Page 697 - Shakespeare - Vol. 2

and your whole plot too light for the counterpoise of so great an opposition.’
Say you so, say you so? I say unto you again, you are a shallow, cowardly
hind, and you lie. What a lackbrain is this! By the Lord, [15] our plot is a good
plot as ever was laid; our friends true and constant: a good plot, good

friends, and full of expectation; an excellent plot, very good friends. What a
frosty-spirited rogue is this! Why, my Lord of York commends the plot and the
general course of the action. [20] Zounds, an I were now by this rascal, I
could brain him with his lady’s fan. Is there not my father, my uncle, and

myself; Lord Edmund Mortimer, my Lord of York, and Owen Glendower? Is
there not, besides, the Douglas? Have I not all their letters to meet me in
arms by the [25] ninth of the next month, and are they not some of them set
forward already? What a pagan rascal is this! an infidel! Ha! you shall see

now, in very sincerity of fear and cold heart will he to the king and lay open
all our proceedings. O, I could divide myself and go to buffets for [30] moving
such a dish of skim milk with so honourable an action! Hang him, let him tell
the king! we are prepared. I will set forward to-night.

Enter his Lady.
How now, Kate? I must leave you within these two hours.

LADY
O my good lord, why are you thus alone? [35]
For what offense have I this fortnight been
A banished woman from my Harry’s bed?

Tell me, sweet lord, what is’t that takes from thee
Thy stomach, pleasure, and thy golden sleep?
Why dost thou bend thine eyes upon the earth, [40]

And start so often when thou sit’st alone?
Why hast thou lost the fresh blood in thy cheeks
And given my treasures and my rights of thee
To thick-eyed musing and cursed melancholy?
In thy faint slumbers I by thee have watched, [45]

And heard thee murmur tales of iron wars,
Speak terms of manage to thy bounding steed,
Cry ‘Courage! to the field!’ And thou hast talked

Of sallies and retires, of trenches, tents,
Of palisadoes, frontiers, parapets, [50]
Of basilisks, of cannon, culverin,
Of prisoners’ ransom, and of soldiers slain,