Forced to retire by fury of the wind.

Sometime the flood prevails, and then the wind;

Now one the better, then another best;

Both tugging to be victors, breast to breast,

Yet neither conqueror nor conquerèd;

So is the equal poise of this fell war.

Here on this molehill will I sit me down.

To whom God will, there be the victory!

For Margaret my Queen, and Clifford too,

Have chid me from the battle, swearing both

They prosper best of all when I am thence.

Would I were dead, if God’s good will were so!

For what is in this world but grief and woe?

O God! Methinks it were a happy life

To be no better than a homely swain;

To sit upon a hill, as I do now;

To carve out dials quaintly, point by point,

Thereby to see the minutes how they run:

How many makes the hour full complete,

How many hours brings about the day,

How many days will finish up the year,

How many years a mortal man may live.

When this is known, then to divide the times:

So many hours must I tend my flock,

So many hours must I take my rest,

So many hours must I contemplate,

So many hours must I sport myself,

So many days my ewes have been with young,

So many weeks ere the poor fools will ean,

So many years ere I shall shear the fleece.

So minutes, hours, days, months, and years,

Passed over to the end they were created,

Would bring white hairs unto a quiet grave.

Ah, what a life were this! How sweet! How lovely!

Gives not the hawthorn bush a sweeter shade

To shepherds looking on their silly sheep

Than doth a rich embroidered canopy

To kings that fear their subjects’ treachery?

O yes, it doth; a thousand-fold it doth.

And to conclude: the shepherd’s homely curds,

His cold thin drink out of his leather bottle,

His wonted sleep under a fresh tree’s shade,

All which secure and sweetly he enjoys,

Is far beyond a prince’s delicates,

His viands sparkling in a golden cup,

His body couchèd in a curious bed,

When care, mistrust, and treason waits on him.

[II, v, 55–124] First one soldier, then another enters – both bearing the bodies of men they have killed. The King retires, and an agonizing three-part counterpoint of soliloquy ensues:

SON

Ill blows the wind that profits nobody.

This man whom hand to hand I slew in fight

May be possessed with some store of crowns;

And I, that haply take them from him now,

May yet ere night yield both my life and them

To some man else, as this dead man doth me.–

Takes off dead man’s helmet

Who’s this? O God! It is my father’s face,

Whom in this conflict I, unwares, have killed.

O, heavy times, begetting such events!

From London by the King was I pressed forth;

My father, being the Earl of Warwick’s man,