Текст книги "William Shakespeare: The Complete Works 2nd Edition"

Автор книги: William Shakespeare

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5.1 Enter Sir John Falstaff and Mistress Quickly

SIR JOHN Prithee, no more prattling; go; I’ll hold. This is the third time; I hope good luck lies in odd numbers. Away, go! They say there is divinity in odd numbers, either in nativity, chance, or death. Away!

MISTRESS QUICKLY I’ll provide you a chain, and I’ll do what I can to get you a pair of horns.

SIR JOHN Away, I say! Time wears. Hold up your head, and mince. Exit Mistress Quickly

Enter Master Ford, disguised as Brooke

How now, Master Brooke ? Master Brooke, the matter will be known tonight or never. Be you in the Park about midnight at Herne’s Oak, and you shall see wonders.

FORD Went you not to her yesterday, sir, as you told me you had appointed?

SIR JOHN I went to her, Master Brooke, as you see, like a poor old man; but I came from her, Master Brooke, like a poor old woman. That same knave Ford, her husband, hath the finest mad devil of jealousy in him, Master Brooke, that ever governed frenzy. I will tell you, he beat me grievously in the shape of a woman—for in the shape of man, Master Brooke, I fear not Goliath with a weaver’s beam, because I know also life is a shuttle. I am in haste. Go along with me; I’ll tell you all, Master Brooke. Since I plucked geese, played truant, and whipped top, I knew not what ’twas to be beaten till lately. Follow me. I’ll tell you strange things of this knave Ford, on whom tonight I will be revenged, and I will deliver his wife into your hand. Follow. Strange things in hand, Master Brooke. Follow.

Exeunt

5.2 Enter Master Page, justice Shallow, and Master Slender

PAGE Come, come, we’ll couch i’th’ Castle ditch till we see the light of our fairies. Remember, son Slender, my daughter.

SLENDER Ay, forsooth. I have spoke with her, and we have a nay-word how to know one another. I come to her in white and cry ‘mum’; she cries ‘budget’; and by that we know one another.

SHALLOW That’s good, too. But what needs either your ‘mum’ or her ‘budget’? The white will decipher her well enough. (To Page) It hath struck ten o’clock.

PAGE The night is dark; lights and spirits will become it well. God prosper our sport! No man means evil but the devil, and we shall know him by his horns. Let’s away. Follow me. Exeunt

5.3 Enter Mistress Page, Mistress Ford, and Doctor Caius

MISTRESS PAGE Master Doctor, my daughter is in green. When you see your time, take her by the hand, away with her to the deanery, and dispatch it quickly. Go before into the Park. We two must go together.

CAIUS I know vat I have to do. Adieu.

MISTRESS PAGE Fare you well, sir. Exit Caius

My husband will not rejoice so much at the abuse of

Falstaff as he will chafe at the doctor’s marrying my

daughter. But ’tis no matter. Better a little chiding than

a great deal of heartbreak.

MISTRESS FORD Where is Nan now, and her troop of fairies, and the Welsh devil Hugh?

MISTRESS PAGE They are all couched in a pit hard by Herne’s Oak, with obscured lights, which, at the very instant of Falstaff’s and our meeting, they will at once display to the night.

MISTRESS FORD That cannot choose but amaze him.

MISTRESS PAGE If he be not amazed, he will be mocked. If he be amazed, he will every way be mocked.

MISTRESS FORD We’ll betray him finely.

MISTRESS PAGE

Against such lewdsters and their lechery

Those that betray them do no treachery.

MISTRESS FORD The hour draws on. To the Oak, to the

Oak I Exeunt

5.4 Enter Sir Hugh Evans, ⌈Disguised as a satyr,⌉ and ⌈William Page and others⌉ children, disguised as fairies

EVANS Trib, trib, fairies! Come! And remember your parts. Be pold, I pray you. Follow me into the pit, and when I give the watch’ords, do as I pid you. Come, come; trib, trib! Exeunt

5.5 Enter Sir John Falstaff, disguised as Herne, ⌈witch horns on his head, and bearing a chain⌉

SIR JOHN The Windsor bell hath struck twelve; the minute draws on. Now the hot-blooded gods assist me! Remember, Jove, thou wast a bull for thy Europa; love set on thy horns. O powerful love, that in some respects makes a beast a man; in some other, a man a beast! You were also, Jupiter, a swan, for the love of Leda. O omnipotent love! How near the god drew to the complexion of a goose ! A fault done first in the form of a beast—O Jove, a beastly fault!—and then another fault in the semblance of a fowl—think on‘t, Jove, a foul fault! When gods have hot backs, what shall poor men do? For me, I am here a Windsor stag, and the fattest, I think, i’th’ forest. Send me a cool rut-time, Jove, or who can blame me to piss my tallow ?

Enter Mistress Ford ⌈followed by⌉ Mistress Page

Who comes here? My doe!

MISTRESS FORD Sir John! Art thou there, my deer, my male deer?

SIR JOHN My doe with the black scutt Let the sky rain potatoes, let it thunder to the tune of ‘Greensleeves’, hail kissing-comfits, and snow eringoes; let there come a tempest of provocation, I will shelter me here.

⌈He embraces her⌉

MISTRESS FORD Mistress Page is come with me, sweetheart.

SIR JOHN Divide me like a bribed buck, each a haunch. I will keep my sides to myself, my shoulders for the fellow of this walk, and my horns I bequeath your husbands. Am I a woodman, ha? Speak I like Herne the hunter? Why, now is Cupid a child of conscience; he makes restitution. As I am a true spirit, welcome!

⌈A noise within⌉

MISTRESS PAGE Alas, what noise?

MISTRESS FORD God forgive our sins!

SIR JOHN What should this be?

MISTRESS FORD and MISTRESS PAGE Away, away!

Exeunt Mistress Ford and Mistress Page, ⌈running⌉

SIR JOHN I think the devil will not have me damned, lest the oil that’s in me should set hell on fire. He would never else cross me thus.

Enter Sir Hugh Evans, ⌈William Page,⌉ and

children, disguised as before, with tapers; Mistress

Quickly, disguised as the Fairy Queen; Anne Page,

disguised as a fairy; and one disguised as

Hobgoblin

MISTRESS QUICKLY

Fairies black, grey, green, and white,

You moonshine revellers, and shades of night,

You orphan heirs of fixèd destiny,

Attend your office and your quality.—

Crier hobgoblin, make the fairy oyes.

⌈HOBGOBLIN⌉

Elves, list your names. Silence, you airy toys.

Cricket, to Windsor chimneys shalt thou leap.

Where fires thou find’st unraked and hearths unswept,

There pinch the maids as blue as bilberry.

Our radiant Queen hates sluts and sluttery.

SIR JOHN (aside)

They are fairies. He that speaks to them shall die.

I’ll wink and couch; no man their works must eye.

He lies down, and hides his face

EVANS

Where’s Bead? Go you, and, where you find a maid

That ere she sleep has thrice her prayers said,

Raise up the organs of her fantasy,

Sleep she as sound as careless infancy.

But those as sleep and think not on their sins,

Pinch them, arms, legs, backs, shoulders, sides, and

shins.

MISTRESS QUICKLY About, about!

Search Windsor Castle, elves, within and out.

Strew good luck, oafs, on every sacred room,

That it may stand till the perpetual doom

In state as wholesome as in state ‘tis fit,

Worthy the owner, and the owner it.

The several chairs of order look you scour

With juice of balm and every precious flower.

Each fair instalment, coat, and sev’ral crest

With loyal blazon evermore be blessed;

And nightly, meadow-fairies, look you sing,

Like to the Garter’s compass, in a ring. 65

Th‘expressure that it bears, green let it be,

More fertile-fresh than all the field to see;

And ‘Honi soit qui mal y pense’ write

In em‘rald tufts, flowers purple, blue, and white,

Like sapphire, pearl, and rich embroidery,

Buckled below fair knighthood’s bending knee—

Fairies use flowers for their charactery.

Away, disperse!—But till ’tis one o’clock

Our dance of custom, round about the oak

Of Herne the hunter, let us not forget.

EVANS

Pray you, lock hand in hand; yourselves in order set;

And twenty glow-worms shall our lanterns be

To guide our measure round about the tree.—

But stay; I smell a man of middle earth.

SIR JOHN (aside)

God defend me from that Welsh fairy,

Lest he transform me to a piece of cheese!

⌈HOBGOBLIN⌉ (to Sir John)

Vile worm, thou wast o’erlooked even in thy birth.

MISTRESS QUICKLY (to fairies)

With trial-fire, touch me his finger-end.

If he be chaste, the flame will back descend,

And turn him to no pain; but if he start,

It is the flesh of a corrupted heart.

⌈HOBGOBLIN⌉

A trial, come!

EVANS Come, will this wood take fire ?

They burn Sir John with tapers

SIR JOHN O, O, O!

MISTRESS QUICKLY

Corrupt, corrupt, and tainted in desire.

About him, fairies; sing a scornful rhyme;

And, as you trip, still pinch him to your time.

They dance around Sir John, pinching him and singing:

FAIRIES Fie on sinful fantasy!

Fie on lust and luxury!

Lust is but a bloody fire,

Kindled with unchaste desire,

Fed in heart, whose flames aspire,

As thoughts do blow them, higher and higher.

Pinch him, fairies, mutually.

Pinch him for his villainy.

Pinch him, and burn him, and turn him about,

Till candles and starlight and moonshine be out.

During the song, enter Doctor Caius one way, and exit stealing away a fairy in green; enter Master Slender another way, and exit stealing away a fairy in white; enter Master Fenton, and exit stealing away Anne Page. After the song, a noise of hunting within. Exeunt Mistress Quickly, Evans, Hobgoblin, and fairies, running. Sir John rises, and starts to run away. Enter Master Page, Master Ford, Mistress Page, and Mistress Ford

PAGE

Nay, do not fly. I think we have watched you now.

Will none but Herne the hunter serve your turn?

MISTRESS PAGE

I pray you, come, hold up the jest no higher.

Now, good Sir John, how like you Windsor wives?

(Pointing to Falstaff’s horns)

See you these, husband? Do not these fair yokes

Become the forest better than the town ?

FORD (to Sir John) Now, sir, who’s a cuckold now? Master Brooke, Falstaff’s a knave, a cuckoldly knave. Here are his horns, Master Brooke. And, Master Brooke, he hath enjoyed nothing of Ford’s but his buck-basket, his cudgel, and twenty pounds of money which must be paid to Master Brooke; his horses are arrested for it, Master Brooke.

MISTRESS FORD Sir John, we have had ill luck. We could never mate. I will never take you for my love again, but I will always count you my deer.

SIR JOHN I do begin to perceive that I am made an ass. ⌈He takes off the horns⌉

FORD Ay, and an ox, too. Both the proofs are extant.

SIR JOHN And these are not fairies? By the Lord, I was three or four times in the thought they were not fairies, and yet the guiltiness of my mind, the sudden surprise of my powers, drove the grossness of the foppery into a received belief—in despite of the teeth of all rhyme and reason—that they were fairies. See now how wit may be made a Jack-a-Lent when ’tis upon ill employment!

EVANS Sir John Falstaff, serve Got and leave your desires, and fairies will not pinse you.

FORD Well said, Fairy Hugh.

EVANS And leave you your jealousies too, I pray you.

FORD I will never mistrust my wife again till thou art able to woo her in good English.

SIR JOHN Have I laid my brain in the sun and dried it, that it wants matter to prevent so gross o‘er-reaching as this? Am I ridden with a Welsh goat too? Shall I have a coxcomb of frieze ? ’Tis time I were choked with a piece of toasted cheese.

EVANS Seese is not good to give putter; your belly is all putter. z to

SIR JOHN ‘Seese’ and ‘putter’? Have I lived to stand at the taunt of one that makes fritters of English? This is enough to be the decay of lust and late walking through the realm.

MISTRESS PAGE Why, Sir John, do you think, though we would have thrust virtue out of our hearts by the head and shoulders, and have given ourselves without scruple to hell, that ever the devil could have made you our delight?

FORD What, a hodge-pudding, a bag of flax?

MISTRESS PAGE A puffed man?

PAGE Old, cold, withered, and of intolerable entrails?

FORD And one that is as slanderous as Satan?

PAGE And as poor as job?

FORD And as wicked as his wife?

EVANS And given to fornications, and to taverns, and sack, and wine, and metheglins; and to drinkings, and swearings, and starings, pribbles and prabbles?

SIR JOHN Well, I am your theme; you have the start of me. I am dejected. I am not able to answer the Welsh flannel. Ignorance itself is a plummet o’er me. Use me as you will.

FORD Marry, sir, we’ll bring you to Windsor, to one Master Brooke, that you have cozened of money, to whom you should have been a pander. Over and above that you have suffered, I think to repay that money will be a biting affliction.

PAGE Yet be cheerful, knight. Thou shalt eat a posset tonight at my house, where I will desire thee to laugh at my wife that now laughs at thee. Tell her Master Slender hath married her daughter.

MISTRESS PAGE (aside) Doctors doubt that! If Anne Page be my daughter, she is, by this, Doctor Caius’s wife.

Enter Master Slender

SLENDER Whoa, ho, ho, father Page!

PAGE Son, how now? How now, son? Have you dispatched?

SLENDER Dispatched? I’ll make the best in Gloucestershire know on’t; would I were hanged, la, else.

PAGE Of what, son?

SLENDER I came yonder at Eton to marry Mistress Anne Page, and she’s a great lubberly boy. If it had not been i‘th’ church, I would have swinged him, or he should have swinged me. If I did not think it had been Anne Page, would I might never stir; and ’tis a postmaster’s boy.

PAGE Upon my life, then, you took the wrong.

SLENDER What need you tell me that? I think so, when I took a boy for a girl. If I had been married to him, for all he was in woman’s apparel, I would not have had him.

PAGE Why, this is your own folly. Did not I tell you how you should know my daughter by her garments?

SLENDER I went to her in white and cried ‘mum’, and she cried ‘budget’, as Anne and I had appointed; and yet it was not Anne, but a postmaster’s boy.

MISTRESS PAGE Good George, be not angry. I knew of your purpose, turned my daughter into green, and indeed she is now with the Doctor at the deanery, and there married.

Enter Doctor Caius

CAIUS Ver is Mistress Page? By Gar, I am cozened! I ha’ married un garçon, a boy, un paysan, by Gar. A boy! It is not Anne Page, by Gar. I am cozened.

PAGE Why, did you take her in green?

CAIUS Ay, be Gar, and ’tis a boy. Be Gar, I’ll raise all Windsor.

FORD This is strange. Who hath got the right Anne?

Enter Master Fenton and Anne

PAGE

My heart misgives me: here comes Master Fenton.—

How now, Master Fenton?

ANNE

Pardon, good father. Good my mother, pardon.

PAGE

Now, mistress, how chance you went not with Master Slender?

⌈MISTRESS⌉ PAGE

Why went you not with Master Doctor, maid?

FENTON

You do amaze her. Hear the truth of it.

You would have married her, most shamefully,

Where there was no proportion held in love.

The truth is, she and I, long since contracted,

Are now so sure that nothing can dissolve us.

Th’offence is holy that she hath committed,

And this deceit loses the name of craft,

Of disobedience, or unduteous title,

Since therein she doth evitate and shun

A thousand irreligious cursed hours

Which forced marriage would have brought upon her.

FORD (to Page and Mistress Page)

Stand not amazed. Here is no remedy.

In love the heavens themselves do guide the state;

Money buys lands, and wives are sold by fate.

SIR JOHN I am glad, though you have ta’en a special stand to strike at me, that your arrow hath glanced.

PAGE

Well, what remedy? Fenton, heaven give thee joy I

What cannot be eschewed must be embraced.

SIR JOHN

When night-dogs run, all sorts of deer are chased.

MISTRESS PAGE

Well, I will muse no further. Master Fenton,

Heaven give you many, many merry days!

Good husband, let us every one go home,

And laugh this sport o’er by a country fire,

Sir John and all.

FORD Let it be so, Sir John.

To Master Brooke you yet shall hold your word,

For he tonight shall lie with Mistress Ford. Exeunt

2 HENRY IV

2 Henry IV, printed in 1600 as The Second Part of Henry the Fourth, was not reprinted until it was included in somewhat revised form in the 1623 Folio, with the same title. Shakespeare may have started to write it in 1597, directly after I Henry IV, but have laid it aside while he composed The Merry Wives of Windsor. As in I Henry IV, he drew on The Famous Victories of Henry the Fifth, Holinshed’s Chronicles, and Samuel Daniel’s Four Books of the Civil Wars, along with other, minor sources; but the play contains a greater proportion of non-historical material apparently invented by Shakespeare. In this play Shakespeare seems from the start to have accepted the change of Sir John’s surname to Falstaff which had been enforced upon him in I Henry IV.

Like I Henry IV, Part Two draws on the techniques of comedy, but its overall tone is more sombre. At its start, the Prince seems to have regressed from his reformed state at the end of Part One; his father still has many causes for anxiety, has not made his expiatory pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and is again the victim of rebellion, led this time by the Earl of Northumberland, the Archbishop of York, and the Lords Hastings and Mowbray. Again Henry’s public responsibilities are exacerbated by anxieties about Prince Harry’s behaviour; the climax of their relationship comes after Harry, discovering his sick father asleep and thinking him dead, tries on his crown; after bitterly upbraiding him, Henry accepts his son’s assertions of good faith, and, recalling the devious means by which he himself came to the throne, warns Harry that he may need to protect himself against civil strife by pursuing ‘foreign quarrels’-the campaigning against France depicted in Henry V. The King dies in the Jerusalem Chamber of Westminster Abbey, the closest he will get to the Holy Land.

In this play the Prince spends less time than in Part One with Sir John, who is shown much in the company of Mistress Quickly and Doll Tearsheet at the Boar’s Head tavern in Eastcheap and later in Gloucestershire on his way to and from the place of battle. Shakespeare never excelled the bitter-sweet comedy of the passages involving Falstaff and his old comrade Justice Shallow. The play ends in a counterpointing of major and minor keys as the newly crowned Henry V rejects Sir John and all that he has stood for.

THE PERSONS OF THE PLAY

The Second Part of Henry the Fourth

InductionEnter Rumour ⌈in a robe⌉ painted full of tongues

RUMOUR

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 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 prepared defence

Whiles the big year, swoll’n with some other griefs,

Is thought with child by the stern tyrant war,

And no such matter?Rumour is a pipe

Blown by surmises, Jealousy’s conjectures,

And of so easy and so plain a stop

That the blunt monster with uncounted heads,

The still-discordant wav’ring 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 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

Stooped his anointed head as low as death.

This have I rumoured through the peasant towns

Between that royal field of Shrewsbury

And this worm-eaten hold of raggèd 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 learnt of me. From Rumour’s

tongues

They bring smooth comforts false, worse than true

wrongs. Exit

1.1 Enter Lord Bardolph at one door. ⌈He crosses the stage to another door⌉

LORD BARDOLPH

Who keeps the gate here, ho?

Enter Porter ⌈above⌉

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 walked forth into the orchard.

Please it your honour knock but at the gate,

And he himself will answer.

Enter the Earl Northumberland ⌈at the other door⌉, as sick, with a crutch and coif

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,

And bears down all before him.

LORD BARDOLPH Noble Earl,

I bring you certain news from Shrewsbury.

NORTHUMBERLAND

Good, an 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,

Prince Harry slain outright; and both the Blunts

Killed by the hand of Douglas; young Prince John

And Westmorland 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 followed, and so fairly won,

Came not till now to dignify the times

Since Caesar’s fortunes!

NORTHUMBERLAND How is this derived?

Saw you the field? Came you from Shrewsbury?

LORD BARDOLPH

I spake with one, my lord, that came from thence,

A gentleman well bred and of good name,

That freely rendered me these news for true.

Enter Travers

NORTHUMBERLAND

Here comes my servant Travers, who I sent

On Tuesday last to listen after news.

LORD BARDOLPH

My lord, I overrode him on the way,

And he is furnished with no certainties

More than he haply may retail from me.

NORTHUMBERLAND

Now, Travers, what good tidings comes with you?

TRAVERS

My lord, Lord Bardolph turned me back

With joyful tidings, and being better horsed

Outrode me. After him came spurring hard

A gentleman almost forspent with speed,

That stopped by me to breathe his bloodied horse.

He asked the way to Chester, and of him

I did demand what news from Shrewsbury.

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

Up to the rowel-head; and starting so,

He seemed 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

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 the gentleman that rode by Travers

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.

Enter Morton

Look, here comes more news.

NORTHUMBERLAND

Yea, this man’s brow, like to a title leaf,

Foretells the nature of a tragic volume.

So looks the strand whereon the imperious flood

Hath left a witnessed usurpation.

Say, Morton, didst thou come from Shrewsbury?

MORTON

I ran from Shrewsbury, my noble lord,

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,

So dull, so dead in look, so woebegone,

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.

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,

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

Hath by instinct knowledge from others’ eyes

That what he feared 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.

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

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

Sounds ever after as a sullen bell

Remembered knolling a departing friend.

LORD BARDOLPH

I cannot think, my lord, your son is dead.

MORTON (to Northumberland)

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,

Rend‘ring faint quittance, wearied and out-breathed,

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 once, took fire and heat away

From the best-tempered courage in his troops;

For from his metal was his party steeled,

Which once in him abated, all the rest

Turned on themselves, like dull and heavy lead;

And, as the thing that’s heavy in itself

Upon enforcement flies with greatest 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 th’appearance of the King,

Gan vail his stomach, and did grace the shame

Of those that turned 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 Westmorland. This is the news at full.

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-weakened joints,

Like strengthless hinges, buckle under life,

Impatient of his fit, breaks like a fire

Out of his keeper’s arms, even so my limbs,

Weakened with grief, being now enraged with grief,

Are thrice themselves.

⌈He casts away his crutch⌉

Hence therefore, thou nice crutch!

A scaly gauntlet now with joints of steel

Must glove this hand.

⌈He snatches off his coif⌉

And hence, thou sickly coif!

Thou art a guard too wanton for the head

Which princes fleshed 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 th’enraged Northumberland!

Let heaven kiss earth ! Now let not nature’s hand

Keep the wild flood confined! Let order die!

And let this world no longer be a stage

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!

LORD BARDOLPH

Sweet Earl, divorce not wisdom from your honour.

MORTON

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 th’event of war, my noble lord,

And summed 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 walked o‘er perils on an edge,

More likely to fall in than to get o’er.

You were advised his flesh was capable

Of wounds and scars, and that his forward spirit

Would lift him where most trade of danger ranged.

Yet did you say, ‘Go forth’; and none of this,

Though strongly apprehended, could restrain

The stiff-borne action. What hath then befall’n?

Or what doth this bold enterprise bring forth,

More than that being which was like to be?

LORD BARDOLPH

We all that are engaged to this loss

Knew that we ventured on such dangerous seas

That if we wrought out life was ten to one;

And yet we ventured for the gain proposed,

Choked the respect of likely peril feared;

And since we are o’erset, venture again.

Come, we will all put forth body and goods.

MORTON

‘Tis more than time; and, my most noble lord,

I hear for certain, and dare 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 corpse,

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, constrained,

As men drink potions, that their weapons only

Seemed on our side; but, for their spirits and souls,

This word ‘rebellion’, it had froze them up,

As fish are in a pond. But now the Bishop

Turns insurrection to religion.

Supposed sincere and holy in his thoughts,

He’s followed both with body and with mind,

And doth enlarge his rising with the blood

Of fair King Richard, scraped 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 and less do flock to follow him.

NORTHUMBERLAND

I knew of this before, but, to speak truth,

This present grief had wiped 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.

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