The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [Vol. 5 of 9]

Enter RICHMOND, OXFORD, BLUNT, HERBERT, and others, with drum and colours.

♦ Richm. Fellows in arms, and my most loving friends,

Bruised underneath the yoke of tyranny,

Thus far into the bowels of the land

Have we march’d on without impediment;

5 And here receive we from our father Stanley

Lines of fair comfort and encouragement.

♦ The wretched, bloody, and usurping boar,

♦ That spoil’d your summer fields and fruitful vines,

♦ Swills your warm blood like wash, and makes his trough

10 In your embowell’d bosoms, this foul swine

♦ Lies now even in the centre of this isle,

Near to the town of Leicester, as we learn:

From Tamworth thither is but one day’s march.

♦ In God’s name, cheerly on, courageous friends,

15 To reap the harvest of perpetual peace

By this one bloody trial of sharp war.

♦ Oxf. Every man’s conscience is a thousand swords,

♦ To fight against that bloody homicide.

♦ Herb. I doubt not but his friends will fly to us.

20 Blunt. He hath no friends but who are friends for fear,

♦ Which in his greatest need will shrink from him.

♦ Richm. All for our vantage. Then, in God’s name, march:

True hope is swift, and flies with swallow’s wings;

♦ Kings it makes gods, and meaner creatures kings. [Exeunt.