Act IV, Scene i:
The Rebel Camp near Shrewsbury.

[Enter Hotspur, Worcester, and Douglas.]

HOT.:

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 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.

DOUG.:

Thou art the king of honour:

No man so potent breathes upon the ground

But I will beard him.

HOT.:

Do so, and 'tis well.—

[Enter a Messenger with letters.]

What letters hast thou there?—I can but thank you.

MESS.:

These letters come from your father.

HOT.:

Letters from him! why comes he not himself?

MESS.:

He cannot come, my lord; he's grievous sick.

HOT.:

Zwounds! how has he the leisure to be sick

In such a justling time? Who leads his power?

Under whose government come they along?

MESS.:

His letters bears his mind, not I, my lord.

WOR.:

I pr'ythee, tell me, doth he keep his bed?

MESS.:

He did, my lord, four days ere I set forth,

And at the time of my departure thence

He was much fear'd by his physicians.

WOR.:

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.

HOT.:

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; no 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 possess'd

Of all our purposes. What say you to it?

WOR.:

Your father's sickness is a maim to us.

HOT.:

A perilous gash, a very limb lopp'd off:—

And yet, in faith, 'tis 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.

DOUG.:

Faith, and so we should;

Where now remains a sweet reversion;

And we may boldly spend upon the hope

Of what is to come in:

A comfort of retirement lives in this.

HOT.:

A rendezvous, a home to fly unto,

If that the Devil and mischance look big

Upon the maidenhead of our affairs.

WOR.:

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 offering 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.

HOT.:

Nay, 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 the kingdom, with his help

We shall o'erturn it topsy-turvy down.

Yet all goes well, yet all our joints are whole.

DOUG.:

As heart can think: there is not such a word

Spoke in Scotland as this term of fear.

[Enter Sir Richard Vernon.]

HOT.:

My cousin Vernon! welcome, by my soul.

VER.:

Pray God my news be worth a welcome, lord.

The Earl of Westmoreland, seven thousand strong,

Is marching hitherwards; with him Prince John.

HOT.:

No harm: what more?

VER.:

And further, I have learn'd

The King himself in person is set forth,

Or hitherwards intended speedily,

With strong and mighty preparation.

HOT.:

He shall be welcome too. Where is his son,

The nimble-footed madcap Prince of Wales,

And his comrades, that daff the world aside,

And bid it pass?

VER.:

All furnish'd, all in arms;

All plumed like estridges that with the wind

Bate it; 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 cuisses on his thighs, gallantly arm'd—

Rise from the ground like feather'd Mercury,

And vault it with such ease into his seat,

As if an angel dropp'd down from the clouds,

To turn and wind a fiery Pegasus,

And witch the world with noble horsemanship.

HOT.:

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 mailed 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 and Harry shall, hot horse to horse,

Meet, and ne'er part till one drop down a corse.—

O, that Glendower were come!

VER.:

There is more news:

I learn'd in Worcester, as I rode along,

He cannot draw his power this fourteen days.

DOUG.:

That's the worst tidings that I hear of yet.

WOR.:

Ay, by my faith, that bears a frosty sound.

HOT.:

What may the King's whole battle reach unto?

VER.:

To thirty thousand.

HOT.:

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.

DOUG.:

Talk not of dying: I am out of fear

Of death or death's hand for this one half-year.

[Exeunt.]