Those prisoners in your highness' name demanded,
Which Harry Percy here at Holmedon took,
Were, as he says, not with such strength denied
As is delivered to your majesty.
Either envy, therefore, or misprision,
Is guilty of this fault, and not my son.
Hot. My liege, I did deny no prisoners.
But, I remember, when the fight was done,
When I was dry with rage, and extreme toil,
Breathless and faint, leaning upon my sword,
Came there a certain lord, neat, trimly dressed,
Fresh as a bridegroom; and his chin, new reaped,
Showed like a stubble-land at harvest home.
He was perfumed like a milliner;
And 'twixt his finger and his thumb he held
A pouncet-box, which ever and anon
He gave his nose, and took't away again;
Who, therewith angry, when it next came there
Took it in snuff;-and still he smiled, and talked;
And, as the soldiers bore dead bodies by,
He called them-untaught knaves, unmannerly,
To bring a slovenly, unhandsome corse
Betwixt the wind and his nobility.
With many holiday and lady terms
He questioned me; among the rest demanded
My prisoners, in your majesty's behalf.
I then, all smarting, with my wounds being cold,
To be so pestered with a popinjay,
Out of my grief and my impatience,
Answered neglectingly, I know not what;
He should, or he should not; for he made me mad, To see him shine so brisk, and smell so sweet,
And talk so like a waiting-gentlewoman,
Of guns, and drums, and wounds (God save the mark!)
And telling me the sovereign'st thing on earth
Was parmaceti, for an inward bruise;
And that it was great pity, so it was,
That villanous saltpetre should be digged
Out of the bowels of the harmless earth,
Which many a good tall fellow had destroyed
So cowardly; and, but for these vile guns,
He would himself have been a soldier.
This bald, unjointed chat of his, my lord,
I answered indirectly, as I said;
And, I beseech you, let not his report
Come current for an accusation,
Betwixt my love and your high majesty.
Blunt. The circumstance considered, good my
Whatever Harry Percy then had said,
To such a person, and in such a place,
At such a time, with all the rest re-told,
May reasonably die, and never rise
To do him wrong, or any way impeach
What then he said, so he unsay it now.
K. Hen. Why, yet he doth deny his prisoners
But with proviso, and exception,-
That we, at our own charge, shall ransom straig
His brother-in-law, the foolish Mortimer;
Who, on my soul, hath wilfully betrayed
The lives of those that he did lead to fight
Against the great magician, damned Glendower
Whose daughter, as we hear, the earl of March
Hath lately married. Shall our coffers then
Be emptied to redeem a traitor home?
Shall we buy treason, and indent with fears,
When they have lost and forfeited themselves?
No, on the barren mountains let him starve;
For I shall never hold that man my friend,
Whose tongue shall ask me for one penny cost
To ransom home revolted Mortimer.
Hot. Revolted Mortimer!
He never did fall off, my sovereign liege,
But by the chance of war.-To prove that true,
Needs no more but one tongue for all those wounds,
Those mouthed wounds, which valiantly he took,
When, on the gentle Severn's sedgy bank,
In single opposition, hand to hand,
He did confound the best part of an hour
In changing hardiment with great Glendower:
Three times they breathed, and three times did they drink,
Upon agreement, of swift Severn's flood;
Who, then affrighted with their bloody looks,
Ran fearfully among the trembling reeds,
And hid his crisp head in the hollow bank,
Blood-stained with these valiant combatants.
Never did bare and rotten policy
Color her working with such deadly wounds;
Nor never could the noble Mortimer
Receive so many, and all willingly.
Then let him not be slandered with revolt.
K. Hen. Thou dost belie him, Percy, thou dost belie him;
He never did encounter with Glendower.
He durst as well have met the devil alone,
As Owen Glendower for an enemy.
Art thou not ashamed? But, sirrah, henceforth.
Let me not hear you speak of Mortimer.
Send me your prisoners with the speediest means,
Or you shall hear in such a kind from me
As will displease you.-My lord Northumberland,
We license your departure with your son.-
Send us your prisoners, or you'll hear of it."
[Exeunt KING HENRY, BLUNT, and Train.
Hot. And if the devil come and roar for them,
I will not send them;-I will after straight,
And tell him so; for I will ease my heart,
Although it be with hazard of my head.
North. What, drunk with choler? Stay, and pause awhile;
'Zounds, I will speak of him; and let my soul
Want mercy, if I do not join with him.
Yea, on his part, I'll empty all these veins,
And shed my dear blood drop by drop i' the dust,
But I will lift the down-trod Mortimer
As high i' the air as this unthankful king,
As this ingrate and cankered Bolingbroke.
North. Brother, the king hath made your nephew mad.
Wor. Who struck this heat up, after I was gone?
Hot. He will, forsooth, have all my prisoners;
And when I urged the ransom once again
Of my wife's brother, then his cheek looked pale,
And on my face he turned an eye of death,
Trembling even at the name of Mortimer.
Wor. I cannot blame him. Was he not proclaimed, By Richard that dead is, the next of blood?
North. He was; I heard the proclamation.
And then it was, when the unhappy king
Whose wrongs in us God pardon!) did set forth
Upon his Irish expedition;
From whence he, intercepted, did return
To be deposed, and shortly murdered.
Wor. And for whose death we in the world's wid Live scandalized, and foully spoken of.
Hot. But, soft, I pray you; did king Richard Proclaim my brother Edmund Mortimer
He did; myself did hear it.
Hot. Nay, then I cannot blame his cousin kin
That wished him on the barren mountains starve
But shall it be, that you,- that set the crown
Upon the head of this forgetful man,
And, for his sake, wear the detested blot
Of murderous subornation,-shall it be,
That you a world of curses undergo;
Being the agents, or base second means,
The cords, the ladder, or the hangman rather?-
O, pardon me, that I descend so low,
To show the line, and the predicament,
Wherein you range under this subtle king.-
Shall it, for shame, be spoken in these days,
Or fill up chronicles in time to come,
That men of your nobility and power,
Did gage them both in an unjust behalf,-
As both of you, God pardon it! have done,-
To put down Richard, that sweet, lovely rose,
And plant this thorn, this canker, Bolingbroke?
And shall it, in more shame, be further spoken,
That you are fooled, discarded, and shook off
By him, for whom these shames ye underwent?
No; yet time serves, wherein you may redeem
Your banished honors, and restore yourselves
Into the good thoughts of the world again.
Revenge the jeering and disdained contempt
Of this proud king; who studies, day and night,
To answer all the debt he owes to you,
Even with the bloody payment of your deaths.
Therefore, I say,
Peace, cousin, say no more:
And now I will unclasp a secret book,
And to your quick-conceiving discontents
I'll read you matter deep and dangerous;
As full of peril, and advent'rous spirit,
As to o'erwalk a current roaring loud,
On the unsteadfast footing of a spear.
Hot. If he fall in, good night:- or sink or swim;
Send danger from the east unto the west,
So honor cross it from the north to south,
And let them grapple.-O! the blood more stirs,
To rouse a lion, than to start a hare.
North. Imagination of some great exploit
Drives him beyond the bounds of patience.
Hot. By Heaven, methinks it were an easy leap,
To pluck bright honor from the pale-faced moon;
Or dive into the bottom of the deep,
Where fathom-line could never touch the ground,
And pluck up drowned honor by the locks;
So he, that doth redeem her thence, might wear,
Without corrival, all her dignities.
But out upon this half-faced fellowship!
Wor. He apprehends a world of figures here, But not the form of what he should attend.Good cousin, give me audience for a while.
Hot.
I'll keep them all;
By Heaven, he shall not have a Scot of them.
No, if a Scot would save his soul, he shall not.
I'll keep them, by this hand.
And lend no ear unto my purposes.-
Those prisoners you shall keep.
Hot. Nay, I will; that's flat.-He said, he would not ransom Mortimer; Forbad my tongue to speak of Mortimer; But I will find him when he lies asleep, And in his ear I'll holla-Mortimer!
I'll have a starling shall be taught to speak
Nothing but Mortimer, and give it him,
To keep his anger still in motion.
Hot. All studies here I solemnly defy,
Save how to gall and pinch this Bolingbroke.
And that same sword-and-buckler prince of Wales,—
But that I think his father loves him not,
And would be glad he met with some mischance,
I'd have him poisoned with a pot of ale.
Wor. Farewell, kinsman! I will talk to you,
When you are better tempered to attend.
North. Why, what a wasp-tongue and impatient fool
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