K. Henry.
Gloucester! Clarence!

Glou. and Cla.
Doth the King call? Enter Westmorland.

West.
What would your Majesty? how fares your Grace?

K. Henry.
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. Henry.
The Prince of Wales! where is he? let me see him.

West.
The door is open, he is gone that way.

Glou.
He came not through the chamber where we stay'd.

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

West.
When we withdrew, my Liege, we left it here.

K. Henry.
The Prince hath ta'en it hence; go seek him out. [They help the King to his chair.
Is he so hasty, that he doth suppose
My sleep my death? Find him, my Lord of Westmorland,
And chide him hither strait [Exit Westmorland]; this part of his
Conjoins with my disease, and helps to end me.
See, sons, what things you are; how quickly nature
Falls to revolt, when gold becomes her object!
For this, the foolish, over-careful fathers
Have broke their sleeps with thought, their brains with care,
Their bones with industry: for this engross'd
The canker'd heaps of strange-atchieved gold:
For this, they have been thoughtful to invest
Their sons with arts and martial exercises:
When, like the bee, culling from ev'ry flow'r'
Our thighs are packt with wax, our mouths with honey* ^note,
We bring it to the hive, and like the bees,
Are murder'd for our pains! This bitter taste
Yield his engrossments to the dying father. Enter Westmorland.
Now where is he, that will not stay so long,
Till his friend, sickness, hath determin'd me?

West.
My Lord, I found the Prince in the next room,
Washing with kindly tears his gentle cheeks,
With such a deep demeanour in great sorrow,
That tyranny, which never quaft but blood,
Would by beholding him have wash'd his knife,
With gentle eye-drops. He is coming hither.

K. Henry.
But wherefore did he take away the crown? Enter Prince Henry.
Lo, where he comes. Come hither to me, Harry.
Depart the chamber, leave us here alone. [Exit West.

P. Henry.
I never thought to hear you speak again.

K. Henry.
* ^noteThy wish was father, Harry, to that thought:
I stay too long for thee, I weary thee.
Dost thou so hunger for my empty chair,
That thou wilt needs invest thee with my honours,
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 stoln that, which after some few hours,
Were thine without offence; and at my death
Thou hast seal'd up my expectation:
Thy life did manifest thou lov'dst me not,
And thou wilt have me die assur'd 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 frail 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 dedew 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.
Henry the Fifth is crown'd: up, vanity!
Down, royal state!* ^note All you sage counsellors, hence:
And to the English court assemble now,
From ev'ry region, apes of idleness:
Now, neighbour-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 know more:
England shall give him office, honour, might:
For the Fifth Harry from curb'd licence plucks
The muzzle of restraint, and the wild dog
Shall flesh his tooth on every innocent.
O my poor kingdom! sick with civil blows:
When that my care could not with-hold 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. Henry.
O pardon me, my Liege! but for my tears, [Kneeling.
(The moist impediments unto my speech,)
I had forstall'd 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 honour, 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.
Heav'n witness with me, when I here came in,
And found no course of breath within your Majesty,
How cold it struck my heart! If I do feign,

O let me in my present wildness die,
And never live to shew the incredulous world
The noble change that I have purposed!
Coming to look on you, thinking you dead,
(And dead almost, my Liege, to think you were)
I spake unto the crown, as having sense,
And thus upbraided it—The care on thee depending
Hath fed upon the body of my father,
Hast eat thy bearer up. Thus, Royal Liege,
Accusing it, I put it on my head,
To try with it as with an enemy,
That had before my face murder'd my father)
The quarrel of a true inheritor.
But if it did infect my blood with joy,
Or swell my thoughts to any strain of pride,
If any rebel or vain spirit of mine
Did, with the least affection of a welcome,
Give entertainment to the might of it;
Let heav'n for ever keep it from my head,
And make me as the poorest vassal is,
That doth with awe and terror kneel to it!

K. Henry.
O my son!
Heav'n put it in thy mind to take it hence,
That thou might'st win the more thy father's love,
Pleading so wisely in excuse of it.
Come hither, Harry; sit thou by my side,
And hear, I think, the very latest counsel,
That ever I shall breathe. Heav'n knows, my son,
By what by-paths, and indirect crook'd ways,
I met this crown; and I myself know well
How troublesome it sate upon my head.
To thee it shall descend with better quiet,
Better opinion, better confirmation:
For all the soil of the atchievement goes
With me into the earth. It seem'd in me
But as an honour snatch'd with boist'rous hand,
And I had many living to upbraid
My gain of it by their assistances,
And by whose power I well might lodge a fear,
To be again displac'd; which to avoid

I cut them off, and had a purpose now,
To lead out many to the Holy Land;
Lest rest and lying still might make them look
Too near into my state. Therefore, my Harry.
Be it thy course to busy giddy minds,
With foreign wars; that action, hence born out,
May waste the memory of former days.
More would I, but my lungs are wasted so,
That strength of speech is utterly deny'd me.
How I came by the crown, O God, forgive!
And grant it may with thee in true peace live!

P. Henry.
My gracious Liege,
You won it, wore it, kept it, gave it me;
Then plain and right must my possession be;
Which I with more than with a common pain,
'Gainst all the world will rightfully maintain.

K. Henry.
Look, look, here comes my John of Lancaster. Enter Lord John of Lancaster.

Lan.
Health, peace, and happiness to my royal father!

K. Henry.
Thou bring'st me happiness and peace, son John.
But health, alack, with youthful wings is flown,
From this bare wither'd trunk. Upon thy sight,
My worldly business makes a period.
Where is my Lord of Westmorland?

P. Henry.
My Lord of Westmorland. Enter Westmorland.

K. Henry.
Doth any name particular belong
Unto the chamber where I first did swoon?

West.
'Tis call'd Jerusalem, my noble Lord.

K. Henry.
Laud be to heav'n! ev'n there my life must end.
It hath been prophesied to me, many years,
I should not die but in Jerusalem:
Which vainly I suppos'd the Holy Land.

But bear me to that chamber, there I'll lye:
In that Jerusalem shall Harry die. [Exeunt* ^note.

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