There is Douglas and Lord Mortimer.
Archbishop Of York
No, Mortimer is not there.
Sir Michael
But there is Mordake, Vernon, Lord Harry Percy,
And there is my Lord of Worcester and a head
Of gallant warriors, noble gentlemen.
Archbishop Of York
And so there is: but yet the king hath drawn
The special head of all the land together:
The Prince of Wales, Lord John of Lancaster,
The noble Westmoreland and warlike Blunt;
And moe corrivals and dear men
Of estimation and command in arms.
Sir Michael
Doubt not, my lord, they shall be well opposed.
Archbishop Of York
I hope no less, yet needful ’tis to fear;
And, to prevent the worst, Sir Michael, speed:
For if Lord Percy thrive not, ere the king
Dismiss his power, he means to visit us,
For he hath heard of our confederacy,
And ’tis but wisdom to make strong against him:
Therefore make haste. I must go write again
To other friends; and so farewell, Sir Michael.
Exeunt
ACT V
SCENE I. KING HENRY IV’S CAMP NEAR SHREWSBURY.
Enter King Henry, Prince Henry, Lord John of Lancaster, Earl Of Westmoreland, Sir Walter Blunt, and Falstaff
King Henry IV
How bloodily the sun begins to peer
Above yon busky hill! the day looks pale
At his distemperature.
Prince Henry
The southern wind
Doth play the trumpet to his purposes,
And by his hollow whistling in the leaves
Foretells a tempest and a blustering day.
King Henry IV
Then with the losers let it sympathize,
For nothing can seem foul to those that win.
The trumpet sounds
Enter Worcester and Vernon
How now, my Lord of Worcester! ’tis not well
That you and I should meet upon such terms
As now we meet. You have deceived our trust,
And made us doff our easy robes of peace,
To crush our old limbs in ungentle steel:
This is not well, my lord, this is not well.
What say you to it? will you again unknit
This curlish knot of all-abhorred war?
And move in that obedient orb again
Where you did give a fair and natural light,
And be no more an exhaled meteor,
A prodigy of fear and a portent
Of broached mischief to the unborn times?
Earl Of Worcester
Hear me, my liege:
For mine own part, I could be well content
To entertain the lag-end of my life
With quiet hours; for I do protest,
I have not sought the day of this dislike.
King Henry IV
You have not sought it! how comes it, then?
Falstaff
Rebellion lay in his way, and he found it.
Prince Henry
Peace, chewet, peace!
Earl Of Worcester
It pleased your majesty to turn your looks
Of favour from myself and all our house;
And yet I must remember you, my lord,
We were the first and dearest of your friends.
For you my staff of office did I break
In Richard’s time; and posted day and night
To meet you on the way, and kiss your hand,
When yet you were in place and in account
Nothing so strong and fortunate as I.
It was myself, my brother and his son,
That brought you home and boldly did outdare
The dangers of the time. You swore to us,
And you did swear that oath at Doncaster,
That you did nothing purpose ’gainst the state;
Nor claim no further than your new-fall’n right,
The seat of Gaunt, dukedom of Lancaster:
To this we swore our aid. But in short space
It rain’d down fortune showering on your head;
And such a flood of greatness fell on you,
What with our help, what with the absent king,
What with the injuries of a wanton time,
The seeming sufferances that you had borne,
And the contrarious winds that held the king
So long in his unlucky Irish wars
That all in England did repute him dead:
And from this swarm of fair advantages
You took occasion to be quickly woo’d
To gripe the general sway into your hand;
Forget your oath to us at Doncaster;
And being fed by us you used us so
As that ungentle hull, the cuckoo’s bird,
Useth the sparrow; did oppress our nest;
Grew by our feeding to so great a bulk
That even our love durst not come near your sight
For fear of swallowing; but with nimble wing
We were enforced, for safety sake, to fly
Out of sight and raise this present head;
Whereby we stand opposed by such means
As you yourself have forged against yourself
By unkind usage, dangerous countenance,
And violation of all faith and troth
Sworn to us in your younger enterprise.
King Henry IV
These things indeed you have articulate,
Proclaim’d at market-crosses, read in churches,
To face the garment of rebellion
With some fine colour that may please the eye
Of fickle changelings and poor discontents,
Which gape and rub the elbow at the news
Of hurlyburly innovation:
And never yet did insurrection want
Such water-colours to impaint his cause;
Nor moody beggars, starving for a time
Of pellmell havoc and confusion.
Prince Henry
In both your armies there is many a soul
Shall pay full dearly for this encounter,
If once they join in trial. Tell your nephew,
The Prince of Wales doth join with all the world
In praise of Henry Percy: by my hopes,
This present enterprise set off his head,
I do not think a braver gentleman,
More active-valiant or more valiant-young,
More daring or more bold, is now alive
To grace this latter age with noble deeds.
For my part, I may speak it to my shame,
I have a truant been to chivalry;
And so I hear he doth account me too;
Yet this before my father’s majesty —
I am content that he shall take the odds
Of his great name and estimation,
And will, to save the blood on either side,
Try fortune with him in a single fight.
King Henry IV
And, Prince of Wales, so dare we venture thee,
Albeit considerations infinite
Do make against it. No, good Worcester, no,
We love our people well; even those we love
That are misled upon your cousin’s part;
And, will they take the offer of our grace,
Both he and they and you, every man
Shall be my friend again and I’ll be his:
So tell your cousin, and bring me word
What he will do: but if he will not yield,
Rebuke and dread correction wait on us
And they shall do their office. So, be gone;
We will not now be troubled with reply:
We offer fair; take it advisedly.
Exeunt Worcester and Vernon
Prin
ce Henry
It will not be accepted, on my life:
The Douglas and the Hotspur both together
Are confident against the world in arms.
King Henry IV
Hence, therefore, every leader to his charge;
For, on their answer, will we set on them:
And God befriend us, as our cause is just!
Exeunt all but Prince Henry and Falstaff
Falstaff
Hal, if thou see me down in the battle and bestride me, so; ’tis a point of friendship.
Prince Henry
Nothing but a colossus can do thee that friendship.
Say thy prayers, and farewell.
Falstaff
I would ’twere bed-time, Hal, and all well.
Prince Henry
Why, thou owest God a death.
Exit Prince Henry
Falstaff
’Tis not due yet; I would be loath to pay him before his day. What need I be so forward with him that calls not on me? Well, ’tis no matter; honour pricks me on. Yea, but how if honour prick me off when I come on? how then? Can honour set to a leg? no: or an arm? no: or take away the grief of a wound? no. Honour hath no skill in surgery, then? no. What is honour? a word. What is in that word honour? what is that honour? air. A trim reckoning! Who hath it? he that died o’ Wednesday. Doth he feel it? no. Doth he hear it? no. ’Tis insensible, then. Yea, to the dead. But will it not live with the living? no. Why? detraction will not suffer it. Therefore I’ll none of it. Honour is a mere scutcheon: and so ends my catechism.
Exit
SCENE II. THE REBEL CAMP.
Enter Worcester and Vernon
Earl Of Worcester
O, no, my nephew must not know, Sir Richard,
The liberal and kind offer of the king.
Vernon
’Twere best he did.
Earl Of Worcester
Then are we all undone.
It is not possible, it cannot be,
The king should keep his word in loving us;
He will suspect us still and find a time
To punish this offence in other faults:
Suspicion all our lives shall be stuck full of eyes;
For treason is but trusted like the fox,
Who, ne’er so tame, so cherish’d and lock’d up,
Will have a wild trick of his ancestors.
Look how we can, or sad or merrily,
Interpretation will misquote our looks,
And we shall feed like oxen at a stall,
The better cherish’d, still the nearer death.
My nephew’s trespass may be well forgot;
it hath the excuse of youth and heat of blood,
And an adopted name of privilege,
A hair-brain’d Hotspur, govern’d by a spleen:
All his offences live upon my head
And on his father’s; we did train him on,
And, his corruption being ta’en from us,
We, as the spring of all, shall pay for all.
Therefore, good cousin, let not Harry know,
In any case, the offer of the king.
Vernon
Deliver what you will; I’ll say ’tis so.
Here comes your cousin.
Enter Hotspur and Douglas
Hotspur
My uncle is return’d:
Deliver up my Lord of Westmoreland.
Uncle, what news?
Earl Of Worcester
The king will bid you battle presently.
Earl Of Douglas
Defy him by the Lord of Westmoreland.
Hotspur
Lord Douglas, go you and tell him so.
Earl Of Douglas
Marry, and shall, and very willingly.
Exit
Earl Of Worcester
There is no seeming mercy in the king.
Hotspur
Did you beg any? God forbid!
Earl Of Worcester
I told him gently of our grievances,
Of his oath-breaking; which he mended thus,
By now forswearing that he is forsworn:
He calls us rebels, traitors; and will scourge
With haughty arms this hateful name in us.
Re-enter the Earl Of Douglas
Earl Of Douglas
Arm, gentlemen; to arms! for I have thrown
A brave defiance in King Henry’s teeth,
And Westmoreland, that was engaged, did bear it;
Which cannot choose but bring him quickly on.
Earl Of Worcester
The Prince of Wales stepp’d forth before the king,
And, nephew, challenged you to single fight.
Hotspur
O, would the quarrel lay upon our heads,
And that no man might draw short breath today
But I and Harry Monmouth! Tell me, tell me,
How show’d his tasking? seem’d it in contempt?
Vernon
No, by my soul; I never in my life
Did hear a challenge urged more modestly,
Unless a brother should a brother dare
To gentle exercise and proof of arms.
He gave you all the duties of a man;
Trimm’d up your praises with a princely tongue,
Spoke to your deservings like a chronicle,
Making you ever better than his praise
By still dispraising praise valued in you;
And, which became him like a prince indeed,
He made a blushing cital of himself;
And chid his truant youth with such a grace
As if he master’d there a double spirit.
Of teaching and of learning instantly.
There did he pause: but let me tell the world,
If he outlive the envy of this day,
England did never owe so sweet a hope,
So much misconstrued in his wantonness.
Hotspur
Cousin, I think thou art enamoured
On his follies: never did I hear
Of any prince so wild a libertine.
But be he as he will, yet once ere night
I will embrace him with a soldier’s arm,
That he shall shrink under my courtesy.
Arm, arm with speed: and, fellows, soldiers, friends,
Better consider what you have to do
Than I, that have not well the gift of tongue,
Can lift your blood up with persuasion.
Enter a Messenger
Messenger
My lord, here are letters for you.
Hotspur
I cannot read them now.
O gentlemen, the time of life is short!
To spend that shortness basely were too long,
If life did ride upon a dial’s point,
Still ending at the arrival of an hour.
An if we live, we live to tread on kings;
If die, brave death, when princes die with us!
Now, for our consciences, the arms are fair,
When the intent of bearing them is just.
Enter another Messenger
Messenger
My lord, prepare; the king comes on apace.
Hotspur
I thank him, that he cuts me from my tale,
For I profess not talking; only this —
Let each man do his best: and here draw I
A sword, whose temper I intend to stain
With the best blood that I can meet withal
In the adventure of this perilous day.
Now, Esperance! Percy! and set on.
Sound all the lofty instruments of war,
And by that music let us all embrace;
For, heaven to earth, some of us never shall
A second time do such a courtesy.
The trumpets sound. They embrace, and exeunt
SCENE III. PLAIN BETWEEN THE CAMPS.
King Henry enters with his power. Alarum to the battle. Then enter Douglas and S
ir Walter Blunt
Sir Walter Blunt
What is thy name, that in the battle thus
Thou crossest me? what honour dost thou seek
Upon my head?
Earl Of Douglas
Know then, my name is Douglas;
And I do haunt thee in the battle thus
Because some tell me that thou art a king.
Sir Walter Blunt
They tell thee true.
Earl Of Douglas
The Lord of Stafford dear to-day hath bought
Thy likeness, for instead of thee, King Harry,
This sword hath ended him: so shall it thee,
Unless thou yield thee as my prisoner.
Sir Walter Blunt
I was not born a yielder, thou proud Scot;
And thou shalt find a king that will revenge
Lord Stafford’s death.
They fight. Douglas kills Sir Walter Blunt. Enter Hotspur
Hotspur
O Douglas, hadst thou fought at Holmedon thus, never had triumph’d upon a Scot.
Earl Of Douglas
All’s done, all’s won; here breathless lies the king.
Hotspur
Where?
Earl Of Douglas
Here.
Hotspur
This, Douglas? no: I know this face full well:
A gallant knight he was, his name was Blunt;
Semblably furnish’d like the king himself.
Earl Of Douglas
A fool go with thy soul, whither it goes!
A borrow’d title hast thou bought too dear:
Why didst thou tell me that thou wert a king?
Hotspur
The king hath many marching in his coats.
Earl Of Douglas
Now, by my sword, I will kill all his coats;
I’ll murder all his wardrobe, piece by piece,
Until I meet the king.
Hotspur
Up, and away!
Our soldiers stand full fairly for the day.
Exeunt
Alarum. Enter Falstaff, solus
Falstaff
Though I could ’scape shot-free at London, I fear the shot here; here’s no scoring but upon the pate. Soft! who are you? Sir Walter Blunt: there’s honour for you! here’s no vanity! I am as hot as moulten lead, and as heavy too: God keep lead out of me! I need no more weight than mine own bowels. I have led my ragamuffins where they are peppered: there’s not three of my hundred and fifty left alive; and they are for the town’s end, to beg during life. But who comes here?
Enter Prince Henry
Prince Henry
What, stand’st thou idle here? lend me thy sword:
Many a nobleman lies stark and stiff
Under the hoofs of vaunting enemies,
Whose deaths are yet unrevenged: I prithee,
Lend me thy sword.
Falstaff
O Hal, I prithee, give me leave to breathe awhile. Turk Gregory never did such deeds in arms as I have done this day. I have paid Percy, I have made him sure.
Complete Plays, The Page 174