1    Who keeps the gate here, ho?
The Porter opens the gate
2    Where is the earl?

3    What shall I say you are?

4    Tell thou the earl
5    That the Lord Bardolph doth attend him here.

6    His lordship is walk'd forth into the orchard;
7    Please it your honour, knock but at the gate,
8    And he himself wilt answer.

9    Here comes the earl.

10   What news, Lord Bardolph? every minute now
11   Should be the father of some stratagem:
12   The times are wild: contention, like a horse
13   Full of high feeding, madly hath broke loose
14   And bears down all before him.

15   Noble earl,
16   I bring you certain news from Shrewsbury.

17   Good, an God will!

18   As good as heart can wish:
19   The king is almost wounded to the death;
20   And, in the fortune of my lord your son,
21   Prince Harry slain outright; and both the Blunts
22   Kill'd by the hand of Douglas; young Prince John
23   And Westmoreland and Stafford fled the field;
24   And Harry Monmouth's brawn, the hulk Sir John,
25   Is prisoner to your son: O, such a day,
26   So fought, so follow'd and so fairly won,
27   Came not till now to dignify the times,
28   Since Caesar's fortunes!

29   How is this derived?
30   Saw you the field? came you from Shrewsbury?

31   I spake with one, my lord, that came from thence,
32   A gentleman well bred and of good name,
33   That freely render'd me these news for true.

34   Here comes my servant Travers, whom I sent
35   On Tuesday last to listen after news.

36   My lord, I over-rode him on the way;
37   And he is furnish'd with no certainties
38   More than he haply may retail from me.

39   Now, Travers, what good tidings comes with you?

40   My lord, Sir John Umfrevile turn'd me back
41   With joyful tidings; and, being better horsed,
42   Out-rode me. After him came spurring hard
43   A gentleman, almost forspent with speed,
44   That stopp'd by me to breathe his bloodied horse.
45   He ask'd the way to Chester; and of him
46   I did demand what news from Shrewsbury:
47   He told me that rebellion had bad luck
48   And that young Harry Percy's spur was cold.
49   With that, he gave his able horse the head,
50   And bending forward struck his armed heels
51   Against the panting sides of his poor jade
52   Up to the rowel-head, and starting so
53   He seem'd in running to devour the way,
54   Staying no longer question.

55   Ha! Again:
56   Said he young Harry Percy's spur was cold?
57   Of Hotspur Coldspur? that rebellion
58   Had met ill luck?

59   My lord, I'll tell you what;
60   If my young lord your son have not the day,
61   Upon mine honour, for a silken point
62   I'll give my barony: never talk of it.

63   Why should that gentleman that rode by Travers
64   Give then such instances of loss?

65   Who, he?
66   He was some hilding fellow that had stolen
67   The horse he rode on, and, upon my life,
68   Spoke at a venture. Look, here comes more news.

69   Yea, this man's brow, like to a title-leaf,
70   Foretells the nature of a tragic volume:
71   So looks the strand whereon the imperious flood
72   Hath left a witness'd usurpation.
73   Say, Morton, didst thou come from Shrewsbury?

74   I ran from Shrewsbury, my noble lord;
75   Where hateful death put on his ugliest mask
76   To fright our party.

77   How doth my son and brother?
78   Thou tremblest; and the whiteness in thy cheek
79   Is apter than thy tongue to tell thy errand.
80   Even such a man, so faint, so spiritless,
81   So dull, so dead in look, so woe-begone,
82   Drew Priam's curtain in the dead of night,
83   And would have told him half his Troy was burnt;
84   But Priam found the fire ere he his tongue,
85   And I my Percy's death ere thou report'st it.
86   This thou wouldst say, 'Your son did thus and thus;
87   Your brother thus: so fought the noble Douglas:'
88   Stopping my greedy ear with their bold deeds:
89   But in the end, to stop my ear indeed,
90   Thou hast a sigh to blow away this praise,
91   Ending with 'Brother, son, and all are dead.'

92   Douglas is living, and your brother, yet;
93   But, for my lord your son--

94   Why, he is dead.
95   See what a ready tongue suspicion hath!
96   He that but fears the thing he would not know
97   Hath by instinct knowledge from others' eyes
98   That what he fear'd is chanced. Yet speak, Morton;
99   Tell thou an earl his divination lies,
100  And I will take it as a sweet disgrace
101  And make thee rich for doing me such wrong.

102  You are too great to be by me gainsaid:
103  Your spirit is too true, your fears too certain.

104  Yet, for all this, say not that Percy's dead.
105  I see a strange confession in thine eye:
106  Thou shakest thy head and hold'st it fear or sin
107  To speak a truth. If he be slain, say so;
108  The tongue offends not that reports his death:
109  And he doth sin that doth belie the dead,
110  Not he which says the dead is not alive.
111  Yet the first bringer of unwelcome news
112  Hath but a losing office, and his tongue
113  Sounds ever after as a sullen bell,
114  Remember'd tolling a departing friend.

115  I cannot think, my lord, your son is dead.

116  I am sorry I should force you to believe
117  That which I would to God I had not seen;
118  But these mine eyes saw him in bloody state,
119  Rendering faint quittance, wearied and out-breathed,
120  To Harry Monmouth; whose swift wrath beat down
121  The never-daunted Percy to the earth,
122  From whence with life he never more sprung up.
123  In few, his death, whose spirit lent a fire
124  Even to the dullest peasant in his camp,
125  Being bruited once, took fire and heat away
126  From the best temper'd courage in his troops;
127  For from his metal was his party steel'd;
128  Which once in him abated, all the rest
129  Turn'd on themselves, like dull and heavy lead:
130  And as the thing that's heavy in itself,
131  Upon enforcement flies with greatest speed,
132  So did our men, heavy in Hotspur's loss,
133  Lend to this weight such lightness with their fear
134  That arrows fled not swifter toward their aim
135  Than did our soldiers, aiming at their safety,
136  Fly from the field. Then was the noble Worcester
137  Too soon ta'en prisoner; and that furious Scot,
138  The bloody Douglas, whose well-labouring sword
139  Had three times slain the appearance of the king,
140  'Gan vail his stomach and did grace the shame
141  Of those that turn'd their backs, and in his flight,
142  Stumbling in fear, was took. The sum of all
143  Is that the king hath won, and hath sent out
144  A speedy power to encounter you, my lord,
145  Under the conduct of young Lancaster
146  And Westmoreland. This is the news at full.

147  For this I shall have time enough to mourn.
148  In poison there is physic; and these news,
149  Having been well, that would have made me sick,
150  Being sick, have in some measure made me well:
151  And as the wretch, whose fever-weaken'd joints,
152  Like strengthless hinges, buckle under life,
153  Impatient of his fit, breaks like a fire
154  Out of his keeper's arms, even so my limbs,
155  Weaken'd with grief, being now enraged with grief,
156  Are thrice themselves. Hence, therefore, thou nice crutch!
157  A scaly gauntlet now with joints of steel
158  Must glove this hand: and hence, thou sickly quoif!
159  Thou art a guard too wanton for the head
160  Which princes, flesh'd with conquest, aim to hit.
161  Now bind my brows with iron; and approach
162  The ragged'st hour that time and spite dare bring
163  To frown upon the enraged Northumberland!
164  Let heaven kiss earth! now let not Nature's hand
165  Keep the wild flood confined! let order die!
166  And let this world no longer be a stage
167  To feed contention in a lingering act;
168  But let one spirit of the first-born Cain
169  Reign in all bosoms, that, each heart being set
170  On bloody courses, the rude scene may end,
171  And darkness be the burier of the dead!

172  This strained passion doth you wrong, my lord.

173  Sweet earl, divorce not wisdom from your honour.

174  The lives of all your loving complices
175  Lean on your health; the which, if you give o'er
176  To stormy passion, must perforce decay.
177  You cast the event of war, my noble lord,
178  And summ'd the account of chance, before you said
179  'Let us make head.' It was your presurmise,
180  That, in the dole of blows, your son might drop:
181  You knew he walk'd o'er perils, on an edge,
182  More likely to fall in than to get o'er;
183  You were advised his flesh was capable
184  Of wounds and scars and that his forward spirit
185  Would lift him where most trade of danger ranged:
186  Yet did you say 'Go forth;' and none of this,
187  Though strongly apprehended, could restrain
188  The stiff-borne action: what hath then befallen,
189  Or what hath this bold enterprise brought forth,
190  More than that being which was like to be?

191  We all that are engaged to this loss
192  Knew that we ventured on such dangerous seas
193  That if we wrought our life 'twas ten to one;
194  And yet we ventured, for the gain proposed
195  Choked the respect of likely peril fear'd;
196  And since we are o'erset, venture again.
197  Come, we will all put forth, body and goods.

198  'Tis more than time: and, my most noble lord,
199  I hear for certain, and do speak the truth,
200  The gentle Archbishop of York is up
201  With well-appointed powers: he is a man
202  Who with a double surety binds his followers.
203  My lord your son had only but the corpse,
204  But shadows and the shows of men, to fight;
205  For that same word, rebellion, did divide
206  The action of their bodies from their souls;
207  And they did fight with queasiness, constrain'd,
208  As men drink potions, that their weapons only
209  Seem'd on our side; but, for their spirits and souls,
210  This word, rebellion, it had froze them up,
211  As fish are in a pond. But now the bishop
212  Turns insurrection to religion:
213  Supposed sincere and holy in his thoughts,
214  He's followed both with body and with mind;
215  And doth enlarge his rising with the blood
216  Of fair King Richard, scraped from Pomfret stones;
217  Derives from heaven his quarrel and his cause;
218  Tells them he doth bestride a bleeding land,
219  Gasping for life under great Bolingbroke;
220  And more and less do flock to follow him.

221  I knew of this before; but, to speak truth,
222  This present grief had wiped it from my mind.
223  Go in with me; and counsel every man
224  The aptest way for safety and revenge:
225  Get posts and letters, and make friends with speed:
226  Never so few, and never yet more need.