Act 5, Scene 2

Westminster. The palace.

[Enter Warwick and the Lord Chief-Justice, meeting.]
Earl of Warwick
2580 How now, my lord chief-justice! whither away?
Lord Chief Justice
2581 How doth the king?
Earl of Warwick
2582 Exceeding well; his cares are now all ended.
Lord Chief Justice
2583 I hope, not dead.
Earl of Warwick
2584 He 's walk'd the way of nature;
2585 And to our purposes he lives no more.
Lord Chief Justice
2586 I would his Majesty had call'd me with him:
2587 The service that I truly did his life
2588 Hath left me open to all injuries.
Earl of Warwick
2589 Indeed I think the young king loves you not.
Lord Chief Justice
2590 I know he doth not, and do arm myself
2591 To welcome the condition of the time,
2592 Which cannot look more hideously upon me
2593 Than I have drawn it in my fantasy.
[Enter Lancaster, Clarence, Gloucester, Westmoreland, and others.]
Earl of Warwick
2594 Here comes the heavy issue of dead Harry:
2595 O that the living Harry had the temper
2596 Of him, the worst of these three gentlemen!
2597 How many nobles then should hold their places,
2598 That must strike sail to spirits of vile sort!
Lord Chief Justice
2599 O God, I fear all will be overturn'd!
Prince John of Lancaster
2600 Good morrow, cousin Warwick, good morrow.
Prince John of Lancaster
2601 GLOUCESTER & CLARENCE.
2602 Good morrow, cousin.
Prince John of Lancaster
2603 We meet like men that had forgot to speak.
Earl of Warwick
2604 We do remember; but our argument
2605 Is all too heavy to admit much talk.
Prince John of Lancaster
2606 Well, peace be with him that hath made us heavy!
Lord Chief Justice
2607 Peace be with us, lest we be heavier!
Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester
2608 O, good my lord, you have lost a friend indeed;
2609 And I dare swear you borrow not that face
2610 Of seeming sorrow, it is sure your own.
Prince John of Lancaster
2611 Though no man be assured what grace to find,
2612 You stand in coldest expectation:
2613 I am the sorrier; would 'twere otherwise.
Thomas, Duke of Clarence
2614 Well, you must now speak Sir John Falstaff fair;
2615 Which swims against your stream of quality.
Lord Chief Justice
2616 Sweet Princes, what I did, I did in honour,
2617 Led by the impartial conduct of my soul;
2618 And never shall you see that I will beg
2619 A ragged and forestall'd remission.
2620 If truth and upright innocency fail me,
2621 I'll to the king my master that is dead,
2622 And tell him who hath sent me after him.
Earl of Warwick
2623 Here comes the prince.
[Enter King Henry the Fifth, attended.]
Lord Chief Justice
2624 Good morrow; and God save your majesty!
King Henry IV
2625 This new and gorgeous garment, majesty,
2626 Sits not so easy on me as you think.
2627 Brothers, you mix your sadness with some fear:
2628 This is the English, not the Turkish court;
2629 Not Amurath an Amurath succeeds,
2630 But Harry Harry. Yet be sad, good brothers,
2631 For, by my faith, it very well becomes you:
2632 Sorrow so royally in you appears
2633 That I will deeply put the fashion on
2634 And wear it in my heart: why then, be sad;
2635 But entertain no more of it, good brothers,
2636 Than a joint burden laid upon us all.
2637 For me, by heaven, I bid you be assured,
2638 I'll be your father and your brother too;
2639 Let me but bear your love, I'll bear your cares:
2640 Yet weep that Harry 's dead, and so will I;
2641 But Harry lives, that shall convert those tears
2642 By number into hours of happiness.
The Princes
2643 We hope no otherwise from your majesty.
King Henry IV
2644 You all look strangely on me: and you most;
2645 You are, I think, assured I love you not.
Lord Chief Justice
2646 I am assured, if I be measured rightly,
2647 Your majesty hath no just cause to hate me.
King Henry IV
2648 No!
2649 How might a prince of my great hopes forget
2650 So great indignities you laid upon me?
2651 What! rate, rebuke, and roughly send to prison
2652 The immediate heir of England! Was this easy?
2653 May this be wash'd in Lethe, and forgotten?
Lord Chief Justice
2654 I then did use the person of your father;
2655 The image of his power lay then in me;
2656 And, in the administration of his law,
2657 Whiles I was busy for the commonwealth,
2658 Your highness pleased to forget my place,
2659 The majesty and power of law and justice,
2660 The image of the king whom I presented,
2661 And struck me in my very seat of judgement;
2662 Whereon, as an offender to your father,
2663 I gave bold way to my authority
2664 And did commit you. If the deed were ill,
2665 Be you contented, wearing now the garland,
2666 To have a son set your decrees at nought,
2667 To pluck down justice from your awful bench,
2668 To trip the course of law and blunt the sword
2669 That guards the peace and safety of your person;
2670 Nay, more, to spurn at your most royal image,
2671 And mock your workings in a second body.
2672 Question your royal thoughts, make the case yours;
2673 Be now the father and propose a son,
2674 Hear your own dignity so much profaned,
2675 See your most dreadful laws so loosely slighted,
2676 Behold yourself so by a son disdain'd;
2677 And then imagine me taking your part
2678 And in your power soft silencing your son:
2679 After this cold considerance, sentence me;
2680 And, as you are a king, speak in your state
2681 What I have done that misbecame my place,
2682 My person, or my liege's sovereignty.
King Henry IV
2683 You are right, justice, and you weigh this well;
2684 Therefore still bear the balance and the sword:
2685 And I do wish your honours may increase,
2686 Till you do live to see a son of mine
2687 Offend you and obey you, as I did.
2688 So shall I live to speak my father's words:
2689 "Happy am I, that have a man so bold,
2690 That dares do justice on my proper son;
2691 And not less happy, having such a son,
2692 That would deliver up his greatness so
2693 Into the hands of justice." You did commit me:
2694 For which I do commit into your hand
2695 The unstained sword that you have used to bear;
2696 With this remembrance, that you use the same
2697 With the like bold, just and impartial spirit
2698 As you have done 'gainst me. There is my hand.
2699 You shall be as a father to my youth:
2700 My voice shall sound as you do prompt mine ear,
2701 And I will stoop and humble my intents
2702 To your well-practised wise directions.
2703 And, princes all, believe me, I beseech you;
2704 My father is gone wild into his grave,
2705 For in his tomb lie my affections;
2706 And with his spirit sadly I survive,
2707 To mock the expectation of the world,
2708 To frustrate prophecies and to raze out
2709 Rotten opinion, who hath writ me down
2710 After my seeming. The tide of blood in me
2711 Hath proudly flow'd in vanity till now:
2712 Now doth it turn and ebb back to the sea,
2713 Where it shall mingle with the state of floods,
2714 And flow henceforth in formal majesty.
2715 Now call we our high court of parliament:
2716 And let us choose such limbs of noble counsel,
2717 That the great body of our state may go
2718 In equal rank with the best govern'd nation;
2719 That war, or peace, or both at once, may be
2720 As things acquainted and familiar to us;
2721 In which you, father, shall have foremost hand.
2722 Our coronation done, we will accite,
2723 As I before remember'd, all our state:
2724 And, God consigning to my good intents,
2725 No prince nor peer shall have just cause to say,
2726 God shorten Harry's happy life one day!
[Exeunt.]

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Notes

TLN 2584archaic vocab
“He 's walk'd the way of nature; And to our purposes he lives no more.”
A polite euphemism meaning the king has died of natural causes. Warwick avoids the blunt word 'dead' and signals, in the second line, that for political purposes the old reign is over.
TLN 2598archaic vocab
“strike sail to spirits of vile sort”
'Strike sail' is a nautical command to lower a sail as a sign of submission or surrender — the Elizabethan equivalent of dipping a flag. Warwick fears that high nobles will have to bow and yield to lowlife companions of the new king, men like Falstaff.
TLN 2618archaic vocab
“never shall you see that I will beg A ragged and forestall'd remission.”
The Lord Chief Justice refuses to beg a pardon that has already been worn out in advance. 'Remission' is a formal pardon for an offense; 'forestall'd' means anticipated, blocked, or pre-emptied — one that arrives begging before any charge is laid, making it look shabby and self-serving.
TLN 2629historical topical
“Not Amurath an Amurath succeeds, But Harry Harry.”
Amurath (Murad III) was the Ottoman sultan who, on coming to power in 1574, had his brothers strangled to eliminate rivals to the throne. The practice of killing male relatives at a succession was notorious across Europe as a symbol of tyrannical, un-Christian kingship. Henry V is promising his brothers: this is not that court.
TLN 2653classical allusion
“May this be wash'd in Lethe, and forgotten?”
Lethe was one of the rivers of the classical underworld; souls drank from it after death to forget their earthly lives entirely. Henry is asking: can such a serious grievance — the imprisonment of the heir to England — simply be erased from memory?
classical Lethe, river of forgetfulness
TLN 2665archaic vocab
“wearing now the garland”
'The garland' is a poetic word for the crown. The Chief Justice is inviting Henry to imagine himself in the king's position and judge whether he would want his own son to treat royal law with the same contempt the young Prince Hal showed.
TLN 2667archaic vocab
“pluck down justice from your awful bench”
'Awful' here means inspiring awe or reverence — the bench of justice commands respect and fear because it represents royal authority. It does not mean 'terrible' or 'very bad' as in modern usage.
TLN 2683cultural context
“You are right, justice, and you weigh this well; Therefore still bear the balance and the sword:”
The balance (scales) and the sword are the two classic emblems of Justice as a personified figure: the scales weigh evidence impartially, the sword executes punishment. By returning these symbols to the Chief Justice, Henry V formally reinstates him in office.
TLN 2704rhetorical device
“My father is gone wild into his grave, For in his tomb lie my affections;”
Henry reverses the expected grief-speech: it is not the dead father who has 'gone wild' into the grave but Henry's own wildness, now buried with him. His youthful riotous appetites ('affections') lie in his father's tomb — they died with the king who mourned them.
TLN 2710rhetorical device
“The tide of blood in me Hath proudly flow'd in vanity till now: Now doth it turn and ebb back to the sea, Where it shall mingle with the state of floods, And flow henceforth in formal majesty.”
Henry compares his youthful wildness to a tide that has been flooding recklessly inland and now reverses, draining back to the sea, where it will rejoin the great formal waters of the ocean — his duties as king. The image maps the tidal rhythm of advance and retreat onto the arc of his moral transformation.
TLN 2722archaic vocab
“we will accite”
'Accite' is a legal term meaning to summon or call before a court or assembly by formal writ. Henry is announcing that after his coronation he will formally summon all the lords and officers of state ('our state') to parliament.
TLN 2724archaic vocab
“God consigning to my good intents”
'Consigning' here means God ratifying, sealing, or lending his authority to Henry's purposes — the way a signatory confirms a document. The phrase means 'God setting his seal of approval on my intentions.'