King Henry IV, Part 1 by William Shakespeare (good novels to read in english .TXT) 📕

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 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; no 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?

WOR. Your father’s sickness is a maim to us.

HOT. A perilous gash, a very limb lopp’d off:— And yet, in faith, ‘tis 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.

DOUG. Faith, and so we should; Where now remains a sweet reversion; And we may boldly spend upon the hope Of what is to come in: A comfort of retirement lives in this.

HOT. A rendezvous, a home to fly unto, If that the Devil and mischance look big Upon the maidenhead of our affairs.

WOR. 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.

HOT. Nay, 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 the kingdom, with his help We shall o’erturn it topsy-turvy down. Yet all goes well, yet all our joints are whole.

DOUG. As heart can think: there is not such a word Spoke 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 madcap Prince of Wales, And his comrades, that daff the world aside, And bid it pass?

VER. All furnish’d, all in arms; All plumed like estridges that with the wind Bate it; 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 vault it 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.

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-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 and Harry shall, hot horse to horse, Meet, and ne’er part till one drop down a corse.— O, that Glendower were come!

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: 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.

DOUG. 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.]

FAL. Bardolph, get thee before to Coventry; fill me a bottle of sack: our soldiers shall march through; we’ll to Sutton-Co’fil’ to-night.

BARD. Will you give me money, captain?

FAL. Lay out, lay out.

BARD. This bottle makes an angel.

FAL. 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 Peto meet me at the town’s end.

BARD. I will, captain: farewell.

[Exit.]

FAL. 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’d me none but good householders, yeomen’s sons; inquired me out contracted bachelors, such as had been ask’d 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 press’d me none but such toasts-and-butter, with hearts in their bodies 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 press’d 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 tack’d 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 Alban’s, or the red-nose innkeeper of Daventry. But that’s all one; they’ll find linen enough on every hedge.

[Enter Prince Henry and Westmoreland.]

PRINCE. How now, blown Jack! how now, quilt!

FAL. 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.

WEST. 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, to-night.

FAL. Tut, never fear me: I am as vigilant as a cat to steal cream.

PRINCE. 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?

FAL. Mine, Hal, mine.

PRINCE. I did never see such pitiful rascals.

FAL. 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.

WEST. Ay, but, Sir John, methinks they are exceeding poor and bare,—too beggarly.

FAL. Faith, for their poverty, I know not where they had that; and, for their bareness, I am sure they never learn’d that of me.

PRINCE. No, I’ll be sworn; unless you call three fingers on the ribs bare. But, sirrah, make haste: Percy is already in the field.

[Exit.]

FAL. What, is the King encamp’d?

WEST. He is, Sir John: I fear we shall stay too long.

[Exit.]

FAL. Well, To the latter end of a fray and the beginning of a feast Fits a dull fighter and a keen guest.

[Exit.]

Scene III. The Rebel Camp near Shrewsbury.

[Enter Hotspur, Worcester, Douglas, and Vernon.]

HOT. We’ll fight with him to-night.

WOR. It may not be.

DOUG. You give him, then, advantage.

VER. Not a whit.

HOT. Why say you so? looks he not for supply?

VER. So do we.

HOT. His is certain, ours is doubtful.

WOR. Good cousin, be advised; stir not to-night.

VER. Do not, my lord.

DOUG. You do not counsel well: You speak it out of fear and cold heart.

VER. 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.

DOUG. Yea, or to-night.

VER. Content.

HOT. To-night, say I.

VER. 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 to-day; 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.

HOT. So are the horses of the enemy In general, journey-bated and brought low: The better part of ours are full of rest.

WOR. 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.]

BLUNT. I come with gracious offers from the King, If you vouchsafe me hearing and respect.

HOT. 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.

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