ACT III.

SCENE I. Bangor. A Room in the Archdeacon's

House.

Enter HOTSPUR, WORCESTER, MORTIMER, and GLENDOWER.

Mort. These promises are fair, the parties sure, And our induction 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

At the same season, if your mother's cat had
But kitten'd, though yourself had ne'er been born.

8

Glend. I say, the earth did shake when I was

born.

- induction - That is, entrance; beginning.

9 Of burning cressets;] A cresset was a great light set upon a beacon, light-house, or watch-tower: from the French word croissette, a little cross, because the beacons had anciently crosses on the top of them.

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 nature1 oftentimes breaks forth
In strange eruptions: oft the teeming earth
Is with a kind of colick pinch'd and vex'd
By the imprisoning of unruly wind

Within her womb; which, for enlargement striving,
Shakes the old beldame earth, and topples2 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.

1 Diseased nature-] 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. JOHNSON.

- and topples down -) To topple is to tumble.

Hot. I think, there is 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 com

The devil.

mand

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,
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 gentle

men.

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,

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.*
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.

3 Methinks, my moiety,) The division is here into three parts, -A moiety was frequently used by the writers of Shakspeare's age, as a portion of any thing, though not divided into two equal parts.

4

-cantle out.) A cantle is a corner, or piece of any thing.

THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY

ASTOR, LENOX AND TILDEN FOUNDATIONS