Is prisoner to your son. O, such a day!

  20

  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,

  25

  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,

  30

  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, Sir John Umfreville turned me back

  With joyful tidings, and, being better horsed,

  35

  Out-rode 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.

  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

  Against the panting sides of his poor jade

  45

  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

  50

  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 that gentleman that rode by Travers

  55

  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,

  60

  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,

  65

  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,

  70

  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.

  75

  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,

  80

  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

  85

  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.

  90

  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

  95

  To speak a truth. If he be slain,

  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

  100

  Hath but a losing office, and his tongue

  Sounds ever after as a sullen bell,

  Remembered tolling a departing friend.

  LORD BARDOLPH

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

  MORTON

  I am sorry I should force you to believe

  105

  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,

  110

  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;

  115

  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,

  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,

  Fly from the field. Then was that noble Worcester

  125

  So 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,

  130

  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.

  135

  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

  140

  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. Hence, therefore, thou nice crutch!

  145

  [Tosses crutch aside.]

  A scaly gauntlet now with joints of steel

  Must glove this hand. And hence, thou sickly coif!

  [Snatches off 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

  150

  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

  155

  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.

  160

  LORD BARDOLPH

  This strained passion doth you wrong, my lord.

  MORTON

  Sweet earl, divorce not wisdom from your honour;

  The lives of all your loving complices

  FLean on yourF health, the which, if you give o’er

  To stormy passion, must perforce decay.

  165

  FYou 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,

  170

  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,

  175

  Though strongly apprehended, could restrain

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

  Or what hath this bold enterprise brought forth,

  More than that being which was like to be?F

  LORD BARDOLPH

  We all that are engaged to this loss

  180

  Knew that we ventured on such dangerous seas

  That if we wrought out life ’twas 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.

  185

  Come, we will all put forth body and goods.

  MORTON

  ’Tis more than time. (to Northumberland) And, my most noble lord,

  I hear for certain, and dare speak the truth,

  FThe gentle Archbishop of York is up

  With well-appointed powers: he is a man

  190

  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,

  195

  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

  200

  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;

  205

  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.F

  NORTHUMBERLAND

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

  210

  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;

  214

  Never so few, and never yet more need.

  Exeunt.

  1[.2]

  Enter Sir John FFALSTAFFF alone, with his PAGE

  earing his sword and buckler.

  FALSTAFF 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

  FALSTAFF 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 intends 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

  10

  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 judgement. Thou

  whoreson mandrake, thou art fitter to be worn in my

  15

  cap than to wait at my heels. I was never manned

  with an agate till now, but I will inset you neither in

  gold nor silver, but in vile apparel, and send you back

  again to your master for a jewel – the juvenal, the

  Prince your master, whose chin is not yet fledge.

  20

  I will sooner have a beard grow in the palm of my

  hand than he shall get one off his cheek, and yet he

  will not stick to say his face is a face royal. God

  may finish it when He will, ’tis not a hair amiss yet.

  He may keep it still at a face royal, for a barber shall

  25

  never earn sixpence out of it; and yet he’ll be crowing

  as if he had writ man ever since his father was a

  bachelor. He may keep his own grace, but he’s almost

  out of mine, I can assure him. – What said Master

  Dommelton about the satin for my short cloak and

  30

  my slops?

  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.

  FALSTAFF Let him be damned like the glutton! Pray

  35

  God his tongue be hotter! A whoreson Achitophel, a