ACT IV. SCENE I.- The Rebel Camp near Shrewsbury. Enter HOTSPUR, WORCESTER, and DOUGLAS. Hot. Well said, my noble Scot: If speaking truth, The tongues of soothers; but a braver place No man so potent breathes upon the ground, Hot. Do so, and 'tis well: Enter a Messenger, with Letters. you. What letters hast thou there? I can but thank 3 Mess. His letters bear 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; I defy-] To defy means here to disdain. ♦ But I will beard him.] To beard is to oppose face to face in a hostile or daring manner. 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 enterprize; 'Tis catching hither, even to our camp. For, as he writes, there is no quailing now; 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:- Seems more than we shall find it :- Were it good, All at one cast? to set so rich a main Doug. 'Faith, and so we should; 5 On any soul remov'd] On any less near to himself; on any whose interest is remote. 6 no quailing:] To quail is to languish, to sink into dejection. 7 The very list,] The list is the selvage; figuratively, the utmost line of circumference, the utmost extent. 8 Where now remains a sweet reversion: We may boldly spend upon the hope of what A comfort of retirement lives in this. Hot. A rendezvous, a home to fly unto, If that the devil and mischance look big Wor. But yet, I would your father had been here. And breed a kind of question in our cause: And stop all sight-holes, every loop, from whence This absence of your father's draws a curtain,3 Hot. You strain too far. s Where now remains-] Where, is used here for whereas. It is often used with that signification by our author and his contemporaries. 9 A comfort of retirement-] A support to which we may have recourse. 1 The quality and hair-] The hair seems to be the complexion, the character. The metaphor appears harsh to us, but, perhaps, was familiar in our author's time. We still say something is against the hair, as against the grain, i. e. against the natural tendency. 2 we of the offering side-] The offering side may mean simply the assailant, in opposition to the defendant: and it is likewise true of him that offers war, or makes an invasion, that his cause ought to be kept clear from all objections. 3 This absence of your father's draws a curtain,] To draw a curtain had anciently the same meaning as to undraw one has at present. I, rather, of his absence make this use; It lends a lustre, and more great opinion, Than if the earl were here: for men must think, To push against the kingdom; with his help, Yet all goes well, yet all our joints are whole Doug. As heart can think: there is not such a word Spoke of 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 mad-cap prince of Wales, And his comrades, that daff'd the world aside, 4 Ver. ↑ All plum'd like estridges, that wing the wind; Bated like eagles, &c.] i. e. all dressed like the prince himself, the ostrich-feather being the cognizance of the prince of Wales. To bate is, in the style of falconry, to beat the wing, from the French, battre, that is, to flutter in preparation for flight. 5 His cuisses on his thighs, gallantly arm'd, - 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-ey'd 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 take 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. 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; Doug. Talk not of dying; I am out of fear [Exeunt. 5 His cuisses,] Cuisses, French. Armour for the thighs. 6 And witch-] For bewitch, charm. |