HENRY IV, PART I
A monologue from the
play by William
Shakespeare
- LADY PERCY: O my good lord, why are you thus alone?
- For what offense have I this fortnight been
- A banished woman from my Harry's bed?
- Tell me, sweet lord, what is't that takes from thee
- Thy stomach, pleasure, and thy golden sleep?
- Why dost thou bend thine eyes upon the earth,
- And start so often when thou sit'st alone?
- Why hast thou lost the fresh blood in thy cheeks
- And given my treasures and my rights of thee
- To thick-eyed musing and cursed melancholy?
- In thy faint slumbers I by thee have watched,
- And heard thee murmur tales of iron wars,
- Speak terms of manage to thy bounding steed,
- Cry 'Courage! to the field!' And thou hast talked
- Of sallies and retires, of trenches, tents,
- Of palisadoes, frontiers, parapets,
- Of basilisks, of cannon, culverin,
- Of prisoners' ransom, and of soldiers slain,
- And all the currents of a heady fight.
- Thy spirit within thee hath been so at war,
- And thus hath so bestirred thee in thy sleep,
- That beads of sweat have stood upon thy brow
- Like bubbles in a late-disturbèd stream,
- And in thy face strange motions have appeared,
- Such as we see when men restrain their breath
- On some great sudden hest. O, what portents are these?
- Some heavy business hath my lord in hand,
- And I must know it, else he loves me not.
MORE MONOLOGUES BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE |
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