Imatges de pàgina
PDF
EPUB

HENRY IV

With vile participation; not an eye
But is a-weary of thy common sight,

Save mine, which hath desir'd to see thee

more;

Which now doth that I would not have it do, Make blind itself with foolish tenderness.

wounds of my intemperance: If not, the end of life cancels all bands; And I will die a hundred thousand deaths, Ere break the smallest parcel of this vow. K. Hen. A hundred thousand rebels die in this :

P. Hen. I shall hereafter, my thrice-gracious Thou shalt have charge, and sovereign trust, lord,

Be more myself.

K. Hen. For all the world,

As thou art to this hour, was Richard then,
When I from France set foot at Ravenspurg;
And even as I was then, is Percy now.
Now by my sceptre, and my soul to boot,
He hath more worthy interest to the state,
Than thou, the shadow of succession:
For, of no right, nor colour like to right,
He doth fill fields with harness in the realm;
Turns head against the lion's armed jaws ;
And, being no more in debt to years than
thon,

Leads ancient lords and reverend bishops on
To bloody battles and to bruising arms.
What never-dying honour hath he got
Against renowned Douglas; whose high deeds,
Whose hot incursions, and great name in arms,
Holds from all soldiers chief majority,
And military title capital,

Through all the kingdoms that acknowledge
Christ?

Thrice bath this Hotspur Mars in swathing
clothes,

This infant warrior, in his enterprizes,
Discomfited great Douglas: ta'en him once,
Enlarged him, and made a friend of him,
To fill the mouth of deep deñance up,

And shake the peace and safety of our throne.
And what say you to this? Percy, Northum-
berland,

The archbishop's grace of York,
Mortimer,

Douglas,

Capitulate + against us and are up.
But wherefore do I tell these news to thee?
Why, Harry, do I tell thee of my foes,
Which art my near'st and dearest enemy?
Thou that art like enough (through vassal
fear,

Base inclination, and the start of spleen,)
To fight against me under Percy's pay,
To dog his heels, and court'sy at his frowns,
To show how much degenerate thou art.

P. Hen. Do not think so, you shall not find

it so;

And God forgive them, that have so much
sway'd

Your majesty's good thoughts away from me!
I will redeem all this on Percy's head,
And, in the closing of some glorious day,
Be bold to tell you that I am your son;
When I will wear a garment all of blood,
And stain my favours with a bloody mask,
Which, wash'd away, shall scour my shame

with it.

And that shall be the day, whene'er it lights,
That this same child of honour and renown,
This gallant Hotspur, this all-praised knight,
And your unthought-of Harry, chance to meet :
For every honour sitting on his helm,
'Would they were multitudes; and on

bead

my

My shames redonbled! for the time will come,
That I shall make this northern youth exchange
His glorious deeds for my indignities.
Percy is but my factor, good my lord,
To engross up glorious deeds on my behalf;
And I will call him to so strict account,
That he shall render every glory up,
Yea, even the slightest worship of his time,
Or 1 will tear the reckoning from bis heart
This, in the name of God, I promise here:
Ice which, if he be pleas'd I shall perform,
I do beseech your majesty, may salve

[blocks in formation]

1 Most fatal.

herein.

Enter BLUNT.

How now, good Blunt? thy looks are full of

speed.

Blunt. So hath the business that I come to

speak of.

Lord Mortimer of Scotland hath sent word,
That Douglas and the English rebels met,
The eleventh of this month, at Shrewsbury :
A mighty and a fearful head they are,
If promises be kept on every hand,
As ever offer'd foul play in a state.

K. Hen. The earl of Westmoreland set forth
to-day;

With him my son, lord John of Lancaster;
For this advertisement is five days old :-
On Wednesday next, Harry, you shall set
we ourselves
march:
Forward; on Thursday,

[blocks in formation]

SCENE III.-Eastcheap.-A Room in the
Boar's Head Tavern.

Enter FALSTAFF and BARDOLPH.
Fal. Bardolph, am I not fallen away vilely
since this last action? do I not bate? do I not
dwindle? Why, my skin hangs about me like
an old lady's loose gown; I am wither'd like
an old apple-John. Well, I'll repent, and that
suddenly, while I am in some liking; I shall
be out of heart shortly, and then I shall have
An I have not forgotten
no strength to repent.
what the inside of a church is made of, I am
a pepper-corn, a brewer's horse; the inside of
a church! Company, villainous company, hath
been the spoil of me.

Bard. Sir John, you are so fretful, you cannot live long.

Fal. Why, there is it :-come, sing nie a bawdy song; make me merry. I was as virtuously given, as a gentleman need to be; virtuous enough: swore little; diced, not above seven times a week; went to a bawdy-house, not above once in a quarter-of an hour; paid money that I borrowed, three or four times; lived well, and in good compass: and now I live out of all order, out of all compass.

Bard. Why, you are so fat, Sir John, that you must needs be out of all compass; out of all reasonable compass, Sir John.

Fal. Do thou amend thy face, and I'll amend my life: Thou art our admiral, thon bearest the lantern in the poop,-but 'tis in the nose of thee; thou art the knight of the burning lamp.

Bard. Why, Sir John, my face does you no harm.

Fal. No, I'll be sworn; I make as good use of it as many a man doth of a death's head, or a memento mori: I never see thy face, but i think upon hell-fire, and Dives that lived in purple; for there he is in his robes, burning, burning. If thou wert any way given to virtue, I would swear by thy face; my oath should be, By this fire: but thou art altogether given over; and wert indeed, but for the light in thy Have some flesh. † Admiral's ship.

3 F

face, the son of utter darkness. When thou ran'st up Gads hill in the night to catch my horse, if I did not think thou hadst been an ignis fatuus, or a ball of wildfire, there's no purchase in money. O thou art a perpetual triumph, an everlasting bonfire-light! Thou hast sav'd me a thousand marks in links and torches, walking with thee in the night betwixt tavern and tavern: but the sack that thou hast drunk me, would have bought me lights as good cheap, at the dearest chandler's in Europe. I have maintain'd that salamander of your's with fire, any time this two and thirty years; Heaven reward me for it!

Bard. 'Sblood, I would my face were in your belly!

Fal. God a-mercy! so should I be sure to be heart-burned.

Enter HOSTESS.

How now, dame Partlet the hen? have you inquired yet who picked my pocket?

Host. Why, Sir John! what do you think, Sir John? Do you think I keep thieves in my house? I have searched, I have inquired, so has my husbaud, man by man, boy by boy, servant by servant: the tithe of a hair was never lost in my house before.

Fal. You lie, hostess; Bardolph was shaved, and lost many a hair: and I'll be sworn, my pocket was picked: Go to, you are a woman, go.

Host. Who, II defy thee: I was never called so in mine own house before.

Fal. Go to, I know you well enough.

Host. No, Sir John, you do not know me, Sir John: I know you, Sir John: you owe me money, Sir John, and now you pick a quarrel to beguile me of it: I bought you a dozen of shirts to your back.

Fal. Dowlas, filthy dowlas; I have given them away to bakers' wives, and they have made bolters of them.

Host. Now, as I am a true woman, holland of eight shillings an ell. You owe money here besides, Sir John, for your diet, and by-drinkings, and money lent you, four and twenty pound.

Fal. He had his part of it; let him pay. Host. Het alas, he is poor; he hath thing.

P. Hen. What didst thou lose, Jack? Fal. Wilt thou believe me, Hal: three or four bonds of forty pound a-piece, and a sealring of my grandfather's.

P. Hen. A trifle, some eight-penny matter. Host. So I told him, my lord; and I said I heard your grace say so: And, my lord, be speaks most vilely of you, like a foul-mouthed man as he is: and said he would cudgel you. P. Hen. What! he did not?

Host. There's neither faith, truth, nor womanhood in me else.

Fal. There's no more faith in thee than in a stewed prune; nor no more truth in thee, than in a drawn fox; and for womanhood, med Marian may be the deputy's wife of the ward to thee. Go, you thing, go.

Host. Say, what thing? what thing?

Fal. What thing? why a thing to thank God on.

Host. I am no thing to thank God on, I would thou should'st know it; I am an honest man's wife; and, setting thy knighthood aside, thou art a knave to call me so.

Fal. Setting thy womanhood aside, thou art a beast to say otherwise.

Host. Say what beast, thou knave, thou?
Fal. What beast? why an otter.

P. Hen. An otter, Sir John? why an otter! Fal. Why she's neither fish nor flesh, a man knows not where to have her.

Host. Thou art an unjust man in saying so; thou or any man knows where to have me, thou knave thou!

P. Hen. Thou sayest true, hostess; and he slanders thee most grossly.

Host. So he doth you, my lord; and said this other day you owed him a thousand pound. P. Hen Sirrah, do I owe you a thousand pound?

Fal. A thousand pound, Hal? a million: thy love is worth a million; thou owest me thy love.

Host. Nay, my lord, he called you Jack, and said he would cudgel you.

Fal. Did I, Bardolph ?

Bard. Indeed, Sir John, you said so.
Fal. Yea; if he said my ring was copper.
P. Hen. I say 'tis copper: darest thou be as
no-good as thy word now?

Fal. How! poor? look upon his face; What call you rich! let them coin his nose, let them coin his cheeks; I'll not pay a denier. What, will you make a younker of me? shall I not take mine ease in mine iun, but I shall have my pocket picked? I have lost a seal-ring of iny grandfather's worth forty mark.

Host. O Jesu! I have heard the prince tell him, I know not how oft, that that ring was copper.

Fal. Why, Hal, thou knowest, as thou art but man, I dare: but, as thou art prince, I fear thee as I fear the roaring of the lion's whelp.

P. Hen. And why not, as the lion?

Fal. The king himself is to be feared as the lion: Dost thou think I'll fear thee as I fear thy father? nay, an I do, I pray God my girdle break!

P. Hen. Oh! if it should, how would thy guts fall about thy knees! But, sirrab, there's no Fal. How the prince is a Jack, + a sneak-room for faith, truth, nor honesty, in this bosom cup; and if he were here, I would cudgel him of thine; it is filled up with guts and midlike a dog, if he would say so.

Enter Prince HENRY and POINS, marching FALSTAFF meets the PRINCE, playing on his truncheon like a fife.

Fal. How now, lad is the wind in that door

i'faith? must we all march?

Bard. Yea, two and two, Newgate-fashion?
Host. My lord, I pray you, hear me.
P. Hen. What sayest thou, mistress Quickly
How does thy husband? I love him well, he is
an honest man.

Host. Good my lord, hear me.
Fal. Pr'ythee let her alone, and list to me.
P. Hen. What sayest thou, Jack?

Fal. The other night I fell asleep here be hind the arras, and had my pocket picked: this bouse is turned bawdy-house, they pick pockets.

In the story-book of Reynard the Fox. • A term of contempt frequently used by Shakspeare.

riff. Charge an honest woman with picking bossed + rascal, if there were any thing in the thy pocket! Why, thou whoreson, impudent em pocket but tavern-reckonings, memorandums of bawdy-houses, and one poor penny-worth of sugar-candy to make thee long winded; if thy pocket were enriched with any other injuries but these, I am a villain. And yet you will stand to it; you will not pocket up wrong: Art thou not ashamed?

Fal. Dost thou hear, Hal? thou knowest, in the state of innocency, Adam fell; and what should poor Jack Falstaff do, in the days of villainy? Thou seest I bave more flesh than another man; and therefore more frailty.--You confess then, you picked my pocket?

P. Hen. It appears so by the story.
Pul. Hostess, 1 forgive thee: Go, make

• A man dressed like a woman, who attends morria dancers. + Suola.

HENRY IV

ready breakfast; love thy husband, look to thy servants, cherish thy guests: thou shalt find me tractable to any honest reason: thou seest I am pacified-Still?-Nay, pr'ythee, be gone. [Erit HOSTESS.] Now, Hal, to the news at court: for the robbery, lad,-How is that answered ?

P. Hen. O my sweet beef, I must still be good angel to thee :-The money is paid back again.

Fal. O I do not like that paying back, 'tis a double labour.

P. Hen. I am good friends with my father, and may do any thing.

Fal. Rob me the exchequer the first thing thou doest, and do it with unwashed hands too. Bard. Do, my lord.

of foot.

P. Hen. I have procured thee, Jack, a charge Fal. I would it had been of horse. Where shall I find one that can steal well? O for a fine thief, of the age of two and twenty, or there. Well, abouts! I am heinously unprovided. God be thanked for these rebels, they offend none but the virtuous; I laud them, I praise

them.

P. Hen. Bardolph——
Bard. My lord.

P. Hen. Go bear this letter to lord John of
Lancaster,

My brother John; this to my lord of Westmore

land.-

Go, Poins, to horse, to horse; for thou and I
Have thirty miles to ride yet ere dinner time.—
Jack,

Meet me to-morrow i'the temple hall

At two o'clock i'the afternoon:

! how has he the leisure to be
sick,

In such a justling time? Who leads his power?
Mess. His letters bear his mind, not I, my
Under whose government come they along?
lord.

Wor. I pr'ythee, tell me, doth he keep his
bed?

Mess. He did, my lord, four days ere 1 set
forth;

And at the time of my departure thence,
He was much fear'd by his physicians.

Wor. I would the state of time had first been
whole,

His health was never better worth than now.
Ere be by sickness had been visited;
Hot. Sick now! droop now! this sickness doth
infect
The very life-blood of our enterprize;
'Tis catching hither, even to our camp.-
He writes me here,-that inward sickness-
And that his friends by deputation could not
So soon be drawn; nor did he think it meet,
To lay so dangerous and dear a trust
Yet doth he give us bold advertisement,-
On any soul remov'd but on his own.
That with our small conjunction, we should on,
To see how fortune is dispos'd to us :
Because the king is certainly possess'd
For, as he writes, there is no quailing now;
Wor. Your father's sickness is a maim to us.
Of all our purposes. What say you to it?
Hot. A perilous gash, a very limb lopp'd

off:

And yet, in faith, 'tis not; his present want Seems more than we shall find it :-Were it good,

There shalt thou know thy charge: and there re- To set the exact wealth of all our states

ceive

Money, and order for their furniture.
The land is burning; Percy stands on high;
And either they, or we, must lower lie.

[Exeunt PRINCE, POINS, and BARDOLPH. Fal. Rare words! brave world!--Hostess, my breakfast; come :

OI could wish this tavern were my drum.

ACT IV.

[Exit.

[blocks in formation]

Enter HOTSPUR, WORCESTER, and DOUGLAS. Hot. Weil said, my noble Scot: if speaking truth,

[ocr errors]

In this fine age, were not thought flattery,
Such attribution should the Douglas have,
As not a soldier of this season's stamp
Should go so general current through the world.
By heaven, I cannot flatter; I defy
The tongues of soothers; but a braver place
In my heart's love, hath no man than your-
self;

Nay, task me to the word; approve me, lord.
Doug. Thou art the king of honour:
No man so potent breathes upon the ground,
But I will beard him.

Hot. Do so, and 'tis well :

Enter a MESSENGERS, with letters.

What letters hast thou there ?-I can but thank you.

Mess. These letters come from your fatuer,Hot. Letters from him! why comes he not bimself?

Mess. He cannot come, my lord; he's grievous

sick.

All at one cast? to set so rich a main
On the nice hazard of one doubtful hour?
It were not good for therein should we read
The very bottom and the soul of hope;
The very list, the very utmost bound
Of all our fortunes.

Doug. 'Faith, and so we should !
Where now remains a sweet reversion:
We may boldly spend upon the hope of what
Is to come in:

A comfort of retirement lives in this.

Hot. A rendezvous, a home to fly unto,
If that the devil and mischance look big
Upon the maidenhead of our affairs.

Wor. But yet I would your father had been
here,

The quality and hair of our attempt
Brooks no division: It will be thought
By some, that know not why he is away,
That wisdom, loyalty, and mere dislike
Of our proceedings, kept the earl from hence;
And think, how such an apprehension
May turn the tide of fearful faction,
And breed a kind of question in our cause:
For well you know, we of the offering side
Must keep aloof from strict arbitrement;
And stop all sight holes, every loop, from
whence

The eye of reason may pry in upon us :
This absence of your father's draws a curtain,
That shews the ignorant a kind of fear
Before not dreamt of.

Hot. You strain too far.

I, rather, of his absence make this use;-
It lends a lustre, and more great opinion,
A larger dare to our great enterprise,
think,
Than if the earl were here: for men must

If we, without his help, can make a head
To push against the kingdom: with his help,
We shall o'erturn it topsy-turvy down.
Yet all goes well, yet all our joints are whole.
Doug. As heart can think: there is not stich a
word

T23 expression is applied by way of preeminence Spoke of in Scotland, as this term of fear. to the bead of the Douglas family.

1 Meet him face to face.

• Line.

+ Whereas.

Enter Sir RICHARD VERNON.

Hot. My cousin Vernon! welcome, by my soul.

Ver. Pray God, my news be worth a wel-
conie, lord.

The earl of Westmoreland, seven thousand strong,
Is marching hitherwards; with him, prince

John.

Hot. No harm: What more?

Ver. And further, I have learn'd,-
The king himself in person is set forth,
Or hitherwards intended speedily,
With strong and mighty preparation.

the coinage. Bid my lieutenant Peto meet me at the town's end.

Bard. I will, captain: farewell. [Erit. Fal. If I be not ashamed of my soldiers, I am a souced gurnet. • I have misused the king's press damnably. I have got, in exchange of a hundred and fifty soldiers, three hundred and odd pounds. I press me none but good householders, yeomen's sons: inquire me out contracted bachelors, such as had been asked twice on the bans; such a commodity of warm slaves, as had as lief hear the devil as a drum; such as fear the report of a caliver, worse than a struck fowl,

Hot. He shall be welcome too. Where is his or a hurt wild duck. I pressed me none bat

son,

The nimble-footed mad-cap prince of Wales,
And his comrades, that daff'd the world aside.
And bid it pass?

Ver. All furnish'd, all in arms,

All plum'd like estridges that wing the wind;
Bated like eagles having lately bath'd; +
Glittering in golden coats, like images;
As full of spirit as the month of May,
And gorgeous as the sun at midsummer;
Wanton as youthful goats, wild as young bulls.
I saw young Harry, with his beaver on,
His cuisses on his thighs, gallantly arm'd,
Rise from the ground like feather'd Mercury,
And vaulted with such ease into his seat,
As if an angel dropp'd down from the clouds,
To turn and wind a fiery Pegasus,
And witch the world with noble horsemanship.
Hot. No more, no more; worse than the sun
in March,

This praise doth nourish agues. Let them come;
They come like sacrifices in their trim,
And to the fire-ey'd maid of smoky war,
All hot, and bleeding, will we offer them:
The mailed Mars shall on his altar sit,
Up to the ears in blood. I am on fire,
To hear this rich reprisal is so nigh,
And yet not our's:-Come, let ne take

horse,

such toasts and butter, with hearts in their bellies no bigger than pins' heads, and they have bought out their services; and now my whole charge consists of ancients, corporals, lieutenants, gentlemen of companies, slaves as ragged as Lazarus in the painted cloth, where the glutton's dogs licked his sores: and such as, indeed, were never soldiers; but discarded unjust serving-men, younger sons to younger brothers, revolted tapsters, and ostiers tradefallen; the cankers of a calm world, and a long peace; ten times more dishonourably ragged than an old faced ancient : and such have 1, to fill up the rooms of them that have bought cut their services, that you would think that I had a hundred and fifty tattered prodigals, lately conse from swine-keeping, from eating draff and busks. A mad fellow met me on the way, and told me

had unloaded all the gibbets, and pressed the dead bodies. No eye hath seen such scare-crows. that's flat :-Nay, and the villains march wide I'll not march through Coventry with them, betwixt the legs, as if they had gyves on; for, indeed, I had the most of them out of prison. There's but a shirt and a half in all my company; and the half-shirt is two napkins, tacked together, and thrown over the shoulders like a herald's coat without sleeves; and the shirt, to

my say the truth, stolen from my host at Saint Alban's, or the red-nose inn-keeper of Daintry.i But that's all one; they'll find linen enough on every hedge.

Who is to bear me, like a thunderbolt,
Against the bosom of the prince of Wales:
Harry to Harry shall, hot hoise to horse,
Meet, and ne'er part, till one drop down a

[blocks in formation]

Ver. To thirty thousand.

Hot. Forty let it be;

My father and Glendower being both away,
The powers of us may serve so great a day.
Come, let us make a muster speedily:
Doomsday is near; die all, die merrily.

Doug. Talk not of dying; I ain out of fear Of death, or death's hand, for this one half year. [Exeunt.

SCENE II.—A Public Road near Coventry.

Enter FALSTAFF and BARDOLPH.

Fal. Bardolph, get thee before to Coventry; fill me a bottle of sack: our soldiers shall march through; we'll to Sutton-Colfield tonight.

Bard. Will you give me money, captain?
Fal. Lay out, lay out.

Bard. This bottle makes an angel.
Fal. An if it do, take it for thy labour; and
f it make twenty, take them all, l'il answer

[blocks in formation]

Enter Prince HENRY and WESTMORE

LAND.

P. Hen. How now, blown Jack? how now, quilt?

Fal. What, Hal? How now, mad wag? what a devil dost thou in Warwickshire -My good lord of Westmoreland, I cry you mercy; I thought your honour had already been at Shrews

bury.

that I were there, and you too; but my powers West. 'Faith, Sir John, 'tis more than time are there already: The king, I can tell you, looks for us all; we must away all night.

Fal. Tut, never fear me; I am as vigilant as a cat to steal cream.

P. Hen. I think to steal cream indeed; for thy theft hath already made thee butter. Eat tell me, Jack; Whose fellows are these that come after ?

Fal. Mine, Hal, mine.

P. Hen. I did never see such pitiful rascals. powder, food for powder; they'll fill a pit, as Fal. Tut, tut; good enough to toss; food for well as better: tush, man, mortal men, mortal

men.

[blocks in formation]

West. He is, Sir John; I fear, we shall stay | And pardon absolute yourself, and these, Herein misled by your suggestion. too long.

Fal. Well,

To the latter end of a fray, and the beginning of a feast,

Fits a dull fighter, and a keen guest.

Hot. The king is kind; and, well we know,
the king

Knows at what time to promise, when to pay.
My father, and my uncle, and myself,
[Exeunt. Did give him that same royalty he wears:
And,-when he was not six and twenty strong,

A poor unminded outlaw sneaking home,-
SCENE III.-The Rebel Camp near Shrews-Sick in the world's regard, wretched and low,
My father gave him welcome to the shore :

bury.

Enter HOTSPUR, WORCESTER, DOUGLAS, and And,-when he heard him swear, and vow to

VERNON.

Ilot. We'll fight with him to-night.

Wor. It may not be.

Doug. You give him then advantage.

Fer. Not a whit.

God,

He came but to be duke of Lancaster,
To sue his livery, and beg his peace;
With tears of innocency, and terms of zeal,-
My father, in kind heart and pity mov'd,
Swore him assistance, and perform'd it too.

Hot. Why say you so? looks he not for sup- Now, when the lords and barons of the realm
ply 1

Ver. So do we.

Hot. His is certain, our's is doubtful.

Perceiv'd Northumberland did lean to him,
The more and less + came in with cap and knee;
Met him in boroughs, cities, villages;

Wor. Good cousin, be advis'd; stir not to- Attended him on bridges, stood in lanes,

night.

Ver. Do not, my lord.

Doug. You do not counsel well;

You speak it out of fear, and cold heart.
Ver. Do me no slander, Douglas: by

life,

(And I dare well maintain it with my life,)
If well respected honour bid me on,
I hold as little counsel with weak fear,
As you my lord, or any Scot that lives :-
Let it be seen to-morrow in the battle,
Which of us fears.

Doug. Yea, or to-night.

Ver. Content.

Hot. To-night, say' I.

Ver. Come, come, it may not be.

I wonder much, being men of such great

ing,

my

Laid gifts before him, proffer'd him their oaths,
Gave him their heirs; as pages follow'd him,
Even at the heels, in golden multitudes.
He presently, as greatness knows itself,-
Steps me a little higher than his vow
Made to my father, while his blood was poor,
Upon the naked shore at Ravenspurg;
And now, forsooth, takes on him to reform
Some certain edicts, and some strait decrees,
That lie too heavy on the commonwealth :
Cries out upon abuses, seems to weep
Over his country's wrongs; and, by this face,
This seeming brow of justice, did he win
The hearts of all that he did angle for.
Proceeded further; cut me off the heads
Of all the favourites, and the absent king
lead-In deputation left behind him here,
When he was personal in the Irish war.
Blunt. Tut, I came not to hear this.
Hot. Then, to the point.-

That you foresee not what impediments
Drag back our expedition: Certain horse
Of my cousin Vernon's are not yet come up:
Your uncle Worcester's horse came but to-
day;

And now their pride and mettle is asleep,
Their courage with hard labour tame and dull,
That not a borse is half the half himself.

Hot. So are the horses of the enemy
In general, journey-bated, and brought low;
The better part of our's is full of rest.
Wor. The number of the king exceedeth

ours:

For God's sake, cousin, stay till all come in.
The Trumpet sounds a parley.
Enter Sir WALTER BLUNT.

[blocks in formation]

(Who is, if every owner were well plac'd,
Indeed his king,) to be incag'd in Wales,
There without ransom to lie forfeited;
Disgrac'd me in my happy victories;
Sought to entrap me by intelligence;
Rated my uncle from the council-board :
In rage dismiss'd my father from the court;
Broke oath on oath, committed wrong on wrong:
And, in conclusion, drove us to seek out
This bead of safety; and, withal, to pry

Blunt. I come with gracious offers from the Into his title, the which we find

[blocks in formation]

You were of our determination!

Some of us love you well; and even those some
Envy your great deserving, and good name;
Because you are not of our quality, t
But stand against us like an enemy.

Blunt. And God defend, but still I should
stand so,

So long as, out of limit and true rule,
You stand against anointed majesty!
But, to my charge.-The king hath sent to know
The nature of your griefs; and whereupon
You conjure from the breast of civil peace
Sach bold hostility, teaching this duteous land
Audacious cruelty: If that the king
Have any way your good deserts forgot,

bich he confesseth to be manifold,

He bids you name your griefs, and, with all speed,

You shall bave your desires with interest;

[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]

SCENE IV.-York.-A Room in the Arch-
bishop's house.

Enter the ARCHBISHOP OF YORK, and a GEN-
TLEMAN.

Arch. Hie, good Sir Michael, bear this sealed
brief,

With winged haste, to the lord mareschal ;
This to my cousin Scroop; and all the rest

The delivery of his lands.
The greater and the less.

1

« AnteriorContinua »