Henry IV, Pt. 2
Act 3, Scene 1
Westminster. A palace room.
- Enter the King in his night-gown, alone, followed by a Page.
King Henry the Fourth
2 - 33- 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.
- 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?
- 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,
- And lull’d with sound of sweetest melody?
- O thou dull god, why li’st thou with the vile
- In loathsome beds, and leavest the kingly couch
- A watch-case or a common ’larum-bell?
- Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast
- Seal 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
- With deafing clamor in the slippery clouds,
- That with the hurly death itself awakes?
- Canst thou, O partial sleep, give then repose
- To the wet sea-boy in an hour so rude,
- And in the calmest and most stillest night,
- 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.
- Enter Warwick, Surrey, and Sir John Blunt.
Earl of Warwick
35- Many good morrows to your Majesty!
King Henry the Fourth
36- Is it good morrow, lords?
Earl of Warwick
37- ’Tis one a’ clock, and past.
King Henry the Fourth
38 - 39- Why then good morrow to you all, my lords.
- Have you read o’er the letters that I sent you?
Earl of Warwick
40- We have, my liege.
King Henry the Fourth
41 - 43- 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.
Earl of Warwick
44 - 47- It is but as a body yet distempered,
- Which to his former strength may be restored
- With good advice and little medicine.
- My Lord Northumberland will soon be cool’d.
King Henry the Fourth
48 - 83- O God, that one might read the book of fate,
- And see the revolution of the times
- Make mountains level, and the continent,
- 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 chance’s mocks
- And changes fill the cup of alteration
- 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
- Since Richard and Northumberland, great friends,
- Did feast together, and in two year 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,
- 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,
- Then check’d and rated by Northumberland,
- Did speak these words, now prov’d a prophecy?
- “Northumberland, thou ladder by the which
- My cousin Bullingbrook ascends my throne”
- (Though then, God knows, I had no such intent,
- But that necessity so bow’d the state
- That I and greatness were compell’d 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,
- Foretelling this same time’s condition
- And the division of our amity.
Byam Shaw, 1901
Earl of Warwick
84 - 96- There is a history in all men’s lives,
- Figuring the natures of the times deceas’d,
- The which observ’d, a man may prophesy,
- With a near aim, of the main chance of things
- As yet not come to life, who in their seeds
- And weak beginning lie intreasured.
- Such things become the hatch and brood of time,
- And by the necessary form of this
- 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.
King Henry the Fourth
97 - 101- 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.
Earl of Warwick
102 - 112- It cannot be, my lord.
- Rumor doth double, like the voice and echo,
- The numbers of the feared. Please it your Grace
- To go to bed. Upon my soul, my lord,
- The powers that you already have sent forth
- Shall bring this prize in very easily.
- To comfort you the more, I have received
- A certain instance that Glendower is dead.
- Your Majesty hath been this fortnight ill,
- And these unseasoned hours perforce must add
- Unto your sickness.
King Henry the Fourth
113 - 115- I will take your counsel,
- And were these inward wars once out of hand,
- We would, dear lords, unto the Holy Land.
- Exeunt.
Henry IV
late 18th C