William Shakespeare: King Henry IV Part I

ACT I. 3. Scene III. The Same. A Room in the Palace. (continued)

NORTH.
What, drunk with choler? stay, and pause awhile:
Here comes your uncle.

[Re-enter Worcester.]

HOT.
Speak of Mortimer!
Zounds, I will speak of him; and let my soul
Want mercy, if I do not join with him:
Yea, on his part I'll empty all these veins,
And shed my dear blood drop by drop i' the dust,
But I will lift the down-trod Mortimer
As high i' the air as this unthankful King,
As this ingrate and canker'd Bolingbroke.

NORTH.

[To Worcester.]

Brother, the King hath made your nephew mad.

WOR.
Who struck this heat up after I was gone?

HOT.
He will, forsooth, have all my prisoners;
And when I urged the ransom once again
Of my wife's brother, then his cheek look'd pale,
And on my face he turn'd an eye of death,
Trembling even at the name of Mortimer.

WOR.
I cannot blame him: was not he proclaim'd
By Richard that dead is the next of blood?

NORTH.
He was; I heard the proclamation:
And then it was when the unhappy King--
Whose wrongs in us God pardon!--did set forth
Upon his Irish expedition;
From whence he intercepted did return
To be deposed, and shortly murdered.

WOR.
And for whose death we in the world's wide mouth
Live scandalized and foully spoken of.

HOT.
But, soft! I pray you; did King Richard then
Proclaim my brother Edmund Mortimer
Heir to the crown?

NORTH.
He did; myself did hear it.