Henry IV, Part II by William Shakespeare
Act 0 - Scene 1
Warkworth. Before NORTHUMBERLAND’S Castle
Rumour : Open your ears; for which of you will stop
[p]The vent of hearing when
loud Rumour speaks?
[p]I, from the orient to the drooping
west,
[p]Making the wind my post-horse, still unfold
[p]The acts
commenced on this ball of earth.
[p]Upon my tongues continual slanders
ride,
[p]The which in every language I pronounce,
[p]Stuffing the ears
of men with false reports.
[p]I speak of peace while covert
emnity,
[p]Under the smile of safety, wounds the world;
[p]And who but
Rumour, who but only I,
[p]Make fearful musters and prepar'd
defence,
[p]Whiles the big year, swoln with some other grief,
[p]Is
thought with child by the stern tyrant war,
[p]And no such matter?
Rumour is a pipe
[p]Blown by surmises, jealousies, conjectures,
[p]And
of so easy and so plain a stop
[p]That the blunt monster with
uncounted heads,
[p]The still-discordant wav'ring multitude,
[p]Can
play upon it. But what need I thus
[p]My well-known body to
anatomize
[p]Among my household? Why is Rumour here?
[p]I run before
King Harry's victory,
[p]Who, in a bloody field by Shrewsbury,
[p]Hath
beaten down young Hotspur and his troops,
[p]Quenching the flame of
bold rebellion
[p]Even with the rebels' blood. But what mean I
[p]To
speak so true at first? My office is
[p]To noise abroad that Harry
Monmouth fell
[p]Under the wrath of noble Hotspur's sword,
[p]And that
the King before the Douglas' rage
[p]Stoop'd his anointed head as low
as death.
[p]This have I rumour'd through the peasant towns
[p]Between
that royal field of Shrewsbury
[p]And this worm-eaten hold of ragged
stone,
[p]Where Hotspur's father, old Northumberland,
[p]Lies
crafty-sick. The posts come tiring on,
[p]And not a man of them brings
other news
[p]Than they have learnt of me. From Rumour's
tongues
[p]They bring smooth comforts false, worse than true wrongs.
Next: Act 1 - Scene 1
