1    Go call the Earls of Surrey and of Warwick;
2    But, ere they come, bid them o'er-read these letters,
3    And well consider of them; make good speed.
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4    How many thousand of my poorest subjects
5    Are at this hour asleep! O sleep, O gentle sleep,
6    Nature's soft nurse, how have I frighted thee,
7    That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down
8    And steep my senses in forgetfulness?
9    Why rather, sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs,
10   Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee
11   And hush'd with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber,
12   Than in the perfumed chambers of the great,
13   Under the canopies of costly state,
14   And lull'd with sound of sweetest melody?
15   O thou dull god, why liest thou with the vile
16   In loathsome beds, and leavest the kingly couch
17   A watch-case or a common 'larum-bell?
18   Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast
19   Seal up the ship-boy's eyes, and rock his brains
20   In cradle of the rude imperious surge
21   And in the visitation of the winds,
22   Who take the ruffian billows by the top,
23   Curling their monstrous heads and hanging them
24   With deafening clamour in the slippery clouds,
25   That, with the hurly, death itself awakes?
26   Canst thou, O partial sleep, give thy repose
27   To the wet sea-boy in an hour so rude,
28   And in the calmest and most stillest night,
29   With all appliances and means to boot,
30   Deny it to a king? Then happy low, lie down!
31   Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.

32   Many good morrows to your majesty!

33   Is it good morrow, lords?

34   'Tis one o'clock, and past.

35   Why, then, good morrow to you all, my lords.
36   Have you read o'er the letters that I sent you?

37   We have, my liege.

38   Then you perceive the body of our kingdom
39   How foul it is; what rank diseases grow
40   And with what danger, near the heart of it.

41   It is but as a body yet distemper'd;
42   Which to his former strength may be restored
43   With good advice and little medicine:
44   My Lord Northumberland will soon be cool'd.

45   O God! that one might read the book of fate,
46   And see the revolution of the times
47   Make mountains level, and the continent,
48   Weary of solid firmness, melt itself
49   Into the sea! and, other times, to see
50   The beachy girdle of the ocean
51   Too wide for Neptune's hips; how chances mock,
52   And changes fill the cup of alteration
53   With divers liquors! O, if this were seen,
54   The happiest youth, viewing his progress through,
55   What perils past, what crosses to ensue,
56   Would shut the book, and sit him down and die.
57   'Tis not 'ten years gone
58   Since Richard and Northumberland, great friends,
59   Did feast together, and in two years after
60   Were they at wars: it is but eight years since
61   This Percy was the man nearest my soul,
62   Who like a brother toil'd in my affairs
63   And laid his love and life under my foot,
64   Yea, for my sake, even to the eyes of Richard
65   Gave him defiance. But which of you was by--
66   You, cousin Nevil, as I may remember--
To WARWICK
67   When Richard, with his eye brimful of tears,
68   Then cheque'd and rated by Northumberland,
69   Did speak these words, now proved a prophecy?
70   'Northumberland, thou ladder by the which
71   My cousin Bolingbroke ascends my throne;'
72   Though then, God knows, I had no such intent,
73   But that necessity so bow'd the state
74   That I and greatness were compell'd to kiss:
75   'The time shall come,' thus did he follow it,
76   'The time will come, that foul sin, gathering head,
77   Shall break into corruption:' so went on,
78   Foretelling this same time's condition
79   And the division of our amity.

80   There is a history in all men's lives,
81   Figuring the nature of the times deceased;
82   The which observed, a man may prophesy,
83   With a near aim, of the main chance of things
84   As yet not come to life, which in their seeds
85   And weak beginnings lie intreasured.
86   Such things become the hatch and brood of time;
87   And by the necessary form of this
88   King Richard might create a perfect guess
89   That great Northumberland, then false to him,
90   Would of that seed grow to a greater falseness;
91   Which should not find a ground to root upon,
92   Unless on you.

93   Are these things then necessities?
94   Then let us meet them like necessities:
95   And that same word even now cries out on us:
96   They say the bishop and Northumberland
97   Are fifty thousand strong.

98   It cannot be, my lord;
99   Rumour doth double, like the voice and echo,
100  The numbers of the fear'd. Please it your grace
101  To go to bed. Upon my soul, my lord,
102  The powers that you already have sent forth
103  Shall bring this prize in very easily.
104  To comfort you the more, I have received
105  A certain instance that Glendower is dead.
106  Your majesty hath been this fortnight ill,
107  And these unseason'd hours perforce must add
108  Unto your sickness.

109  I will take your counsel:
110  And were these inward wars once out of hand,
111  We would, dear lords, unto the Holy Land.