⌜Enter Hotspur, Worcester, and Douglas.⌝HOTSPUR Well said, my noble Scot. If speaking truth In this fine age were not thought flattery, Such attribution should the Douglas have As not a soldier of this season’s stamp5 Should go so general current through the world. By God, I cannot flatter. I do defy The tongues of soothers. But a braver place In my heart’s love hath no man than yourself. Nay, task me to my word; approve me, lord.DOUGLAS 10Thou art the king of honor. No man so potent breathes upon the ground But I will beard him.HOTSPUR Do so, and ’tis well. Enter ⌜a Messenger⌝ with letters. What letters hast thou there? ⌜To Douglas.⌝ I can but15 thank you.MESSENGER These letters come from your father.HOTSPUR Letters from him! Why comes he not himself?MESSENGER He cannot come, my lord. He is grievous sick.
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HOTSPUR Zounds, how has he the leisure to be sick20 In such a justling time? Who leads his power? Under whose government come they along?MESSENGER , ⌜handing letter to Hotspur, who begins
reading it⌝ His letters bears his mind, not I, my ⌜lord.⌝WORCESTER I prithee, tell me, doth he keep his bed?MESSENGER He did, my lord, four days ere I set forth,25 And, at the time of my departure thence, He was much feared by his physicians.WORCESTER I would the state of time had first been whole Ere he by sickness had been visited. His health was never better worth than now.HOTSPUR 30 Sick now? Droop now? This sickness doth infect The very lifeblood of our enterprise. ’Tis catching hither, even to our camp. He writes me here that inward sickness— And that his friends by deputation35 Could not so soon be drawn, nor did he think it meet To lay so dangerous and dear a trust On any soul removed but on his own; Yet doth he give us bold advertisement40 That with our small conjunction we should on To see how fortune is disposed to us, For, as he writes, there is no quailing now, Because the King is certainly possessed Of all our purposes. What say you to it?WORCESTER 45 Your father’s sickness is a maim to us.
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HOTSPUR A perilous gash, a very limb lopped off! And yet, in faith, it is not. His present want Seems more than we shall find it. Were it good To set the exact wealth of all our states50 All at one cast? To set so rich a main On the nice hazard of one doubtful hour? It were not good, for therein should we read The very bottom and the soul of hope, The very list, the very utmost bound55 Of all our fortunes.DOUGLAS Faith, and so we should, where now remains A sweet reversion. We may boldly spend Upon the hope of what ⌜is⌝ to come in. A comfort of retirement lives in this.HOTSPUR 60 A rendezvous, a home to fly unto, If that the devil and mischance look big Upon the maidenhead of our affairs.WORCESTER But yet I would your father had been here. The quality and hair of our attempt65 Brooks no division. It will be thought By some that know not why he is away That wisdom, loyalty, and mere dislike Of our proceedings kept the Earl from hence. And think how such an apprehension70 May turn the tide of fearful faction And breed a kind of question in our cause. For well you know, we of the off’ring side Must keep aloof from strict arbitrament, And stop all sight-holes, every loop from whence75 The eye of reason may pry in upon us. This absence of your father’s draws a curtain
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That shows the ignorant a kind of fear Before not dreamt of.HOTSPUR You strain too far.80 I rather of his absence make this use: It lends a luster and more great opinion, A larger dare, to our great enterprise Than if the Earl were here, for men must think If we without his help can make a head85 To push against a kingdom, with his help We shall o’erturn it topsy-turvy down. Yet all goes well; yet all our joints are whole.DOUGLAS As heart can think. There is not such a word Spoke of in Scotland as this term of fear. Enter Sir Richard Vernon.HOTSPUR 90 My cousin Vernon, welcome, by my soul.VERNON Pray God my news be worth a welcome, lord. The Earl of Westmoreland, seven thousand strong, Is marching hitherwards, with him Prince John.HOTSPUR No harm, what more?VERNON 95 And further I have learned The King himself in person is set forth, Or hitherwards intended speedily, With strong and mighty preparation.HOTSPUR He shall be welcome too. Where is his son,100 The nimble-footed madcap Prince of Wales, And his comrades, that daffed the world aside And bid it pass?VERNON All furnished, all in arms, All plumed like estridges that with the wind105 Bated like eagles having lately bathed,
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Glittering in golden coats like images, As full of spirit as the month of May, And gorgeous as the sun at midsummer, Wanton as youthful goats, wild as young bulls.110 I saw young Harry with his beaver on, His cuisses on his thighs, gallantly armed, Rise from the ground like feathered Mercury And vaulted with such ease into his seat As if an angel ⌜dropped⌝ down from the clouds,115 To turn and wind a fiery Pegasus And witch the world with noble horsemanship.HOTSPUR No more, no more! Worse than the sun in March This praise doth nourish agues. Let them come. They come like sacrifices in their trim,120 And to the fire-eyed maid of smoky war All hot and bleeding will we offer them. The mailèd Mars shall on his ⌜altar⌝ sit Up to the ears in blood. I am on fire To hear this rich reprisal is so nigh125 And yet not ours. Come, let me taste my horse, Who is to bear me like a thunderbolt Against the bosom of the Prince of Wales. Harry to Harry shall, hot horse to horse, Meet and ne’er part till one drop down a corse.130 O, that Glendower were come!VERNON There is more news. I learned in Worcester, as I rode along, He ⌜cannot⌝ draw his power this fourteen days.DOUGLAS That’s the worst tidings that I hear of ⌜yet.⌝WORCESTER 135 Ay, by my faith, that bears a frosty sound.HOTSPUR What may the King’s whole battle reach unto?
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VERNON To thirty thousand.HOTSPUR Forty let it be. My father and Glendower being both away,140 The powers of us may serve so great a day. Come, let us take a muster speedily. Doomsday is near. Die all, die merrily.DOUGLAS Talk not of dying. I am out of fear Of death or death’s hand for this one half year. They exit.
Henry IV, Part 1
