Henry IV, Part I by William Shakespeare
Act 1 - Scene 3
London. The palace.
Earl of Worcester : Our house, my sovereign liege, little deserves
[p]The scourge of
greatness to be used on it;
[p]And that same greatness too which our
own hands
[p]Have holp to make so portly.
Earl of Worcester : Who struck this heat up after I was gone?
Earl of Worcester : I cannot blame him: was not he proclaim'd
[p]By Richard that dead is
the next of blood?
Earl of Worcester : And for whose death we in the world's wide mouth
[p]Live scandalized
and foully spoken of.
Earl of Worcester : Peace, cousin, say no more:
[p]And now I will unclasp a secret
book,
[p]And to your quick-conceiving discontents
[p]I'll read you
matter deep and dangerous,
[p]As full of peril and adventurous
spirit
[p]As to o'er-walk a current roaring loud
[p]On the unsteadfast
footing of a spear.
Earl of Worcester : He apprehends a world of figures here,
[p]But not the form of what he
should attend.
[p]Good cousin, give me audience for a while.
Earl of Worcester : Those same noble Scots
[p]That are your prisoners,--
Earl of Worcester : You start away
[p]And lend no ear unto my purposes.
[p]Those prisoners
you shall keep.
Earl of Worcester : Hear you, cousin; a word.
Earl of Worcester : Farewell, kinsman: I'll talk to you
[p]When you are better temper'd to
attend.
Earl of Worcester : Nay, if you have not, to it again;
[p]We will stay your leisure.
Earl of Worcester : Then once more to your Scottish prisoners.
[p]Deliver them up without
their ransom straight,
[p]And make the Douglas' son your only
mean
[p]For powers in Scotland; which, for divers reasons
[p]Which I
shall send you written, be assured,
[p]Will easily be granted. You, my
lord,
[p][To Northumberland]
[p]Your son in Scotland being thus
employ'd,
[p]Shall secretly into the bosom creep
[p]Of that same noble
prelate, well beloved,
[p]The archbishop.
Earl of Worcester : True; who bears hard
[p]His brother's death at Bristol, the Lord
Scroop.
[p]I speak not this in estimation,
[p]As what I think might
be, but what I know
[p]Is ruminated, plotted and set down,
[p]And only
stays but to behold the face
[p]Of that occasion that shall bring it
on.
Earl of Worcester : And so they shall.
Earl of Worcester : And 'tis no little reason bids us speed,
[p]To save our heads by
raising of a head;
[p]For, bear ourselves as even as we can,
[p]The
king will always think him in our debt,
[p]And think we think
ourselves unsatisfied,
[p]Till he hath found a time to pay us
home:
[p]And see already how he doth begin
[p]To make us strangers to
his looks of love.
Earl of Worcester : Cousin, farewell: no further go in this
[p]Than I by letters shall
direct your course.
[p]When time is ripe, which will be
suddenly,
[p]I'll steal to Glendower and Lord Mortimer;
[p]Where you
and Douglas and our powers at once,
[p]As I will fashion it, shall
happily meet,
[p]To bear our fortunes in our own strong arms,
[p]Which
now we hold at much uncertainty.
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