SCENE V. Another chamber. The Second part of King Henry the Fourth  Shakespeare homepage  |  Henry IV, part 2  | Act 4, Scene 5 

 Previous scene  |  Next scene  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  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  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  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  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? 

 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 

 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: 

 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 

 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, 

 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  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, 

 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  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? 

 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! 

 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? 

 WARWICK  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 

 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  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! 

 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 

 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 licence 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 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 

 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, 

 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 

 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! 

 KING HENRY IV  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; 

 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 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, 

 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 

 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 

 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! 

 PRINCE HENRY  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. 



 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  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  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. 

 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. 



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