King. Thou dost belie him, Percy, thou dost belie him;
He never did encounter with Glendower:

He durst as well have met the devil alone

As Owen Glendower for an enemy.

Art thou not ashamed? But, sirrah, henceforth
Let me not hear you speak of Mortimer :

Send me your prisoners with the speediest means,
you shall hear in such a kind from me
As will displease you. My Lord Northumberland,
We license your departure with your son.
Send us your prisoners, or you will hear of it.

[Exeunt King Henry, Blunt, and train.

Hot. An if the devil come and roar for them,

I will not send them: I will after straight
And tell him so; for I will ease my heart,
Albeit I make a hazard of my head.

North. What, drunk with choler? stay and pause a while:
Here comes your uncle.

Re-enter WORCESTER.

124. you will] you 'l Ff.

115. I tell thee] A separate line Steevens (1793); begins line 116 Qq, Ff. 122. you] ye Ff. 124. Exeunt Exit King Qq, Ff. 125. An if] Capell; And if Qq, Ff. make a] Qq; Although it be with Ff. 129. a while] awhile Ff 1-3. enter Worcester] Capell; Enter Wor. (or Worcester) Qq 1-4, Ff; omitted the

'Zounds, I will speak of him; and let my soul

Want 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 Mortimer

As high in the air as this unthankful king,
As this ingrate and canker'd Bolingbroke.

North. Brother, the king hath made your nephew mad.

Wor. Who struck this heat up after I was gone?
Hot. He will, forsooth, have all my prisoners;
And when I urged the ransom once again
Of 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.

Wor. I cannot blame him: was not he proclaim'd
By Richard that dead is the next of blood?

North. He was; I heard the proclamation:

135

[To Wor.

And then it was when the unhappy king,-
Whose wrongs in us God pardon !-did set forth

131. 'Zounds] Yes Ff.

134. in the] Qq 1-4; i'th Qq 5-8, Ff 1-3; i' th' F 4.
downfall Ff 1-3; downfaln F 4.
or i'th' Ff.

140

145

133. Yea, on his part] Qq; In his behalfe Ff. 135. down-trod] Qq; 136. in the] Qq 1-4; in'th Qq 5-8; i'th 137. Bolingbroke] Bullingbrooke (or Bullenbrooke) throughout 138. To Wor.] Rowe.

in Qq; Bullingbrooke throughout in Ff. not he] he not Ff.

135. down-trod] The downfall of F is seemingly a misprint for downfaln (F 4).

137. canker'd] malignant, ill-natured, as in King John, 11. i. 194. Marston, The Fawne, iv: "The baseness of a cankerd churle."

143. an eye of death] Johnson explains an eye of death as an eye menacing death," and observes that the King seems to be described as trembling with rage rather than fear. This interpretation receives support from a passage in Lust's Dominion, v. v: "Zar. What would you have me do? Isa. To kill this Moor. Zar. I'll cast an eye of death upon my face; I'll be no more his slave. And, by yon setting sun, this hand and this Shall rid you of a tyrant." Cf. Marlowe, Tamburlaine, Part II. III. v: "See'st thou not death within my wrathful looks?"; Greene, Defence of Conny-Catching (Grosart, xi. 92) "Marian looking with looks full of

145.

death, made him this answer and Coriolanus, 111. iii. 70. Wright explains as "an eye of deadly fear," and Elton as an eye "fixed and glazed, like a corpse's."

145. proclaim'd] See Introd. p. xxxvii. 146. dead is] Many instances of this inversion might be cited from sixteenth century writers. See, e.g., Roy and Barlowe, Rede me, etc., 1528 (Arber, p. 37): "was it for age that he deade is?" and John Fisher, Mourning for the Countess of Richmond: "mother of the King that dead is, whose soul God pardon."

149. Whose. us] i.e. the wrongs done to us by Richard. Cf. Richard II. II. i. 238, 239, and Winter's Tale, v. i. 8 : "Whilst I remember Her and her virtues, I cannot forget My blemishes in them." New Eng. Dict. quotes from Wyclif: "To oure dettouris pat is to men bat han synned in vs." Wright explains "in us of us, caused by us.'

99 as "in consequence For the subjec

From whence he intercepted did return

To be deposed and shortly murdered.

Wor. And for whose death we in the world's wide mouth
Live scandalized and foully spoken of.

Hot. But, soft, I pray you; did King Richard then
Proclaim my brother Edmund Mortimer

North.
He did; myself did hear it.
Hot. 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
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,

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
Did gage them both in an unjust behalf,

152. murdered] murthered Ff. 159. starve] staru'd Ff. murtherous Qq, Ff. 163. subornation,] subornation,- Capell; subornation? Qq, F. 166. rather?] rather, Q 1; rather: Q 2. 167. me] Qq 1-4; if

156. Edmund] Q I; omitted the rest. 162. wear] wore Ff. 163. murderous] Rowe;

Wor.

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 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,
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,—

Peace, cousin, say no more:
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
On the unsteadfast footing of a spear.

Hot. If he fall in, good night! or sink or swim:

175

180

185

190

190. you] your Qq 5-7.

189. quick189. discontents] 193. un

185. to you] unto you Ff. 186. payment] payments Ff 2-4. conceiving] hyphened by Theobald; quick conveying Ff 3, 4. discontent S. Walker conj., Hudson. steadfast] unsteadfull Qq 7, 8.

shows that "behalf" (originally a pre-
positional phrase be healfe) came to be
"treated, so far as construction goes, as
a substantive, and had even a plural
behalfes, behalfs in 16-17th c.' Here
it is practically equivalent to "cause,"
"interest." Cf. King John, 1. i. 7.
175. sweet
rose] An echo of
Kyd's Spanish Tragedy, II. V:
"Sweete louely Rose, ill pluckt before
thy time."

176. canker] wild rose, as in Much Ado About Nothing, 1. iii. 28. Beaumont and Fletcher, The Maid in the Mill, v. ii: "Whether she be a white rose, or a canker, is the question"; and Middleton and Rowley, A Fair Quarrel, III. ii.

183. disdain'd] disdainful. Schmidt gives many examples of adjectives in -ed derived from substantives. Cf., e.g., “guiled" in Merchant of Venice, III. ii. 97; and "distressed" (Q 1) for

which F reads "distressful" in Othello, 1. iii. 157.

185. answer] discharge. For the play on "debt" and "deaths see note to v. i. 126 post.

192, 193. As spear] Rolfe compares 2 Henry IV. 1. i. 170. Douce refers to a representation on an ivory cabinet (engraved in Carter's Specimens of Ancient Sculpture and Engraving, i. 45) of a knight in armour crossing a narrow stream by making a bridge of his sword.

194. good night !] there's an end!— an exclamation of resignation or despair. See Tyndale, An Answere unto Sir Thomas More's Dialoge: "Mr. More concludeth . . . that whatsoever the church say, it is God's word, though it be not written yet all is right, and none error. And thus good night and good rest"; and Shelton, Don Quixote, Part II. xxxiii: "when we

195

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
To rouse a lion than to start a hare!

North. Imagination of some great exploit

Drives him beyond the bounds of patience.
Hot. By heaven, methinks it were an easy leap,

To 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;

197. O,] omitted Qq 5-8, Ff.

201. Hot.] omitted Qq 1-4.

200

205

204.

fathom-line] Theobald (ed. 2); fadome line Qq 1-4; fadome-line (fadom-line F

4) the rest.

come to the pit, all are even, or made so in spite of their teethes and, and good-night."

194. or sink or swim] A proverbial expression of which examples are numerous from Chaucer downward. Cf., e.g., Peele, Edward I. iii: "Then live or die, brave Ned, or sink or swim."

198. To rouse . . . hare!]"Rouse" and "start" were technical terms of the chase, the former being applied to the buck and other big game, the latter to the hare. So in The Noble Arte of Venerie, 1575: "We... unherbor a harte, we.. .rowse a Bucke; we... start a Hare; we bolt a conie ; unkennell a Fox"; Lyly, Midas, Iv. iii: "thou shouldest say, start a hare, rowse the deere"; and Harsnet's Declaration of Popish Impostures, 1603 (p. 82).

we

...

201. Hot.] In Qq 1-4 Hot. is omitted and lines 201-208 continue Northumberland's speech.

201-207. By dignities] Warburton compares the vaunt of Eteocles in the Phænissa of Euripides (lines 504-6): ἄστρων ἂν ἔλθοιμ ̓ ἡλίου πρὸς ἀντολὰς καὶ γῆς ἔνερθε, δυνατὸς ὢν δρᾶσαι τάδε, τὴν θεῶν μεγίστην ὥστ ̓ ἔχειν Tupavvida. "I would scale the high heaven to the risings of the stars and of the sun, I would dive beneath the earth, might I thereby win sovereigntyheaven's greatest boon." In Beaumont and Fletcher, The Knight of the Burning Pestle, Induction, Ralph, being asked to speak" a huffing part," recites Hotspur's lines slightly altered:

"Bacon

thou knowest that I have dived into hell, And sought the darkest pallaces of fiendes ";

and Marlowe, Tamburlaine, Part I. IV. iv: "Ye Furies. . . Dive to the bottom of Avernus' pool, And in your hands bring hellish poison up." Hotspur's speech is in the strain of extravagant rhetoric introduced by Senecan tragedy and popularised by Marlowe and other of Shakespeare's predecessors. Munro, Journal of Philology, vi. 77, cites a parallel from Seneca's Thyestes, 289292.

202. pale-faced moon] From Kyd's Spanish Tragedy, III. xii A: "And yonder pale faced Moone." So also in Massinger, The Virgin Martyr, II. ii.

...