The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works
Page 163
cherish thy guests, thou shalt find me tractable to any
honest reason, thou seest I am pacified still, nay
prithee be gone. Exit Hostess.
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Now, Hal, to the news at court: for the robbery, lad,
how is that answered?
PRINCE O my sweet beef, I must still be good angel to
thee – the money is paid back again.
FALSTAFF O, I do not like that paying back, ’tis a double
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labour.
PRINCE I am good friends with my father and may do
anything.
FALSTAFF Rob me the exchequer the first thing thou
dost, and do it with unwashed hands too.
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BARDOLPH Do, my lord.
PRINCE I have procured thee, Jack, a charge of foot.
FALSTAFF I would it had been of horse. Where shall I
find one that can steal well? O for a fine thief of the age
of two and twenty or thereabouts: I am heinously
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unprovided. Well, God be thanked for these rebels,
they offend none but the virtuous; I laud them, I
praise them.
PRINCE Bardolph!
BARDOLPH My Lord?
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PRINCE 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 tomorrow in the Temple hall
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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.
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FALSTAFF
Rare words! Brave world! Hostess, my breakfast, come!
O, I could wish this tavern were my drum. Exit.
4.1 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.
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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:
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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?
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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 bear his mind, not I, my lord.
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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.
WORCESTER
I would the state of time had first been whole
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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.
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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 remov’d but on his own.
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Yet doth he give us bold advertisement
That with our small conjunction we should on,
To see how fortune is dispos’d to us;
For, as he writes, there is no quailing now,
Because the King is certainly possess’d
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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 lopp’d off –
And yet, in faith, it is not! His present want
Seems more than we shall find it. Were it good
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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,
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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.
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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:
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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;
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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,
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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.
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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
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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.
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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,
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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,
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And his comrades that daft the world aside
And bid it pass?
VERNON All furnish’d, all in arms;
All plum’d like estridges that with the wind
Bated, like eagles having lately bath’d,
Glittering in golden coats like images,
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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 arm’d,
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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.
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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-ey’d maid of smoky war
All hot and bleeding will we offer them:
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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
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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
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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:
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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
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Of death or death’s hand for this one half year.
Exeunt.
4.2 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.
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BARDOLPH This bottle makes an angel.
FALSTAFF And 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.
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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 householders, yeomen’s sons,
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inquire me out contracted bachelors, such as had been
asked twice on the banns, such a commodity of warm
slaves as had as lief 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-
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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
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glutton’s dogs licked his sores: and such as indeed
were never soldiers, but discarded unjust servingmen,
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-
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ragged than an old fazed ancient; and such have I to
fill up the rooms of them as have bought out their
services, that you would think that I had a hundred