King Henry IV, Part 2 - William Shakespeare (short books to read txt) 📗

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, 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. 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 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 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. 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. Look, look, here comes my John of Lancaster.

LANCASTER. Health, peace, and happiness to my royal father!

KING. 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. My Lord of Warwick!

[Re-enter Warwick, and others.]

KING. Doth any name particular belong Unto the lodging where I first did swoon?

WARWICK. ‘Tis call’d Jerusalem, my noble lord.

KING. 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.

[Exeunt.]

 

ACT V.

SCENE 1. Gloucestershire. Shallow’s house.

[Enter Shallow, Falstaff, Bardolph, and Page.]

SHALLOW. By cock and pie, sir, you shall not away to-night. What, Davy, I say!

FALSTAFF. You must excuse me, Master Robert Shallow.

SHALLOW. I will not excuse you; you shall not be excused; excuses shall not be admitted; there is no excuse shall serve; you shall not be excused. Why, Davy!

[Enter Davy.]

DAVY. Here, sir.

SHALLOW. Davy, Davy, Davy, Davy, let me see, Davy; let me see, Davy; let me see: yea, marry, William cook, bid him come hither. Sir John, you shall not be excused.

DAVY. Marry, sir, thus; those precepts cannot be served; and, again, sir, shall we sow the headland with wheat?

SHALLOW. With red wheat, Davy. But for William cook: are there no young pigeons?

DAVY. Yes, sir. Here is now the smith’s note for shoeing and plough-irons.

SHALLOW. Let it be cast and paid. Sir John, you shall not be excused.

DAVY. Now, sir, a new link to the bucket must needs be had: and, sir, do you mean to stop any of William’s wages, about the sack he lost the other day at Hinckley fair?

SHALLOW. A’ shall answer it. Some pigeons, Davy, a couple of short-legg’d hens, a joint of mutton, and any pretty little tiny kickshaws, tell William cook.

DAVY. Doth the man of war stay all night, sir?

SHALLOW. Yea, Davy. I will use him well: a friend i’ the court is better than a penny in purse. Use his men well, Davy; for they are arrant knaves, and will backbite.

DAVY. No worse than they are backbitten, sir; for they have marvellous foul linen.

SHALLOW. Well conceited, Davy: about thy business, Davy.

DAVY. I beseech you, sir, to countenance William Visor of Woncot against Clement Perkes of the hill.

SHALLOW. There is many complaints, Davy, against that Visor: that Visor is an arrant knave, on my knowledge.

DAVY. I grant your worship that he is a knave, sir; but yet, God forbid, sir, but a knave should have some countenance at his friend’s request. An honest man, sir, is able to speak for himself, when a knave is not. I have served your worship truly, sir, this eight years; and if I cannot once or twice in a quarter bear out a knave against an honest man, I have but a very little credit with your worship. The knave is mine honest friend, sir; therefore, I beseech your worship, let him be countenanced.

SHALLOW. Go to; I say he shall have no wrong. Look about, Davy.

[Exit Davy.]

Where are you, Sir John? Come, come, come, off with your boots. Give me your hand, Master Bardolph.

BARDOLPH. I am glad to see your worship.

SHALLOW. I thank thee with all my heart, kind Master Bardolph: and welcome, my tall fellow [to the Page]. Come, Sir John.

FALSTAFF. I’ll follow you, good Master Robert Shallow.

[Exit Shallow.]

Bardolph, look to our horses.

[Exeunt Bardolph and Page.]

If I were sawed into quantities, I should make four dozen of such bearded hermits’ staves as Master Shallow. It is a wonderful thing to see the semblable coherence of his men’s spirits and his: they, by observing of him, do bear themselves like foolish justices: he, by conversing with them, is turned into a justice-like serving-man: their spirits are so married in conjunction with the participation of society that they flock together in consent, like so many wild-geese. If I had a suit to Master Shallow, I would humour his men with the imputation of being near their master: if to his men, I would curry with Master Shallow that no man could better command his servants. It is certain that either wise bearing or ignorant carriage is caught, as men take diseases, one of another: therefore let men take heed of their company. I will devise matter enough out of this Shallow to keep Prince Harry in continual laughter the wearing out of six fashions, which is four terms, or two actions; and a’ shall laugh without intervallums. O, it is much that a lie with a slight oath and a jest with a sad brow will do with a fellow that never had the ache in his shoulders! O, you shall see him laugh till his face be like a wet cloak ill laid up!

SHALLOW. [Within.] Sir John!

FALSTAFF. I come, Master Shallow; I come, Master Shallow.

[Exit.]

 

SCENE II. Westminster. The palace.

[Enter Warwick and the Lord Chief-Justice, meeting.]

WARWICK. How now, my lord chief-justice! whither away?

CHIEF JUSTICE. How doth the king?

WARWICK. Exceeding well; his cares are now all ended.

CHIEF JUSTICE. I hope, not dead.

WARWICK. He ‘s walk’d the way of nature; And to our purposes he lives no more.

CHIEF JUSTICE. I would his Majesty had call’d me with him: The service that I truly did his life Hath left me open to all injuries.

WARWICK. Indeed I think the young king loves you not.

CHIEF JUSTICE. I know he doth not, and do arm myself To welcome the condition of the time, Which cannot look more hideously upon me Than I have drawn it in my fantasy.

[Enter Lancaster, Clarence, Gloucester, Westmoreland, and others.]

WARWICK. Here comes the heavy issue of dead Harry: O that the living Harry had the temper Of him, the worst of these three gentlemen! How many nobles then should hold their places, That must