And I my Percy's death, ere thou report'st it.
This thou wouldst say, Your son did thus, and
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,-
Why, he is dead.
See, what a ready tongue suspicion hath!
He, that but fears the thing he would not know,
Hath, by instinct, knowlege 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 shakest 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,
Remember'd knolling a departing friend.
Bar. I cannot think, my lord, your son is dead.
Mor. I am sorry, I should force you to believe
That, which I would to Heaven I had not seen :
But these mine eyes saw him in bloody state,
Rendering faint quittance,1 wearied and outbreathed,
To Harry Monmouth, whose swift wrath beat down
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 2 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 Worceste
Too soon ta'en prisoner; and that furious Scot,
The bloody Douglas, whose well-laboring sword
Had three times slain the appearance of the king,
'Gan vail1 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
In poison there is physic; and these news, Having been well, that would have made me sick, Being sick, have in some measure made me well: And as the wretch, whose fever-weaken'd joints, Like strengthless hinges, buckle 2 under life, Impatient of his fit, breaks like a fire
Out of his keeper's arms; even so my limbs, Weaken'd with grief, being now enraged with grief, Are thrice themselves. Hence therefore, thou nice crutch
A scaly gauntlet now, with joints of steel,
Must glove this hand and hence, thou sickly quoif; 3
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 enraged Northumberland!
Let heaven kiss earth! Now let not Nature's hand
Keep the wild flood confined! 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.
Bar. Sweet earl, divorce not wisdom from your honor.
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.
You cast the event of war, my noble lord,
And summ'd the account of chance, before you
'Let us make head.' It was your presurmise,
That, in the dole 1 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 advised, his flesh was capable
Of wounds and scars, and that his forward spirit
Would lift him where most trade of danger ranged;
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?
Bar. We all, that are engaged to this loss, Knew that we ventured on such dangerous seas, That, if we wrought out life, 'twas ten to one; And yet we ventured; for the gain proposed Choked the respect of likely peril fear'd; And, since we are o'erset, venture again. Come, we will all put forth; body and goods. Mor. 'Tis more than time. And, my most noble
I hear for certain, and do speak the truth,
The gentle archbishop of York is up,
With well-appointed powers: he is a man,
Who with a double surety binds his followers.
My lord your son had only but the corps,
But shadows, and the shows of men, to fight;
For that same word, rebellion, did divide
The action of their bodies from their souls;
And they did fight with queasiness, constrain'd,
As men drink potions; that their weapons only
Seem'd on our side; but, for their spirits and souls,
This word, rebellion, it had froze them up,
As fish are in a pond: but now the bishop
Turns insurrection to religion:
Supposed sincere and holy in his thoughts,
He's follow'd both with body and with mind;
And doth enlarge his rising with the blood
Of fair king Richard, scraped from Pomfret stones;
Derives from Heaven his quarrel and his cause;
Tells them, he doth bestride a bleeding land,
Gasping for life under great Bolingbroke;
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