could'st not see thy hand? come, tell us your reason what sayest thou to this?

Poins. Come, your reason, Jack, your reason. Fal. What upon compulsion? 'Zounds! an I were at the strappado, or all the racks in the 190 world, I would not tell you on compulsion. Give you a reason on compulsion! if reasons were as plenty as blackberries I would give no man a reason upon compulsion, I.

Fal. My own knee! when I was about thy years, Hal, I was not an eagle's talon in the waist; I could have crept into any alderman's thumb-ring. A plague of sighing and grief! it blows a man up like a bladder. There's villanous news abroad: here was Sir John Bracy from your father: you must to the court in the morning That same mad fellow of the north, Percy, and he of Wales, that gave Amaimon the bastinado and made Lucifer cuckold, and swore the devil his true liegeman upon the cross of a Welsh hook-what a plague call you him? Poins. O Glendower.

370

Prince. Why then, it is like, if there come a hot June and this civil buffeting hold, we shall buy maidenheads as they buy hob-nails, by the hundreds.

Fal. By the mass, lad, thou sayest true; it is like we shall have good trading that way. But tell me, Hal, art thou not horrible afeard? thou being heir apparent, could the world pick thee out three such enemies again as that fiend Douglas, that spirit Percy, and that devil Glendower? Art thou not horribly afraid? doth not thy blood thrill at it?

404

Prince. Not a whit, i' faith; I lack some of thy instinct.

Fal. Well, thou wilt be horribly chid to-morrow when thou comest to thy father: if thou love me, practise an answer.

Prince. Do thou stand for my father, and examine me upon the particulars of my life. a Fal. Shall I content: this chair shall be my state, this dagger my sceptre, and this cushion my crown.

Prince. Thy state is taken for a joint-stool, thy golden sceptre for a leaden dagger, and thy precious rich crown for a pitiful bald crown!

Fal. Well, an the fire of grace be not quite out of thee, now shalt thou be moved. Give me a cup of sack to make mine eyes look red, that it may be thought I have wept; for I must speak in passion, and I will do it in King Cambyses' vein. Prince. Well, here is my leg.

Fal. And here is my speech. Stand aside, nobility.

Quick. O Jesu! this is excellent sport, i' faith, Fal. Weep not, sweet queen, for trickling tears are vain.

Quick. O, the father! how he holds his countenance.

Fal. For God's sake, lords, convey my tristful

queen,

For tears do stop the flood-gates of her eyes. Quick. O Jesu he doth it as like one of these harlotry players as ever I see.

Fal. Peace, good pint-pot! peace, good ticklebrain! Harry, I do not only marvel where thou spendest thy time, but also how thou art accom. panied for though the camomile, the more it is trodden on the faster it grows, yet youth, the more it is wasted the sooner it wears. That thou Fal. Owen, Owen; the same; and his son-in-art my son, I have partly thy mother's word, law Mortimer, and old Northumberland; and that sprightly Scot of Scots, Douglas, that runs o' horseback up a hill perpendicular. Prince. He that rides at high speed and with his pistol kills a sparrow flying. Fal. You have hit it.

Prince. So did he never the sparrow.

Fal. Well, that rascal hath good mettle in him; he will not run.

Prince. Why, what a rascal art thou then, praise him so for running!

381

to

partly my own opinion; but chiefly a villanous trick of thine eye and a foolish hanging of thy nether lip, that doth warrant me. If then thou be son to me, here lies the point; why, being son to me, art thou so pointed at? Shall the blessed sun of heaven prove a micher and eat blackberries? a question not to be asked. Shall the son of England prove a thief and take purses? a question to be asked. There is a thing, Harry, which thou hast often heard of, and it is known to many in our land by the name of pitch:

Fal. O' horseback, ye cuckoo! but afoot he this pitch, as ancient writers do report, doth will not budge a foot.

Prince. Yes, Jack, upon instinct.

Fal. I grant ye, upon instinct. Well, he is there too, and one Mordake, and a thousand blue-caps more. Worcester is stolen away tonight; thy father's beard is turned white with

defile; so doth the company thou keepest; for, Harry, now I do not speak to thee in drink but in tears, not in pleasure but in passion, not in words only, but in woes also. And yet there is a virtuous man whom I have often noted in thy company, but I know not his name.

Prince. O monstrous! but one half-pennyworth of bread to this intolerable deal of sack! What there is else, keep close; we'll read it at more advantage. There let him sleep till day. I'll to the court in the morning. We must all to the wars, and thy place shall be honourable. I'll procure this fat rogue a charge of foot; and I know his death will be a march of twelvescore. The money shall be paid back again with advantage. Be with me betimes in the morning; and so, good morrow, Peto. Peto. Good morrow, good my lord.

ACT III.

600

Exeunt.

41

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 mark'd 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,

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
And hold me pace in deep experiments.

Hot. I think there's no man speaks better
Welsh.

I'll to dinner.

50

Mort. Peace, cousin Percy! you will make him
mad.

Glend. I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
Hot. Why, so can I, or so can any man;
But will they come when you do call for them!
Glend. Why, I can teach you, cousin, to
command

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

Glend. I cannot blame him: at my nativity
The front of heaven was full of fiery shapes,
Of burning cressets; and at my birth
The frame and huge foundation of the earth
Shak'd like a coward.

Hot. Why, so it would have done at the same season, if your mother's cat had but kittened, though yourself had never been born.

20

Glend. I say the earth did shake when I was born. Hot. And I say the earth was not of my mind, If you suppose as fearing you it shook.

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

Hot. And I can teach thee, coz, to shame the
devil

By telling truth: tell truth and shame the devil.
If thou have power to raise him, bring him hither,
And I'll be sworn I have power to shame him
hence.

61

O! while you live, tell truth and shame the devil.
Mort. Come, come;

No more of this unprofitable chat.

Glend. Three times hath Henry Bolingbroke
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.

Hot. Home without boots, and in foul weather
too!

70

How 'scapes he agues, in the devil's name?
Glend. Come, here's the map: shall we divide
our right

According to our threefold order ta'en?
Mort. 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. 8
And our indentures tripartite are drawn,
Which being sealed interchangeably,

Hot. O then the earth shook to see the A business that this night may execute,

heavens on fire,

To-morrow, cousin Percy, you and I

And my good Lord of Worcester will set forth
To meet your father and the Scottish power,
As is appointed us, at Shrewsbury.

My father Glendower is not ready yet,
Nor shall we need his help these fourteen days.
Within that space you may have drawn together
Your tenants, friends, and neighbouring gentle-

men.

91

Glend. A shorter time shall send me to you, lords;

And in my conduct shall your ladies come, From whom you now must steal and take no leave;

For there will be a world of water shed
Upon the parting of your wives and you..
Mort. Methinks my moiety, north from Burton
here,

In quantity equals not one of yours:
See how this river comes me cranking in,
And cuts me from the best of all my land
A huge half-moon, a monstrous cantle out.
I'll have the current in this place damm'd up,
And here the smug and silver Trent shall run
In a new channel, fair and evenly:

It shall not wind with such a deep indent,

To rob me of so rich a bottom here.

100

As puts me from my faith. I tell you what;
He held me last night at least nine hours
In reckoning up the several devils' names
That were his lackeys: I cried 'hum,' and 'well,
go to,'

But mark'd him not a word. O he's as tedious
As a tired horse, a railing wife;

Worse than a smoky house. I had rather live
With cheese and garlic in a windmill, far,
Than feed on cates and have him talk to me
In any summer-house in Christendom.
Mort. In faith, he is a worthy gentleman,
Exceedingly well read, and profited

Glend. Not wind! it shall, it must; you see In strange concealments, valiant as a lion

it doth.

Mort. Yea, but

130

I had rather be a kitten, and cry mew
Than one of these same metre ballad-mongers;
I had rather hear a brazen canstick turn'd,
Or a dry wheel grate on the axle-tree;
And that would set my teeth nothing on edge,
Nothing so much as mincing poetry:
'Tis like the forc'd gait of a shuffling nag.

Glend. Come, you shall have Trent turn'd.
Hot. I do not care: I'll give thrice so much
land

To any well-deserving friend;

But in the way of bargain, mark ye me,
I'll cavil on the ninth part of a hair.

Are the indentures drawn? shall we be gone? 140
Glend. The moon shines fair, you may away
by night:

I'll haste the writer and withal

Break with your wives of your departure hence:
I am afraid my daughter will run mad,
So much she doteth on her Mortimer.

Exit.

161

And wondrous affable, and as bountiful
As mines of India. Shall I tell you, cousin?
He holds your temper in a high respect,
And curbs himself even of his natural scope 170
When you do cross his humour; faith, he does.
I warrant you, that man is not alive
Might so have tempted him as you have done,
Without the taste of danger and reproof:
But do not use it oft, let me entreat you.

Wor. In faith, my lord, you are too wilful-
blame;

And since your coming hither have done enough
To put him quite beside his patience.
You must needs learn, lord, to amend this fault:
Though sometimes it show greatness, courage,
blood,

And that's the dearest grace it renders you,
Yet oftentimes it doth present harsh rage,
Defect of manners, want of government,
Pride, haughtiness, opinion, and disdain :
The least of which haunting a nobleman
Loseth men's hearts and leaves behind a stain
Upon the beauty of all parts besides,
Beguiling them of commendation.

180

Hot. Well, I am school'd; good manners be your speed!

189

Here come our wives, and let us take our leave.

Re-enter GLENDOWER with the Ladies.
Mort. This is the deadly spite that angers me;
My wife can speak no English, I no Welsh.
Glend. My daughter weeps; she will not part
with you:

She'll be a soldier too: she 'll to the wars.
Mort. Good father, tell her that she and my
aunt Percy

Shall follow in your conduct speedily.

GLENDOWER speaks to her in Welsh, and she answers him in the same. Glend. She is desperate here; a peevish selfwilled harlotry, one that no persuasion can do good upon. She speaks to MORTIMER in Welsh.

Mort. I understand thy looks: that pretty
Welsh

200