The Illustrated Works of Shakespeare/Illustrated Works of Shakespeare, The (1990)(Animated Pixels)[!][CDTV-PC].iso/shakes/text/08/04_01

Text File | 1991-04-10 | 7KB | 185 lines

The Rebel Camp near Shrewsbury.
 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 stamp
    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    Thou art the king of honour.
    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 but 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.

Hotspur    Zounds, how has he the leisure to be sick
    In such a justling time? Who leads his power?
    Under whose government come they along?

Messenger    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;
    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    Sick now? Droop now? This sickness doth infect
    The very life-blood of our enterprise;
    'Tis catching hither, even to our camp.
    He writes me here that inward sickness ....
    And that his friends by deputation
    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 advertisement
    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    Your father's sickness is a maim to us.

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 states
    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 bound,
    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    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 attempt
    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 apprehension
    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 arbitrement,
    And stop all sight-holes, every loop from whence
    The eye of reason may pry in upon us.
    This absence of your father's draws a curtain
    That shows the ignorant a kind of fear
    Before not dreamt of.

Hotspur                                You strain too far.
    I rather of his absence make this use:
    It lends a lustre 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 head
    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    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                            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,
    The nimble-footed madcap Prince of Wales,
    And his comrades that daft the world aside
    And bid it pass?

Vernon                        All furnished, all in arms;
    All plumed like estridges that with the wind
    Bated like eagles having lately bathed,
    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.
    I saw young Harry with his beaver on,
    His cushes 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
    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,
    And to the fire-eyed maid of smoky war
    All hot and bleeding will we offer them.
    The maild Mars shall on his altar sit
    Up to the ears in blood. I am on fire
    To hear this rich reprisal is so nigh
    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.
    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    Ay, by my faith, that bears a frosty sound.

Hotspur    What may the king's whole battle reach unto?

Vernon    To thirty thousand.

Hotspur                                Forty let it be.
    My father and Glendower being both away,
    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.
                                                [Exeunt.