I would you had but the wit; ‘twere better than your dukedom. Good faith, this same young sober-blooded boy doth not love me, nor a man cannot make him laugh – but that’s no marvel, he drinks no wine. There’s never none of these demure boys come to any proof, for thin drink doth so over-cool their blood, and making many fish meals, that they fall into a kind of male greensickness; and then when they marry they get wenches. They are generally fools and cowards – which some of us should be too, but for inflammation. A good sherris-sack hath a two-fold operation in it. It ascends me into the brain, dries me there all the foolish and dull and crudy vapours which environ it, makes it apprehensive, quick, forgetive, full of nimble, fiery, and delectable shapes, which delivered o’er to the voice, the tongue, which is the birth, becomes excellent wit. The second property of your excellent sherris is the warming of the blood, which before, cold and settled, left the liver white and pale, which is the badge of pusillanimity and cowardice; but the sherris warms it, and makes it course from the inwards to the parts’ extremes. It illumineth the face, which, as a beacon, gives warning to all the rest of this little kingdom, man, to arm; and then the vital commoners and inland petty spirits, muster me all to their captain, the heart, who, great and puff’d up with this retinue, doth any deed of courage; and this valour comes of sherris. So that skill in the weapon is nothing without sack, for that sets it a-work, and learning, a mere hoard of gold kept by a devil, till sack commences it and sets it in act and use. Hereof comes it that Prince Harry is valiant; for the cold blood he did naturally inherit of his father he hath like lean, sterile, and bare land, manured, husbanded, and tilled, with excellent endeavour of drinking good and good store of fertile sherris, that he is become very hot and valiant. If I had a thousand sons, the first human principle I would teach them should be to forswear thin potations, and to addict themselves to sack.

[IV, v, 22–48] Left to watch by the bedside of his dying father late one night, Prince Harry cannot resist anticipating his destiny a little:

Why doth the crown lie there upon his pillow,

Being so troublesome a bedfellow?

O polished perturbation! Golden care!

That keepest the ports of slumber open wide

To many a watchful night! Sleep with it now!

Yet not so sound, and half so deeply sweet,

As he whose brow with homely biggen bound

Snores out the watch of night. O majesty!

When thou dost pinch thy bearer, thou dost sit

Like a rich armour worn in heat of day,

That scaldest with safety. By his gates of breath

There lies a downy feather which stirs not;

Did he suspire, that light and weightless down