Bard. [Within.] Mistress Tear-sheet,—
Host. What's the matter?

Bard. [Within.] Bid Mistress Tear-sheet come to my master.

Host. O run, Doll, run; run, good Doll, come; [Doll comes blubbered] yea, will you come, Doll?

[Exeunt.

ACT III.

SCENE I.-A Room in the Palace.

Enter King HENRY in his night-gown, with a

Page.

K. Hen. Go, call the Earls of Surrey and of

Warwick;

But, ere they come, bid them o'er-read these

letters

And well consider of them. Make good speed.

[Exit Page.

How many thousands of my poorest subjects
Are at this hour asleep!-O sleep, O gentle sleep,
Nature's soft nurse, how have I frighted thee
That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down

And steep my senses in forgetfulness?

Why, rather, sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs,
Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee

And hushed with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber,

Than in the perfumed chambers of the great,
Under the canopies of costly state

And lulled with sounds of sweetest melody?
O thou dull god, why liest 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 clamours 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.

Enter WARWICK and SURREY.

War. Many good-morrows to your majesty!
K. Hen. Is it good-morrow, lords?

War. 'Tis one o'clock, and past.

K. Hen. Why then, good-morrow to you all, my lords.

Have you read o'er the letters that I sent you?
War. We have, my liege.

K. Hen. Then you perceive, the body of our kingdom

How foul it is; what rank diseases grow,
And with what danger, near the heart of it.
War. It is but as a body yet distempered,
Which to his former strength may be restored
With good advice and little medicine.

My Lord Northumberland will soon be cooled.
K. Hen. O God, that one might read the book
of fate,

And see the revolution of the times

Make mountains level, and the continent,

Weary of solid firmness, melt itself

Into the sea; and, other times, to see

The beachy girdle of the ocean

Too wide for Neptune's hips; how chances mock,

And changes fill the cup of alteration

With divers liquors! O, if this were seen,

The happiest youth-viewing his progress through, What perils past, what crosses to ensue—

Would shut the book and sit him down and die.

It is not ten years gone,

Since Richard and Northumberland, great friends,
Did feast together, and in two years after
Were they at wars. It is but eight years since
This Percy was the man nearest my soul;
Who like a brother toiled in my affairs,

And laid his love and life under my foot;

Yea, for my sake, even to the eyes of Richard, Gave him defiance. But which of you was by—

[To WARWICK.] (You, cousin Nevil, as I may

remember)

When Richard, with his eyes brimful of tears,
Then checked and rated by Northumberland,
Did speak these words, now proved a prophecy?
'Northumberland, thou ladder, by the which
My cousin Bolingbroke ascends my throne;'—
Though then, God knows, I had no such intent,
But that necessity so bowed the state

That I and greatness were compelled to kiss.
'The time shall come,' thus did he follow it,
'The time will come, that foul sin, gathering head,
Shall break into corruption ;'-so went on,

Foretelling this same time's condition,
And the division of our amity.

War. There is a history in all men's lives,
Figuring the nature of the times deceased;
The which observed, a man may prophesy
With a near aim of the main chance of things
As yet not come to life, which in their seeds
And weak beginnings lie intreasuréd.

Such things become the hatch and brood of time;
And, by the necessary form of this,

King Richard might create a perfect guess
That great Northumberland, then false to him,
Would, of that seed, grow to a greater falseness
Which should not find a ground to root upon
Unless on you.

K. Hen. Are these things then necessities?
Then let us meet them like necessities ;-

And that same word even now cries out on us.
They say, the bishop and Northumberland

Are fifty thousand strong,

War.

It cannot be, my lord;

Rumour doth double, like the voice and echo,

The numbers of the feared.-Please it your grace

To go to bed; upon my life, my lord,

The powers that you already have sent forth

Shall bring this prize in very easily.