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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 sleeps 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, tolling from every flower
The virtuous sweets2,

Our thighs pack'd with wax, our mouths with honey,
We bring it to the hive, and, like the bees,
Are murder'd 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' hands determin'd me3?

War. My lord, I found the prince in the next room,
Washing with kindly tears his gentle cheeks;
With such a deep demeanour 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.

K. Hen. But wherefore did he take away the crown?

Re-enter Prince HENRY.

Lo, where he comes.-Come hither to me, Harry.

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The virtuous sweets ;] The folio has culling for "tolling," by which the image of the bee taking toll from each flower is lost. The words "The virtuous sweets" are from the folio.

Till his friend sickness' HANDS determined me ?] i. e. "Until the hands of his friend, sickness, ended me." The folio poorly substitutes hath for "hands,” and injures the personification. All the modern editors follow the misreading of the folio, and take no notice of the variation in the text.

VOL. IV.

Ff

Depart the chamber, leave us here alone.

[Exeunt CLARENCE, Prince HUMPHREY, Lords, &c. P. Hen. I never thought to hear you speak again. K. Hen. 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 mine honours
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 stol'n 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.
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 in 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.

P. Hen. 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 honour, 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 th' 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 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!

K. Hen. O my son!

God put it in thy mind' to take it hence,

That thou might'st 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;

4 O MY SON !

God put IT in thy mind-] “O my son" is from the folio; and the quarto, in the following line, omits "it." In the next line the folio misprints "win" join. Above, it omits "most before "royal liege;" perhaps, because the editor thought it injured the line.

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Which daily grew to quarrel, and to bloodshed,
Wounding supposed peace. All these bold fears,
Thou seest, 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 purchas'd3,
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 thy friends, which thou must make thy friends,
Have but their stings and teeth newly ta'en out;

By whose fell working I was first advanc'd,
And by whose power 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 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!
P. Hen. My gracious liege',

You won it, wore it, kept it, gave it me;

5 - for what in me was PURCHAS'D,] We have already seen that the word "purchase" was used of old for booty obtained by plunder. The king here uses the verb in a kindred sense, meaning that he had obtained the crown by undue means-by robbing the right owner.

And all THY friends,] Tyrwhitt suggests plausibly that we ought to read 66 my friends;" but still the difficulty of the passage is not removed, inasmuch as five lines lower the king states that he has "cut off" those persons whom he advises his son to make his friends. Monck Mason, therefore, for "I cut them off," would read "I cut some off." The old copies agree in both places, and we, of course, have followed them.

7 My gracious liege,] This hemistich is only found in the folio.

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