The First Part of Henry IV:
Act 1, Scene 3
Enter the KING, NORTHUMBERLAND,
WORCESTER, HOTSPUR, SIR WALTER BLUNT,
with others.
KING HENRY IV
1 My blood hath been too cold and temperate,
2 Unapt to stir at these indignities,
3 And you have found me; for accordingly
4 You tread upon my patience: but be sure
5 I will from henceforth rather be myself,
6 Mighty and to be fear'd, than my condition;
7 Which hath been smooth as oil, soft as young down,
8 And therefore lost that title of respect
9 Which the proud soul ne'er pays but to the proud.
EARL OF WORCESTER
10 Our house, my sovereign liege, little deserves
11 The scourge of greatness to be used on it;
12 And that same greatness too which our own hands
13 Have holp to make so portly.
NORTHUMBERLAND
14 My lord.—
KING HENRY IV
15 Worcester, get thee gone; for I do see
16 Danger and disobedience in thine eye:
17 O, sir, your presence is too bold and peremptory,
18 And majesty might never yet endure
19 The moody frontier of a servant brow.
20 You have good leave to leave us: when we need
21 Your use and counsel, we shall send for you.
22 You were about to speak.
NORTHUMBERLAND
22 Yea, my good lord.
23 Those prisoners in your highness' name demanded,
24 Which Harry Percy here at Holmedon took,
25 Were, as he says, not with such strength denied
26 As is delivered to your majesty:
27 Either envy, therefore, or misprison
28 Is guilty of this fault and not my son.
HOTSPUR
29 My liege, I did deny no prisoners.
30 But I remember, when the fight was done,
31 When I was dry with rage and extreme toil,
32 Breathless and faint, leaning upon my sword,
33 Came there a certain lord, neat, and trimly dress'd,
34 Fresh as a bridegroom; and his chin new reap'd
35 Show'd like a stubble-land at harvest-home;
36 He was perfumed like a milliner;
37 And 'twixt his finger and his thumb he held
38 A pouncet-box, which ever and anon
39 He gave his nose and took't away again;
40 Who therewith angry, when it next came there,
41 Took it in snuff; and still he smiled and talk'd,
42 And as the soldiers bore dead bodies by,
43 He call'd them untaught knaves, unmannerly,
44 To bring a slovenly unhandsome corse
45 Betwixt the wind and his nobility.
46 With many holiday and lady terms
47 He question'd me; amongst the rest, demanded
48 My prisoners in your majesty's behalf.
49 I then, all smarting with my wounds being cold,
50 To be so pester'd with a popinjay,
51 Out of my grief and my impatience,
52 Answer'd neglectingly I know not what,
53 He should or he should not; for he made me mad
54 To see him shine so brisk and smell so sweet
55 And talk so like a waiting-gentlewoman
56 Of guns and drums and wounds,—God save the mark!—
57 And telling me the sovereignest thing on earth
58 Was parmaceti for an inward bruise;
59 And that it was great pity, so it was,
60 This villanous salt-petre should be digg'd
61 Out of the bowels of the harmless earth,
62 Which many a good tall fellow had destroy'd
63 So cowardly; and but for these vile guns,
64 He would himself have been a soldier.
65 This bald unjointed chat of his, my lord,
66 I answer'd indirectly, as I said;
67 And I beseech you, let not his report
68 Come current for an accusation
69 Betwixt my love and your high majesty.
SIR WALTER BLUNT
70 The circumstance consider'd, good my lord,
71 Whate'er Lord Harry Percy then had said
72 To such a person and in such a place,
73 At such a time, with all the rest retold,
74 May reasonably die and never rise
75 To do him wrong or any way impeach
76 What then he said, so he unsay it now.
KING HENRY IV
77 Why, yet he doth deny his prisoners,
78 But with proviso and exception,
79 That we at our own charge shall ransom straight
80 His brother-in-law, the foolish Mortimer;
81 Who, on my soul, hath wilfully betray'd
82 The lives of those that he did lead to fight
83 Against that great magician, damn'd Glendower,
84 Whose daughter, as we hear, the Earl of March
85 Hath lately married. Shall our coffers, then,
86 Be emptied to redeem a traitor home?
87 Shall we but treason? and indent with fears,
88 When they have lost and forfeited themselves?
89 No, on the barren mountains let him starve;
90 For I shall never hold that man my friend
91 Whose tongue shall ask me for one penny cost
92 To ransom home revolted Mortimer.
HOTSPUR
93 Revolted Mortimer!
94 He never did fall off, my sovereign liege,
95 But by the chance of war; to prove that true
96 Needs no more but one tongue for all those wounds,
97 Those mouthed wounds, which valiantly he took
98 When on the gentle Severn's sedgy bank,
99 In single opposition, hand to hand,
100 He did confound the best part of an hour
101 In changing hardiment with great Glendower:
102 Three times they breath'd and three times did they drink,
103 Upon agreement, of swift Severn's flood;
104 Who then, affrighted with their bloody looks,
105 Ran fearfully among the trembling reeds,
106 And hid his crisp head in the hollow bank,
107 Bloodstained with these valiant combatants.
108 Never did base and rotten policy
109 Colour her working with such deadly wounds;
110 Nor could the noble Mortimer
111 Receive so many, and all willingly:
112 Then let not him be slander'd with revolt.
KING HENRY IV
113 Thou dost belie him, Percy, thou dost belie him;
114 He never did encounter with Glendower:
115 I tell thee,
116 He durst as well have met the devil alone
117 As Owen Glendower for an enemy.
118 Art thou not ashamed? But, sirrah, henceforth
119 Let me not hear you speak of Mortimer:
120 Send me your prisoners with the speediest means,
121 Or you shall hear in such a kind from me
122 As will displease you. My Lord Northumberland,
123 We licence your departure with your son.
124 Send us your prisoners, or you will hear of it.
Exit King [with Blunt and Train].
HOTSPUR
125 An if the devil come and roar for them,
126 I will not send them: I will after straight
127 And tell him so; for I will ease my heart,
128 Albeit I make a hazard of my head.
NORTHUMBERLAND
129 What, drunk with choler? stay and pause awhile:
130 Here comes your uncle.
HOTSPUR
130 Speak of Mortimer!
131 'Zounds, I will speak of him; and let my soul
132 Want mercy, if I do not join with him:
133 Yea, on his part I'll empty all these veins,
134 And shed my dear blood drop by drop in the dust,
135 But I will lift the down-trod Mortimer
136 As high in the air as this unthankful king,
137 As this ingrate and canker'd Bolingbroke.
NORTHUMBERLAND
138 Brother, the king hath made your nephew mad.
EARL OF WORCESTER
139 Who struck this heat up after I was gone?
HOTSPUR
140 He will, forsooth, have all my prisoners;
141 And when I urged the ransom once again
142 Of my wife's brother, then his cheek look'd pale,
143 And on my face he turn'd an eye of death,
144 Trembling even at the name of Mortimer.
EARL OF WORCESTER
145 I cannot blame him: was not he proclaim'd
146 By Richard that dead is the next of blood?
NORTHUMBERLAND
147 He was; I heard the proclamation:
148 And then it was when the unhappy king,
149 —Whose wrongs in us God pardon!—did set forth
150 Upon his Irish expedition;
151 From whence he intercepted did return
152 To be deposed and shortly murdered.
EARL OF WORCESTER
153 And for whose death we in the world's wide mouth
154 Live scandalized and foully spoken of.
HOTSPUR
155 But soft, I pray you; did King Richard then
156 Proclaim my brother Edmund Mortimer
157 Heir to the crown?
NORTHUMBERLAND
157 He did; myself did hear it.
HOTSPUR
158 Nay, then I cannot blame his cousin king,
159 That wished him on the barren mountains starve.
160 But shall it be that you, that set the crown
161 Upon the head of this forgetful man
162 And for his sake wear the detested blot
163 Of murderous subornation, shall it be,
164 That you a world of curses undergo,
165 Being the agents, or base second means,
166 The cords, the ladder, or the hangman rather?
167 O, pardon me that I descend so low,
168 To show the line and the predicament
169 Wherein you range under this subtle king;
170 Shall it for shame be spoken in these days,
171 Or fill up chronicles in time to come,
172 That men of your nobility and power
173 Did gage them both in an unjust behalf,
174 As both of you—God pardon it!—have done,
175 To put down Richard, that sweet lovely rose,
176 And plant this thorn, this canker, Bolingbroke?
177 And shall it in more shame be further spoken,
178 That you are fool'd, discarded and shook off
179 By him for whom these shames ye underwent?
180 No; yet time serves wherein you may redeem
181 Your banish'd honours and restore yourselves
182 Into the good thoughts of the world again,
183 Revenge the jeering and disdain'd contempt
184 Of this proud king, who studies day and night
185 To answer all the debt he owes to you
186 Even with the bloody payment of your deaths:
187 Therefore, I say—
EARL OF WORCESTER
187 Peace, cousin, say no more:
188 And now I will unclasp a secret book,
189 And to your quick-conceiving discontents
190 I'll read you matter deep and dangerous,
191 As full of peril and adventurous spirit
192 As to o'er-walk a current roaring loud
193 On the unsteadfast footing of a spear.
HOTSPUR
194 If he fall in, good night! or sink or swim:
195 Send danger from the east unto the west,
196 So honor cross it from the north to south,
197 And let them grapple: O, the blood more stirs
198 To rouse a lion than to start a hare!
NORTHUMBERLAND
199 Imagination of some great exploit
200 Drives him beyond the bounds of patience.
HOTSPUR
201 By heaven, methinks it were an easy leap,
202 To pluck bright honour from the pale-faced moon,
203 Or dive into the bottom of the deep,
204 Where fathom-line could never touch the ground,
205 And pluck up drowned honour by the locks;
206 So he that doth redeem her thence might wear
207 Without corrival, all her dignities:
208 But out upon this half-fac'd fellowship!
EARL OF WORCESTER
209 He apprehends a world of figures here,
210 But not the form of what he should attend.
211 Good cousin, give me audience for a while.
EARL OF WORCESTER
212 Those same noble Scots
213 That are your prisoners,—
HOTSPUR
213 I'll keep them all;
214 By God, he shall not have a Scot of them;
215 No, if a Scot would save his soul, he shall not:
216 I'll keep them, by this hand.
EARL OF WORCESTER
216 You start away
217 And lend no ear unto my purposes.
218 Those prisoners you shall keep.
HOTSPUR
218 Nay, I will; that's flat:
219 He said he would not ransom Mortimer;
220 Forbad my tongue to speak of Mortimer;
221 But I will find him when he lies asleep,
222 And in his ear I'll holla 'Mortimer!'
223 Nay,
224 I'll have a starling shall be taught to speak
225 Nothing but 'Mortimer,' and give it him
226 To keep his anger still in motion.
EARL OF WORCESTER
227 Hear you, cousin; a word.
HOTSPUR
228 All studies here I solemnly defy,
229 Save how to gall and pinch this Bolingbroke:
230 And that same sword-and-buckler Prince of Wales,
231 But that I think his father loves him not
232 And would be glad he met with some mischance,
233 I would have him poison'd with a pot of ale.
EARL OF WORCESTER
234 Farewell, kinsman: I'll talk to you
235 When you are better temper'd to attend.
NORTHUMBERLAND
236 Why, what a wasp-stung and impatient fool
237 Art thou to break into this woman's mood,
238 Tying thine ear to no tongue but thine own!
HOTSPUR
239 Why, look you, I am whipp'd and scourged with rods,
240 Nettled and stung with pismires, when I hear
241 Of this vile politician, Bolingbroke.
242 In Richard's time,—what do you call the place?—
243 A plague upon it, it is in Gloucestershire;
244 'Twas where the madcap duke his uncle kept,
245 His uncle York; where I first bow'd my knee
246 Unto this king of smiles, this Bolingbroke,—
247 'Sblood!—
248 When you and he came back from Ravenspurgh.
NORTHUMBERLAND
249 At Berkley castle.
HOTSPUR
250 You say true:
251 Why, what a candy deal of courtesy
252 This fawning greyhound then did proffer me!
253 Look, 'when his infant fortune came to age,'
254 And 'gentle Harry Percy,' and 'kind cousin;'
255 O, the devil take such cozeners! God forgive me!
256 Good uncle, tell your tale; I have done.
EARL OF WORCESTER
257 Nay, if you have not, to it again;
258 We will stay your leisure.
HOTSPUR
258 I have done, i' faith.
EARL OF WORCESTER
259 Then once more to your Scottish prisoners.
260 Deliver them up without their ransom straight,
261 And make the Douglas' son your only mean
262 For powers in Scotland; which, for divers reasons
263 Which I shall send you written, be assured,
264 Will easily be granted.
264 you, my lord,
265 Your son in Scotland being thus employ'd,
266 Shall secretly into the bosom creep
267 Of that same noble prelate, well beloved,
268 The archbishop.
HOTSPUR
269 Of York, is it not?
EARL OF WORCESTER
270 True; who bears hard
271 His brother's death at Bristow, the Lord Scroop.
272 I speak not this in estimation,
273 As what I think might be, but what I know
274 Is ruminated, plotted and set down,
275 And only stays but to behold the face
276 Of that occasion that shall bring it on.
HOTSPUR
277 I smell it: upon my life, it will do well.
NORTHUMBERLAND
278 Before the game is afoot, thou still let'st slip.
HOTSPUR
279 Why, it cannot choose but be a noble plot;
280 And then the power of Scotland and of York,
281 To join with Mortimer, ha?
EARL OF WORCESTER
281 And so they shall.
HOTSPUR
282 In faith, it is exceedingly well aim'd.
EARL OF WORCESTER
283 And 'tis no little reason bids us speed,
284 To save our heads by raising of a head;
285 For, bear ourselves as even as we can,
286 The king will always think him in our debt,
287 And think we think ourselves unsatisfied,
288 Till he hath found a time to pay us home:
289 And see already how he doth begin
290 To make us strangers to his looks of love.
HOTSPUR
291 He does, he does: we'll be revenged on him.
EARL OF WORCESTER
292 Cousin, farewell: no further go in this
293 Than I by letters shall direct your course.
294 When time is ripe, which will be suddenly,
295 I'll steal to Glendower and Lord Mortimer;
296 Where you and Douglas and our powers at once,
297 As I will fashion it, shall happily meet,
298 To bear our fortunes in our own strong arms,
299 Which now we hold at much uncertainty.
NORTHUMBERLAND
300 Farewell, good brother: we shall thrive, I trust.
HOTSPUR
301 Uncle, Adieu: O, let the hours be short
302 Till fields and blows and groans applaud our sport!