Orla. What would'st thou have me go and beg my
Or with a base and boisterous sword enforce A thievish living on the common road? This must I do, or know not what to do: Yet this I will not do, do how I can; I rather will subject me to the malice Of a diverted blood, and bloody brother.
Adam. But do not so; I have five hundred crowns The thrifty hire I sav'd under your father, Which I did store to be my foster-nurse When service should in my old limbs lie lame, And unguarded age in corners thrown : Take that; and he that doth the ravens feed, Yea, providently caters for the sparrow, Be comfort to my age! here is the gold, All this I give you, let me be your servant: Though I look old, yet I am strong and lusty; For in my youth I never did apply Hot and rebellious liquors in my blood; Nor did I with unbashful forehead woo The means of weakness and debility; Therefore my age is as a lusty winter, Frosty, but kindly; let me go with you; I'll do the service of a younger man In all your buisness and necessities.
Orla. Oh! good old man, how well in thee appears The constant service of the antique world; When service sweat for duty, not for mead! Thou art not for the fashion of these times, Where none will sweat but for promotion; And, having that, do choak their service up Even with the having; it is not so with thee; But poor old man, thou prun'st a rotten tree, That cannot so much as a blossom yield In lieu of all thy pains and husbandry. But come thy ways, we'll go along together;
And ere we have thy youthful wages spent, We'll light upon some settled low content.
Adam. Master, go on, and I will follow thee To the last gasp, with truth and loyalty; From seventeen years tili now, almost fourscore, Here lived I, but now live here no more. At seventeen years many their fortunes seek, But at fourscore, it is too late a week; Yet fortune cannot recompence me better Than to die well, and not my master's debtor.
Scroop. MORE health and happiness betide my Liege, That can my care-tun'd tongue deliver him!
K Rich. Mine ear is open, and my heart prepar'd; The worst is worldly loss thou canst unfold. Say, is my kingdom lost ? Why, 'twas my care ; And what loss is it, to be rid of care ? Strives Bolingbroke to be as great as we? Greater he shall not be ; if he serve God, We'll serve him too, and be his fellow so. Revolt our subjects? That we cannot mend; They break their faith to God, as well as us. Cry woe, destruction, ruin, loss, decay; The worst is death, and death will have his day.
Scroop. Glad am I that your highness is so arm'd To bear the tidings of calamity. Like an unseasonable stormy day, Which makes the silver rivers drown their shores, As if the world were all dissolv'd to tears;
So high above his limits swells the rage Of Bolingbroke, cov'ring your fearful land With hard bright steel, and hearts more hard than steel. White beards have arm'd their thin and hairless scalps Against thy majesty; boys, with women's voices, Strive to speak big, and clasp their female joints In stiff unweildy arms, against thy crown. The very beadsmen learn to bend their bows Of double fatal yew against thy state: Yea, distaff women manage rusty bills. Against thy seat both young and old rebel, And all goes worse than I have pow'r to tell.
K Rich. Too well, too well, thou tell'st a tale so ill. Where is the Earl of Wiltshire ? where is Bagot? What is become of Bushby? Where is Green ? -No matter where; of comfort no man speak. Let's talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs, Make dusk our paper, and with rainy eyes Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth! Let's chuse executors, and talk of wills; And yet not so for what can we bequeath, Save our deposed bodies to the ground? Our lands, our lives, and all, are Bolingbroke's, And nothing can we call our own but death: And that small model of the barren earth, Which serves as paste and cover to our bones. For heav'n's sake, let us sit upon the ground, And tell sad stories of the death of Kings; How some have been depos'd, some slain in war; Some haunted by the ghost they dispossess'd; Some poison'd by their wives; some sleeping kill'd; All murder'd. - For within the hollow crown That rounds the mortal temples of a King, Keeps Death his court; and there the antic sits, Scoffing his state, and grinning at his pomp; Allowing him a breath, a little scene To monarchize, be fear'd, and kill with looks:
Infusing him with self and vain conceit, As if this flesh which walls about our life, Were brass impregnable; and, humour'd thus, Comes at the last, and with a little pin Bores through his castle walls, and farewel King ! Cover your heads, and mock not flesh and blood With solemn rev'rence: throw away respect, Tradition, form, and ceremonious duty, For you have but mistook me all this while. I live on bread like you, feel want like you; Taste grief, need friends, like you: subjected thus, How can you say to me I am a King?
HOTSPUR AND GLENDOWER.
Glen. 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 risen sigh, he wisheth you in heav'n.
Hot. And you in hell, as often as he hears Owen Glendower spoke of.
Glen. I blame him not; at my nativity, The front of heaven was full of fiery shapes, Of burning cressets; know that at my birth, The frame and the foundation of the earth Snook like a coward.
Hot. So it would have done At the same season if your mother's cat Had kitten'd, though yourself had ne'er been born. Glen. I say, the earth did shake when I was born. Hot. I say, the earth then was not of my mind;
If you suppose, as fearing you, it shook.
Glen. The heav'ns were all on fire, the earth did trem
Hot. O, then the earth shook to see the heav'ns on fire,
And not in fear of your nativity. Diseased nature oftentimes breaks forth In strange eruptions; and the teeming earth Is with a kind of cholic pinch'd and vex'd, By the imprisoning of unruly wind
Within her womb; which for enlargement striving Shakes the old beldame earth and topples down High tow'rs and mass-grown steeples. At your birth, Our grandam earth, with this distemperature In passion shook.
Glen. 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 heav'n was full of fiery shapes; The goats ran from the mountains, and the herds Were strangely clam'rous in the frighted fields: These signs have mark'd me extraordinary, And all the courses of my life do show, I am not in the roll of common men. Where is he living, clipt in with the sea, That chides the banks of England, Wales, or Scotland, Who 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, Or hold me pace in deep experiments.
Hot. I think there is no man speaks better Welch. Glen. I can speak English, Lord, as well as you, For I was train'd up in the English court: Where, being young, I framed to the harp Many an English ditty, lovely well, And gave the tongue a helpful ornament; A virtue that was never seen in you.
Hot. Marry, and I'm glad of it with all my heart,
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