1    My blood hath been too cold and temperate,
2    Unapt to stir at these indignities,
3    And you have found me; for accordingly
4    You tread upon my patience: but be sure
5    I will from henceforth rather be myself,
6    Mighty and to be fear'd, than my condition;
7    Which hath been smooth as oil, soft as young down,
8    And therefore lost that title of respect
9    Which the proud soul ne'er pays but to the proud.

10   Our house, my sovereign liege, little deserves
11   The scourge of greatness to be used on it;
12   And that same greatness too which our own hands
13   Have holp to make so portly.

14   My lord.--

15   Worcester, get thee gone; for I do see
16   Danger and disobedience in thine eye:
17   O, sir, your presence is too bold and peremptory,
18   And majesty might never yet endure
19   The moody frontier of a servant brow.
20   You have good leave to leave us: when we need
21   Your use and counsel, we shall send for you.
Exit Worcester
22   You were about to speak.

23   Yea, my good lord.
24   Those prisoners in your highness' name demanded,
25   Which Harry Percy here at Holmedon took,
26   Were, as he says, not with such strength denied
27   As is deliver'd to your majesty:
28   Either envy, therefore, or misprison
29   Is guilty of this fault and not my son.

30   My liege, I did deny no prisoners.
31   But I remember, when the fight was done,
32   When I was dry with rage and extreme toil,
33   Breathless and faint, leaning upon my sword,
34   Came there a certain lord, neat, and trimly dress'd,
35   Fresh as a bridegroom; and his chin new reap'd
36   Show'd like a stubble-land at harvest-home;
37   He was perfumed like a milliner;
38   And 'twixt his finger and his thumb he held
39   A pouncet-box, which ever and anon
40   He gave his nose and took't away again;
41   Who therewith angry, when it next came there,
42   Took it in snuff; and still he smiled and talk'd,
43   And as the soldiers bore dead bodies by,
44   He call'd them untaught knaves, unmannerly,
45   To bring a slovenly unhandsome corse
46   Betwixt the wind and his nobility.
47   With many holiday and lady terms
48   He question'd me; amongst the rest, demanded
49   My prisoners in your majesty's behalf.
50   I then, all smarting with my wounds being cold,
51   To be so pester'd with a popinjay,
52   Out of my grief and my impatience,
53   Answer'd neglectingly I know not what,
54   He should or he should not; for he made me mad
55   To see him shine so brisk and smell so sweet
56   And talk so like a waiting-gentlewoman
57   Of guns and drums and wounds,--God save the mark!--
58   And telling me the sovereign'st thing on earth
59   Was parmaceti for an inward bruise;
60   And that it was great pity, so it was,
61   This villanous salt-petre should be digg'd
62   Out of the bowels of the harmless earth,
63   Which many a good tall fellow had destroy'd
64   So cowardly; and but for these vile guns,
65   He would himself have been a soldier.
66   This bald unjointed chat of his, my lord,
67   I answer'd indirectly, as I said;
68   And I beseech you, let not his report
69   Come current for an accusation
70   Betwixt my love and your high majesty.

71   The circumstance consider'd, good my lord,
72   Whate'er Lord Harry Percy then had said
73   To such a person and in such a place,
74   At such a time, with all the rest retold,
75   May reasonably die and never rise
76   To do him wrong or any way impeach
77   What then he said, so he unsay it now.

78   Why, yet he doth deny his prisoners,
79   But with proviso and exception,
80   That we at our own charge shall ransom straight
81   His brother-in-law, the foolish Mortimer;
82   Who, on my soul, hath wilfully betray'd
83   The lives of those that he did lead to fight
84   Against that great magician, damn'd Glendower,
85   Whose daughter, as we hear, the Earl of March
86   Hath lately married. Shall our coffers, then,
87   Be emptied to redeem a traitor home?
88   Shall we but treason? and indent with fears,
89   When they have lost and forfeited themselves?
90   No, on the barren mountains let him starve;
91   For I shall never hold that man my friend
92   Whose tongue shall ask me for one penny cost
93   To ransom home revolted Mortimer.

94   Revolted Mortimer!
95   He never did fall off, my sovereign liege,
96   But by the chance of war; to prove that true
97   Needs no more but one tongue for all those wounds,
98   Those mouthed wounds, which valiantly he took
99   When on the gentle Severn's sedgy bank,
100  In single opposition, hand to hand,
101  He did confound the best part of an hour
102  In changing hardiment with great Glendower:
103  Three times they breathed and three times did
104  they drink,
105  Upon agreement, of swift Severn's flood;
106  Who then, affrighted with their bloody looks,
107  Ran fearfully among the trembling reeds,
108  And hid his crisp head in the hollow bank,
109  Bloodstained with these valiant combatants.
110  Never did base and rotten policy
111  Colour her working with such deadly wounds;
112  Nor could the noble Mortimer
113  Receive so many, and all willingly:
114  Then let not him be slander'd with revolt.

115  Thou dost belie him, Percy, thou dost belie him;
116  He never did encounter with Glendower:
117  I tell thee,
118  He durst as well have met the devil alone
119  As Owen Glendower for an enemy.
120  Art thou not ashamed? But, sirrah, henceforth
121  Let me not hear you speak of Mortimer:
122  Send me your prisoners with the speediest means,
123  Or you shall hear in such a kind from me
124  As will displease you. My Lord Northumberland,
125  We licence your departure with your son.
126  Send us your prisoners, or you will hear of it.

127  An if the devil come and roar for them,
128  I will not send them: I will after straight
129  And tell him so; for I will ease my heart,
130  Albeit I make a hazard of my head.

131  What, drunk with choler? stay and pause awhile:
132  Here comes your uncle.

133  Speak of Mortimer!
134  'Zounds, I will speak of him; and let my soul
135  Want mercy, if I do not join with him:
136  Yea, on his part I'll empty all these veins,
137  And shed my dear blood drop by drop in the dust,
138  But I will lift the down-trod Mortimer
139  As high in the air as this unthankful king,
140  As this ingrate and canker'd Bolingbroke.

141  Brother, the king hath made your nephew mad.

142  Who struck this heat up after I was gone?

143  He will, forsooth, have all my prisoners;
144  And when I urged the ransom once again
145  Of my wife's brother, then his cheek look'd pale,
146  And on my face he turn'd an eye of death,
147  Trembling even at the name of Mortimer.

148  I cannot blame him: was not he proclaim'd
149  By Richard that dead is the next of blood?

150  He was; I heard the proclamation:
151  And then it was when the unhappy king,
152  --Whose wrongs in us God pardon!--did set forth
153  Upon his Irish expedition;
154  From whence he intercepted did return
155  To be deposed and shortly murdered.

156  And for whose death we in the world's wide mouth
157  Live scandalized and foully spoken of.

158  But soft, I pray you; did King Richard then
159  Proclaim my brother Edmund Mortimer
160  Heir to the crown?

161  He did; myself did hear it.

162  Nay, then I cannot blame his cousin king,
163  That wished him on the barren mountains starve.
164  But shall it be that you, that set the crown
165  Upon the head of this forgetful man
166  And for his sake wear the detested blot
167  Of murderous subornation, shall it be,
168  That you a world of curses undergo,
169  Being the agents, or base second means,
170  The cords, the ladder, or the hangman rather?
171  O, pardon me that I descend so low,
172  To show the line and the predicament
173  Wherein you range under this subtle king;
174  Shall it for shame be spoken in these days,
175  Or fill up chronicles in time to come,
176  That men of your nobility and power
177  Did gage them both in an unjust behalf,
178  As both of you--God pardon it!--have done,
179  To put down Richard, that sweet lovely rose,
180  An plant this thorn, this canker, Bolingbroke?
181  And shall it in more shame be further spoken,
182  That you are fool'd, discarded and shook off
183  By him for whom these shames ye underwent?
184  No; yet time serves wherein you may redeem
185  Your banish'd honours and restore yourselves
186  Into the good thoughts of the world again,
187  Revenge the jeering and disdain'd contempt
188  Of this proud king, who studies day and night
189  To answer all the debt he owes to you
190  Even with the bloody payment of your deaths:
191  Therefore, I say--

192  Peace, cousin, say no more:
193  And now I will unclasp a secret book,
194  And to your quick-conceiving discontents
195  I'll read you matter deep and dangerous,
196  As full of peril and adventurous spirit
197  As to o'er-walk a current roaring loud
198  On the unsteadfast footing of a spear.

199  If he fall in, good night! or sink or swim:
200  Send danger from the east unto the west,
201  So honour cross it from the north to south,
202  And let them grapple: O, the blood more stirs
203  To rouse a lion than to start a hare!

204  Imagination of some great exploit
205  Drives him beyond the bounds of patience.

206  By heaven, methinks it were an easy leap,
207  To pluck bright honour from the pale-faced moon,
208  Or dive into the bottom of the deep,
209  Where fathom-line could never touch the ground,
210  And pluck up drowned honour by the locks;
211  So he that doth redeem her thence might wear
212  Without corrival, all her dignities:
213  But out upon this half-faced fellowship!

214  He apprehends a world of figures here,
215  But not the form of what he should attend.
216  Good cousin, give me audience for a while.

217  I cry you mercy.

218  Those same noble Scots
219  That are your prisoners,--

220  I'll keep them all;
221  By God, he shall not have a Scot of them;
222  No, if a Scot would save his soul, he shall not:
223  I'll keep them, by this hand.

224  You start away
225  And lend no ear unto my purposes.
226  Those prisoners you shall keep.

227  Nay, I will; that's flat:
228  He said he would not ransom Mortimer;
229  Forbad my tongue to speak of Mortimer;
230  But I will find him when he lies asleep,
231  And in his ear I'll holla 'Mortimer!'
232  Nay,
233  I'll have a starling shall be taught to speak
234  Nothing but 'Mortimer,' and give it him
235  To keep his anger still in motion.

236  Hear you, cousin; a word.

237  All studies here I solemnly defy,
238  Save how to gall and pinch this Bolingbroke:
239  And that same sword-and-buckler Prince of Wales,
240  But that I think his father loves him not
241  And would be glad he met with some mischance,
242  I would have him poison'd with a pot of ale.

243  Farewell, kinsman: I'll talk to you
244  When you are better temper'd to attend.

245  Why, what a wasp-stung and impatient fool
246  Art thou to break into this woman's mood,
247  Tying thine ear to no tongue but thine own!

248  Why, look you, I am whipp'd and scourged with rods,
249  Nettled and stung with pismires, when I hear
250  Of this vile politician, Bolingbroke.
251  In Richard's time,--what do you call the place?--
252  A plague upon it, it is in Gloucestershire;
253  'Twas where the madcap duke his uncle kept,
254  His uncle York; where I first bow'd my knee
255  Unto this king of smiles, this Bolingbroke,--
256  'Sblood!--
257  When you and he came back from Ravenspurgh.

258  At Berkley castle.

259  You say true:
260  Why, what a candy deal of courtesy
261  This fawning greyhound then did proffer me!
262  Look,'when his infant fortune came to age,'
263  And 'gentle Harry Percy,' and 'kind cousin;'
264  O, the devil take such cozeners! God forgive me!
265  Good uncle, tell your tale; I have done.

266  Nay, if you have not, to it again;
267  We will stay your leisure.

268  I have done, i' faith.

269  Then once more to your Scottish prisoners.
270  Deliver them up without their ransom straight,
271  And make the Douglas' son your only mean
272  For powers in Scotland; which, for divers reasons
273  Which I shall send you written, be assured,
274  Will easily be granted. You, my lord,
To Northumberland
275  Your son in Scotland being thus employ'd,
276  Shall secretly into the bosom creep
277  Of that same noble prelate, well beloved,
278  The archbishop.

279  Of York, is it not?

280  True; who bears hard
281  His brother's death at Bristol, the Lord Scroop.
282  I speak not this in estimation,
283  As what I think might be, but what I know
284  Is ruminated, plotted and set down,
285  And only stays but to behold the face
286  Of that occasion that shall bring it on.

287  I smell it: upon my life, it will do well.

288  Before the game is afoot, thou still let'st slip.

289  Why, it cannot choose but be a noble plot;
290  And then the power of Scotland and of York,
291  To join with Mortimer, ha?

292  And so they shall.

293  In faith, it is exceedingly well aim'd.

294  And 'tis no little reason bids us speed,
295  To save our heads by raising of a head;
296  For, bear ourselves as even as we can,
297  The king will always think him in our debt,
298  And think we think ourselves unsatisfied,
299  Till he hath found a time to pay us home:
300  And see already how he doth begin
301  To make us strangers to his looks of love.

302  He does, he does: we'll be revenged on him.

303  Cousin, farewell: no further go in this
304  Than I by letters shall direct your course.
305  When time is ripe, which will be suddenly,
306  I'll steal to Glendower and Lord Mortimer;
307  Where you and Douglas and our powers at once,
308  As I will fashion it, shall happily meet,
309  To bear our fortunes in our own strong arms,
310  Which now we hold at much uncertainty.

311  Farewell, good brother: we shall thrive, I trust.

312  Uncle, Adieu: O, let the hours be short
313  Till fields and blows and groans applaud our sport!