I will not send them: I will after straight
And tell him so, for I will ease my heart,
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Albeit I make a hazard of my head.
NORTHUMBERLAND
What, drunk with choler? Stay, and pause awhile,
Here comes your uncle.
Re-enter WORCESTER.
HOTSPUR Speak of Mortimer?
‘Zounds, I will speak of him, and let my soul
Want mercy if I do not join with him:
130
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 Mortimer
As high in the air as this unthankful King,
As this ingrate and canker’d Bolingbroke.
135
NORTHUMBERLAND
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 urg’d the ransom once again
Of my wife’s brother, then his cheek look’d pale,
140
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’d,
By Richard that dead is, the next of blood?
NORTHUMBERLAND He was, I heard the proclamation:
145
And then it was, when the unhappy King
(Whose wrongs in us God pardon!) did set forth
Upon his Irish expedition;
From whence he, intercepted, did return
To be depos’d, and shortly murdered.
150
WORCESTER
And for whose death we in the world’s wide mouth
Live scandaliz’d and foully spoken of.
HOTSPUR But soft, I pray you, did King Richard then
Proclaim my brother Edmund Mortimer
Heir to the crown?
NORTHUMBERLAND He did, myself did hear it.
155
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 crown
Upon the head of this forgetful man,
And for his sake wear the detested blot
160
Of 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,
165
To show the line and the predicament
Wherein 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 power
170
Did 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,
175
That you are fool’d, discarded, and shook off
By him for whom these shames ye underwent?
No, yet time serves wherein you may redeem
Your banish’d honours, and restore yourselves
Into the good thoughts of the world again:
180
Revenge the jeering and disdain’d contempt
Of this proud King, who studies day and night
To answer all the debt he owes to you,
Even with the bloody payment of your deaths:
Therefore, I say –
WORCESTER Peace, cousin, say no more.
185
And now I will unclasp a secret book,
And to your quick-conceiving discontents
I’ll read you matter deep and dangerous,
As full of peril and adventurous spirit
As to o’er-walk a current roaring loud
190
On the unsteadfast footing of a spear.
HOTSPUR If he 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 stirs
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To rouse a lion than to start a hare!
NORTHUMBERLAND Imagination of some great exploit
Drives him beyond the bounds of patience.
HOTSPUR By heaven, methinks it were an easy leap
To pluck bright honour from the pale-fac’d moon,
200
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 wear
Without corrival all her dignities:
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But out upon this half-fac’d 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 Scots
210
That 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:
215
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!’
220
Nay, I’ll have a starling shall be taught to speak
Nothing 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,
225
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!
230
WORCESTER Farewell, kinsman: I’ll talk to you
When you are better temper’d to attend.
NORTHUMBERLAND
Why, what a wasp-stung and impatient fool
Art thou to break into this woman’s mood,
Tying thine ear to no tongue but thine own!
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HOTSPUR
Why, look you, I am whipp’d and scourg’d with rods,
Nettled, and stung with pismires, when I hear
Of this vile politician Bolingbroke.
In Richard’s time – what do you call the place?
A plague upon it, it is in Gloucestershire –
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’Twas where the mad-cap Duke his uncle kept,
His uncle York – where I first bow’d my knee
Unto this king of smiles, this Bolingbroke,
‘Sblood, when you and he came back from Ravenspurgh.
NORTHUMBERLAND At Berkeley castle.
245
HOTSPUR You say true.
Why, what a candy deal of courtesy
This fawning greyhound then did proffer me!
‘Look when his infant fortune came to age’,
And ‘gentle Harry Percy’, and ‘kind cousin’:
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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;
255
Deliver them up without their ransom straight,
And make the Douglas’ son your only mean
For powers in Scotland, which, for divers reasons
Which I shall send you written, be assur’d
Will easily be granted. –
[to Northumberland] You, my lord,
260
Your son in Scotland being thus employ’d,
Shall secretly into the bosom creep
Of that same noble prelate well-belov’d,
The Archbishop.
HOTSPUR Of York, is it not?
WORCESTER True, who bears hard
His brother’s death at Bristow, the Lord Scroop.
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I speak not this in estimation,
As what I think might be, but what I know
Is ruminated, plotted, and set down,
And only stays but to behold the face
Of that occasion that shall bring it on.
270
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 York,
To join with Mortimer, ha?
WORCESTER And so they shall.
275
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,
280
And think we think ourselves unsatisfy’d,
Till he hath found a time to pay us home:
And see already how he doth begin
To make us strangers to his looks of love.
HOTSPUR He does, he does, we’ll be reveng’d on him.
285
WORCESTER Cousin, farewell. No further go in this
Than 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,
290
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,
295
Till fields, and blows, and groans applaud our sport!
Exeunt.
2.1 Enter a Carrier, with a lantern in his hand.
1 CARRIER Heigh-ho! An it be not four by the day I’ll be
hanged; Charles’ wain is over the new chimney, and
yet our horse not packed. What, ostler!
OSTLER [within] Anon, anon.
1 CARRIER I prithee, Tom, beat Cut’s saddle, put a few
5
flocks in the point; poor jade is wrung in the withers
out of all cess.
Enter another Carrier.
2 CARRIER Peas and beans are as dank here as a dog, and
that is the next way to give poor jades the bots: this
house is turned upside down since Robin Ostler died.
10
1 CARRIER Poor fellow never joyed since the price of oats
rose, it was the death of him.
2 CARRIER I think this be the most villainous house in all
London road for fleas, I am stung like a tench.
1 CARRIER Like a tench! By the mass, there is ne’er a
15
king christen could be better bit than I have been since
the first cock.
2 CARRIER Why, they will allow us ne’er a jordan, and
then we leak in your chimney, and your chamber-lye
breeds fleas like a loach.
20
1 CARRIER What, ostler! Come away, and be hanged,
come away!
2 CARRIER I have a gammon of bacon, and two razes of
ginger, to be delivered as far as Charing Cross.
1 CARRIER God’s body! The turkeys in my pannier are
25
quite starved. What, ostler! A plague on thee, hast
thou never an eye in thy head? canst not hear? And
’twere not as good deed as drink to break the pate on
The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 155
