WORCESTER

Our house (my sovereign liege) little deserves The scourge of greatness to be used on it, And that same greatness e to, which our own hands Have help to make so portly. Who struck this heat up after I was gone? 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, As full of peril and adventurous spirit, As to over walk a Current roaring loud, On the unsteadfast footing of a spear. You start away, And lend no care unto my purposes: Those prisoners you shall keep. Hear you cousin a word. Farewell kinsman, isle talk to you When you are better tempered to attend. Nay, if you have not, to it again, We will stay your leisure. Then once more to your Scottish prisoners, Deliver them up without their ransom straight, And make the Douglas son your only mean For Powers in Scotland, which for diverse reasons Which I shall send you written, be assured Will easily be granted you my Lord. Your son in Scotland being thus employed, Shall secretly into the bosom creep Of that same noble prelate welbelou'd, The Archbishop. True, who bears hard 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 Of that occasion that shall bring it on. And so they shall. And 'tis no little reason bids us speed, To save our heads by raising of a head, For bear our selves as even as we can, The king will always think him in our debt, And think we think our selves unsatisfied, Till he hath found a time to pay us home. And see already how he does begin To make us strangers to his looks of love. In faith my Lord you are too wilful blame, And since your coming hither have done enough To put him quite beside his patience, You must needs learn Lord to amend this fault, Though sometime it show greatness, courage, blood, And thats the dearest grace it renders you, Yet oftentimes it does present harsh rage, Defect of manners, want of government, Pride, haughtiness, opinion, and disdain, The least of which haunting a noble man, Loses men's hearts and leaves behind a stain Upon the beauty of all parts beside, Beguiling them of commendation. I preethe tell me, does he keep his bed? I would the state of time had first been whole, Ear he by sickness had been visited, His health was never better worth then now. You father's sickness is a maim to us. But yet I would your father had been here: The quality and hair of our attempt Brooks no division, it will be thought By some that know not why he is away, That wisdom, loyalty, and mere dislike Of our proceedings kept the Earl from hence, And think how such and apprehension May turn the tide of fearful faction, And breed a kind of question in our cause For well you know we of the offering side Must keep aloof from strict arbitrement, And stop all sight-holes every loop from whence The eye of reason may pry in upon us, This absence of your father's draws a curtain That shows the ignorant a kind of fear Before not dreamed of. I by my faith, that bears a frosty found. It may not be. Good cousin be advised, stir not to night. The number of the King exceeds our, For Gods sake cousin stay till all come in. It pleased your majesty to turn your looks Of favour from my self, and all our house, And yet I must remember you my Lord, We were the first and dearest of your friends, For you my staff of office did I break In Richard's time, and posted day and night To meet you on the way, and kiss your hand, When yet you were in place, and in account Nothing so strong and fortunate as I. It was my self, my brother and his son, That brought you home and boldly did outdare The dangers of the time. You swore to us, And you did sware that oath at Dancaster, That you did nothing purpose gainst the state, Nor claim no further then your new fallen right, The seat of Gaunt, Dukedom of Lancaster: To this we swore our aid: but in short space It rainde down fortune showering on your head, And such a flood of greatness fell on you, What with our help, what with the absent king, What with the injuries of a wanton time, The seeming sufferances that you had born, And the contrarious winds that held the king So long in his unlucky Irish wars, That all in England did repute him dead: And from this swarm of fair advantages, You took occasion to be quickly wooed To gripe the general sway into your hand, Forgotten your oath to us at Dancaster, And being fed by us, you used us so As that ungentle gull the Cuckoes bird Uses the sparrow, did oppress our nest, Grew by our feeding to so great a bulk, That even our love durst not come near your sighed, For fear of swallowing: but with nimble wing We were enforced for safety sake to fly Out of your sighed, and raise this present head, Whereby we stand opposed by such means, As you your self have forged against your self By unkind usage, dangerous countenance, And violation of all faith and troth, Sworn to us in your younger enterprise. Oh no, my nephew must not know sir Richard, The liberal and kind offer of the king. Then are we all under one. It is n to possible, it cannot be The king should keep his word in loving us, He will suspect us still, and find a time To punish this offence in other faults, Supposition all our lives shall be stuck full of eyes, For treason is but trusted Like the Fox, Who never so tame, so cherished and locked up, Will have a wild trick of his ancestors, Look how we can, or sad or merely, Interpretation will misquote our looks, And we shall feed Like oxen at a stall, The better cherished still the nearer death, My nephews trespass may be well forgotten, It hath the excuse of youth and heat of blood, And and adopted name of privilege, A hair-brained Hotspur governed by a spleen, All his offences live upon my head And oh his father's. We did train him on, And his corruption being taken from us, We as the spring of all shall pay for all: Therefore good cousin, let not Harry know In any case the offer of the King. Enter Percy. The king will bid you battle presently. There is no seeming mercy in the king. I told him gently of our grievances, Of his oath breaking, which he mended thus, By now forsweari g that he is forsworn, He calls us rebels traitors, and will scourge With haughty arms this hateful name in us. Enter Douglas. The Prince of Wales stepped forth before the king, And nephew, challenged you to single fight. What I have done my safety urged me to And I embrace this fortune patiently, Since not to be avoided it falls on me. I cannot blame him, was not he proclaimed By Richard that dead is, the next of blood? And for whose death, we in the world's wide mouth Live scandalized and foe lie spo en of. Cousin farewell. No further go in this, Then I by letters shall direct your course When time is ripe, which will be suddenly, I'll steal to Glendower, and Lo: Mortimer, Where you and Douglas, and our powers at once, As I will fashion it shall happily meet, To bear our Fortune's in our own strong arms, Which now we hold at much uncertainty. Hear me my liege: For mine own partly I could be well content, To entertain the lag end of my life With quiet hours. For I protest I have not sought the day of this dislike. He apprehends a world of figures here, But not the form of what he should attend, Good cousin give me audience for a while. Those same noble Scots that are your prisoners Yea but a little charge will trench him here, And on this Northside win this cape of land, And the he ru S straight and even.