King Henry IV, Part 1 | Page 6

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 be digg'd?Out of the bowels of the harmless earth,?Which many a good tall fellow had destroy'd?So cowardly; and, but for these vile guns,?He would himself have been a soldier.?This bald unjointed chat of his, my lord,?I answered 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.?The circumstance consider'd, good my lord,?Whatever Harry Percy then had said?To such a person, and in such a place,?At such a time, with all the rest re-told,?May reasonably die, and never rise?To do him wrong, or any way impeach?What then he said, so he unsay it now.
KING.?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 betray'd?The lives of those that he did lead to fight?Against that great magician, damn'd Glendower,?Whose