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,-

2

[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?

let me see him.

He is not here.

Where is he?

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.

War. This door is open; he is gone this way. P. Humph. He came not through the chamber where we staid.

K. Hen. Where is the crown? who took it from my pillow?

War. When we withdrew, my liege, we left it here. K. Hen. The prince hath ta'en it hence ;-go, seek him out;

Is he so hasty that he doth suppose

My sleep my death?

Find him, my lord of Warwick; chide him hither.

[Exit WARWICK.

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 sleep with thoughts, their brains with

care,

Their bones with industry;

For this they have engrossed and piled up

The cankered 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 sweets;

Our thighs packed with wax, our mouths with honey,
We bring it to the hive; and, like the bees,

Are murdered for our pains. This bitter taste
Yields his engrossments to the ending father.

Re-enter WARWICK.

Now, where is he that will not stay so long
Till his friend sickness hath determined me?

War. My lord, I found the prince in the next room,

Washing with kindly tears his gentle cheeks;

With such a deep demeanor in great sorrow,

1 Accumulations.

That tyranny, which never quaffed but blood,
Would, by beholding him, have washed 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.— 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 my empty chair,

That thou wilt needs invest thee with mine honors

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 stolen that, which, after some few hours,
Were thine without offence; and, at my death,
Thou hast sealed up my expectation;1

Thy life did manifest, thou lov'dst me not,
And thou wilt have me die assured 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 crowned.-Up, vanity!
Down, royal state! all you sage counsellors, hence!
And to the English court assemble now,
From every region, apes of idleness!

Now, neighbor 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 gilt;
England shall give him office, honor, might;
For the fifth Harry from curbed license 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,

The moist impediments unto my speech,

[Kneeling.

I had forestalled 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 honor, 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!'

1 The Variorum Shakspeare reads:

"Let me no more from this obedience rise

(Which my most true and inward duteous spirit
Teacheth,) this prostrate and exterior bending!

The sense appears to be, "Let me no more rise from this obeisance, which my most loyal and inwardly duteous spirit teacheth this prostrate