And I’ll be sworn I have power to shame him hence.

O, while you live, tell truth and shame the devil.

MORTIMER

Come, come, no more of this unprofitable chat.

GLYNDŴR

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.

HOTSPUR

Home without boots, and in foul weather too!

How scapes he agues, in the devil’s name?

GLYNDŴR

Come, here’s the map. Shall we divide our right,

According to our threefold order ta’en?

MORTIMER

The Archdeacon hath divided it

Into three limits very equally.

England from Trent and Severn hitherto

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 Owain Glyndwr; (to Hotspur) and, dear coz, to you

The remnant northward lying off from Trent.

And our indentures tripartite are drawn,

Which, being sealèd interchangeably—

A business that this night may execute—

Tomorrow, cousin Percy, you and I 80

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, Glyndŵr., is not ready yet,

Nor shall we need his help these fourteen days.

Within that space you may have drawn together

Your tenants, friends, and neighbouring gentlemen.

GLYNDŴR

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;

For there will be a world of water shed 91

Upon the parting of your wives and you.

HOTSPUR

Methinks my moiety north from Burton here

In quantity equals not one of yours.

See how this river comes me cranking in,

And cuts me from the best of all my land

A huge half-moon, a monstrous cantle, 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.

GLYNDŴR

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

MORTIMER

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.

WORCESTER

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. no

HOTSPUR

I’ll have it so; a little charge will do it.

GLYNDŴR I’ll not have it altered.

HOTSPUR Will not you?

GLYNDŴR No, nor you shall not.

HOTSPUR Who shall say me nay? 115

GLYNDŴR Why, that will I.

HOTSPUR

Let me not understand you, then: speak it in Welsh.

GLYNDŴR

I can speak English, lord, as well as you;

For I was trained up in the English court,

Where, being but 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.

HOTSPUR

Marry, and I am 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 canstick turned,

Or a dry wheel grate on the axle-tree,

And that would set my teeth nothing on edge,

Nothing so much as mincing poetry.

’Tis like the forced gait of a shuffling nag.

GLYNDŴR Come, you shall have Trent turned.

HOTSPUR

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—135

I’ll cavil on the ninth part of a hair.

Are the indentures drawn? Shall we be gone?

GLYNDŴR

The moon shines fair. You may away by night.

I’ll 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

MORTIMER

Fie, cousin Percy, how you cross my father!

HOTSPUR

I cannot choose. Sometime 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,

A clip-winged griffin and a moulten raven,

A couching lion and a ramping cat,

And such a deal of skimble-skamble stuff 150

As puts me from my faith. I tell you what,

He held me last night at the least nine hours

In reckoning up the several devils’ names

That were his lackeys. I cried, ‘Hum!’ and, ‘Well,

go to!’,

But marked him not a word. O, he is as tedious

As a tired horse, a railing wife,

Worse than a smoky house. I had rather live

With cheese and garlic, in a windmill, far,

Than feed on cates and have him talk to me

In any summer house in Christendom. 160

MORTIMER

In faith, he is a worthy gentleman,

Exceedingly well read, and profited