William Shakespeare - King Henry the Fourth, Part 2

NORTHUMBERLAND

Yet, for all this, say not that Percy's dead.

I see a strange confession in thine eye:Thou shakest thy head and hold'st it fear or sinTo 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 newsHath but a losing office, and his tongueSounds ever after as a sullen bell,Remember'd 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

That which I would to God I had not seen;But these mine eyes saw him in bloody state,Rendering faint quittance, wearied and out-breathed,To Harry Monmouth; whose swift wrath beat downThe never-daunted Percy to the earth,From whence with life he never more sprung up.In few, his death, whose spirit lent a fireEven to the dullest peasant in his camp,Being bruited once, took fire and heat awayFrom the best temper'd courage in his troops;For from his metal was his party steel'd;Which once in him abated, all the restTurn'd 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 fearThat arrows fled not swifter toward their aimThan did our soldiers, aiming at their safety,Fly from the field. Then was the noble WorcesterToo soon ta'en prisoner; and that furious Scot,The bloody Douglas, whose well-labouring swordHad three times slain the appearance of the king,'Gan vail his stomach and did grace the shameOf those that turn'd their backs, and in his flight,Stumbling in fear, was took. The sum of allIs that the king hath won, and hath sent outA speedy power to encounter you, my lord,Under the conduct of young LancasterAnd Westmoreland. 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-weaken'd joints,Like strengthless hinges, buckle under life,Impatient of his fit, breaks like a fireOut of his keeper's arms, even so my limbs,Weaken'd with grief, being now enraged with grief,Are thrice themselves. Hence, therefore, thou nice crutch!A scaly gauntlet now with joints of steelMust glove this hand: and hence, thou sickly quoif!Thou art a guard too wanton for the headWhich princes, flesh'd with conquest, aim to hit.Now bind my brows with iron; and approachThe ragged'st hour that time and spite dare bringTo frown upon the enraged Northumberland!Let heaven kiss earth! now let not Nature's handKeep the wild flood confined! let order die!And let this world no longer be a stageTo feed contention in a lingering act;But let one spirit of the first-born CainReign in all bosoms, that, each heart being setOn bloody courses, the rude scene may end,And darkness be the burier of the dead!

TRAVERS

This strained passion doth you wrong, my lord.

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'erTo 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,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 advised his flesh was capableOf wounds and scars and that his forward spiritWould lift him where most trade of danger ranged:Yet did you say 'Go forth;' and none of this,Though strongly apprehended, could restrainThe stiff-borne action: what hath then befallen,Or what hath this bold enterprise brought 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 seasThat if we wrought our life 'twas ten to one;And yet we ventured, for the gain proposedChoked the respect of likely peril fear'd;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 do speak the truth,The gentle Archbishop of York is upWith well-appointed powers: he is a manWho 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 divideThe action of their bodies from their souls;And they did fight with queasiness, constrain'd,As men drink potions, that their weapons onlySeem'd 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 bishopTurns 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 bloodOf 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 manThe aptest way for safety and revenge:Get posts and letters, and make friends with speed:Never so few, and never yet more need.

Exeunt

London. A street.

Enter FALSTAFF, with his Page bearing 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 mighthave more diseases than he knew for.

FALSTAFF

Men of all sorts take a pride to gird at me: the

brain of this foolish-compounded clay, man, is notable to invent anything that tends to laughter, morethan I invent or is invented on me: I am not onlywitty in myself, but the cause that wit is in othermen. I do here walk before thee like a sow thathath overwhelmed all her litter but one. If theprince put thee into my service for any other reasonthan to set me off, why then I have no judgment.Thou whoreson mandrake, thou art fitter to be wornin my cap than to wait at my heels. I was nevermanned with an agate till now: but I will inset youneither in gold nor silver, but in vile apparel, andsend you back again to your master, for a jewel,--the juvenal, the prince your master, whose chin isnot yet fledged. I will sooner have a beard grow inthe palm of my hand than he shall get one on hischeek; and yet he will not stick to say his face isa face-royal: God may finish it when he will, 'tisnot a hair amiss yet: he may keep it still at aface-royal, for a barber shall never earn sixpenceout of it; and yet he'll be crowing as if he hadwrit man ever since his father was a bachelor. Hemay keep his own grace, but he's almost out of mine,I can assure him. What said Master Dombledon aboutthe satin for my short cloak and my slops?

Page

He said, sir, you should procure him better

assurance than Bardolph: he would not take hisband and yours; he liked not the security.

FALSTAFF

Let him be damned, like the glutton! pray God his

tongue be hotter! A whoreson Achitophel! a rascallyyea-forsooth knave! to bear a gentleman in hand,and then stand upon security! The whoresonsmooth-pates do now wear nothing but high shoes, andbunches of keys at their girdles; and if a man isthrough with them in honest taking up, then theymust stand upon security. I had as lief they wouldput ratsbane in my mouth as offer to stop it withsecurity. I looked a' should have sent me two andtwenty yards of satin, as I am a true knight, and hesends me security. Well, he may sleep in security;for he hath the horn of abundance, and the lightnessof his wife shines through it: and yet cannot hesee, though he have his own lanthorn to light him.Where's Bardolph?