PERSONS REPRESENTED

KING HENRY THE FOURTH.

HENRY OF MONMOUTH,

JOHN OF LANCASTER,

his Sons.

RALPH NEVILLE, Earl of Westmoreland.

SIR WALTER BLUNT.

THOMAS PERCY, Earl of Worcester.

HENRY PERCY, Earl of Northumberland.
HENRY PERCY, his Son, surnamed HOTSPUR.
EDMUND MORTIMER, Earl of March.
RICHARD SCROOP, Archbishop of York
ARCHIBALD, Earl of Douglas.

OWEN GLENDOWER.

SIR RICHARD VERNON.

SIR JOHN FALSTAFF.

SIR MICHAEL, a Friend of the Archbishop.

POINS.

PETO.

GADSHILL.

BARDOLPH.

LADY PERCY, Wife to Hotspur.

LADY MORTIMER, Daughter to Glendower.

MRS. QUICKLY, Hostess in Eastcheap.

Lords, Officers, Sheriff, Vintner, Chamberlain, Drawers Carriers, Travellers, and Attendants.

SCENE, England.

FIRST PART OF HENRY IV

ACT I.

SCENE I. London. A Room in the Palace.

Enter the KING, WESTMORELAND, BLUNT, and Others

King. So shaken as we are, so wan with care, Find we a time for frighted peace to pant, And breathe short-winded accents of new breils To be commenc'd in stronds afar remote. No more the thirsty entrance of this soil' Shall daub her lips with her own children's blood; No more shall trenching war channel her fields, Nor bruise her flowrets with the armed hoofs Of hostile paces: those opposed eyes, Which, like the meteors of a troubled heaven All of one nature, of one substance bred. Did lately meet in the intestine shock

And furious close of civil butchery,

Of course entrance here means mouth, for what but a mouth should have lips? nor can we appreciate the difficulty which commentators have found in the expression. Some obscurity there is indeed; but this, as Coleridge observes, is of the Shakespearian sort; nor, we may add, is it any more than naturally arises from a slight want of integrity of metaphor, than which scarce any thing is more common in Shakespeare. Several emendations of the text have been proposed, such as entrants, entrails, and Erinnys, and many pages of note written in support of them; all which may well be set aside by a simple reference to Genesis iv. 11: "And now art thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother's blood from thy hand."

H.

Shall now, in mutual, well-beseeming ranks,
March all one way, and be no more oppos'd
Against acquaintance, kindred, and allies:
The edge of war, like an ill-sheathed knife,
No more shall cut his master. Therefore, friends,
As far as to the sepulchre of Christ,

Whose soldier now, under whose blessed cross,
We are impressed and engag'd to fight,
Forthwith a power of English shall we levy,2
Whose arms were moulded in their mother's womb
To chase these pagans, in those holy fields,
Over whose acres walk'd those blessed feet,
Which fourteen hundred years ago were nail'd
For our advantage on the bitter cross.
But this our purpose is a twelve-month old,
And bootless 'tis to tell you we will go;
Therefore we meet not now:
Of you, my gentle cousin Westmoreland,
What yesternight our council did decree,
In forwarding this dear expedience."

- Then, let me hear

West. My liege, this haste was hot in question, And many limits of the charge 5 set down But yesternight; when, all athwart, there came A post from Wales loaden with heavy news; 'Whose worst was, that the noble Mortimer,

2 Steevens assures as that to levy a power to a place ❝ is an expression quite unexampled, if not corrupt;" and he proposes lead instead of levy: which Gifford has effectually upset by the following from Gosson s School of Abuse, 1587: Scipio, before he levied his forces to the walles of Carthage, gave his soldiers the print of the citie in a cake, to be devoured."

H.

That is, we meet not now on that question; the question whether we will go.

H.

4 The Poet sometimes uses expedience and expedition interchangeably likewise, expedient and expeditious. See King John, Act i. sc. 2, note 4.

5 That is, conditions or estimates of the expense.

H.

H

Leading the men of Herefordshire to fight
Against the irregular and wild Glendower,

Was by the rude hands of that Welchman taken;
A thousand of his people butchered,

Upon whose dead corpse there was such misuse,
Such beastly, shameless transformation,
By those Welchwomen done, as may not be
Without much shame retold or spoken of.

King. It seems, then, that the tidings of this broil Brake off our business for the Holy Land.

West. This, match'd with other, did, my gracious

lord;

For more uneven and unwelcome news

Came from the north, and thus it did import:
On Holy-rood day, the gallant Hotspur there,
Young Harry Percy, and brave Archibald,
That ever-valiant and approved Scot,

At Holmedon met;

Where they did spend a sad and bloody hour,
As by discharge of their artillery,

And shape of likelihood, the news was told;

We

So in all the quartos: the folio has "And a thousand." prefer the former, not only as having better authority, but because it makes the connection plainer between a thousand people and whose dead corpse. Of course being is understood before butchered, and corpse is used as a collective noun. — The matter of the passage is thus related by Holinshed: "Owen Glendower, according to his accustomed manner, robbing and spoiling within the English borders, caused all the forces of the shire of Hereford to assemble togither against him, under the conduct of Edmund Mortimer, earle of March. But comming to trie the matter by battell, whether by treason or otherwise, so it fortuned, that the English power was discomfitted, the earle taken prisoner, and above a thousand of his people slaine in the place. The shamefull villanie used by the Welshwomen towards the dead carcasses was such as honest eares would be ashamed to heare, and continent toongs to speake thereof. The dead bodies might not be buried, without great summes of monie given for libertie to conveie them awaie."

H

For he that brought them, in the very heat
And pride of their contention did take horse,
Uncertain of the issue any way.

King. Here is a dear and true-industrious friend, Sir Walter Blunt, new lighted from his horse, Stain'd' with the variation of each soil

Betwixt that Holmedon and this seat of ours;

And he hath brought us smooth and welcome news. The earl of Douglas is discomfited;

Ten thousand bold Scots, two-and-twenty knights, Balk'd in their own blood, did Sir Walter see

8

On Holmedon's plains: of prisoners, Hotspur took Mordake earl of Fife, and eldest son

To beaten Douglas, and the earls of Athol,

Of Murray, Angus, and Menteith.

And is not this an honourable spoil?
A gallant prize? ha, cousin, is it not?
West. In faith,

It is a conquest for a prince to boast of.

King. Yea, there thou mak'st me sad, and mak'st me sin

7 No circumstance could have been better chosen to mark the expedition of Sir Walter. It is used by Falstaff in a similar manner, "to stand stained with travel."

8 Balk'd in their own blood is heaped, or laid on heaps, in their own blood. A balk was a ridge or bank of earth standing up between two furrows; and to balk was to throw up the earth so as to form those heaps or banks.

9 This reads as if the earl of Fife were the son of Douglas, whereas in fact he was son to the duke of Albany, who was then regent or governor of Scotland, the king, his brother, being incapable of the office. The matter is thus given by Holinshed, pointing and all: "Of prisoners among other were these, Mordacke earle of Fife, son to the governour Archembald earle Dowglas which in the fight lost one of his eies, Thomas erle of Murrey, Robert erle of Angus, and (as some writers have) the earles of Atholl & Menteith, with five hundred other of meaner degrees." The Poet's mistake was evidently caused by the omission of the comma after governour.

H.