As is the oozy bottom of the sea
     With sunken wrack and sumless treasuries.

Of this sort are the king’s remonstrance to Scroop, Grey, and Cambridge, on the detection of their treason, his address to the soldiers at the siege of Harfleur, and the still finer one before the battle of Agincourt, the description of the night before the battle, and the reflections on ceremony put into the mouth of the king.

     O hard condition; twin-born with greatness,
     Subjected to the breath of every fool,
     Whose sense no more can feel but his own wringing! 
     What infinite heart’s ease must kings neglect,
     That private men enjoy? and what have kings,
     That privates have not too, save ceremony? 
     Save general ceremony? 
     And what art thou, thou idol ceremony? 
     What kind of god art thou, that suffer’st more
     Of mortal griefs, than do thy worshippers? 
     What are thy rents? what are thy comings-in? 
     O ceremony, show me but thy worth! 
     What is thy soul, O adoration? 
     Art thou aught else but place, degree, and form,
     Creating awe and fear in other men? 
     Wherein thou art less happy, being feared,
     Than they in fearing. 
     What drink’st thou oft, instead of homage sweet,
     But poison’d flattery?  O, be sick, great greatness,
     And bid thy ceremony give thee cure! 
     Think’st thou, the fiery fever will go out
     With titles blown from adulation? 
     Will it give place to flexure and low bending? 
     Can’st thou, when thou command’st the beggar’s knee,
     Command the health of it?  No, thou proud dream,
     That play’st so subtly with a king’s repose,
     I am a king, that find thee:  and I know,
     ’Tis not the balm, the sceptre, and the ball,
     The sword, the mace, the crown imperial,
     The enter-tissu’d robe of gold and pearl,
     The farsed title running ’fore the king,
     The throne he sits on, nor the tide of pomp
     That beats upon the high shore of this world,
     No, not all these, thrice-gorgeous ceremony,
     Not all these, laid in bed majestical,
     Can sleep so soundly as the wretched slave;
     Who, with a body fili’d, and vacant mind,
     Gets him to rest, cramm’d with distressful bread,
     Never sees horrid night, the child of hell: 
     But, like a lacquey, from the rise to set,
     Sweats in the eye of Phoebus, and all night
     Sleeps in Elysium; next day, after dawn,
     Doth rise, and help Hyperion to his horse;
     And follows so the ever-running year
     With profitable labour, to his grave: 
     And, but for ceremony, such a wretch,
     Winding up days with toil, and nights with sleep,
     Has the forehand and vantage of a king. 
     The slave, a member of the country’s peace,
     Enjoys it; but in gross brain little wots,
     What watch the king keeps to maintain the peace,
     Whose hours the peasant best advantages.