HOTSPUR AND GLENDOWER IN

CONSPIRACY.

1403.

Owen Glendower was a Welsh chieftain warmly attached to the cause of Richard II., and who therefore hated Henry IV. He was a strange wild character, much addicted to magic, and believing the old predictions left by the Bards. When offended by the King's demand for Douglas, Harry Percy was persuaded by his uncle, the Earl of Worcester, to release Douglas, and join with him and with Glendower in overthrowing Henry, and placing on the throne the right heir, Edmund Mortimer; but, under the king, the three were to divide England between them, Mortimer, Percy, and Glendower, whose daughter Mortimer had married. This Edmund was really the uncle of the true heir, who bore the same name but who was still a young child. In the ensuing scene the rough and ready Hotspur makes game of Owen Glendower's high pretensions and absurd superstitions.

Enter Hotspur, Worcester, Mortimer, and Glendower.

MORTIMER.

These promises are fair, the parties sure,
And our induction1 full of prosperous hope.

HOTSPUR.

Lord Mortimer,-and cousin Glendower, -
Will you sit down?

And, uncle Worcester :-A plague upon it!
I have forgot the map.

1 What we thence expect,

GLENDOWER.

No, here it is.

Sit, cousin Percy; sit, good cousin Hotspur,

For by that name, as oft as Lancaster1

Doth speak of you, his cheek looks pale; and, with A rising sigh, he wisheth you in heaven.

HOTSPUR.

And you in hell, as often as he hears
Owen Glendower spoke of.

GLENDOWER.

I cannot blame him: at my nativity
The front of heaven was full of fiery shapes,
Of burning cressets; and, at my birth,

2

The frame and huge foundation of the earth
Shak'd like a coward.

HOTSPUR.

Why, so it would have done

At the same season, if your mother's cat

Had but kitten'd, though yourself had ne'er been born.

GLENDOWER.

I say the earth did shake when I was born.

HOTSPUR.

And I say, the earth was not of my mind,
If you suppose, as fearing you, it shook.

Henry IV, whom they do not own as king,

? Forches.

K

GLENDOWER.

The heavens were all on fire, the earth did tremble.

HOTSPUR.

Oh! then the earth shook to see the heavens on fire, And not in fear of your nativity.

Diseased nature oftentimes breaks forth

In strange eruptions: oft the teeming earth
Is with a kind of colic pinched and vex'd
By the imprisoning of unruly wind

Within her womb; which, for enlargement striving,
Shakes the old beldame1 earth, and topples down
Steeples and moss-grown towers. At your birth,
Our grandam earth, having this distemperature,
In passion shook.

GLENDOWER.

Cousin, of many men

I do not bear these crossings. Give me leave
To tell you once again,-that, at my birth,
The front of heaven was full of fiery shapes;
The goats ran from the mountains, and the herds
Were strangely clamorous to the frighted fields.
These signs have marked me extraordinary;
And all the courses of my life do show

I am not in the roll of common men.

Where is he living,-clipp'd in with the sea

That chides the banks of England, Scotland, Wales,

1 Once belle dame, or fair lady; since applied in derision to an old hag.

Which calls me pupil, or hath read to me?
And bring him out, that is but woman's son,
Can trace me in the tedious ways of art,
Or hold me pace in deep experiments.

HOTSPUR.

I think there is no man speaks better Welsh-
I will to dinner.

MORTIMER.

Peace, cousin Percy, you will make him mad.

GLENDOWER.

I can call spirits from the vasty deep.

HOTSPUR.

Why, so can I, or so can any man ;

But will they come when you do call for them?

GLENDOWER.

Why, I can teach you, cousin, to command

The devil.

HOTSPUR.

And I can teach thee, coz, to shame the devil
By telling truth. Tell truth, and shame the devik
If you have power to raise him, bring him hither,
And I'll be sworn I have power to shame him hence.
Oh, while you live tell truth, and shame the devil!

MORTIMER.

Come, come,

No more of this unprofitable chat.

GLENDOWER.

Three times hath Henry Bolingbroke1 made head Against my power. Thrice from the banks of Wye And sandy-bottom'd Severn have I sent him Bootless home, and weather-beaten back.

HOTSPUR.

Home without boots, and in foul weather too!
How 'scapes he agues?

GLENDOWER.

Come, here's the map. Shall we divide our right, According to our threefold order ta'en?

MORTIMER.

The archdeacon hath divided it

Into three limits, very equally.

England from Trent and Severn hitherto,
By south and east, is to my part assign'd:
All westward Wales beyond the Severn shore,
And all the fertile land within that bound
To Owen Glendower: -and, dear coz, to you
The remnant northward, lying off from Trent.
And our indentures tripartite are drawn:
Which, being sealed interchangeably

1 The title of Henry IV. in his younger days.
2 In vain. But Hotspur puns on the word.