William Shakespeare - William Shakespeare - Complete Works

That you and I should meet upon such terms

As now we meet. You have deceived our trust;

And made us doff our easy robes of peace,

To crush our old limbs in ungentle steel:

This is not well, my lord, this is not well.

What say you to’t? will you again unknit

This churlish knot of all-abhorred war,

And move in that obedient orb again

Where you did give a fair and natural light;

And be no more an exhaled meteor,

A prodigy of fear, and a portent

Of broached mischief to the unborn times?

WORCESTER.

Hear me, my liege:

For mine own part, I could be well content

To entertain the lag-end of my life

With quiet hours; for I do protest,

I have not sought the day of this dislike.

KING.

You have not sought it! why, how comes it, then?

FALSTAFF.

Rebellion lay in his way, and he found it.

PRINCE.

Peace, chewet, peace!

WORCESTER.

It pleased your Majesty to turn your looks

Of favour from myself and all our House;

And yet I must remember you, my lord,

We were the first and dearest of your friends.

For you my staff of office did I break

In Richard’s time; and posted day and night

To meet you on the way, and kiss your hand,

When yet you were in place and in account

Nothing so strong and fortunate as I.

It was myself, my brother, and his son,

That brought you home, and boldly did outdare

The dangers of the time. You swore to us,—

And you did swear that oath at Doncaster,—

That you did nothing purpose ’gainst the state;

Nor claim no further than your new-fall’n right,

The seat of Gaunt, dukedom of Lancaster:

To this we swore our aid. But in short space

It rain’d down fortune showering on your head;

And such a flood of greatness fell on you,—

What with our help, what with the absent King,

What with the injuries of a wanton time,

The seeming sufferances that you had borne,

And the contrarious winds that held the King

So long in his unlucky Irish wars

That all in England did repute him dead,—

And, from this swarm of fair advantages,

You took occasion to be quickly woo’d

To gripe the general sway into your hand;

Forgot your oath to us at Doncaster;

And, being fed by us, you used us so

As that ungentle gull, the cuckoo-bird,

Useth the sparrow; did oppress our nest;

Grew by our feeding to so great a bulk,

That even our love thirst not come near your sight

For fear of swallowing; but with nimble wing

We were enforced, for safety-sake, to fly

Out of your sight, and raise this present head:

Whereby we stand opposed by such means

As you yourself have forged against yourself,

By unkind usage, dangerous countenance,

And violation of all faith and troth

Sworn to tis in your younger enterprise.

KING.

These things, indeed, you have articulate,

Proclaim’d at market-crosses, read in churches,

To face the garment of rebellion

With some fine colour that may please the eye

Of fickle changelings and poor discontents,

Which gape and rub the elbow at the news

Of hurlyburly innovation:

And never yet did insurrection want

Such water-colours to impaint his cause;

Nor moody beggars, starving for a time

Of pellmell havoc and confusion.

PRINCE.

In both our armies there is many a soul

Shall pay full dearly for this encounter,

If once they join in trial. Tell your nephew,

The Prince of Wales doth join with all the world

In praise of Henry Percy: by my hopes,

This present enterprise set off his head,

I do not think a braver gentleman,

More active-valiant or more valiant-young,

More daring or more bold, is now alive

To grace this latter age with noble deeds.

For my part,—I may speak it to my shame,—

I have a truant been to chivalry;

And so I hear he doth account me too:

Yet this before my father’s Majesty,—

I am content that he shall take the odds

Of his great name and estimation,

And will, to save the blood on either side,

Try fortune with him in a single fight.

KING.

And, Prince of Wales, so dare we venture thee,

Albeit considerations infinite

Do make against it.—No, good Worcester, no;

We love our people well; even those we love

That are misled upon your cousin’s part;

And, will they take the offer of our grace,

Both he, and they, and you, yea, every man

Shall be my friend again, and I’ll be his:

So tell your cousin, and then bring me word

What he will do: but, if he will not yield,

Rebuke and dread correction wait on us,

And they shall do their office. So, be gone;

We will not now be troubled with reply:

We offer fair; take it advisedly.

[Exit Worcester with Vernon.]

PRINCE.

It will not be accepted, on my life:

The Douglas and the Hotspur both together

Are confident against the world in arms.

KING.

Hence, therefore, every leader to his charge;

For, on their answer, will we set on them:

And God befriend us, as our cause is just!

[Exeunt the King, Blunt, and Prince John.]

FALSTAFF.

Hal, if thou see me down in the battle, and bestride me, so; ’tis a point of friendship.

PRINCE.

Nothing but a colossus can do thee that friendship.

Say thy prayers, and farewell.

FALSTAFF.

I would it were bedtime, Hal, and all well.

PRINCE.

Why, thou owest God a death.

[Exit.]

FALSTAFF.

’Tis not due yet; I would be loth to pay Him before His day. What need I be so forward with him that calls not on me? Well, ’tis no matter; honour pricks me on. Yea, but how if honour prick me off when I come on? how then? Can honor set-to a leg? no: or an arm? no: or take away the grief of a wound? no. Honour hath no skill in surgery then? no. What is honour? a word. What is that word, honour? air. A trim reckoning!—Who hath it? he that died o’ Wednesday. Doth he feel it? no. Doth be hear it? no. Is it insensible, then? yea, to the dead. But will it not live with the living? no. Why? detraction will not suffer it. Therefore I’ll none of it: honour is a mere scutcheon:—and so ends my catechism.

[Exit.]

SCENE II. The Rebel Camp.

[Enter Worcester and Vernon.]

WORCESTER.

O no, my nephew must not know, Sir Richard,

The liberal-kind offer of the King.

VERNON.

’Twere best he did.

WORCESTER.

Then are we all undone.

It is not possible, it cannot be,

The King should keep his word in loving us;

He will suspect us still, and find a time

To punish this offence in other faults:

Suspicion all our lives shall be stuck full of eyes;

For treason is but trusted like the fox,

Who, ne’er so tame, so cherish’d, and lock’d up,

Will have a wild trick of his ancestors.

Look how we can, or sad or merrily,

Interpretation will misquote our looks;

And we shall feed like oxen at a stall,

The better cherish’d, still the nearer death.

My nephew’s trespass may be well forgot:

It hath th’ excuse of youth and heat of blood,

And an adopted name of privilege,—

A hare-brain’d Hotspur, govern’d by a spleen:

All his offences live upon my head

And on his father’s: we did train him on;

And, his corruption being ta’en from us,

We, as the spring of all, shall pay for all.

Therefore, good cousin, let not Harry know,

In any case, the offer of the King.

VERNON.

Deliver what you will, I’ll say ’tis so.

Here comes your cousin.