I pr'ythee, gentle keeper, stay by me:
My soul is heavy, and I fain would sleep.

14. SCROOP AND RICHARD.

SCROOP. More health and happiness betide my liege, Than can my care-tuned tongue deliver him!

K. RICH. Mine ear is open, and my heart prepared ;
The worst is worldly loss thou canst unfold.
Say, is my kingdom lost? Why 'twas my care;
And what loss is it to be rid of care?

Strives Bolingbroke to be as great as we ?
Greater he shall not be; if he serve God,
We'll serve him too, and be his fellow so.
Revolt our subjects? that we cannot mend ;
They break their faith to God, as well as us.
Cry woe, destruction, ruin, loss, decay;
The worst is death, and death will have his day.
SCROOP. Glad am I that your highness is so armed
To bear the tidings of calamity.

Like an unseasonable stormy day,

Which makes the silver rivers drown their shores,
As if the world were all dissolved to tears;

So high above his limits swells the rage

Of Bolingbrokecovering your fearful land

With hard bright steel, and hearts more hard than steel.
White beards have armed their thin and hairless scalps
Against thy majesty; boys, with women's voices,
Strive to speak big, and clasp their female joints
In stiff unwieldy arms, against thy erown;
The very beadsmen learn to bend their bows
Of double fatal yew against thy state.
Yea, distaff women manage rusty bills
Against thy seat: both young and old rebel,
And all goes worse than I have power to tell.

K. RICH. Too well, too well, thou tell'st a tale so ill. Where is the earl of Wiltshire? where is Bagot ? What is become of Bushy? where is Green ?

.. No matter where: of comfort no man speak, Let's talk of graves, of worms and epitaphs. Make dust our paper, and with rainy eyes

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 crownèd, 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 forgotton 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! All you sage counsellors, hence!
And to the English court assemble now,
From every 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 no more:
England shall give him office, honour, might:
For the fifth Harry from curb'd license 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 withhold thy riot,
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,)
I had forestall'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.
Heaven witness with me, when I here came in,

And found no course of breath with.n your majesty, How cold it struck my heart! if I do feign,

O let me in my present wildness die,

And never live to show th' 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,

Therefore, thou best of gold, art worst of gold:
Other, less fine in carat, is more precious,

Preserving life in medicine potable:

But thou, most fine, most honour'd, most renown'd, Hast eat thy bearer up." Thus, my most 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, any rebel or vain spirit of mine

If

Did with the least affection of a welcome
Give entertainment to the might of it,
Let Heaven 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. HEN. O my son!

Heaven 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 bed;

And hear, I think, the very latest counsel

That ever I shall breathe. Heaven knows, my son,

By what by-paths, and indirect crook'd ways,

I met this crown; and I myself know well
How troublesome it sat upon my head.
To thee it shall descend with better quiet,
Better opinion, better confirmation :
For all the soil of the achievement goes

D

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;

Which daily grew to quarrel and to bloodshed,
Wounding supposed peace. All their bold feats,
Thou seest, with peril I have answerèd.

For all my reign hath been but as a scene
Acting that argument and now my

death

Changes the mode; for what in me was purchas'd,
Falls upon
thee in a much fairer sort,

For thou the garland wear'st successively.

Yet though thou stand'st more sure than I could do,
Thou art not firm enough, since griefs are green .

And all my friends, which thou must make thy friends,
Have but their stings and teeth newly ta'en out;
By whose fell working I was first advanc'd,
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 quarrels; that action, hence borne out,
May waste the memory of former days.
More would I, but my lungs are wasted so,
That strength of speech is utterly denied me
How I came by the crown, O God forgive!
And grant it may with thee in true
peace live!
P. HEN. 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.

17. HENRY V TO HIS SOLDIERS.

What's he that wishes for more men from England?
My cousin Westmoreland? No, my fair cousin,
If we are mark'd to die, we are enow

To do our country loss; and if to live,
The fewer men the greater share of honour.
God's will! I pray thee wish not one man more.
By Jove, I am not covetous of gold :

Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost;
It yearns me not if men my garments wear:
Such outward things dwell not in my desires :
But if it be a sin to covet honour,

I am the most offending soul alive.

No, 'faith, coz, wish not a man from England:
God's peace! I would not lose so great an honour,
As one man more, methinks, would share from me,
For the best hopes I have. O do not wish one more :
Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host,
That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart; his passport shall be made,
And crowns for convoy put into his purse :
We would not die in that man's company,
That fears his fellowship to die with us.

This day is called the feast of Crispian :
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand on tip-toe when this day is nam'd,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian :
He that outlives this day, and sees old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say, To-morrow is Saint Crispian :
Then will he strip his sleeve, and show his scars.
Old men forget; yet shall not all forget,
But all remember, with advantages,

The feats he did that day. Then shall our names,
Familiar in their mouths as household words,
Harry the king, Bedford, and Exeter,

Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloster,
Be in their flowing cups freshly remember'd.
This story shall the good man teach his son,
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be rememberéd :
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers:
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me,