them should be to forswear thin potations, and to addict themselves to sack.—

Enter BARDOLPH.

How now, Bardolph ?

Bard. The army is dischargéd all, and gone. Fal. Let them go. I'll through Gloucestershire, and there will I visit Master Robert Shallow, esquire. I have him already tempering between my finger and my thumb, and shortly will I seal with him.-Come away. Exeunt.

SCENE IV. Westminster. A Room in the Palace.

Enter KING HENRY, CLARENCE, PRINCE
HUMPHREY, WARWICK, and others.

K. Hen. Now, lords, if Heaven doth give successful end

To this debate that bleedeth at our doors,
We will our youth lead on to higher fields,
And draw no swords but what are sanctified.
Our navy is addressed, our power collected,
Our substitutes in absence well invested,
And everything lies level to our wish:
Only we want a little personal strength,
And pause us till these rebels, now afoot,
Come underneath the yoke of government.

War. Both which we doubt not but your majesty Shall soon enjoy.

K. Hen. Humphrey, my son of Gloster, Where is the prince your brother?

P. Humph. I think he's gone to hunt, my lord, at Windsor.

K. Hen. And how accompanied?
P. Humph. I do not know, my lord.
K. Hen. Is not his brother Thomas of Clarence
with him?

P. Humph. No, my good lord: he is in presence

here.

Cla. What would my lord and father?

K. Hen. Nothing but well to thee, Thomas of

Clarence.

How chance thou art not with the prince thy brother?

He loves thee, and thou dost neglect him, Thomas.
Thou hast a better place in his affection
Than all thy brothers: cherish it, my boy;
And noble offices thou mayst affect
Of mediation, after I am dead,
Between his greatness and thy other brethren.
Therefore omit him not: blunt not his love;
Nor lose the good advantage of his grace,
By seeming cold, or careless of his will.
For he is gracious if he be observed:
He hath a tear for pity, and a hand

Open as day for melting charity:

Yet notwithstanding, being incensed, he's flint;
As humorous as winter, and as sudden
As flaws congealéd in the spring of day.
His temper, therefore, must be well observed:
Chide him for faults, and do it reverently,
When you perceive his blood inclined to mirth:
But, being moody, give him line and scope,
Till that his passions, like a whale on ground,
Confound themselves with working. Learn this,
Thomas,

And thou shalt prove a shelter to thy friends:
A hoop of gold to bind thy brothers in;
That the united vessel of their blood,
Mingled with venom of suggestion
(As, force perforce, the age will pour it in),
Shall never leak, though it do work as strong
As aconitum or rash gunpowder.

Cla. I shall observe him with all care and

love.

K. Hen. Why art thou not at Windsor with him, Thomas?

Cla. He is not there to-day; he dines in London. K. Hen. And how accompanied: canst thou

tell that?

Cla. With Poins and other his continual fol

lowers.

K. Hen. Most subject is the fattest soil to weeds; And he, the noble image of my youth, Is overspread with them. Therefore my grief Stretches itself beyond the hour of death: The blood weeps from my heart when I do shape, In forms imaginary, the unguided days And rotten times that you shall look upon When I am sleeping with my ancestors. For when his headstrong riot hath no curb, When rage and hot blood are his counsellors, When means and lavish manners meet together, O with what wings shall his affections fly Towards fronting peril and opposed decay!

War. My gracious lord, you look beyond him quite:

The prince but studies his companions
Like a strange tongue: wherein, to gain the
language,

'Tis needful that the most immodest word
Be looked upon and learned: which once attained,
Your highness knows comes to no further use
But to be known and hated. So, like gross terms,
The prince will, in the perfectness of time,
Cast off his followers: and their memory
Shall as a pattern or a measure live,
By which his grace must mete the lives of others:
Turning past evils to advantages.

K. Hen. 'Tis seldom when the bee doth leave her comb

In the dead carrion.-Who's here: Westmorland?

Enter WESTMORLAND.

West. Health to my sovereign; and new happiness

Added to that that I am to deliver!

Prince John, your son, doth kiss your grace's hand:
Mowbray, the Bishop Scroop, Hastings, and all,
Are brought to the correction of your law:
There is not now a rebel's sword unsheathed,
But peace puts forth her olive everywhere.
The manner how this action hath been borne,
Here at more leisure may your highness read,
With every course in his particular.

K. Hen. O Westmorland, thou art a summer
bird,

Which ever in the haunch of winter sings
The lifting up of day.-Look: here's more news.
Enter HARCOURT.

Har. From enemies Heaven keep yourmajesty;
And when they stand against you, may they fall
As those that I am come to tell you of!
The Earl Northumberland and the Lord Bardolph,
With a great power of English and of Scots,
Are by the sheriff of Yorkshire overthrown:
The manner and true order of the fight,
This packet, please it you, contains at large.
K. Hen. And wherefore should these good news
make me sick?

Will fortune never come with both hands full,
But write her fair words still in foulest letters?
She either gives a stomach and no food;
Such are the poor in health or else a feast
And takes away the stomach; such are the rich
That have abundance and enjoy it not.
I should rejoice now at this happy news;
And now my sight fails and my brain is giddy.—
Ome! come near me: now I am much ill. [Swoons.
P. Humph. Comfort, your majesty!
O my royal father!

Cia.

West. My sovereign lord, cheer up yourself; look up!

War. Be patient, princes: you do know these fits Are with his highness very ordinary.

Stand from him, give him air; he'll straight be well.

Cla. No, no; he cannot long hold out these pangs. The incessant care and labour of his mind Hath wrought the mure that should confine it in So thin that life looks through, and will break out. P. Humph. The people fear me; for they do observe

Unfathered heirs and loathly birds of nature. The seasons change their manners; as the year Had found some months asleep, and leaped them

And the old folk, time's doting chronicles, Say it did so a little time before

That our great grandsire, Edward, sicked and died. War. Speak lower, princes, for the King re

covers.

P. Humph. This apoplexy will certain be his end.

K. Hen. I pray you take me up, and bear me hence

Into some other chamber: softly, pray.

[They convey the KING into an inner part of the room, and place him on a bed. Let there be no noise made, my gentle friends: Unless some dull and favourable hand Will whisper music to my weary spirit.

War. Call for the music in the other room.
K. Hen. Set me the crown upon my pillow here.
Cla. His eye is hollow, and he changes much.
War. Less noise, less noise.

P. Hen. 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 polished 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 biggin 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