That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down

And steep my senses in forgetfulness?

Why rather, sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs,

Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee,

And hushed with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber,

Than in the perfumed chambers of the great,

Under the canopies of costly state,

And lulled with sound of sweetest melody?

O thou dull god, why li‘st thou with the vile 15

In loathsome beds, and leav’st the kingly couch

A watch-case, or a common ’larum-bell?

Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast

Seal up the ship-boy’s eyes, and rock his brains

In cradle of the rude imperious surge,

And in the visitation of the winds,

Who take the ruffian billows by the top,

Curling their monstrous heads, and hanging them

With deafing clamour in the slippery clouds,

That, with the hurly, death itself awakes?

Canst thou, O partial sleep, give thy repose

To the wet sea-boy in an hour so rude,

And in the calmest and most stillest night,

With all appliances and means to boot,

Deny it to a king? Then happy low, lie down.

Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.

Enter the Earls of Warwick and Surrey

WARWICK

Many good morrows to your majesty!

KING HENRY

Is it good morrow, lords?

WARWICK ’Tis one o’clock, and past.

KING HENRY

Why then, good morrow to you all, my lords.

Have you read o’er the letter that I sent you?

WARWICK We have, my liege.

KING HENRY

Then you perceive the body of our kingdom,

How foul it is, what rank diseases grow,

And with what danger near the heart of it.

WARWICK

It is but as a body yet distempered,

Which to his former strength may be restored

With good advice and little medicine.

My lord Northumberland will soon be cooled.

KING HENRY

O God, that one might read the book of fate,

And see the revolution of the times

Make mountains level, and the continent,

Weary of solid firmness, melt itself

Into the sea; and other times to see

The beachy girdle of the ocean

Too wide for Neptune’s hips; how chance’s mocks

And changes fill the cup of alteration

With divers liquors!‘Tis not ten years gone

Since Richard and Northumberland, great friends,

Did feast together; and in two year after

Were they at wars. It is but eight years since

This Percy was the man nearest my soul,

Who like a brother toiled in my affairs,

And laid his love and life under my foot,

Yea, for my sake, even to the eyes of Richard

Gave him defiance. But which of you was by—

(To Warwick) You, cousin Neville, as I may

remember—

When Richard, with his eye brimful of tears,

Then checked and rated by Northumberland,

Did speak these words, now proved a prophecy?—

‘Northumberland, thou ladder by the which

My cousin Bolingbroke ascends my throne’—

Though then, God knows, I had no such intent,

But that necessity so bowed the state

That I and greatness were compelled to kiss—

‘The time shall come’—thus did he follow it—

‘The time will come that foul sin, gathering head,

Shall break into corruption’; so went on,

Foretelling this same time’s condition,

And the division of our amity.

WARWICK

There is a history in all men’s lives

Figuring the natures of the times deceased;

The which observed, a man may prophesy,

With a near aim, of the main chance of things

As yet not come to life, who in their seeds

And weak beginnings lie intreasurèd. 80

Such things become the hatch and brood of time;

And by the necessary form of this

King Richard might create a perfect guess

That great Northumberland, then false to him,

Would of that seed grow to a greater falseness,

Which should not find a ground to root upon

Unless on you.

KING HENRY Are these things then necessities?

Then let us meet them like necessities;

And that same word even now cries out on us.

They say the Bishop and Northumberland

Are fifty thousand strong.

WARWICK It cannot be, my lord.

Rumour doth double, like the voice and echo,

The numbers of the feared. Please it your grace

To go to bed? Upon my soul, my lord,

The powers that you already have sent forth

Shall bring this prize in very easily.

To comfort you the more, I have received

A certain instance that Glyndwr is dead.

Your majesty hath been this fortnight ill,

And these unseasoned hours perforce must add

Unto your sickness.

KING HENRY I will take your counsel.

And were these inward wars once out of hand,

We would, dear lords, unto the Holy Land. Exeunt

3.2 Enter justice Shallow and Justice Silence

SHALLOW Come on, come on, come on! Give me your hand, sir, give me your hand, sir. An early stirrer, by the rood! And how doth my good cousin Silence?