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