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,1
(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 followers. 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,

1 Though their blood be inflamed by the temptations to which youth is peculiarly subject.

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? Westmoreland?

Enter WESTMORELAND.

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 every where.
The manner how this action hath been borne,
Here at more leisure may your highness read;
With every course, in his particular.1

K. Hen. O, Westmoreland, 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 your majesty
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 Bard 'rb,
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

1 The detail contained in prince John's lett

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.
O me! come near me, now I am much ill.
P. Humph. Comfort, your majesty!

[Swoons.

Cla. Ó my royal father! 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 labor 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 ob-

serve

Unfathered heirs, and loathly birds of nature.
The seasons change their manners, as the year
Had found some months asleep, and leaped them over.
Cla. The river hath thrice flowed, no ebb between:
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 recovers. P. Humph. This apoplex 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.

1 Mure for wall is another of Shakspeare's Latinisms. It was not in

frequent use by his contemporaries.

2 That is, equivocal births, monsters.

Let there be no noise made, my gentle friends;
Unless some dull' and favorable 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.

Enter PRINCE HENRY.

Who saw the duke of Clarence?

Cla. I am here, brother, full of heaviness.

P. Hen. How now! rain within doors, and none

abroad!

How doth the king?

P. Humph. Exceeding ill.

P. Hen.

Tell it him.

Heard he the good news yet?

P. Humph. He altered much upon the hearing it. P. Hen. If he be sick

With joy, he will recover without physic.

War. Not so much noise, my lords ;-sweet prince, speak low;

The king your father is disposed to sleep.

Cla. Let us withdraw into the other room.

War. Will't please your grace to go along with us?
P. Hen. No; I will sit and watch here by the king.2
[Exeunt all but P. HENRY.
Why doth the crown lie there upon his pillow,
Being so troublesome a bedfellow?

O polished perturbation! golden care!
That keeps the ports of slumber open wide
To many a watchful night!-sleep with it now.
Yet not so sound, and half so deeply sweet,

1 Dull and slow were synonymous. "Dullness, slowness; tarditas, tardivete. Somewhat dull or slowe; tardiusculus, tardelet;" says Baret. But Shakspeare uses dulness for drowsiness in the Tempest. And Baret has also this sense:-"Slow, dull, asleepe, drousie, astonied, heavie; torpidus." It has always been thought that slow music induces sleep.

2 The hint only of this beautiful scene is taken from Holinshed, p. 541

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 armor 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
So many English kings. Thy due, from me,
Is tears, and heavy sorrows of the blood;
Which nature, love, and filial tenderness,
Shall, O, dear father, pay thee plenteously.
My due, from thee, is this imperial crown;
Which, as immediate from thy place and blood,
Derives itself to me. Lo, here it sits,-

[Putting it on his head. Which Heaven shall guard; and put the world's whole strength

Into one giant arm, it shall not force

This lineal honor from me. This from thee

Will I to mine leave, as 'tis left to me.

K. Hen. Warwick! Gloster! Clarence!

Re-enter WARWICK, and the rest.

[Exit.

Cla.
Doth the king call?
War. What would your majesty? How fares your

grace?

K. Hen. Why did you leave me here alone, my

lords?

Cla. We left the prince my brother here, my liege, Who undertook to sit and watch by you.

K. Hen. The prince of Wales? Where is he? let me see him.

He is not here.

1 A biggin was a head-band of coarse cloth; so called because such a forehead-cloth was worn by the Beguines, an order of nuns.

2 i. e. circle; probably from the old Italian rigolo, a small wheel.