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 152
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, 156
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, 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, 164
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, 168
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, 172
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! 176
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; 180
And hear, I think, the very latest counsel
That ever I shall breathe. God knows, my son,
161 medicine potable; cf. n.
