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 piled 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, culling 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 murdered for our pains. This bitter taste Yield his engrossments to the ending father. Re-enter WARWICK.
Now, where is he that will not stay so long Till his friend sickness hath determined me?
WAR. My lord, I found the prince in the next
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. KING. But wherefore did he take away the crown? Re-enter PRINCE HENRY.
Come hither to me, Harry.
Depart the chamber, leave us here alone.
[Exeunt WARWICK and the rest.
PRINCE. I never thought to hear you speak again. KING. Thy wish was father, Harry, to that thought:
I stay too long by thee, I weary thee.
Dost thou so hunger for mine empty chair That thou wilt needs invest thee with my 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 stolen 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 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 ear That thou art crowned, not that I am dead. Let all the tears that should bedew my hearse 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 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. O, pardon me, my liege! but for my tears,
The moist impediments unto my speech,
I had forestall'd this dear and deep rebuke 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 inward true and duteous spirit Teacheth, 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 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 this 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 medicine potable;
But thou, most fine, most honour'd, most renown'd,
Thus, my most royal liege,
Accusing it, I put it on my head, To try with it, as with an enemy
That 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 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!
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 counsel That ever I shall breathe. God 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 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 peace: all these bold fears Thou see'st with peril I have answered; For all my reign hath been but as a scene Acting that argument: and now my death Changes 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 advanced And by whose power I well might lodge a fear
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