Page 997 - Shakespeare - Vol. 2

Why should that gentleman that rode by Travers [55]
Give then such instances of loss?

LORD BARDOLPH
Who, he?
He was some hilding fellow that had stolen
The horse he rode on, and, upon my life,

Spoke at a venture. Look, here comes more news.

Enter Morton.

NORTHUMBERLAND
Yea, this man’s brow, like to a title-leaf, [60]
Foretells the nature of a tragic volume.
So looks the strand whereon the imperious flood

Hath left a witnessed usurpation.
Say, Morton, didst thou come from Shrewsbury?

MORTON
I ran from Shrewsbury, my noble lord, [65]
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, [70]

So dull, so dead in look, so woebegone,
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. [75]
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, [80]