Rum.
Open your ears; For which of you will stop
The vent of hearing, when loud Rumour 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 ^note continual slanders ride;
The which in every language I pronounce,
Stuffing the ears of men with ^note false reports:
I speak of peace, while covert enmity,
Under the smile of safety, wounds the world:
And who but Rumour, who but only I,
Make fearful musters, and prepar'd defence;
Whilst ^note the big year, swoln with some other grief,
Is thought with child by the stern tyrant war,
And no such matter? Rumour is a pipe
Blown by surmises, ^note jealousies, conjectures;

And of so easy and so plain a stop,
That the blunt monster with uncounted heads,
The still-discordant wavering multitude,
Can play upon it. But what need I thus
My well-known body to anatomize
Among my houshold? Why is Rumour here?
I run before king Harry's victory;
Who, in a bloody field by Shrewsbury,
Hath beaten down young Hot-spur, and his troops,
Quenching the flame of bold rebellion
Even with the rebels' blood. But what mean I,
To speak of truth at ^note first? my office is
To noise abroad—that Harry Monmouth fell
Under the wrath of noble Hot-spur's sword;
And that the king before the Douglas' rage
Stoop'd his anointed head as low as death.
This have I rumour'd through the peasant towns
Between that royal ^note field of Shrewsbury
And this † worm-eaten hold ^note of ragged stone,
Where ^note Hot-spur's father, old Northumberland,
Lies crafty-sick: the posts come tiring on,
And not a man of them brings other news
Than they have learn'd ^note of me; From Rumour's tongues
They bring smooth comforts false, worse than true wrongs. [Exit.

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