Page:Henry IV Part 1 (1917) Yale.djvu/75

King Henry the Fourth, III. i

Hot. Let me not understand you then:

Speak it in Welsh.

Glend. I can speak English, lord, as well as you,

For I was train'd up in the English court;

Where, being but young, I framed to the harp

Many an English ditty lovely well,

And gave the tongue an helpful ornament;

A virtue that was never seen in you.

Hot. Marry, and I'm glad of it with all my heart.

I had rather be a kitten, and cry mew

Than one of these same metre ballad-mongers;

I had rather hear a brazen canstick turn'd,

Or a dry wheel grate on the axle-tree;

And that would set my teeth nothing on edge,

Nothing so much as mincing poetry:

'Tis like the forc'd gait of a shuffling nag.

Glend. Come, you shall have Trent turn'd.

Hot. I do not care: I'll give thrice so much land

To any well-deserving friend;

But in the way of bargain, mark you me,

I'll cavil on the ninth part of a hair.

Are the indentures drawn? shall we be gone?

Glend. The moon shines fair, you may away by night:

I'll haste the writer and withal

Break with your wives of your departure hence:

I am afraid my daughter will run mad,

So much she doteth on her Mortimer.

Mort. Fie, cousin Percy! how you cross my father!

Hot. I cannot choose: sometimes he angers me

With telling me of the moldwarp and the ant,

Of the dreamer Merlin and his prophecies,

 130 canstick: candlestick

133 mincing: affected

143 break with: inform

148-152 Cf. n. 