The Second Part Of King Henry The Fourth

1 Enter the King in his nightgown, with a Page.
2 KING.
3 Go call the Earls of Surrey and of Warwick;
4 But, ere they come, bid them o’er-read these letters
5 And well consider of them. Make good speed.
6 [_Exit Page._]
7 How many thousands of my poorest subjects
8 Are at this hour asleep! O sleep, O gentle sleep,
9 Nature’s soft nurse, how have I frighted thee,
10 That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down
11 And steep my senses in forgetfulness?
12 Why rather, sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs,
13 Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee,
14 And hushed with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber,
15 Than in the perfumed chambers of the great,
16 Under the canopies of costly state,
17 And lull’d with sound of sweetest melody?
18 O thou dull god, why liest thou with the vile
19 In loathsome beds, and leavest the kingly couch
20 A watch-case or a common ’larum-bell?
21 Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast
22 Seal up the ship-boy’s eyes, and rock his brains
23 In cradle of the rude imperious surge
24 And in the visitation of the winds,
25 Who take the ruffian billows by the top,
26 Curling their monstrous heads and hanging them
27 With deafing clamour in the slippery clouds,
28 That with the hurly death itself awakes?
29 Canst thou, O partial sleep, give thy repose
30 To the wet sea-boy in an hour so rude,
31 And in the calmest and most stillest night,
32 With all appliances and means to boot,
33 Deny it to a King? Then happy low, lie down!
34 Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.
35 Enter Warwick and Surrey.
36 WARWICK.
37 Many good morrows to your Majesty!
38 KING.
39 Is it good morrow, lords?
40 WARWICK.
41 ’Tis one o’clock, and past.
42 KING.
43 Why then, good morrow to you all, my lords.
44 Have you read o’er the letters that I sent you?
45 WARWICK.
46 We have, my liege.
47 KING.
48 Then you perceive the body of our kingdom
49 How foul it is, what rank diseases grow,
50 And with what danger, near the heart of it.
51 WARWICK.
52 It is but as a body yet distemper’d,
53 Which to his former strength may be restored
54 With good advice and little medicine.
55 My Lord Northumberland will soon be cool’d.
56 KING.
57 O God, that one might read the book of fate,
58 And see the revolution of the times
59 Make mountains level, and the continent,
60 Weary of solid firmness, melt itself
61 Into the sea, and other times to see
62 The beachy girdle of the ocean
63 Too wide for Neptune’s hips; how chance’s mocks
64 And changes fill the cup of alteration
65 With divers liquors! O, if this were seen,
66 The happiest youth, viewing his progress through,
67 What perils past, what crosses to ensue,
68 Would shut the book, and sit him down and die.
69 ’Tis not ten years gone
70 Since Richard and Northumberland, great friends,
71 Did feast together, and in two years after
72 Were they at wars. It is but eight years since
73 This Percy was the man nearest my soul,
74 Who like a brother toil’d in my affairs
75 And laid his love and life under my foot,
76 Yea, for my sake, even to the eyes of Richard
77 Gave him defiance. But which of you was by—
78 [_To Warwick_.] You, cousin Nevil, as I may remember—
79 When Richard, with his eye brimful of tears,
80 Then check’d and rated by Northumberland,
81 Did speak these words, now proved a prophecy?
82 “Northumberland, thou ladder by the which
83 My cousin Bolingbroke ascends my throne”
84 Though then, God knows, I had no such intent,
85 But that necessity so bow’d the state
86 That I and greatness were compell’d to kiss—
87 “The time shall come,” thus did he follow it,
88 “The time will come, that foul sin, gathering head,
89 Shall break into corruption”—so went on,
90 Foretelling this same time’s condition
91 And the division of our amity.
92 WARWICK.
93 There is a history in all men’s lives
94 Figuring the natures of the times deceased;
95 The which observed, a man may prophesy,
96 With a near aim, of the main chance of things
97 As yet not come to life, who in their seeds
98 And weak beginning lie intreasured.
99 Such things become the hatch and brood of time;
100 And by the necessary form of this
101 King Richard might create a perfect guess
102 That great Northumberland, then false to him,
103 Would of that seed grow to a greater falseness,
104 Which should not find a ground to root upon,
105 Unless on you.
106 KING.
107 Are these things then necessities?
108 Then let us meet them like necessities;
109 And that same word even now cries out on us.
110 They say the bishop and Northumberland
111 Are fifty thousand strong.
112 WARWICK.
113 It cannot be, my lord.
114 Rumour doth double, like the voice and echo,
115 The numbers of the feared. Please it your Grace
116 To go to bed. Upon my soul, my lord,
117 The powers that you already have sent forth
118 Shall bring this prize in very easily.
119 To comfort you the more, I have received
120 A certain instance that Glendower is dead.
121 Your majesty hath been this fortnight ill,
122 And these unseason’d hours perforce must add
123 Unto your sickness.
124 KING.
125 I will take your counsel.
126 And were these inward wars once out of hand,
127 We would, dear lords, unto the Holy Land.
128 [_Exeunt._]