King and

Peasant

Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee,

And hush'd with buzzing night-flies to thy
slumber,

Than in the perfum'd chambers of the great,
Under the canopies of costly state,

And lull'd with sound of sweetest melody?
O thou dull god, why li'st thou with the vile
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 deafening 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.

King Henry IV. Part II, Act III, Sc. 1.

WHAT infinite heart's-ease

WH

Must kings neglect, that private men
enjoy!

And what have kings, that privates have not

too,

Save ceremony, save general ceremony?
And what art thou, thou idol Ceremony?
What kind of god art thou, that suffer'st more
Of mortal griefs than do thy worshippers?
What are thy rents? what are thy comings in?
O Ceremony, show me but thy worth!
What is thy soul of adoration?

Art thou aught else but place, degree, and form,
Creating awe and fear in other men?
Wherein thou art less happy being fear'd
Than they in fearing.

What drink'st thou oft, instead of homage
sweet,

But poisn'd flattery? Oh, be sick, great greatness,

King's Hardships

And bid thy Ceremony give thee cure!
Think'st thou the fiery fever will go out
With titles blown from adulation?

Will it give place to flexure and low bending?
Canst thou, when thou command'st the beg-
gar's knee,

Command the health of it? No, thou proud
dream,

That play'st so subtly with a king's repose;
I am a king that find thee, and I know
'Tis not the balm, the sceptre and the ball,
The sword, the mace, the crown imperial,
The intertissued robe of gold and pearl,
The farced title running 'fore the king,
The throne he sits on, nor the tide of pomp
That beats upon the high shore of this world,
No, not all these, thrice-gorgeous Ceremony,
Not all these, laid in bed majestical,

Can sleep so soundly as the wretched slave,
Who with a body fill'd and vacant mind
Gets him to rest, cramm'd with distressful
bread,

Never sees horrid night, the child of hell,
But, like a lackey, from the rise to set

Sweats in the eye of Phoebus, and all night

Sleeps in Elysium; next day after dawn,
Doth rise and help Hyperion to his horse,
And follows so the ever-running year,
With profitable labour, to his grave:

And, but for ceremony, such a wretch,
Winding up days with toil and nights with
sleep,

Had the fore-hand and vantage of a king.
The slave, a member of the country's peace,
Enjoys it but in gross brain little wots
What watch the King keeps to maintain the
peace,

Whose hours the peasant best advantages.
King Henry V. Act IV, Sc. 1.

I

THINK the King is but a man, as I am. The violet smells to him as it doth to me; the element shows to him as it doth to me; all his senses have but human conditions. His ceremonies laid by, in his nakedness he appears but a man; and though his affections are higher mounted than ours, yet, when they stoop, they stoop with the like wing.

King Henry V. Act IV, Sc. I

The

Philos

opher

Speaks

Wavering

Τ

THE COMMONS

HE wavering commons' . . . love

Ties in their purses, and whoso emp

ties them

By so much fills their hearts with deadly hate.

THO chooseth me shall gain what many men desire."

"WH

What many men desire! That "many" may

be meant

By the fool multitude, that choose by show, Not learning more than the fond eye doth teach;

Which pries not to the interior, but, like the
martlet,

Builds in the weather on the outward wall,
Even in the force and road of casualty.

I will not choose what many men desire,
Because I will not jump with common spirits,
And rank me with the barbarous multitudes.

The Merchant of Venice. Act II, Sc. 9.