To be so pestered with a popinjay!—

Out of my grief and my impatience

Answered neglectingly, I know not what—

He should, or 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 wounds, God save the mark!

And telling me the sovereign’st thing on earth

Was parmacity for an inward bruise,

And that it was great pity, so it was,

This villainous saltpetre should be digged

Out of the bowels of the harmless earth,

Which many a good tall fellow had destroyed

So cowardly, and but for these vile guns

He would himself have been a soldier.

This bald unjointed chat of his, my lord,

Made me to answer indirectly, as I said,

And I beseech you, let not his report

Come current for an accusation

Betwixt my love and your high majesty.

BLUNT (to the King)

The circumstance considered, good my lord,

Whate’er 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.

KING HENRY

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 betrayed

The lives of those that he did lead to fight

Against that great magician, damned Glyndŵr—

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—

HOTSPUR 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 Glyndwr.

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,

Bloodstainèd with these valiant combatants.

Never did bare 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 slandered with revolt.

KING HENRY

Thou dost belie him, Percy, thou dost belie him.

He never did encounter with Glyndŵr. I tell thee,

He durst as well have met the devil alone

As Owain Glyndŵr 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 license your departure with your son.

(To Hotspur) Send us your prisoners, or you’ll hear of it.

Exeunt all but Hotspur and Northumberland

HOTSPUR

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,

Although it be with hazard of my head.

NORTHUMBERLAND

What, drunk with choler? Stay and pause awhile.

Enter the Earl of Worcester

Here comes your uncle.

HOTSPUR Speak of Mortimer?

Zounds, I will speak of him, and let my soul

Want mercy if I do not join with him.

In his behalf I’ll empty all these veins,

And shed my dear blood drop by drop in the dust,

But I will lift the downfall Mortimer

As high in the air as this unthankful King,

As this ingrate and cankered Bolingbroke.

NORTHUMBERLAND (to Worcester)

Brother, the King hath made your nephew mad.

WORCESTER

Who struck this heat up after I was gone?

HOTSPUR

He will forsooth have all my prisoners;

And when I urged the ransom once again

Of my wife’s brother, then his cheek looked pale,

And on my face he turned an eye of death,

Trembling even at the name of Mortimer.

WORCESTER

I cannot blame him: was not he proclaimed

By Richard, that dead is, the next of blood?

NORTHUMBERLAND

He was; I heard the proclamation.

And then it was when the unhappy King,

Whose wrongs in us God pardon, did set forth