Page 751 - Shakespeare - Vol. 2
P. 751
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?
Under whose government come they along?
MESSENGER
His letters bears his mind, not I, my lord. [20]
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
He was much feared by his physicians.
WORCESTER
I would the state of time had first been whole [25]
Ere he by sickness had been visited.
His health was never better worth than now.
HOTSPUR
Sick now? droop now? This sickness doth infect
The very lifeblood of our enterprise.
’Tis catching hither, even to our camp. [30]
He writes me here that inward sickness −
And that his friends by deputation could not
So soon be drawn; nor did he think it meet
To lay so dangerous and dear a trust
On any soul removed but on his own. [35]
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,
