Upon his Irish expedition;

150

From whence he intercepted did return

To be deposed and shortly murdered.

Wor. And for whose death we in the world's wide mouth

Live scandalized and foully spoken of.

Hot. But, soft, I pray you; did King Richard then
Proclaim my brother Edmund Mortimer

Heir to the crown?

North.
He did; myself did hear it.
Hot. Nay, then I cannot blame his cousin king,

155

That wish'd him on the barren mountains starve.
But shall it be, that you, that set the crown
Upon the head of this forgetful man,
And for his sake wear the detested blot
Of murderous subornation, shall it be,

160

That you a world of curses undergo,

Being the agents, or base second means,

165

The cords, the ladder, or the hangman rather ?
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,
That men of your nobility and power
Did gage them both in an unjust behalf,

170

152. murdered] murthered Ff. 156. Edmund] Q I; omitted the rest. 159. starve] staru'd Ff. 162. wear] wore Ff. 163. murderous] Rowe; murtherous Qq, Ff. 163. subornation,] subornation, Capell; subornation? Qq, F. 166. rather?] rather, Q 1; rather: Q 2. 167. me] Qq 1-4; if the rest.

168. line] degree, as in III. ii. 85 post. New Eng. Dict. quotes from Extracts Aberd. Reg., 1528: "Skiparis and seruandis of euery lyne."

168. predicament] category, as in Merchant of Venice, Iv. i. 357. So in J. Howell, Familiar Letters, 1. xiii: "I hope you will put me somwher amongst yours [your friends] being contented to be . . . the lowest in the predicament of your friends." Originally a term used by logicians in the sense of Aristotle's Kareyopía, a classification.

169. range] stand (in ranks), as in Henry VIII. II. iii. 20.

173. Did ... both] i.e. engaged, pledged their nobility and power.

173. behalf] cause. New Eng. Dict.

50

son 5 of

189

Wor.

As both of you-God pardon it!—have done,
To put down Richard, that sweet lovely rose,
And plant this thorn, this canker, Bolingbroke?
And shall it in more shame be further spoken,
That you are fool'd, discarded and shook off
By him for whom these shames ye underwent ?
No; yet time serves wherein you may redeem
Your banish'd honours, and restore yourselves
Into the good thoughts of the world again,
Revenge the jeering and disdain'd 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:
Therefore, I say,-

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 o'er-walk a current roaring loud
On the unsteadfast footing of a spear.

Hot. If he fall in, good night! or sink or swim :

175

180

185

190

186. payment] payments Ff 2-4.

190. you] your Qq 5-7.

189. quick189. discontents] 193. un

185. to you] unto you Ff.
conceiving] hyphened by Theobald; quick conveying Ff 3, 4.
discontent S. Walker conj., Hudson.
steadfast] unsteadfull Qq 7, 8.

shows that "behalf" (originally a pre-
positional phrase be healfe) came to be
treated, so far as construction goes, as
a substantive, and had even a plural
behalfes, behalfs in 16-17th c." Here
it is practically equivalent to cause,"
"interest." Cf. King John, I. i. 7.
175. sweet
rose] An echo of
Kyd's Spanish Tragedy, II.
"Sweete louely Rose, ill pluckt before
thy time."

66

V:

176. canker] wild rose, as in Much Ado About Nothing, 1. iii. 28. Beaumont and Fletcher, The Maid in the Mill, v. ii: "Whether she be a white rose, or a canker, is the question"; and Middleton and Rowley, A Fair Quarrel, III. ii.

183. disdain'd] disdainful. Schmidt gives many examples of adjectives in -ed derived from substantives. Cf., e.g., "guiled" in Merchant of Venice, III. ii. 97; and "distressed" (Q 1) for

which F reads "distressful" in Othello, I. iii. 157.

185. answer] discharge. For the play on "debt" and "deaths" note to v. i. 126 post.

see

192, 193. As . spear] Rolfe compares 2 Henry IV. 1. i. 170. Douce refers to a representation on an ivory cabinet (engraved in Carter's Specimens of Ancient Sculpture and Engraving, i. 45) of a knight in armour crossing a narrow stream by making a bridge of his sword.

194. good night !] there's an end!— an exclamation of resignation or despair. See Tyndale, An Answere unto Sir Thomas More's Dialoge: "Mr. More concludeth .. that whatsoever the church say, it is God's word, though it be not written yet all is right, and none error. And thus good night and good rest"; and Shelton, Don Quixote, Part II. xxxiii: "when we

195

Send danger from the east unto the west,
So honour 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!

North. Imagination of some great exploit

Drives him beyond the bounds of patience.
Hot. By heaven, methinks it were an easy leap,

To pluck bright honour from the pale-faced moon,
Or dive into the bottom of the deep,
Where fathom-line could never touch the ground,
And pluck up drowned honour by the locks;

197. O,] omitted Qq 5-8, Ff.

201. Hot.] omitted Qq 1-4.

200

205

204.

fathom-line] Theobald (ed. 2); fadome line Qq 1-4; fadome-line (fadom-line F 4) the rest.

come to the pit, all are even, or made so in spite of their teethes and, and good-night."

194. or sink or swim] A proverbial expression of which examples are numerous from Chaucer downward. Cf., e.g., Peele, Edward I. iii; "Then live or die, brave Ned, or sink or swim."

198. To rouse . . . hare!] "Rouse" and "start" were technical terms of the chase, the former being applied to the buck and other big game, the latter to the hare. So in The Noble Arte of Venerie, 1575: “We . . . unherbor a harte, we . . . rowse a Bucke; we... start a Hare; we . . . bolt a conie; unkennell a Fox"; Lyly, Midas, Iv. iii: "thou shouldest say, start a hare, rowse the deere"; and Harsnet's Declaration of Popish Impostures, 1603 (p. 82).

we

201. Hot.] In Qq 1-4 Hot. is omitted and lines 201-208 continue Northumberland's speech.

201-207. By dignities] Warburton compares the vaunt of Eteocles in the Phanissa of Euripides (lines 504-6): ἄστρων ἂν ἔλθοιμ ̓ ἡλίου πρὸς ἀντολὰς καὶ γῆς ἔνερθε, δυνατὸς ὢν δρᾶσαι τάδε, τὴν θεῶν μεγίστην ὥστ ̓ ἔχειν Tupavvida. "I would scale the high heaven to the risings of the stars and of the sun, I would dive beneath the earth, might I thereby win sovereigntyheaven's greatest boon." In Beaumont and Fletcher, The Knight of the Burning Pestle, Induction, Ralph, being asked to speak" a huffing part," recites Hotspur's lines slightly altered:~

And pull her out of Acheron by the
heels."

Cf. Greene, Frier Bacon and Frier
Bongay, iv. i:—

"Bacon . . . thou knowest that I
have dived into hell,

And sought the darkest pallaces of fiendes ";

and Marlowe, Tamburlaine, Part I. IV. iv: "Ye Furies. . . Dive to the bottom of Avernus' pool, And in your hands bring hellish poison up." Hotspur's speech is in the strain of extravagant rhetoric introduced by Senecan tragedy and popularised by Marlowe and other of Shakespeare's predecessors. Munro, Journal of Philology, vi. 77, cites a parallel from Seneca's Thyestes, 289292.

202. pale-faced moon] From Kyd's Spanish Tragedy, III. xii A: "And yonder pale faced... Moone." also in Massinger, The Virgin Martyr,

II. ii.

So

So he that doth redeem her thence might wear
Without corrival all her dignities:
But out upon this half-faced fellowship!
Wor. He apprehends a world of figures here,

But not the form of what he should attend.
Good cousin, give me audience for a while.
Hot. I cry you mercy.

Wor.

Hot.

Wor.

Hot.

Those same noble Scots
That are your prisoners,—

I'll keep them all;
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.

You start away
And lend no ear unto my purposes.
Those prisoners you shall keep.

210

215

Nay, I will; that's flat:

He said he would not ransom Mortimer;

211. a

207. corrival] corriuall Qg; Coriuall Ff 1-3; Co-rival F 4. while.] Qq; a-while, And list to me. Ff (reading And . me as a separate line). 212, 213. Those . prisoners] divided as in F; one line Qq. 213. prisoners,-] Capell; prisoners— Rowe; prisoners Qq 1, 2; prisoners. the 214. God] heauen Ff.

rest.

207. corrival] partner, associate, as in IV. iv. 31. Cf. the use of "competitor" in Tamburlaine, Part I. 1. ii. "Corrival" occurs frequently in the sense of rival.

208. half-faced fellowship] wretched sharing of dignities. A "half-face " signified originally a face as seen in profile (as in coins), and then a thin, pinched face; hence "half-faced was applied contemptuously to a person or thing in the sense of miserable-looking, wretched. Cf. H. Peacham, Compleat Gentleman, 1622: “looke upon them side-wayes and consider well their halfe-faces, as all coynes shew them"; Marston, Histrio-Mastix, Iv. i: "yon halfe-fac'd minion"; Nashe, Foure Letters Confuted (McKerrow, i. 208): "your conscious minde, with all other odde ends of your halfe fac'd english," and Dekker, Olde Fortunatus (Pearson, i. 98). See also King John, 1. i. 92, and 2 Henry IV. III. ii. 283. And Middleton and Rowley, The Spanish Gipsy, IV. iii. M. Mason thought that the allusion might be to half-faces on medals where, as in the coins of Philip and Mary, the profiles

"Ful sooth is seyd that love ne lordshipe

Wol... have no felaweshipe." 209. apprehends] conceives, as in Midsummer-Night's Dream, v. i. 5. 209. figures] imaginary forms, fancies, as in Love's Labour's Lost, IV. ii. 68. 210. attend] attend to, as in Tempest, 1. ii. 78.

212. I ... mercy] I beg your pardon. Middleton, Your Five Gallants, IV. vi: "I cry you mercy, sir; I pray, pardon me." The expression occurs as early as Chaucer, and is common in Elizabethan drama.

214, 215. he... not] Cf. The Play of Stucley (Simpson, School of Shakspere, i. 210, 211): “Gov.. I will have them, every horse of them. Stuc.

Sirra thou gets not one of them, an a hair would save thy life." Possibly a quibbling allusion to the saying cited in Fuller's Worthies and Ray's Proverbs: "We will not lose a Scot," i.e. "anything, how inconsiderable soever, which we can save or recover" (Fuller).

Forbad my tongue to speak of Mortimer ;
But I will find him when he lies asleep,
And in his ear I'll holla “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.

Wor. Hear you, cousin; a word.

Hot. All studies here I solemnly defy,

Save how to gall and pinch this Bolingbroke:

And that same sword-and-buckler Prince of Wales, 230

But that I think his father loves him not

And would be glad he met with some mischance,

I would have him poison'd with a pot of ale.

Wor. Farewell, kinsman: I'll talk to you

When you are better temper'd to attend.

North. Why, what a wasp-stung and impatient fool

222. holla] Ff; hollow (hollo or hallow) Qq. speak] divided as by Steevens (1793); one line Qq, Ff. Pope; him poisoned Qq; poyson'd him Ff. tongue Qq 2-6; waspe tongue Qq 7, 8; waspe-tongu'd Ff. 222. And .. "Mortimer!"] An echo of Marlowe, Edward II. 11. ii:"Younger Mortimer. Cousin, an if he will not ransom him, I'll thunder such a peal into his