The Complete Works of William Shakespeare

SIR MICHAEL, a friend to the Archbishop of York.
POINS.

GADSHILL.

PETO.

BARDOLPH.

LADY PERCY, wife to Hotspur, and sister to Mortimer.
LADY MORTIMER, daughter to Glendower, and wife to Mortimer.
MISTRESS QUICKLY, hostess of a tavern in Eastcheap.

Lords, Officers, Sheriff, Vintner, Chamberlain, Drawers, two Carriers, Travellers, and Attendants.

SCENE: England and Wales

1 This piece was first printed in 1598 in a quarto volume which was reprinted five times-in 1599, 1604, 1608, 1613, and 1622- before it was included in the First Folio of 1623. The First Folio follows a corrected copy of the Fifth Quarto (of 1613). Acts and scenes are given in the First Folio, but in none of the Quartos. Rowe first supplied a list of the "dramatis persona" and the "Scene."

Enter KING HENRY, LORD JOHN of LANCASTER, the EARL of WESTMORELAND, SIR WALTER BLUNT, and others

KING

O SHAKEN AS WE ARE, so wan with care,

Find we a time for frighted peace to pant,

And breathe short-winded accents of new broils

To be commenced in stronds afar remote.

No more the thirsty entrance of this soil

Shall daub her lips with her own children's blood;

No more shall trenching war channel her fields,

Nor bruise her flowerets with the armed hoofs

Of hostile paces: those opposed eyes,

2-4 Find we . . remote] Let us allow (domestic) peace, scared by our civil strifes, time to recover breath, and speak in quick and broken

really

Which, like the meteors of a troubled heaven,
All of one nature, of one substance bred,
Did lately meet in the intestine shock
And furious close of civil butchery,

Shall now, in mutual well-beseeming ranks,
March all one way, and be no more opposed
Against acquaintance, kindred and allies:
The edge of war, like an ill-sheathed knife,
No more shall cut his master. Therefore, friends,

As far as to the sepulchre of Christ,
Whose soldier now, under whose blessed cross
We are impressed and engaged to fight,
Forthwith a power of English shall we levy;
Whose arms were moulded in their mothers' womb
To chase these pagans in those holy fields
Over whose acres walk'd those blessed feet,
Which fourteen hundred years ago were nail'd

accents of new wars, to be undertaken abroad. The speaker takes
up, without chronological interruption, his words at the close of the
preceding play of Richard II, where he had promised to lead a
crusade to the Holy Land.

4 stronds] strands, shores. The word is similarly spelt by the First Folio in 2 Hen. IV, I, i, 62.

...

5-6 the thirsty entrance blood] "Entrance" here is used in the sense of "mouth." The figure is drawn from the Bible— Genesis, iv, 11 where Cain is warned that "the earth . . . hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother's blood."

9 those opposed eyes] the eyes of hostile factions or forces; used of the forces

themselves.

13 close] hand-to-hand grapple.

14 mutual well-beseeming] united (by common sentiment) and fitly

equipped.

For our advantage on the bitter cross.
But this our purpose now is twelve month old,
And bootless 't is to tell you we will go:
Therefore we meet not now. Then let me hear
Of you, my gentle cousin Westmoreland,
What yesternight our council did decree
In forwarding this dear expedience.

WEST. My liege, this haste was hot in question,
And many limits of the charge set down
But yesternight: when all athwart there came
A post from Wales loaden with heavy news;
Whose worst was, that the noble Mortimer,

30 Therefore we meet not now] This is not the object of our present meeting. 33 this dear expedience] this important expedition or enterprise.

34 hot in question] hotly or vehemently discussed.

35 limits of the charge] definite arrangements of the undertaking.

38 the noble Mortimer] Mortimer, the Herefordshire magnate, who was defeated and taken prisoner by Glendower, 22 June, 1402, and then married his captor's daughter, was Sir Edmund Mortimer, a brother of Roger Mortimer, fourth Earl of March, and of Lady Percy, Hotspur's wife. Holinshed confuses this warrior with his nephew, Edmund Mortimer, fifth Earl of March, who claimed to be rightful heir to Richard II's throne. Shakespeare greatly complicates Holinshed's error. Shakespeare at times identifies Glendower's prisoner and son-in-law with his elder brother, the fourth Earl of March, who was proclaimed heir to the crown by Richard II early in his reign but predeceased that king, leaving his claim to his son, Sir Edmund Mortimer's nephew, the fifth Earl. Cf. I, iii, 145, seq., and IV, iii, 93, infra. Elsewhere Shakespeare, not content with making Glendower's captive brother of Hotspur's wife (I, iii, 80, 142, and II, iii, 78), which is correct, describes him in another place as Lady Hotspur's nephew (III, i, 196).

Leading the men of Herefordshire to fight
Against the irregular and wild Glendower,

Was by the rude hands of that Welshman taken,
A thousand of his people butchered;

Upon whose dead corpse there was such misuse,

Such beastly shameless transformation,

By those Welshwomen done, as may not be
Without much shame retold or spoken of.

KING. It seems then that the tidings of this broil
Brake off our business for the Holy Land.

WEST. This match'd with other did, my gracious lord ; For more uneven and unwelcome news

Came from the north and thus it did import:
On Holy-rood day, the gallant Hotspur there,
Young Harry Percy, and brave Archibald,
That ever-valiant and approved Scot,

At Holmedon met,

Where they did spend a sad and bloody hour;
As by discharge of their artillery,

And shape of likelihood, the news was told;
For he that brought them, in the very heat

43 corpse] used for the plural" corpses." Cf. Macb., V, i, 24, where the Folios read: "Ay but their sense are shut.”

50 more uneven] rougher, more troublesome.

52 Holy-rood day] September 14.

53 brave Archibald] Archibald Douglas, the fourth Earl of Douglas. 56 their artillery] Holinshed makes it plain that only arrows ("the incessant shot of arrows") were used in the battle.

57-58 the news was . . . brought them] Shakespeare used news indifferently as a singular and a plural word. Here it in the first line governs the verb in the singular and in the second line is mentioned as them.

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The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Volume 12