Who, sitting in the stocks, refuge their shame,-
That many have, and others must sit there:
And in this thought they find a kind of ease,
Bearing their own misfortune on the back
Of such as have before endur'd the like,
Thus play I, in one person, many people,
And none contented: Sometimes am I king,
Then treason makes me wish myself a beggar,
And so I am: Then crushing penury
Persuades me I was better when a king;
Then am king'd again: and, by-and-by,
Think that I am unking'd by Bolingbroke,
And straight am nothing:-But, whate'er I am,
Nor I, nor any man, that but man is,
With nothing shall be pleased, till he be eased
With being nothing.
PEACE AFTER CIVIL WAR.
So shaken as we are, so wan with care,
Find we a time for frighted peace to pant,
And breathe short-winded accents of new broils
To be commenc'd in stronds* afar remote.
No more the thirsty Erinnyst of this soil
Shall daub her lips with her own children's blood;
No more shall trenching war channel her fields,
Nor bruise her flow'rets with the armed hoofs
Of hostile paces: those opposed eyes,
Which,-like the meteors of a troubled heaven,
Strands, banks of the sea.
All of one nature, of one substance bred,-
Did lately meet in the intestine shock
And furious close of civil butchery,
Shall now, in mutual, well-beseeming ranks,
March all one way; and be no more oppos'd
Against acquaintance, kindred, and allies:
The edge of war, like an ill-sheathed knife,
No more shall cut his master.
KING HENRY'S CHARACTER OF PERCY, AND OF HIS
Yea, there thou mak'st me sad, and mak'st me sin In envy that my lord Northumberland
Should be the father of so bless'd a son:
A son, who is the theme of honour's tongue;
Amongst a grove, the very straightest plant;
Who is sweet fortune's minion, and her pride:
Whilst I, by looking on the praise of him,
See riot and dishonour stain the brow
Of my young Harry.
PRINCE HENRY'S SOLILOQUY.
I know you all, and will a while uphold
The unyok'd humour of your idleness:
Yet herein will I imitate the sun;
Who doth permit the base contagious clouds
To smother up his beauty from the world,
That, when he please again to be himself,
Being wanted, he may be more wonder'd at,
By breaking through the foul and ugly mists
Of vapours that did seem to strangle him.
If all the year were playing holidays,
To sport would be as tedious as to work;
But, when they seldom come, they wish'd-for come,
And nothing pleaseth but rare accidents.
So, when this loose behaviour I throw off,
And pay the debt I never promised,
By how much better than my word I am,
By so much shall I falsify men's hopes *;
And like bright metal on a sullen* ground,
My reformation, glittering o'er my fault,
-Shall show more goodly, and attract more eyes,
Than that which hath no foil to set it off.
I'll so offend, to make offence a skill;
Redeeming time, when men think least I will.
HOTSPUR'S DESCRIPTION OF A FINICAL COURTIER.
But I remember, when the fight was done,
When I was dry with rage and extreme toil,
Breathless and faint, leaning upon my sword,
Came there a certain lord, neat, trimly dress'd,
Fresh as a bridegroom; and bis chin new reap'd,
Show'd like a stubble land at harvest home;
He was perfumed like a milliner;
And 'twixt his finger and his thumb he held
A pouncet box †, which ever and anon
He gave his nose and took't away again;
Who, therewith angry, when it next came there,
Took it in snuff:-and still he smil'd, and talk'd;
And, as the soldiers bore dead bodies by,
He call'd them-untaught knaves, unmannerly,
To bring a slovenly unhandsome corse
Betwixt the wind and his nobility.
With many holiday and lady terms
He question'd me; among the rest demanded
My prisoners, in your majesty's behalf.
I then, all smarting, with my wounds being cold,
To be so pester'd with a popinjay ‡,
Out of my grief and my impatience,
Answer'd neglectingly, I know not what ;
He should, or he should not;-for he made me mad,
To see him shine so brisk, and smell so sweet,
And talk so like a waiting gentlewoman,
Of guns, and drums, and wounds, (God save the mark!) And telling me, the sovereign'st thing on earth
Was parmaceti, for an inward bruise;
+ A small box for musk or other perfumes. Pain.
And that it was great pity, so it was,
That villanous saltpetre should be digg'd
Out of the bowels of the harmless earth,
Which many a good tall* fellow had destroy'd
So cowardly and, but for these vile guns,
He would himself have been a soldier.
I'll read you matter deep and dangerous;
As full of peril, and advent'rous spirit,
As to o'erwalk a current, roaring loud,
On the unsteadfast footing of a spear.
By heaven, methinks, it were an easy leap,
To pluck bright honour from the pale-fac'd moon;
Or dive into the bottom of the deep,
Where fathom-line could never touch the ground,
And pluck up drowned honour by the locks;
So he, that doth redeem her thence, might wear,
Without corrival†, all her dignities:
But out upon this half-fac'd fellowship + !
LADY PERCY'S PATHETIC SPEECH TO HER HUSBAND.
O my good lord, why are you thus alone? For what offence have I, this fortnight, been
A banish'd woman from my Harry's bed?
Tell me, sweet lord, what is't that takes from thee
Thy stomach, pleasure, and thy golden sleep?
Why dost thou bend thine eyes upon the earth;
And start so often when thou sit'st alone?
Why hast thou lost the fresh blood in thy cheeks;
And given my treasures, and my rights of thee,
To thick-ey'd musing, and curs'd melancholy?
In thy faint slumbers, I by thee have watch'd,
And heard thee murmur tales of iron wars:
Speak terms of manage to thy bounding steed;
+ Friendship.
Cry, Courage!-to the field! And thou hast talk'd
Of sallies, and retires; of trenches, tents,
Of palisadoes, frontiers, parapets;
Of basilisks, of cannon, culverin;
Of prisoners' ransom, and of soldiers slain,
And all the 'currents of a heady fight.
Thy spirit within thee hath been so at war,
And thus hath so bestirr'd thee in thy sleep,
That beads + of sweat have stood upon thy brow,
Like bubbles in a late disturbed stream;
And in thy face strange motions have appear'd,
Such as we see when men restrain their breath
On some great sudden haste. O, what portents are these?
Some heavy business hath my lord in hand,
And I must know it, else he loves me not.
PRODIGIES RIDICULED.
I cannot blame him: at my nativity
The front of heaven was full of fiery shapes,
Of burning cressets: and, at my birth,
The frame and huge foundation of the earth
Shak'd like a coward.
Why, so it would have done At the same season, if your mother's cat had But kitten'd, though yourself had ne'er been born.
Diseased nature oftentimes breaks forth
In strange eruptions: oft the teeming earth
Is with a kind of colic pinch'd and vex'd
By the imprisoning of unruly wind
Within her tomb; which, for enlargement striving,
Shakes the old beldame earth, and topples § down
Steeples and moss-grown towers.
Lights set crossways upon beacons, and also upon poles which were used in processions, &c.
|