King. 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.40
War. It is but as a body yet distemper'd;[3832]
Which to his former strength may be restored
With good advice and little medicine:
My Lord Northumberland will soon be cool'd.[3833]
King. O God! that one might read the book of fate,[3834]45
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 ocean50
Too wide for Neptune's hips; how chances mock,[3835]
And changes fill the cup of alteration
With divers liquors! O, if this were seen,[3836]
The happiest youth, viewing his progress through,[3836][3837]
What perils past, what crosses to ensue,[3836]55
Would shut the book, and sit him down and die.[3836][3838]
'Tis not ten years gone[3839]
Since Richard and Northumberland, great friends,[3840]
Did feast together, and in two years after[3841]
Were they at wars: it is but eight years since60
This Percy was the man nearest my soul;
Who like a brother toil'd 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—[3842]65
You, cousin Nevil, as I may remember— [To Warwick.
When Richard, with his eye brimful of tears,[3843]
Then check'd and rated by Northumberland,
Did speak these words, now proved a prophecy?
'Northumberland, thou ladder by the which70
My cousin Bolingbroke ascends my throne;'
Though then, God knows, I had no such intent,[3844]
But that necessity so bow'd the state,
That I and greatness were compell'd to kiss:
'The time shall come,' thus did he follow it,[3845]75
'The time will come, that foul sin, gathering head,[3845]
Shall break into corruption:' so went on,[3846]
Foretelling this same time's condition,
And the division of our amity.
War. There is a history in all men's lives,80
Figuring the nature of the times deceased;[3847]
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[3848]
And weak beginnings lie intreasured.[3849]85
Such things become the hatch and brood of time;
And by the necessary form of this[3850]
King Richard might create a perfect guess
That great Northumberland, then false to him,
Would of that seed grow to a greater falseness;90
Which should not find a ground to root upon,
Unless on you.
King. Are these things then necessities?[3851]
Then let us meet them like necessities:[3852]
And that same word even now cries out on us:
They say the bishop and Northumberland95
Are fifty thousand strong.
War. It cannot be, my lord;[3853]
Rumour doth double, like the voice and echo,
The numbers of the fear'd. Please it your grace
To go to bed. Upon my soul, my lord,[3854]
The powers that you already have sent forth100
Shall bring this prize in very easily.[3855]
To comfort you the more, I have received
A certain instance that Glendower is dead.
Your majesty hath been this fortnight ill;
And these unseason'd hours perforce must add105
Unto your sickness.
K. Hen. I will take your counsel:
And were these inward wars once out of hand,
We would, dear lords, unto the Holy Land. [Exeunt.[3856]
Scene II. Gloucestershire. Before Justice Shallow's house.
Enter Shallow and Silence, meeting; Mouldy, Shadow, Wart, Feeble, Bullcalf, a Servant or two with them.[3857]
Shal. Come on, come on, come on, sir; give me your[3858]
hand, sir, give me your hand, sir: an early stirrer, by the[3859]
rood! And how doth my good cousin Silence?[3859][3860]