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Sit, good cousin Hotspur

Glendower
Sit, good cousin Hotspur, for by that name
As oft as Lancaster doth speak of you
His cheek looks pale, and with a rising sigh
He wisheth you in heaven.
Hotspur
And you in hell,
As oft as he hears Owen Glendower spoke of.

I can call spirits from the vasty deep.

Glendower
I cannot blame him. At my nativity
The front of heaven was full of fiery shapes,
Of burning cressets, and at my birth
The frame and huge foundation of the Earth
Shaked like a coward.
Hotspur
Why, so it would have done
At the same season if your mother’s cat
Had but kittened, though yourself had never been born.
Glendower
I say the Earth did shake when I was born.
Hotspur
And I say the Earth was not of my mind,
If you suppose as fearing you it shook.
Glendower
The heavens were all on fire; the Earth did tremble.
Hotspur
O, then the Earth shook to see the heavens on fire,
And not in fear of your nativity.
Diseasèd nature oftentimes breaks forth
In strange eruptions; oft the teeming Earth
Is with a kind of colic pinched and vexed
By the imprisoning of unruly wind
Within her womb, which, for enlargement striving,
Shakes the old beldam Earth and topples down
Steeples and moss-grown towers. At your birth
Our grandam Earth, having this distemp’rature,
In passion shook.
Glendower
Cousin, of many men
I do not bear these crossings. Give me leave
To tell you once again that at my birth
The front of heaven was full of fiery shapes,
The goats ran from the mountains, and the herds
Were strangely clamorous to the frighted fields.
These signs have marked me extraordinary,
And all the courses of my life do show
I am not in the roll of common men.
Where is he living, clipped in with the sea
That chides the banks of England, Scotland, Wales,
Which calls me pupil or hath read to me?
And bring him out that is but woman’s son
Can trace me in the tedious ways of art
And hold me pace in deep experiments.
Hotspur
I think there’s no man speaks better Welsh.
I’ll to dinner.
Mortimer 
Peace, cousin Percy. You will make him mad.
Glendower
I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
Hotspur
Why, so can I, or so can any man,
But will they come when you do call for them?
Glendower
Why, I can teach you, cousin, to command the devil.
Hotspur
And I can teach thee, coz, to shame the devil
By telling truth. Tell truth and shame the devil.
If thou have power to raise him, bring him hither,
And I’ll be sworn I have power to shame him hence.
O, while you live, tell truth and shame the devil!
Mortimer
Come, come, no more of this unprofitable chat.

Source:
Act 3
Scene 1
Line 7

Source Type:

Spoken by:
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Themes:
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Connected Notes:
You and Thee