To have a son set your decrees at naught;
To pluck down justice from your awful bench;,
To trip the course of law, and blunt the sword
'I'hat guards the peace and safety of your person;
Nay, more; to spurn at your most royal image,
And mock your workings in a second body.*
Question your royal thoughts, make the case yours.
Be now the father, and propose a son;
Hear your own dignity so much profan'd,
See your most dreadful laws so loosely slighted,
Behold yourself so by a son disdained;
And then imagine me taking your part,
And, in your power, soft silencing your son.
INVOCATION TO THE MUSE.
O, FOR a muse of fire, that would ascend
The brightest heaven of invention!
A kingdom for a stage, princes to act,
And nonarchs to behold the swelling scene!
Then should the warlike Harry, like himself,
Assume the port of Mars; and, at his heels,
Leash'd in like hounds, should famine, sword, and fire
Crouch for employment.
Consideration like an angel came,
And whipp'd the offending Adam out of him:
Leaving his body as a paradise,
To envelop and contain celestial spirits.
PERFECTIONS OF KING HENRY V.
Hear him but reason in divinity,
And, all-adrairing, with an inward wish
You would desire the king were made a prelate:
Hear him debate of commonwealth affairs,
* Treat with contempt your acts executed by a representative.
You would say, it had been all-in-all his study.
List* his discourse of war, and you shall hear
A fearful battle render'd you in music:
Turn him to any cause of policy,
The Gordian knot of it he will unloose,
Familiar as his garter; that when he speaks,
The air, a charter'd libertine, is still,
And the mute wonder lurketh in men's ears,
I'o steal his sweet and honeyed sentences.
THE COMMONWEALTH OF BEES.
So work the honey bees;
Creatures, that, by a rule in nature, teach
The act of order to a peopled kingdom.
They have a king, and officers of sorts:†
Where some, like magistrates, correct at home;
Others, like merchants, venture trade abroad;
Others, like soldiers, armed in their stings,
Make boot upon the summer's velvet buds;
Which pillage they with merry march bring home
To the tent-royal of their emperor:
Who, busied in his majesty, surveys
The singing masons building roofs of gold;
The civil citizens kneading up the honey;
The poor mechanic porters crowding in
Their heavy burdens at his narrrow gate;
The sad-ey'd justice, with his surly hum,
Delivering o'er to the executors§ pale
The lazy yawning drone.
ACT II.
CHORUS.
WARLIKE SPIRIT.
Now all the youth of England are on fire, And silken dalliance in the wardrobe lies; Now thrive the armourers, and honour's thought Reigns solely in the breast of every man: They sell the pasture now, to buy the horse; Following the mirror of all Christian kings,
* Listen to.
Sober, grave.
† Different degrees.
§ Executioners.
With winged heels, as English Mercuries.
For now sits Expectation in the air;
And hides a sword, from hilts unto the point,
With crowns imperial, crowns, and coronets,
Promis'd to Harry, and his followers.
APOSTROPHE TO ENGLAND.
O England!-model to thy inward greatness, Like little body with a mighty heart,What might'st thou do, that honour would thee do. Were all thy children kind and natural! But see thy fault! France hath in thee found out A nest of hollow bosoms, which he* fills With treacherous crowns.
O, how hast thou with jealousy infected
The sweetness of affiance! Show men dutiful?
Why, so didst thou: Seem they grave and learned?
Why, so didst thou: Come they of noble family?
Why, so didst thou: Seem they religious?
Why, so didst thou: Or are they spare in diet;
Free from gross passion, or of mirth, or anger;
Constant in spirit, not swerving with the blood;
Garnish'd and deck'd in modest complement;†
Not working with the eye, without the ear,
And, but in purged judgment, trusting neither?
Such, and so finely bolted, didst thou seem:
And thus thy fall hath left a kind of blot,
To mark the full-fraught man, and best indued,
With some suspicion.
DAME QUICKLY'S ACCOUNT OF FALSTAFF'S DEATH.
'A made a finer end, and went away, an it had
been any christom|| child; 'a parted even just between
twelve and one, e'en at turning o' the tide; for after
I saw him fumble with the sheets, and play with
flowers, and smile upon his fingers' ends, I knew
there was but one way; for his nose was as sharp as a
* i. e. The king of France. † Accomplishment.
§ Endowed.
A child not more than a month old.
pen, and a babbled of green fields. How now, Sit John quoth I: what, man! be of good cheer. So 'a cried out- -God, God, God! three or four times: now I, to comfort him, bid him, 'a should not think of God; I hoped there was no need to trouble himself with any such thoughts yet: So, 'a bade me lay more clothes on his feet: I put my hand into the bed, and felt them, and they were as cold as any stone.
KING HENRY'S CHARACTER BY THE CONSTABLE OF
You are too much mistaken in this king:
Question your grace the late ambassadors,-
With what great state he heard their embassy,
How well supplied with noble counsellors,
How modest in exception,* and withal,
How terrible in constant resolution,—
And you shall find his vanities forespent†
Were but the outside of the Roman Brutus,
Covering discretion with a coat of folly;
As gardeners do with ordure hide those roots
That shall first spring, and be most delicate.
DESCRIPTION OF A FLEET SETTING SAIL.
Suppose that you have seen
The well-appointed king at Hampton pier
Embark his royalty; and his brave fleet
With silken streamers the young Phoebus fanning,
Play with your fancies; and in them behold,
Upon the hempen tackle, ship-boys climbing:
Hear the shrill whistle, which doth order give
To sounds confus'd; behold the threaden sails,
Borne with the invisible and creeping wind,
Draw the huge bottoms through the furrow'd s
Breasting the lofty surge.
DESCRIPTION OF NIGHT IN A CAMP.
From camp to camp, through the foul womb of night,
The hum of either army stilly* sounds,
'That the fix'd sentinels almost receive
The secret whispers of each other's watch:
Fire answers fire, and though their paly flames
Each battle sees the other's umber'df face:
Steed threatens steed, in high and boastful neighs
Piercing the night's dull ear; and from the tents,
The armourers, accomplishing the knights,
With busy hammers closing rivets up,
Give dreadful note of preparation.
The country cocks do crow, the clocks do toll,
And the third hour of drowsy morning name.
Proud of their numbers, and secure in soul,
The confident and over-lusty‡ French
Do the low-rated English play at dice;
And chide the cripple tardy-gaited night,
Who, like a foul and ugly witch, doth limp
So tediously away. The poor condemned English,
Like sacrifices, by their watchful fires
Sit patiently, and inly ruminate
The morning's danger; and their gesture sad,
Investing lank-lean cheeks, and war-worn coats,
Presenteth them unto the gazing moon
So many horrid ghosts. O, now, who will behold
The royal captain of this ruin'd band,
Walking from watch to watch, from tent to tent,
Let him cry-Praise and glory on his head!
For forth he goes, and visits all his host;
Bids them good morrow, with a modest smile;
And calls them-brothers, friends, and countrymen.
Upon his royal face there is no note,
How dread an army hath enrounded him;
† Discoloured by the gleam of the fires. + Over-saucy.
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