David Scott Kastan is a professor of English at Yale Unveristy and one of the General Editors of the Arden Shakespeare Third Series.
Date of Death:
2018
Place of Birth:
Stratford-upon-Avon, United Kingdom
Place of Death:
Stratford-upon-Avon, United Kingdom
Read an Excerpt
(INDUCTION)
Enter Rumor, painted full of tongues.
[RUMOR]
Open your ears, for which of you will stop The vent of hearing when loud Rumor speaks? I, from the orient to the drooping west, Making the wind my post-horse, still unfold The acts commenced on this ball of earth. Upon my tongues continual slanders ride, The which in every language I pronounce, Stuffing the ears of men with false reports. I speak of peace while covert enmity Under the smile of safety wounds the world. And who but Rumor, who but only I, Make fearful musters and prepared defense Whiles the big year, swoll'n with some other grief, Is thought with child by the stern tyrant war, And no such matter? Rumor is a pipe Blown by surmises, jealousies, conjectures, And of so easy and so plain a stop That the blunt monster with uncounted heads, The still-discordant wav'ring multitude, Can play upon it. But what need I thus My well-known body to anatomize Among my household? Why is Rumor here? I run before King Harry's victory, Who in a bloody field by Shrewsbury Hath beaten down young Hotspur and his troops, Quenching the flame of bold rebellion Even with the rebels' blood. But what mean I To speak so true at first? My office is To noise abroad that Harry Monmouth fell Under the wrath of noble Hotspur's sword, And that the King before the Douglas' rage Stooped his anointed head as low as death. This have I rumored through the peasant towns Between that royal field of Shrewsbury And this worm-eaten [hold] of ragged stone, (Where) Hotspur's father, old Northumberland, lies crafty-sick. The posts come tiring on, And not a man of them brings other news Than they have learnt of me. From Rumor's tongues They bring smooth comforts false, worse than true wrongs
