The First Part of Henry IV:
Act 3, Scene 1
Enter HOTSPUR, WORCESTER,
LORD MORTIMER, OWEN GLENDOWER.
MORTIMER
1 These promises are fair, the parties sure,
2 And our induction full of prosperous hope.
HOTSPUR
3 Lord Mortimer, and cousin Glendower,
4 Will you sit down?
5 And uncle Worcester: a plague upon it!
6 I have forgot the map.
GLENDOWER
6 No, here it is.
7 Sit, cousin Percy; sit, good cousin Hotspur,
8 For by that name as oft as Lancaster
9 Doth speak of you, his cheek looks pale and with
10 A rising sigh he wisheth you in heaven.
HOTSPUR
11 And you in hell, as oft as he hears
12 Owen Glendower spoke of.
GLENDOWER
13 I cannot blame him: at my nativity
14 The front of heaven was full of fiery shapes,
15 Of burning cressets; and at my birth
16 The frame and huge foundation of the earth
17 Shaked like a coward.
HOTSPUR
17 Why, so it would have done
18 At the same season, if your mother's cat had
19 But kitten'd, though yourself had never been born.
GLENDOWER
20 I say the earth did shake when I was born.
HOTSPUR
21 And I say the earth was not of my mind,
22 If you suppose as fearing you it shook.
GLENDOWER
23 The heavens were all on fire, the earth did tremble.
HOTSPUR
24 O, then the earth shook to see the heavens on fire,
25 And not in fear of your nativity.
26 Diseased nature oftentimes breaks forth
27 In strange eruptions; oft the teeming earth
28 Is with a kind of colic pinch'd and vex'd
29 By the imprisoning of unruly wind
30 Within her womb; which, for enlargement striving,
31 Shakes the old beldam earth and topples down
32 Steeples and moss-grown towers. At your birth
33 Our grandam earth, having this distemperature,
34 In passion shook.
GLENDOWER
34 Cousin, of many men
35 I do not bear these crossings. Give me leave
36 To tell you once again that at my birth
37 The front of heaven was full of fiery shapes,
38 The goats ran from the mountains, and the herds
39 Were strangely clamorous to the frighted fields.
40 These signs have mark'd me extraordinary;
41 And all the courses of my life do show
42 I am not in the roll of common men.
43 Where is he living, clipp'd in with the sea
44 That chides the banks of England, Scotland, Wales,
45 Which calls me pupil, or hath read to me?
46 And bring him out that is but woman's son
47 Can trace me in the tedious ways of art
48 And hold me pace in deep experiments.
HOTSPUR
49 I think there's no man speaks better Welsh.
50 I'll to dinner.
MORTIMER
51 Peace, cousin Percy; you will make him mad.
GLENDOWER
52 I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
HOTSPUR
53 Why, so can I, or so can any man;
54 But will they come when you do call for them?
GLENDOWER
55 Why, I can teach you, cousin, to command
56 The devil.
HOTSPUR
57 And I can teach thee, coz, to shame the devil
58 By telling truth: tell truth and shame the devil.
59 If thou have power to raise him, bring him hither,
60 And I'll be sworn I have power to shame him hence.
61 O, while you live, tell truth and shame the devil!
MORTIMER
62 Come, come, no more of this unprofitable chat.
GLENDOWER
63 Three times hath Henry Bolingbroke made head
64 Against my power; thrice from the banks of Wye
65 And sandy-bottom'd Severn have I sent him
66 Bootless home and weather-beaten back.
HOTSPUR
67 Home without boots, and in foul weather too!
68 How 'scapes he agues, in the devil's name?
GLENDOWER
69 Come, here's the map: shall we divide our right
70 According to our threefold order ta'en?
MORTIMER
71 The Archdeacon hath divided it
72 Into three limits very equally:
73 England, from Trent and Severn hitherto,
74 By south and east is to my part assign'd:
75 All westward, Wales beyond the Severn shore,
76 And all the fertile land within that bound,
77 To Owen Glendower: and, dear coz, to you
78 The remnant northward, lying off from Trent.
79 And our indentures tripartite are drawn;
80 Which being sealed interchangeably,
81 A business that this night may execute,
82 tomorrow, cousin Percy, you and I
83 And my good Lord of Worcester will set forth
84 To meet your father and the Scottish power,
85 As is appointed us, at Shrewsbury.
86 My father Glendower is not ready yet,
87 Not shall we need his help these fourteen days.
88 Within that space you may have drawn together
89 Your tenants, friends and neighbouring gentlemen.
GLENDOWER
90 A shorter time shall send me to you, lords:
91 And in my conduct shall your ladies come;
92 From whom you now must steal and take no leave,
93 For there will be a world of water shed
94 Upon the parting of your wives and you.
HOTSPUR
95 Methinks my moiety, north from Burton here,
96 In quantity equals not one of yours:
97 See how this river comes me cranking in,
98 And cuts me from the best of all my land
99 A huge half-moon, a monstrous cantle out.
100 I'll have the current in this place damm'd up;
101 And here the smug and silver Trent shall run
102 In a new channel, fair and evenly;
103 It shall not wind with such a deep indent,
104 To rob me of so rich a bottom here.
GLENDOWER
105 Not wind? it shall, it must; you see it doth.
MORTIMER
106 Yea, but
107 Mark how he bears his course, and runs me up
108 With like advantage on the other side;
109 Gelding the opposed continent as much
110 As on the other side it takes from you.
EARL OF WORCESTER
111 Yea, but a little charge will trench him here
112 And on this north side win this cape of land;
113 And then he runs straight and even.
HOTSPUR
114 I'll have it so: a little charge will do it.
GLENDOWER
115 I'll not have it alter'd.
GLENDOWER
116 No, nor you shall not.
HOTSPUR
116 Who shall say me nay?
GLENDOWER
117 Why, that will I.
HOTSPUR
117 Let me not understand you, then;
118 Speak it in Welsh.
GLENDOWER
119 I can speak English, lord, as well as you;
120 For I was train'd up in the English court;
121 Where, being but young, I framed to the harp
122 Many an English ditty lovely well
123 And gave the tongue a helpful ornament,
124 A virtue that was never seen in you.
HOTSPUR
125 Marry,
126 And I am glad of it with all my heart:
127 I had rather be a kitten and cry mew
128 Than one of these same metre ballad-mongers;
129 I had rather hear a brazen canstick turn'd,
130 Or a dry wheel grate on the axle-tree;
131 And that would set my teeth nothing on edge,
132 Nothing so much as mincing poetry:
133 'Tis like the forced gait of a shuffling nag.
GLENDOWER
134 Come, you shall have Trent turn'd.
HOTSPUR
135 I do not care: I'll give thrice so much land
136 To any well-deserving friend;
137 But in the way of bargain, mark ye me,
138 I'll cavil on the ninth part of a hair.
139 Are the indentures drawn? shall we be gone?
GLENDOWER
140 The moon shines fair; you may away by night:
141 I'll haste the writer and withal
142 Break with your wives of your departure hence:
143 I am afraid my daughter will run mad,
144 So much she doteth on her Mortimer.
MORTIMER
145 Fie, cousin Percy! how you cross my father!
HOTSPUR
146 I cannot choose: sometime he angers me
147 With telling me of the mouldwarp and the ant,
148 Of the dreamer Merlin and his prophecies,
149 And of a dragon and a finless fish,
150 A clip-wing'd griffin and a moulten raven,
151 A couching lion and a ramping cat,
152 And such a deal of skimble-skamble stuff
153 As puts me from my faith. I tell you what;
154 He held me last night at least nine hours
155 In reckoning up the several devils' names
156 That were his lackeys: I cried 'hum,' and 'well, go to,'
157 But mark'd him not a word. O, he is as tedious
158 As a tired horse, a railing wife;
159 Worse than a smoky house: I had rather live
160 With cheese and garlic in a windmill, far,
161 Than feed on cates and have him talk to me
162 In any summer-house in Christendom.
MORTIMER
163 In faith, he is a worthy gentleman,
164 Exceedingly well read, and profited
165 In strange concealments, valiant as a lion
166 And as wondrous affable and as bountiful
167 As mines of India. Shall I tell you, cousin?
168 He holds your temper in a high respect
169 And curbs himself even of his natural scope
170 When you come 'cross his humour; faith, he does:
171 I warrant you, that man is not alive
172 Might so have tempted him as you have done,
173 Without the taste of danger and reproof:
174 But do not use it oft, let me entreat you.
EARL OF WORCESTER
175 In faith, my lord, you are too wilful-blame;
176 And since your coming hither have done enough
177 To put him quite beside his patience.
178 You must needs learn, lord, to amend this fault:
179 Though sometimes it show greatness, courage, blood,—
180 And that's the dearest grace it renders you,—
181 Yet oftentimes it doth present harsh rage,
182 Defect of manners, want of government,
183 Pride, haughtiness, opinion and disdain:
184 The least of which haunting a nobleman
185 Loseth men's hearts and leaves behind a stain
186 Upon the beauty of all parts besides,
187 Beguiling them of commendation.
HOTSPUR
188 Well, I am school'd: good manners be your speed!
189 Here come our wives, and let us take our leave.
Enter GLENDOWER with the LADIES.
MORTIMER
190 This is the deadly spite that angers me;
191 My wife can speak no English, I no Welsh.
GLENDOWER
192 My daughter weeps: she will not part with you;
193 She'll be a soldier too, she'll to the wars.
MORTIMER
194 Good father, tell her that she and my aunt Percy
195 Shall follow in your conduct speedily.
Glendower speaks to her in Welsh, and she
answers him in the same.
GLENDOWER
196 She is desperate here; a peevish self-wind harlotry,
197 one that no persuasion can do good upon.
MORTIMER
198 I understand thy looks: that pretty Welsh
199 Which thou pour'st down from these swelling heavens
200 I am too perfect in; and, but for shame,
201 In such a parley should I answer thee.
202 I understand thy kisses and thou mine,
203 And that's a feeling disputation:
204 But I will never be a truant, love,
205 Till I have learned thy language; for thy tongue
206 Makes Welsh as sweet as ditties highly penn'd,
207 Sung by a fair queen in a summer's bower,
208 With ravishing division, to her lute.
GLENDOWER
209 Nay, if you melt, then will she run mad.
The lady speaks again in Welsh.
MORTIMER
210 O, I am ignorance itself in this!
GLENDOWER
211 She bids you on the wanton rushes lay you down
212 And rest your gentle head upon her lap,
213 And she will sing the song that pleaseth you
214 And on your eyelids crown the god of sleep.
215 Charming your blood with pleasing heaviness,
216 Making such difference 'twixt wake and sleep
217 As is the difference betwixt day and night
218 The hour before the heavenly-harness'd team
219 Begins his golden progress in the east.
MORTIMER
220 With all my heart I'll sit and hear her sing:
221 By that time will our book, I think, be drawn
GLENDOWER
222 Do so;
223 And those musicians that shall play to you
224 Hang in the air a thousand leagues from hence,
225 And straight they shall be here: sit, and attend.
HOTSPUR
226 Come, Kate, thou art perfect in lying down: come,
227 quick, quick, that I may lay my head in thy lap.
LADY PERCY
228 Go, ye giddy goose.
HOTSPUR
229 Now I perceive the devil understands Welsh;
230 And 'tis no marvel he is so humorous.
231 By'r lady, he is a good musician.
LADY PERCY
232 Then should you be nothing but musical for
233 you are altogether governed by humors. Lie
234 still, ye thief, and hear the lady sing in Welsh.
HOTSPUR
235 I had rather hear Lady, my
236 brach, howl in Irish.
LADY PERCY
237 Wouldst thou have thy head broken?
LADY PERCY
239 Then be still.
HOTSPUR
240 Neither;'tis a woman's fault.
LADY PERCY
241 Now God help thee!
HOTSPUR
242 To the Welsh lady's bed.
LADY PERCY
243 What's that?
Here the lady sings a Welsh song.
HOTSPUR
245 Come, Kate, I'll have your song too.
LADY PERCY
246 Not mine, in good sooth.
HOTSPUR
247 Not yours, in good sooth! Heart! you swear like a
248 comfit-maker's wife. 'Not you, in good sooth,' and
249 'as true as I live,' and 'as God shall mend me,' and
250 'as sure as day,'
251 And givest such sarcenet surety for thy oaths,
252 As if thou never walk'st further than Finsbury.
253 Swear me, Kate, like a lady as thou art,
254 A good mouth-filling oath, and leave 'in sooth,'
255 And such protest of pepper-gingerbread,
256 To velvet-guards and Sunday-citizens.
257 Come, sing.
LADY PERCY
258 I will not sing.
HOTSPUR
259 'Tis the next way to turn tailor, or be
260 red-breast teacher. An the indentures
261 be drawn, I'll away within these two
262 hours; and so, come in when ye will.
GLENDOWER
263 Come, come, Lord Mortimer; you are as slow
264 As hot Lord Percy is on fire to go.
265 By this our book is drawn; we'll but seal,
266 And then to horse immediately.
MORTIMER
266 With all my heart.