ACT III.

SCENE I. Bangor. A Room in the Archdeacon's House.

Enter HOTSPUR, WORCESTER, MORTIMER, and GLEN

DOWER.

Mort. These promises are fair, the parties sure, And our induction' full of prosperous hope.

Hot. Lord Mortimer,-and cousin Glendower,Will you sit down?

And, uncle Worcester.-A plague upon it!

I have forgot the map.

Glend.

No, here it is.

Sit, cousin Percy; sit, good cousin Hotspur,
For by that name as oft as Lancaster

Doth speak of you, his cheek looks pale; and, with
A rising sigh, he wisheth you in heaven.

Hot. And you in hell, as often 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,
Shaked 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 ne'er been born.
Glend. I say, the earth did shake when I was born.
Hot. And I say, the earth was not of my mind,
you suppose, as fearing you, it shook.

If

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

1 Induction is used by Shakspeare for commencement, beginning. The introductory part of a play or poem was called the induction.

2 Cressets were open lamps, exhibited on a beacon, carried upon a pole, or otherwise suspended.

Hot. O, then the earth shook to see the heavens

on fire,

And not in fear of your nativity.

Diseased nature oftentimes breaks forth

In strange eruptions; oft the teeming earth
Is with a kind of colic pinched and vexed

By the imprisoning of unruly wind

Within her womb; which, for enlargement striving, Shakes the old beldame1 earth, and topples down Steeples and moss-grown towers.

At your birth, Our grandam earth, having this distemperature,

In passion shook.

Glend.

Cousin, of many men

I do not bear these crossings. Give me leave
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 marked me extraordinary;
And all the courses of my life do show,

I am not in the roll of common men.

Where is he living,-clipped 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 is no man speaks better Welsh.I'll to dinner.

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 The devil.

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,

1 Beldame, and belsire, formerly signified grandmother and grandfather.

And I'll be sworn, I have power to shame him hence. 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-bottomed Severn, have I sent him,
Bootless home, and weather-beaten back.

Hot. Home without boots, and in foul weather too! 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,1
By south and east, is to my part assigned.
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.
And our indentures tripartite are drawn ;
Which being sealed interchangeably,
(A business that this night may execute,)
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 [To GLEND.] you may have drawn

together

Your tenants, friends, and neighboring gentlemen.
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 ;

1 i. e. to this spot (pointing to the map).

For there will be a world of water shed,
Upon the parting of your wives and you.

Hot. Methinks my moiety,' north from Burton here, In quantity equals not one of yours.

See, how this river comes me cranking2 in,
And cuts me from the best of all my land,
A huge half moon, a monstrous cantle3 out.
I'll have the current in this place dammed 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.

Glend. Not wind? It shall, it must; you see, it doth.

Mort. Yea,

But mark, how he bears his course, and runs me up With like advantage on the other side;

Gelding the opposed continent as much,

As on the other side it takes from you.

Wor. Yea, but a little charge will trench him here, And on this north side win this cape of land;

And then he runs straight and even.

Hot. I'll have it so; a little charge will do it.
Glend. I will not have it altered.

Speak it in Welsh.

Will not you?

Who shall say me nay?

Let me not understand you then;

Glend. I can speak English, lord, as well as you ; For I was trained up in the English court;

4

1 A moiety was frequently used by the writers of Shakspeare's age as a portion of any thing, though not divided into equal parts.

2 To crank is to crook, to turn in and out. Crankling is used by Drayton in the same sense: speaking of a river, he says that Meander

"Hath not so many turns and crankling nooks as she.”

3 A cantle is a portion, a part, a corner or fragment of any thing. 4 Owen Glendower's real name was Owen ap-Gryffyth Vaughan. He took the name of Glendower from the lordship of which he was the owner.

Where, being but young, I framed to the harp
Many an English ditty, lovely well,

And gave the tongue a helpful ornament;1
A virtue that was never seen in you.

Hot. Marry, and I'm glad of it with all my heart. I had rather be a kitten, and cry-mew,

Than one of these same metre ballad-mongers.
I had rather hear a brazen canstick2 turned,
Or a dry wheel grate on an axletree;

And that would set my teeth nothing on edge,
Nothing so much as mincing poetry.

'Tis like the forced gait of a shuffling nag.
Glend. Come, you shall have Trent turned.
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?
Glend. The moon shines fair; you may away by

night.

I'll in and 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.

Mort. Fie, cousin Percy! how you cross my father!

Hot. I cannot choose; sometimes he angers me,
With telling me of the moldwarp and the ant,
Of the dreamer Merlin and his prophecies;

And of a dragon and a finless fish,

1 This disputed passage seems to mean that he gave to the language the helpful ornament of verse. Hotspur's answer shows that he took it in that

sense.

2 A very common contraction of candlestick. The noise to which Hotspur alludes is mentioned in A New Trick to cheat the Devil, 1636:— "As if you were to lodge in Lothbury, Where they turn brazen candlesticks."

3 i. e. the writer of the articles. The old copy reads, "I'll haste the writer, &c." The two necessary words (in and) were suggested by

Steevens.

4 The moldwarp is the mole; Anglo Saxon, molde and weorpan; because it warps or renders the surface of the earth uneven by its hillocks.