Henry IV, Part I William Shakespeare (best book series to read TXT) đ
- Author: William Shakespeare
Book online «Henry IV, Part I William Shakespeare (best book series to read TXT) đ». Author William Shakespeare
And that same greatness too which our own hands
Have holp to make so portly. Northumberland My lord.â â King
Worcester, get thee gone; for I do see
Danger and disobedience in thine eye:
O, sir, your presence is too bold and peremptory,
And majesty might never yet endure
The moody frontier of a servant brow.
You have good leave to leave us: when we need
Your use and counsel, we shall send for you. Exit Worcester.
You were about to speak. To Northumberland.
Yea, my good lord.
Those prisoners in your highnessâ name demanded,
Which Harry Percy here at Holmedon took,
Were, as he says, not with such strength denied
As is deliverâd to your majesty:
Either envy, therefore, or misprison
Is guilty of this fault and not my son.
My liege, I did deny no prisoners.
But I remember, when the fight was done,
When I was dry with rage and extreme toil,
Breathless and faint, leaning upon my sword,
Came there a certain lord, neat, and trimly dressâd,
Fresh as a bridegroom; and his chin new reapâd
Showâd like a stubble-land at harvest-home;
He was perfumed like a milliner;
And âtwixt his finger and his thumb he held
A pouncet-box, which ever and anon
He gave his nose and tookât away again;
Who therewith angry, when it next came there,
Took it in snuff; and still he smiled and talkâd,
And as the soldiers bore dead bodies by,
He callâd them untaught knaves, unmannerly,
To bring a slovenly unhandsome corse
Betwixt the wind and his nobility.
With many holiday and lady terms
He questionâd me; amongst the rest, demanded
My prisoners in your majestyâs behalf.
I then, all smarting with my wounds being cold,
To be so pesterâd with a popinjay,
Out of my grief and my impatience,
Answerâd neglectingly I know not what,
He should, or he should not; for he made me mad
To see him shine so brisk and smell so sweet
And talk so like a waiting-gentlewoman
Of guns and drums and woundsâ âGod save the mark!â â
And telling me the sovereignâst thing on earth
Was parmaceti for an inward bruise;
And that it was great pity, so it was,
This villanous salt-petre should be diggâd
Out of the bowels of the harmless earth,
Which many a good tall fellow had destroyâd
So cowardly; and but for these vile guns,
He would himself have been a soldier.
This bald unjointed chat of his, my lord,
I answerâd indirectly, as I said;
And I beseech you, let not his report
Come current for an accusation
Betwixt my love and your high majesty.
The circumstance considerâd, good my lord,
Whateâer Lord Harry Percy then had said
To such a person and in such a place,
At such a time, with all the rest retold,
May reasonably die and never rise
To do him wrong or any way impeach
What then he said, so he unsay it now.
Why, yet he doth deny his prisoners,
But with proviso and exception,
That we at our own charge shall ransom straight
His brother-in-law, the foolish Mortimer;
Who, on my soul, hath wilfully betrayâd
The lives of those that he did lead to fight
Against that great magician, damnâd Glendower,
Whose daughter, as we hear, the Earl of March
Hath lately married. Shall our coffers, then,
Be emptied to redeem a traitor home?
Shall we buy treason? and indent with fears,
When they have lost and forfeited themselves?
No, on the barren 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.
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 Severnâs 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 Severnâs flood;
Who then, affrighted with their bloody looks,
Ran fearfully among the trembling reeds,
And hid his crisp head in the hollow bank
Bloodstained with these valiant combatants.
Never did base and rotten policy
Colour her working with such deadly wounds;
Nor could the noble Mortimer
Receive so many, and all willingly:
Then let not him be slanderâd with revolt.
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 thou 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 licence your departure with your son.
Send us your prisoners, or you will hear of it. Exeunt King Henry, Blunt, and train.
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 ease my heart,
Albeit I make a hazard of my head.
What, drunk with choler? stay and pause awhile:
Here comes your uncle.
Speak of Mortimer!
âZounds, I will speak of him; and let my soul
Want mercy, if I do not join with him:
Yea, on his part Iâll empty all these veins,
And shed my dear blood drop by drop in the dust,
But I will lift the down-trod Mortimer
As high in the air as this unthankful king,
As this ingrate and cankerâd Bolingbroke.
He will, forsooth, have all my prisoners;
And when I urged the ransom once again
Of my wifeâs brother, then his cheek lookâd pale,
And on my face he turnâd an eye of death,
Trembling even at the name of Mortimer.
I cannot blame him: was not he proclaimâd
By Richard that dead is the next of blood?
He was; I heard the proclamation:
And then it was when the unhappy kingâ â
Whose wrongs in us God pardon!â âdid set forth
Upon his Irish expedition;
From whence he intercepted did return
To be deposed and shortly murdered.
And for whose death we in the worldâs wide mouth
Live scandalized and foully spoken of.
But soft, I pray you; did King Richard then
Proclaim my brother Edmund Mortimer
Heir to the crown?
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