Henry IV, Part 2 By William Shakespeare

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Henry IV, Part 2

William Shakespeare

Published: 1599

Categorie(s): Non-Fiction, History, Fiction, Drama

Source: http://shakespeare.mit.edu/ About Shakespeare:

William Shakespeare (baptised 26 April 1564 – died 23 April 1616) was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon" (or simply "The Bard"). His surviving works consist of 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and several other poems. His plays have been translated into every major living language, and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon. At the age of 18 he married Anne Hathaway, who bore him three children: Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith. Between 1585 and 1592 he began a successful career in London as an actor, writer, and part owner of the playing company the Lord Chamberlain's Men, later known as the King's Men. He appears to have retired to Stratford around 1613, where he died three years later. Few records of Shakespeare's private life survive, and there has been considerable speculation about such matters as his sexuality, religious beliefs, and whether the works attributed to him were written by others. Shakespeare produced most of his known work between 1590 and 1613. His early plays were mainly comedies and histories, genres he raised to the peak of sophistication and artistry by the end of the sixteenth century. Next he wrote mainly tragedies until about 1608, including Hamlet, King Lear, and Macbeth, considered some of the finest examples in the English language. In his last phase, he wrote tragicomedies, also known as romances, and collaborated with other playwrights. Many of his plays were published in editions of varying quality and accuracy during his lifetime, and in 1623 two of his former theatrical colleagues published the First Folio, a collected edition of his dramatic works that included all but two of the plays now recognised as Shakespeare's. Shakespeare was a respected poet and playwright in his own day, but his reputation did not rise to its present heights until the nineteenth century. The Romantics, in particular, acclaimed Shakespeare's genius, and the Victorians hero-worshipped Shakespeare with a reverence that George Bernard Shaw called "bardolatry". In the twentieth century, his work was repeatedly adopted and rediscovered by new movements in scholarship and performance. His plays remain highly popular today and are consistently performed and reinterpreted in diverse cultural and political contexts throughout the world. Source: Wikipedia

Also available on Feedbooks Shakespeare:

- Romeo and Juliet (1597)

- Hamlet (1599)

- Macbeth (1606)

- A Midsummer Night's Dream (1596)

- Julius Caesar (1599)

- Othello (1603)

- The Merchant of Venice (1598)

- Much Ado About Nothing (1600)

- King Lear (1606)

- The Taming of the Shrew (1594)

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Introduction

> Warkworth. Before the castle

> Enter RUMOUR, painted full of tongues

RUMOUR

> Open your ears; for which of you will stop

> The vent of hearing when loud Rumour speaks?

> 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:

> And who but Rumour, who but only I,

> Make fearful musters and prepared defence,

> Whiles the big year, swoln with some other grief,

> Is thought with child by the stern tyrant war,

> And no such matter? Rumour is a pipe

> Blown by surmises, jealousies, conjectures

> And of so easy and so plain a stop

> That the blunt monster with uncounted heads,

> The still-discordant wavering multitude,

> Can play upon it. But what need I thus

> My well-known body to anatomize

> Among my household? Why is Rumour here?

> I run before King Harry's victory;

> Who in a bloody field by Shrewsbury

> Hath beaten down young Hotspur and his troops,

> Quenching the flame of bold rebellion

> Even with the rebel's blood. But what mean I

> To speak so true at first? my office is

> To noise abroad that Harry Monmouth fell

> Under the wrath of noble Hotspur's sword,

> And that the king before the Douglas' rage

> Stoop'd his anointed head as low as death.

> This have I rumour'd through the peasant towns

> Between that royal field of Shrewsbury

> And this worm-eaten hold of ragged stone,

> Where Hotspur's father, old Northumberland,

> Lies crafty-sick: the posts come tiring on,

> And not a man of them brings other news

> Than they have learn'd of me: from Rumour's tongues

> They bring smooth comforts false, worse than

> true wrongs.

>

> Exit

Act I

SCENE I. The same.

> Enter LORD BARDOLPH

LORD BARDOLPH

> Who keeps the gate here, ho?

>

> The Porter opens the gate

>

> 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.

Porter

> His lordship is walk'd forth into the orchard;

> Please it your honour, knock but at the gate,

> And he himself wilt answer.

>

> Enter NORTHUMBERLAND

LORD BARDOLPH

> Here comes the earl.

>

> Exit Porter

NORTHUMBERLAND

> What news, Lord Bardolph? every minute now

> 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,

> 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,

> Prince Harry slain outright; and both the Blunts

> Kill'd 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,

> So fought, so follow'd 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?

LORD BARDOLPH

> I spake with one, my lord, that came from thence,

> A gentleman well bred and of good name,

> That freely render'd me these news for true.

NORTHUMBERLAND

> Here comes my servant Travers, whom I sent

> On Tuesday last to listen after news.

>

> Enter TRAVERS

LORD BARDOLPH

> My lord, I over-rode him on the way;

> And he is furnish'd 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 turn'd me back

> With joyful tidings; and, being better horsed,

> Out-rode me. After him came spurring hard

> A gentleman, almost forspent with speed,

> That stopp'd by me to breathe his bloodied horse.

> He ask'd the way to Chester; and of him

> 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 armed heels

> Against the panting sides of his poor jade

> Up to the rowel-head, and starting so

> He seem'd in running to devour the way,

> Staying no longer question.

NORTHUMBERLAND

> Ha! Again:

> 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,

> Upon mine honour, 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?

> He was some hilding fellow that had stolen

> The horse he rode on, and, upon my life,

> Spoke at a venture. Look, here comes more news.

>

> Enter MORTON

NORTHUMBERLAND

> Yea, this man's brow, like to a title-leaf,

> Foretells the nature of a tragic volume:

> So looks the strand whereon the imperious flood

> Hath left a witness'd usurpation.

> Say, Morton, didst thou come from Shrewsbury?

MORTON

> I ran from Shrewsbury, my noble lord;

> 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.

> Even such a man, so faint, so spiritless,

> So dull, so dead in look, so woe-begone,

> 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,

> 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,

> 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.

> 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 fear'd is chanced. Yet speak, Morton;

> 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.

NORTHUMBERLAND

> 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 tolling a departing friend.

LORD BARDOLPH

> I cannot think, my lord, your son is dead.

MORTON

> 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,

> Rendering faint quittance, wearied and out-breathed,

> 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 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 the noble Worcester

> Too soon ta'en prisoner; and that furious Scot,

> The bloody Douglas, whose well-labouring sword

> Had three times slain the appearance of the king,

> 'Gan vail 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.

NORTHUMBERLAND

> For this I shall have time enough to mourn.

> 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 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!

> 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!

TRAVERS

> This strained passion doth you wrong, my lord.

LORD BARDOLPH

> Sweet earl, divorce not wisdom from your honour.

MORTON

> 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 said

> 'Let us make head.' It was your presurmise,

> That, in the dole 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?

LORD BARDOLPH

> We all that are engaged to this loss

> Knew that we ventured on such dangerous seas

> That if we wrought our 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.

MORTON

> 'Tis more than time: and, my most noble lord,

> 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 corpse,

> 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 followed 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;

> And more and less do flock to follow him.

NORTHUMBERLAND

> I knew of this before; but, to speak truth,

> 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.

>

> Exeunt

SCENE II. London. A street.

> Enter FALSTAFF, with his Page bearing his sword and buckler

FALSTAFF

> Sirrah, you giant, what says the doctor to my water?

Page

> He said, sir, the water itself was a good healthy

> water; but, for the party that owed it, he might

> have more diseases than he knew for.

FALSTAFF

> Men of all sorts take a pride to gird at me: the

> brain of this foolish-compounded clay, man, is not

> able to invent anything that tends to laughter, more

> than I invent or is invented on me: I am not only

> witty in myself, but the cause that wit is in other

> men. I do here walk before thee like a sow that

> hath overwhelmed all her litter but one. If the

> prince put thee into my service for any other reason

> than to set me off, why then I have no judgment.

> Thou whoreson mandrake, thou art fitter to be worn

> in my cap than to wait at my heels. I was never

> manned with an agate till now: but I will inset you

> neither in gold nor silver, but in vile apparel, and

> send you back again to your master, for a jewel,—

> the juvenal, the prince your master, whose chin is

> not yet fledged. I will sooner have a beard grow in

> the palm of my hand than he shall get one on his

> cheek; and yet he will not stick to say his face is

> a face-royal: God may finish it when he will, 'tis

> not a hair amiss yet: he may keep it still at a

> face-royal, for a barber shall never earn sixpence

> out of it; and yet he'll be crowing as if he had

> writ man ever since his father was a bachelor. He

> may keep his own grace, but he's almost out of mine,

> I can assure him. What said Master Dombledon about

> the satin for my short cloak and my slops?

Page

> He said, sir, you should procure him better

> assurance than Bardolph: he would not take his

> band and yours; he liked not the security.

FALSTAFF

> Let him be damned, like the glutton! pray God his

> tongue be hotter! A whoreson Achitophel! a rascally

> yea-forsooth knave! to bear a gentleman in hand,

> and then stand upon security! The whoreson

> smooth-pates do now wear nothing but high shoes, and

> bunches of keys at their girdles; and if a man is

> through with them in honest taking up, then they

> must stand upon security. I had as lief they would

> put ratsbane in my mouth as offer to stop it with

> security. I looked a' should have sent me two and

> twenty yards of satin, as I am a true knight, and he

> sends me security. Well, he may sleep in security;

> for he hath the horn of abundance, and the lightness

> of his wife shines through it: and yet cannot he

> see, though he have his own lanthorn to light him.