The History of Henrie the fovrth
Act IV.
Scene i. 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.
- Earl Of 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?—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 rustling time? Who leads his power?
- Under whose government come they along?
- Messenger: His letters bear his mind, not I, my lord.
- Earl Of 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 fear'd by his physicians.
- Earl Of 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 possess'd
- Of all our purposes. What say you to it?
- Earl Of Worcester: Your father's sickness is a maim to us.
- Hotspur: 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.
- Earl Of 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.
- Earl Of 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 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.
- 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.
- Earl Of 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 learn'd,
- 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 daff'd the world aside,
- And bid it pass?
- Vernon: 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.
- 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 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 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 learn'd in Worcester, as I rode along,
- He cannot draw his power this fourteen days.
- Earl Of 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.
- Earl Of Douglas: Talk not of dying: I am out of fear
- Of death or death's hand for this one-half year.
- Exeunt
Scene ii. A public road near Coventry.
- Enter Falstaff and Bardolph
- Falstaff: Bardolph, get thee before to Coventry; fill me a
- bottle of sack: our soldiers shall march through;
- we'll to Sutton Co'fil' tonight.
- Bardolph: Will you give me money, captain?
- Falstaff: Lay out, lay out.
- Bardolph: This bottle makes an angel.
- Falstaff: An if it do, take it for thy labour; and if it make
- twenty, take them all; I'll answer the coinage. Bid
- my lieutenant Peto meet me at town's end.
- Bardolph: I will, captain: farewell.
- Exit
- Falstaff: If I be not ashamed of my soldiers, I am a soused
- gurnet. I have misused the king's press damnably.
- I have got, in exchange of a hundred and fifty
- soldiers, three hundred and odd pounds. I press me
- none but good house-holders, yeoman's sons; inquire
- me out contracted bachelors, such as had been asked
- twice on the banns; such a commodity of warm slaves,
- as had as lieve hear the devil as a drum; such as
- fear the report of a caliver worse than a struck
- fowl or a hurt wild-duck. I pressed me none but such
- toasts-and-butter, with hearts in their bellies no
- bigger than pins' heads, and they have bought out
- their services; and now my whole charge consists of
- ancients, corporals, lieutenants, gentlemen of
- companies, slaves as ragged as Lazarus in the
- painted cloth, where the glutton's dogs licked his
- sores; and such as indeed were never soldiers, but
- discarded unjust serving-men, younger sons to
- younger brothers, revolted tapsters and ostlers
- trade-fallen, the cankers of a calm world and a
- long peace, ten times more dishonourable ragged than
- an old faced ancient: and such have I, to fill up
- the rooms of them that have bought out their
- services, that you would think that I had a hundred
- and fifty tattered prodigals lately come from
- swine-keeping, from eating draff and husks. A mad
- fellow met me on the way and told me I had unloaded
- all the gibbets and pressed the dead bodies. No eye
- hath seen such scarecrows. I'll not march through
- Coventry with them, that's flat: nay, and the
- villains march wide betwixt the legs, as if they had
- gyves on; for indeed I had the most of them out of
- prison. There's but a shirt and a half in all my
- company; and the half shirt is two napkins tacked
- together and thrown over the shoulders like an
- herald's coat without sleeves; and the shirt, to say
- the truth, stolen from my host at Saint Alban's, or
- the red-nose innkeeper of Daventry. But that's all
- one; they'll find linen enough on every hedge.
- Enter the Prince and Westmoreland
- Prince Henry: How now, blown Jack! how now, quilt!
- Falstaff: What, Hal! how now, mad wag! what a devil dost thou
- in Warwickshire? My good Lord of Westmoreland, I
- cry you mercy: I thought your honour had already been
- at Shrewsbury.
- Westmoreland: Faith, Sir John,'tis more than time that I were
- there, and you too; but my powers are there already.
- The king, I can tell you, looks for us all: we must
- away all night.
- Falstaff: Tut, never fear me: I am as vigilant as a cat to
- steal cream.
- Prince Henry: I think, to steal cream indeed, for thy theft hath
- already made thee butter. But tell me, Jack, whose
- fellows are these that come after?
- Falstaff: Mine, Hal, mine.
- Prince Henry: I did never see such pitiful rascals.
- Falstaff: Tut, tut; good enough to toss; food for powder, food
- for powder; they'll fill a pit as well as better:
- tush, man, mortal men, mortal men.
- Westmoreland: Ay, but, Sir John, methinks they are exceeding poor
- and bare, too beggarly.
- Falstaff: 'Faith, for their poverty, I know not where they had
- that; and for their bareness, I am sure they never
- learned that of me.
- Prince Henry: No I'll be sworn; unless you call three fingers on
- the ribs bare. But, sirrah, make haste: Percy is
- already in the field.
- Falstaff: What, is the king encamped?
- Westmoreland: He is, Sir John: I fear we shall stay too long.
- Falstaff: Well,
- To the latter end of a fray and the beginning of a feast
- Fits a dull fighter and a keen guest.
- Exeunt
Scene iii. The rebel camp near Shrewsbury.
- Enter Hotspur, Worcester, Douglas, and Vernon
- Hotspur: We'll fight with him to-night.
- Earl Of Worcester: It may not be.
- Earl Of Douglas: You give him then the advantage.
- Vernon: Not a whit.
- Hotspur: Why say you so? looks he not for supply?
- Vernon: So do we.
- Hotspur: His is certain, ours is doubtful.
- Earl Of Worcester: Good cousin, be advised; stir not tonight.
- Vernon: Do not, my lord.
- Earl Of Douglas: You do not counsel well:
- You speak it out of fear and cold heart.
- Vernon: Do me no slander, Douglas: by my life,
- And I dare well maintain it with my life,
- If well-respected honour bid me on,
- I hold as little counsel with weak fear
- As you, my lord, or any Scot that this day lives:
- Let it be seen to-morrow in the battle
- Which of us fears.
- Earl Of Douglas: Yea, or to-night.
- Vernon: Content.
- Hotspur: To-night, say I.
- Vernon: Come, come it nay not be. I wonder much,
- Being men of such great leading as you are,
- That you foresee not what impediments
- Drag back our expedition: certain horse
- Of my cousin Vernon's are not yet come up:
- Your uncle Worcester's horse came but today;
- And now their pride and mettle is asleep,
- Their courage with hard labour tame and dull,
- That not a horse is half the half of himself.
- Hotspur: So are the horses of the enemy
- In general, journey-bated and brought low:
- The better part of ours are full of rest.
- Earl Of Worcester: The number of the king exceedeth ours:
- For God's sake. cousin, stay till all come in.
- The trumpet sounds a parley
- Enter Sir Walter Blunt
- Sir Walter Blunt: I come with gracious offers from the king,
- if you vouchsafe me hearing and respect.
- Hotspur: Welcome, Sir Walter Blunt; and would to God
- You were of our determination!
- Some of us love you well; and even those some
- Envy your great deservings and good name,
- Because you are not of our quality,
- But stand against us like an enemy.
- Sir Walter Blunt: And God defend but still I should stand so,
- So long as out of limit and true rule
- You stand against anointed majesty.
- But to my charge. The king hath sent to know
- The nature of your griefs, and whereupon
- You conjure from the breast of civil peace
- Such bold hostility, teaching his duteous land
- Audacious cruelty. If that the king
- Have any way your good deserts forgot,
- Which he confesseth to be manifold,
- He bids you name your griefs; and with all speed
- You shall have your desires with interest
- And pardon absolute for yourself and these
- Herein misled by your suggestion.
- Hotspur: The king is kind; and well we know the king
- Knows at what time to promise, when to pay.
- My father and my uncle and myself
- Did give him that same royalty he wears;
- And when he was not six and twenty strong,
- Sick in the world's regard, wretched and low,
- A poor unminded outlaw sneaking home,
- My father gave him welcome to the shore;
- And when he heard him swear and vow to God
- He came but to be Duke of Lancaster,
- To sue his livery and beg his peace,
- With tears of innocency and terms of zeal,
- My father, in kind heart and pity moved,
- Swore him assistance and perform'd it too.
- Now when the lords and barons of the realm
- Perceived Northumberland did lean to him,
- The more and less came in with cap and knee;
- Met him in boroughs, cities, villages,
- Attended him on bridges, stood in lanes,
- Laid gifts before him, proffer'd him their oaths,
- Gave him their heirs, as pages follow'd him
- Even at the heels in golden multitudes.
- He presently, as greatness knows itself,
- Steps me a little higher than his vow
- Made to my father, while his blood was poor,
- Upon the naked shore at Ravenspurgh;
- And now, forsooth, takes on him to reform
- Some certain edicts and some strait decrees
- That lie too heavy on the commonwealth,
- Cries out upon abuses, seems to weep
- Over his country's wrongs; and by this face,
- This seeming brow of justice, did he win
- The hearts of all that he did angle for;
- Proceeded further; cut me off the heads
- Of all the favourites that the absent king
- In deputation left behind him here,
- When he was personal in the Irish war.
- Sir Walter Blunt: Tut, I came not to hear this.
- Hotspur: Then to the point.
- In short time after, he deposed the king;
- Soon after that, deprived him of his life;
- And in the neck of that, task'd the whole state:
- To make that worse, suffer'd his kinsman March,
- Who is, if every owner were well placed,
- Indeed his king, to be engaged in Wales,
- There without ransom to lie forfeited;
- Disgraced me in my happy victories,
- Sought to entrap me by intelligence;
- Rated mine uncle from the council-board;
- In rage dismiss'd my father from the court;
- Broke oath on oath, committed wrong on wrong,
- And in conclusion drove us to seek out
- This head of safety; and withal to pry
- Into his title, the which we find
- Too indirect for long continuance.
- Sir Walter Blunt: Shall I return this answer to the king?
- Hotspur: Not so, Sir Walter: we'll withdraw awhile.
- Go to the king; and let there be impawn'd
- Some surety for a safe return again,
- And in the morning early shall my uncle
- Bring him our purposes: and so farewell.
- Sir Walter Blunt: I would you would accept of grace and love.
- Hotspur: And may be so we shall.
- Sir Walter Blunt: Pray God you do.
- Exeunt
Scene iv. York. The Archbishop's palace.
- Enter the Archbishop Of York and Sir Michael
- Archbishop Of York: Hie, good Sir Michael; bear this sealed brief
- With winged haste to the lord marshal;
- This to my cousin Scroop, and all the rest
- To whom they are directed. If you knew
- How much they do to import, you would make haste.
- Sir Michael: My good lord,
- I guess their tenor.
- Archbishop Of York: Like enough you do.
- To-morrow, good Sir Michael, is a day
- Wherein the fortune of ten thousand men
- Must bide the touch; for, sir, at Shrewsbury,
- As I am truly given to understand,
- The king with mighty and quick-raised power
- Meets with Lord Harry: and, I fear, Sir Michael,
- What with the sickness of Northumberland,
- Whose power was in the first proportion,
- And what with Owen Glendower's absence thence,
- Who with them was a rated sinew too
- And comes not in, o'er-ruled by prophecies,
- I fear the power of Percy is too weak
- To wage an instant trial with the king.
- Sir Michael: Why, my good lord, you need not fear;
- There is Douglas and Lord Mortimer.
- Archbishop Of York: No, Mortimer is not there.
- Sir Michael: But there is Mordake, Vernon, Lord Harry Percy,
- And there is my Lord of Worcester and a head
- Of gallant warriors, noble gentlemen.
- Archbishop Of York: And so there is: but yet the king hath drawn
- The special head of all the land together:
- The Prince of Wales, Lord John of Lancaster,
- The noble Westmoreland and warlike Blunt;
- And moe corrivals and dear men
- Of estimation and command in arms.
- Sir Michael: Doubt not, my lord, they shall be well opposed.
- Archbishop Of York: I hope no less, yet needful 'tis to fear;
- And, to prevent the worst, Sir Michael, speed:
- For if Lord Percy thrive not, ere the king
- Dismiss his power, he means to visit us,
- For he hath heard of our confederacy,
- And 'tis but wisdom to make strong against him:
- Therefore make haste. I must go write again
- To other friends; and so farewell, Sir Michael.
- Exeunt
- --oOo-- -