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.
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