William Shakespeare: The Complete Works 2nd Edition (233 page)
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Authors: William Shakespeare
Tags: #Drama, #Literary Criticism, #Shakespeare
BOOK: William Shakespeare: The Complete Works 2nd Edition
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VERNON There is more news.
I learned in Worcester, as I rode along,
He cannot draw his power this fourteen days.
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.
My father and Glyndŵr 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.
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
Of death or death’s hand for this one half year.
Of death or death’s hand for this one half year.
Exeunt
4.2Enter Sir John Oldcastle and Russell
SIR JOHN Russell, get thee before to Coventry; fill me a bottle of sack. Our soldiers shall march through. We’ll to Sutton Coldfield tonight.
RUSSELL Will you give me money, captain?
SIR JOHN Lay out, lay out. 5
RUSSELL This bottle makes an angel.
SIR JOHN
giving Russell money
⌉ An if it do, take it for thy labour; an if it make twenty, take them all; I’ll answer the coinage. Bid my lieutenant Harvey meet me at town’s end.
giving Russell money⌉ An if it do, take it for thy labour; an if it make twenty, take them all; I’ll answer the coinage. Bid my lieutenant Harvey meet me at town’s end.
RUSSELL I will, captain. Farewell.
Exit
Exit
SIR JOHN 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 one hundred and fifty soldiers three hundred and odd pounds. I press me none but good householders, yeomen’s sons, enquire 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 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 ensigns, 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 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-ragged than an old feazed ensign; 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 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 not a shirt and a half in all my company; and the half-shirt is two napkins tacked together and thrown over the shoulders like a herald’s coat without sleeves; and the shirt, to say the truth, stolen from my host at Saint Albans, or the red-nose innkeeper of Daventry. But that’s all one; they’ll find linen enough on every hedge. 48
Enter Prince Harry and the Earl of Westmorland
PRINCE HARRY How now, blown Jack? How now, quilt?
SIR JOHN What, Hal! How now, mad wag? What a devil dost thou in Warwickshire? My good lord of Westmorland, I cry you mercy! I thought your honour had already been at Shrewsbury.
WESTMORLAND 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.
SIR JOHN Tut, never fear me. I am as vigilant as a cat to steal cream.
PRINCE HARRY 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?
SIR JOHN Mine, Hal, mine.
PRINCE HARRY I did never see such pitiful rascals.
SIR JOHN 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.
WESTMORLAND Ay, but Sir John, methinks they are exceeding poor and bare, too beggarly.
SIR JOHN 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 HARRY No, I’ll be sworn, unless you call three fingers in the ribs bare. But sirrah, make haste. Percy is already in the field. Exit
SIR JOHN What, is the King encamped?
WESTMORLAND He is, Sir John. I fear we shall stay too long.
Exit
⌉
Exit⌉
SIR JOHN
Well, to the latter end of a fray
And the beginning of a feast
Fits a dull fighter and a keen guest. Exit
4.3And the beginning of a feast
Fits a dull fighter and a keen guest. Exit
Enter Hotspur, the Earls of Worcester and Douglas, and Sir Richard Vernon
HOTSPUR
We’ll fight with him tonight.
WORCESTER It may not be.
DOUGLAS
You give him then 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.
WORCESTER
Good cousin, be advised. Stir not tonight.
VERNON (
to Hotspur
)
to Hotspur
)
Do not, my lord.
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, 10
I hold as little counsel with weak fear
As you, my lord, or any Scot that this day lives.
Let it be seen tomorrow in the battle
Which of us fears.
And I dare well maintain it with my life—
If well-respected honour bid me on, 10
I hold as little counsel with weak fear
As you, my lord, or any Scot that this day lives.
Let it be seen tomorrow in the battle
Which of us fears.
DOUGLAS Yea, or tonight. 15
VERNON Content.
HOTSPUR Tonight, say I.
VERNON
Come, come, it may 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 himself.
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 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.
In general journey-bated and brought low.
The better part of ours are full of rest.
WORCESTER
The number of the King exceedeth our.
For God’s sake, cousin, stay till all come in.
For God’s sake, cousin, stay till all come in.
The trumpet sounds a parley
[
within
].
Enter Sir Walter Blunt
BLUNT
I come with gracious offers from the King,
If you vouchsafe me hearing and respect.
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.
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.
BLUNT
And God defend but still I should stand so,
So long as out of limit and true rule
You stand against anointed majesty.
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.
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 performed it too.
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 performed 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, proffered him their oaths,
Gave him their heirs as pages, followed 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.
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, proffered him their oaths,
Gave him their heirs as pages, followed 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.
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 tasked the whole state;
To make that worse, suffered 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, 100
Rated mine uncle from the Council-board,
In rage dismissed 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 105
Into his title, the which we find
Too indirect for long continuance.
Soon after that deprived him of his life,
And in the neck of that tasked the whole state;
To make that worse, suffered 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, 100
Rated mine uncle from the Council-board,
In rage dismissed 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 105
Into his title, the which we find
Too indirect for long continuance.
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 impawned 110
Some surety for a safe return again;
And in the morning early shall mine uncle
Bring him our purposes. And so, farewell.
Some surety for a safe return again;
And in the morning early shall mine uncle
Bring him our purposes. And so, farewell.
BLUNT
I would you would accept of grace and love.
HOTSPUR
And maybe so we shall.
BLUNT Pray God you do.
Exeunt
[
Hotspur, Worcester, Douglas, and Vernon at one door
,
Blunt at another door
⌉
[
Hotspur, Worcester, Douglas, and Vernon at one door
,
Blunt at another door
⌉
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