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The Complete Works of William Shakespeare - Israel Gollancz William Shakespeare [466]

By Root 18883 0

Hot. O, then the earth shook to see the heavens on fire,

And not in fear of your nativity.

Diseased nature oftentimes 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 mossgrown towers. At your birth

Our grandam earth, having this distemp'rature,

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 there's no man speaks better Welsh. I'll 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.

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 threefold 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 bower,

As is appointed us, at Shrewsbury.

My father Glendower is not ready yet,

Nor shall we need his help these fourteen days.

[To Glend.] Within that space 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,

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 ill this place damm'd up,

And here the smug and sliver 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 alt'red.

Hot. Will not you?

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