Send danger from the east unto the west,
So honour cross it from the north to south,
And let them grapple. O, the blood more stirs
To rouse a lion than to start a hare!
NORTH.
Imagination of some great exploit
Drives him beyond the bounds of patience.
HOT.
By Heaven, methinks it were an easy leap,
To pluck bright honour from the pale-faced Moon;
Or dive into the bottom of the deep,
Where fathom-line could never touch the ground,
And pluck up drowned honour by the locks;
So he that doth redeem her thence might wear
Without corrival all her dignities:
But out upon this half-faced fellowship!
WOR.
He apprehends a world of figures here,
But not the form of what he should attend.—
Good cousin, give me audience for a while.
HOT.
I cry you mercy.
WOR.
Those same noble Scots
That are your prisoners,—
HOT.
I’ll keep them all;
By God, he shall not have a Scot of them;
No, if a Scot would save his soul, he shall not:
I’ll keep them, by this hand.
WOR.
You start away,
And lend no ear unto my purposes.
Those prisoners you shall keep;—
HOT.
Nay, I will; that’s flat.
He said he would not ransom Mortimer;
Forbade my tongue to speak of Mortimer;
But I will find him when he lies asleep,
And in his ear I’ll holla Mortimer!
Nay,
I’ll have a starling shall be taught to speak
Nothing but Mortimer, and give it him,
To keep his anger still in motion.
WOR.
Hear you, cousin; a word.
HOT.
All studies here I solemnly defy,
Save how to gall and pinch this Bolingbroke:
And that same sword-and-buckler Prince of Wales,
But that I think his father loves him not,
And would be glad he met with some mischance,
I’d have him poison’d with a pot of ale.
WOR.
Farewell, kinsman: I will talk to you
When you are better temper’d to attend.
NORTH.
Why, what a wasp-stung and impatient fool
Art thou, to break into this woman’s mood,
Tying thine ear to no tongue but thine own!
HOT.
Why, look you, I am whipp’d and scourged with rods,
Nettled, and stung with pismires, when I hear
Of this vile politician, Bolingbroke.
In Richard’s time,—what do you call the place?—
A plague upon’t!—it is in Gioucestershire;—
‘Twas where the madcap Duke his uncle kept,
His uncle York;—where I first bow’d my knee
Unto this king of smiles, this Bolingbroke;—
When you and he came back from Ravenspurg.
NORTH.
At Berkeley-castle.
HOT.
You say true:—
Why, what a candy deal of courtesy
This fawning greyhound then did proffer me!
Look, when his infant fortune came to age,
And, Gentle Harry Percy, and kind cousin,—
O, the Devil take such cozeners!—God forgive me!—
Good uncle, tell your tale; for I have done.
WOR.
Nay, if you have not, to’t again;
We’ll stay your leisure.
HOT.
I have done, i’faith.
WOR.
Then once more to your Scottish prisoners.
Deliver them up without their ransom straight,
And make the Douglas’ son your only mean
For powers in Scotland; which, for divers reasons
Which I shall send you written, be assured,
Will easily be granted.—
[To Northumberland.] You, my lord,
Your son in Scotland being thus employ’d,
Shall secretly into the bosom creep
Of that same noble prelate, well beloved,
Th’ Archbishop.
HOT.
Of York, is’t not?
WOR.
True; who bears hard
His brother’s death at Bristol, the Lord Scroop.
I speak not this in estimation,
As what I think might be, but what I know
Is ruminated, plotted, and set down,
And only stays but to behold the face
Of that occasion that shall bring it on.
HOT.
I smell’t: upon my life, it will do well.
NORTH.
Before the game’s a-foot, thou still lett’st slip.
HOT.
Why, it cannot choose but be a noble plot:—
And then the power of Scotland and of York
To join with Mortimer, ha?
WOR.
And so they shall.
HOT.
In faith, it is exceedingly well aim’d.
WOR.
And ‘tis no little reason bids us speed,
To save our heads by raising of a head;
For, bear ourselves as even as we can,
The King will always think him in our debt,
And think we think ourselves unsatisfied,
Till he hath found a time to pay us home:
And see already how he doth begin
To make us strangers to his looks of love.
HOT.
He does, he does: we’ll be revenged on him.
WOR.