Act 2, Scene 5

Another Part of the Field.

[Alarum. Enter KING HENRY.]
King Henry VI
1044 This battle fares like to the morning's war,
1045 When dying clouds contend with growing light,
1046 What time the shepherd, blowing of his nails,
1047 Can neither call it perfect day nor night.
1048 Now sways it this way, like a mighty sea
1049 Forc'd by the tide to combat with the wind;
1050 Now sways it that way, like the selfsame sea
1051 Forc'd to retire by fury of the wind.
1052 Sometime the flood prevails, and then the wind,
1053 Now one the better, then another best,
1054 Both tugging to be victors, breast to breast,
1055 Yet neither conqueror nor conquered;
1056 So is the equal poise of this fell war.
1057 Here on this molehill will I sit me down.
1058 To whom God will, there be the victory!
1059 For Margaret my queen, and Clifford too,
1060 Have chid me from the battle, swearing both
1061 They prosper best of all when I am thence.
1062 Would I were dead! if God's good will were so;
1063 For what is in this world but grief and woe?
1064 O God! methinks it were a happy life,
1065 To be no better than a homely swain;
1066 To sit upon a hill, as I do now,
1067 To carve out dials quaintly, point by point,
1068 Thereby to see the minutes how they run,
1069 How many make the hour full complete,
1070 How many hours brings about the day,
King Henry VI
1071 How many days will finish up the year,
1072 How many years a mortal man may live.
1073 When this is known, then to divide the times;
1074 So many hours must I tend my flock;
1075 So many hours must I take my rest;
1076 So many hours must I contemplate;
1077 So many hours must I sport myself;
1078 So many days my ewes have been with young;
1079 So many weeks ere the poor fools will ean;
1080 So many years ere I shall shear the fleece.
1081 So minutes, hours, days, months, and years,
1082 Pass'd over to the end they were created,
1083 Would bring white hairs unto a quiet grave.
1084 Ah, what a life were this! how sweet! how lovely!
1085 Gives not the hawthorn bush a sweeter shade
1086 To shepherds looking on their silly sheep
1087 Than doth a rich embroider'd canopy
1088 To kings that fear their subjects' treachery?
1089 O, yes, it doth; a thousand-fold it doth!
1090 And to conclude, the shepherd's homely curds,
1091 His cold thin drink out of his leather bottle,
1092 His wonted sleep under a fresh tree's shade,
1093 All which secure and sweetly he enjoys,
1094 Is far beyond a prince's delicates,
1095 His viands sparkling in a golden cup,
1096 His body couched in a curious bed,
1097 When care, mistrust, and treason wait on him.
[Alarum. Enter a Son that hath killed his father, bringing in the dead body.]
A Son that has killed his Father
1098 Ill blows the wind that profits nobody.
1099 This man, whom hand to hand I slew in fight,
1100 May be possessed with some store of crowns;
1101 And I, that haply take them from him now,
1102 May yet ere night yield both my life and them
1103 To some man else, as this dead man doth me.—
1104 Who's this?—O God! it is my father's face,
1105 Whom in this conflict I unwares have kill'd.
1106 O heavy times, begetting such events!
1107 From London by the king was I press'd forth;
1108 My father, being the Earl of Warwick's man,
1109 Came on the part of York, press'd by his master;
1110 And I, who at his hands receiv'd my life,
1111 Have by my hands of life bereaved him.—
1112 Pardon me, God, I knew not what I did;—
1113 And pardon, father, for I knew not thee.—
1114 My tears shall wipe away these bloody marks,
1115 And no more words till they have flow'd their fill.
King Henry VI
1116 O piteous spectacle! O bloody times!
1117 Whiles lions war and battle for their dens,
1118 Poor harmless lambs abide their enmity.
1119 Weep, wretched man, I'll aid thee tear for tear;
1120 And let our hearts and eyes, like civil war,
1121 Be blind with tears and break o'ercharg'd with grief.
[Enter a Father who has killed his son, with the body in his arms.]
A Father that has killed his Son
1122 Thou that so stoutly hath resisted me,
1123 Give me thy gold, if thou hast any gold,
1124 For I have bought it with an hundred blows.—
1125 But let me see;—is this our foeman's face?
1126 Ah, no, no, no! it is mine only son!—
1127 Ah, boy, if any life be left in thee,
1128 Throw up thine eye; see, see what showers arise,
1129 Blown with the windy tempest of my heart,
1130 Upon thy wounds that kill mine eye and heart!—
1131 O, pity, God, this miserable age!—
1132 What stratagems, how fell, how butcherly,
1133 Erroneous, mutinous, and unnatural,
1134 This deadly quarrel daily doth beget!—
1135 O boy, thy father gave thee life too soon,
1136 And hath bereft thee of thy life too late!
King Henry VI
1137 Woe above woe! grief more than common grief!
1138 O that my death would stay these ruthful deeds!—
1139 O pity, pity! gentle heaven, pity!—
1140 The red rose and the white are on his face,
1141 The fatal colours of our striving houses;
1142 The one his purple blood right well resembles,
1143 The other his pale cheeks, methinks, presenteth.
1144 Wither one rose, and let the other flourish!
1145 If you contend, a thousand lives must wither.
A Son that has killed his Father
1146 How will my mother, for a father's death,
1147 Take on with me and ne'er be satisfied!
A Father that has killed his Son
1148 How will my wife, for slaughter of my son,
1149 Shed seas of tears and ne'er be satisfied!
King Henry VI
1150 How will the country, for these woeful chances,
1151 Misthink the king and not be satisfied!
A Son that has killed his Father
1152 Was ever son so rued a father's death?
A Father that has killed his Son
1153 Was ever father so bemoan'd his son?
King Henry VI
1154 Was ever king so griev'd for subjects' woe?
1155 Much is your sorrow, mine ten times so much.
A Son that has killed his Father
1156 I'll bear thee hence, where I may weep my fill.
[Exit with the body.]
A Father that has killed his Son
1157 These arms of mine shall be thy winding-sheet;
1158 My heart, sweet boy, shall be thy sepulchre,
1159 For from my heart thine image ne'er shall go;
1160 My sighing breast shall be thy funeral bell;
1161 And so obsequious will thy father be,
1162 Even for the loss of thee, having no more,
1163 As Priam was for all his valiant sons.
1164 I'll bear thee hence; and let them fight that will,
1165 For I have murder'd where I should not kill.
[Exit with the body.]
King Henry VI
1166 Sad-hearted men, much overgone with care,
1167 Here sits a king more woeful than you are.
[Alarums. Excursions. Enter QUEEN MARGARET, PRINCE OF WALES, and EXETER.]
Edward, Prince of Wales
1168 Fly, father, fly! for all your friends are fled,
1169 And Warwick rages like a chafed bull.
1170 Away! for death doth hold us in pursuit.
Queen Margaret
1171 Mount you, my lord; towards Berwick post amain.
1172 Edward and Richard, like a brace of greyhounds,
1173 Having the fearful flying hare in sight,
1174 With fiery eyes, sparkling for very wrath,
1175 And bloody steel grasp'd in their ireful hands,
1176 Are at our backs; and therefore hence amain.
Duke of Exeter
1177 Away! for vengeance comes along with them.
1178 Nay, stay not to expostulate; make speed,
1179 Or else come after; I'll away before.
King Henry VI
1180 Nay, take me with thee, good sweet Exeter;
1181 Not that I fear to stay, but love to go
1182 Whither the queen intends. Forward! away!
[Exeunt.]

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Notes

TLN 1044rhetorical device
“this battle fares like to the morning's war”
Henry opens with a sustained simile comparing the balance of battle to a sea driven by wind and tide, 'now one the better, then another best,' with neither side winning ('equal poise'). The extended comparison is an example of the rhetorical figure called 'traductio' or sustained analogy; it runs for thirteen lines before Henry names the battle at all. The device signals his detachment — he watches and meditates rather than fights.
historical The Battle of Towton
TLN 1057historical topical
“Here on this molehill will I sit me down”
A molehill is a tiny mound of earth thrown up by a burrowing mole — the opposite of a throne or a battlefield command post. The image mirrors an earlier scene: in Act 1 Margaret crowned the captured York with a paper crown and made him stand on a molehill to be mocked. Now Henry sits on a molehill while his queen fights the battle he is too gentle to fight. The repeated symbol frames both rivals as kings stripped of real power.
historical The Battle of Towtonhistorical The Wars of the Roses
TLN 1064cultural context
“O God! methinks it were a happy life, To be no better than a homely swain”
Henry wishes he were 'a homely swain' — a plain shepherd — rather than a king. 'Homely' means simple and unpretentious (not ugly), and 'swain' is a shepherd or farm labourer. He imagines carving sundials ('dials'), counting the hours, tending his flock, and dying in quiet old age. This is the 'pastoral' convention: a literary tradition, rooted in classical poetry, that imagined rural life as a blessed escape from the anxieties of courts and power.
TLN 1067archaic vocab
“To carve out dials quaintly, point by point”
'Dials' are sundials — discs or faces marked with hours so a shadow tells the time. 'Quaintly' means skillfully and with delicate craft (not oddly). The shepherd Henry imagines sitting on a hillside carving a sundial, then watching it count the hours of a life measured in shepherd's tasks instead of battles and treasons.
TLN 1079archaic vocab
“So many weeks ere the poor fools will ean”
'Ean' (also spelled 'yean') means to give birth, used specifically of sheep and goats. 'Fools' here is an affectionate term for the ewes and their young — a common rural endearment in Shakespeare's time, not a term of contempt. Henry imagines counting the weeks until his flock lambs.
TLN 1098cultural context
“Ill blows the wind that profits nobody”
A proverb meaning 'it is a very bad wind that benefits no one at all.' The Son enters hoping to profit from looting a corpse on the battlefield — citing the proverb as a grimly practical justification. The saying was common by Shakespeare's day ('it is an ill wind that blows no man good') and signals the soldier's cold pragmatism before the devastating recognition that follows.
TLN 1107historical topical
“From London by the king was I press'd forth; My father, being the Earl of Warwick's man, Came on the part of York”
To be 'pressed' (conscripted) meant to be forcibly enrolled into military service by royal authority, without choice. The Son was pressed by the Lancastrian king, his father was pressed by Warwick (a Yorkist at this point in the play), and so father and son ended up on opposite sides of the same battle without knowing it. This is not family treachery but the arbitrary machinery of civil war — the same system that randomly divided families and set them against each other.
historical The Battle of Towton
TLN 1117rhetorical device
“Whiles lions war and battle for their dens, Poor harmless lambs abide their enmity”
Henry compares the warring nobles to lions fighting over their dens and the common people to lambs caught in the crossfire. The lion was the heraldic symbol of the English crown; the lamb was the symbol of innocent suffering (and of Christ). The contrast packages the scene's whole argument: the great destroy each other and the innocent suffer for it. The figure is a 'simile' turned 'maxim' — a general truth illustrated by an animal parallel.
TLN 1132archaic vocab
“What stratagems, how fell, how butcherly, Erroneous, mutinous, and unnatural”
'Stratagems' in Shakespeare almost always means acts of violence, slaughter, or treachery — not just clever plans. 'Fell' means fierce, savage, cruel. 'Butcherly' means like a butcher — with brutal, indiscriminate killing. 'Erroneous' here means straying from right and law (its root sense from Latin 'errare,' to wander). 'Unnatural' is key: killing one's own child violates the order of nature itself, which the speech insists this 'deadly quarrel' now routinely 'begets.'
TLN 1140historical topical
“The red rose and the white are on his face, The fatal colours of our striving houses”
Henry reads the dead son's face as an emblem of the two rival houses: the red blood represents Lancaster (the red rose), the pale cheeks represent York (the white rose). The rose badges are the play's central symbols for the civil war — York and Lancaster each claimed a rose as their heraldic emblem. Henry's image turns the killed boy's body into a living coat of arms — a piece of symbolic stagecraft that compresses the whole war into a single human face.
historical The Wars of the Roses
TLN 1146rhetorical device
“How will my mother, for a father's death”
Shakespeare structures three parallel laments — the Son (TLN 1146-1147), the Father (TLN 1148-1149), and the King (TLN 1150-1151) — each beginning 'How will...' and ending with 'ne'er be satisfied.' Then a second set mirrors it: 'Was ever son...', 'Was ever father...', 'Was ever king...' (TLN 1152-1154). This is the rhetorical figure 'anaphora' (repeated opening words) combined with 'tricolon' (a set of three parallel units). The strict formal symmetry turns private grief into a public ceremony of mourning and makes the scene feel ritualistic rather than realistic.
TLN 1157archaic vocab
“These arms of mine shall be thy winding-sheet; My heart, sweet boy, shall be thy sepulchre”
A 'winding-sheet' was the cloth a corpse was wrapped in for burial — a shroud. 'Sepulchre' is a burial chamber or tomb. The Father says his arms holding his dead son will serve as the shroud, and his heart as the tomb. He cannot bury his son properly; his own body becomes the grave. The speech condenses the whole catastrophe of civil war into the image of a father carrying a son he cannot bury.
TLN 1161archaic vocab
“And so obsequious will thy father be”
'Obsequious' here does not mean servile or flattering (its modern sense) but means 'dutiful in performing funeral rites' — from Latin 'obsequiae,' funeral rites. The Father says he will faithfully perform every rite of mourning due to his son. The word is used in this older sense by Shakespeare several times; modern readers who know only the newer meaning will misread the line.
TLN 1163classical allusion
“As Priam was for all his valiant sons”
Priam was the aged king of Troy whose fifty sons were killed in the Trojan War — the classical archetype of a father destroyed by the slaughter of his children. The Father compares his grief for a single son to Priam's grief for fifty. The allusion scales up the private tragedy: one anonymous soldier's loss equals a legendary king's.
classical The fall of Troy: Pyrrhus and Priam
TLN 1169archaic vocab
“Warwick rages like a chafed bull”
'Chafed' means enraged by heat of battle or by being rubbed raw — the word comes from 'chauffer' (to heat) and in this sense means maddened by friction or excitement. A 'chafed bull' is a bull goaded into fury. The Lancastrian Prince Edward's one line of dialogue casts Warwick as a raging animal — an image consistent with Warwick's outsized, terrifying presence as 'the Kingmaker' who has turned the battle against them.