20 The First Part of King Henry the Fourth Act III
20 The First Part of King Henry the Fourth Act III
ACT III
SCENE I. Bangor. A Room in the Archdeacon’s House.
Enter Hotspur, Worcester, Mortimer and
Glendower.
MORTIMER.
These promises are fair, the parties sure,
And our induction full of prosperous hope.
HOTSPUR.
Lord Mortimer and cousin Glendower,
Will you sit down? And uncle Worcester,
A plague upon it! I have forgot the map.
GLENDOWER.
No, here it is.
Sit, cousin Percy, sit, good cousin Hotspur;
For by that name as oft as Lancaster doth speak of you
His cheek looks pale, and with a rising sigh
He wisheth you in heaven.
HOTSPUR.
And you in hell,
As oft as he hears Owen Glendower spoke of.
GLENDOWER.
I cannot blame him.
HOTSPUR.
Why, so it would have done
At the same season, if your mother’s cat
Had but kitten’d, though yourself had never been born.
GLENDOWER.
I say the Earth did shake when I was born.
HOTSPUR.
And I say the Earth was not of my mind,
If you suppose as fearing you it
shook.
GLENDOWER.
The heavens were all on fire, the Earth did tremble.
HOTSPUR.
O, then th’ Earth shook to see the heavens on fire,
And not in fear of your nativity.
Diseased nature oftentimes breaks forth
In strange eruptions; oft the teeming Earth
Is with a kind of colic pinch’d and vex’d
By the imprisoning of unruly wind
Within her womb, which for enlargement striving,
Shakes the old beldam Earth, and topples down
Steeples and moss-grown towers. At your birth
Our grandam Earth, having this distemp’rature,
In passion shook.
GLENDOWER.
Cousin, of many men
I do not bear these crossings. Give me leave
To tell you once again that at my birth
The front of heaven was full of fiery shapes,
The goats ran from the mountains, and the herds
Were strangely clamorous to the frighted fields.
These signs have mark’d me extraordinary,
And all the courses of my life do show
I am not in the roll of common men.
Where is he living, clipp’d in with the sea
That chides the banks of England, Scotland, Wales,
Which calls me pupil or hath read to me?
And bring him out that is but woman’s son
Can trace me in the tedious ways of art,
And hold me pace in deep experiments.
HOTSPUR.
I think there is no man speaks better Welsh.
I’ll to dinner.
MORTIMER.
Peace, cousin Percy, you will make him mad.
GLENDOWER.
I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
HOTSPUR.
Why, so can I, or so can any man,
But will they come when you do call for them?
GLENDOWER.
Why, I can teach you, cousin, to command the devil.
HOTSPUR.
And I can teach thee, coz, to shame the devil
By telling truth; tell truth, and shame the devil.
If thou have power to raise him, bring him hither,
And I’ll be sworn I have power to shame him hence.
O, while you live, tell truth, and shame the devil!
MORTIMER.
Come, come, no more of this unprofitable chat.
GLENDOWER.
Three times hath Henry Bolingbroke made head
Against my power; thrice from the banks of Wye
And sandy-bottom’d Severn have I sent him
Bootless home and weather-beaten back.
HOTSPUR.
Home without boots, and in foul weather too!
How