Original Text |
Translated Text |
| Source: Folger Shakespeare Library |
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WARWICK, to an Attendant
Call for the music in the other room. KING
Set me the crown upon my pillow here.
The crown is placed on the bed. THOMAS OF CLARENCE, aside to the others
His eye is hollow, and he changes much. 150 WARWICK
Less noise, less noise. | (Note: In the Folger's edition, this is still Scene 3.) The scene continues and the king is carried into another room. Warwick
calls for some soft music to be played and Clarence removes Henry's
crown, setting it beside his head on a pillow. |
Enter Prince Harry. PRINCE Who saw the Duke of Clarence? THOMAS OF CLARENCE, weeping
I am here, brother, full of heaviness. PRINCE
How now, rain within doors, and none abroad?
How doth the King? 155 HUMPHREY OF GLOUCESTER Exceeding ill. PRINCE
Heard he the good news yet? Tell it him. HUMPHREY OF GLOUCESTER
He altered much upon the hearing it. PRINCE If he be sick with joy, he’ll recover without
physic. 160 WARWICK
Not so much noise, my lords.—Sweet prince, speak
low.
The King your father is disposed to sleep. THOMAS OF CLARENCE
Let us withdraw into the other room. WARWICK
Will ’t please your Grace to go along with us? 165 PRINCE
No, I will sit and watch here by the King. All but Prince and King exit. | Prince Hal arrives and, seeing that his father is ill, says he's going
to sit beside his father while the old man sleeps. His brothers and
Warwick leave him alone in the room with his father. |
All but Prince and King exit. Why doth the crown lie there upon his pillow,
Being so troublesome a bedfellow?
O polished perturbation, golden care,
That keep’st the ports of slumber open wide 170
To many a watchful night! Sleep with it now;
Yet not so sound and half so deeply sweet
As he whose brow with homely biggen bound
Snores out the watch of night. O majesty,
When thou dost pinch thy bearer, thou dost sit 175
Like a rich armor worn in heat of day,
That scald’st 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 father, 180
This sleep is sound indeed. This is a sleep
That from this golden rigol hath divorced
So many English kings. Thy due from me
Is tears and heavy sorrows of the blood,
Which nature, love, and filial tenderness 185
Shall, O dear father, pay thee plenteously.
My due from thee is this imperial crown,
Which, as immediate from thy place and blood,
Derives itself to me. He puts on the crown. Lo,
where it sits, 190
Which God shall guard. And, put the world’s whole
strength
Into one giant arm, it shall not force
This lineal honor from me. This from thee
Will I to mine leave, as ’tis left to me. 195 He exits with the crown. |
Prince Hal notices the crown sitting next to the king and says that it
has caused his father a lot of trouble. Henry's duties as king have
prevented him from getting any sleep or rest. When Hal sees a
down feather has landed on his father's lips and doesn't seem to be
moving, he believes his father is no longer breathing and has died in
his sleep. Hal, rather tenderly (if not a bit briefly) expresses
his grief and love for his father before picking up the crown, which he
inherits as the king's first-born son. Hal places the crown on his head and promises to guard the honor of the crown as he leaves the room. |
KING, rising up in his bed Warwick! Gloucester!
Clarence! Enter Warwick, Gloucester, Clarence, and others. THOMAS OF CLARENCE Doth the King call? WARWICK
What would your Majesty? How fares your Grace? KING
Why did you leave me here alone, my lords? 200 THOMAS OF CLARENCE
We left the Prince my brother here, my liege,
Who undertook to sit and watch by you. KING
The Prince of Wales? Where is he? Let me see him.
He is not here. WARWICK
This door is open. He is gone this way. 205 HUMPHREY OF GLOUCESTER
He came not through the chamber where we
stayed. KING
Where is the crown? Who took it from my pillow? WARWICK
When we withdrew, my liege, we left it here. KING
The Prince hath ta’en it hence. Go seek him out. 210
Is he so hasty that he doth suppose my sleep my
death?
Find him, my Lord of Warwick. Chide him hither. Warwick exits. This part of his conjoins with my disease
And helps to end me. See, sons, what things you 215
are,
How quickly nature falls into revolt
When gold becomes her object!
For this the foolish overcareful fathers
Have broke their sleep with thoughts, 220
Their brains with care, their bones with industry.
For this they have engrossèd and piled up
The cankered heaps of strange-achievèd gold.
For this they have been thoughtful to invest
Their sons with arts and martial exercises— 225
When, like the bee, tolling from every flower
The virtuous sweets,
Our thighs packed with wax, our mouths with
honey,
We bring it to the hive and, like the bees, 230
Are murdered for our pains. This bitter taste
Yields his engrossments to the ending father. Enter Warwick. Now where is he that will not stay so long
Till his friend sickness hath determined me? | Uh oh. King Henry wakes up from his nap and yells for his sons and Westmoreland – he wants to know why they've left him alone. When
Henry learns that Prince Hal was sitting with him and that his crown
just happens to have gone missing, along with Hal, he's furious. Who
does Hal think he is? After everything Henry has done for his kids, all
sons are nothing but greedy little murderers. |
WARWICK
My lord, I found the Prince in the next room, 235
Washing with kindly tears his gentle cheeks,
With such a deep demeanor in great sorrow
That tyranny, which never quaffed but blood,
Would, by beholding him, have washed his knife
With gentle eyedrops. He is coming hither. 240 KING
But wherefore did he take away the crown? | Warwick enters in the middle of Henry's tirade to announce that he
found Prince Hal in another room, crying over the death of his father.
Hal was sobbing so much that his tears could have washed a bloody knife.
(Hmm. That's an interesting way to put it, don't you think?) Whatever, says Henry, who wants to know why Hal made off with his crown. |
Enter Prince Harry with the crown. Lo where he comes.—Come hither to me, Harry.—
Depart the chamber. Leave us here alone. Gloucester, Clarence, Warwick, and others exit. PRINCE
I never thought to hear you speak again. KING
Thy wish was father, Harry, to that thought. 245
I stay too long by thee; I weary thee.
Dost thou so hunger for mine empty chair
That thou wilt needs invest thee with my honors
Before thy hour be ripe? O foolish youth,
Thou seek’st the greatness that will overwhelm 250
thee.
Stay but a little, for my cloud of dignity
Is held from falling with so weak a wind
That it will quickly drop. My day is dim.
Thou hast stol’n that which after some few hours 255
Were thine without offense, and at my death
Thou hast sealed up my expectation.
Thy life did manifest thou loved’st me not,
And thou wilt have me die assured of it.
Thou hid’st a thousand daggers in thy thoughts, 260
Whom thou hast whetted on thy stony heart
To stab at half an hour of my life.
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 265
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 forgotten dust.
Give that which gave thee life unto the worms. 270
Pluck down my officers, break my decrees,
For now a time is come to mock at form.
Harry the Fifth is crowned. Up, vanity,
Down, royal state, all you sage councillors,
hence, 275
And to the English court assemble now,
From every region, apes of idleness.
Now, neighbor confines, purge you of your scum.
Have you a ruffian that will swear, drink, dance,
Revel the night, rob, murder, and commit 280
The oldest sins the newest kind of ways?
Be happy, he will trouble you no more.
England shall double gild his treble guilt.
England shall give him office, honor, might,
For the fifth Harry from curbed license plucks 285
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 riots,
What wilt thou do when riot is thy care? 290
O, thou wilt be a wilderness again,
Peopled with wolves, thy old inhabitants. | When Hal enters the room, everybody else high tails it out of there
while King Henry lays into his rotten kid for trying to steal his crown
before he's even dead. If Hal would have waited just a few hours longer,
he wouldn't have had to steal it, Henry says bitterly. And another
thing, the king's known all along that Hal's been hiding his murderous
thoughts. Boy oh boy, he adds, the kingdom's in for a treat when
Hal becomes king – the monarch will be a murderer, a thief, and a
ruffian, turning the kingdom into a "wilderness." |
PRINCE, placing the crown on the pillow
O pardon me, my liege! But for my tears,
The moist impediments unto my speech,
I had forestalled this dear and deep rebuke 295
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. He kneels. If I affect it
more 300
Than as your honor and as your renown,
Let me no more from this obedience rise,
Which my most inward true and duteous spirit
Teacheth this prostrate and exterior bending.
God witness with me, when I here came in 305
And found no course of breath within 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 purposèd. 310
Coming to look on you, thinking you dead,
And dead almost, my liege, to think you were,
I spake unto this crown as having sense,
And thus upbraided it: “The care on thee
depending 315
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 med’cine potable;
But thou, most fine, most honored, most renowned, 320
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 murdered my father,
The quarrel of a true inheritor. 325
But if it did infect my blood with joy
Or swell my thoughts to any strain of pride,
If any rebel or vain spirit of mine
Did with the least affection of a welcome
Give entertainment to the might of it, 330
Let God forever keep it from my head
And make me as the poorest vassal is
That doth with awe and terror kneel to it. | That's not so, insists Hal, who begs his father's pardon. Hal
returns the crown and kneels before his father. Then he says he only
took the crown because he thought Henry was dead and he wanted to yell
at the crown as if it were a person who was responsible for killing his
father. Hal also says he only put the crown on his head because he
wanted to argue with it and to see if it would make him think bad
thoughts. If it did, he would take it off and never wear it again.
Honest. (Hmm. Is it just us or is this a totally inaccurate
description of Hal's response when he thought the king was dead? Why
would he lie? To sooth his father and prove his love? What do you
think?) |
KING O my son,
God put it in thy mind to take it hence 335
That thou mightst 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. 340 The Prince rises from his knees and sits
near the bed. God knows, my son,
By what bypaths 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, 345
Better opinion, better confirmation,
For all the soil of the achievement goes
With me into the earth. It seemed in me
But as an honor snatched with boist’rous hand,
And I had many living to upbraid 350
My gain of it by their assistances,
Which daily grew to quarrel and to bloodshed,
Wounding supposèd peace. All these bold fears
Thou seest with peril I have answerèd,
For all my reign hath been but as a scene 355
Acting that argument. And now my death
Changes the mood, for what in me was purchased
Falls upon thee in a more fairer sort.
So thou the garland wear’st successively.
Yet though thou stand’st more sure than I could do, 360
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 advanced 365
And by whose power I well might lodge a fear
To be again displaced; 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 370
Too near unto 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 the former days. 375
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. | King Henry forgives Hal and calls him over to his bed for one last heart-to-heart talk before he dies.
Henry admits that his path to the crown was "crook'd" and says his
son's reign will be better since he's inheriting the throne, not
stealing it like Henry did. Henry also admits that his plan to lead a
crusade to the Holy Land was just a diversionary tactic to keep people
busy so they wouldn't try to depose him. If Hal's smart, he'll
whip up a nice little foreign war to distract anyone who's thinking
about civil rebellion. Henry then asks God to forgive him. |
PRINCE My gracious liege, 380
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. Enter John of Lancaster and others. KING
Look, look, here comes my John of Lancaster. 385 JOHN OF LANCASTER
Health, peace, and happiness to my royal father. KING
Thou bring’st me happiness and peace, son John,
But health, alack, with youthful wings is flown
From this bare withered trunk. Upon thy sight
My worldly business makes a period. 390
Where is my Lord of Warwick? PRINCE My Lord of Warwick. Enter Warwick. KING
Doth any name particular belong
Unto the lodging where I first did swoon? WARWICK
’Tis called Jerusalem, my noble lord. 395 KING
Laud be to God! Even there my life must end.
It hath been prophesied to me many years,
I should not die but in Jerusalem,
Which vainly I supposed the Holy Land.
But bear me to that chamber; there I’ll lie. 400
In that Jerusalem shall Harry die. They exit. | Hal promises to defend the crown, which will be rightfully his. Prince John enters, followed by Warwick. When
Henry asks for the name of the room he was just in (the one in which he
fainted), Warwick tells him that it's called the "Jerusalem Chamber." Henry
asks to be taken back there and says it's fitting that he'll die in a
room called the Jerusalem Chamber. A long time ago, he heard it was
prophesied that he would die in Jerusalem. At the time, Henry thought
that meant he would die in the Holy Land but now he knows better. |