Page:Henry IV Part 2 (1921) Yale.djvu/111

King Henry the Fourth, IV. v

How cold it struck my heart! if I do feign,

O! let me in my present wildness die

And never live to show the 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 the 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,

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

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!

King. O my son!

God put it in thy mind to take it hence,

That thou mightst win the more thy father's love,

Pleading so wisely in excuse of it.

Come hither, Harry: sit thou by my bed;

And hear, I think, the very latest counsel

That ever I shall breathe. God knows, my son,

 161 medicine potable; cf. n. 