If thou wilt sooth my sorrow, then I'll thank thee; Ay! now thou'rt kind indeed! these tears oblige me. Tressel. Alas, my lord, I fear more evils towards

you!

K. Hen. Why, let it come; I scarce shall feel it

now;

My present woes have beat me to the ground;
And my hard fate can make me fall no lower.
What can it be?—give it its ugliest shape-
Oh, my poor boy!

Tressel. A word does that; it comes in Gloster's form.

K. Hen. Frightful indeed! give me the worst that threatens.

Tressel. After the murder of your son, stern Richard, As if unsated with the wounds he had given,

With unwash'd hands went from his friends in haste;
And, being asked by Clarence of the cause,
He, low'ring, cried, Brother, I must to the Tower;
I've business there; excuse me to the king:
Before you reach the town, expect some news:
This said, he vanish'd--and, I hear, is arriv'd.
K. Hen. Why, then the period of my woes is set;
For ills, but thought by him, are half perform'd.

Enter LIEUTENANT, with an Order.

Lieut. Forgive me, sir, what I'm compell'd' t' obey: An order for your close confinement.

K. Hen. Whence comes it, good Lieutenant?

Lieut. Sir, from the Duke of Gloster.

K. Hen. Good night to all then! I obey it.

And now, good friend, suppose me on my death-bed,
And take of me thy last, short-living, leave.

Nay, keep thy tears, till thou hast seen me dead:
And when, in tedious winter nights, with good
Old folks, thou sitt'st up late,

To hear them tell the dismal tales

Of times long past, ev'n now with woe remember'd, Before thou bidd'st good night, to quit their grief, Tell thou the lamentable fall of me,

And send thy hearers weeping to their beds. [Exeunt.

SCENE II.

The Tower.

Enter GLOSTER.

Glost. Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by the sun of York;
And all the clouds, that low'r'd upon our house,
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried:

Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths,
Our bruised arms hung up for monuments,
Our stern alarms are chang'd to merry meetings;
Our dreadful marches to delightful measures:
Grim-visag'd war has smooth'd his wrinkled front,
And now, instead of mounting barbed steeds,
To fright the souls of fearful adversaries,
He capers nimbly in a lady's chamber,
To the lascivious pleasing of a lute:

But I, that am not made for sportive tricks,
Nor made to court an am'rous looking-glass;
I, that am rudely stamp'd, and want love's majesty,
To strut before a wanton, ambling nymph;
I, that am curtail'd of man's fair proportion,
Cheated of feature by dissembling nature,
Deform'd, unfinish'd, sent before my time
Into this breathing world, scarce half made up,
And that so lamely and unfashionable,
That dogs bark at me as I halt by them;
Why I, in this weak, piping time of peace,

Have no delight to pass away my hours,
Unless to see my shadow in the sun,
And descant on my own deformity:
Then, since this earth affords no joy to me,
But to command, to check, and o'erbear such
As are of happier person than myself;
Why, then, to me this restless world's but hell,
Till this mis-shapen trunk's aspiring head
Be circled in a glorious diadem—

But then 'tis fix'd on such a height; oh, I
Must stretch the utmost reaching of my soul!

I'll climb betimes, without remorse or dread,
And my first step shall be on Henry's head. [Exit.

ร

SCENE III.

A Chamber in the Tower.

KING HENRY, sleeping on a Couch.

Enter LIEUTENANT.

Lieut. Asleep so soon! but sorrow minds no sea

sons;

The morning, noon, and night, with her's the same;
She's fond of any hour, that yields repose.

K. Hen. Who's there! Lieutenant! is it you?
Come hither!

Lieut. You shake, my lord, and look affrighted! K. Hen. Oh! I have had the fearfull'st dream! such sights,

That, as I live,

I would not pass another hour so dreadful,
Though 'twere to buy a world of happy days.
Reach me a book-I'll try if reading can
Divert these melancholy thoughts.

Enter GLOSTER.

Glost. Good day, my lord; what, at your book so hard?

I disturb you.

K. Hen. You do indeed.

Glost. Friend, leave us to ourselves; we must confer.

K. Hen. What bloody scene has Roscius now to act? [Exit LIEUTENANT. Glost. Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind: The thief does fear each bush an officer.

K. Hen. Where thieves, without controlment, rob and kill,

The traveller does fear each bush a thief:

The poor bird, that has been already lim'd,
With trembling wings misdoubts of every bush ;
And I, the hapless male of one sweet bird,

Have now the fatal object in my eye,

By whom my young one bled, was caught, and kill'd.

Glost. Why, what a peevish fool was that of Crete,

That taught his son the office of a fowl!

And yet, for all his wings, the fool was drown'd: Thou shouldst have taught thy boy his prayers alone,

And then he had not broke his neck with climbing. K. Hen. Ah! kill me with thy weapon, not thy words;

My breast can better brook thy dagger's point,

life?

Than can my ears that piercing story;

my

But wherefore dost thou come? is't for
Glost. Think'st thou I am an executioner ?
K. Hen. If murdering innocents be executing,
Then thou'rt the worst of executioners.

Glost. Thy son I kill'd for his presumption.
K. Hen. Hadst thou been kill'd, when first thou
didst presume,

Thou hadst not liv'd to kill a son of mine:

But thou wert born to massacre mankind.
How many old men's sighs, and widow's moans;
How many orphans' water-standing eyes;
Men for their sons, wives for their husbands' fate,
And children for their parents' timeless death,
Will rue the hour that ever thou wert born!
The owl shriek'd at thy birth-an evil sign!
The night-crow cry'd, foreboding luckless time;
Dogs howl'd, and hideous tempests shook down trees;
The raven rook'd her on the chimney top,
And chattering pies in dismal discord sung;
Thy mother felt more than a mother's pain,
And yet brought forth less than a mother's hope.
Teeth hadst thou in thy head, when thou, wert born,
Which plainly said, thou cam'st to bite mankind;
And, if the rest be true, which I have heard,
Thou cam'st-

Glost. I'll hear no more-Die, prophet, in thy speech;

For this, amongst the rest, I was ordain'd. [Stabs him. K. Hen. Oh! and for much more slaughter after

this;

Just Heav'n forgive my sins, and pardon thee! [Dies. Glost. What will the aspiring blood of Lancaster Sink in the ground?—I thought it would have mounted.

See how my sword weeps for the poor king's death! Oh may such purple tears be always shed,