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P. HUMPH. Comfort, your majesty!
CLA.

O my royal father! WEST. My sovereign lord, cheer up yourself, look up!

[fits WAR. Be patient, princes; you do know, these Are with his highness very ordinary.

Stand from him, give him air; he'll straight be well. [pangs:

CLA. No, no; he cannot long hold out these The 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. P. HUMPH. The people fear me; for they do

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That our great grandsire, Edward, sick'd and died. WAR. Speak lower, princes, for the king

recovers.

[end. P. HUMPH. This apoplexy will, certain, be his K. HEN. I pray you, take me up, and bear me hence

Into some other chamber; softly, pray.
[They convey the KING to an inner part of the
room, and place him on a bed.

Let there be no noise made, my gentle friends;
Unless some dulle and favourable hand
Will whisper music to my weary spirit.

WAR. Call for the music in the other room.
K. HEN. Set me the crown upon my pillow here.
CLA. His eye is hollow, and he changes much.
WAR. Less noise, less noise.

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P. HEN. 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 biggin' 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 rigols hath divorc'd
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,—

[Putting it on his head. 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 't is left to me.
K. HEN. Warwick! Gloster! Clarence!

[Exit.

Re-enter WARWICK, and the rest. CLA. Doth the king call? WAR. What would your majesty? How fares your grace?

my lords?

P. HUMPH. Exceeding ill. P. HEN.

Heard he the good news yet?

K. HEN. Why did you leave me here alone,

[it.

P. HUMPH. He alter'd much upon the hearing P. HEN. If he be sick with joy,

He will recover without physic.

a Hath wrought the mure,-] Hath worn the wall, &c. Daniel,

in his "Civil Wars," 1595, Book III. st. 116, referring to the sickness of Henry the Fourth, has a parallel thought:

"Wearing the wall so thin, that now the mind
Might well look thorough, and his frailtie find."

b The people fear me ;] The people alarm me, make me afraid.

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How quickly nature falls into revolt,
When gold becomes her object!

For this, the foolish over-careful fathers
Have broke their sleep* with thought, their brains
with care,

Their bones with industry;

For this, they have engrossed and pil'd 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;

[honey,
Our thighs packed with wax, our mouths with
We bring it to the hive; and, like the bees,
Are murder'd for our pains. This bitter taste
Yields his engrossments to the ending father.-

Re-enter WARWICK.

Now, where is he that will not stay so long
Till his friend sickness hath determin'd me?"
WAR. 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 quaff'd but blood,
Would, by beholding him, have wash'd his knife
With gentle eye-drops. He is coming hither.
K. HEN. 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 CLARENCE, PRINCE HUMPHREY, Lords, &c.

P. HEN. I never thought to hear you speak again. [thought:

K. HEN. Thy wish was father, Harry, to that
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 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 seal'd up my expectation:
Thy life did manifest, thou lov'dst me not,
And thou wilt have me die assur'd of it.
Thou hid'st a thousand daggers in thy thoughts;

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Which thou hast whetted on thy stony heart,
To stab at half an hour of my life.

What! can'st 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 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!
P. HEN. O, pardon me, my liege! but for my
tears,
[Kneeling.

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 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 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 the crown, as having sense,
And thus upbraided it.
pending,

(*) First folio, thy.

(1) First folio, most.

The care on thee de

(+) First folio, Henry.

(§) First folio, Heaven.

"Till his friend sickness' hands," &c.

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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!
K. HEN. O my son!

Heaven put it in thy mind, to take it hence,
That thou might'st 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. Heaven 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 better 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 purchas'd,
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;

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a Med'cine potable:] In allusion to the once prevalent notion that a solution of gold was the "sovereign'st thing on earth" for bodily ailments, and that "the incorruptibility of the metal might be communicated to the body impregnated with it." bAll these bold fears,-] "Fear," Johnson says, "is here used in the active sense, for that which causes fear. Fears are objects of fear; but, by these "bold fears," may be meant, "bold feers," that is, allies or companions, in the same sense that we apprehend the king uses the word in Act I. Sc. 3, of the first por

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 advanc'd,
And by whose power I well might lodge a fear
To be again displac'd: 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!
P. HEN. 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.

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"Shall we buy treason? and indent with feers." Was purchas'd,-] Gained by force. Purchase, with our old writers, was obliquely used in the sense of goods obtained by dishonest means, or at least by might rather than right.

d And all thy friends,-] Tyrwhitt conjectured we should read my friends," but there is still a difficulty, as the king is recommending the prince to ingratiate himself with persons whom he tells us immediately afterwards, he has cut off. Monck Mason, for "I cut them off," would therefore print "I cut some off."

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Enter SHALLOW, FALSTAFF, BARDOLPH, and

Page.

SHAL. By cock and pye,(1) sir,* you shall not away to-night.What, Davy, I say!

FAL. You must excuse me, master Robert Shallow.

SHAL. I will not excuse you; you shall not be excused; excuses shall not be admitted; there is no excuse shall serve; you shall not be excused.Why, Davy!

Enter DAVY.

DAVY. Here, sir.

SHAL. Davy, Davy, Davy, Davy,-let me see, Davy;-let me see, Davy:-let me see ;-yea,

(*) First folio omits, sir.

a William cook,-] Servants, and the lower orders of people generally, were commonly distinguished of old by surnames

marry, *William cook, bid him come hither.-Sir John, you shall not be excused.

DAVY. Marry, sir, thus ;-those precepts cannot be served: and, again, sir,-shall we sow the head-land with wheat?

SHAL. With red wheat, Davy. But for William cook ;--are there no young pigeons? DAVY. Yes, sir.-Here is now the smith's note, for shoeing, and plough-irons.

SHAL. Let it be cast, and paid: sir John, you shall not be excused.

DAVY. Now, sir, a new link to the bucket must needs be had:-And, sir, do you mean to stop any of William's wages, about the sack he lost the other day at Hinckley fair?

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