AUMERLE Thou dar’st not, coward, live to see that day.
FITZWATER Now, by my soul, I would it were this hour.
AUMERLE Fitzwater, thou art damned to hell for this.
PERCY Aumerle, thou liest. His honour is as true
In this appeal as thou art all unjust,
And that thou art so, there I throw my gage
To prove it on thee to th’extremest point
Of mortal breathing. Seize it if thou dar’st.
AUMERLE An if I do not, may my hands rot off
And never brandish more revengeful steel
Over the glittering helmet of my foe! (4.1.42-52)
More furious bluster from Aumerle: Thou dar’st not, coward, live to see that day. (You’re chicken.) Now, by my soul, I would it (our duel) were this hour. (Am not chicken.) Thou art damned to hell for this. (Are so too. Telling on you.) And in the midst of this somewhat adolescent squaring-off, adding his testosterone to the mix, heeeere’s Hotspur, Harry Percy, never backwards in coming forward, and never slow to join a fight. He can’t control himself any longer, coming in on Fitzwater’s (and therefore Bagot’s?) side: Aumerle, thou liest, immediately seeing this in terms of the rules of noble and gentlemanly conduct. He doesn’t enter into any question of the facts surrounding Gloucester’s death, but rather here shifts the terms of engagement to matters of honour, the deadly seriousness of accusing another noble of being a liar. Fitzwater (Percy says) is as true in this appeal as thou art all unjust. (He’s not the liar, you are.) And so I challenge you, throwing my gage, to prove it on thee to th’extremest point of mortal breathing. I’ll fight you to the death too. Go on, seize it if thou dar’st. Glove count: three (and counting), score 2-1 to Aumerle (that is, he’s been challenged twice for one challenge of his own). Aumerle’s not having that: if I don’t take up this challenge (these challenges?) may my hands rot off (another reason why these have to be gloves, really) and never brandish more revengeful steel over the glittering helmet of my foe! Well you won’t be able to pick up anything at all, Aumerle, yes, that includes a sword, if your hands rot off, will you? (This is authentic late sixteenth-century banter, lads, well on the way to Benedick in Much Ado, for instance: ‘hang me in a bottle like a cat, and shoot at me, and he that hits me, let him be clappedon the shoulder and called Adam’.) It’s getting silly (and will get sillier)—but at least part of the point is the man who’s not getting involved, who’s watching, listening, staying quiet: Bolingbroke, acting like a grown-up, allowing them to burn off some of this high-octane animosity, bluster, and ego, perhaps allowing them to incriminate themselves, before the real business of the scene begins.
