PRINCE HENRY.
O, pardon me, my liege! but for my tears,     [Kneeling.]
The moist impediments unto my speech,
I had forstall'd this dear and deep rebuke,
Ere you with grief had spoke, and I had heard                   4/5/140
The course of it so far. There is your crown;
And He that wears the crown immortally
Long guard it yours! If I affect it more
Than as your honour 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,     [Rising.]
And found no course of breath within your majesty,
How cold it struck my heart! If I do feign,                     4/5/150
O, let me in my present wildness die,
And never live to show th'incredulous world
The noble change that I have purposed!
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
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,                    4/5/160
Preserving life in medicine potable;
But thou, most fine, most honour'd, most renown'd,
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 murder'd my father-
The quarrel of a true inheritor.
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                             4/5/170
Did with the least affection of a welcome
Give entertainment to the might of it,-
Let God for ever keep it from my head,
And make me as the poorest vassal is,
That doth with awe and terror kneel to it!