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 rigol9 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 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.

K. Hen. Warwick! Gloster! Clarence!

Cla.

Re-enter WARWICK, and the rest.

[Exit.

Doth the king call? War. What would your majesty? How fares your

grace?

K. Hen. Why did you leave me here alone, my

lords?

Cla. We left the prince my brother here, my liege, Who undertook to sit and watch by you.

K. Hen. The prince of Wales? Where is he? let me see him:

He is not here.

War. This door is open; he is gone this way.

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

9

this golden rigol-] Rigol means a circle.

K. Hen. Where is the crown? who took it from my

pillow?

War. When we withdrew, my liege, we left it here. K. Hen. 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 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, tolling1 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 murder'd for our pains. This bitter taste
Yield his engrossments2 to the ending father. —

Re-enter Warwick.

Now, where is he that will not stay so long

Till his friend sickness hath determin'd3 me?

War. My lord, I found the prince in the next room, Washing with kindly tears his gentle cheeks;

1

tolling-] Tolling is taking toll.

2 Yield his engrossments —] His accumulations.

3

determin'd―] i. e. ended; it is still used in this sense in

legal conveyances.

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. K. Hen. 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 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 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 thine ear,
That thou art crowned, not that I am dead.
Let all the tears that should bedew my hearse,

opinion.

seal'd up my expectation:] Thou hast confirmed my

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 license 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,

The moist impediments unto my speech,
I had forestall'd this dear and deep rebuke,

[Kneeling.

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!
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 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. 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 :5

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,

That had before

as with an enemy,

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!
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,

5

in med'cine potable:] There has long prevailed an opinion that a solution of gold has great medicinal virtues, and that the incorruptibility of gold might be communicated to the body impregnated with it.