Act IScene III
The Same. A Room in the Palace
Enter King Henry, Northumberland, Worcester, Hotspur, Sir Walter Blunt and others.
King
My blood hath been too cold and temperate,Unapt to stir at these indignities,And you have found me, for accordinglyYou tread upon my patience: but be sureI will from henceforth rather be myself,Mighty and to be fear’d, than my condition,Which hath been smooth as oil, soft as young down,And therefore lost that title of respectWhich the proud soul ne’er pays but to the proud.
Worcester
Our house, my sovereign liege, little deservesThe scourge of greatness to be used on it,And that same greatness too which our own handsHave holp to make so portly.
Northumberland
My lord,—
King
Worcester, get thee gone, for I do seeDanger and disobedience in thine eye:O, sir, your presence is too bold and peremptory,And majesty might never yet endureThe moody frontier of a servant brow.You have good leave to leave us. When we needYour use and counsel, we shall send for you.
Exit Worcester.
To Northumberland.
You were about to speak.
Northumberland
Yea, my good lord.Those prisoners in your Highness’ name demanded,Which Harry Percy here at Holmedon took,Were, as he says, not with such strength deniedAs is deliver’d to your Majesty.Either envy, therefore, or misprisionIs guilty of this fault, and not my son.
Hotspur
My liege, I did deny no prisoners.But I remember, when the fight was done,When I was dry with rage and extreme toil,Breathless and faint, leaning upon my sword,Came there a certain lord, neat and trimly dress’d,Fresh as a bridegroom, and his chin new reap’dShow’d like a stubble-land at harvest-home.He was perfumed like a milliner,And ’twixt his finger and his thumb he heldA pouncet-box, which ever and anonHe gave his nose, and took’t away again,Who therewith angry, when it next came there,Took it in snuff; and still he smiled and talk’d.And as the soldiers bore dead bodies by,He call’d them untaught knaves, unmannerly,To bring a slovenly unhandsome corseBetwixt the wind and his nobility.With many holiday and lady termsHe question’d me, amongst the rest demandedMy prisoners in your Majesty’s behalf.I then, all smarting with my wounds being cold,Out of my grief and my impatienceTo be so pester’d with a popinjay,Answer’d neglectingly, I know not what,He should, or he should not; for he made me madTo see him shine so brisk and smell so sweet,And talk so like a waiting-gentlewomanOf guns and drums and wounds, God save the mark!And telling me the sovereignest thing on EarthWas parmacety for an inward bruise,And that it was great pity, so it was,This villainous saltpetre should be digg’dOut of the bowels of the harmless earth,Which many a good tall fellow had destroy’dSo cowardly, and but for these vile guns,He would himself have been a soldier.This bald unjointed chat of his, my lord,I answered indirectly, as I said,And I beseech you, let not his reportCome current for an accusationBetwixt my love and your high Majesty.
Blunt
The circumstance consider’d, good my lord,Whatever Harry Percy then had saidTo such a person, and in such a place,At such a time, with all the rest retold,May reasonably die, and never riseTo do him wrong, or any way impeachWhat then he said, so he unsay it now.
King
Why, yet he doth deny his prisoners,But with proviso and exception,That we at our own charge shall ransom straightHis brother-in-law, the foolish Mortimer,Who, on my soul, hath wilfully betray’dThe lives of those that he did lead to fightAgainst that great magician, damn’d Glendower,Whose daughter, as we hear, the Earl of MarchHath lately married. Shall our coffers thenBe emptied to redeem a traitor home?Shall we buy treason and indent with fearsWhen they have lost and forfeited themselves?No, on the barren mountains let him starve;For I shall never hold that man my friendWhose tongue shall ask me for one penny costTo ransom home revolted Mortimer.
Hotspur
Revolted Mortimer!He never did fall off, my sovereign liege,But by the chance of war. To prove that trueNeeds no more but one tongue for all those wounds,Those mouthed wounds, which valiantly he took,When on the gentle Severn’s sedgy bank,In single opposition hand to hand,He did confound the best part of an hourIn changing hardiment with great Glendower.Three times they breathed, and three times did they drink,Upon agreement, of swift Severn’s flood,Who then, affrighted with their bloody looks,Ran fearfully among the trembling reeds,And hid his crisp head in the hollow bankBlood-stained with these valiant combatants.Never did bare and rotten policyColour her working with such deadly wounds,Nor never could the noble MortimerReceive so many, and all willingly.Then let not him be slander’d with revolt.
King
Thou dost belie him, Percy, thou dost belie him,He never did encounter with Glendower.I tell thee, he durst as well have met the devil aloneAs Owen Glendower for an enemy.Art not ashamed? But, sirrah, henceforthLet me not hear you speak of Mortimer.Send me your prisoners with the speediest means,Or you shall hear in such a kind from meAs will displease you.—My Lord Northumberland,We license your departure with your son.—Send us your prisoners, or you’ll hear of it.
Exit King Henry, Blunt and train.
Hotspur
An if the devil come and roar for them,I will not send them. I will after straightAnd tell him so, for I will ease my heart,Albeit I make a hazard of my head.
Northumberland
What, drunk with choler? Stay, and pause awhile.Here comes your uncle.
Enter Worcester.
Hotspur
Speak of Mortimer?Zounds, I will speak of him, and let my soulWant mercy if I do not join with him.Yea, on his part I’ll empty all these veins,And shed my dear blood drop by drop in the dust,But I will lift the down-trod MortimerAs high in the air as this unthankful King,As this ingrate and canker’d Bolingbroke.
Northumberland
To Worcester.
Brother, the King hath made your nephew mad.
Worcester
Who struck this heat up after I was gone?
Hotspur
He will forsooth have all my prisoners,And when I urged the ransom once againOf my wife’s brother, then his cheek look’d pale,And on my face he turn’d an eye of death,Trembling even at the name of Mortimer.
Worcester
I cannot blame him. Was not he proclaim’dBy Richard that dead is, the next of blood?
Northumberland
He was; I heard the proclamation.And then it was when the unhappy King—Whose wrongs in us God pardon!—did set forthUpon his Irish expedition;From whence he, intercepted, did returnTo be deposed, and shortly murdered.
Worcester
And for whose death we in the world’s wide mouthLive scandalized and foully spoken of.
Hotspur
But soft, I pray you, did King Richard thenProclaim my brother Edmund MortimerHeir to the crown?
Northumberland
He did; myself did hear it.
Hotspur
Nay, then I cannot blame his cousin King,That wish’d him on the barren mountains starve.But shall it be that you that set the crownUpon the head of this forgetful man,And for his sake wear the detested blotOf murderous subornation—shall it be,That you a world of curses undergo,Being the agents, or base second means,The cords, the ladder, or the hangman rather?O, pardon me, that I descend so low,To show the line and the predicamentWherein you range under this subtle King.Shall it for shame be spoken in these days,Or fill up chronicles in time to come,That men of your nobility and powerDid gage them both in an unjust behalf(As both of you, God pardon it, have done)To put down Richard, that sweet lovely rose,And plant this thorn, this canker, Bolingbroke?And shall it in more shame be further spoken,That you are fool’d, discarded, and shook offBy him for whom these shames ye underwent?No, yet time serves wherein you may redeemYour banish’d honours, and restore yourselvesInto the good thoughts of the world again:Revenge the jeering and disdain’d contemptOf this proud King, who studies day and nightTo answer all the debt he owes to youEven with the bloody payment of your deaths.Therefore, I say—
Worcester
Peace, cousin, say no more.And now I will unclasp a secret book,And to your quick-conceiving discontentsI’ll read you matter deep and dangerous,As full of peril and adventurous spiritAs to o’er-walk a current roaring loudOn the unsteadfast footing of a spear.
Hotspur
If we fall in, good night, or sink or swim!Send danger from the east unto the west,So honour cross it from the north to south,And let them grapple. O, the blood more stirsTo rouse a lion than to start a hare!
Northumberland
Imagination of some great exploitDrives him beyond the bounds of patience.
Hotspur
By Heaven, methinks it were an easy leapTo pluck bright honour from the pale-faced moon,Or dive into the bottom of the deep,Where fathom-line could never touch the ground,And pluck up drowned honour by the locks,So he that doth redeem her thence might wearWithout corrival all her dignities.But out upon this half-faced fellowship!
Worcester
He apprehends a world of figures here,But not the form of what he should attend.—Good cousin, give me audience for a while.
Hotspur
I cry you mercy.
Worcester
Those same noble ScotsThat are your prisoners—
Hotspur
I’ll keep them all;By God, he shall not have a Scot of them,No, if a Scot would save his soul, he shall not.I’ll keep them, by this hand!
Worcester
You start away,And lend no ear unto my purposes:Those prisoners you shall keep—
Hotspur
Nay, I will: that’s flat.He said he would not ransom Mortimer,Forbade my tongue to speak of Mortimer,But I will find him when he lies asleep,And in his ear I’ll holla “Mortimer!”Nay, I’ll have a starling shall be taught to speakNothing but “Mortimer”, and give it him,To keep his anger still in motion.
Worcester
Hear you, cousin, a word.
Hotspur
All studies here I solemnly defy,Save how to gall and pinch this Bolingbroke:And that same sword-and-buckler Prince of Wales,But that I think his father loves him not,And would be glad he met with some mischance—I would have him poison’d with a pot of ale.
Worcester
Farewell, kinsman. I will talk to youWhen you are better temper’d to attend.
Northumberland
Why, what a wasp-stung and impatient foolArt thou to break into this woman’s mood,Tying thine ear to no tongue but thine own!
Hotspur
Why, look you, I am whipp’d and scourged with rods,Nettled, and stung with pismires, when I hearOf this vile politician, Bolingbroke.In Richard’s time—what do you call the place?A plague upon’t! It is in Gloucestershire.’Twas where the madcap Duke his uncle kept,His uncle York, where I first bow’d my kneeUnto this king of smiles, this Bolingbroke,’Sblood, when you and he came back from Ravenspurgh.
Northumberland
At Berkeley castle.
Hotspur
You say true.Why, what a candy deal of courtesyThis fawning greyhound then did proffer me!“Look, when his infant fortune came to age,”And, “Gentle Harry Percy,” and “kind cousin.”O, the devil take such cozeners!—God forgive me!Good uncle, tell your tale. I have done.
Worcester
Nay, if you have not, to it again,We will stay your leisure.
Hotspur
I have done, i’faith.
Worcester
Then once more to your Scottish prisoners;Deliver them up without their ransom straight,And make the Douglas’ son your only meanFor powers in Scotland, which, for divers reasonsWhich I shall send you written, be assuredWill easily be granted.—
To Northumberland.
You, my lord,Your son in Scotland being thus employ’d,Shall secretly into the bosom creepOf that same noble prelate well beloved,The Archbishop.
Hotspur
Of York, is it not?
Worcester
True, who bears hardHis brother’s death at Bristol, the Lord Scroop.I speak not this in estimation,As what I think might be, but what I knowIs ruminated, plotted, and set down,And only stays but to behold the faceOf that occasion that shall bring it on.
Hotspur
I smell it. Upon my life it will do well.
Northumberland
Before the game is afoot thou still let’st slip.
Hotspur
Why, it cannot choose but be a noble plot;And then the power of Scotland and of YorkTo join with Mortimer, ha?
Worcester
And so they shall.
Hotspur
In faith, it is exceedingly well aim’d.
Worcester
And ’tis no little reason bids us speed,To save our heads by raising of a head;For, bear ourselves as even as we can,The King will always think him in our debt,And think we think ourselves unsatisfied,Till he hath found a time to pay us home:And see already how he doth beginTo make us strangers to his looks of love.
Hotspur
He does, he does, we’ll be revenged on him.
Worcester
Cousin, farewell. No further go in thisThan I by letters shall direct your course.When time is ripe, which will be suddenly,I’ll steal to Glendower and Lord Mortimer,Where you and Douglas, and our powers at once,As I will fashion it, shall happily meet,To bear our fortunes in our own strong arms,Which now we hold at much uncertainty.
Northumberland
Farewell, good brother; we shall thrive, I trust.
Hotspur
Uncle, adieu. O, let the hours be short,Till fields and blows and groans applaud our sport!
Exeunt.