* Would bring white hairs unto a quiet grave. * Ah, what a life were this! how sweet! how lovely! * Gives not the hawthorn bush a sweeter shade *To shepherds, looking on their silly sheep, *Than doth a rich embroider'd canopy

To kings, that fear their subjects' treachery? * O, yes it doth; a thousand fold it doth.

* And to conclude,-the shepherd's homely curds, *His cold thin drink out of his leather bottle, * His wonted sleep under a fresh tree's shade, * All which secure and sweetly he enjoys, * Is far beyond a prince's delicates, * His viands sparkling in a golden cup, * His body couched in a curious bed,

* When care, mistrust, and treason wait on him.

Alarum. Enter a Son that has killed his Father, dragging in the dead body.

Son. Ill blows the wind, that profits no-body.'This man, whom hand to hand I slew in fight, 'May be possessed with some store of crowns: * And I, that haply take them from him now, May yet ere night yield both my life and them To some man else, as this dead man doth me.'Who's this?-O God! it is my father's face, 'Whom in this conflict I unawares have kill'd. 'O heavy times, begetting such events! 'From London by the king was I press'd forth; My father, being the earl of Warwick's man, Came on the part of York, press'd by his master; 'And I, who at his hands receiv'd my life, 'Have by my hands of life bereaved him.

3 Enter a Son, &c.] These two horrible incidents are selected to show the innumerable calamities of civil war. JOHNSON. In the battle of Constantine and Maxentius, by Raphael, the second of these incidents is introduced on a similar occasion. VOL. VI.

E

'Pardon me, God, I knew not what I did!— And pardon, father, for I knew not thee!* My tears shall wipe away these bloody marks; * And no more words, till they have flow'd their fill. K. Hen. O piteous spectacle! O bloody times! Whilst lions war, and battle for their dens,

Poor harmless lambs abide their enmity,

* Weep, wretched man, I'll aid thee tear for tear; *And let our hearts, and eyes, like civil war,

* Be blind with tears, and break o'ercharg'd with grief.1

Enter a Father, who has killed his Son, with the Body in his Arms.

Fath. Thou that so stoutly hast resisted me, "Give me thy gold, if thou hast any gold; For I have bought it with an hundred blows.• But let me see:-is this our foeman's face? Ah, no, no, no, it is mine only son!

* Ah, boy, if any life be left in thee,

* Throw up thine eye; see, see, what showers arise, *Blown with the windy tempest of my heart,

* Upon thy wounds, that kill mine eye and heart!— O, pity, God, this miserable age!—

'What stratagems, how fell, how butcherly,
'Erroneous, mutinous, and unnatural,

This deadly quarrel daily doth beget!—
O boy, thy father gave thee life too soon,

4 And let our hearts, and eyes, like civil war,

Be blind with tears, and break o'ercharg'd with grief] The meaning is here inaccurately expressed. The King intends to say that the state of their hearts and eyes shall be like that of the kingdom in a civil war, all shall be destroyed by power formed within themselves. JOHNSON.

5 What stratagems,] Stratagem is used by Shakspeare not merely to express the events and surprizes of war.-The word means in this place some dreadful event.

'And hath bereft thee of thy life too late!"

K. Hen. Woe above woe! grief more than common grief!

'O, that my death would stay these ruthful deeds!* O pity, pity, gentle heaven, pity!The red rose and the white are on his face, The fatal colours of our striving houses:

* The one, his purple blood right well resembles; * The other, his pale cheeks, methinks, present: Wither one rose, and let the other flourish! If you contend, a thousand lives must wither. Son. How will my mother, for a father's death, Take on with me,' and ne'er be satisfied?

Fath. How will my wife, for slaughter of my son, 'Shed seas of tears, and ne'er be satisfied?

'K. Hen. How will the country, for these woful chances,

8

'Misthink the king, and not be satisfied?

'Son. Was ever son, so ru'd a father's death? 'Fath. Was ever father, so bemoan'd a son? 'K. Hen. Was ever king, so griev'd for subjects' woe?

'Much is your sorrow; mine, ten times so much. 'Son. I'll bear thee hence, where I may weep my [Exit, with the Body. *Fath. These arms of mine shall be thy winding-sheet;

fill.

* My heart, sweet boy, shall be thy sepulchre;

O boy, thy father gave thee life too soon, &c.] Of the various meanings given to these two lines, the following seems the most probable. Had the son been younger, he would have been precluded from the levy that brought him into the field; and had the father recognised him before the mortal blow, it would not have been too late to have saved him from death. HENLEY.

7 Take on with me,] To take on is a phrase still in use among the vulgar, and signifies-to persist in clamorous lamentation. Misthink,] i. e. to think ill, unfavourably.

*For from my heart thine image ne'er shall go. *My sighing breast shall be thy funeral bell; * And so obsequious will thy father be,

Sad for the loss of thee, having no more,

* As Priam was for all his valiant sons.

I'll bear thee hence; and let them fight that will,
For I have murder'd where I should not kill.

[Exit, with the Body. "K. Hen. Sad-hearted men, much overgone with

care,

'Here sits a king more woful than you are.

Alarums: Excursions. Enter Queen MARGARET, Prince of Wales, and EXETER.

'Prince. Fly, father, fly! for all

fled,

your

'And Warwick rages like a chafed bull:

friends are

Away! for death doth hold us in pursuit.

6

Q. Mar. Mount you, my lord, towards Berwick post amain:

Edward and Richard, like a brace of greyhounds Having the fearful flying hare in sight,

With fiery eyes, sparkling for very wrath, 'And bloody steel grasp'd in their ireful hands, 'Are at our backs; and therefore hence amain. Exe. Away! for vengeance comes along with them :

Nay, stay not to expostulate, make speed;
Or else come after, I'll away before.

K. Hen. Nay, take me with thee, good sweet
Exeter;

'Not that I fear to stay, but love to go

Whither the queen intends. Forward; away!

[Exeunt.

9 And so obsequious will thy father be,] Obsequious is here careful of obsequies, or of funeral rites.

A loud Alarum.

SCENE VI.

The same.

Enter CLIFFORD, wounded,

Clif. Here burns my candle out, ay, here it dies,
Which, while it lasted, gave king Henry light.
O, Lancaster! I fear thy overthrow,

More than my body's parting with my soul.
My love, and fear, glew'd many friends to thee;
And, now I fall, thy tough commixtures melt.
Impairing Henry, strength'ning mis-proud York,
The common people swarm like summer flies:
And whither fly the gnats, but to the sun?
And who shines now but Henry's enemies?
O Phoebus! hadst thou never given consent
That Phaeton should check thy fiery steeds,
Thy burning car never had scorch'd the earth:
And Henry, had'st thou sway'd as kings should do,
Or as thy father, and his father, did,
Giving no ground unto the house of York,
*They never then had sprung like summer flies;
'I, and ten thousand in this luckless realm,
Had left no mourning widows for our death,
And thou this day hadst kept thy chair in peace.
For what doth cherish weeds bur gentle air?
'And what makes robbers bold, but too much lenity?
Bootless are plaints, and cureless are my wounds:
No way to fly, nor strength to hold out flight;
The foe is merciless, and will not pity;
For, at their hands, I have deserv'd no pity.
'The air hath got into my deadly wounds,
And much effuse of blood doth make me faint:-
Come, York, and Richard, Warwick, and the rest;
'I stabb'd your fathers' bosoms, split my breast.

[He faints.