The same.
[Enter LORD BARDOLPH]
NORTHUMBERLAND
What news, Lord Bardolph? every minute now
Should be the father of some stratagem:
The times are wild: contention, like a horse
Full of high feeding, madly hath broke loose
And bears down all before him.
LORD BARDOLPH Noble earl,
I bring you certain news from Shrewsbury.
NORTHUMBERLAND Good, an God will!
LORD BARDOLPH As good as heart can wish:
The king is almost wounded to the death;
And, in the fortune of my lord your son,
Prince Harry slain.
NORTHUMBERLAND How is this derived?
Saw you the field? came you from Shrewsbury?
LORD BARDOLPH I spake with one,
my lord, that came from thence,
A gentleman well bred and of good name,
That freely render’d me these news for true.
[Enter TRAVERS]
TRAVERS My lord,
A gentleman, almost forspent with speed,
That stopp’d by me to breathe his bloodied horse.
He ask’d the way to Chester; and of him
I did demand what news from Shrewsbury:
He told me that rebellion had bad luck
And that young Harry Percy’s spur was cold.
LORD BARDOLPH My lord, I’ll tell you what;
If my young lord your son have not the day,
Upon mine honour, for a silken point
I’ll give my barony: never talk of it.
[Enter MORTON]
NORTHUMBERLAND Yea,
this man’s brow, like to a title-leaf,
Foretells the nature of a tragic volume:
Say, Morton, didst thou come from Shrewsbury?
MORTON I ran from Shrewsbury, my noble lord;
Where hateful death put on his ugliest mask
To fright our party.
NORTHUMBERLAND How doth my son and brother?
Thou tremblest; and the whiteness in thy cheek
Is apter than thy tongue to tell thy errand.
MORTON Douglas is living, and your brother, yet;
But, for my lord your son–
NORTHUMBERLAND Why, he is dead.
See what a ready tongue suspicion hath!
LORD BARDOLPH I cannot think,
my lord, your son is dead.
MORTON I am sorry I should force you to believe
That which I would to God I had not seen;
But these mine eyes saw him in bloody state,
Rendering faint quittance, wearied and out-breathed,
To Harry Monmouth; whose swift wrath beat down
The never-daunted Percy to the earth,
From whence with life he never more sprung up.
NORTHUMBERLAND For this
I shall have time enough to mourn.
In poison there is physic; and these news,
Having been well, that would have made me sick,
Being sick, have in some measure made me well:
Now bind my brows with iron; and approach
The ragged’st hour that time and spite dare bring
To frown upon the enraged Northumberland!
Let heaven kiss earth! now let not Nature’s hand
Keep the wild flood confined! let order die!
And let this world no longer be a stage
To feed contention in a lingering act;
But let one spirit of the first-born Cain
Reign in all bosoms, that, each heart being set
On bloody courses, the rude scene may end,
And darkness be the burier of the dead!
TRAVERS This strained passion
doth you wrong, my lord.
LORD BARDOLPH Sweet earl,
divorce not wisdom from your honour.
We all that are engaged to this loss
Knew that we ventured on such dangerous seas
That if we wrought our life ’twas ten to one;
And yet we ventured, for the gain proposed
Choked the respect of likely peril fear’d;
And since we are o’erset, venture again.
Come, we will all put forth, body and goods.
MORTON ‘Tis more than time: and, my most noble lord,
I hear for certain, and do speak the truth,
The gentle Archbishop of York is up
With well-appointed powers:
Turns insurrection to religion:
Supposed sincere and holy in his thoughts,
He’s followed both with body and with mind;
And doth enlarge his rising with the blood
Of fair King Richard, scraped from Pomfret stones;
Derives from heaven his quarrel and his cause;
Tells them he doth bestride a bleeding land,
Gasping for life under great Bolingbroke;
And more and less do flock to follow him.
NORTHUMBERLAND
I knew of this before; but, to speak truth,
This present grief had wiped it from my mind.
Go in with me; and counsel every man
The aptest way for safety and revenge…
Playlist Henry IV Part Two | Dramatis Personea | Plays & Info