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Who doth permit the base contagious clouds
To smother up his beauty from the world,
That when he please again to be himself,
Being wanted, he may be more wondered at
By breaking through the foul and ugly mists
Of vapours that did seem to strangle him.
If all the year were playing holidays,

To sport would be as tedious as to work;
But when they seldom come, they wished-for come,
And nothing pleaseth but rare accidents.
So, when this loose behaviour I throw off
And pay the debt I never promised,

By how much better than my word I am,
By so much shall I falsify men's hopes;
And, like bright metal on a sullen ground,
My reformation, glittering o'er my fault,
Shall show more goodly and attract more eyes
Than that which hath no foil to set it off.
I'll so offend, to make offence a skill;
Redeeming time, when men think least I will.

[Exit

SCENE III.--London.

A Room in the Palace.

Enter King HENRY, NORTHUMBERLAND, WORCESTER, HOTSPUR, Sir WALTER BLUNT, and others.

K. Hen. My blood hath been too cold and temperate,

Unapt to stir at these indignities;

And you have found me, for accordingly
You tread upon my patience: but be sure

I will from henceforth rather be myself,-
Mighty, and to be feared,—than my condition,
Which hath been smooth as oil, soft as young down,
And therefore lost that title of respect

Which the proud soul ne'er pays but to the proud.
Wor. Our house, my sovereign liege, little de-

serves

The Scourge of greatness to be used on it,

And that same greatness too which our own hands Have holp to make so portly.

North. My lord,

K. Hen. Worcester, get thee gone; for I do see Danger and disobedience in thine eye.

O, sir,

Your presence is too bold and peremptory,

And majesty might never yet endure

The moody frontier of a servant brow.

You have good leave to leave us; when we need
Your use and counsel, we shall send for you.—
[Exit WORCESTER.
[To NORTHUMBERLAND.] You were about to speak.
North.
Yea, my good lord.
Those prisoners in your highness' name demanded,
Which Harry Percy here at Holmedon took,
Were, as he says, not with such strength denied
As was delivered to your majesty :

Either envy, therefore, or misprision

Is guilty of this fault, and not my son.

Hot. My liege, I did deny no prisoners.
But I remember, when the fight was done,
When I was dry with rage and extreme toil,
Breathless and faint, leaning upon my sword,
Came there a certain lord, neat, trimly dressed,
Fresh as a bridegroom; and his chin, new reaped,
Showed like a stubble-land at harvest home;
He was perfuméd like a milliner,

And 'twixt his finger and his thumb he held
A pouncet-box, which ever and anon

He

gave

his nose,

and took 't away again;

Who, therewith angry, when it next came there,

Took it in snuff:-and still he smiled and talked;

And, as the soldiers bore dead bodies by,
He called them untaught knaves, unmannerly,
To bring a slovenly unhandsome corse
Betwixt the wind and his nobility.

With many holiday and lady terms

He questioned me; among the rest, demanded
My prisoners in your majesty's behalf.

I then, all smarting with my wounds being cold To be so pestered with a popinjay,

Out of my grief and my impatience

Answered neglectingly, I know not what,—

He should, or should not ;-for he made me mad To see him shine so brisk, and smell so sweet, And talk so like a waiting-gentlewoman

Of guns and drums and wounds,-God save the mark!

And telling me the sovereign'st thing on earth
Was parmacity for an inward bruise;

And that it was great pity, so it was,
That villainous saltpetre should be digged
Out of the bowels of the harmless earth,
Which many a good tall fellow had destroyed
So cowardly; and, but for these vile guns,
He would himself have been a soldier.
This bald unjointed chat of his, my lord,
I answered indirectly, as I said;

And, I beseech you, let not his report
Come current for an accusation

Betwixt my love and your high majesty.

Blunt. The circumstance considered, good my lord,

Whatever Harry Percy then had said
To such a person, and in such a place,
At such a time, with all the rest re-told,
May reasonably die, and never rise
To do him wrong, or any way impeach
What then he said, so he unsay it now.

K. Hen. Why, yet he doth deny his prisoners, But with proviso, and exception,—

That we, at our own charge, shall ransom straight
His brother-in-law, the foolish Mortimer;

Who, on my soul, hath wilfully betrayed
The lives of those that he did lead to fight
Against the great magician, damned Glendower,
Whose daughter, as we hear, the Earl of March
Hath lately married. Shall our coffers, then,
Be emptied to redeem a traitor home?
Shall we buy treason and indent with fears
When they have lost and forfeited themselves?
No, on the barren mountains let him starve ;
For I shall never hold that man my friend,
Whose tongue shall ask me for one penny cost

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