King Henry IV, Part 2 | Page 4

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 freely
render'd me these news for true.
NORTHUMBERLAND.
Here comes my servant Travers, whom I
sent
On Tuesday last to listen after news.
[Enter Travers.]
LORD BARDOLPH.
My lord, I over-rode him on the way;
And
he is furnish'd with no certainties
More than he haply may retail from
me.
NORTHUMBERLAND.
Now, Travers, what good tidings comes
with you?
TRAVERS.
My lord, Sir John Umfrevile turn'd me back
With
joyful tidings; and, being better horsed,
Out-rode me. After him came
spurring hard
A gentleman, almost forspent with speed,
That
stopp'd by me to breathe his bloodied horse.
He ask'd the way to
Chester; and of him
I did demand what news from Shrewsbury:
He
told me that rebellion had bad luck
And that young Harry Percy's
spur was cold.
With that, he gave his able horse the head,
And

bending forward struck his armed heels
Against the panting sides of
his poor jade
Up to the rowel-head, and starting so
He seem'd in
running to devour the way,
Staying no longer question.
NORTHUMBERLAND.
Ha! Again:
Said he young Harry Percy's
spur was cold?
Of Hotspur Coldspur? that rebellion
Had met ill
luck?
LORD BARDOLPH.
My lord, I'll tell you what;
If my young lord
your son have not the day,
Upon mine honour, for a silken point
I'll
give my barony: never talk of it.
NORTHUMBERLAND.
Why should that gentleman that rode by
Travers
Give then such instances of loss?
LORD BARDOLPH.
Who, he?
He was some hilding fellow that
had stolen
The horse he rode on, and, upon my life,
Spoke at a
venture. Look, here comes more news.
[Enter Morton.]
NORTHUMBERLAND.
Yea, this man's brow, like to a title-leaf,

Foretells the nature of a tragic volume:
So looks the strand whereon
the imperious flood
Hath left a witness'd usurpation.
Say, Morton,
didst thou come from Shrewsbury?
MORTON. I ran from
Shrewsbury, my noble lord;
Where hateful death put on his ugliest
mask
To fright our party.
NORTHUMBERLAND.
How doth my son and brother?
Thou
tremblest; and the whiteness in thy cheek
Is apter than thy tongue to
tell thy errand.
Even such a man, so faint, so spiritless,
So dull, so
dread in look, so woe-begone,
Drew Priam's curtain in the dead of
night,
And would have told him half his Troy was burnt;
But Priam
found the fire ere he his tongue,
And I my Percy's death ere thou
report'st it.
This thou wouldst say: "Your son did thus and thus;


Your brother thus: so fought the noble Douglas:"
Stopping my greedy
ear with their bold deeds:
But in the end, to stop my ear indeed,

Thou hast a sigh to blow away this praise,
Ending with "Brother, son,
and all are dead."
MORTON.
Douglas is living, and your brother, yet:
But, for my
lord your son,--
NORTHUMBERLAND.
Why, he is dead.
See what a ready
tongue suspicion hath!
He that but fears the thing he would not know

Hath by instinct knowledge from others' eyes
That what he fear'd is
chanced. Yet speak, Morton;
Tell thou an earl his divination lies,

And I will take it as a sweet disgrace
And make thee rich for doing
me such wrong.
MORTON.
You are too great to be by me gainsaid:
Your spirit is
too true, your fears too certain.
NORTHUMBERLAND.
Yet, for all this, say not that Percy's dead.

I see a strange confession in thine eye;
Thou shakest thy head and
hold'st it fear or sin
To speak a truth. If he be slain, say so;
The
tongue offends not that reports his death:
And he doth sin that doth
belie the dead,
Not he which says the dead is not alive
Yet the first
bringer of unwelcome news
Hath but a losing office, and his tongue

Sounds ever after as a sullen bell,
Remember'd tolling a departing
friend.
LORD BARDOLPH.
I cannot think, my lord, your son is dead.
MORTON.
I am sorry I should force you to believe
That which I
would to God I had not seen;
But these mine eyes saw him in bloody
state,
Rendering faint quittance, wearied and outbreathed,
To Harry
Monmouth; whose swift wrath beat down
The never-daunted Percy to
the earth,
From whence with life he never more sprung up.
In few,
his death, whose spirit lent a fire
Even to the dullest peasant in his

camp,
Being bruited once, took fire and heat away
From the
best-temper'd courage in his troops;
For from his metal was his party
steel'd;
Which once in him abated, all the rest
Turn'd on themselves,
like dull and heavy lead:
And as the thing that's heavy in itself,

Upon enforcement flies with greatest speed,
So did our men, heavy in
Hotspur's loss,
Lend to this weight such lightness with their fear

That arrows fled not swifter toward their aim
Than did our soldiers,
aiming at their safety,
Fly from the field. Then was