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Foretells the nature of a tragic volume.

So looks the strand whereon the imperious flood

Hath left a witness'd usurpation.

Say, Morton, didst thou come from Shrewsbury?

MORTON.

I ran from Shrewsbury, my noble lord;

Where hateful death put on his ugliest mask

To fright our party.

NORTHUMBERLAND.

How doth my son and brother?

Thou tremblest; and the whiteness in thy cheek

Is apter than thy tongue to tell thy errand.

Even such a man, so faint, so spiritless,

So dull, so dread in look, so woe-begone,

Drew Priam's curtain in the dead of night

And would have told him half his Troy was burnt;

But Priam found the fire ere he his tongue,

And I my Percy's death ere thou report'st it.

This thou wouldst say: 'Your son did thus and thus;

Your brother thus; so fought the noble Douglas'-

Stopping my greedy ear with their bold deeds;

But in the end, to stop my ear indeed,

Thou hast a sigh to blow away this praise,

Ending with 'Brother, son, and all, are dead.'

MORTON.

Douglas is living, and your brother, yet;

But for my lord your son-

NORTHUMBERLAND.

Why, he is dead.

See what a ready tongue suspicion hath!

He that but fears the thing he would not know

Hath by instinct knowledge from others' eyes

That what he fear'd is chanced. Yet speak, Morton;

Tell thou an earl his divination lies,

And I will take it as a sweet disgrace

And make thee rich for doing me such wrong.

MORTON.

You are too great to be by me gainsaid;

Your spirit is too true, your fears too certain.

NORTHUMBERLAND.

Yet, for all this, say not that Percy's dead.

I see a strange confession in thine eye;

Thou shak'st thy head, and hold'st it fear or sin

To speak a truth. If he be slain, say so:

The tongue offends not that reports his death;

And he doth sin that doth belie the dead,

Not he which says the dead is not alive.

Yet the first bringer of unwelcome news

Hath but a losing office, and his tongue

Sounds ever after as a sullen bell,

Rememb'red tolling a departing friend.

LORD BARDOLPH.

I cannot think, my lord, your son is dead.

MORTON.

I am sorry I should force you to believe

That which I would to God I had not seen;

But these mine eyes saw him in bloody state,

Rend'ring faint quittance, wearied and out-breath'd,

To Harry Monmouth, whose swift wrath beat down

The never-daunted Percy to the earth,

From whence with life he never more sprung up.

In few, his death- whose spirit lent a fire

Even to the dullest peasant in his camp-

Being bruited once, took fire and heat away

From the best-temper'd courage in his troops;

For from his metal was his party steeled;

Which once in him abated, an the rest

Turn'd on themselves, like dull and heavy lead.

And as the thing that's heavy in itself

Upon enforcement flies with greatest speed,

So did our men, heavy in Hotspur's loss,

Lend to this weight such lightness with their fear

That arrows fled not swifter toward their aim

Than did our soldiers, aiming at their safety,

Fly from the field. Then was that noble Worcester

Too soon ta'en prisoner; and that furious Scot,

The bloody Douglas, whose well-labouring sword

Had three times slain th' appearance of the King,

Gan vail his stomach and did grace the shame

Of those that turn'd their backs, and in his flight,

Stumbling in fear, was took. The sum of all

Is that the King hath won, and hath sent out

A speedy power to encounter you, my lord,

Under the conduct of young Lancaster

And Westmoreland. This is the news at full.

NORTHUMBERLAND.

For this I shall have time enough to mourn.

In poison there is physic; and these news,

Having been well, that would have made me sick,

Being sick, have in some measure made me well;

And as the wretch whose fever-weak'ned joints,

Like strengthless hinges, buckle under life,

Impatient of his fit, breaks like a fire

Out of his keeper's arms, even so my limbs,

Weak'ned with grief, being now enrag'd with grief,

Are thrice themselves. Hence, therefore, thou nice crutch!

A scaly gauntlet now with joints of steel

Must glove this hand; and hence, thou sickly coif!