The Complete Works of William Shakespeare · William Shakespeare
SCENE I. London. A Room in the Palace.
Enter the King, Lord John of Lancaster, Earl of Westmoreland with 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 broils To be commenced in strands 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 flow’rets 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, Shall now, in mutual well-beseeming ranks, March all one way, and be no more opposed 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 engaged to fight— Forthwith a power of English shall we levy, Whose arms were molded in their mothers’ womb To chase these pagans in those holy fields Over whose acres walked those blessed feet Which fourteen hundred years ago were nailed For our advantage on the bitter cross. But this our purpose now is twelve month old, And bootless ’tis to tell you we will go; Therefore we meet not now. Then let me hear Of you, my gentle cousin Westmoreland, What yesternight our Council did decree In forwarding this dear expedience.
WESTMORELAND. My liege, this haste was hot in question, And many limits of the charge set down But yesternight, when all athwart there came A post from Wales loaden with heavy news, Whose worst was that the noble Mortimer, Leading the men of Herefordshire to fight Against the irregular and wild Glendower, Was by the rude hands of that Welshman taken, A thousand of his people butchered, Upon whose dead corpse there was such misuse, Such beastly shameless transformation, By those Welshwomen 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. WESTMORELAND. This, matched 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; 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, Stained 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, Balked in their own blood, did Sir Walter see On Holmedon’s plains; of prisoners Hotspur took Mordake, Earl of Fife and eldest son To beaten Douglas, and the Earl of Athol, Of Murray, Angus, and Menteith. And is not this an honourable spoil, A gallant prize? Ha, cousin, is it not?
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