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Most subject is the fattest soil to weeds,
And he, the noble image of my youth,
Is overspread with them; therefore my grief
Stretches itself beyond the hour of death.
The blood weeps from my heart when I do shape,
In forms imaginary, th’ unguided days
And rotten times that you shall look upon
When I am sleeping with my ancestors.
For when his headstrong riot hath no curb,
When rage and hot blood are his counsellors,
When means and lavish manners meet together,
O, with what wings shall his affections fly
Towards fronting peril and opposed decay!
(Act 4, scene 3, lines 59–71)
In these lines from act 4, scene 3, King Henry IV shares one of several prophetic visions he has in the play concerning England’s doomed future. Like the other visions, this one centers on his son, Prince Harry, whom the king continues to perceive as an irresponsible reprobate. It is to Harry that Henry refers with the phrase, “the noble image of my youth.” Just like the “fattest soil,” which is most susceptible to “weeds,” his son is similarly “overspread with them.” Following this observation, the king unfolds a pessimistic vision of the “rotten times” that will arrive once he’s dead and “sleeping with [his] ancestors.” Specifically, Henry envisions Harry getting carried away by emotion, greed, and a lust for power, all of which will lead “towards fronting peril and opposed decay.”
Of course, as the king will soon realize, he is mistaken about Harry and therefore unnecessarily pessimistic about the future. However, viewers who are familiar with Richard II and Henry IV, Part 1 will recognize in this passage a significant echo of language and images that figured prominently in the earlier plays. In particular, the image of soil “overspread with [weeds]” strongly recalls a key image in Richard II. That play featured a recurring image of England as a disordered and mismanaged garden that was quickly succumbing to weeds, rot, and the destructive gluttony of “caterpillars.” For anyone familiar with the earlier play, King Henry’s words carry a distinct irony. Henry implicitly likens Harry to Richard, who had been accused of failing to keep the garden of England in order. But the audience can see that the current disorder in the kingdom is entirely of Henry’s making. In other words, Henry doesn’t recognize it, but it’s him—not Harry—who most resembles Richard and who has pushed England toward “peril” and “decay.”
