Exeunt Lords

I know not whether God will have it so

For some displeasing service I have done,

That in his secret doom out of my blood

He’ll breed revengement and a scourge for me,

But thou dost in thy passages of life

Make me believe that thou art only marked

For the hot vengeance and the rod of heaven

To punish my mistreadings. Tell me else,

Could such inordinate and low desires,

Such poor, such bare, such lewd, such mean attempts,

Such barren pleasures, rude society,

As thou art matched withal and grafted to, 15

Accompany the greatness of thy blood,

And hold their level with thy princely heart?

PRINCE HARRY

So please your majesty, I would I could

Quit all offences with as clear excuse

As well as I am doubtless I can purge

Myself of many I am charged withal;

Yet such extenuation let me beg

As, in reproof of many tales devised—

Which oft the ear of greatness needs must hear

By smiling pickthanks and base newsmongers—

I may, for some things true wherein my youth

Hath faulty wandered and irregular,

Find pardon on my true submission.

KING HENRY

God pardon thee! Yet let me wonder, Harry,

At thy affections, which do hold a wing

Quite from the flight of all thy ancestors.

Thy place in Council thou hast rudely lost—

Which by thy younger brother is supplied—

And art almost an alien to the hearts

Of all the court and princes of my blood.

The hope and expectation of thy time

Is ruined, and the soul of every man

Prophetically do forethink thy fall.

Had I so lavish of my presence been,

So common-hackneyed in the eyes of men,

So stale and cheap to vulgar company,

Opinion, that did help me to the crown,

Had still kept loyal to possession,

And left me in reputeless banishment,

A fellow of no mark nor likelihood.

By being seldom seen, I could not stir

But, like a comet, I was wondered at,

That men would tell their children ‘This is he.’

Others would say ‘Where, which is Bolingbroke?’

And then I stole all courtesy from heaven,

And dressed myself in such humility

That I did pluck allegiance from men’s hearts,

Loud shouts and salutations from their mouths,

Even in the presence of the crowned King.

Thus did I keep my person fresh and new,

My presence like a robe pontifical—

Ne‘er seen but wondered at—and so my state,

Seldom but sumptuous, showed like a feast,

And won by rareness such solemnity.

The skipping King, he ambled up and down 60

With shallow jesters and rash bavin wits,

Soon kindled and soon burnt, carded his state,

Mingled his royalty with cap’ring fools,

Had his great name profaned with their scorns,

And gave his countenance, against his name,

To laugh at gibing boys, and stand the push

Of every beardless vain comparative;

Grew a companion to the common streets,

Enfeoffed himself to popularity,

That, being daily swallowed by men’s eyes,

They surfeited with honey, and began

To loathe the taste of sweetness, whereof a little

More than a little is by much too much.

So when he had occasion to be seen,

He was but as the cuckoo is in June,

Heard, not regarded, seen but with such eyes

As, sick and blunted with community,

Afford no extraordinary gaze

Such as is bent on sun-like majesty

When it shines seldom in admiring eyes,

But rather drowsed and hung their eyelids down,

Slept in his face, and rendered such aspect

As cloudy men use to their adversaries,

Being with his presence glutted, gorged, and full.

And in that very line, Harry, standest thou; 85

For thou hast lost thy princely privilege

With vile participation. Not an eye

But is a-weary of thy common sight,

Save mine, which hath desired to see thee more,

Which now doth that I would not have it do—

Make blind itself with foolish tenderness.

He weeps

PRINCE HARRY

I shall hereafter, my thrice-gracious lord,

Be more myself.

KING HENRY For all the world,

As thou art to this hour was Richard then,

When I from France set foot at Ravenspurgh,

And even as I was then is Percy now.

Now by my sceptre, and my soul to boot,

He hath more worthy interest to the state

Than thou, the shadow of succession;

For, of no right, nor colour like to right,

He doth fill fields with harness in the realm,

Turns head against the lion’s armed jaws,

And, being no more in debt to years than thou,