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, tolling 21 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 engrossments 22 to the ending father.-

Re-enter WARWICK.

Now, where is he that will not stay so long
Till his friend sickness hath determin'd 23 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?

21 Taking toll.

22 Accumulations.

23 i. e. ended. It is still used in that sense in legal conveySo in Antony and Cleopatra, speaking of a hailstone:

ances.

as it determines, so

Dissolves my life.'

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 24:
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 25 of my life.

What! canst thou not forbear me half an hour?
and dig my grave thyself;

Then get thee gone,

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

Be drops of balm, to sanctify thy head:

24 i. e. confirmed my opinion.

hearse,

25 Hour, anciently written hower, is used sometimes as a dissyllable, as well by Shakspeare as others. So Ben Jonson in The Case is Alter'd:

'By twice so many howers as would fill

The circle of a year.'

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 26;
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,

The moist impediments unto my speech,

[Kneeling.

I had forestall'd this dear and deep rebuke,

26 This playing upon words seems to have been highly admired in the age of Shakspeare. Thus Marlowe, in his Hero and

Leander:

'And as amidst the enamour'd waves he swims,

The god of gold a purpose gilt his limbs,

That this word guilt including double sense,

The double guilt of his incontinence,

Might be express'd.'

Again, in Acolastus his Afterwit, a poem, by S. Nicholson, 1600:
O sacred thirst of golde, what canst thou not?—

Some term thee gylt, that every soule might read,
Even in thy name, thy guilt is great indeed.'

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 27!
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 28:

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;

27 The Variorum Shakspeare reads:

Let me no more from this obedience rise

(Which my most true and inward-duteous spirit
Teacheth), this prostrate and exterior bending!'

Johnson and others have considered this passage as obscure in the construction; but it was only made so by their wrong pointing. The obvious sense is, 'Let me no more rise from this obeisance, which my most loyal and inwardly duteous spirit teacheth this prostrate and exterior bending.' Obeisance and obedience were formerly used indiscriminately the one for the other. Truth is always used for loyalty.

28 It was long a prevailing opinion that a solution of gold bad great medicinal virtues; and that the incorruptibility of the metal might be communicated to the body impregnated with it. Potable gold was one of the panacea of ancient quacks.

To try with it,- —as with an enemy,
That had before my face murder'd my
The quarrel of a true inheritor.

But if it did infect my blood with joy,

father,

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 29 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 30 peace: all these bold fears 31,
Thou see'st with peril I have answer'd:
For all my reign hath been but as a scene
Acting that argument; and now my death

29 Soil is stain, spot, blemish.

30 Supposed peace is imagined peace, counterfeit, not real. 31 Fears are objects of fear; terrors.

VOL. V.

I I