ACT I SCENE I

King Henry IV, Part II

	INDUCTION
	[Warkworth. Before the castle.]
	[Enter RUMOUR, painted full of tongues.]
RUMOUR	Open your ears; for which of you will stop
	The vent of hearing when loud Rumour speaks?
	I, from the orient to the drooping west,
	Making the wind my post-horse, still unfold
	The acts commenced on this ball of earth:
	Upon my tongues continual slanders ride,
	The which in every language I pronounce,
	Stuffing the ears of men with false reports.
	I speak of peace, while covert enmity
	Under the smile of safety wounds the world:	10
	And who but Rumour, who but only I,
	Make fearful musters and prepared defence,
	Whiles the big year, swoln with some other grief,
	Is thought with child by the stern tyrant war,
	And no such matter? Rumour is a pipe
	Blown by surmises, jealousies, conjectures
	And of so easy and so plain a stop
	That the blunt monster with uncounted heads,
	The still-discordant wavering multitude,
	Can play upon it. But what need I thus	20
	My well-known body to anatomize
	Among my household? Why is Rumour here?
	I run before King Harry’s victory;
	Who in a bloody field by Shrewsbury
	Hath beaten down young Hotspur and his troops,
	Quenching the flame of bold rebellion
	Even with the rebels’ blood. But what mean I
	To speak so true at first? my office is
	To noise abroad that Harry Monmouth fell
	Under the wrath of noble Hotspur’s sword,	30
	And that the king before the Douglas’ rage
	Stoop’d his anointed head as low as death.
	This have I rumour’d through the peasant towns
	Between that royal field of Shrewsbury
	And this worm-eaten hold of ragged stone,
	Where Hotspur’s father, old Northumberland,
	Lies crafty-sick: the posts come tiring on,
	And not a man of them brings other news
	Than they have learn’d of me: from Rumour’s tongues
	They bring smooth comforts false, worse than
	true wrongs.	40
	Exit
ACT I SCENE I	The same.
[Enter LORD BARDOLPH]
LORD BARDOLPH	Who keeps the gate here, ho?
[The Porter opens the gate]
	Where is the earl?
Porter	What shall I say you are?
LORD BARDOLPH	Tell thou the earl
	That the Lord Bardolph doth attend him here.
Porter	His lordship is walk’d forth into the orchard;
	Please it your honour, knock but at the gate,
	And he himself wilt answer.
[Enter NORTHUMBERLAND]
LORD BARDOLPH	Here comes the earl.
[Exit Porter]
NORTHUMBERLAND	What news, Lord Bardolph? every minute now
	Should be the father of some stratagem:
	The times are wild: contention, like a horse
	Full of high feeding, madly hath broke loose	10
	And bears down all before him.
LORD BARDOLPH	Noble earl,
	I bring you certain news from Shrewsbury.
NORTHUMBERLAND	Good, an God will!
LORD BARDOLPH	As good as heart can wish:
	The king is almost wounded to the death;
	And, in the fortune of my lord your son,
	Prince Harry slain outright; and both the Blunts
	Kill’d by the hand of Douglas; young Prince John
	And Westmoreland and Stafford fled the field;
	And Harry Monmouth’s brawn, the hulk Sir John,
	Is prisoner to your son: O, such a day,	20
	So fought, so follow’d and so fairly won,
	Came not till now to dignify the times,
	Since Caesar’s fortunes!
NORTHUMBERLAND	How is this derived?
	Saw you the field? came you from Shrewsbury?
LORD BARDOLPH	I spake with one, my lord, that came from thence,
	A gentleman well bred and of good name,
	That freely render’d me these news for true.
NORTHUMBERLAND	Here comes my servant Travers, whom I sent
	On Tuesday last to listen after news.
[Enter TRAVERS]
LORD BARDOLPH	My lord, I over-rode him on the way;	30
	And he is furnish’d with no certainties
	More than he haply may retail from me.
NORTHUMBERLAND	Now, Travers, what good tidings comes with you?
TRAVERS	My lord, Sir John Umfrevile turn’d me back
	With joyful tidings; and, being better horsed,
	Out-rode me. After him came spurring hard
	A gentleman, almost forspent with speed,
	That stopp’d by me to breathe his bloodied horse.
	He ask’d the way to Chester; and of him
	I did demand what news from Shrewsbury:	40
	He told me that rebellion had bad luck
	And that young Harry Percy’s spur was cold.
	With that, he gave his able horse the head,
	And bending forward struck his armed heels
	Against the panting sides of his poor jade
	Up to the rowel-head, and starting so
	He seem’d in running to devour the way,
	Staying no longer question.
NORTHUMBERLAND	Ha! Again:
	Said he young Harry Percy’s spur was cold?
	Of Hotspur Coldspur? that rebellion	50
	Had met ill luck?
LORD BARDOLPH	My lord, I’ll tell you what;
	If my young lord your son have not the day,
	Upon mine honour, for a silken point
	I’ll give my barony: never talk of it.
NORTHUMBERLAND	Why should that gentleman that rode by Travers
	Give then such instances of loss?
LORD BARDOLPH	Who, he?
	He was some hilding fellow that had stolen
	The horse he rode on, and, upon my life,
	Spoke at a venture. Look, here comes more news.
[Enter MORTON]
NORTHUMBERLAND	Yea, this man’s brow, like to a title-leaf,	60
	Foretells the nature of a tragic volume:
	So looks the strand whereon the imperious flood
	Hath left a witness’d usurpation.
	Say, Morton, didst thou come from Shrewsbury?
MORTON	I ran from Shrewsbury, my noble lord;
	Where hateful death put on his ugliest mask
	To fright our party.
NORTHUMBERLAND	How doth my son and brother?
	Thou tremblest; and the whiteness in thy cheek
	Is apter than thy tongue to tell thy errand.
	Even such a man, so faint, so spiritless,	70
	So dull, so dead in look, so woe-begone,
	Drew Priam’s curtain in the dead of night,
	And would have told him half his Troy was burnt;
	But Priam found the fire ere he his tongue,
	And I my Percy’s death ere thou report’st it.
	This thou wouldst say, ‘Your son did thus and thus;
	Your brother thus: so fought the noble Douglas:’
	Stopping my greedy ear with their bold deeds:
	But in the end, to stop my ear indeed,
	Thou hast a sigh to blow away this praise,	80
	Ending with ‘Brother, son, and all are dead.’
MORTON	Douglas is living, and your brother, yet;
	But, for my lord your son–
NORTHUMBERLAND	Why, he is dead.
	See what a ready tongue suspicion hath!
	He that but fears the thing he would not know
	Hath by instinct knowledge from others’ eyes
	That what he fear’d is chanced. Yet speak, Morton;
	Tell thou an earl his divination lies,
	And I will take it as a sweet disgrace
	And make thee rich for doing me such wrong.	90
MORTON	You are too great to be by me gainsaid:
	Your spirit is too true, your fears too certain.
NORTHUMBERLAND	Yet, for all this, say not that Percy’s dead.
	I see a strange confession in thine eye:
	Thou shakest thy head and hold’st it fear or sin
	To speak a truth. If he be slain, say so;
	The tongue offends not that reports his death:
	And he doth sin that doth belie the dead,
	Not he which says the dead is not alive.
	Yet the first bringer of unwelcome news	100
	Hath but a losing office, and his tongue
	Sounds ever after as a sullen bell,
	Remember’d knolling a departing friend.
LORD BARDOLPH	I cannot think, my lord, your son is dead.
MORTON	I am sorry I should force you to believe
	That which I would to God I had not seen;
	But these mine eyes saw him in bloody state,
	Rendering faint quittance, wearied and out-breathed,
	To Harry Monmouth; whose swift wrath beat down
	The never-daunted Percy to the earth,	110
	From whence with life he never more sprung up.
	In few, his death, whose spirit lent a fire
	Even to the dullest peasant in his camp,
	Being bruited once, took fire and heat away
	From the best temper’d courage in his troops;
	For from his metal was his party steel’d;
	Which once in him abated, all the rest
	Turn’d on themselves, like dull and heavy lead:
	And as the thing that’s heavy in itself,
	Upon enforcement flies with greatest speed,	120
	So did our men, heavy in Hotspur’s loss,
	Lend to this weight such lightness with their fear
	That arrows fled not swifter toward their aim
	Than did our soldiers, aiming at their safety,
	Fly from the field. Then was the noble Worcester
	Too soon ta’en prisoner; and that furious Scot,
	The bloody Douglas, whose well-labouring sword
	Had three times slain the appearance of the king,
	‘Gan vail his stomach and did grace the shame
	Of those that turn’d their backs, and in his flight,	130
	Stumbling in fear, was took. The sum of all
	Is that the king hath won, and hath sent out
	A speedy power to encounter you, my lord,
	Under the conduct of young Lancaster
	And Westmoreland. This is the news at full.
NORTHUMBERLAND	For this I shall have time enough to mourn.
	In poison there is physic; and these news,
	Having been well, that would have made me sick,
	Being sick, have in some measure made me well:
	And as the wretch, whose fever-weaken’d joints,	140
	Like strengthless hinges, buckle under life,
	Impatient of his fit, breaks like a fire
	Out of his keeper’s arms, even so my limbs,
	Weaken’d with grief, being now enraged with grief,
	Are thrice themselves. Hence, therefore, thou nice crutch!
	A scaly gauntlet now with joints of steel
	Must glove this hand: and hence, thou sickly quoif!
	Thou art a guard too wanton for the head
	Which princes, flesh’d with conquest, aim to hit.
	Now bind my brows with iron; and approach	150
	The ragged’st hour that time and spite dare bring
	To frown upon the enraged Northumberland!
	Let heaven kiss earth! now let not Nature’s hand
	Keep the wild flood confined! let order die!
	And let this world no longer be a stage
	To feed contention in a lingering act;
	But let one spirit of the first-born Cain
	Reign in all bosoms, that, each heart being set
	On bloody courses, the rude scene may end,
	And darkness be the burier of the dead!	160
TRAVERS	This strained passion doth you wrong, my lord.
LORD BARDOLPH	Sweet earl, divorce not wisdom from your honour.
MORTON	The lives of all your loving complices
	Lean on your health; the which, if you give o’er
	To stormy passion, must perforce decay.
	You cast the event of war, my noble lord,
	And summ’d the account of chance, before you said
	‘Let us make head.’ It was your presurmise,
	That, in the dole of blows, your son might drop:
	You knew he walk’d o’er perils, on an edge,	170
	More likely to fall in than to get o’er;
	You were advised his flesh was capable
	Of wounds and scars and that his forward spirit
	Would lift him where most trade of danger ranged:
	Yet did you say ‘Go forth;’ and none of this,
	Though strongly apprehended, could restrain
	The stiff-borne action: what hath then befallen,
	Or what hath this bold enterprise brought forth,
	More than that being which was like to be?
LORD BARDOLPH	We all that are engaged to this loss	180
	Knew that we ventured on such dangerous seas
	That if we wrought our life ’twas ten to one;
	And yet we ventured, for the gain proposed
	Choked the respect of likely peril fear’d;
	And since we are o’erset, venture again.
	Come, we will all put forth, body and goods.
MORTON	‘Tis more than time: and, my most noble lord,
	I hear for certain, and do speak the truth,
	The gentle Archbishop of York is up
	With well-appointed powers: he is a man	190
	Who with a double surety binds his followers.
	My lord your son had only but the corpse,
	But shadows and the shows of men, to fight;
	For that same word, rebellion, did divide
	The action of their bodies from their souls;
	And they did fight with queasiness, constrain’d,
	As men drink potions, that their weapons only
	Seem’d on our side; but, for their spirits and souls,
	This word, rebellion, it had froze them up,
	As fish are in a pond. But now the bishop	200
	Turns insurrection to religion:
	Supposed sincere and holy in his thoughts,
	He’s followed both with body and with mind;
	And doth enlarge his rising with the blood
	Of fair King Richard, scraped from Pomfret stones;
	Derives from heaven his quarrel and his cause;
	Tells them he doth bestride a bleeding land,
	Gasping for life under great Bolingbroke;
	And more and less do flock to follow him.
NORTHUMBERLAND	I knew of this before; but, to speak truth,	210
	This present grief had wiped it from my mind.
	Go in with me; and counsel every man
	The aptest way for safety and revenge:
	Get posts and letters, and make friends with speed:
	Never so few, and never yet more need.
[Exeunt]

Continue to 2 Henry IV, Act 1, Scene 2