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SECOND PART OF

KING HENRY IV.

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Warkworth.

INDUCTION.

Before Northumberland's Castle.

Enter RUMOUR, painted full of Tongues. Rum. 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 commeuced 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:
And who but Rumour, who but only I,
Make fearful musters, and prepar'd defence;
Whilst the big year, swol'n 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 stili discordant wavering multitude,

Can play upon it.

But what need I thus 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 rebel's 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; 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

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Here comes the earl. news, lord Bardolph? every minute

Should be the father of some stratagem:
The times are wild; contention, like a horse
Full of high feeding, madly hath broke loose,
And bears down all before him.

L. Bard.

Noble earl, I bring you certain news from Shrewsbury. North. Good, an heaven will!

L. Bard. 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, So fought, so follow'd, and so fairly won, Came not till now, to dignify the times, Since Cæsar's fortunes!

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North. Now, Travers, what good tidings come with you?

Tra. My lord, sir John Umfrevile turn'd me back With joyful tidings; and, being better hors'd, 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. 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,

Important or dreadful event.

North.

Ha! Again. Said he, young Harry Percy's spur was cold? Of Hotspur, coidspur? that rebellion Had met ill luck!

L. Bard.

My lord, I'll tell you what;
If my young lord your son have not the day,
Upon mine honour, for a silken point 2
I'll give my barony: never talk of it.

North. Why should the gentleman, that rode by
Travers,

Give then such instances of loss?

L. Bard.

He was some hilding The horse he rode on;

Spoke at a venture.

Who, he? fellow, that had stol'n

and, upon my life, Look, here comes more news.

Enter MORTON.

North. Yea, this man's brow, like to a title-leaf, Foretells the nature of a tragick volume:

So looks the strond, whereon the imperious flood
Hath left a witness'd usurpation.

Say, Morton, didst thou come from Shrewsbury?
Mor. I ran from Shrewsbury, my noble lord;
Where hateful death put on his ugliest mask,
To fright our party.

North.

How doth my son, and brother?
Thou tremblest; and the whiteness in thy cheek
Is apter than thy tongue to tell thy errand.
So dull, so dead in look, so woe-begone,
Even such a man, so faint, so spiritless,

Drew Priam's curtain in the dead of night,
And would have told him, half his Troy was burn'd:
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;

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Your brother, thus; so fought the noble Douglas;
Stopping my greedy ear with their bold deeds:
But in the end, to stop mine ear indeed,
Thou hast a sigh to blow away this praise,
Ending with brother, son, and all are dead.
Mor. Douglas is living, and your brother, yet :
But, for my lord, your son,

North.

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 thy earl, his divination lies; And I will take it as a sweet disgrace, And make thee rich for doing me such wrong.

Mor. You are too great to be by me gainsaid: Your spirit is too true, your fears too certain. North. 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, 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 Hath but a losing office; and his tongue

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Sounds ever after as a sullen bell,
Remember'd knolling a departing friend.

L.. Bard. I cannot think, my lord, your son is dead.
Mor. I am sorry, I should force you to believe
That which I would to heaven I had not seen :
But these mine eyes saw him in bloody state,
Rend'ring faint quittance 4, wearied and outbreath'd,
To Harry Monmouth: whose swift wrath beat down
The never daunted Percy to the earth,
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 5 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 greater speed;
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
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,
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.
North. For this I shall have time enough to mourn.
In poison there is physick; 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,
Like strengthless hinges, buckle under life,
Impatient of his fit, breaks like a fire

Out of his keepers' arms; even so my limbs,
Weaken'd with grief, being now enrag'd with grief,
Are thrice themselves: hence, therefore, thou nice7
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
The ragged'st hour that time and spite dare bring,
To frown upon the 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,
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!

Tra. This strained passion doth you wrong, my

lord.

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And summ'd the account of chance, before you said,

Let us make head. It was your presurmise,
That in the dole 9 of blows your son might drep:
You knew, he walk'd o'er perils, on an edge,
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 spirits
Would lift him where most trade of danger rang'd;
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 enterprize brought forth,
More than that being which was like to be?

L. Bard. We all, that are engaged to this loss,
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.
Come, we will all put forth; body, and goods.
Mor. '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,
Who with a double surety binds his followers.
My lord your son had only but the corps,
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 hath froze them up,
As fish are in a pond; But now the bishop
Turns insurrection to religion:

Suppos'd sincere and holy in his thoughts,
He's follow'd both with body and with mind;
And doth enlarge his rising with the blood
Of fair king Richard, scrap'd 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 2, and less, do flock to follow him.

North, I knew of this before; but, to speak truth,
This present grief had wip'd 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.

A Street.

SCENE II. — London. Enter Sir JOHN FALSTAFF, with his Page bearing his Sword and Buckler.

Fal. The brain of this foolish-compounded clay, man, is not able to invent any thing that tends to laughter, more than I invent, or is invented on me; I am not only witty in myself, but the cause that wit is in other men. I do here walk before thee, that hath overwhelmed all her litter but If the prince put thee into my service for any other reason than to set me off, why then I have no judgment. I was never manned with an agate3 till now but I will set you neither in gold nor silver, but in vile apparel, and send you back again to

like a sow, one.

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