Henry IV, Part 2
Page 11
become very hot and valiant. If I had a thousand sons, the
first principle I would teach them should be to forswear thin
potations and to addict themselves to sack.
Enter Bardolph
How now Bardolph?
BARDOLPH The army is dischargèd all and gone.
FALSTAFF Let them go. I’ll through Gloucestershire, and there
will I visit Master Robert Shallow, Esquire. I have him
already tempering between my finger and my thumb, and
shortly will I seal with him . Come away.
Exeunt
Act 4 Scene 2
running scene 11
Location: the Jerusalem Chamber in Westminster Abbey, though here transferred to the royal court
Enter King, Warwick, Clarence, Gloucester
KING HENRY IV Now, lords, if heaven doth give successful end
To this debate that bleedeth at our doors,
We will our youth lead on to higher fields
And draw no swords but what are sanctified.
Our navy is addressed, our power collected,
Our substitutes in absence well invested,
And everything lies level to our wish;
Only we want a little personal strength,
And pause us, till these rebels, now afoot,
Come underneath the yoke of government.
WARWICK Both which we doubt not but your majesty
Shall soon enjoy.
KING HENRY IV Humphrey, my son of Gloucester,
Where is the prince your brother?
GLOUCESTER I think he’s gone to hunt, my lord, at Windsor.
KING HENRY IV And how accompanied?
GLOUCESTER I do not know, my lord.
KING HENRY IV Is not his brother, Thomas of Clarence, with him?
GLOUCESTER No, my good lord, he is in presence here.
CLARENCE What would my lord and father?
Comes forward
KING HENRY IV Nothing but well to thee, Thomas of Clarence.
How chance thou art not with the prince thy brother?
He loves thee, and thou dost neglect him, Thomas.
Thou hast a better place in his affection
Than all thy brothers. Cherish it, my boy,
And noble offices thou mayst effect
Of mediation, after I am dead,
Between his greatness and thy other brethren:
Therefore omit him not, blunt not his love,
Nor lose the good advantage of his grace
By seeming cold or careless of his will,
For he is gracious, if he be observed.
He hath a tear for pity and a hand
Open as day for melting charity:
Yet notwithstanding, being incensed, he’s flint,
As humorous as winter, and as sudden
As flaws congealèdin the spring of day.
His temper, therefore, must be well observed:
Chide him for faults, and do it reverently,
When you perceive his blood inclined to mirth,
But being moody, give him line and scope,
Till that his passions, like a whale on ground,
Confound themselves with working. Learn this, Thomas,
And thou shalt prove a shelter to thy friends,
A hoop of gold to bind thy brothers in,
That the united vessel of their blood,
Mingled with venom of suggestion—
As, force perforce, the age will pour it in—
Shall never leak, though it do work as strong
As aconitum or rash gunpowder.
CLARENCE I shall observe him with all care and love.
KING HENRY IV Why art thou not at Windsor with him, Thomas?
CLARENCE He is not there today. He dines in London.
KING HENRY IV And how accompanied? Canst thou tell that?
CLARENCE With Poins, and other his continual followers.
KING HENRY IV 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
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 learned, 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 others,
Turning past evils to advantages.
KING HENRY IV ’Tis seldom when the bee doth leave her comb
In the dead carrion.
Enter Westmorland
Who’s here? Westmorland?
WESTMORLAND Health to my sovereign, and new happiness
Added to that that I am to deliver!
Prince John, your son, doth kiss your grace’s hand.
Mowbray, the Bishop Scroop, 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,
Gives a paper
With every course in his particular.
KING HENRY IV 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.
Gives papers
KING HENRY IV 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.
O, me! Come near me, now I am much ill.
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.
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.
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,
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 IV I pray you take me up and bear me hence
Into some other chamber. Softly, pray.
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.
To Servant
KING HENRY IV Set me the crown upon my pillow here.
Crown is set on the pillow
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.
Weeps
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 altered 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 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,
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. Lo, here it sits,
Puts crown on his head
Which heaven 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!
Waking
Enter Warwick, Gloucester, Clarence
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.
WARWICK This door is open. He is gone this way.
GLOUCESTER He came not through the chamber where we
stayed.
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 sleeps with thoughts, their brains with
care,
Their bones with industry,
For this they have engrossed and pilèd up
The cankered heaps of strange-achievèd 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,
Are murdered for our pains. This bitter taste
Yields his engrossments to the ending father.
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 demeanour in great sorrow
That tyranny, which never quaffed but blood,
Would, by beholding him, have washed his knife
With gentle eye-drops. He is coming hither.
KING HENRY IV But wherefore did he take away the crown?
Enter Prince Henry [with the crown]
Lo, where he comes.— Come hither to me, Harry.—
Depart the chamber, leave us here alone.
Exeunt [Warwick, Gloucester, Clarence]
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 my empty chair
That thou wilt needs invest thee with mine 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 sealed up my expectation.
Thy life did manifest thou lovedst me not,
And thou wilt have me die assured of it.
Thou hid’st 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 thy ear
That thou art crownèd, 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.
Henry the Fifth is crowned. Up, vanity,
Down, royal state, all you sage counsellors, hence!
And to the English court assemble now,
From ev’ry 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 curbèd licence plucks
The muzzle of restraint, and the wild dog
Shall flesh his tooth in 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 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,
Puts it back on the pillow
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,
Kneels
Which my most true and inward duteous spirit
Teacheth, this prostrate and exterior bending.
Heaven 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 purposèd.
Coming to look on you, thinking you dead,
And dead almost, my liege, to think you were,
I spake unto the 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 med’cine potable,