Henry IV, Part i: Act II, Scene iii

Henry IV, Part i      Act II, Scene iii        Lady Percy

This speech is used in our interview with Kelley Curran.

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Click here to open up First Folio version.

28   O, my good lord, why are you thus alone?
29   For what offence have I this fortnight been
30    A banish’d woman from my Harry’s bed?
31   Tell me, sweet lord, what is’t that takes from thee
32   Thy stomach, pleasure and thy golden sleep?
33   Why dost thou bend thine eyes upon the earth,
34   And start so often when thou sit’st alone?
35   Why hast thou lost the fresh blood in thy cheeks;
36   And given my treasures and my rights of thee
37   To thick-eyed musing and cursed melancholy?
38   In thy faint slumbers I by thee have watch’d,
39   And heard thee murmur tales of iron wars;
40   Speak terms of manage to thy bounding steed;
41   Cry ‘Courage! to the field!’ And thou hast talk’d
42   Of sallies and retires, of trenches, tents,
43   Of palisadoes, frontiers, parapets,
44   Of basilisks, of cannon, culverin,
45   Of prisoners’ ransom and of soldiers slain,
46   And all the currents of a heady fight.
47   Thy spirit within thee hath been so at war
48   And thus hath so bestirr’d thee in thy sleep,
49   That beads of sweat have stood upon thy brow
50   Like bubbles in a late-disturbed stream;
51   And in thy face strange motions have appear’d,
52   Such as we see when men restrain their breath
53   On some great sudden hest. O, what portents are these?
54   Some heavy business hath my lord in hand,
55   And I must know it, else he loves me not.