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Lords and Attendants, Officers, Soldiers, Messengers, Drawers, Grooms, &c. &c.

SCENE, ENGLAND.

INDUCTION.

Warkworth. Before Northumberland's Castle.

Enter Rumour, painted full of Tongues."

RUM. Open your ears; for which of you will stop
The vent of hearing, when loud Rumour speaks?
I, from the orient to the drooping west,
Making the wind my posthorse, still unfold
The acts commenced on this ball of earth:
Upon my tongues* continual slanders ride,
The which in every language I pronounce,
Stuffing the ears of ment with false reports.
I speak of peace, while covert enmity,
Under the smile of safety, wounds the world:
And who but Rumour, who but only I,
Make fearful musters, and prepar'd defence;
Whilst the big year, swol❜n with some other grief,‡
Is thought with child by the stern tyrant war?
And no such matter. Rumour is a pipe
Blown by surmises, jealousies, conjectures;
And of so easy and so plain a stop,

That the blunt monster with uncounted heads,
The still discordant wavering multitude,
Can play upon it. But what need I thus

My well-known body to anatomize

Among my household? Why is Rumour here?
I run before king Harry's victory;

Who, in a bloody field by Shrewsbury,

Hath beaten down young Hotspur, and his troops,
Quenching the flame of bold rebellion.

Even with the rebels' blood. But what mean I
To speak so true at first? my office is

To noise abroad,—that Harry Monmouth fell
Under the wrath of noble Hotspur's sword;
And that the king before the Douglas' rage
Stoop'd his anointed head as low as death.
This have I rumour'd through the peasant towns"
Between that § royal field of Shrewsbury
And this worm-eaten hole of ragged stone,
Where Hotspur's father, old Northumberland,
Lies crafty-sick: the posts come tiring on,

And not a man of them brings other news

Than they have learn'd of me. From Rumour's tongues
They bring smooth comforts false, worse than true wrongs.

[Exit.

(*) First folio, tongue. (1) First folio, griefs.

(+) First folio, them.
(§) First folio, the.

a Painted full of Tongues.] This description is omitted in the folio.

b Through the peasant towns-] Mr. Collier's MS annotator reads pleasant towns.

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The Porter before the Gate.

Should be the father of some stratagem:
The times are wild; contention, like a horse
Full of high feeding, madly hath broke loose
And bears down all before him.

BARD.
Noble earl,
I bring you certain news from Shrewsbury.
NORTH. Good, an God will!

BARD. As good as heart can wish:The king is almost wounded to the death; And, in the fortune of my lord your son, Prince Harry slain outright; and both the Blunts Kill'd by the hand of Douglas: young prince John,

And Westmoreland, and Stafford, fled the field; And Harry Monmouth's brawn, the hulk sir John,

(*) First folio, heaven.

Is prisoner to your son: O, such a day,
So fought, so follow'd, and so fairly won,
Came not, till now, to dignify the times,
Since Cæsar's fortunes!

NORTH.
How is this deriv'd?
Saw you the field? came you from Shrewsbury?
BARD. I spake with one, my lord, that came
from thence;

A gentleman well bred, and of good name,
That freely render'd me these news for true.
NORTH. Here comes my servant Travers, whom
I sent

On Tuesday last to listen after news.

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

Enter TRAVERS.

NORTH. Now, Travers, what good tidings comes with* you?

[back

TRA. My lord, sir John Umfrevile turn'd me With joyful tidings; and, being better hors'd, Out-rode me. After him, came, spurring hard,† A gentleman almost forespent with speed, That stopp'd by me to breathe his bloodied horse: He ask'd the way to Chester; and of him I did demand, what news from Shrewsbury. He told me, that rebellion had bad luck, And that young Harry Percy's spur was cold: With that he gave his able horse the head, And, bending forward, struck his armed§ heels. Against the panting sides of his poor jade Up to the rowel-head; and, starting so, He seem'd in running to devour the way, Staying no longer question.

NORTH.

Ha! Again. Said he, young Harry Percy's spur was cold? Of Hotspur, coldspur? that rebellion

Had met ill luck?

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NORTH. Yea, this man's brow, like to a titleForetells the nature of a tragic volume: [leaf,b So looks the strand, whereon* the imperious flood Hath left a witness'd usurpation.

Enter MORTON.

Say, Morton, did'st thou come from Shrewsbury?
MOR. I ran from Shrewsbury, my noble lord;
Where hateful death put on his ugliest mask,
To fright our party.

NORTH. How doth my son, and brother?
Thou tremblest; and the whiteness in thy cheek
Is apter than thy tongue to tell thy errand.
Even such a man, so faint, so spiritless,
So dull, so dead in look, so woe-begone,
Drew Priam's curtain in the dead of night,
And would have told him, half his Troy was
burn'd;

But Priam found the fire, ere he his tongue,
And I my Percy's death, ere thou report'st it.
This thou would'st say,-Your son did thus, and
thus ;

Your brother, thus; so fought the noble Douglas;
Stopping my greedy ear with their bold deeds,
But in the end, to stop mine ear indeed,
Thou hast a sigh to blow away this praise,
Ending with-brother, son, and all are dead.
MOR. Douglas is living, and your brother, yet;
But, for my lord your son,-

NORTH.

Why, he is dead. See, what a ready tongue suspicion hath! He, that but fears the thing he would not know, Hath, by instinct, knowledge from others' eyes, That what he fear'd is chanced. Yet speak,

Morton:

Tell thou thy earl, his divination lies;

And I will take it as a sweet disgrace,
And make thee rich for doing me such wrong.
MOR. You are too great to be by me gainsaid:
Your spirit is too true, your fears too certain.
NORTH. Yet, for all this, say not that Percy's
dead.

I see a strange confession in thine eye :
Thou shak'st thy head, and hold'st it fear, or sin,
To speak a truth. If he be slain, say so:
The tongue offends not, that reports his death;
And he doth sin, that doth belie the dead,
Not he, which says the dead is not alive.
Yet the first bringer of unwelcome news
Hath but a losing office; and his tongue
Sounds ever after as a sullen bell,

(*) First folio, when.

"Out on her, hilding."

b Like to a title-leaf,-] Elegiac poems in former times were usually printed with a black border round the title-page, and sometimes with that leaf totally black.

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The never-daunted Percy to the earth,
From whence with life he never more sprung up.
In few, his death, (whose spirit lent a fire
Even to the dullest peasant in his camp,)
Being bruited once, took fire and heat away
From the best temper'd courage in his troops:
For from his metal was his party steel'd;
Which once in him abated, all the rest
Turn'd on themselves, like dull and heavy lead.
And as the thing that's heavy in itself,
Upon enforcement, flies with greatest speed,
So did our men, heavy in Hotspur's loss,
Lend to this weight such lightness with their fear,
That arrows fled not swifter toward their aim,
Than did our soldiers, aiming at their safety,
Fly from the field. Then was that noble Worcester
Too soon ta'en prisoner; and that furious Scot,
The bloody Douglas, whose well-labouring sword
Had three times slain the appearance of the king,
'Gan vail his stomach, and did grace the shame
Of those that turn'd their backs; and, in his flight,
Stumbling in fear, was took. The sum of all
Is, that the king hath won; and hath sent out
A speedy power, to encounter you, my lord,
Under the conduct of young Lancaster,
And Westmoreland: this is the news at full.
NORTH. For this I shall have time enough to

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a Rend'ring faint quittance,-] Quittance here means requital,

as in "Henry V." Act II. Sc. 2:

"And shall forget the office of our hand.
Sooner than quittance of desert and merit."

b In few,-] That is, in short, in a few words. So in "The Tempest," Act I. Sc. 2:

"In few, they hurried us aboard a bark; "

and in "Measure for Measure," Act III. Sc. 1:

"In few, bestowed her on her own lamentation."

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Are thrice themselves: hence therefore, thou nice crutch;

:

A scaly gauntlet now, with joints of steel,
Must glove this hand and hence, thou sickly coif;
Thou art a guard too wanton for the head,
Which princes, flesh'd with conquest, aim to hit.
Now bind my brows with iron; and approach
The ragged'st' hour that time and spite dare bring,
To frown upon the enrag'd Northumberland!
Let heaven kiss earth! Now let not nature's hand
Keep the wild flood confin'd! let order die!
And let this world no longer be a stage,
To feed contention in a lingering act,
But let one spirit of the first-born Cain
Reign in all bosoms, that, each heart being set
On bloody courses, the rude scene may end,
And darkness be the burier of the dead !
TRA. This strained passion doth you wrong,
my lord.s

BARD. Sweet earl, divorce not wisdom from your honour.

MOR. The lives of all your loving complices
Lean on your health; the which, if you give o'er
To stormy passion, must perforce decay.h
You cast the event of war, my noble lord,
And summ'd the account of chance, before you
said,-

Let us make head. It was your presurmise,
That, in the dole' of blows, your son might drop:
You knew, he walk'd o'er perils, on an edge,
More likely to fall in, than to get o'er;
You were advis'd, his flesh was capable'
Of wounds, and scars; and that his forward spirit
Would lift him where most trade of danger rang'd;
Yet did you say,-Go forth; and none of this,
Though strongly apprehended, could restrain
The stiff-borne action. What hath then befallen,
Or what hath this bold enterprise brought forth,
More than that being which was like to be?

BARD. We all that are engaged to this loss,
Knew that we ventur'd on such dangerous seas,
That, if we wrought out life, 't was† ten to one;
And yet we ventur'd, for the gain propos'd
Chok'd the respect of likely peril fear'd;
And, since we are o'erset, venture again.
Come, we will all put forth; body and goods.

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line is omitted in the folio.

h Must perforce decay.] The remainder of Morton's speech, after this line, is omitted in the quarto.

The dole of blows,-] The dealing, the distribution of blows, k You were advis'd,-] You were aware.

1 Capable-] That is, susceptible, sensible. "Alongst the galupin or silver paved way of heaven, conducted into the great hall of the gods, Mercury sprinkled me with water, which made me capable of their divine presence."-GREENE'S Orpharion, ito, 1599, p. 7. See note (b), p. 297.

Where most trade-] Most traffic. See note (e), p. 473.

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