Henry IV, Part I, William Shakespeare [good books to read in english .TXT] 📗
- Author: William Shakespeare
Book online «Henry IV, Part I, William Shakespeare [good books to read in english .TXT] 📗». Author William Shakespeare
Go bear this letter to Lord John of Lancaster, to my brother John; this to my Lord of Westmoreland. Exit Bardolph. Go, Peto, to horse, to horse; for thou and I have thirty miles to ride yet ere dinner time. Exit Peto. Jack, meet me to-morrow in the temple hall at two o’clock in the afternoon.
There shalt thou know thy charge; and there receive
Money and order for their furniture.
The land is burning; Percy stands on high;
And either we or they must lower lie. Exit Prince Henry.
Rare words! brave world! Hostess, my breakfast, come!
O, I could wish this tavern were my drum! Exit.
The rebel camp near Shrewsbury.
Enter Hotspur, Worcester, and Douglas. HotspurWell 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.
Thou art the king of honour:
No man so potent breathes upon the ground
But I will beard him.
’Zounds! how has he the leisure to be sick
In such a rustling time? Who leads his power?
Under whose government come they along?
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.
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.
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 possess’d
Of all our purposes. What say you to it?
A perilous gash, a very limb lopp’d 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.
’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.
A rendezvous, a home to fly unto,
If that the devil and mischance look big
Upon the maidenhead of our affairs.
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.
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.
As heart can think: there is not such a word
Spoke of in Scotland as this term of fear.
Pray God my news be worth a welcome, lord.
The Earl of Westmoreland, seven thousand strong,
Is marching hitherwards; with him Prince John.
And further, I have learn’d,
The king himself in person is set forth,
Or hitherwards intended speedily,
With strong and mighty preparation.
He shall be welcome too. Where is his son,
The nimble-footed madcap Prince of Wales,
And his comrades, that daff’d the world aside,
And bid it pass?
All furnish’d, all in arms;
All plumed like estridges that with the wind
Baited 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 vaulted 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.
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
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