But his own wringing! What infinite heart’s ease

Must kings neglect that private men enjoy!

And what have kings that privates have not too,

Save ceremony, save general ceremony?

And what art thou, thou idol ceremony?

What kind of god art thou, that suffer’st more

Of mortal griefs than do thy worshippers?

What are thy rents? What are thy comings-in?

O ceremony, show me but thy worth!

What is thy soul of adoration?

Art thou aught else but place, degree, and form,

Creating awe and fear in other men?

Wherein thou art less happy, being feared,

Than they in fearing.

What drink’st thou oft, instead of homage sweet,

But poisoned flattery? O, be sick, great greatness,

And bid thy ceremony give thee cure!

Thinks thou the fiery fever will go out

With titles blown from adulation?

Will it give place to flexure and low bending?

Canst thou, when thou command’st the beggar’s knee,

Command the health of it? No, thou proud dream,

That play’st so subtly with a king’s repose.

I am a king that find thee, and I know

’Tis not the balm, the sceptre, and the ball,

The sword, the mace, the crown imperial,

The intertissued robe of gold and pearl,

The farcèd tide running fore the king,

The throne he sits on, nor the tide of pomp

That beats upon the high shore of this world –

No, not all these, thrice-gorgeous ceremony,

Not all these, laid in bed majestical,

Can sleep so soundly as the wretched slave

Who, with a body filled and vacant mind,

Gets him to rest, crammed with distressful bread;

Never sees horrid night, the child of hell,

But, like a lackey, from the rise to set

Sweats in the eye of Phoebus, and all night

Sleeps in Elysium; next day after dawn,

Doth rise and help Hyperion to his horse;

And follows so the ever-running year

With profitable labour to his grave.

And but for ceremony, such a wretch,

Winding up days with toil, and nights with sleep,

Had the fore-hand and vantage of a king.

The slave, a member of the country’s peace,

Enjoys it, but in gross brain little wots

What watch the king keeps to maintain the peace

Whose hours the peasant best advantages.

[IV, i, 282–98] This will not be a day for careful reckoning, hopes Harry, on the eve of the Battle of Agincourt. If his own men weigh the odds against them accurately they will run for their lives, while if God weighs his father’s crimes truly He will strike him from his throne:

O God of battles, steel my soldiers’ hearts;

Possess them not with fear; take from them now

The sense of reckoning, if th’ opposed numbers

Pluck their hearts from them. Not today, O Lord,

O, not today, think not upon the fault

My father made in compassing the crown!

I Richard’s body have interrèd new,

And on it have bestowed more contrite tears

Than from it issued forced drops of blood.

Five hundred poor I have in yearly pay,