Whose tongue shall ask me for one penny cost
To ransom home revolted Mortimer.

Hot. Revolted Mortimer!

He never did fall off, my sovereign liege,

But by the chance of war.-To prove that true, Needs no more but one tongue for all those wounds, Those mouthed wounds, which valiantly he took, When, on the gentle Severn's sedgy bank,

In single opposition, hand to hand,

He did confound1 the best part of an hour

In changing hardiment with great Glendower:

Three times they breathed, and three times did they

drink,

Upon agreement, of swift Severn's flood;
Who, then affrighted with their bloody looks,
Ran fearfully among the trembling reeds,
And hid his crisp2 head in the hollow bank,
Blood-stained with these valiant combatants.
Never did bare3 and rotten policy

Color her working with such deadly wounds;
Nor never could the noble Mortimer
Receive so many, and all willingly.

Then let him not be slandered with revolt.

K. Hen. Thou dost belie him, Percy, thou dost belie him;

He never did encounter with Glendower.

I tell thee,

He durst as well have met the devil alone,
As Owen Glendower for an enemy.

Art thou not ashamed? But, sirrah, henceforth
Let me not hear you speak of Mortimer.

Send me your prisoners with the speediest means,
Or you shall hear in such a kind from me

As will displease you.-My lord Northumberland,
We license your departure with your son.
Send us your prisoners, or you'll hear of it.

[Exeunt KING HENRY, BLUNT, and Train.

1 Shakspeare uses confound for spending or losing time. Hardiment is

an obsolete word, signifying hardiness, courage.

2 Crisp is curled.

3 Some of the quarto copies read base.

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 cankered Bolingbroke.

mad.

North. Brother, the king hath made your nephew [To WORCESTER. Wor. Who struck this heat up, after I was gone? Hot. He will, forsooth, have all my prisoners; And when I urged the ransom once again Of my wife's brother, then his cheek looked pale; And on my face he turned an eye of death, Trembling even at the name of Mortimer.

Wor. I cannot blame him. Was he not proclaimed, By Richard that dead is, the next of blood?1 North. He was; I heard the proclamation.

1 Roger Mortimer, earl of March, was declared heir apparent to the crown in 1385; but he was killed in Ireland in 1398. The person who was proclaimed heir apparent by Richard II. previous to his last voyage to Ireland, was Edmund Mortimer, son of Roger, who was then but seven years old: he was not lady Percy's brother, but her nephew. He was the undoubted heir to the crown after the death of Richard. Thomas Walsingham asserts that he married a daughter of Owen Glendower, and the subsequent historians copied him. Sandford says that he married Anne Stafford, daughter of Edmund earl of Stafford. Glendower's daughter was married to his antagonist lord Grey of Ruthven. Holinshed led Shakspeare into the error. This Edmund, who is the Mortimer of the present play, was born in 1392, and consequently, at the time when this play is supposed to commence, was little more than ten years old. The prince of Wales was not fifteen.

And then it was, when the unhappy king

Whose wrongs in us God pardon!) did set forth
Upon his Irish expedition;

From whence he, intercepted, did return

To be deposed, and shortly murdered.

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

mouth

Live scandalized, 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 wished him on the barren mountains starved.
But shall it be, that you,-that set the crown
Upon the head of this forgetful man,
And, for his sake, wear the detested blot
Of murderous 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

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 canker,1 Bolingbroke?
And shall it, in more shame, be further spoken,
That you are fooled, discarded, and shook off
By him, for whom these shames ye underwent?
No; yet time serves, wherein you may redeem
Your banished honors, and restore yourselves
Into the good thoughts of the world again.
Revenge the jeering and disdained contempt

2

1 The canker-rose is the dog-rose, the flower of the Cynosbaton. 2 i. e. disdainful.

Of this proud king; who studies, day and night,
To answer all the debt he owes to you,
Even with the bloody payment of
Therefore, I say,

Wor.

your deaths.

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 şink or swim; Send danger from the east unto the west,

So honor 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 honor 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 honor by the locks;

So he, that doth redeem her thence, might wear,
Without corrival, all her dignities.

But out upon this half-faced fellowship! 1

1

2

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.

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,

1 Half-faced, something imperfect.
2 Shapes created by his imagination.

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;
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-buckler1 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 poisoned with a pot of ale.

Wor. Farewell, kinsman! I will talk to you,

When you are better tempered to attend.

North. Why, what a wasp-tongue 2 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 whipped 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 Gloucestershire ;—

1 "Sword-and-buckler prince," is here used as a term of contempt. The following extracts will help us to the precise meaning of the epithet:-" This field, commonly called West Smithfield, was for many years called Ruffian's Hall, by reason it was the usual place for frayes and common fighting, during the time that sword and bucklers were in use; when every serving man, from the base to the best, carried a buckler at his back, which hung by the hilt or pomel of his sword."-Stowe's Survey of London.

2 The first quarto, 1598, reads wasp-stung, which Steevens thought the true reading. The quarto of 1599 reads wasp-tongue. The folio altered it, unnecessarily, to wasp-tongued.