SECOND PART OF

KING HENRY IV.

ACT I. SCENE I.

The same.

The Porter before the Gate; Enter Lord
BARDOLPH.

BARD. Who keeps the gate here, ho?—Where is the earl?

say you are?

PORT. What shall I BARD. Tell thou the earl, That the lord Bardolph doth attend him here. PORT. His lordship is walk'd forth into the orchard;

Please it your honour, knock but at the gate,
And he himself will answer.

Enter NORTHUMBERLAND.

BARD.

Here comes the earl. NORTH. What news, lord Bardolph ? every mi

nute now

Should be the father of some stratagem: 8
The times are wild; contention, like a horse
Full of high feeding, madly hath broke loose,
And bears down all before him.

BARD.

Noble earl, I bring you certain news from Shrewsbury. NORTH. Good, an heaven will!

BARD.

As good as heart can wish :The king is almost wounded to the death; And, in the fortune of my lord your son, Prince Harry slain outright; and both the Blunts Kill'd by the hand of Douglas: young prince John, And Westmoreland, and Stafford, fled the field; And Harry Monmouth's brawn, the hulk sir John, Is prisoner to your son: O, such a day, So fought, so follow'd, and so fairly won, Came not, till now, to dignify the times, Since Cæsar's fortunes!

NORTH.

How is this deriv'd?
Saw you the field? came you from Shrewsbury?
BARD. I spake with one, my lord, that came
from thence;

A gentleman well bred, and of good name,
That freely render'd me these news for true.
NORTH. Here comes my servant, Travers, whom
I sent
On Tuesday last to listen after news.

BARD. My lord, I over-rode him on the way;

some stratagem:] Some stratagem means here some great, important, or dreadful event. So, in The Third Part of King Henry VI. the father who had killed his son says: "O pity, God! this miserable age! "What stratagems, how fell, how butcherly!

"This mortal quarrel daily doth beget!" M. MASON.

And he is furnish'd with no certainties,
More than he haply may retail from me.

Enter TRAVers.

NORTH. Now, Travers, what good tidings come with you?

TRA. My lord, sir John Umfrevile turn'd me back

With joyful tidings; and, being better hors'd,
Out-rode me. After him, came, spurring hard,
A gentleman almost forspent with speed,
That stopp'd by me to breathe his bloodied horse:
He ask'd the way to Chester; and of him
I did demand, what news from Shrewsbury.
He told me, that rebellion had bad luck,
And that young Harry Percy's spur was cold:
With that, he gave his able horse the head,
And, bending forward, struck his armed heels1
Against the panting sides of his poor jade 2

9

66 ――

forspent with speed,] To forspend is to waste, to exhaust. So, in Sir A. Gorges' translation of Lucan, B. VII: crabbed sires forspent with age." STEEVENS. armed heels-] Thus the quarto, 1600. The folio, 1623, reads-able heels; the modern editors, without au thority-agile heels. STEEVEns.

1

poor jade-] Poor jade is used, not in contempt, but in compassion. Poor jade means the horse wearied with his journey.

Jade, however, seems anciently to have signified what we now call a hackney; a beast employed in drudgery, opposed to a horse kept for show, or to be rid by its master. So, in a comedy called A Knack to know a Knave, 1594:

"Besides, I'll give you the keeping of a dozen jades, "And now and then meat for you and your horse." This is said by a farmer to a courtier. STEEVENS.

Shakspeare, however, (as Mr. Steevens has observed,) cer

3

Up to the rowel-head; and, starting so,
He seem'd in running to devour the way,
Staying no longer question.

NORTH.

Ha! Again. Said he, young Harry Percy's spur was cold? Of Hotspur, coldspur?5 that rebellion

Had met ill luck!

BARD.
If my young

lord

My lord, I'll tell you what ;your son have not the day,

tainly does not use the word as a term of contempt; for King Richard the Second gives this appellation to his favourite horse Roan Barbary, on which Henry the Fourth rode at his coronation:

"That jade hath eat bread from my royal hand."

MALONE.

3

rowel-head;] I think that I have observed in old prints the rowel of those times to have been only a single spike. JOHNSON.

He seem'd in running to devour the way,] So, in the Book of Job, chap. xxxix: "He swalloweth the ground with fierceness and rage."

The same expression occurs in Ben Jonson's Sejanus :
"But with that speed and heat of appetite,
"With which they greedily devour the way
"To some great sports." STEevens.

So Ariel, to describe his alacrity in obeying Prospero's commands:

"I drink the air before me.' "" M. MASON.

So, in one of the Roman poets (I forget which): cursu consumere campum. BLACKSTONE.

The line quoted by Sir William Blackstone is in NEMESIAN: latumque fuga consumere campum. MALONE.

5

Of Hotspur, coldspur?] Hotspur seems to have been a very common term for a man of vehemence and precipitation. Stanyhurst, who translated four books of Virgil, în 1584, renders the following line:

Nec victoris heri tetigit captiva cubile.

"To couch not mounting of mayster vanquisher hoatspur." STEEVENS.

Upon mine honour, for a silken point 6
I'll give my barony: never talk of it.

NORTH. Why should the gentleman, that rode by

Travers,

Give then such instances of loss?

BARD.

Who, he? He was some hilding fellow," that had stol'n The horse he rode on; and, upon my life, Spoke at a venture. Look, here comes more news.

Enter MORTON.

NORTH. Yea, this man's brow, like to a titleleaf,8

Foretells the nature of a tragick volume:
So looks the strond, whereon the imperious flood
Hath left a witness'd usurpation.".

Say, Morton, didst thou come from Shrewsbury?
MOR. I ran from Shrewsbury, my noble lord;
Where hateful death put on his ugliest mask,
To fright our party.
NORTH.

How doth my son, and brother?

6

— silken point-] A point is a string tagged, or lace. JOHNSON. 7-some hilding fellow,] For hilderling, i. e. base, degenerate. POPE.

Hilderling, Degener; vox adhuc agro Devon. familiaris. Spelman. REED.

8

like to a title-leaf,] It may not be amiss to observe, that, in the time of our poet, the title-page to an elegy, as well as every intermediate leaf, was totally black. I have several in my possession, written by Chapman, the translator of Homer, and ornamented in this manner. STEEVENS.

vage.

a witness'd usurpation.] i. e. an attestation of its raSTEEVENS.