King Henry IV, Part 2 | Page 3

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KING HENRY IV, SECOND PART
by William Shakespeare
Dramatis Personae
RUMOUR, the Presenter.?KING HENRY the Fourth.
His sons?HENRY, PRINCE OF WALES, afterwards King Henry V.?THOMAS, DUKE OF CLARENCE.?PRINCE JOHN OF LANCASTER.?PRINCE HUMPHREY OF GLOUCESTER.
EARL OF WARWICK.?EARL OF WESTMORELAND.?EARL OF SURREY.?GOWER.?HARCOURT.?BLUNT.?Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench.?A Servant of the Chief-Justice.?EARL OF NORTHUMBERLAND.?SCROOP, Archbishop of York.?LORD MOWBRAY.?LORD HASTINGS.?LORD BARDOLPH.?SIR JOHN COLEVILLE.?TRAVERS and MORTON, retainers of Northumberland.?SIR JOHN FALSTAFF.?His Page.?BARDOLPH.?PISTOL.?POINS.?PETO.?SHALLOW and SILENCE, country justices.?DAVY, Servant to Shallow.?MOULDY, SHADOW, WART, FEEBLE, and BULLCALF, recruits.?FANG and SNARE, sheriff's officers.
LADY NORTHUMBERLAND.?LADY PERCY.?MISTRESS QUICKLY, hostess of a tavern in Eastcheap.?DOLL TEARSHEET.
Lords and Attendants; Porter, Drawers, Beadles, Grooms, etc.
A Dancer, speaker of the epilogue.
SCENE: England.
INDUCTION
Warkworth. Before the castle.
[Enter Rumour, painted full of tongues.]
RUMOUR.?Open your ears; for which of you will stop?The vent of hearing when loud Rumour speaks??I, from the orient to the drooping west,?Making the wind my post-horse, still unfold?The acts commenced on this ball of earth:?Upon my tongues continual slanders ride,?The which in every language I pronounce,?Stuffing the ears of men with false reports.?I speak of peace, while covert emnity?Under the smile of safety wounds the world:?And who but Rumour, who but only I,?Make fearful musters and prepared defence,?Whiles the big year, swoln with some other grief,?Is thought with child by the stern tyrant war,?And no such matter? Rumour is a pipe?Blown by surmises, jealousies, conjectures,?And of so easy and so plain a stop?That the blunt monster with uncounted heads,?The still-discordant wavering multitude,?Can play upon it. But what need I thus?My well-known body to anatomize?Among my household? Why is Rumour here??I run before King Harry's victory;?Who in a bloody field by Shrewsbury?Hath beaten down young Hotspur and his troops,?Quenching the flame of bold rebellion?Even with the rebels' blood. But what mean I?To speak so true at first? my office is?To noise abroad that Harry Monmouth fell?Under the wrath of noble Hotspur's sword,?And that the king before the Douglas' rage?Stoop'd his anointed head as low as death.?This have I rumour'd through the peasant towns?Between that royal field of Shrewsbury?And this worm-eaten hold of ragged stone,?Where Hotspur's father, old Northumberland,?Lies crafty-sick: the posts come tiring on,?And not a man of them brings other news?Than they have learn'd of me: from Rumour's tongues?They bring smooth comforts false, worse than true wrongs.
[Exit.]
ACT I.
SCENE 1. The same.
[Enter Lord Bardolph.]
LORD BARDOLPH.?Who keeps the gate here, ho?
[The Porter opens the gate.]
Where is the earl?
PORTER.?What shall I say you are?
LORD BARDOLPH.?Tell thou the earl?That the Lord Bardolph doth attend him here.
PORTER.?His lordship is walk'd forth into the orchard:?Please it your honour, knock but at the gate,?And he himself will answer.
[Enter Northumberland.]
LORD BARDOLPH.?Here comes the earl.
[Exit Porter.]
NORTHUMBERLAND.?What news, Lord Bardolph? every minute now?Should be the father of some stratagem:?The times are wild; contention, like a horse?Full of high feeding, madly hath broke loose?And bears down all before him.
LORD BARDOLPH.?Noble earl,?I bring you certain news from Shrewsbury.
NORTHUMBERLAND.?Good, an God will!
LORD BARDOLPH.?As good as heart can wish:?The king is almost wounded to the death;?And, in the fortune of my lord your son,?Prince Harry slain outright; and both the Blunts?Kill'd by the hand of Douglas; young Prince John,?And Westmoreland and Stafford fled the field:?And Harry Monmouth's brawn, the hulk Sir John,?Is prisoner to your son: O, such a day,?So fought, so follow'd and so fairly won,?Came not till now to dignify the times,?Since Caesar's fortunes!
NORTHUMBERLAND.?How is this derived??Saw you the field? came you from Shrewsbury?
LORD BARDOLPH.?I spake with one, my lord, that came from thence,?A gentleman well bred and of good name,?That