Henry IV Part 1: Act 4, Scene 1 Translation

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. 5
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 honor. 10
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? To Douglas. I can but
thank you. 15

MESSENGER These letters come from your father.

HOTSPUR
Letters from him! Why comes he not himself?

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? 20
Under whose government come they along?

MESSENGER, handing letter to Hotspur, who begins reading it
His letters bears his mind, not I, my lord.

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, 25
He was much feared by his physicians.

WORCESTER
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.

HOTSPUR
Sick now? Droop now? This sickness doth infect 30
The very lifeblood 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, nor did he think it 35
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 40
To see how fortune is disposed to us,
For, as he writes, there is no quailing now,
Because the King is certainly possessed
Of all our purposes. What say you to it?

WORCESTER
Your father’s sickness is a maim to us. 45

HOTSPUR
A perilous gash, a very limb lopped off!
And yet, in faith, it is 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 50
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. 55

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.
A comfort of retirement lives in this.

HOTSPUR
A rendezvous, a home to fly unto, 60
If that the devil and mischance look big
Upon the maidenhead of our affairs.

WORCESTER
But yet I would your father had been here.
The quality and hair of our attempt
Brooks no division. It will be thought 65
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 70
And breed a kind of question in our cause.
For well you know, we of the off’ring side
Must keep aloof from strict arbitrament,
And stop all sight-holes, every loop from whence
The eye of reason may pry in upon us. 75
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.
I rather of his absence make this use: 80
It lends a luster 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 a kingdom, with his help 85
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.

Enter Sir Richard Vernon.

HOTSPUR
My cousin Vernon, welcome, by my soul. 90

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 learned 95
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, 100
And his comrades, that daffed the world aside
And bid it pass?

VERNON All furnished, all in arms,
All plumed like estridges that with the wind
Bated like eagles having lately bathed, 105
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, 110
His cuisses 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 115
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 120
All hot and bleeding will we offer them.
The mailèd 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, 125
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.
O, that Glendower were come! 130

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. 135

HOTSPUR
What may the King’s whole battle reach unto?

VERNON
To thirty thousand.

HOTSPUR Forty let it be.
My father and Glendower being both away,
The powers of us may serve so great a day. 140
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.

They exit.