And pluck up drowned Honor by the locks;
So he that doth redeem her thence, might wear
Without co-rival all her dignities.
But out upon this half-fac'd fellowship!
Lady Percy's pathetic Speech to her Husband.
O my good lord, why are you thus alone?
For what offence have I, this fortnight, been
A banish'd woman from my Harry's bed?
Tell me, sweet lord, what is it takes from thee
Thy stomach, pleasure, and thy golden sleep?
Why dost thou bend thine eyes upon the earth,
And start so often when thou sitt'st alone?
Why hast thou lost the fresh blood in thy
cheeks:
And giv'n my treasures, and my rights of thee,
To thick-ey'd musing, and curs'd melancholy?
In thy faint slumbers I by thee have watch'd,
And heard thee murmur tales of iron wars;
Speak terms of manage to thy bounding steed;
Cry, "Courage! to the field!" and thou hast
talk'd
Of sallies, and retires; of trenches, tents,
Of palisadoes, frontiers, parapets;
Of basilisks, of cannon, culverin ;
Of prisoners' ransom, and of soldiers slain,
And all the currents of a heady fight.
Thy spirit within thee hath been so at war,
And thus hath so bestirr'd thee in thy sleep,
That beads of sweat have stood upon thy brow,
Like bubbles in a late-disturbed stream:
And in thy face strange motions have appear'd,
Such as we see when men restrain their breath
On some great sudden haste. O, what por-
- tents are these?
Some heavy business hath my lord in hand,
And I must know it, else he loves me not.
I cannot blame him: at my nativity, The front of heaven was full of fiery shapes, Of burning cressets; and, at my birth, The frame and huge foundation of the earth Shak'd like a coward.
Hot. Why so it would have done At the same season, if your mother's cat Had kitten'd-tho' yourself had ne'er been born.
I'll give thrice so much land
To any well-deserving friend;
But, in the way of bargain, mark ye me,
I'll cavil on the ninth part of a hair.
A Husband sung to Sleep by a fair Wife
She bids you
Upon the wanton rushes lay you down,
And rest your gentle head upon her lap,
And she will sing the song that pleaseth you,
And on your eye-lids crown the god of sleep,
Charming your blood with pleasing heaviness
Making such difference 'twixt wake and sleep
As is the difference betwixt day and night,
The hour before the heavenly harness'd team
Begins his golden progress in the east.
King Henry the Fourth to his Son.
Had I so lavish of my presence been,
So common hackney'd in the eyes of men,
So stale and cheap to vulgar company,
Opinion, that did help me to the crown,
Had still kept loyal to possession;
And left me in reputeless banishment,
A fellow of no mark nor likelihood.
By being seldom seen, I could not stir,
But, like a comet, I was wondered at: [he."
That men would tell their children; "This is
Others would say, " Where? which is Bo-
lingbroke?"
And then I stole all courtesy from heaven,
And dress'd myself in such humility,
That I did pluck allegiance from men's hearts,
Loud shouts and salutations from their mouths,
Even in the presence of the crowned king.
Thus did I keep my person fresh and new;
My presence, like a robe pontifical,
Ne'er seen but wondered at: and so my state,
Seldom, but sumptuous, showed like a feast;
And won, by rareness, such solemnity.
The skipping king, he ambled up and down
With shallow jesters, and rash bavin wits,
Soon kindled, and soon burned: carded his
Mingled his royalty with capering fools;
Had his great name profaned with their scorns;
And gave his countenance against his name,
To laugh at gibing boys, and stand the push
Of every beardless vain comparative :
Grew a companion to the common streets,
Enfeoffed himself to popularity:
Diseased nature oftentimes breaks forth
In strange eruptions: oft the teeming earth
Is with a kind of cholic pinch'd and vex'd,
By the imprisoning of unruly wind [striving, That, being daily swallowed by men's eyes,
Within her womb; which, for enlargement They surfeited with honey; and began [little
Shakes the old beldame Earth, and topples To loathe the taste of sweetness, whereof a
Steeples and moss-grown towers. [down More than a little is by much too much.
So, when he had occasion to be seen,
He was but as the cuckow is in June,
Heard, not regarded; seen, but with such eyes,
As, sick and blunted with community,
Afford no extraordinary gaze,
Such as is bent on sun-like majesty
When it shines seldom in admiring eyes:
But rather drows'd, and hung their eye-lids
Slept in his face, and rendered such aspect
As cloudy men use to their adversaries; [full.
Being with his presence glutted, gorg'd, and
Prince Henry's modest Defence of himself.
God forgive them, that so much have sway'd
Your majesty's good thoughts away from me!
I will redeem all this on Percy's head,
And, in the closing of some glorious day,
Be bold to tell you that I am your son;
When I will wear a garment all of blood,
And stain my favors in a bloody mask,
In praise of Henry Percy; by my hopes-
This present enterprise set off his head-
I do not think, a braver gentleman,
More active-valiant, or more valiant-young,
More daring, or more bold, is now alive,
To grace this latter age with noble deeds.
For my part, I may speak it to my shame,
I have a truant been to chivalry;
And so I hear he doth account me too :
Yet this before my father's majesty-
I am content that he shall take the odds
Of his great name and estimation;
Which, wash'd away, shall scour my shame | And will, to save the blood on either side,
And that shall be the day, whene'er it lights,
That this same child of honor and renown,
This gallant Hotspur, this all-praised knight,
And your unthought of Harry chance to meet ;
For ev'ry honor sitting on his helm,
Would they were multitudes; and on my head
My shames redoubled; for the time will come
That I shall make this northern youth ex-
change
His glorious deeds for my indignities.
Percy is but my factor, good my lord,
To engross up glorious deeds on my behalf;
And I will call him to so strict account,
That he shall render every glory up,
Yea, even the slightest worship of his time,
Or I will tear the reckoning from his heart.
This, in the name of God, I promise here:
The which, if he be pleas'd I shall perform,
I do beseech your majesty may salve
The long grown wounds of my intemperance:
If not, the end of life cancels all bonds;
And I will die a hundred thousand deaths,
Ere break the smallest parcel of this vow.
A gallant Warrior.
I saw young Harry-with his beaver on,
His cuisses on his thighs, gallantly arm'd-
Rise from the ground, like feather'd Mercury,
And vaulted with such ease into his seat,
As if an angel dropp'd down from the clouds,
To turn and wind a fiery Pegasus,
And witch the world with noble horsemanship.
·Hotspur's Impatience for the Battle.
Let them come :
They come like sacrifices in their trim,
And to the fire-eyed maid of smoky war,
All hot and bleeding, will we offer them:
The mailed Mars shall on his altar sit,
Up to the ears in blood. I am on fire,
To hear this rich reprisal is so nigh, [horse,
And yet not ours: Come, let me take my
Who is to bear me like a thunderbolt,
Against the bosom of the Prince of Wales:
Harry to Harry shall, hot horse to horse,
Meet, and ne'er part, till one drop down a
O, that Glendower were come ! [corse.
Prince Henry's modest Challenge.
Try fortune with him in a single fight.
Prince Henry's pathetic Speech on the Death
of Hotspur.
Brave Percy-fare thee well, great heart! Ill-weav'd ambition, how much art thou shrunk !
When that this body did contain a spirit,
A kingdom for it was too small a bound;
But now, two paces of the vilest earth [dead,
Is room enough :-This earth that bears thee
Bears not alive so stout a gentleman.
If thou wert sensible of courtesy,
I should not make so dear a show of zeal :-
But let my favors hide thy mangled face;
And, even in thy behalf, I'll thank myself,
For doing these fair rites of tenderness.
Adieu, and take thy praise with thee to heaven!
Thy ignominy sleep with thee in the grave,
But not remember'd in thy epitaph!
O, gentlemen, the time of life is short;
To spend that shortness basely, were too long,
If life did ride upon a dial's point,
Still ending at the arrival of an hour.
§ 20. THE SECOND PART OF HENRY IV.
SHAKSPEARE.
CONTENTION, like a horse
Full of high feeding, madly hath broke loose,
And bears down all before him.
After him, came, spurring hard,
A gentleman almost forespent with speed,
That stopp'd by me to breathe his bloodied
He ask'd the way to Chester; and of him
I did demand what news from Shrewsbury.
He told me, that rebellion had ill luck,
And that young Harry Percy's spur was cold:
With that, he gave his able horse the head,
And, bending forward, struck his armed heels
Against the panting sides of his poor jade
Up to the rowel head; and, starting so,
He seem'd in running to devour the way,
Staying no longer question.
Messenger with ill News.
The Prince of Wales doth join with all the Yea, this man's brow, like to a title-leaf,
Foretels the nature of a tragic volume:
So looks the strond whereon th' imperious flood
Hath left a witness'd usurpation. [cheek
Thou tremblest and the whiteness in thy
Is apter than thy tongue to tell thy errand.
Even such a man, so faint, so spiritless,
So dull, so dead in look, so woe-begone,
Drew Priam's curtain in the dead of night,
And would have told him half his Troy was
burn'd.
I see a strange confession in thine eye: [sin,
Thou shak'st thy head; and hold'st it fear or
To speak a truth. If he be slain, say so :
The tongue offends not that reports his death:
And he doth sin, that doth belie the dead;
Not he, which says the dead is not alive.
Yet the first bringer of unwelcome news
Hath but a losing office; and his tongue
Sounds ever after as a sullen bell,
Remember'd knolling a departing friend.
Greater Griefs destroy the less.
As the wretch, whose fever-weaken'd joints, Like strengthless hinges, buckle under life, Impatient of his fit, breaks like a fire Out of his keeper's arms; even so my limbs, Weaken'd with grief, being now enrag'd with grief, [nice crutch; Are thrice themselves: Hence therefore, thou A scaly gauntlet now, with joints of steel, Must glove this hand and hence, thou sickly quoif;
Thou art a guard too wanton for the head, Which princes, flush'd with conquest, aim to hit.
Now bind my brows with iron, and approach The rugged'st hour that time and spite dare bring
To frown upon th' enrag'd Northumberland!
Let heaven kiss earth! now let not Nature's
hand
Keep the wild flood confin'd! Let order die!
And let this world no longer be a stage
To feed contention in a ling'ring act;
But let one spirit of the first-born Cain
Reign in all bosoms, that, each heart being set
On bloody courses, the rude scene may end,
And darkness be the burier of the dead.
O gentle sleep,
Nature's soft nurse, how have I frighted thee,
That thou no more wilt weigh my eye-lids.
And steep my senses in forgetfulness! [down,
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 sounds 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,
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 deaf'ning clamors 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 the stillest night,
With all appliances and means to boot,
Deny it to a king?
Dialogue between Prince Henry and his Fa-
ther.
Come hither to me, Harry :-
Depart the chamber, leave us here alone.
[Exeunt Lords.
P. H. I never thought to hear you speak
again.
[that thought:
K. H. Thy wish was father, Harry, to
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
honors,
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 lov'dst me not,
And thou wilt have me die assur'd 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 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,
Henry the Fifth is crown'd :-up, vanity!
Down, royal state! All you sage counsellors,
hence!
And to the English court assemble now,
From ev'ry region, apes of idleness; [scum :
Now, neighbor-confines, purge you of your
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 honor, might:
For the fifth Harry from curb'd license plucks
The muzzle of restraint, and the wild dog
Shall flesh his tooth in ev'ry 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. H. O pardon me, my liege! but for my
tears,
[Kneeling.
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 honor, 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!
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:
But thou most fine, most honor'd, most re-
nown'd,
[liege,
Hast eat thy bearer up." Thus, my most royal
Accusing it, I put it on my head;
To try with it-as with an enemy
That had before my face murdered 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!
K. Hen. O my son !
Heaven put it in thy mind, to take it hence,
That thou mightst win the more thy father's
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 of the achievement goes
With me into the earth. It seem'd in me,
But as an honor snatch'd with boisterous
And I had many living, to upbraid
[hand;
My gain of it by their assistances;
Which daily grew to quarrel and to bloodshed,
Wounding supposed peace: All these bold
Thou seest, with peril I have answered: [fears,
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 pur-
Falls upon thee in a more fairer sort: [chas'd,
So thou the garland wear'st successively. [do,
Yet tho' thou stand'st more sure than I could
Thou art not firm enough, since griefs are
[thy friends,
And all thy friends, which thou must make Have but their stings and teeth newly ta'en out,
By whose fell working I was first advanc'd,
And by whose pow'r I well might lodge a fear
To be again displac'd: which to avoid,
I cut them off; and had a purpose now
To lead out many to the Holy Land;
Lest rest, and lying still, might make them
Too near unto my state. Therefore, my
Harry,
Be it thy course, to busy giddy minds
With foreign quarrels; that action, hence
borne out,
May waste the memory of the former days.
More would I, but my lungs are wasted so,
That 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!
P. Hen. 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.
Reflections on a Crown.
O polish'd perturbation! golden care! That keeps the ports of slumber open wide To many a watchful night-sleep with it now! Yet not so sound, and half so deeply sweet, As he, whose brow, with homely biggen bound,
Snores out the watch of night. O Majesty! When thou dost pinch thy bearer, thou dost Like a rich armor worn in heat of day, [sit That scalds with safety.
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, culling from ev'ry flow'r
The virtuous sweets,
[honey,
Our thighs packed with wax, our mouths with
We bring it to the hive; and, like the bees,
Are murder'd for our pains.
Their heavy burthens at his narrow gate;
The sad-eyed justice, with his surly hum,
Delivering o'er to executors pale
The lazy yawning drone.
Now all the youth of England are on fire,
The Chief Justice to King Henry V. whom And silken dalliance in the wardrobe lies;
he had imprisoned.
If the deed were ill,
Be you contented, wearing now the garland,
To have a son set your decrees at nought;
To pluck down justice from your awful bench;
To trip the course of law, and blunt the sword
That guards the peace and safety of your
person;
Nay, more, to spurn at your most royal image,
And mock your workings in a second body.
Question your royal thoughts, make the case
Be now the father, and propose a son: [yours,
Hear your own dignity so much profan'd, [ed,
See your most dreadful laws so loosely slight-
Behold yourself so by a son disdain'd:
And then imagine me taking your part,
And, in your power, soft silencing your son.
§ 21. THE LIFE OF HENRY V.
SHAKSPEARE.
CONSIDERATION like an angel, came,
And whipp'd th' offending Adam out of him,
Leaving his body as a paradise,
To envelope and contain celestial spirits.
King Henry V. his Perfections.
Hear him but reason in divinity,
And, all-admiring, with an inward wish [late:
You would desire the king were made a pre-
Hear him debate of common-wealth affairs,
You would say, it hath been all-in-all his study:
List his discourse of war, and you shall hear
A fearful battle rendered you in music.
Turn him to any course of policy,
The gordian knot of it he will unloose,
Familiar as his garter; that, when he speaks,
The air, a chartered libertine, is still,
And the mute wonder lurketh in men's ears,
To steal his sweet and honey'd sentences.
The Commonwealth of Bees.
So work the honey-bees :
Now thrive the armorers, and honor's though:
Reigns solely in the breast of every man :
They sell the pasture now to buy the horse;
Following the mirror of all Christian kings,
With winged heels, as English Mercuries.
For now sits expectation in the air;
And hides a sword, from hilt unto the point,
With crowns imperial, crowns and coronets,
Promis'd to Harry and his followers.
O! how hast thou with jealousy infected
The sweetness of affiance! show men dutiful?
Why, so didst thou seem they grave and
learned ?
[mily?
Why, so didst thou: come they of noble fa
Why, so didst thou: seem they religious?
Why, so didst thou or are they spare in diet,
Free from gross passion, or of mirth, or anger,
Constant in spirit, not swerving with the
Garnish'd and deck'd in modest compliment:
Not working with the eye, without the ear,
And, but in purged judgment, trusting nei-
ther?
Such, and so finely bolted, didst thou seem:
And thus thy fall hath left a kind of blot,
To mark the full-fraught man, and best endued,
With some suspicion.
Description of a Fleet setting Sail.
Suppose, that you have seen
The well-appointed king at Hampton-pier
Embark his royalty; and his brave fleet [ning.
With silken streamers the young Phœbus fan-
Play with your fancies; and in them behold,
Upon the hempen tackle, ship-boys climbing:
Hear the shrill whistle, which doth order give
To sounds confus'd: behold the threaden sails,
Borne with the invisible and creeping wind,
Draw the huge bottoms through the furrow'd
Breasting the lofty surge.
[sea,
Creatures that, by a rule in nature, teach
The act of order to a peopled kingdom.
They have a king, and officers of sorts:
Where some, like magistrates, correct at The hum of either army stilly sounds,
Description of Night in a Camp.
From camp to camp, through the foul womb
of night,
Others, like merchants, venture trade abroad:
Others, like soldiers, armed in their stings,
Make boot upon the summer's velvet buds;
Which pillage they with merry march bring
To the tent-royal of their emperor :
[home
Who, busied in his majesty, surveys
The singing masons building roofs of gold;
The civil citizens kneading up the honey;
The poor mechanic porters crowding in
That the fix'd sentinels almost receive
The secret whispers of each other's watch:
Fire answers fire; and through their paly flames
Each battle sees the other's umber'd face:
Steed threatens steed in high and boastful
neighs,
[tents,
Piercing the night's dull ear; and from the
The armorers, accomplishing the knights,
With busy hammers closing rivets up,
Give dreadful note of preparation.
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