Imagini ale paginilor
PDF
ePub

And your unthought-of Harry, chance to meet: For every honour sitting on his helm,

'Would they were multitudes; and on my head
My shames redoubled! for the time will come
That I shall make this northern youth exchange
His glorious deeds for my indignities.

Percy is but my factor, good my lord,
To engross up glorious deeds on my behalf;
And I will call him to so strict account,
That he shall render every glory up.
Yea, even the slightest worship of his time,
Or I will tear the reckoning from his heart.
This, in the name of God, I promise here:
The which, if he be pleas'd I shall perform,
I do beseech your majesty, may salve
The long-grown wounds of my intemperance.
If not, the end of life cancels all bands;*
And I will die a hundred thousand deaths,
Ere break the smallest parcelf of this vow.

ACT IV.

A GALLANT WARRIOR

I saw young Harry, with his beaver on, His cuissest on his thighs, gallantly arm'd,— Rise from the ground like feather'd Mercury, And vaulted with such ease into his seat, As if an angel dropp'd down from the clouds To turn and wind a fiery Pegasus,

And witch the world with noble horsemanship.

HOTSPUR'S IMPATIENCE FOR THE BATTLE Let them come;

They come like sacrifices in their trim,
And to the fire-ey'd maid of smoky war,
All not, and bleeding, will we offer them
The mailed Mars shall on his altar sit,
Up to the ears in blood. I am on fire,
To hear this rich reprisal is so nigh,

And yet not ours:-Come, let me take my horse,
† Part.
+ Armour

* Bonds.
§ Bewitch, charm.

[graphic][merged small][merged small][merged small]

Who is to bear me, like a thunderbolt,
Against the bosom of the prince of Wales:
Harry to Harry shall, hot horse to horse,

Meet, and ne'er part, till one drop down a corse,- · O, that Glendower were come!

ACT V.

PRINCE HENRY'S MODEST CHALLENGE.

Tell your nephew,

The prince of Wales doth join with all the world
In praise of Henry Percy: By my hopes,-
This present enterprise set off his head,-
I do not think a braver gentleman,
More active-valiant, or more valiant-young,
More daring, or more bold, is now alive,
To grace this latter age with noble deeds.
For my part I may speak it to my shame,
I have a truant been to chivalry,
And so, I hear, he doth account me too:
Yet this before my father's majesty,
I am content, that he shall take the odds
Of his great name and estimatio,
And will, to save the blood on either side,
Try fortune with him in a single fight.

FALSTAFF'S CATECHISM.

Well, 'tis no matter: Honour pricks me on. Yea, out how if honour prick me off when I come on' how then? Can honour set to a leg? No. Or an arm? No. Or take away the grief of a wound? No. Honour hath no skill in surgery then? No. What is honour? A word. What is in that word? Honour, What is that honour? Air. A trim reckoning!Who hath it? He that died o' Wednesday. Doth he feel it? No. Doth he hear it? No. Is it insensible then? Yea, to the dead. But will it not live with the living? No. Why? Detraction will not suffer it:therefore I'll none of it. Honour is a mere escutchen, and so ends my catechism.

*Painted heraldry in funerals.

LIFE DEMANDS ACTION.

O gentlemen, the time of life is short;

To spend that shortness basely were too long.
If life did ride upon a dial's point,

Still ending at the arrival of an hour.

PRINCE HENRY'S PATHETIC SPEECH ON THE
DEATH OF HOTSPUR.

Brave Percy, fare thee well.

Il weav'd ambition, how much art thou shrunk!
When that this body did contain a spirit,
A kingdom for it was too small a bound;
But now, two paces of the vilest earth

Is room enough:-This earth, that bears thee dead,
Bears not alive so stout a gentleman.

If thou wert sensible of courtesy,

I should not make so dear a show of zeal:
But let my favours* hide thy mangled face;
And even, in thy behalf, I'll thank myself
For doing thee these fair rites of tenderness.
Adieu, and take thy praise with thee to heaven!
Thy ignominy sleep with thee in the grave,
But not remember'd in thy epitaph!

KING HENRY IV.

PART II.

INDUCTION.

RUMOUR.

I, FROM the orient to the drooping west,
Making the wind my post-horse, 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 men with false reports.
I speak of peace, while covert enmity,
Under the smile of safety, wounds the world

Scarf, with which he covers Percy's face.

« ÎnapoiContinuă »