a feast,

  And takes away the stomach—such are the rich,

  That have abundance and enjoy it not.

  I should rejoice now at this happy news,

  And now my sight fails, and my brain is giddy. 110

  O me! Come near me now; I am much ill.

  He swoons

  GLOUCESTER

  Comfort, your majesty!

  CLARENCE O my royal father!

  WESTMORLAND

  My sovereign lord, cheer up yourself, look up.

  WARWICK

  Be patient, princes; you do know these fits

  Are with his highness very ordinary. 115

  Stand from him, give him air; he’ll straight be well.

  CLARENCE

  No, no, he cannot long hold out these pangs.

  Th’incessant care and labour of his mind

  Hath wrought the mure that should confine it in

  So thin that life looks through and will break out. 120

  GLOUCESTER

  The people fear me, for they do observe

  Unfathered heirs and loathly births of nature.

  The seasons change their manners, as the year

  Had found some months asleep and leaped them over.

  CLARENCE

  The river hath thrice flowed, no ebb between, 125

  And the old folk, time’s doting chronicles,

  Say it did so a little time before

  That our great grandsire Edward sicked and died.

  WARWICK

  Speak lower, princes, for the King recovers.

  GLOUCESTER

  This apoplexy will certain be his end.

  KING HENRY

  I pray you take me up and bear me hence

  Into some other chamber; softly, pray.

  ⌈The King is carried over the stage in his bed⌉

  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.

  ⌈Exit one or more. Still music within⌉

  KING HENRY

  Set me the crown upon my pillow here.

  ⌈Clarence⌉ takes the crown ⌈from the King’s head⌉, and sets it on his pillow

  CLARENCE

  His eye is hollow, and he changes much.

  ⌈A noise within⌉

  WARWICK

  Less noise, less noise!

  Enter Prince Harry

  PRINCE HARRY Who saw the Duke of Clarence?

  CLARENCE

  I am here, brother, full of heaviness.

  PRINCE HARRY

  How now, rain within doors, and none abroad?

  How doth the King?

  GLOUCESTER Exceeding ill.

  PRINCE HARRY

  Heard he the good news yet? Tell it him.

  GLOUCESTER

  He altered much upon the hearing it.

  PRINCE HARRY 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 HARRY

  No, I will sit and watch here by the King.

  Exeunt all but the King and Prince Harry

  Why doth the crown lie there upon his pillow,

  Being so troublesome a bedfellow?

  O polished 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 scald’st 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<
br />
  Shall, O dear father, pay thee plenteously.

  My due from thee is this imperial crown,

  Which, as immediate from thy place and blood,

  Derives itself to me.

  He puts the crown on his head

  Lo where 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

  ⌈Music ceases.⌉ The King awakes

  KING HENRY

  Warwick, Gloucester, Clarence!

  Enter the Earl of Warwick, and the Dukes of

  Gloucester and Clarence

  CLARENCE Doth the King call?

  WARWICK

  What would your majesty? How fares your grace?

  KING HENRY

  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

  The Prince of Wales? Where is he? Let me see him.

  WARWICK

  This door is open; he is gone this way.

  GLOUCESTER

  He came not through the chamber where we stayed.

  KING HENRY

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

  WARWICK

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

  KING HENRY

  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 cankered 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 packed with wax, our mouths with honey,

  We bring it to the hive; and, like the bees, 206

  Are murdered for our pains. This bitter taste

  Yields his engrossments to the ending father.

  Enter the Earl of Warwick

  Now where is he that will not stay so long

  Till his friend sickness have determined me?

  WARWICK

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

  Washing with kindly tears his gentle cheeks

  With such a deep demeanour, in great sorrow,

  That tyranny, which never quaffed but blood,

  Would, by beholding him, have washed his knife 215

  With gentle eye-drops. He is coming hither.

  KING HENRY

  But wherefore did he take away the crown?

  Enter Prince Harry with the crown

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

  (To the others) Depart the chamber; leave us here

  alone. Exeunt all but the King and Prince Harry

  PRINCE HARRY

  I never thought to hear you speak again.

  KING HENRY

  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 overwhelm 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 stol’n that which after some few hours

  Were thine without offence, and at my death

  Thou hast sealed up my expectation.

  Thy life did manifest thou loved’st me not,

  And thou wilt have me die assured of it.

  Thou hid’st a thousand daggers in thy thoughts,

  Whom 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 crowned. 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 I

  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 curbed licence plucks

  The muzzle of restraint, and the wild dog 260

  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 HARRY

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

  The moist impediments unto my speech,

  I had forestalled 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;

  ⌈He returns the crown and kneels⌉

  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 true and inward 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 th‘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 honoured, most renowned,

  Hast eat thy bearer up.’ Thus, my royal liege,

  Accusing it, I put it on my head,

  To try with it, as with an enemy

  That had before my face murdered 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 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.

  Prince Harry ⌈rises from kneeling and⌉ sits by the bed

  God knows, my son,

  By what bypaths 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 better quiet,

  Better opinion, better confirmation;

  For all the soil of the achievement goes

  With me into the earth. It seemed in me

  But as an honour snatched with boist‘rous 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 seest with peril I have answerèd;

  For all my reign hath been but as a scene

  Acting that argument. And now my death

  Changes the mood, 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 thy 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