Page images
PDF
EPUB
[blocks in formation]

LORD BARDOLPH,

SIR JOHN COLEVILE,

TRAVERS and MORTON, Retainers of Northum- Lords and Attendants; Officers, Soldiers, Mesberland.

INDUCTION.

senger, Drawers, Beadles, Grooms, &c.

SCENE.-England.

Warkworth. Before NORTHUMBERLAND's Castle. Enter RUMOUR, painted full of tongues Rum. Open your ears; for which of you will stop

4

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 commenced 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, swoln with some other grief,
Is thought with child by the stern tyrant war,
And no such matter? Rumour is a pipe

[blocks in formation]

8 Even with the rebels' 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

12

32

[blocks in formation]

Here comes the earl. [Exit Porter. North. 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
And bears down all before him.

L. Bard.
Noble earl,
I bring you certain news from Shrewsbury.

North. Good, an God will!

8

12

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 16

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.

20

[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]

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 36
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. 40
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 44
Against the panting sides of his poor jade
Up to the rowel-head, and, starting so,
He seem'd in running to devour the way,
Staying no longer question.

North.

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

[blocks in formation]

48

If my young lord your son have not the day, 52 Upon mine honour, for a silken point

I'll give my barony: never talk of it.

North. Why should the gentleman that rode by Travers

Give then such instances of loss?

[blocks in formation]

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?
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?

[blocks in formation]

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;
76

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, 80
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! 84
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:

88

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. 92
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; 96
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
Sounds ever after as a sullen bell,

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, 120
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, 124
Fly from the field. Then was that noble Wor-
cester

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,

128

[blocks in formation]

Are thrice themselves. Hence, therefore, thou nice crutch!

A scaly gauntlet now, with joints of steel 100 Must glove this hand: and hence, thou sickly quoif!

Remember'd knolling a departing friend. L. Bard. I cannot think, my lord, your son is dead. 104

Mor. I am sorry I should force you to believe That which I would to God I had not seen; But these mine eyes saw him in bloody state, Rendering faint quittance, wearied and outbreath'd, 108

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 112
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;
For from his metal was his party steel'd;

116

[blocks in formation]

165

Mor. The lives of all your loving complices
Lean on your health; the which, if you give o'er
To stormy passion must perforce decay.
You cast the event of war, my noble lord,
And summ'd the account of chance, before you
said,

'Let us make head.' It was your presurmise 168
That in the dole of blows your son might drop:
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
172
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,
Though strongly apprehended, could restrain 176
The stiff-borne action: what hath then befallen,
Or what hath this bold enterprise brought forth,
More than that being which was like to be?

184

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,

[blocks in formation]

Enter SIR JOHN FALSTAFF, with his Page bearing his sword and buckler.

Fal. Sirrah, you giant, what says the doctor to my water?

Page. He said, sir, the water itself was a good healthy water; but, for the party that owed it, he might have more diseases than he knew for. 5 Fal. Men of all sorts take a pride to gird at me: the brain of this foolish-compounded clay, man, is not able to invent anything 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 like a sow that hath overwhelmed all her litter but one. If the prince put thee into my service for any other reason than to set me off, why then I have no judgment. Thou whoreson mandrake, thou art fitter to be worn in my cap than to wait at my heels. I was never manned with an agate till now; but I will set you neither in gold nor silver, but in vile apparel, I hear for certain, and do speak the truth, 188 and send you back again to your master, for a The gentle Archbishop of York is up, jewel; the juvenal, the prince your master, whose With well-appointed powers: he is a man chin is not yet fledged. I will sooner have a Who with a double surety binds his followers. beard grow in the palm of my hand than he shall My lord your son had only but the corpse', 192 get one on his cheek; and yet he will not stick But shadows and the shows of men to fight; to say, his face is a face-royal: God may finish it For that same word, rebellion, did divide when he will, it is not a hair amiss yet: he may The action of their bodies from their souls; keep it still as a face-royal, for a barber shall And they did fight with queasiness, constrain'd, never earn sixpence out of it; and yet he will As men drink potions, that their weapons only be crowing as if he had writ man ever since his Seem'd on our side: but, for their spirits and father was a bachelor. He may keep his own souls, grace, but he is almost out of mine, I can assure him. What said Master Dombledon about the satin for my short cloak and my slops? 33

This word, rebellion, it had froze them up,
As fish are in a pond. But now the bishop 200
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 204
Of fair King Richard, scrap'd from Pomfret
stones;

[blocks in formation]

Page. He said, sir, you should procure him better assurance than Bardolph; he would not take his bond and yours: he liked not the security.

37

Fal. Let him be damned like the glutton! may his tongue be hotter! A whoreson Achitophel! a rascally yea-forsooth knave! to bear a gentleman in hand, and then stand upon security. The whoreson smooth-pates do now wear nothing but high shoes, and bunches of keys at their girdles; and if a man is thorough with them in honest taking up, then they must stand upon security. I had as lief they would put ratsbane in my mouth as offer to stop it with security. I looked a' should have sent me two and twenty

[blocks in formation]

thou wert better be hanged. You hunt-counter: hence! avaunt!

Ser. Sir, my lord would speak with you. 104 Ch. Just. Sir John Falstaff, a word with you.

Fal. My good lord! God give your lordship good time of day. I am glad to see your lordship abroad; I heard say your lordship was sick: I hope your lordship goes abroad by advice. Your lordship, though not clean past your youth, hath yet some smack of age in you, some relish of the saltness of time; and I most humbly beseech your lordship to have a reverend care of your health.

115

Ch. Just. Sir John, I sent for you before your expedition to Shrewsbury.

Fal. An't please your lordship, I hear his majesty is returned with some discomfort from Wales.

120

[blocks in formation]
« PreviousContinue »