Henry IV Part 2: Act 1, Scene 1 Translation

Enter the Lord Bardolph at one door.

LORD BARDOLPH
Who keeps the gate here, ho?

Enter the Porter.

Where is the Earl?

PORTER
What shall I say you are?

LORD BARDOLPH Tell thou the Earl
That the Lord Bardolph doth attend him here. 5

PORTER
His Lordship is walked forth into the orchard.
Please it your Honor knock but at the gate
And he himself will answer.

Enter the Earl Northumberland, his head wrapped in a
kerchief and supporting himself with a crutch.

LORD BARDOLPH Here comes the Earl.

Porter exits.

NORTHUMBERLAND
What news, Lord Bardolph? Every minute now 10
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.

LORD BARDOLPH Noble earl, 15
I bring you certain news from Shrewsbury.

NORTHUMBERLAND
Good, an God will!

LORD BARDOLPH As good as heart can wish.
The King is almost wounded to the death,
And, in the fortune of my lord your son, 20
Prince Harry slain outright; and both the Blunts
Killed by the hand of Douglas; young Prince John
And Westmoreland and Stafford fled the field;
And Harry Monmouth’s brawn, the hulk Sir John,
Is prisoner to your son. O, such a day, 25
So fought, so followed, and so fairly won,
Came not till now to dignify the times
Since Caesar’s fortunes.

NORTHUMBERLAND How is this derived?
Saw you the field? Came you from Shrewsbury? 30

LORD BARDOLPH
I spake with one, my lord, that came from thence,
A gentleman well bred and of good name,
That freely rendered me these news for true.

Enter Travers.

NORTHUMBERLAND
Here comes my servant Travers, who I sent
On Tuesday last to listen after news. 35

LORD BARDOLPH
My lord, I overrode him on the way,
And he is furnished with no certainties
More than he haply may retail from me.

NORTHUMBERLAND
Now, Travers, what good tidings comes with you?

TRAVERS
My lord, Sir John Umfrevile turned me back 40
With joyful tidings and, being better horsed,
Outrode me. After him came spurring hard
A gentleman, almost forspent with speed,
That stopped by me to breathe his bloodied horse.
He asked the way to Chester, and of him 45
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 armèd heels 50
Against the panting sides of his poor jade
Up to the rowel-head, and starting so
He seemed in running to devour the way,
Staying no longer question.

NORTHUMBERLAND Ha? Again: 55
Said he young Harry Percy’s spur was cold?
Of Hotspur, Coldspur? That rebellion
Had met ill luck?

LORD BARDOLPH My lord, I’ll tell you what:
If my young lord your son have not the day, 60
Upon mine honor, for a silken point
I’ll give my barony. Never talk of it.

NORTHUMBERLAND
Why should that gentleman that rode by Travers
Give then such instances of loss?

LORD BARDOLPH Who, he? 65
He was some hilding fellow that had stol’n
The horse he rode on and, upon my life,
Spoke at a venture.

Enter Morton.

Look, here comes more news.

NORTHUMBERLAND
Yea, this man’s brow, like to a title leaf, 70
Foretells the nature of a tragic volume.
So looks the strand whereon the imperious flood
Hath left a witnessed usurpation.—
Say, Morton, didst thou come from Shrewsbury?

MORTON
I ran from Shrewsbury, my noble lord, 75
Where hateful death put on his ugliest mask
To fright our party.

NORTHUMBERLAND How doth my son and brother?
Thou tremblest, and the whiteness in thy cheek
Is apter than thy tongue to tell thy errand. 80
Even such a man, so faint, so spiritless,
So dull, so dead in look, so woebegone,
Drew Priam’s curtain in the dead of night
And would have told him half his Troy was burnt;
But Priam found the fire ere he his tongue, 85
And I my Percy’s death ere thou report’st it.
This thou wouldst 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 my ear indeed, 90
Thou hast a sigh to blow away this praise,
Ending with “Brother, son, and all are dead.”

MORTON
Douglas is living, and your brother yet,
But for my lord your son—

NORTHUMBERLAND Why, he is dead. 95
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 feared is chancèd. Yet speak,
Morton. 100
Tell thou an earl his divination lies,
And I will take it as a sweet disgrace
And make thee rich for doing me such wrong.

MORTON
You are too great to be by me gainsaid,
Your spirit is too true, your fears too certain. 105

NORTHUMBERLAND
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; 110
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 115
Remembered tolling a departing friend.

LORD BARDOLPH
I cannot think, my lord, your son is dead.

MORTON, to Northumberland
I am sorry I should force you to believe
That which I would to God I had not seen,
But these mine eyes saw him in bloody state, 120
Rend’ring faint quittance, 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 125
Even to the dullest peasant in his camp,
Being bruited once, took fire and heat away
From the best-tempered courage in his troops;
For from his mettle was his party steeled,
Which, once in him abated, all the rest 130
Turned 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 135
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
So soon ta’en prisoner; and that furious Scot,
The bloody Douglas, whose well-laboring sword 140
Had three times slain th’ appearance of the King,
Gan vail his stomach and did grace the shame
Of those that turned 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 145
A speedy power to encounter you, my lord,
Under the conduct of young Lancaster
And Westmoreland. This is the news at full.

NORTHUMBERLAND
For this I shall have time enough to mourn.
In poison there is physic, and these news, 150
Having been well, that would have made me sick,
Being sick, have in some measure made me well.
And as the wretch whose fever-weakened joints,
Like strengthless hinges, buckle under life,
Impatient of his fit, breaks like a fire 155
Out of his keeper’s arms, even so my limbs,
Weakened with grief, being now enraged with
grief,
Are thrice themselves. Hence therefore, thou
nice crutch. He throws down his crutch. 160
A scaly gauntlet now with joints of steel
Must glove this hand. And hence, thou sickly
coif. He removes his kerchief.
Thou art a guard too wanton for the head
Which princes, fleshed with conquest, aim to hit. 165
Now bind my brows with iron, and approach
The ragged’st hour that time and spite dare bring
To frown upon th’ enraged Northumberland.
Let heaven kiss Earth! Now let not Nature’s hand
Keep the wild flood confined. Let order die, 170
And let this world no longer be a stage
To feed contention in a lingering act;
But let one spirit of the firstborn Cain
Reign in all bosoms, that, each heart being set
On bloody courses, the rude scene may end, 175
And darkness be the burier of the dead.

LORD BARDOLPH
This strainèd passion doth you wrong, my lord.

MORTON
Sweet earl, divorce not wisdom from your honor.
The lives of all your loving complices
Lean on your health, the which, if you give o’er 180
To stormy passion, must perforce decay.
You cast th’ event of war, my noble lord,
And summed the accompt of chance before you
said
“Let us make head.” It was your presurmise 185
That in the dole of blows your son might drop.
You knew he walked 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 190
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 befall’n, 195
Or what did this bold enterprise bring forth,
More than that being which was like to be?

LORD BARDOLPH
We all that are engagèd to this loss
Knew that we ventured on such dangerous seas
That if we wrought out life, ’twas ten to one; 200
And yet we ventured, for the gain proposed
Choked the respect of likely peril feared;
And since we are o’erset, venture again.
Come, we will all put forth, body and goods.

MORTON
’Tis more than time.—And, my most noble lord, 205
I hear for certain, and dare 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 corpse, 210
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, constrained,
As men drink potions, that their weapons only 215
Seemed 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. 220
Supposed sincere and holy in his thoughts,
He’s followed both with body and with mind,
And doth enlarge his rising with the blood
Of fair King Richard, scraped from Pomfret
stones; 225
Derives from heaven his quarrel and his cause;
Tells them he doth bestride a bleeding land,
Gasping for life under great Bolingbroke;
And more and less do flock to follow him.

NORTHUMBERLAND
I knew of this before, but, to speak truth, 230
This present grief had wiped it from my mind.
Go in with me and counsel every man
The aptest way for safety and revenge.
Get posts and letters, and make friends with speed.
Never so few, and never yet more need. 235

They exit.