King Henry IV, Part 1 | Page 6

shoulders.
PRINCE.
But how shall we part with them in setting forth?
POINTZ.
Why, we will set forth before or after them, and appoint
them a place of meeting, wherein it is at our pleasure to fail; and then
will they adventure upon the exploit themselves; which they shall have
no sooner achieved but we'll set upon them.
PRINCE.
Ay, but 'tis like that they will know us by our horses, by
our habits, and by every other appointment, to be ourselves.
POINTZ.
Tut! our horses they shall not see,--I'll tie them in the
wood; our visards we will change, after we leave them; and, sirrah, I
have cases of buckram for the nonce, to immask our noted
outward
garments.

PRINCE.
But I doubt they will be too hard for us.
POINTZ.
Well, for two of them, I know them to be as true-bred

cowards as ever turn'd back; and for the third, if he fight longer than he
sees reason, I'll forswear arms. The virtue of this jest will be, the
incomprehensible lies that this same fat rogue will tell us when we
meet at supper: how thirty, at least, he fought with; what wards, what
blows, what extremities he endured; and in the reproof of this lies the
jest.
PRINCE.
Well, I'll go with thee: provide us all things necessary and
meet me to-night in Eastcheap; there I'll sup. Farewell.
POINTZ.
Farewell, my lord.
[Exit.]
PRINCE.
I know you all, and will awhile uphold
The unyok'd
humour of your idleness:
Yet herein will I imitate the Sun,
Who
doth permit the base contagious clouds
To smother-up his beauty
from the world,
That, when he please again to be himself,
Being
wanted, he may be more wonder'd at,
By breaking through the foul
and ugly mists
Of vapours that did seem to strangle him.
If all the
year were playing holidays,
To sport would be as tedious as to work;

But, when they seldom come, they wish'd-for come,
And nothing
pleaseth but rare accidents.
So, when this loose behaviour I throw off,

And pay the debt I never promised,
By how much better than my
word I am,
By so much shall I falsify men's hopes;
And, like bright
metal on a sullen ground,
My reformation, glittering o'er my fault,

Shall show more goodly and attract more eyes
Than that which hath
no foil to set it off.
I'll so offend, to make offence a skill;

Redeeming time, when men think least I will.
[Exit.]
Scene III. The Same. A Room in the Palace.

[Enter King Henry, Northumberland, Worcester, Hotspur, Sir Walter
Blunt, and others.]
KING.
My blood hath been too cold and temperate,
Unapt to stir at
these indignities,
And you have found me; for, accordingly,
You
tread upon my patience: but be sure
I will from henceforth rather be
myself,
Mighty and to be fear'd, than my condition,
Which hath
been smooth as oil, soft as young down,
And therefore lost that title
of respect
Which the proud soul ne'er pays but to the proud.
WOR.
Our House, my sovereign liege, little deserves
The scourge
of greatness to be used on it;
And that same greatness too which our
own hands
Have holp to make so portly.
NORTH.
My good lord,--
KING.
Worcester, get thee gone; for I do see
Danger and
disobedience in thine eye:
O, sir, your presence is too bold and
peremptory,
And majesty might never yet endure
The moody
frontier of a servant brow.
You have good leave to leave us: when we
need
Your use and counsel, we shall send for you.
[Exit Worcester.]
[To Northumberland.]
You were about to speak.
NORTH.
Yea, my good lord.
Those prisoners in your Highness'
name demanded,
Which Harry Percy here at Holmedon took,
Were,
as he says, not with such strength denied
As is deliver'd to your
Majesty:
Either envy, therefore, or misprision
Is guilty of this fault,
and not my son.
HOT.
My liege, I did deny no prisoners.
But, I remember, when the
fight was done,
When I was dry with rage and extreme toil,


Breathless and faint, leaning upon my sword,
Came there a certain
lord, neat, trimly dress'd,
Fresh as a bridegroom; and his chin new
reap'd
Show'd like a stubble-land at harvest-home:
He was
perfumed like a milliner;
And 'twixt his finger and his thumb he held

A pouncet-box, which ever and anon
He gave his nose, and took't
away again;
Who therewith angry, when it next came there,
Took it
in snuff: and still he smiled and talk'd;
And, as the soldiers bore dead
bodies by,
He call'd them untaught knaves, unmannerly,
To bring a
slovenly unhandsome corse
Betwixt the wind and his nobility.
With
many holiday and lady terms
He question'd me; amongst the rest,
demanded
My prisoners in your Majesty's behalf.
I then, all
smarting with my wounds being cold,
Out of my grief and my
impatience
To be so pester'd with a popinjay,
Answer'd
neglectingly, I know not what,--
He should, or he should not; for't
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 parmaceti for an inward bruise;
And that it was great
pity, so it was,
This villainous salt-petre should