By God, I cannot flatter; I 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."
In the first five lines of this skimble-skamble stuff I hear Shakespeare
speaking in his cheapest way; with the oath, however, he tries to get
into the character again, and succeeds indifferently.
Immediately afterwards Hotspur is shocked by the news that his father is
sick and has not even sent the promised assistance; struck to the heart
by the betrayal, the hot soldier should now reveal his true character;
one expects him to curse his father, and rising to the danger, to cry
that he is stronger without traitors and faint-heart friends. But
Shakespeare the philosopher is chiefly concerned with the effect of such
news upon a rebel camp, and again he speaks through Hotspur:
"Sick now! droop now! this sickness doth infect
The very life-blood of our enterprise;
'Tis catching hither, even to our camp."
Then Shakespeare pulls himself up and tries to get into Hotspur's
character again by representing to himself the circumstance:
"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--"
and so forth to the question: "...What say you to it?"
"Wor. Your father's sickness is a maim to us.
Hot. A perilous gash, a very limb lopped off:--"
Shakespeare sees that he cannot go on exaggerating the injury--that is
not Hotspur's line, is indeed utterly false to Hotspur's nature; and so
he tries to stop himself and think of Hotspur:
"And yet, in faith, it's 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
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."
After the first two lines, which Hotspur might have spoken, we have the
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