The moody frontier of a servant brow.
You have good leave to leave us; when we need
Your use and counsel we shall send for you.-
North.
Those prisoners in your highness' name demanded,
Which Harry Percy here at Holmedon took,
Were, as he says, not with such strength denied
As was deliver'd 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 and trimly dress'd,
Fresh as a bridegroom; and his chin, new reap'd,
Show'd 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:b and still he smil'd and talk'd;
And as the soldiers bore dead bodies by
He call'd them untaught knaves, unmannerly,
To bring a slovenly unhandsome corse
Betwixt the wind and his nobility.
With many holiday and lady terms
He question'd me; among the rest, demanded
My prisoners, in your majesty's behalf.
I then, all smarting, with my wounds being cold,
a Frontier is a metaphorical expression, implying-armed to oppose.
6 Snuff. Aromatic powders were used as snuff long before the introduction of tobacco.
To be so pester'd with a popinjay,
Out of my grief and my impatience
Answer'd neglectingly, I know not what;
He should, or 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 villainous saltpetre should be digg'd
Out of the bowels of the harmless earth,
Which many a good tall fellow had destroy'd
So cowardly; and but for these vile guns
He would himself have been a soldier.
This bald unjointed chat of his, my lord,
I answer'd indirectly, as I said;
And, I beseech you, let not this report
Come current for an accusation,
Betwixt my love and your high majesty.
Blunt. The circumstance consider'd, good my lord, 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 straight
His brother-in-law, the foolish Mortimer;
Who, in my soul, hath wilfully betray'd
The lives of those that he did lead to fight
Against the great magician, damn'd 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 feres,a
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 breath'd, 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 base and rotten policy
Colour her working with such deadly wounds;
Nor never could the noble Mortimer
Receive so many, and all willingly:
Then let him not be slander'd with revolt.
K. Hen. Thou dost belie him, Percy, thou dost belie
He never did encounter with Glendower:
He durst as well have met the devil alone,
As Owen Glendower for an enemy.
Art thou not asham'd? But, sirrah, henceforth
a Feres. The usual reading is fears. To indent is to sign an indenture-to make a contract. Feres are vassals. They have forfeited their fees or fiefs.
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
Want mercy, if I do not join with him:
In his behalf 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 canker'd Bolingbroke.
North. Brother, the king hath made your nephew
[To WORCESTER.
Wor. Who struck this heat up, after I was gone?
Hot. He will, forsooth, have all my prisoners;
And when I urg'd the ransom once again
Of my wife's brother, then his cheek look'd pale;
And on my face he turn'd an eye of death,
Trembling even at the name of Mortimer.
Wor. I cannot blame him: Was he not proclaim'd,
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 depos'd, and shortly murthered.
Wor. And for whose death, we in the world's wide mouth
Live scandaliz'd, and foully spoken of.
Hot. But, soft, I pray you: Did king Richard then Proclaim my brother Mortimer
He did; myself did hear it.
Hot. Nay, then I cannot blame his cousin king,
That wish'd him on the barren mountains starv'd.
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 murtherous 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, if 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 fool'd, discarded, and shook off
By him for whom these shames ye underwent?
No; yet time serves, wherein you may redeem
a This canker. The canker is the dog-rose-the rose of the hedge, not of the garden.
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