Henry IV, Part i Act II, Scene iii Lady Percy
This text is used in our interview with Kelley Curran.
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885 O my good Lord, why are you thus alone?
886 For what offence haue I this fortnight bin
887 A banish’d woman from my
Harries bed?
888 Tell me (sweet Lord) what is’t that takes from thee
889 Thy stomacke, pleasure, and thy golden sleepe?
890 Why dost thou bend thine eyes vpon the earth?
891 And start so often when thou sitt’st alone?
892 Why hast thou lost the fresh blood in thy cheekes?
893 And giuen my Treasures and my rights of thee,
894 To thicke-ey’d musing, and curst melancholly?
895 In my faint-slumbers, I by thee haue watcht,
896 And heard thee murmore tales of Iron Warres:
897 Speake tearmes of manage to thy bounding Steed,
898 Cry courage to the field. And thou hast talk’d
899 Of Sallies, and Retires; Trenches, Tents,
900 Of Palizadoes, Frontiers, Parapets,
901 Of Basiliskes, of Canon, Culuerin,
902 Of Prisoners ransome, and of Souldiers slaine,
903 And all the current of a headdy fight.
904 Thy spirit within thee hath beene so at Warre,
905 And thus hath so bestirr’d thee in thy sleepe,
906 That beds of sweate hath stood vpon thy Brow,
907 Like bubbles in a late-disturbed Streame;
908 And in thy face strange motions haue appear’d,
909 Such as we see when men restraine their breath
910 On some great sodaine hast. O what portents are these?
911 Some heauie businesse hath my Lord in hand,
912 And I must know it: else he loues me not.