Act IV · Scene V
Another chamber.
Hover a speech to translate it — or press play to hear it performed.
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 handWill 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
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 wideTo many a watchful night! sleep with it now!Yet not so sound and half so deeply sweetAs he whose brow with homely biggen boundSnores out the watch of night. O majesty!When thou dost pinch thy bearer, thou dost sitLike a rich armour worn in heat of day,That scalds with safety. By his gates of breathThere lies a downy feather which stirs not:Did he suspire, that light and weightless downPerforce must move. My gracious lord! my father!This sleep is sound indeed, this is a sleepThat from this golden rigol hath divorcedSo many English kings. Thy due from meIs 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 strengthInto one giant arm, it shall not forceThis lineal honour from me: this from theeWill 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 supposeMy sleep my death?Find him, my Lord of Warwick; chide him hither.
Exit WARWICK
KING HENRY IV
This part of his conjoins with my disease,And helps to end me. See, sons, what things you are!How quickly nature falls into revoltWhen gold becomes her object!For this the foolish over-careful fathersHave broke their sleep with thoughts, their brains with care,Their bones with industry;For this they have engrossed and piled upThe canker'd heaps of strange-achieved gold;For this they have been thoughtful to investTheir sons with arts and martial exercises:When, like the bee, culling from every flowerThe 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 tasteYield his engrossments to the ending father.
Re-enter WARWICK
KING HENRY IV
Now, where is he that will not stay so longTill 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 sorrowThat tyranny, which never quaff'd but blood,Would, by beholding him, have wash'd his knifeWith gentle eye-drops. He is coming hither.
KING HENRY IV
But wherefore did he take away the crown?
Re-enter PRINCE HENRY
KING HENRY IV
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 chairThat thou wilt needs invest thee with my honoursBefore 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 dignityIs held from falling with so weak a windThat it will quickly drop: my day is dim.Thou hast stolen that which after some few hoursWere thine without offence; and at my deathThou 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 earThat thou art crowned, not that I am dead.Let all the tears that should bedew my hearseBe drops of balm to sanctify thy head:Only compound me with forgotten dustGive 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 commitThe 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 plucksThe muzzle of restraint, and the wild dogShall 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 rebukeEre you with grief had spoke and I had heardThe course of it so far. There is your crown;And He that wears the crown immortallyLong guard it yours! If I affect it moreThan as your honour and as your renown,Let me no more from this obedience rise,Which my most inward true and duteous spiritTeacheth, 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 dieAnd never live to show the incredulous worldThe 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 dependingHath 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 enemyThat 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 mineDid with the least affection of a welcomeGive entertainment to the might of it,Let God for ever keep it from my headAnd make me as the poorest vassal isThat 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 counselThat ever I shall breathe. God knows, my son,By what by-paths and indirect crook'd waysI met this crown; and I myself know wellHow 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 goesWith me into the earth. It seem'd in meBut as an honour snatch'd with boisterous hand,And I had many living to upbraidMy gain of it by their assistances;Which daily grew to quarrel and to bloodshed,Wounding supposed peace: all these bold fearsThou see'st with peril I have answered;For all my reign hath been but as a sceneActing that argument: and now my deathChanges 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 advancedAnd by whose power I well might lodge a fearTo be again displaced: which to avoid,I cut them off; and had a purpose nowTo lead out many to the Holy Land,Lest rest and lying still might make them lookToo near unto my state. Therefore, my Harry,Be it thy course to busy giddy mindsWith foreign quarrels; that action, hence borne out,May waste the memory of the former days.More would I, but my lungs are wasted soThat 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 flownFrom this bare wither'd trunk: upon thy sightMy 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 belongUnto 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