William Shakespeare: King Henry IV Part I

ACT IV. 1. Scene I. The Rebel Camp near Shrewsbury. (continued)

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.]