Item, Anchovies, and sack after supper, 2s. 6d.

Item, Bread, a halfpenny.

P. Hen. O monstrous! but one half-penny worth of bread to this intolerable deal of sack! - What there is else, keep close; we'll read it at more advantage : there let him sleep till day. I'll to the court in the morning: we must all to the wars, and thy place shall be honourable. I'll procure this fat rogue a charge of foot; and, I know, his death will be a march of twelvescore. The money shall be paid back again with advantage. Be with me betimes in the morning; and so good morrow, Poins.

Poins. Good morrow, good my lord.

ACT III.

[Exeunt.

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 4 full of prosperous hope.

Hot. Lord Mortimer, and cousin Glendower,-
Will you sit down?-

And, uncle Worcester :- A plague upon it !
I have forgot the map.

Glend. 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.

Hot. And you in hell, as often as he hears
Owen Glendower spoke of.

Glend. I cannot blame him: at my nativity,
'The front of heaven was full of fiery shapes,
Of burning cressets; and, at my birth,
The frame and huge foundation of the earth
Shak'd like a coward.

Hot. Why, so it would have done

[3] i. e. It will kill him to march so far as twelve score yards. JOHNS. [4] i. e. entrance, beginning. JOHNS.

[5] A cresset was a great light set upon a beacon, light-house, or watchtower: from the French word croissette, a little cross, because the beacons had anciently crosses on the top of them.

HANMER.

At the same season, if your mother's cat had
But kitten'd, though yourself had ne'er been born.
Glend. I say, the earth did shake when I was born.
Hot. And I say, the earth was not of my mind,

If you suppose, as fearing you it shook.

Glend. The heavens were all on fire, the earth did tremble.

Hot. O, then the earth shook to see the heavens on fire,
And not in fear of your nativity.
Diseased nature often times 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 beldame earth, and topples down
Steeples, and moss-grown towers. At your birth,
Our grandam earth, having this distemperature,
In passion shook.

Glend. 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.

Hot. I think, theris no man speaks better Welsh :I will to dinner.

Mort. Peace, cousin Percy; you will make him mad. Glend. I can call spirits from the vasty deep. Hot. Why, so can I; or so can any man: But will they come, when you do call for them? Glend. Why, I can teach you, cousin, to command The devil.

(6) The poet has here taken from the perverseness and contrariousness of Hotspur's temper, an opportunity of raising his character by a very rational and philosophical confutation of superstitious error. JOHNS.

(7) Beldame is not used here as a term of contempt, but in the sense of ancient mother. Belle-age, Fr. STEEV.

Hot. 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.

Mort. Come, come,

No more of this unprofitable chat.

Glend. 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.

Hot. Home without boots, and in foul weather too! How 'scapes he agues, in the devil's name?

Glend. Come, here's the map; shall we divide our

right,

According to our three-fold order ta'en?
Mort. The archdeacon hath divided it

Into three limits, very equally :
England, from Trent and Severn hitherto, 7
By south and east, is to my part assign'd :
All westward, Wales beyond the Severn shore,
And all the fertile land within that bound,
To Owen Glendower :-and, dear coz, to you
The remnant northward, lying off from Trent.
And our indentures tripartite are drawn:
Which being sealed interchangeably,
(A business that this night may execute,)
To-morrow, cousin Percy, you, and I,
And my good lord of Worcester, will set forth,
To meet your father, and the Scottish power,
As is appointed us, at Shrewsbury.
My father Glendower is not ready yet,
Nor shall we need his help these fourteen days :-
Within that space, [To GLEND.] you may have drawn

together

Your tenants, friends, and neighbouring gentlemen.
Glend. A shorter time shall send me to you, lords,
And in my conduct shall your ladies come:
From whom you now must steal, and take no leave;
For there will be a world of water shed,
Upon the parting of your wives and you.

Hot. Methinks, my moiety, north from Burton here, 8

(7) i. e. to this spot (poi wing to the map) MAL. (8) A moiety was fr-quently used by the writers of Shakspeare's age, as a portion of any thing, though not divided into two equal parts.

MAL.

In quantity equals not one of yours:
See, how this river comes me cranking in,
And cuts me, from the best of all my land,
A huge half moon, a monstrous cantle out.9
I'll have the current in this place damm'd up;
And here the smug and silver Trent shall run,
In a new channel, fair and evenly :
It shall not wind with such a deep indent,
To rob me of so rich a bottom here.

Glend. Not wind? it shall, it must; you see, it doth.
Mort. Yea,

But mark, how he bears his course, and runs me up
With like advantage on the other side;
Gelding the opposed continent as much,
As on the other side it takes from you.

Wor. Yea, but a little charge will trench him here,
And on this north side win this cape of land;
And then he runs straight and even.

Hot. I'll have it so; a little charge will do it.
Glend. I will not have it alter'd.

Hot. Will not you?

Glend. No, nor you shall not.
Hot. Who shall say me nay?

Glend. Why, that will I.

Hot. Let me not understand you then,

Speak it in Welsh.

Glend. I can speak English, lord, as well as you;
For I was train'd up in the English court:
Where, being but young, I framed to the harp
Many an English ditty, lovely well,

And gave the tongue a helpful ornament;
A virtue that was never seen in you.

Hot. Marry, and I'm glad of it with all my heart;

I had rather be a kitten, and cry-mew,
Than one of these same metre ballad-mongers:
I had rather hear a brazen canstick turn'd, 3
Or a dry wheel grate on an axle-tree;

(9) A cantle is a corner, or piece of any thing.--Canton, Fr. canto, Ital. signify a corner. STEEV.

(1) Owen Glendower, whose real name was Owen ap-Gryffyth Vaughan, took the name of Glyndour or Glendower from the lordship of Glyndourdwy, of which he was owner. He was crowned Prince of Wales in the year 1402, and for near twelve years was a very formidable enemy to the English He died in great distress in 15. MAL. (2) The English language. JOHN. (3) The word candlestick, which destroys the harmony of the line is written canstick in the quartos, and so it was pronounced. STEEV.

And that would set my teeth nothing on edge,
Nothing so much as mincing poetry;
'Tis like the forc'd gait of a shuffling nag.

Glend. Come, you shall have Trent turn'd.
Hot. I do not care: I'll give thrice so much land

To any well-deserving friend;

But, in the way of bargain, mark ye me,

I'll cavil on the ninth part of a hair.

Are the indentures drawn? shall we be gone?

Glend. The moon shines fair, you may away by night: I'll haste the writer, and, withal, Break with your wives of your departure hence : I am afraid, my daughter will run mad,

So much she doateth on her Mortimer.

[Exit.

Mort. Fye, cousin Percy! how you cross my father!
Hot. I cannot choose: sometimes he angers me,
With telling me of the moldwarp and the ant, 5
Of the dreamer Merlin and his prophecies ;
And of a dragon and a finless fish,

A clip-wing'd griffin, and a moulten raven,
A couching lion, and a ramping cat,
And such a deal of skimble-skamble stuff
As puts me from my faith. I tell you what,-
He held me, but last night, at least nine hours,
In reckoning up the several devils' names,
That were his lackeys: I cried, humph, and well,-

go to, 6

But mark'd him not a word. O, he's as tedious
As is a tired horse, a railing wife;

Worse than a smoky house :-I had rather live
With cheese and garlick, in a windmill, far,
Than feed on cates, and have him talk to me,
In any summer-house in Christendom.

Mort. In faith, he is a worthy gentleman;
Exceedingly well read, and profited
In strange concealments; valiant as a lion,
And wond'rous affable; and as bountiful
As mines of India. Shall I tell you, cousin ?
He holds your temper in a high respect,

(4) He means the writer of the articles. POPE.

(5) This alludes to an old prophesy, which is said to have induced Owen

Glendower to take arms against king Henry. POPE.

(6) These two senseless monosyllables seem to have been added by some foolish player, purposely to destroy the measure. RITSON. (7) Skilled in wonderful secrets. JOHNS.