DOUGLAS.
As heart can think. There is not such a word
Spoke in Scotland as this term of fear.
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
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,
And his comrades, that daffed the world aside
And bid it pass?
VERNON.
All furnish’d, all in arms;
All plumed like estridges that with the wind
Bated 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 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.
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
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 corse.
O, that Glendower were come!
VERNON.
There is more news.
I learn’d in Worcester, as I rode along,
He cannot draw his power this fourteen days.