No man so potent breathes upon the ground
But I will beard him.
Do so, and 'tis well.
What letters hast thou there?--I can but thank you.
These letters come from your father.
Letters from him! why comes he not himself?
He cannot come, my lord; he is grievous sick.
'Zounds! how has he the leisure to be sick
In such a rustling time? Who leads his power?
Under whose government come they along?
His letters bear his mind, not I, my lord.
I prithee, tell me, doth he keep his bed?
He did, my lord, four days ere I set forth;
And at the time of my departure thence
He was much fear'd by his physicians.
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.
Sick now! droop now! this sickness doth infect
The very life-blood 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 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,
To see how fortune is disposed to us;
For, as he writes, there is no quailing now.
Because the king is certainly possess'd
Of all our purposes. What say you to it?
Your father's sickness is a maim to us.
A perilous gash, a very limb lopp'd 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
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.
'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.
A rendezvous, a home to fly unto.
If that the devil and mischance look big
Upon the maidenhead of our affairs.
But yet I would your father had been here.
The quality and hair of our attempt
Brooks no division: it will be thought
By some, that know not why he is away,
That wisdom,