Book vj. If they will patiently receive my medicine. Duke. Fie on thee! I can tell what thou would'st do.
Jaq. What, for a counter, would I do but good? Duke. Most mischievous foul sin,in chiding sin For thou thyself hast been a libertine,
And all th'embossed sores and headed evils,
That thou with licence of free foot hast caught,
Wouldst thou disgorge into the general world.
Jaq. Why, who cries out on pride,
That can therein tax any private party?
Dot it not flow as hugely as the sea,
Till that the very means do ebb!
What woman in the city do I name,
When that I say, the city-woman bears
The cost of princes on unworthy shoulders?
Who can come in, and say, that I mean her;
When such a one as she, such is her neighbour?
Or what is he of basest function
That says his bravery is not on my cost;
Thinking, that I mean him, but therein suits
His folly to the metal of my speech?
There then; how then? what then let me see
My tongue has wrong'd him; if it do him right,
Then he hath wrong'd himself; if he be free
Why, then my taxing, like a wild goose, flies
Unclaim'd of any man.
SHAKESPEARE.
Henry and Lord Chief Justice:
Ch. Just. I I am assur'd, if I be measur'd rightly,
Your Majesty hath no just cause to hate me.
P. Henry. No! might a prince of my great hopes
forget
So great indignities yon laid upon me?"
What! rate, rebuke, and roughly send to prison
Th' immediate heir of England! was this easy?
May this be wash'd in Lethe and forgotten
Ch. Just. I then did use the person of your fa-
ther;
The image of his power lay then in me;
And in th' administration of his law,
While I was busy for the commonwealth
Your highness pleased to forget my place,
The majesty and pow'r of law and justice,
The image of the king whom I presented;
And struck me in my very seat of judgment;
Whereon, as an offender to your father,
I gave bold way to my authority;
And did commit you. If the deed were ill,
Be you contented, wearing now the garland,
To have a son set your decrees at nought:
To pluck down justice from your awful bench,
To trip the course of law, and blunt the sword
That guards the peace and safety of your person:
Nay more, to spurn at your most royal image,
And mock your working in a second body.
Question your royal thoughts,make the case your's;
Be now the father, and propose a son:
Hear your own dignity so much profan'd;
See your most dreadful law so loosely slighted;
Behold yourself so by a son disdained:
And then imagine me taking your part,
And in your pow'r so silencing your son.
After this cold consid'rance, sentence me;
And, as you are a king, speak in your state,
What I have done that misbecame my place,
My person, or my liege's sovereignty.
P. Henry. You are right, Justice, and you weigh this well:
Therefore still bear the balance and the sword:
And I do wish your honours may increase,
Till you do live to see a son of mine
Offend you, and obey you as I did:
So shall I live to speak my father's words:
Happy am I, that have a man so bold
That dares do justice on my proper son
And no less happy, having such a son 9
That would deliver up his greatness so
Into the hand of justice.-You committed me;
For which I do commit into your hand
Th' unstain'd sword that you have us'd to bear;
With this remembrance, that you use the same
With a like bold, just, and impartial spirit,
As you have done 'gainst me. There is my hand,
You shall be as a father to my youth:
My voice shall sound as you do prompt
And I will stoop and humble my intents
To your well-practis'd wise directions.
And, princes all, believe me, I beseech you;
My father is gone wild into his grave;
For in his tomb lie my affections ;.
And with his spirit sadly I survive,
To mock the expectations of the world;
To frustrate prophecies, and to raze out
Rotten opinion, which hath writ me down
After my seeming. Though my tide of blood
Hath proudly flow'd in vanity till now;
Now doth it turn and ebb to the sea,
Where it shall mingle with the state of floods,
And flow henceforth in formal majesty..
Now call we our high court of parliament:
And let us chuse such limbs of noble council,
That the great body of our estate may go
In equal rank with the best-govern'd nation ;;
That war or peace
or both at once, may
As things acquainted and familiar to us,
In which you, father, shall have fore-most hand..
Our coronation done, we will aceite
(As I before remember'd) all our state,
And (Heav'n consiguing to my good intents)
No prince, nor peer, shall have just cause to say,
Hear'n shorten Harry's happy life one day.
Archbishop of Canterbury and Bishop
of Ely.
Cant. My lord, I'll tell you; that self bill is urg'd
Which in the eleventh year o' th' last king's reign,
Was like, and had indeed against us pass'd,
But that the scrambling and unquiet time
Did push it out of further question.
Ely. But how, my lord, shall we resist it now?
Cant. It must be thought on. If it
pass against
We lose the better half of our possession:
For all the temporal lands which men devout
By testament have given to the church,
Would they strip from us; being valu'd thus ;
As much as would maintain to the king's honour
Full fifteen earls, and fifteen hundred knights,
Six thousand and two hundred good esquires;
And to relief of lazars and weak age
Of indigent faint souls, past corporal toil,
A hundred alms-houses right well supply'd;
And to the coffers of the king, beside,
A thousand pounds by th' year. Thus runs the bill.
Ely. This would drink deep.
Cant. 'Twould drink the cup
Ely. But what prevention?
Cant. The king is full of grace and fair regard.
Ely. And a true lover of the holy church.
Cant. The courses of his youth promis'd it noti
The breath no sooner left his father's body,
But that his wildness mortify'd in him,
Seem'd to die too; yea, at that
very moment
Consideration, like an angel, came,
And whipp'd th' offending Adam out of him,
Leaving his body as a paradise,
T' invelope and contain celestial spirits.
Never was such a sudden scholar made:
Never came reformation in a flood
With such a heady current, scouring faults:
Nor ever hydra-headed wilfulness
So soon did lose his seat, and all at once
As in this king.
Ely. We're blessed in the change.
Cant. Hear him but reason in divinity
And, all-admiring, with an inward wish
You would desire, the king were made a prelate.
Hear him debate of commonwealth affairs,
You'd say, it had been all in all his study.
List his discourse of war, and you
shall hear
A fearful battle rendered you in music.
Turn him to any cause of policy,
The Gordian knot of it he will unloose,
Familiar as his garter. When he speaks,
The air, a charter'd libertine, is still;
And the mute wonder lurketh in men's cars
To steal his sweet and honey'd sentences:
So that the act, and practic part of life.
Must be the mistress to this theorique.
Which is a wonder how his Grace should glean it,
Since his addiction was to courses vain;
His companies unletter'd, rude and shallow;
His hours fill'd up with riots, banquets, sports;
And never noted in him any study,
Any retirement, any sequestration
From open haunts, and popularity.
Ely. The strawberry grows underneath the
nettle,
And wholesome berries thrive, and ripen best,
Neighbour'd by fruit of baser quality:
And so the prince obscur'd his contemplation
Under the veil of wildness; which, no doubt,
Grew like a summer grass, fastest by night,
Unseen, yet crescive in his faculty.
Cant. It must be so: for miracles are ceas'd; And therefore we must needs admit the means, How things are perfected." SHAKESPEARE.
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