We license your departure with your son:-
Send us your prisoners, or you'll hear of it.

[Exeunt King HENRY, BLUNT, and Train. Hot. And if the devil come and roar for them, I will not send them: - I will after straight,

And tell him so; for I will ease my heart,

Although it be with hazard of my head.

North. What, drunk with choler? stay, and pause awhile;

Here comes your uncle.

Hot.

Re-enter WORCESTER.

Speak of Mortimer?

'Zounds, I will speak of him; and let my soul
Want mercy, if I do not join with him:

Yea, on his part, I'll empty all these veins,
And shed my dear blood drop by drop i'the dust,
But I will lift the down-trod Mortimer

As high i'the air as this unthankful king,
As this ingrate and canker'd Bolingbroke.

North. Brother, the king hath made your nephew mad.

[To WORCESTER.

Wor. Who struck this heat up, after I was gone? Hot. He will, forsooth, have all my prisoners; And when I urg'd the ransome once again Of my wife's brother, then his cheek look'd pale; And on my face he turn'd an eye of death,2

Trembling even at the name of Mortimer.

Wor. I cannot blame him: Was he not proclaim'd, By Richard that dead is, the next of blood?

North. He was; I heard the proclamation :
And then it was, when the unhappy king
(Whose wrongs in us God pardon !) did set forth
Upon his Irish expedition;

2

an eye of death,] That is, an eye menacing death.

From whence he, intercepted, did return

To be depos'd, and, shortly, murdered.

Wor. And for whose death, we in the world's wide mouth

Live scandaliz'd, and foully spoken of.

Hot. But, soft, I pray you; Did king Richard then Proclaim my brother Edmund Mortimer

Heir to the crown?

North.

He did; myself did hear it.

Hot. Nay, then I cannot blame his cousin king, That wish'd him on the barren mountains starv'd. that set the crown

you,

But shall it be, that
Upon the head of this forgetful man;
And, for his sake, wear the detested blot
Of murd❜rous subornation, shall it be,
That you a world of curses undergo;

Being the agents, or base second means,
The cords, the ladder, or the hangman rather? —
O, pardon me, that I descend so low,

To show the line, and the predicament,

Wherein you range under this subtle king. —
Shall it, for shame, be spoken in these days,
Or fill up chronicles in time to come,
That men of your nobility and power,
Did 'gage them both in an unjust behalf, –
As both of you, God pardon it! have done, —
To put down Richard, that sweet lovely rose,
And plant this thorn, this canker3, Bolingbroke?
And shall it, in more shame, be further spoken,
That you are fool'd, discarded, and shook off
By him, for whom these shames ye underwent?
No; yet time serves, wherein you may redeem
Your banish'd honours, and restore yourselves
Into the good thoughts of the world again:

3 this canker, Bolingbroke?] The canker-rose is the dog-rose, the flower of the cynosbaton.

Revenge the jeering, and disdain'd contempt,
Of this proud king; who studies, day and night,
To answer all the debt he owes to you,

Even with the bloody payment of your deaths.
Therefore, I say, -

Wor.

Peace, cousin, say no more;

And now I will unclasp a secret book,
And to your quick-conceiving discontents
I'll read you matter deep and dangerous;
As full of peril, and advent'rous spirit,
As to o'erwalk a current, roaring loud,
On the unsteadfast footing of a spear.

Hot. If he fall in, good night:

or sink or swim:

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-fac'd 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-fac'd fellowship !5

Wor. He apprehends a world of figures here,"

4- disdain'd-] For disdainful.

5 But out upon this half-fac'd fellowship!] A coat is said to be faced when part of it, as the sleeves or bosom, is covered with something finer or more splendid than the main substance. The mantua-makers still use the word. Half-fac'd fellowship is then "partnership but half-adorned, partnership which yet wants half the show of dignities and honours." JOHNSON.

6 — a world of figures here,] Figures mean shapes created by Hotspur's imagination.

But not the form of what he should attend.
Good cousin, give me audience for a while.
Hot. I cry you mercy.

Wor.

That are your prisoners,

Hot.

Those same noble Scots,

I'll keep them all;

By heaven, 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 ransome Mortimer;
Forbad 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.

Cousin; a word.

Hear you,

Hot. All studies here I solemnly defy,

Save how to gall and pinch this Bolingbroke:

And that same sword-and-buckler prince of Wales,7

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

7 And that same sword-and-buckler prince of Wales,] A royster or turbulent fellow, that fought in taverns, or raised disorders in the streets, was called a swash-buckler. In this sense sword-and-buckler is here used.

↑ "Why, what a wasp-tongue❞— MALONE.

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 scourg'd 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 Gloucestershire;
'Twas where the mad-cap 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 Berkley 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 ransome straight, And make the Douglas' son your only mean For powers in Scotland; which, for divers reasons, Which I shall send you written, - be assur'd, Will easily be granted. — You, my lord, †

[TO NORTHUMBERLAND.

Your son in Scotland being thus employed,
Shall secretly into the bosom creep

Of that same noble prelate, well belov❜d,
The archbishop.

Hot. Of York, is't not?

Wor. True; who bears hard

+"be granted you- My lord," — MALONE.