Page 999 - Shakespeare - Vol. 2

I am sorry I should force you to believe [105]
That which I would to God I had not seen.
But these mine eyes saw him in bloody state,
Rendering faint quittance, wearied and outbreathed,

To Harry Monmouth, whose swift wrath beat down
The never-daunted Percy to the earth, [110]
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-tempered courage in his troops. [115]
For from his metal was his party steeled,

Which once in him abated, all the rest
Turned on themselves, like dull and heavy lead.
And as the thing that’s heavy in itself,
Upon enforcement flies with greatest speed, [120]

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 [125]
So soon ta’en prisoner; and that furious Scot,
The bloody Douglas, whose well-labouring sword
Had three times slain the appearance of the king,

’Gan vail his stomach and did grace the shame
Of those that turned their backs, and in his flight, [130]
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. [135]

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-weakened joints, [140]