FIRST PART OF

KING HENRY THE FOURTH.

ACT I.

SCENE I. London. A Room in the Palace.

1

Enter King HENRY, WESTMORELAND, SIR WALTER

BLUNT, and others.
King Henry. So shaken as we are, so wan with

care,
Find we a time for frighted peace to pant,
And breathe short-winded accents of new broils
To be commenced in stronds' afar remote.
No more the thirsty entrance of this soil?
Shall daub her lips with her own children's blood;
No more shall trenching war channel her fields,
Nor bruise her flow'rets with the armed hoofs
Of hostile paces : those opposed eyes,
Which

like the meteors of a troubled heaven,
All of one nature, of one substance bred-
Did lately meet in the intestine shock

a

And furious close of civil butchery,
Shall now, in mutual, well-beseeming ranks,
March all one way; and be no more opposed
Against acquaintance, kindred, and allies.
The edge of war, like an ill-sheathed knife,
No more shall cut his master. Therefore, friends,
As far as to the sepulchre of Christ,
(Whose soldier now, under whose blessed cross
We are impressed and engaged to fight,)
Forthwith a power of English shall we levy,'
Whose arms were moulded in their mother's womb,
To chase these pagans, in those holy fields,
Over whose acres walked those blessed feet,
Which, fourteen hundred years ago, were nailed,
For our advantage, on the bitter cross.
But this our purpose is a twelvemonth old,
And bootless 'tis to tell you—we will go;
Therefore we meet not now. -Then let me hear
Of

you, my gentle cousin Westmoreland, What yesternight our council did decree, In forwarding this dear expedience.3

West. My liege, this haste was hot in question, And many limits of the charge set down But yesternight; when, all athwart, there came A post from Wales, loaden with heavy news; Whose worst was,—that the noble Mortimer, Leading the men of Herefordshire to fight Against the irregular and wild Glendower, Was by the rude hands of that Welshman taken, And a thousand of his people butchered ; Upon whose dead corpse there was such misuse, Such beastly, shameless transformation, By those Welshwomen done, as may not be, Without much shame, retold or spoken of.

K. Hen. It seems, then, that the tidings of this broil Brake off our business for the Holy Land.

West. This, matched with other, did, my gracious

lord;

For more uneven and unwelcome news
Came from the north, and thus it did import.
On Holyrood-day,' the gallant Hotspur there,
Young Harry Percy, and brave Archibald,
That ever-valiant and approved Scot,
At Holmedon met,
Where they did spend a sad and bloody hour;
As, by discharge of their artillery,
And shape of likelihood, the news was told ;
For he that brought them, in the very heat
And pride of their contention, did take horse,
Uncertain of the issue any way.

K. Hen. Here is a dear and true-industrious friend,
Sir Walter Blunt, new lighted from his horse,
Stained with the variation of each soil
Betwixt that Holmedon and this seat of ours ;
And he hath brought us smooth and welcome news.
The earl of Douglas is discomfited;
Ten thousand bold Scots, two-and-twenty knights,
Balked in their own blood, did sir Walter see
On Holmedon's plains. Of prisoners, Hotspur took
Mordake the earl of Fife, and eldest son
To beaten Douglas, and the earls of Athol,
Of Murray, Angus, and Menteith.6

5

1 i. e. September 14th.

2 “ This Harry Percy was surnamed, for his often pricking, Henry Hotspur, as one that seldom times rested, if there were anie service to be done abroad.”—Holinshed's Hist. of Scotland, p. 240.

3 Archibald Douglas, earl Douglas.

4 Balked in their own blood, is heaped, or laid on heaps, in their own blood. A balk was a ridge or bank of earth standing up between two furrows; and to balk was to throw up the earth so as to form those heaps or banks.

5 Mordake, earl of Fife, who was son to the duke of Albany, regent of Scotland, is here called the son of earl Douglas, through a mistake, into which the Poet was led by the omission of a comma in the passage whence he took this account of the Scottish prisoners.

6 This is a mistake of Holinshed in his English History, for in that of Scotland, pp. 259, 262, 419, he speaks of the earl of Fife and Menteith as one and the same person. VOL. III.

58

And is not this an honorable spoil ?
A gallant prize ? ha, cousin, is it not ?

West. In faith,
It is a conquest for a prince to boast of.

K. Hen. Yea, there thou mak'st me sad, and mak'st

me sin

In envy that my lord Northumberland
Should be the father of so blest a son ;
A son, who is the theme of honor's tongue;
Amongst a grove, the very straightest plant;
Who is sweet fortune's minion, and her pride ;
Whilst I, by looking on the praise of him,
See riot and dishonor stain the brow
Of my young Harry. O that it could be proved,
That some night-tripping fairy had exchanged
In cradle-clothes our children where they lay,
And called mine-Percy, his—Plantagenet!
Then would I have his Harry, and he mine.
But let him from my thoughts.—What think you, coz,
Of this young Percy's pride ? the prisoners,"
Which he in this adventure hath surprised,
To his own use he keeps; and sends me word,
I shall have none but Mordake, earl of Fife.

West. This is his uncle's teaching; this is Worcester,
Malevolent to you in all aspects;2
Which makes him prune himself, and bristle up
The crest of youth against your dignity.

K. Hen. But I have sent for him to answer this; And, for this cause, awhile we must neglect Our holy purpose to Jerusalem. Cousin, on Wednesday next our council we Will hold at Windsor so inform the lords: But come yourself with speed to us again;

1

For more is to be said, and to be done,
Than out of anger can be uttered.

West. I will, my liege.

[Exeunt.

SCENE II. The same. Another Room in the Palace.

Enter HENRY, Prince of Wales, and FalstAFF.
Fal. Now, Hal, what time of day is it, lad ?

P. Hen. Thou art so fat-witted, with drinking of old sack, and unbuttoning thee after supper, and sleeping upon benches after noon, that thou hast forgotten to demand that truly which thou wouldst truly know. What the devil hast thou to do with the time of the day ? Unless hours were cups of sack, and minutes capons, and clocks the tongues of bawds, and dials the signs of leaping-houses, and the blessed sun himself a fair, hot wench in flame-colored taffeta, I see no reason why thou shouldst be so superfluous to demand the time of the day.

Fal. Indeed, you come near me now, Hal; for we that take purses, go by the moon and seven stars; and not by Phoebus,-he, that wandering knight so fair.? And, I pray thee, sweet wag, when thou art king,—as, God save thy grace—(majesty I should say; for grace thou wilt have none,)

P. Hen. What, none ?

Fal. No, by my troth; not so much as will serve to be prologue to an egg and butter.

Þ. Hen. Well, how then? Come, roundly, roundly.

Fal. Marry, then, sweet wag, when thou art king, let not us, that are squires of the night's body, be called thieves of the day's beauty ;3 let us be—Diana's