1

That the blunt monster with uncounted heads,
The still-discordant wavering multitude,
Can play upon it. But what need I thus
My well known body to anatomize
Among my household? Why is Rumour here?
I run before King Harry's victory;
Who, in a bloody field by Shrewsbury,

Hath beaten down young Hotspur, and his troops,
Quenching the flame of bold rebellion

Even with the rebels' blood. But what mean I
To speak so true at first? my office is

To noise abroad,—that Harry Monmouth fell
Under the wrath of noble Hotspur's sword;
And that the king before the Douglas' rage
Stoop'd his anointed head as low as death.
This have I rumour'd through the peasant towns
Between that royal field of Shrewsbury
And this worm-eaten hold of ragged stone*,
Where Hotspur's father, old Northumberland,
Lies crafty-sick: the posts come tiring on,
And not a man of them brings other news
Than they have learn'd of me; from Rumour's

tongues

They bring smooth comforts false, worse than true

wrongs.

[Exit.

4 Northumberland's castle.

SECOND PART OF

KING HENRY IV.

ACT I.

SCENE I. The same. The Porter before the Gate. Enter LORD BARDOLPH.

Bardolph.

WHO keeps the gate here, ho?—Where is the earl?

Port. What shall I

Bard.

say you are?

Tell thou the earl,

That the Lord Bardolph doth attend him here.

Port. His lordship is walk'd forth into the or

chard;

Please it your honour, knock but at the gate,
And he himself will answer.

Bard.

Enter NORTHUMBERLAND.

Here comes the earl.

North. What news, Lord Bardolph? every mi

nute 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.

Bard.

Noble earl, I bring you certain news from Shrewsbury.

North. Good, an heaven will !

VOL. V.

Ꮓ

Bard.

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 outright; and both the Blunts
Kill'd by the hand of Douglas: young prince John,
And Westmoreland, and Stafford, fled the field;
And Harry Monmouth's brawn, the hulk Sir John,
Is prisoner to your son: O, such a day,
So fought, so follow'd, and so fairly won,
Came not, till now, to dignify the times,
Since Cæsar's fortunes!

North.

How is this deriv'd!

Saw the field? came you you

from Shrewsbury?

Bard. 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.
North. Here comes my servant, Travers, whom
I sent

On Tuesday last to listen after news.

Bard. My lord, I over-rode him on the way; And he is furnish'd with no certainties,

More than he haply may retail from me.

Enter TRAVErs.

North. Now, Travers, what good tidings come with you?

Tra. My lord, Sir John Umfrevile turn'd me back With joyful tidings; and, being better hors'd, Outrode me. After him, came, spurring hard, A gentleman almost forspent1 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,

1 Exhausted.

And that young Harry Percy's spur was cold:
With that, he gave his able horse the head,
And, bending forward, struck his armed heels
Against the panting sides of his poor jade2
Up to the rowel-head; and, starting so,
He seem'd in running to devour the way3,
Staying no longer question.

North.

Ha!

Again.

Said he, young Harry Percy's spur was cold?
Of Hotspur, coldspur? that rebellion

Had met ill luck!

If

Bard.

My lord, I'll tell you what;

my young lord your son have not the day, Upon mine honour, for a silken point5

I'll give my barony: never talk of it.

2 Jade is not used by Shakspeare as a term of contempt; for King Richard II. gives this appellation to his favourite horse Roan Barbary, which Henry IV. rode at his coronation :

That jade hath eat bread from my royal hand.'

The commentators suppose that a jade meant a horse kept for drudgery, a hackney; but this is not the fact. It was only another name for a horse, as nag since. Thus we have 'Hollow pampered jades of Asia.'

And Ford, in his Lover's Melancholy, Act ii. Sc. 2:'Like high fed jades upon a tilting day.'

3 So in the book of Job, ch. xxxix :-He swalloweth the ground in fierceness and rage.' The same expression occurs in Ben Jonson's Sejanus :

But with that speed and heat of appetite
With which they greedily devour the way
To some great sports.'

In the Tempest, Ariel, to describe his alacrity in obeying Prospero's commands, says, I drink the air before me.'

has the same thought:

4

latumque fuga consumere campum.'

Nemesian

Hotspur seems to have been a very common term for a man of vehemence and precipitation. Stanyhurst renders the following line of Virgil:

Nec victoris heri tetigit captiva cubile.'

To couch not mounting of mayster vanquisher hoatspur.' 5 A silken point is a tagged lace.

North. Why should the gentleman, that rode by

Travers,

Give then such instances of loss?

Bard.

Who, he?

He was some hilding fellow, that had stol'n
The horse he rode on; and, upon my life,
Spoke at a venture. Look, here comes more news.
Enter MORTON.

North. Yea, this man's brow, like to a title-leaf, Foretells the nature of a tragick volume:

So looks the strond, whereon the imperious flood
Hath left a witness'd usurpation7.

Say, Morton, didst thou come from Shrewsbury?
Mor. I ran from Shrewsbury, my noble lord;
Where hateful death put on his ugliest mask,
To fright our party.

North.

How doth my son, and brother? Thou tremblest; and the whiteness in thy cheek Is apter than thy tongue to tell thy errand. Even such a man, so faint, so spiritless, So dull, so dead in look, so woe-begone3, Drew Priam's curtain in the dead of night, And would have told him, half his Troy was burn'd: But Priam found the fire, ere he his tongue, And I my Percy's death, ere thou report'st it. This thou would'st say,-Your son did thus, and

thus;

Your brother, thus; so fought the noble Douglas; Stopping my greedy ear with their bold deeds:

6 i. e. Hilderling, base, low fellow.

7 An attestation of its ravage.

8 Dr. Bentley is said to have thought this passage corrupt; and therefore (with a greater degree of gravity than the reader will probably express) proposed the following emendation :

So dead, so dull in look Ucalegon,
Drew Priam's curtain,' &c.

The name of Ucalegon occurs in the third Iliad, and in the Eneid.