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To smother-up his beauty from the world,

       That, when he please again to be himself,

       Being wanted, he may be more wonder’d at,

       By breaking through the foul and ugly mists

       Of vapours that did seem to strangle him.

       If all the year were playing holidays,

       To sport would be as tedious as to work;

       But, when they seldom come, they wish’d-for come,

       And nothing pleaseth but rare accidents.

       So, when this loose behaviour I throw off,

       And pay the debt I never promised,

       By how much better than my word I am,

       By so much shall I falsify men’s hopes;

       And, like bright metal on a sullen ground,

       My reformation, glittering o’er my fault,

       Shall show more goodly and attract more eyes

       Than that which hath no foil to set it off.

       I’ll so offend, to make offence a skill;

       Redeeming time, when men think least I will.

       [Exit.]

       SCENE III. The Same. A Room in the Palace.

       [Enter King Henry, Northumberland, Worcester, Hotspur, Sir Walter

       Blunt, and others.]

       KING.

       My blood hath been too cold and temperate,

       Unapt to stir at these indignities,

       And you have found me; for, accordingly,

       You tread upon my patience: but be sure

       I will from henceforth rather be myself,

       Mighty and to be fear’d, than my condition,

       Which hath been smooth as oil, soft as young down,

       And therefore lost that title of respect

       Which the proud soul ne’er pays but to the proud.

       WOR.

       Our House, my sovereign liege, little deserves

       The scourge of greatness to be used on it;

       And that same greatness too which our own hands

       Have holp to make so portly.

       NORTH.

       My good lord,—

       KING.

       Worcester, get thee gone; for I do see

       Danger and disobedience in thine eye:

       O, sir, your presence is too bold and peremptory,

       And majesty might never yet endure

       The moody frontier of a servant brow.

       You have good leave to leave us: when we need

       Your use and counsel, we shall send for you.

       [Exit Worcester.]

       [To Northumberland.]

       You were about to speak.

       NORTH.

       Yea, my good lord.

       Those prisoners in your Highness’ name demanded,

       Which Harry Percy here at Holmedon took,

       Were, as he says, not with such strength denied

       As is deliver’d to your Majesty:

       Either envy, therefore, or misprision

       Is guilty of this fault, and not my son.

       HOT.

       My liege, I did deny no prisoners.

       But, I remember, when the fight was done,

       When I was dry with rage and extreme toil,

       Breathless and faint, leaning upon my sword,

       Came there a certain lord, neat, trimly dress’d,

       Fresh as a bridegroom; and his chin new reap’d

       Show’d like a stubble-land at harvest-home:

       He was perfumed like a milliner;

       And ‘twixt his finger and his thumb he held

       A pouncet-box, which ever and anon

       He gave his nose, and took’t away again;

       Who therewith angry, when it next came there,

       Took it in snuff: and still he smiled and talk’d;

       And, as the soldiers bore dead bodies by,

       He call’d them untaught knaves, unmannerly,

       To bring a slovenly unhandsome corse

       Betwixt the wind and his nobility.

       With many holiday and lady terms

       He question’d me; amongst the rest, demanded

       My prisoners in your Majesty’s behalf.

       I then, all smarting with my wounds being cold,

       Out of my grief and my impatience

       To be so pester’d with a popinjay,

       Answer’d neglectingly, I know not what,—

       He should, or he should not; for’t made me mad

       To see him shine so brisk, and smell so sweet,

       And talk so like a waiting-gentlewoman

       Of guns and drums and wounds,—God save the mark!—

       And telling me the sovereign’st thing on Earth

       Was parmaceti for an inward bruise;

       And that it was great pity, so it was,

       This villainous salt-petre should be digg’d

       Out of the bowels of the harmless earth,

       Which many a good tall fellow had destroy’d

       So cowardly; and, but for these vile guns,

       He would himself have been a soldier.

       This bald unjointed chat of his, my lord,

       I answered indirectly, as I said;

       And I beseech you, let not his report

       Come current for an accusation

       Betwixt my love and your high Majesty.

       BLUNT.

       The circumstance consider’d, good my lord,

       Whatever Harry Percy then had said

       To such a person, and in such a place,

       At such a time, with all the rest re-told,

       May reasonably die, and never rise

       To do him wrong, or any way impeach

       What then he said, so he unsay it now.

       KING.

       Why, yet he doth deny his prisoners,

       But with proviso and exception,

       That we at our own charge shall ransom straight

       His brother-in-law, the foolish Mortimer;

       Who, on my soul, hath wilfully betray’d

       The lives of those that he did lead to fight

       Against that great magician, damn’d Glendower,

       Whose daughter, as we hear, the Earl of March

       Hath lately married. Shall our coffers, then,

       Be emptied to redeem a traitor home?

       Shall we buy treason? and indent with fears

       When they have lost and forfeited themselves?

      

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