Page 831 - Shakespeare - Vol. 1

How many years a mortal man may live.
When this is known, then to divide the times: [30]
So many hours must I tend my flock;
So many hours must I take my rest;
So many hours must I contemplate;
So many hours must I sport myself;
So many days my ewes have been with young; [35]
So many weeks ere the poor fools will ean;
So many years ere I shall shear the fleece:
So minutes, hours, days, months, and years,
Past over to the end they were created,
Would bring white hairs unto a quiet grave. [40]
Ah what a life were this! How sweet, how lovely!
Gives not the hawthorn bush a sweeter shade
To shepherds looking on their silly sheep
Than doth a rich embroidered canopy
To kings that fear their subjects’ treachery? [45]
O yes, it doth; a thousandfold it doth.
And to conclude, the shepherd’s homely curds,
His cold thin drink out of his leather bottle,
His wonted sleep under a fresh tree’s shade -
All which secure and sweetly he enjoys - [50]
Is far beyond a prince’s delicates:
His viands sparkling in a golden cup,
His body couchèd in a curious bed
When care, mistrust, and treason waits on him.

Alarum. Enter a Son that hath killed his father, at one door [with the
dead man in his arms].

SON

Ill blows the wind that profits nobody: [55]
This man whom hand to hand I slew in fight
May be possessèd with some store of crowns,
And I that haply take them from him now
May yet ere night yield both my life and them
To some man else, as this dead man doth me. [60]
Who’s this? O God, it is my father’s face,
Whom in this conflict I unwares have killed.
O heavy times, begetting such events!
From London by the king was I pressed forth;