Under the wrath of noble Hotspur’s sword,
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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,
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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 learnt of me. From Rumour’s tongues
They bring smooth comforts false, worse than true wrongs. Exit.
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1.1 Enter LORD BARDOLPH.
LORD BARDOLPH Who keeps the gate here, ho?
Enter the Porter.
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,
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And he himself will 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,
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And bears down all before him.
LORD BARDOLPH Noble Earl,
I bring you certain news from Shrewsbury.
NORTHUMBERLAND Good, and 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,
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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,
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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 deriv’d?
Saw you the field? Came you from Shrewsbury?
LORD BARDOLPH
I spake with one, my lord, that came from thence,
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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,
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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 hors’d,
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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.
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He told me that rebellion had ill 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
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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
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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
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Give then such instances of loss?
LORD BARDOLPH Who, he?
He was some hilding fellow that had stol’n
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,
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Foretells the nature of a tragic volume.
So looks the strond 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,
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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,
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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.
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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,
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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
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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.
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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 shak’st thy head, and hold’st it fear or sin
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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
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Hath but a losing office, and his tongue
Sounds ever after as a sullen bell,
Remember’d tolling a departing friend.
LORD BARDOLPH
I cannot think, my lord, your son is dead.
MORTON I am sorry I should force you to believe
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That which I would to God I had not seen;
But these mine eyes saw him in bloody state,
Rend’ring faint quitta
nce, wearied, and out-breath’d,
To Harry Monmouth, whose swift wrath beat down
The never-daunted Percy to the earth,
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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:
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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,
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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 that noble Worcester
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Too soon ta’en prisoner, and that furious Scot,
The bloody Douglas, whose well-labouring sword
Had three times slain th’appearance of the King,
Gan vail his stomach, and did grace the shame
Of those that turn’d their backs, and in his flight,
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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.
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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,
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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 enrag’d with grief,
Are thrice themselves. Hence, therefore, thou nice crutch!
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A scaly gauntlet now with joints of steel
Must glove this hand: and hence, thou sickly coif!
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
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The ragged’st hour that time and spite dare bring
To frown upon th’enrag’d Northumberland!
Let heaven kiss earth! Now let not Nature’s hand
Keep the wild flood confin’d! Let order die!
And let this world no longer be a stage
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To feed contention in a ling’ring 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!
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LORD BARDOLPH
This strained passion doth you wrong, my lord.
MORTON
Sweet earl, divorce not wisdom from your honour;
The lives of all your loving complices
Lean on your health; the which, if you give o’er
To stormy passion, must perforce decay.
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You cast th’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,
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More likely to fall in than to get o’er.
You were advis’d his flesh was capable
Of wounds and scars, and that his forward spirit
Would lift him where most trade of danger rang’d.
Yet did you say ‘Go forth’; and none of this,
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Though strongly apprehended, could restrain
The stiff-borne action. What hath then befall’n,
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
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Knew that we ventur’d on such dangerous seas
That if we wrought out life ’twas ten to one;
And yet we ventur’d for the gain propos’d,
Chok’d the respect of likely peril fear’d,
And since we are o’erset, venture again.
The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 168
