When I am sleeping with my ancestors.
For when his headstrong riot hath no curb,
When rage and hot blood are his counsellors,
When means and lavish manners meet together,
O, with what wings shall his affections' fly
Towards fronting peril and oppos'd decay!

War. My gracious lord, you look beyond him quite: The prince but studies his companions,

Like a strange tongue: wherein, to gain the language, "Tis needful, that the most immodest word

Be look'd upon, and learn'd: which once attain'd,
Your highness knows, comes to no further use,
But to be known, and hated. So, like gross terms,
The prince will, in the perfectness of time,
Cast off his followers: and their memory
Shall as a pattern or a measure live,

By which his grace must mete the lives of others;
Turning past evils to advantages.

K. Hen. 'Tis seldom-when the bee doth leave her comb

In the dead carrion9.-Who's here? Westmoreland?

Enter WESTMORELAND.

West. Health to my sovereign! and new happiness Added to that that I am to deliver!

Prince John, your son, doth kiss your grace's hand: Mowbray, the bishop Scroop, Hastings, and all, Are brought to the correction of your law;

7 Affections, in the language of Shakspeare's time, are passions, desires. Apetitus animi.

8 A parallel passage occurs in Terence :

quo modo adolescentulus

Meretricum ingenia et mores posset noscere
Mature ut cum cognovit, perpetuo oderit.'

9 As the bee, having once placed her comb in a carcass, stays by her honey, so he that has once taken pleasure in bad company will continue to associate with those that have the art of pleasing him.

There is not now a rebel's sword unsheath'd,
But
peace puts forth her olive every where.
The manner how this action hath been borne,
Here at more leisure may your highness read;
With every course, in his particular 10

K. Hen. O Westmoreland, thou art a summer bird, Which ever in the haunch of winter sings

The lifting up of day.

Look! here's more news.

Enter HARCourt.

Har. From enemies heaven keep your majesty; And, when they stand against you, may they fall As those that I am come to tell you of!

The Earl Northumberland, and the Lord Bardolph,
With a great power of English, and of Scots,
Are by the sheriff of Yorkshire overthrown:
The manner and true order of the fight,
This packet, please it you, contains at large.
K. Hen. And wherefore should these good news
make me sick?

Will fortune never come with both hands full,
But write her fair words still in foulest letters?
She either gives a stomach, and no food,-
Such are the poor, in health; or else a feast,
And takes away the stomach,—such are the rich,
That have abundance, and enjoy it not.

I should rejoice now at this happy news;

And now my sight fails, and my brain is giddy:O me! come near me, now I am much ill. [Swoons. P. Humph. Comfort, your majesty!

Cla.

O my royal father! West. My sovereign ord, cheer up yourself,

look up! War. Be patient, princes; you do know, these fits

10 The detail contained in Prince John's letter,

pangs;

Are with his highness very ordinary.
Stand from him, give him air; he'll straight be well.
Cla. No, no; he cannot long hold out these
The incessant care and labour of his mind
Hath wrought the mure 11, that should confine it in,
So thin, that life looks through, and will break out.
P. Humph. The people fear me 12; for they do

observe

Unfather'd heirs 13, and loathly birds of nature:
The seasons change their manners, as the
year 14
Had found some months asleep, and leap'd them over.
Cla. The river hath thrice flow'd, no ebb between 15
And the old folk, time's doting chronicles,
Say, it did so, a little time before

That our great grandsire, Edward, sick'd and died.
War. Speak lower, princes, for the king recovers.
P. Humph. This apoplex will, certain, be his ed.
K. Hen. I pray you, take me up, and bear me hence
Into some other chamber: softly, 'pray.

[They convey the King into an inner part of the room, and place him on a Bed. Let there be no noise made, my gentle friends;

11 Mure for wall is another of Shakspeare's Latinisms. It was not in frequent use by his cotemporaries. Wrought it thin is made it thin by gradual detriment: wrought being the preterite of work. The same thought is in Daniel's Civil Wars, 1595, book iv. Daniel is also speaking of the sickness of King Henry IV. :Wearing the wall so thin that now the mind

Might well look through, and all his frailty find.' Shakspeare is here therefore the imitator. It is highly probable that he would read Daniel's poem when composing his historical

dramas.

12 To fear anciently signified to make afraid, as well as to dread. 'A vengeaunce light on thee that so doth feare me, or makest me so feared.'-Baret.

13 That is, equivocal births, monsters.

14 i. e. as if the year.

15 An historical fact. On Oct. 12, 1411, this happened.

Unless some dull 16 and favourable hand
Will whisper musick to my weary spirit.

War. Call for the musick in the other room.
K. Hen. Set me the crown upon my pillow here.
Cla. His eye is hollow, and he changes much.
War. Less noise, less noise.

P. Hen.

Enter PRINCE HENRY.

Who saw the duke of Clarence?

Cla. I am here, brother, full of heaviness.
P. Hen. How now! rain within doors, and none

abroad!

How doth the king?

P. Humph. Exceeding ill.

P. Hen.

Tell it him.

Heard he the good news yet?

P. Humph. He alter'd much upon the hearing it. P. Hen. If he be sick

With joy, he will recover without physick.

16 Johnson asserts that dull here signifies 'melancholy, gentle, soothing.' Malone says that it means 'producing dullness or heaviness.' The fact is that dull and slow were synonymous, 'Dullness, slowness; tarditas, tardiveté. Somewhat dull or slowe; tardiusculus, tardelet ;' says Baret. But Shakspeare uses dulness for drowsiness in the Tempest. And Baret has also this sense: Slow, dull, asleepe, drousie, astonied, heavie; torpidus.' It has always been thought that slow music induces sleep. Ariel enters playing solemn music to produce this effect, in the Tempest. The notion is not peculiar to our great poet, as the following exquisite lines, almost worthy of his hand, may wit

ness:

Oh, lull me, lull me, charming air,

My senses rock'd with wonder sweet;
Like snow on wool thy fallings are,

Soft like a spirit are thy feet.
Grief who need fear

That hath an ear?

Down let him lie,

And slumbering die,

And change his soul for harmony.'

(From Wit Restored, 1658.) They are attributed to Dr. Strode, who died in 1644.

War. Not so much noise, my lords;-sweet

prince, speak low;

The king your father is dispos'd to sleep.

Cla. Let us withdraw into the other room.
War. Will't please your grace to go along with us?
P. Hen. No; I will sit and watch here by the
[Exeunt all but P. HENRY.

king 17.
Why doth the crown lie there upon his pillow,
Being so troublesome a bedfellow?
O polish'd perturbation! golden care!

That keeps the ports 18 of slumber open wide
To many a watchful night!-sleep with it now!
Yet not so sound, and half so deeply sweet,
As he, whose brow, with homely biggin 19 bound,
Snores out the watch of night. O majesty!
When thou dost pinch thy bearer, thou dost sit
Like a rich armour worn in heat of day,
That scalds with safety. By his gates of breath
There lies a downy feather, which stirs not:
Did he suspire, that light and weightless down
Perforce must move. -My gracious lord!—my fa-
ther!-

This sleep is sound indeed; this is a sleep,
That from this golden rigol 20 hath divorc❜d

17 The hint only of this beautiful scene is taken from Holinshed, p. 541. The poet has wrought up the bare bald narration of the chronicler in the most pathetic and poetical manner.

18 Gates.

19 A biggin was a head-band of coarse cloth; so called because such a forehead-cloth was worn by the Beguines, an order of nuns. Upon his head he wore a filthy coarse biggin, and next it a garnish of night-caps.' Nash, speaking of a miser in his Pierce Penniless.

20 i. e. circle; probably from the old Italian rigolo, a small wheel. The word has not hitherto been found in any other author. Shakspeare has it again in his Rape of Lucrece :

About the mourning and congealed face

Of that black blood, a wat'ry rigol goes.

Ringol is used by Nash in the same sense, in his Lenten Stuffe ; and it may also have been Shakspeare's word, when we recollect that it would have been thus written in the poet's age-rigol.