No matter where; of comfort
no man speak:
Let's talk of graves, of
worms, and epitaphs;
Make dust our paper and with
rainy eyes
Write sorrow on the bosom of
the earth,
Let's choose executors and
talk of wills:
And yet not so, for what can
we bequeath
Save our deposed bodies to
the ground?
Our lands, our lives and all
are Bolingbroke's,
And nothing can we call our
own but death
And that small model of the
barren earth
Which serves as paste and
cover to our bones.
For God's sake, let us sit
upon the ground
And tell sad stories of the
death of kings;
How some have been deposed;
some slain in war,
Some haunted by the ghosts
they have deposed;
Some poison'd by their wives:
some sleeping kill'd;
All murder'd: for within the
hollow crown
That rounds the mortal
temples of a king
Keeps Death his court.
And there the antic sits,
Scoffing his state and
grinning at his pomp,
Allowing him a breath, a
little scene,
To monarchize, be fear'd and
kill with looks,
Infusing him with self and
vain conceit,
As if this flesh which walls
about our life,
Were brass impregnable, and
humour'd thus
Comes at the last and with a
little pin
Bores through his castle
wall, and farewell king!
Cover your heads and mock not
flesh and blood
With solemn reverence: throw
away respect,
Tradition, form and
ceremonious duty,
For you have but mistook me
all this while:
I live with bread like you,
feel want,
Taste grief, need friends:
subjected thus,
How can you say to me, I am a
king?
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