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Westminster. A Room in the Palace. | |
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Enter KING HENRY in his night-gown, with a Page. | |
| K. Hen. Go, call the Earls of Surrey and of Warwick; | |
| But, ere they come, bid them o’er-read these letters, | |
| And well consider of them. Make good speed. [Exit Page. | 5 |
| How many thousand of my poorest subjects | |
| Are at this hour asleep! O sleep! O gentle sleep! | |
| Nature’s soft nurse, how have I frighted thee, | |
| That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down | |
| And steep my senses in forgetfulness? | 10 |
| Why rather, sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs, | |
| Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee, | |
| And hush’d with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber, | |
| Than in the perfum’d chambers of the great, | |
| Under the canopies of costly state, | 15 |
| And lull’d with sound of sweetest melody? | |
| O thou dull god! why liest thou with the vile | |
| In loathsome beds, and leav’st the kingly couch | |
| A watch-case or a common ’larum bell? | |
| Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast | 20 |
| Seel up the ship-boy’s eyes, and rock his brains | |
| In cradle of the rude imperious surge, | |
| And in the visitation of the winds, | |
| Who take the ruffian billows by the top, | |
| Curling their monstrous heads, and hanging them | 25 |
| With deaf’ning clamour in the slippery clouds, | |
| That with the hurly death itself awakes? | |
| Canst thou, O partial sleep! give thy repose | |
| To the wet sea-boy in an hour so rude, | |
| And in the calmest and most stillest night, | 30 |
| With all appliances and means to boot, | |
| Deny it to a king? Then, happy low, lie down! | |
| Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown. | |
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Enter WARWICK and SURREY. | |
| War. Many good morrows to your majesty! | 35 |
| K. Hen. Is it good morrow, lords? | |
| War. ’Tis one o’clock; and past. | |
| K. Hen. Why then, good morrow to you all, my lords. | |
| Have you read o’er the letters that I sent you? | |
| War. We have, my liege. | 40 |
| K. Hen. Then you perceive the body of our kingdom, | |
| How foul it is; what rank diseases grow, | |
| And with what danger, near the heart of it. | |
| War. It is but as a body, yet, distemper’d, | |
| Which to his former strength may be restor’d | 45 |
| With good advice and little medicine: | |
| My Lord Northumberland will soon be cool’d. | |
| K. Hen. O God! that one might read the book of fate, | |
| And see the revolution of the times | |
| Make mountains level, and the continent,— | 50 |
| Weary of solid firmness,—melt itself | |
| Into the sea! and, other times, to see | |
| The beachy girdle of the ocean | |
| Too wide for Neptune’s hips; how chances mock, | |
| And changes fill the cup of alteration | 55 |
| With divers liquors! O! if this were seen, | |
| The happiest youth, viewing his progress through, | |
| What perils past, what crosses to ensue, | |
| Would shut the book, and sit him down and die. | |
| ’Tis not ten years gone | 60 |
| Since Richard and Northumberland, great friends, | |
| Did feast together, and in two years after | |
| Were they at wars: it is but eight years since | |
| This Percy was the man nearest my soul, | |
| Who like a brother toil’d in my affairs | 65 |
| And laid his love and life under my foot; | |
| Yea, for my sake, even to the eyes of Richard | |
| Gave him defiance. But which of you was by,— | |
| [To WARWICK.] You, cousin Nevil, as I may remember,— | |
| When Richard, with his eye brimful of tears, | 70 |
| Then check’d and rated by Northumberland, | |
| Did speak these words, now prov’d a prophecy? | |
| ‘Northumberland, thou ladder, by the which | |
| My cousin Bolingbroke ascends my throne;’ | |
| Though then, God knows, I had no such intent, | 75 |
| But that necessity so bow’d the state | |
| That I and greatness were compelled to kiss: | |
| ‘The time shall come,’ thus did he follow it, | |
| ‘The time will come, that foul sin, gathering head, | |
| Shall break into corruption:’—so went on, | 80 |
| Foretelling this same time’s condition | |
| And the division of our amity. | |
| War. There is a history in all men’s lives, | |
| Figuring the nature of the times deceas’d; | |
| The which observ’d, a man may prophesy, | 85 |
| With a near aim, of the main chance of things | |
| As yet not come to life, which in their seeds | |
| And weak beginnings lie intreasured. | |
| Such things become the hatch and brood of time; | |
| And by the necessary form of this | 90 |
| King Richard might create a perfect guess | |
| That great Northumberland, then false to him, | |
| Would of that seed grow to a greater falseness, | |
| Which should not find a ground to root upon, | |
| Unless on you. | 95 |
| K. Hen. Are these things then necessities? | |
| Then let us meet them like necessities; | |
| And that same word even now cries out on us. | |
| They say the bishop and Northumberland | |
| Are fifty thousand strong. | 100 |
| War. It cannot be, my lord! | |
| Rumour doth double, like the voice and echo, | |
| The numbers of the fear’d. Please it your Grace | |
| To go to bed: upon my soul, my lord, | |
| The powers that you already have sent forth | 105 |
| Shall bring this prize in very easily. | |
| To comfort you the more, I have receiv’d | |
| A certain instance that Glendower is dead. | |
| Your majesty hath been this fortnight ill, | |
| And these unseason’d hours perforce must add | 110 |
| Unto your sickness. | |
| K. Hen. I will take your counsel: | |
| And were these inward wars once out of hand, | |
| We would, dear lords, unto the Holy Land. [Exeunt. | |
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