The Complete Historical Plays of William Shakespeare. William Shakespeare
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 breathed, 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 not him be slander’d with revolt.
KING.
Thou dost belie him, Percy, thou dost belie him;
He never did encounter with Glendower:
I tell thee,
He durst as well have met the Devil alone
As Owen Glendower for an enemy.
Art not ashamed? But, sirrah, henceforth
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.
An if the Devil come and roar for them,
I will not send them: I will after straight,
And tell him so; for I will else my heart,
Although it be with hazard of my head.
NORTH.
What, drunk with choler? stay, and pause awhile:
Here comes your uncle.
[Re-enter Worcester.]
HOT.
Speak of Mortimer!
Zounds, I will speak of him; and let my soul
Want mercy, if I do not join with him:
Yea, on his part 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.
[To Worcester.]
Brother, the King hath made your nephew mad.
WOR.
Who struck this heat up after I was gone?
HOT.
He will, forsooth, have all my prisoners;
And when I urged 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 not he 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 deposed, and shortly murdered.
WOR.
And for whose death we in the world’s wide mouth
Live scandalized and foully spoken of.
HOT.
But, soft! I pray you; did King Richard then
Proclaim my brother Edmund Mortimer
Heir to the crown?
NORTH.
He did; myself did hear it.
HOT.
Nay, then I cannot blame his cousin King,
That wish’d him on the barren mountains starve.
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 murderous 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 me, 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
Your banish’d honours, and restore yourselves
Into the good thoughts of the world again;
Revenge the jeering and disdain’d contempt
Of this proud King, who studies day and night
To answer all the debt he owes to you
Even with the bloody payment of your deaths:
Therefore, I say,—
WOR.
Peace, cousin, say no more:
And now I will unclasp a secret book,
And to your quick-conceiving discontent
I’ll read you matter deep and dangerous;
As full of peril and adventurous spirit
As to o’er-walk a current roaring loud
On