Original Text |
Translated Text |
| Source: Folger Shakespeare Library |
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Enter the King, Northumberland, Worcester, Hotspur,
and Sir Walter Blunt, with others. KING, to Northumberland, Worcester, and Hotspur
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, 5
Mighty and to be feared, 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. | King Henry meets with the Percy family (Hotspur, Northumberland, and Worcester) and tells them he's been acting too soft lately because the Percys are totally out of control. From here on out, though, Henry's putting the kibosh on their insubordination. |
WORCESTER
Our house, my sovereign liege, little deserves 10
The scourge of greatness to be used on it,
And that same greatness too which our own hands
Have holp to make so portly. NORTHUMBERLAND My lord— | Worcester (Hotspur's uncle) mouths off to Henry and reminds him that his family helped him become king. |
KING
Worcester, get thee gone, for I do see 15
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 20
Your use and counsel, we shall send for you. | King Henry tells Worcester to shut his face and get out of his sight before he lays a smack down on him. Henry will let him know when he's allowed to talk. |
You were about to speak. NORTHUMBERLAND Yea, my good lord.
Those prisoners in your Highness’ name demanded,
Which Harry Percy here at Holmedon took, 25
Were, as he says, not with such strength denied
As is delivered to your Majesty.
Either envy, therefore, or misprision
Is guilty of this fault, and not my son. | Worcester leaves in a huff and Northumberland (Hotspur's dad) tries to smooth things over for his kid. He doesn't deny that Hotspur refused to give the king his war prisoners but he says it's not as bad as it sounds. The whole thing is just a big misunderstanding. |
HOTSPUR
My liege, I did deny no prisoners. 30
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 and trimly dressed,
Fresh as a bridegroom, and his chin new reaped 35
Showed like a stubble land at harvest home.
He was perfumèd 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, 40
Who therewith angry, when it next came there,
Took it in snuff; and still he smiled and talked.
And as the soldiers bore dead bodies by,
He called them untaught knaves, unmannerly,
To bring a slovenly unhandsome corse 45
Betwixt the wind and his nobility.
With many holiday and lady terms
He questioned me, amongst the rest demanded
My prisoners in your Majesty’s behalf.
I then, all smarting with my wounds being cold, 50
To be so pestered with a popinjay,
Out of my grief and my impatience
Answered neglectingly I know not what—
He should, or he should not; for he made me mad
To see him shine so brisk and smell so sweet 55
And talk so like a waiting-gentlewoman
Of guns, and drums, and wounds—God save the
mark!—
And telling me the sovereignest thing on Earth
Was parmacety for an inward bruise, 60
And that it was great pity, so it was,
This villainous saltpeter should be digged
Out of the bowels of the harmless Earth,
Which many a good tall fellow had destroyed
So cowardly, and but for these vile guns 65
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 70
Betwixt my love and your high Majesty. | Hotspur, who can hardly contain himself, chimes in and comes up with an excuse for disrespecting the king. He says he didn't deny the prisoners to the king, per se, but he did yell at the guy who came to collect them.
This guy, a "certain lord," ticked him off because he showed up on Hotspur's battlefield "fresh as a bridegroom," clean shaven, smelling like perfume, and acting all haughty at the sight of dead bodies scattered around. The guy also talked like a woman and complained about the smell of the corpses, which got on Hotspur's nerves. Hotspur admits he wasn't thinking when he told the guy to scram – he says didn't mean any disrespect to the king. |
BLUNT
The circumstance considered, good my lord,
Whate’er Lord Harry Percy then had said
To such a person and in such a place,
At such a time, with all the rest retold, 75
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 80
That we at our own charge shall ransom straight
His brother-in-law, the foolish Mortimer,
Who, on my soul, hath willfully betrayed
The lives of those that he did lead to fight
Against that great magician, damned Glendower, 85
Whose daughter, as we hear, that 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? 90
No, on the barren mountains let him starve,
For I shall never hold that man my friend
Whose tongue shall ask me for one penny cost
To ransom home revolted Mortimer. | Sir Walter Blunt tries to help smooth things over too, but King Henry isn't having it. He points out that Hotspur still refuses to give up his prisoners unless the king agrees to pay for Mortimer's ransom. (Remember, Mortimer, who is Hotspur's brother-in-law, was captured by the Welsh Glendower back in Act one, scene one.) Henry says he won't ransom Mortimer because the guy's a traitor to England – Henry claims that Mortimer let the Welsh army slaughter 1,000 English soldiers on purpose. Henry also points out that Mortimer has since married a Welsh woman, the daughter of the rebel leader Glendower. There's no way Henry's going to pay Mortimer's ransom. |
HOTSPUR Revolted Mortimer! 95
He never did fall off, my sovereign liege,
But by the chance of war. To prove that true
Needs no more but one tongue for all those wounds,
Those mouthèd wounds, which valiantly he took
When on the gentle Severn’s sedgy bank 100
In single opposition hand to hand
He did confound the best part of an hour
In changing hardiment with great Glendower.
Three times they breathed, and three times did they
drink, 105
Upon agreement, of swift Severn’s flood,
Who then, affrighted with their bloody looks,
Ran fearfully among the trembling reeds
And hid his crisp head in the hollow bank,
Blood-stainèd with these valiant combatants. 110
Never did bare and rotten policy
Color her working with such deadly wounds,
Nor never could the noble Mortimer
Receive so many, and all willingly.
Then let not him be slandered with revolt. 115 | Hotspur's outraged at the king's accusation that Mortimer's a traitor. According to Hotspur, Mortimer is a war hero and was wounded in battle against Glendower when he fought in man-to-man combat for over an hour. Mortimer's wounds are proof that he's not a traitor and it's totally not cool for the king to slander him this way. |
KING
Thou dost belie him, Percy; thou dost belie him.
He never did encounter with Glendower.
I tell thee, he durst as well have met the devil alone
As Owen Glendower for an enemy.
Art thou not ashamed? But, sirrah, henceforth 120
Let me not hear you speak of Mortimer.
Send me your prisoners with the speediest means,
Or you shall hear in such a kind from me
As will displease you.—My lord Northumberland,
We license your departure with your son.— 125
Send us your prisoners, or you will hear of it. King exits with Blunt and others. | King Henry says Hotspur's full of bologna – according to Henry, Mortimer never fought Glendower. Henry forbids Hotspur from uttering Mortimer's name ever again. And another thing, says Henry, hand over the war prisoner, pronto. |
HOTSPUR
An if the devil come and roar for them,
I will not send them. I will after straight
And tell him so, for I will ease my heart,
Albeit I make a hazard of my head. 130 NORTHUMBERLAND
What, drunk with choler? Stay and pause awhile.
Here comes your uncle. Enter Worcester. HOTSPUR Speak of Mortimer?
Zounds, I will speak of him, and let my soul
Want mercy if I do not join with him. 135
Yea, on his part I’ll empty all these veins
And shed my dear blood drop by drop in the dust,
But I will lift the downtrod Mortimer
As high in the air as this unthankful king,
As this ingrate and cankered Bolingbroke. 140 | After the king leaves the room, Hotspur tells his dad he'll never give the king his prisoners. Northumberland says Hotspur's out of his mind but the young Percy insists that he'd die for Mortimer. He calls the king an "ingrate." |
NORTHUMBERLAND
Brother, the King hath made your nephew mad. WORCESTER
Who struck this heat up after I was gone? HOTSPUR
He will forsooth have all my prisoners,
And when I urged the ransom once again
Of my wife’s brother, then his cheek looked pale, 145
And on my face he turned an eye of death,
Trembling even at the name of Mortimer. WORCESTER
I cannot blame him. Was not he proclaimed
By Richard, that dead is, the next of blood? NORTHUMBERLAND
He was; I heard the proclamation. 150
And then it was when the unhappy king—
Whose wrongs in us God pardon!—did set forth
Upon his Irish expedition;
From whence he, intercepted, did return
To be deposed and shortly murderèd. 155 WORCESTER
And for whose death we in the world’s wide mouth
Live scandalized and foully spoken of. HOTSPUR
But soft, I pray you. Did King Richard then
Proclaim my brother Edmund Mortimer
Heir to the crown? 160 NORTHUMBERLAND He did; myself did hear it. | Worcester reenters and says that when King Richard II was alive, he named Mortimer as the heir to the throne. Northumberland says it's true – he heard it with his own ears, but later, when Richard was returning to England from fighting in Ireland, Henry (a.k.a. Bolingbroke) intercepted him and seized the crown. He then had Richard murdered.
Worcester says the Percy family has been blamed and scandalized for Richard's death and repeats that he heard Richard say Mortimer should be the heir to the throne. |
HOTSPUR
Nay then, I cannot blame his cousin king
That wished him on the barren mountains starve.
But shall it be that you that set the crown
Upon the head of this forgetful man 165
And for his sake wear the detested blot
Of murderous subornation—shall it be
That you a world of curses undergo,
Being the agents or base second means,
The cords, the ladder, or the hangman rather? 170
O, pardon me that I descend so low
To show the line and the predicament
Wherein you range under this subtle king.
Shall it for shame be spoken in these days,
Or fill up chronicles in time to come, 175
That men of your nobility and power
Did gage them both in an unjust behalf
(As both of you, God pardon it, have done)
To put down Richard, that sweet lovely rose,
And plant this thorn, this canker, Bolingbroke? 180
And shall it in more shame be further spoken
That you are fooled, discarded, and shook off
By him for whom these shames you underwent?
No, yet time serves wherein you may redeem
Your banished honors and restore yourselves 185
Into the good thoughts of the world again,
Revenge the jeering and disdained contempt
Of this proud king, who studies day and night
To answer all the debt he owes to you
Even with the bloody payment of your deaths. 190
Therefore I say— WORCESTER Peace, cousin, say no more.
And now I will unclasp a secret book,
And to your quick-conceiving discontents
I’ll read you matter deep and dangerous, 195
As full of peril and adventurous spirit
As to o’erwalk a current roaring loud
On the unsteadfast footing of a spear. HOTSPUR
If he fall in, good night, or sink or swim!
Send danger from the east unto the west, 200
So honor cross it from the north to south,
And let them grapple. O, the blood more stirs
To rouse a lion than to start a hare! NORTHUMBERLAND, to Worcester
Imagination of some great exploit
Drives him beyond the bounds of patience. 205 HOTSPUR
By heaven, methinks it were an easy leap
To pluck bright honor from the pale-faced moon,
Or dive into the bottom of the deep,
Where fathom line could never touch the ground,
And pluck up drownèd honor by the locks, 210
So he that doth redeem her thence might wear
Without corrival all her dignities.
But out upon this half-faced fellowship! WORCESTER
He apprehends a world of figures here,
But not the form of what he should attend.— 215
Good cousin, give me audience for a while. HOTSPUR
I cry you mercy. WORCESTER Those same noble Scots
That are your prisoners— HOTSPUR I’ll keep them all. 220
By God, he shall not have a Scot of them.
No, if a Scot would save his soul, he shall not.
I’ll keep them, by this hand! WORCESTER You start away
And lend no ear unto my purposes: 225
Those prisoners you shall keep— HOTSPUR Nay, I will. That’s flat!
He said he would not ransom Mortimer,
Forbade my tongue to speak of Mortimer.
But I will find him when he lies asleep, 230
And in his ear I’ll hollo “Mortimer.”
Nay, I’ll have a starling shall be taught to speak
Nothing but “Mortimer,” and give it him
To keep his anger still in motion. WORCESTER Hear you, cousin, a word. 235 HOTSPUR
All studies here I solemnly defy,
Save how to gall and pinch this Bolingbroke.
And that same sword-and-buckler Prince of Wales—
But that I think his father loves him not
And would be glad he met with some mischance— 240
I would have him poisoned with a pot of ale. | Hotspur seems not to have known that Richard II named Mortimer heir to the throne before he died. It's no wonder, he says, King Henry doesn't want to ransom Mortimer from the Welsh. As long as Mortimer's out of the picture, there's no immediate threat to the legitimacy of Henry's reign. Hotspur delivers a long speech about how the Percys have been dishonored by helping to depose King Richard II and place an inferior king on the throne. Now, said king is making the Percys look like a bunch of chumps. They should try to redeem their honor. Worcester cuts off Hotspur and says he's got a plan, but Hotspur is all fired up and keeps interrupting to talk about honor. |
WORCESTER
Farewell, kinsman. I’ll talk to you
When you are better tempered to attend. NORTHUMBERLAND, to Hotspur
Why, what a wasp-stung and impatient fool
Art thou to break into this woman’s mood, 245
Tying thine ear to no tongue but thine own! | Worcester threatens to leave since Hotspur won't pipe down and listen. Northumberland tells his son that he's a hothead and acts like a mouthy woman in a bad mood who won't listen to anyone. (Don't get mad at us. Northumberland really does say that.) |
HOTSPUR
Why, look you, I am whipped and scourged with
rods,
Nettled and stung with pismires, when I hear
Of this vile politician, Bolingbroke. 250
In Richard’s time—what do you call the place?
A plague upon it! It is in Gloucestershire.
’Twas where the madcap duke his uncle kept,
His uncle York, where I first bowed my knee
Unto this king of smiles, this Bolingbroke. 255
’Sblood, when you and he came back from
Ravenspurgh. NORTHUMBERLAND At Berkeley Castle. HOTSPUR You say true.
Why, what a candy deal of courtesy 260
This fawning greyhound then did proffer me:
“Look when his infant fortune came to age,”
And “gentle Harry Percy,” and “kind cousin.”
O, the devil take such cozeners!—God forgive me!
Good uncle, tell your tale. I have done. 265 | Hotspur says he can't help it – the two-faced king has him all riled up. The king was nice when he needed their help but now he's a jerk. |
WORCESTER
Nay, if you have not, to it again.
We will stay your leisure. HOTSPUR I have done, i’ faith. WORCESTER
Then once more to your Scottish prisoners:
Deliver them up without their ransom straight, 270
And make the Douglas’ son your only mean
For powers in Scotland, which, for divers reasons
Which I shall send you written, be assured
Will easily be granted.—You, my lord,
Your son in Scotland being thus employed, 275
Shall secretly into the bosom creep
Of that same noble prelate well beloved,
The Archbishop. HOTSPUR Of York, is it not? WORCESTER True, who bears hard 280
His brother’s death at Bristol, the Lord Scroop.
I speak not this in estimation,
As what I think might be, but what I know
Is ruminated, plotted, and set down,
And only stays but to behold the face 285
Of that occasion that shall bring it on. | Worcester reveals a plan – Hotspur will immediately release his prisoners without any ransom, but he'll keep one, who will be used to bargain with the Scots, who they want on their side. Worcester will send Hotspur a letter with specific instructions. Meanwhile, Northumberland will talk to the Archbishop of York, Richard Scroop about joining forces to overthrow King Henry. Worcester says the Archbishop will be down with the rebellion because Henry killed his brother for being one of King Richard's favorites. (Technically, Shakespeare's confused here. Richard II killed the Archbishop's cousin, not his brother, but we get the point.) |
HOTSPUR
I smell it. Upon my life it will do well. NORTHUMBERLAND
Before the game is afoot thou still let’st slip. HOTSPUR
Why, it cannot choose but be a noble plot.
And then the power of Scotland and of York 290
To join with Mortimer, ha? WORCESTER And so they shall. HOTSPUR
In faith, it is exceedingly well aimed. WORCESTER
And ’tis no little reason bids us speed
To save our heads by raising of a head, 295
For bear ourselves as even as we can,
The King will always think him in our debt,
And think we think ourselves unsatisfied,
Till he hath found a time to pay us home.
And see already how he doth begin 300
To make us strangers to his looks of love. HOTSPUR
He does, he does. We’ll be revenged on him. WORCESTER
Cousin, farewell. No further go in this
Than I by letters shall direct your course.
When time is ripe, which will be suddenly, 305
I’ll steal to Glendower and Lord Mortimer,
Where you and Douglas and our powers at once,
As I will fashion it, shall happily meet
To bear our fortunes in our own strong arms,
Which now we hold at much uncertainty. 310 NORTHUMBERLAND
Farewell, good brother. We shall thrive, I trust. HOTSPUR
Uncle, adieu. O, let the hours be short
Till fields and blows and groans applaud our sport. They exit. | Eventually, the men agree, Worcester will also hook up with Glendower and Mortimer to raise a massive army against Henry's forces. In the meantime, they'll play it cool and pretend to be loyal subjects so the king doesn't get suspicious. Hotspur says he can't wait to get his battle on. He lives for war. |