All plumed like ostriches, that with the wind
⌈ ⌉
Baiting 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, 105
His cuishes on his thighs, gallantly armed,
Rise from the ground like feathered Mercury,
And vaulted with such ease into his seat
As if an angel dropped down from the clouds
To turn and wind a fiery Pegasus, 110
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 115
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 corpse.
O, that Glyndwr were come!
VERNON There is more news.
I learned in Worcester, as I rode along,
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.
DOUGLAS
Talk not of dying; I am out of fear
Of death or death’s hand for this one half year.
Exeunt
4.2 Enter 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
RUSSELL I will, captain. Farewell. 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.
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
4.3 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)
Do not, my lord.