William Shakespeare: The Complete Works 2nd Edition (229 page)

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Authors: William Shakespeare

Tags: #Drama, #Literary Criticism, #Shakespeare

BOOK: William Shakespeare: The Complete Works 2nd Edition
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SIR JOHN I would your grace would take me with you. Whom means your grace?
PRINCE HARRY That villainous, abominable misleader of youth, Oldcastle; that old white-bearded Satan.
SIR JOHN My lord, the man I know.
PRINCE HARRY I know thou dost.
SIR JOHN But to say I know more harm in him than in myself were to say more than I know. That he is old, the more the pity, his white hairs do witness it. But that he is, saving your reverence, a whoremaster, that I utterly deny. If sack and sugar be a fault, God help the wicked. If to be old and merry be a sin, then many an old host that I know is damned. If to be fat be to be hated, then Pharaoh’s lean kine are to be loved. No, my good lord, banish Harvey, banish Russell, banish Poins, but for sweet Jack Oldcastle, kind Jack Oldcastle, true Jack Oldcastle, valiant Jack Oldcastle, and therefore more valiant being, as he is, old Jack Oldcastle, Banish not him thy Harry’s company, Banish not him thy Harry’s company. Banish plump Jack, and banish all the world.
PRINCE HARRY I do; I will.
Knocking within.

Exit Hostess
.⌉
Enter Russell, running
RUSSELL O my lord, my lord, the sheriff with a most monstrous watch is at the door!
SIR JOHN Out, ye rogue! Play out the play! I have much to say in the behalf of that Oldeastle.
Enter the Hostess
 
HOSTESS O Jesu! My lord, my lord!
PRINCE HARRY Heigh, heigh, the devil rides upon a fiddlestick! What’s the matter?
HOSTESS The sheriff and all the watch are at the door.
They are come to search the house. Shall I let them in?
SIR JOHN Dost thou hear, Hal? Never call a true piece of gold a counterfeit—thou art essentially made, without seeming so.
PRINCE HARRY And thou a natural coward without instinct.
SIR JOHN I deny your major. If you will deny the sheriff, so. If not, let him enter. If I become not a cart as well as another man, a plague on my bringing up. I hope I shall as soon be strangled with a halter as another.
PRINCE HARRY Go, hide thee behind the arras. The rest walk up above. Now, my masters, for a true face and good conscience.
Exeunt Poins, Russell, and Gadshill
SIR JOHN Both which I have had, but their date is out; and therefore I’ll hide me.
He withdraws behind the arras
 
PRINCE HARRY (
to
Hostess
) Call in the sheriff.
Exit Hostess
Enter Sheriff and a Carrier
 
Now, master sheriff, what is your will with me?
SHERIFF
First, pardon me, my lord. A hue and cry
Hath followed certain men unto this house.
PRINCE HARRY What men?
SHERIFF
One of them is well known, my gracious lord,
A gross, fat man.
CARRIER As fat as butter.
PRINCE HARRY
The man, I do assure you, is not here,
For I myself at this time have employed him.
And, sheriff, I will engage my word to thee
That I will by tomorrow dinner-time
Send him to answer thee, or any man,
For anything he shall be charged withal.
And so let me entreat you leave the house.
SHERIFF
I will, my lord. There are two gentlemen
Have in this robbery lost three hundred marks.
PRINCE HARRY
It may be so. If he have robbed these men,
He shall be answerable. And so, farewell.
SHERIFF Good night, my noble lord.
PRINCE HARRY
I think it is good morrow, is it not?
SHERIFF
Indeed, my lord, I think it be two o’clock.
Exeunt Sheriff and Carrier
PRINCE HARRY
This oily rascal is known as well as Paul’s.
Go call him forth.
HARVEY Oldcastle!

He
draws back the arras, revealing Sir John asleep

Fast asleep
 
Behind the arras, and snorting like a horse.
PRINCE HARRY
Hark how hard he fetches breath. Search his pockets.
Harvey searcheth his pocket and findeth certain papers. He

closeth the arras and

cometh forward
 
What hast thou found?
HARVEY Nothing but papers, my lord.
PRINCE HARRY Let’s see what they be. Read them.
⌈HARVEY⌉ (
reads
)
Item: a capon.
2s. 2d.
Item: sauce.
4d.
Item: sack, two gallons.
5s. 8d
.
Item: anchovies and sack after supper.
2s. 6d.
Item: bread.
ob.
⌈PRINCE HARRY⌉ O monstrous! But one halfpennyworth of bread to this intolerable deal of sack! What there is else, keep close; we’ll read it at more advantage. There let him sleep till day. I’ll to the court in the morning. We must all to the wars, and thy place shall be honourable. I’ll procure this fat rogue a charge of foot, and I know his death will be a march of twelve score. The money shall be paid back again, with advantage. Be with me betimes in the morning; and so good morrow, Harvey.
HARVEY Good morrow, good my lord.
Exeunt

severally

3.1
Enter Hotspur, the Earl of Worcester, Lord Mortimer, and Owain Glyndŵr, with a map
 
MORTIMER
These promises are fair, the parties sure,
And our induction full of prosperous hope.
HOTSPUR
Lord Mortimer and cousin Glyndŵr,
Will you sit down? And uncle Worcester?

Mortimer
,
Glyndŵr
,
and Worcester sit

 
A plague upon it, I have forgot the map!
GLYNDŴR
No, here it is. Sit, cousin Percy, sit,
Good cousin Hotspur;

Hotspur sits

 
For by that name
As oft as Lancaster doth speak of you,
His cheek looks pale, and with a rising sigh
He wisheth you in heaven.
HOTSPUR And you in hell,
As oft as he hears Owain Glyndŵr spoke of.
GLYNDŴR
I cannot blame him. At my nativity
The front of heaven was full of fiery shapes,
Of burning cressets; and at my birth
The frame and huge foundation of the earth
Shaked like a coward.
HOTSPUR Why, so it would have done
At the same season if your mother’s cat
Had but kittened, though yourself had never been
born.
GLYNDŴR
I say the earth did shake when I was born.
HOTSPUR
And I say the earth was not of my mind
If you suppose as fearing you it shook.
GLYNDŴR
The heavens were all on fire, the earth did tremble—
HOTSPUR
O, then the earth shook to see the heavens on fire,
And not in fear of your nativity.
Diseased nature oftentimes breaks forth
In strange eruptions; oft the teeming earth
Is with a kind of colic pinched and vexed
By the imprisoning of unruly wind
Within her womb, which for enlargement striving
Shakes the old beldam earth, and topples down
Steeples and moss-grown towers. At your birth
Our grandam earth, having this distemp’rature,
In passion shook.
GLYNDŴR Cousin, of many men
I do not bear these crossings. Give me leave
To tell you once again that at my birth
The front of heaven was full of fiery shapes,
The goats ran from the mountains, and the herds
Were strangely clamorous to the frighted fields.
These signs have marked me extraordinary,
And all the courses of my life do show
I am not in the roll of commen men.
Where is he living, clipped in with the sea
That chides the banks of England, Scotland, Wales,
Which calls me pupil or hath read to me?
And bring him out that is but woman’s son
Can trace me in the tedious ways of art,
And hold me pace in deep experiments.
HOTSPUR
standíng

I think there’s no man speaketh better Welsh.
I’ll to dinner.
MORTIMER
Peace, cousin Percy, you will make him mad.
GLYNDŴR
I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
HOTSPUR
Why, so can I, or so can any man;
But will they come when you do call for them?
GLYNDŴR
Why, I can teach you, cousin, to command the devil.
HOTSPUR
And I can teach thee, coz, to shame the devil,
By telling truth: ‘Tell truth, and shame the devil’.
If thou have power to raise him, bring him hither,
And I’ll be sworn I have power to shame him hence.
O, while you live, tell truth and shame the devil.
MORTIMER
Come, come, no more of this unprofitable chat.
GLYNDŴR
Three times hath Henry Bolingbroke made head
Against my power; thrice from the banks of Wye
And sandy-bottomed Severn have I sent him
Bootless home, and weather-beaten back.
HOTSPUR
Home without boots, and in foul weather too!
How scapes he agues, in the devil’s name?
GLYNDŴR
Come, here’s the map. Shall we divide our right,
According to our threefold order ta’en?
MORTIMER
The Archdeacon hath divided it
Into three limits very equally.
England from Trent and Severn hitherto
By south and east is to my part assigned;
All westward-Wales beyond the Severn shore
And all the fertile land within that bound—
To Owain Glyndwr; (to Hotspur) and, dear coz, to you
The remnant northward lying off from Trent.
And our indentures tripartite are drawn,
Which, being sealèd interchangeably—
A business that this night may execute—
Tomorrow, cousin Percy, you and I 80
And my good lord of Worcester will set forth
To meet your father and the Scottish power,
As is appointed us, at Shrewsbury.
My father, Glyndŵr., is not ready yet,
Nor shall we need his help these fourteen days.
Within that space you may have drawn together
Your tenants, friends, and neighbouring gentlemen.
GLYNDŴR
A shorter time shall send me to you, lords;
And in my conduct shall your ladies come,
From whom you now must steal and take no leave;
For there will be a world of water shed 91
Upon the parting of your wives and you.
HOTSPUR
Methinks my moiety north from Burton here
In quantity equals not one of yours.
See how this river comes me cranking in,
And cuts me from the best of all my land
A huge half-moon, a monstrous cantle, out.
I’ll have the current in this place dammed up,
And here the smug and silver Trent shall run
In a new channel fair and evenly.
It shall not wind with such a deep indent,
To rob me of so rich a bottom here.
GLYNDŴR
Not wind? It shall, it must; you see it doth.
MORTIMER
Yea, but mark how he bears his course, and runs
me up
With like advantage on the other side,
Gelding the opposed continent as much
As on the other side it takes from you.

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