TPTT The Second Part of Henry the Fourth: ACT IV
Introduction
INDUCTION
ACT I
ACT II
ACT III
ACT IV
SCENE I. Yorkshire. Gaultree Forest.
SCENE II. Another part of the forest.
SCENE III. Another part of the forest.
SCENE IV. Westminster. The Jerusalem Chamber.
SCENE V. Another chamber.
ACT V
About the Play
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SCENE V. Another chamber.
KING HENRY IV lying on a bed: CLARENCE, GLOUCESTER, WARWICK, and others in attendance
KING HENRY IV
      Let there be no noise made, my gentle friends;
      Unless some dull and favourable hand
      Will whisper music to my weary spirit.
WARWICK
      Call for the music in the other room.
KING HENRY IV
5     Set me the crown upon my pillow here.
CLARENCE
      His eye is hollow, and he changes much.
WARWICK
      Less noise, less noise!
Enter PRINCE HENRY
PRINCE HENRY
      Who saw the Duke of Clarence?
CLARENCE
      I am here, brother, full of heaviness.
PRINCE HENRY
10    How now! rain within doors, and none abroad!
      How doth the king?
GLOUCESTER
      Exceeding ill.
PRINCE HENRY
      Heard he the good news yet?
      Tell it him.
GLOUCESTER
15    He alter'd much upon the hearing it.
PRINCE HENRY
      If he be sick with joy, he'll recover without physic.
WARWICK
      Not so much noise, my lords: sweet prince,
      speak low;
      The king your father is disposed to sleep.
CLARENCE
20    Let us withdraw into the other room.
WARWICK
      Will't please your grace to go along with us?
PRINCE HENRY
      No; I will sit and watch here by the king.

Exeunt all but PRINCE HENRY

      Why doth the crown lie there upon his pillow,
      Being so troublesome a bedfellow?
25    O polish'd perturbation! golden care!
      That keep'st 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
30    Snores out the watch of night. O majesty!
      When thou dost pinch thy bearer, thou dost sit
      Like a rich armour worn in heat of day,
      That scalds with safety. By his gates of breath
      There lies a downy feather which stirs not:
35    Did he suspire, that light and weightless down
      Perforce must move. My gracious lord! my father!
      This sleep is sound indeed, this is a sleep
      That from this golden rigol hath divorced
      So many English kings. Thy due from me
40    Is tears and heavy sorrows of the blood,
      Which nature, love, and filial tenderness,
      Shall, O dear father, pay thee plenteously:
      My due from thee is this imperial crown,
      Which, as immediate as thy place and blood,
45    Derives itself to me. Lo, here it sits,
      Which God shall guard: and put the world's whole strength
      Into one giant arm, it shall not force
      This lineal honour from me: this from thee
      Will I to mine leave, as 'tis left to me.
Exit
KING HENRY IV
50    Warwick! Gloucester! Clarence!
Re-enter WARWICK, GLOUCESTER, CLARENCE, and the rest
CLARENCE
      Doth the king call?
WARWICK
      What would your majesty? How fares your grace?
KING HENRY IV
      Why did you leave me here alone, my lords?
CLARENCE
      We left the prince my brother here, my liege,
55    Who undertook to sit and watch by you.
KING HENRY IV
      The Prince of Wales! Where is he? let me see him:
      He is not here.
WARWICK
      This door is open; he is gone this way.
GLOUCESTER
      He came not through the chamber where we stay'd.
KING HENRY IV
60    Where is the crown? who took it from my pillow?
WARWICK
      When we withdrew, my liege, we left it here.
KING HENRY IV
      The prince hath ta'en it hence: go, seek him out.
      Is he so hasty that he doth suppose
      My sleep my death?
65    Find him, my Lord of Warwick; chide him hither.

Exit WARWICK

      This part of his conjoins with my disease,
      And helps to end me. See, sons, what things you are!
      How quickly nature falls into revolt
      When gold becomes her object!
70    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;
75    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,
80    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?
WARWICK
85    My lord, I found the prince in the next room,
      Washing with kindly tears his gentle cheeks,
      With such a deep demeanor in great sorrow
      That tyranny, which never quaff'd but blood,
      Would, by beholding him, have wash'd his knife
90    With gentle eye-drops. He is coming hither.
KING HENRY IV
      But wherefore did he take away the crown?

Re-enter PRINCE HENRY

      Lo, where he comes. Come hither to me, Harry.
      Depart the chamber, leave us here alone.
Exeunt WARWICK and the rest
PRINCE HENRY
      I never thought to hear you speak again.
KING HENRY IV
95    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 honours
      Before thy hour be ripe? O foolish youth!
100   Thou seek'st the greatness that will o'erwhelm 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
105   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,
110   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
115   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.
120   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,
125   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?
130   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 licence plucks
      The muzzle of restraint, and the wild dog
135   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,
140   Peopled with wolves, thy old inhabitants!
PRINCE HENRY
      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
145   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,
150   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,
155   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,
160   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,
165   Preserving life in medicine potable;
      But thou, most fine, most honour'd: most renown'd,
      Hast eat thy bearer up.' Thus, my most royal liege,
      Accusing it, I put it on my head,
      To try with it, as with an enemy
170   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
175   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!
KING HENRY IV
180   O my son,
      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;
185   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.
190   To thee it shall descend with bitter 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,
195   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;
200   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.
205   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
210   And by whose power I well might lodge a fear
      To be again displaced: 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 look
215   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
220   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!
PRINCE HENRY
      My gracious liege,
      You won it, wore it, kept it, gave it me;
225   Then plain and right must my possession be:
      Which I with more than with a common pain
      'Gainst all the world will rightfully maintain.
Enter Lord John of LANCASTER
KING HENRY IV
      Look, look, here comes my John of Lancaster.
LANCASTER
      Health, peace, and happiness to my royal father!
KING HENRY IV
230   Thou bring'st me happiness and peace, son John;
      But health, alack, with youthful wings is flown
      From this bare wither'd trunk: upon thy sight
      My worldly business makes a period.
      Where is my Lord of Warwick?
PRINCE HENRY
235   My Lord of Warwick!
Enter WARWICK, and others
KING HENRY IV
      Doth any name particular belong
      Unto the lodging where I first did swoon?
WARWICK
      'Tis call'd Jerusalem, my noble lord.
KING HENRY IV
      Laud be to God! even there my life must end.
240   It hath been prophesied to me many years,
      I should not die but in Jerusalem;
      Which vainly I supposed the Holy Land:
      But bear me to that chamber; there I'll lie;
      In that Jerusalem shall Harry die.
Exeunt
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