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    2 KING HENRY IV


    DRAMATIS PERSONAE


RUMOUR    the Presenter.

KING HENRY    the Fourth. (KING HENRY IV:)


PRINCE HENRY            |
OF WALES        (PRINCE HENRY:)    |
    afterwards KING HENRY V.    |
            |
THOMAS, DUKE OF            |  sons of King Henry.
CLARENCE        (CLARENCE:)    |
            |
PRINCE HUMPHREY            |
OF GLOUCESTER        (GLOUCESTER:)    |


EARL OF WARWICK    (WARWICK:)

EARL OF
WESTMORELAND    (WESTMORELAND:)

EARL OF SURREY:

GOWER:

HARCOURT:

BLUNT:

    Lord Chief-Justice of the King's Bench:
    (Lord Chief-Justice:)

    A Servant of the Chief-Justice.

EARL OF
NORTHUMBERLAND    (NORTHUMBERLAND:)

SCROOP,
ARCHBISHOP OF YORK    (ARCHBISHOP OF YORK:)

LORD MOWBRAY    (MOWBRAY:)

LORD HASTINGS    (HASTINGS:)

LORD BARDOLPH:

SIR JOHN COLEVILE    (COLEVILE:)


TRAVERS    |
    |  retainers of Northumberland.
MORTON    |


SIR JOHN FALSTAFF    (FALSTAFF:)

    His Page. (Page:)

BARDOLPH:

PISTOL:

POINS:

PETO:


SHALLOW    |
    |  country justices.
SILENCE    |


DAVY    servant to Shallow.


MOULDY    |
    |
SHADOW    |
    |
WART    |  recruits.
    |
FEEBLE    |
    |
BULLCALF    |


FANG    |
    |  sheriff's officers.
SNARE    |


LADY
NORTHUMBERLAND:

LADY PERCY:

MISTRESS QUICKLY    hostess of a tavern in Eastcheap.

DOLL TEARSHEET:

    Lords and Attendants; Porter, Drawers,
    Beadles, Grooms, &c.
    (First Messenger:)
    (Porter:)
    (First Drawer:)
    (Second Drawer:)
    (First Beadle:)
    (First Groom:)
    (Second Groom:)

    A Dancer, speaker of the epilogue.


SCENE    England.




    2 KING HENRY IV

    INDUCTION


    [Warkworth. Before the castle]

    [Enter RUMOUR, painted full of tongues]

RUMOUR    Open your ears; for which of you will stop
    The vent of hearing when loud Rumour speaks?
    I, from the orient to the drooping west,
    Making the wind my post-horse, still unfold
    The acts commenced on this ball of earth:
    Upon my tongues continual slanders ride,
    The which in every language I pronounce,
    Stuffing the ears of men with false reports.
    I speak of peace, while covert enmity
    Under the smile of safety wounds the world:
    And who but Rumour, who but only I,
    Make fearful musters and prepared defence,
    Whiles the big year, swoln with some other grief,
    Is thought with child by the stern tyrant war,
    And no such matter? Rumour is a pipe
    Blown by surmises, jealousies, conjectures
    And of so easy and so plain a stop
    That the blunt monster with uncounted heads,
    The still-discordant wavering multitude,
    Can play upon it. But what need I thus
    My well-known body to anatomize
    Among my household? Why is Rumour here?
    I run before King Harry's victory;
    Who in a bloody field by Shrewsbury
    Hath beaten down young Hotspur and his troops,
    Quenching the flame of bold rebellion
    Even with the rebel's blood. But what mean I
    To speak so true at first? my office is
    To noise abroad that Harry Monmouth fell
    Under the wrath of noble Hotspur's sword,
    And that the king before the Douglas' rage
    Stoop'd his anointed head as low as death.
    This have I rumour'd through the peasant towns
    Between that royal field of Shrewsbury
    And this worm-eaten hold of ragged stone,
    Where Hotspur's father, old Northumberland,
    Lies crafty-sick: the posts come tiring on,
    And not a man of them brings other news
    Than they have learn'd of me: from Rumour's tongues
    They bring smooth comforts false, worse than
    true wrongs.

    [Exit]




    2 KING HENRY IV


ACT I



SCENE I    The same.


    [Enter LORD BARDOLPH]

LORD BARDOLPH    Who keeps the gate here, ho?

    [The Porter opens the gate]

               Where is the earl?

Porter    What shall I say you are?

LORD BARDOLPH    Tell thou the earl
    That the Lord Bardolph doth attend him here.

Porter    His lordship is walk'd forth into the orchard;
    Please it your honour, knock but at the gate,
    And he himself wilt answer.

    [Enter NORTHUMBERLAND]

LORD BARDOLPH    Here comes the earl.

    [Exit Porter]

NORTHUMBERLAND    What news, Lord Bardolph? every minute now
    Should be the father of some stratagem:
    The times are wild: contention, like a horse
    Full of high feeding, madly hath broke loose
    And bears down all before him.

LORD BARDOLPH    Noble earl,
    I bring you certain news from Shrewsbury.

NORTHUMBERLAND    Good, an God will!

LORD BARDOLPH                      As good as heart can wish:
    The king is almost wounded to the death;
    And, in the fortune of my lord your son,
    Prince Harry slain outright; and both the Blunts
    Kill'd by the hand of Douglas; young Prince John
    And Westmoreland and Stafford fled the field;
    And Harry Monmouth's brawn, the hulk Sir John,
    Is prisoner to your son: O, such a day,
    So fought, so follow'd and so fairly won,
    Came not till now to dignify the times,
    Since Caesar's fortunes!

NORTHUMBERLAND    How is this derived?
    Saw you the field? came you from Shrewsbury?

LORD BARDOLPH    I spake with one, my lord, that came from thence,
    A gentleman well bred and of good name,
    That freely render'd me these news for true.

NORTHUMBERLAND    Here comes my servant Travers, whom I sent
    On Tuesday last to listen after news.

    [Enter TRAVERS]

LORD BARDOLPH    My lord, I over-rode him on the way;
    And he is furnish'd with no certainties
    More than he haply may retail from me.

NORTHUMBERLAND    Now, Travers, what good tidings comes with you?

TRAVERS    My lord, Sir John Umfrevile turn'd me back
    With joyful tidings; and, being better horsed,
    Out-rode me. After him came spurring hard
    A gentleman, almost forspent with speed,
    That stopp'd by me to breathe his bloodied horse.
    He ask'd the way to Chester; and of him
    I did demand what news from Shrewsbury:
    He told me that rebellion had bad luck
    And that young Harry Percy's spur was cold.
    With that, he gave his able horse the head,
    And bending forward struck his armed heels
    Against the panting sides of his poor jade
    Up to the rowel-head, and starting so
    He seem'd in running to devour the way,
    Staying no longer question.

NORTHUMBERLAND    Ha! Again:
    Said he young Harry Percy's spur was cold?
    Of Hotspur Coldspur? that rebellion
    Had met ill luck?

LORD BARDOLPH                      My lord, I'll tell you what;
    If my young lord your son have not the day,
    Upon mine honour, for a silken point
    I'll give my barony: never talk of it.

NORTHUMBERLAND    Why should that gentleman that rode by Travers
    Give then such instances of loss?

LORD BARDOLPH    Who, he?
    He was some hilding fellow that had stolen
    The horse he rode on, and, upon my life,
    Spoke at a venture. Look, here comes more news.

    [Enter MORTON]

NORTHUMBERLAND    Yea, this man's brow, like to a title-leaf,
    Foretells the nature of a tragic volume:
    So looks the strand whereon the imperious flood
    Hath left a witness'd usurpation.
    Say, Morton, didst thou come from Shrewsbury?

MORTON    I ran from Shrewsbury, my noble lord;
    Where hateful death put on his ugliest mask
    To fright our party.

NORTHUMBERLAND    How doth my son and brother?
    Thou tremblest; and the whiteness in thy cheek
    Is apter than thy tongue to tell thy errand.
    Even such a man, so faint, so spiritless,
    So dull, so dead in look, so woe-begone,
    Drew Priam's curtain in the dead of night,
    And would have told him half his Troy was burnt;
    But Priam found the fire ere he his tongue,
    And I my Percy's death ere thou report'st it.
    This thou wouldst say, 'Your son did thus and thus;
    Your brother thus: so fought the noble Douglas:'
    Stopping my greedy ear with their bold deeds:
    But in the end, to stop my ear indeed,
    Thou hast a sigh to blow away this praise,
    Ending with 'Brother, son, and all are dead.'

MORTON    Douglas is living, and your brother, yet;
    But, for my lord your son--

NORTHUMBERLAND    Why, he is dead.
    See what a ready tongue suspicion hath!
    He that but fears the thing he would not know
    Hath by instinct knowledge from others' eyes
    That what he fear'd is chanced. Yet speak, Morton;
    Tell thou an earl his divination lies,
    And I will take it as a sweet disgrace
    And make thee rich for doing me such wrong.

MORTON    You are too great to be by me gainsaid:
    Your spirit is too true, your fears too certain.

NORTHUMBERLAND    Yet, for all this, say not that Percy's dead.
    I see a strange confession in thine eye:
    Thou shakest thy head and hold'st it fear or sin
    To speak a truth. If he be slain, say so;
    The tongue offends not that reports his death:
    And he doth sin that doth belie the dead,
    Not he which says the dead is not alive.
    Yet the first bringer of unwelcome news
    Hath but a losing office, and his tongue
    Sounds ever after as a sullen bell,
    Remember'd tolling a departing friend.

LORD BARDOLPH    I cannot think, my lord, your son is dead.

MORTON    I am sorry I should force you to believe
    That which I would to God I had not seen;
    But these mine eyes saw him in bloody state,
    Rendering faint quittance, wearied and out-breathed,
    To Harry Monmouth; whose swift wrath beat down
    The never-daunted Percy to the earth,
    From whence with life he never more sprung up.
    In few, his death, whose spirit lent a fire
    Even to the dullest peasant in his camp,
    Being bruited once, took fire and heat away
    From the best temper'd courage in his troops;
    For from his metal was his party steel'd;
    Which once in him abated, all the rest
    Turn'd on themselves, like dull and heavy lead:
    And as the thing that's heavy in itself,
    Upon enforcement flies with greatest speed,
    So did our men, heavy in Hotspur's loss,
    Lend to this weight such lightness with their fear
    That arrows fled not swifter toward their aim
    Than did our soldiers, aiming at their safety,
    Fly from the field. Then was the noble Worcester
    Too soon ta'en prisoner; and that furious Scot,
    The bloody Douglas, whose well-labouring sword
    Had three times slain the appearance of the king,
    'Gan vail his stomach and did grace the shame
    Of those that turn'd their backs, and in his flight,
    Stumbling in fear, was took. The sum of all
    Is that the king hath won, and hath sent out
    A speedy power to encounter you, my lord,
    Under the conduct of young Lancaster
    And Westmoreland. This is the news at full.

NORTHUMBERLAND    For this I shall have time enough to mourn.
    In poison there is physic; and these news,
    Having been well, that would have made me sick,
    Being sick, have in some measure made me well:
    And as the wretch, whose fever-weaken'd joints,
    Like strengthless hinges, buckle under life,
    Impatient of his fit, breaks like a fire
    Out of his keeper's arms, even so my limbs,
    Weaken'd with grief, being now enraged with grief,
    Are thrice themselves. Hence, therefore, thou nice crutch!
    A scaly gauntlet now with joints of steel
    Must glove this hand: and hence, thou sickly quoif!
    Thou art a guard too wanton for the head
    Which princes, flesh'd with conquest, aim to hit.
    Now bind my brows with iron; and approach
    The ragged'st hour that time and spite dare bring
    To frown upon the enraged Northumberland!
    Let heaven kiss earth! now let not Nature's hand
    Keep the wild flood confined! let order die!
    And let this world no longer be a stage
    To feed contention in a lingering act;
    But let one spirit of the first-born Cain
    Reign in all bosoms, that, each heart being set
    On bloody courses, the rude scene may end,
    And darkness be the burier of the dead!

TRAVERS    This strained passion doth you wrong, my lord.

LORD BARDOLPH    Sweet earl, divorce not wisdom from your honour.

MORTON    The lives of all your loving complices
    Lean on your health; the which, if you give o'er
    To stormy passion, must perforce decay.
    You cast the event of war, my noble lord,
    And summ'd the account of chance, before you said
    'Let us make head.' It was your presurmise,
    That, in the dole of blows, your son might drop:
    You knew he walk'd o'er perils, on an edge,
    More likely to fall in than to get o'er;
    You were advised his flesh was capable
    Of wounds and scars and that his forward spirit
    Would lift him where most trade of danger ranged:
    Yet did you say 'Go forth;' and none of this,
    Though strongly apprehended, could restrain
    The stiff-borne action: what hath then befallen,
    Or what hath this bold enterprise brought forth,
    More than that being which was like to be?

LORD BARDOLPH    We all that are engaged to this loss
    Knew that we ventured on such dangerous seas
    That if we wrought our life 'twas ten to one;
    And yet we ventured, for the gain proposed
    Choked the respect of likely peril fear'd;
    And since we are o'erset, venture again.
    Come, we will all put forth, body and goods.

MORTON    'Tis more than time: and, my most noble lord,
    I hear for certain, and do speak the truth,
    The gentle Archbishop of York is up
    With well-appointed powers: he is a man
    Who with a double surety binds his followers.
    My lord your son had only but the corpse,
    But shadows and the shows of men, to fight;
    For that same word, rebellion, did divide
    The action of their bodies from their souls;
    And they did fight with queasiness, constrain'd,
    As men drink potions, that their weapons only
    Seem'd on our side; but, for their spirits and souls,
    This word, rebellion, it had froze them up,
    As fish are in a pond. But now the bishop
    Turns insurrection to religion:
    Supposed sincere and holy in his thoughts,
    He's followed both with body and with mind;
    And doth enlarge his rising with the blood
    Of fair King Richard, scraped from Pomfret stones;
    Derives from heaven his quarrel and his cause;
    Tells them he doth bestride a bleeding land,
    Gasping for life under great Bolingbroke;
    And more and less do flock to follow him.

NORTHUMBERLAND    I knew of this before; but, to speak truth,
    This present grief had wiped it from my mind.
    Go in with me; and counsel every man
    The aptest way for safety and revenge:
    Get posts and letters, and make friends with speed:
    Never so few, and never yet more need.

    [Exeunt]




    2 KING HENRY IV


ACT I



SCENE II    London. A street.


    [Enter FALSTAFF, with his Page bearing his sword
    and buckler]

FALSTAFF    Sirrah, you giant, what says the doctor to my water?

Page    He said, sir, the water itself was a good healthy
    water; but, for the party that owed it, he might
    have more diseases than he knew for.

FALSTAFF    Men of all sorts take a pride to gird at me: the
    brain of this foolish-compounded clay, man, is not
    able to invent anything that tends to laughter, more
    than I invent or is invented on me: I am not only
    witty in myself, but the cause that wit is in other
    men. I do here walk before thee like a sow that
    hath overwhelmed all her litter but one. If the
    prince put thee into my service for any other reason
    than to set me off, why then I have no judgment.
    Thou whoreson mandrake, thou art fitter to be worn
    in my cap than to wait at my heels. I was never
    manned with an agate till now: but I will inset you
    neither in gold nor silver, but in vile apparel, and
    send you back again to your master, for a jewel,--
    the juvenal, the prince your master, whose chin is
    not yet fledged. I will sooner have a beard grow in
    the palm of my hand than he shall get one on his
    cheek; and yet he will not stick to say his face is
    a face-royal: God may finish it when he will, 'tis
    not a hair amiss yet: he may keep it still at a
    face-royal, for a barber shall never earn sixpence
    out of it; and yet he'll be crowing as if he had
    writ man ever since his father was a bachelor. He
    may keep his own grace, but he's almost out of mine,
    I can assure him. What said Master Dombledon about
    the satin for my short cloak and my slops?

Page    He said, sir, you should procure him better
    assurance than Bardolph: he would not take his
    band and yours; he liked not the security.

FALSTAFF    Let him be damned, like the glutton! pray God his
    tongue be hotter! A whoreson Achitophel! a rascally
    yea-forsooth knave! to bear a gentleman in hand,
    and then stand upon security! The whoreson
    smooth-pates do now wear nothing but high shoes, and
    bunches of keys at their girdles; and if a man is
    through with them in honest taking up, then they
    must stand upon security. I had as lief they would
    put ratsbane in my mouth as offer to stop it with
    security. I looked a' should have sent me two and
    twenty yards of satin, as I am a true knight, and he
    sends me security. Well, he may sleep in security;
    for he hath the horn of abundance, and the lightness
    of his wife shines through it: and yet cannot he
    see, though he have his own lanthorn to light him.
    Where's Bardolph?

Page    He's gone into Smithfield to buy your worship a horse.

FALSTAFF    I bought him in Paul's, and he'll buy me a horse in
    Smithfield: an I could get me but a wife in the
    stews, I were manned, horsed, and wived.

    [Enter the Lord Chief-Justice and Servant]

Page    Sir, here comes the nobleman that committed the
    Prince for striking him about Bardolph.

FALSTAFF    Wait, close; I will not see him.

Lord Chief-Justice    What's he that goes there?

Servant    Falstaff, an't please your lordship.

Lord Chief-Justice    He that was in question for the robbery?

Servant    He, my lord: but he hath since done good service at
    Shrewsbury; and, as I hear, is now going with some
    charge to the Lord John of Lancaster.

Lord Chief-Justice    What, to York? Call him back again.

Servant    Sir John Falstaff!

FALSTAFF    Boy, tell him I am deaf.

Page    You must speak louder; my master is deaf.

Lord Chief-Justice    I am sure he is, to the hearing of any thing good.
    Go, pluck him by the elbow; I must speak with him.

Servant    Sir John!

FALSTAFF    What! a young knave, and begging! Is there not
    wars? is there not employment? doth not the king
    lack subjects? do not the rebels need soldiers?
    Though it be a shame to be on any side but one, it
    is worse shame to beg than to be on the worst side,
    were it worse than the name of rebellion can tell
    how to make it.

Servant    You mistake me, sir.

FALSTAFF    Why, sir, did I say you were an honest man? setting
    my knighthood and my soldiership aside, I had lied
    in my throat, if I had said so.

Servant    I pray you, sir, then set your knighthood and our
    soldiership aside; and give me leave to tell you,
    you lie in your throat, if you say I am any other
    than an honest man.

FALSTAFF    I give thee leave to tell me so! I lay aside that
    which grows to me! if thou gettest any leave of me,
    hang me; if thou takest leave, thou wert better be
    hanged. You hunt counter: hence! avaunt!

Servant    Sir, my lord would speak with you.

Lord Chief-Justice    Sir John Falstaff, a word with you.

FALSTAFF    My good lord! God give your lordship good time of
    day. I am glad to see your lordship abroad: I heard
    say your lordship was sick: I hope your lordship
    goes abroad by advice. Your lordship, though not
    clean past your youth, hath yet some smack of age in
    you, some relish of the saltness of time; and I must
    humbly beseech your lordship to have a reverent care
    of your health.

Lord Chief-Justice    Sir John, I sent for you before your expedition to
    Shrewsbury.

FALSTAFF    An't please your lordship, I hear his majesty is
    returned with some discomfort from Wales.

Lord Chief-Justice    I talk not of his majesty: you would not come when
    I sent for you.

FALSTAFF    And I hear, moreover, his highness is fallen into
    this same whoreson apoplexy.

Lord Chief-Justice    Well, God mend him! I pray you, let me speak with
    you.

FALSTAFF    This apoplexy is, as I take it, a kind of lethargy,
    an't please your lordship; a kind of sleeping in the
    blood, a whoreson tingling.

Lord Chief-Justice    What tell you me of it? be it as it is.

FALSTAFF    It hath its original from much grief, from study and
    perturbation of the brain: I have read the cause of
    his effects in Galen: it is a kind of deafness.

Lord Chief-Justice    I think you are fallen into the disease; for you
    hear not what I say to you.

FALSTAFF    Very well, my lord, very well: rather, an't please
    you, it is the disease of not listening, the malady
    of not marking, that I am troubled withal.

Lord Chief-Justice    To punish you by the heels would amend the
    attention of your ears; and I care not if I do
    become your physician.

FALSTAFF    I am as poor as Job, my lord, but not so patient:
    your lordship may minister the potion of
    imprisonment to me in respect of poverty; but how
    should I be your patient to follow your
    prescriptions, the wise may make some dram of a
    scruple, or indeed a scruple itself.

Lord Chief-Justice    I sent for you, when there were matters against you
    for your life, to come speak with me.

FALSTAFF    As I was then advised by my learned counsel in the
    laws of this land-service, I did not come.

Lord Chief-Justice    Well, the truth is, Sir John, you live in great infamy.

FALSTAFF    He that buckles him in my belt cannot live in less.

Lord Chief-Justice    Your means are very slender, and your waste is great.

FALSTAFF    I would it were otherwise; I would my means were
    greater, and my waist slenderer.

Lord Chief-Justice    You have misled the youthful prince.

FALSTAFF    The young prince hath misled me: I am the fellow
    with the great belly, and he my dog.

Lord Chief-Justice    Well, I am loath to gall a new-healed wound: your
    day's service at Shrewsbury hath a little gilded
    over your night's exploit on Gad's-hill: you may
    thank the unquiet time for your quiet o'er-posting
    that action.

FALSTAFF    My lord?

Lord Chief-Justice    But since all is well, keep it so: wake not a
    sleeping wolf.

FALSTAFF    To wake a wolf is as bad as to smell a fox.

Lord Chief-Justice    What! you are as a candle, the better part burnt
    out.

FALSTAFF    A wassail candle, my lord, all tallow: if I did say
    of wax, my growth would approve the truth.

Lord Chief-Justice    There is not a white hair on your face but should
    have his effect of gravity.

FALSTAFF    His effect of gravy, gravy, gravy.

Lord Chief-Justice    You follow the young prince up and down, like his
    ill angel.

FALSTAFF    Not so, my lord; your ill angel is light; but I hope
    he that looks upon me will take me without weighing:
    and yet, in some respects, I grant, I cannot go: I
    cannot tell. Virtue is of so little regard in these
    costermonger times that true valour is turned
    bear-herd: pregnancy is made a tapster, and hath
    his quick wit wasted in giving reckonings: all the
    other gifts appertinent to man, as the malice of
    this age shapes them, are not worth a gooseberry.
    You that are old consider not the capacities of us
    that are young; you do measure the heat of our
    livers with the bitterness of your galls: and we
    that are in the vaward of our youth, I must confess,
    are wags too.

Lord Chief-Justice    Do you set down your name in the scroll of youth,
    that are written down old with all the characters of
    age? Have you not a moist eye? a dry hand? a
    yellow cheek? a white beard? a decreasing leg? an
    increasing belly? is not your voice broken? your
    wind short? your chin double? your wit single? and
    every part about you blasted with antiquity? and
    will you yet call yourself young? Fie, fie, fie, Sir John!

FALSTAFF    My lord, I was born about three of the clock in the
    afternoon, with a white head and something a round
    belly. For my voice, I have lost it with halloing
    and singing of anthems. To approve my youth
    further, I will not: the truth is, I am only old in
    judgment and understanding; and he that will caper
    with me for a thousand marks, let him lend me the
    money, and have at him! For the box of the ear that
    the prince gave you, he gave it like a rude prince,
    and you took it like a sensible lord. I have
    chequed him for it, and the young lion repents;
    marry, not in ashes and sackcloth, but in new silk
    and old sack.

Lord Chief-Justice    Well, God send the prince a better companion!

FALSTAFF    God send the companion a better prince! I cannot
    rid my hands of him.

Lord Chief-Justice    Well, the king hath severed you and Prince Harry: I
    hear you are going with Lord John of Lancaster
    against the Archbishop and the Earl of
    Northumberland.

FALSTAFF    Yea; I thank your pretty sweet wit for it. But look
    you pray, all you that kiss my lady Peace at home,
    that our armies join not in a hot day; for, by the
    Lord, I take but two shirts out with me, and I mean
    not to sweat extraordinarily: if it be a hot day,
    and I brandish any thing but a bottle, I would I
    might never spit white again. There is not a
    dangerous action can peep out his head but I am
    thrust upon it: well, I cannot last ever: but it
    was alway yet the trick of our English nation, if
    they have a good thing, to make it too common. If
    ye will needs say I am an old man, you should give
    me rest. I would to God my name were not so
    terrible to the enemy as it is: I were better to be
    eaten to death with a rust than to be scoured to
    nothing with perpetual motion.

Lord Chief-Justice    Well, be honest, be honest; and God bless your
    expedition!

FALSTAFF    Will your lordship lend me a thousand pound to
    furnish me forth?

Lord Chief-Justice    Not a penny, not a penny; you are too impatient to
    bear crosses. Fare you well: commend me to my
    cousin Westmoreland.

    [Exeunt Chief-Justice and Servant]

FALSTAFF    If I do, fillip me with a three-man beetle. A man
    can no more separate age and covetousness than a'
    can part young limbs and lechery: but the gout
    galls the one, and the pox pinches the other; and
    so both the degrees prevent my curses. Boy!

Page    Sir?

FALSTAFF    What money is in my purse?

Page    Seven groats and two pence.

FALSTAFF    I can get no remedy against this consumption of the
    purse: borrowing only lingers and lingers it out,
    but the disease is incurable. Go bear this letter
    to my Lord of Lancaster; this to the prince; this
    to the Earl of Westmoreland; and this to old
    Mistress Ursula, whom I have weekly sworn to marry
    since I perceived the first white hair on my chin.
    About it: you know where to find me.

    [Exit Page]

    A pox of this gout! or, a gout of this pox! for
    the one or the other plays the rogue with my great
    toe. 'Tis no matter if I do halt; I have the wars
    for my colour, and my pension shall seem the more
    reasonable. A good wit will make use of any thing:
    I will turn diseases to commodity.

    [Exit]




    2 KING HENRY IV


ACT I



SCENE III    York. The Archbishop's palace.


    [Enter the ARCHBISHOP OF YORK, the Lords HASTINGS,
    MOWBRAY, and BARDOLPH]

ARCHBISHOP OF YORK    Thus have you heard our cause and known our means;
    And, my most noble friends, I pray you all,
    Speak plainly your opinions of our hopes:
    And first, lord marshal, what say you to it?

MOWBRAY    I well allow the occasion of our arms;
    But gladly would be better satisfied
    How in our means we should advance ourselves
    To look with forehead bold and big enough
    Upon the power and puissance of the king.

HASTINGS    Our present musters grow upon the file
    To five and twenty thousand men of choice;
    And our supplies live largely in the hope
    Of great Northumberland, whose bosom burns
    With an incensed fire of injuries.

LORD BARDOLPH    The question then, Lord Hastings, standeth thus;
    Whether our present five and twenty thousand
    May hold up head without Northumberland?

HASTINGS    With him, we may.

LORD BARDOLPH                      Yea, marry, there's the point:
    But if without him we be thought too feeble,
    My judgment is, we should not step too far
    Till we had his assistance by the hand;
    For in a theme so bloody-faced as this
    Conjecture, expectation, and surmise
    Of aids incertain should not be admitted.

ARCHBISHOP OF YORK    'Tis very true, Lord Bardolph; for indeed
    It was young Hotspur's case at Shrewsbury.

LORD BARDOLPH    It was, my lord; who lined himself with hope,
    Eating the air on promise of supply,
    Flattering himself in project of a power
    Much smaller than the smallest of his thoughts:
    And so, with great imagination
    Proper to madmen, led his powers to death
    And winking leap'd into destruction.

HASTINGS    But, by your leave, it never yet did hurt
    To lay down likelihoods and forms of hope.

LORD BARDOLPH    Yes, if this present quality of war,
    Indeed the instant action: a cause on foot
    Lives so in hope as in an early spring
    We see the appearing buds; which to prove fruit,
    Hope gives not so much warrant as despair
    That frosts will bite them. When we mean to build,
    We first survey the plot, then draw the model;
    And when we see the figure of the house,
    Then must we rate the cost of the erection;
    Which if we find outweighs ability,
    What do we then but draw anew the model
    In fewer offices, or at last desist
    To build at all? Much more, in this great work,
    Which is almost to pluck a kingdom down
    And set another up, should we survey
    The plot of situation and the model,
    Consent upon a sure foundation,
    Question surveyors, know our own estate,
    How able such a work to undergo,
    To weigh against his opposite; or else
    We fortify in paper and in figures,
    Using the names of men instead of men:
    Like one that draws the model of a house
    Beyond his power to build it; who, half through,
    Gives o'er and leaves his part-created cost
    A naked subject to the weeping clouds
    And waste for churlish winter's tyranny.

HASTINGS    Grant that our hopes, yet likely of fair birth,
    Should be still-born, and that we now possess'd
    The utmost man of expectation,
    I think we are a body strong enough,
    Even as we are, to equal with the king.

LORD BARDOLPH    What, is the king but five and twenty thousand?

HASTINGS    To us no more; nay, not so much, Lord Bardolph.
    For his divisions, as the times do brawl,
    Are in three heads: one power against the French,
    And one against Glendower; perforce a third
    Must take up us: so is the unfirm king
    In three divided; and his coffers sound
    With hollow poverty and emptiness.

ARCHBISHOP OF YORK    That he should draw his several strengths together
    And come against us in full puissance,
    Need not be dreaded.

HASTINGS    If he should do so,
    He leaves his back unarm'd, the French and Welsh
    Baying him at the heels: never fear that.

LORD BARDOLPH    Who is it like should lead his forces hither?

HASTINGS    The Duke of Lancaster and Westmoreland;
    Against the Welsh, himself and Harry Monmouth:
    But who is substituted 'gainst the French,
    I have no certain notice.

ARCHBISHOP OF YORK    Let us on,
    And publish the occasion of our arms.
    The commonwealth is sick of their own choice;
    Their over-greedy love hath surfeited:
    An habitation giddy and unsure
    Hath he that buildeth on the vulgar heart.
    O thou fond many, with what loud applause
    Didst thou beat heaven with blessing Bolingbroke,
    Before he was what thou wouldst have him be!
    And being now trimm'd in thine own desires,
    Thou, beastly feeder, art so full of him,
    That thou provokest thyself to cast him up.
    So, so, thou common dog, didst thou disgorge
    Thy glutton bosom of the royal Richard;
    And now thou wouldst eat thy dead vomit up,
    And howl'st to find it. What trust is in
    these times?
    They that, when Richard lived, would have him die,
    Are now become enamour'd on his grave:
    Thou, that threw'st dust upon his goodly head
    When through proud London he came sighing on
    After the admired heels of Bolingbroke,
    Criest now 'O earth, yield us that king again,
    And take thou this!' O thoughts of men accursed!
    Past and to come seems best; things present worst.

MOWBRAY    Shall we go draw our numbers and set on?

HASTINGS    We are time's subjects, and time bids be gone.

    [Exeunt]




    2 KING HENRY IV


ACT II



SCENE I    London. A street.


    [Enter MISTRESS QUICKLY, FANG and his Boy with her,
    and SNARE following.

MISTRESS QUICKLY    Master Fang, have you entered the action?

FANG    It is entered.

MISTRESS QUICKLY    Where's your yeoman? Is't a lusty yeoman? will a'
    stand to 't?

FANG    Sirrah, where's Snare?

MISTRESS QUICKLY    O Lord, ay! good Master Snare.

SNARE    Here, here.

FANG    Snare, we must arrest Sir John Falstaff.

MISTRESS QUICKLY    Yea, good Master Snare; I have entered him and all.

SNARE    It may chance cost some of us our lives, for he will stab.

MISTRESS QUICKLY    Alas the day! take heed of him; he stabbed me in
    mine own house, and that most beastly: in good
    faith, he cares not what mischief he does. If his
    weapon be out: he will foin like any devil; he will
    spare neither man, woman, nor child.

FANG    If I can close with him, I care not for his thrust.

MISTRESS QUICKLY    No, nor I neither: I'll be at your elbow.

FANG    An I but fist him once; an a' come but within my vice,--

MISTRESS QUICKLY    I am undone by his going; I warrant you, he's an
    infinitive thing upon my score. Good Master Fang,
    hold him sure: good Master Snare, let him not
    'scape. A' comes continuantly to Pie-corner--saving
    your manhoods--to buy a saddle; and he is indited to
    dinner to the Lubber's-head in Lumbert street, to
    Master Smooth's the silkman: I pray ye, since my
    exion is entered and my case so openly known to the
    world, let him be brought in to his answer. A
    hundred mark is a long one for a poor lone woman to
    bear: and I have borne, and borne, and borne, and
    have been fubbed off, and fubbed off, and fubbed
    off, from this day to that day, that it is a shame
    to be thought on. There is no honesty in such
    dealing; unless a woman should be made an ass and a
    beast, to bear every knave's wrong. Yonder he
    comes; and that errant malmsey-nose knave, Bardolph,
    with him. Do your offices, do your offices: Master
    Fang and Master Snare, do me, do me, do me your offices.

    [Enter FALSTAFF, Page, and BARDOLPH]

FALSTAFF    How now! whose mare's dead? what's the matter?

FANG    Sir John, I arrest you at the suit of Mistress Quickly.

FALSTAFF    Away, varlets! Draw, Bardolph: cut me off the
    villain's head: throw the quean in the channel.

MISTRESS QUICKLY    Throw me in the channel! I'll throw thee in the
    channel. Wilt thou? wilt thou? thou bastardly
    rogue! Murder, murder! Ah, thou honeysuckle
    villain! wilt thou kill God's officers and the
    king's? Ah, thou honey-seed rogue! thou art a
    honey-seed, a man-queller, and a woman-queller.

FALSTAFF    Keep them off, Bardolph.

FANG    A rescue! a rescue!

MISTRESS QUICKLY    Good people, bring a rescue or two. Thou wo't, wo't
    thou? Thou wo't, wo't ta? do, do, thou rogue! do,
    thou hemp-seed!

FALSTAFF    Away, you scullion! you rampallion! You
    fustilarian! I'll tickle your catastrophe.

    [Enter the Lord Chief-Justice, and his men]

Lord Chief-Justice    What is the matter? keep the peace here, ho!

MISTRESS QUICKLY    Good my lord, be good to me. I beseech you, stand to me.

Lord Chief-Justice    How now, Sir John! what are you brawling here?
    Doth this become your place, your time and business?
    You should have been well on your way to York.
    Stand from him, fellow: wherefore hang'st upon him?

MISTRESS QUICKLY    O most worshipful lord, an't please your grace, I am
    a poor widow of Eastcheap, and he is arrested at my suit.

Lord Chief-Justice    For what sum?

MISTRESS QUICKLY    It is more than for some, my lord; it is for all,
    all I have. He hath eaten me out of house and home;
    he hath put all my substance into that fat belly of
    his: but I will have some of it out again, or I
    will ride thee o' nights like the mare.

FALSTAFF    I think I am as like to ride the mare, if I have
    any vantage of ground to get up.

Lord Chief-Justice    How comes this, Sir John? Fie! what man of good
    temper would endure this tempest of exclamation?
    Are you not ashamed to enforce a poor widow to so
    rough a course to come by her own?

FALSTAFF    What is the gross sum that I owe thee?

MISTRESS QUICKLY    Marry, if thou wert an honest man, thyself and the
    money too. Thou didst swear to me upon a
    parcel-gilt goblet, sitting in my Dolphin-chamber,
    at the round table, by a sea-coal fire, upon
    Wednesday in Wheeson week, when the prince broke
    thy head for liking his father to a singing-man of
    Windsor, thou didst swear to me then, as I was
    washing thy wound, to marry me and make me my lady
    thy wife. Canst thou deny it? Did not goodwife
    Keech, the butcher's wife, come in then and call me
    gossip Quickly? coming in to borrow a mess of
    vinegar; telling us she had a good dish of prawns;
    whereby thou didst desire to eat some; whereby I
    told thee they were ill for a green wound? And
    didst thou not, when she was gone down stairs,
    desire me to be no more so familiarity with such
    poor people; saying that ere long they should call
    me madam? And didst thou not kiss me and bid me
    fetch thee thirty shillings? I put thee now to thy
    book-oath: deny it, if thou canst.

FALSTAFF    My lord, this is a poor mad soul; and she says up
    and down the town that the eldest son is like you:
    she hath been in good case, and the truth is,
    poverty hath distracted her. But for these foolish
    officers, I beseech you I may have redress against them.

Lord Chief-Justice    Sir John, Sir John, I am well acquainted with your
    manner of wrenching the true cause the false way. It
    is not a confident brow, nor the throng of words
    that come with such more than impudent sauciness
    from you, can thrust me from a level consideration:
    you have, as it appears to me, practised upon the
    easy-yielding spirit of this woman, and made her
    serve your uses both in purse and in person.

MISTRESS QUICKLY    Yea, in truth, my lord.

Lord Chief-Justice    Pray thee, peace. Pay her the debt you owe her, and
    unpay the villany you have done her: the one you
    may do with sterling money, and the other with
    current repentance.

FALSTAFF    My lord, I will not undergo this sneap without
    reply. You call honourable boldness impudent
    sauciness: if a man will make courtesy and say
    nothing, he is virtuous: no, my lord, my humble
    duty remembered, I will not be your suitor. I say
    to you, I do desire deliverance from these officers,
    being upon hasty employment in the king's affairs.

Lord Chief-Justice    You speak as having power to do wrong: but answer
    in the effect of your reputation, and satisfy this
    poor woman.

FALSTAFF    Come hither, hostess.

    [Enter GOWER]

Lord Chief-Justice    Now, Master Gower, what news?

GOWER    The king, my lord, and Harry Prince of Wales
    Are near at hand: the rest the paper tells.

FALSTAFF    As I am a gentleman.

MISTRESS QUICKLY    Faith, you said so before.

FALSTAFF    As I am a gentleman. Come, no more words of it.

MISTRESS QUICKLY    By this heavenly ground I tread on, I must be fain
    to pawn both my plate and the tapestry of my
    dining-chambers.

FALSTAFF    Glasses, glasses is the only drinking: and for thy
    walls, a pretty slight drollery, or the story of
    the Prodigal, or the German hunting in water-work,
    is worth a thousand of these bed-hangings and these
    fly-bitten tapestries. Let it be ten pound, if thou
    canst. Come, an 'twere not for thy humours, there's
    not a better wench in England. Go, wash thy face,
    and draw the action. Come, thou must not be in
    this humour with me; dost not know me? come, come, I
    know thou wast set on to this.

MISTRESS QUICKLY    Pray thee, Sir John, let it be but twenty nobles: i'
    faith, I am loath to pawn my plate, so God save me,
    la!

FALSTAFF    Let it alone; I'll make other shift: you'll be a
    fool still.

MISTRESS QUICKLY    Well, you shall have it, though I pawn my gown. I
    hope you'll come to supper. You'll pay me all together?

FALSTAFF    Will I live?

    [To BARDOLPH]

    Go, with her, with her; hook on, hook on.

MISTRESS QUICKLY    Will you have Doll Tearsheet meet you at supper?

FALSTAFF    No more words; let's have her.

    [Exeunt MISTRESS QUICKLY, BARDOLPH, Officers and Boy]

Lord Chief-Justice    I have heard better news.

FALSTAFF    What's the news, my lord?

Lord Chief-Justice    Where lay the king last night?

GOWER    At Basingstoke, my lord.

FALSTAFF    I hope, my lord, all's well: what is the news, my lord?

Lord Chief-Justice    Come all his forces back?

GOWER    No; fifteen hundred foot, five hundred horse,
    Are marched up to my lord of Lancaster,
    Against Northumberland and the Archbishop.

FALSTAFF    Comes the king back from Wales, my noble lord?

Lord Chief-Justice    You shall have letters of me presently:
    Come, go along with me, good Master Gower.

FALSTAFF    My lord!

Lord Chief-Justice    What's the matter?

FALSTAFF    Master Gower, shall I entreat you with me to dinner?

GOWER    I must wait upon my good lord here; I thank you,
    good Sir John.

Lord Chief-Justice    Sir John, you loiter here too long, being you are to
    take soldiers up in counties as you go.

FALSTAFF    Will you sup with me, Master Gower?

Lord Chief-Justice    What foolish master taught you these manners, Sir John?

FALSTAFF    Master Gower, if they become me not, he was a fool
    that taught them me. This is the right fencing
    grace, my lord; tap for tap, and so part fair.

Lord Chief-Justice    Now the Lord lighten thee! thou art a great fool.

    [Exeunt]




    2 KING HENRY IV


ACT II



SCENE II    London. Another street.


    [Enter PRINCE HENRY and POINS]

PRINCE HENRY    Before God, I am exceeding weary.

POINS    Is't come to that? I had thought weariness durst not
    have attached one of so high blood.

PRINCE HENRY    Faith, it does me; though it discolours the
    complexion of my greatness to acknowledge it. Doth
    it not show vilely in me to desire small beer?

POINS    Why, a prince should not be so loosely studied as
    to remember so weak a composition.

PRINCE HENRY    Belike then my appetite was not princely got; for,
    by my troth, I do now remember the poor creature,
    small beer. But, indeed, these humble
    considerations make me out of love with my
    greatness. What a disgrace is it to me to remember
    thy name! or to know thy face to-morrow! or to
    take note how many pair of silk stockings thou
    hast, viz. these, and those that were thy
    peach-coloured ones! or to bear the inventory of thy
    shirts, as, one for superfluity, and another for
    use! But that the tennis-court-keeper knows better
    than I; for it is a low ebb of linen with thee when
    thou keepest not racket there; as thou hast not done
    a great while, because the rest of thy low
    countries have made a shift to eat up thy holland:
    and God knows, whether those that bawl out the ruins
    of thy linen shall inherit his kingdom: but the
    midwives say the children are not in the fault;
    whereupon the world increases, and kindreds are
    mightily strengthened.

POINS    How ill it follows, after you have laboured so hard,
    you should talk so idly! Tell me, how many good
    young princes would do so, their fathers being so
    sick as yours at this time is?

PRINCE HENRY    Shall I tell thee one thing, Poins?

POINS    Yes, faith; and let it be an excellent good thing.

PRINCE HENRY    It shall serve among wits of no higher breeding than thine.

POINS    Go to; I stand the push of your one thing that you
    will tell.

PRINCE HENRY    Marry, I tell thee, it is not meet that I should be
    sad, now my father is sick: albeit I could tell
    thee, as to one it pleases me, for fault of a
    better, to call my friend, I could be sad, and sad
    indeed too.

POINS    Very hardly upon such a subject.

PRINCE HENRY    By this hand thou thinkest me as far in the devil's
    book as thou and Falstaff for obduracy and
    persistency: let the end try the man. But I tell
    thee, my heart bleeds inwardly that my father is so
    sick: and keeping such vile company as thou art
    hath in reason taken from me all ostentation of sorrow.

POINS    The reason?

PRINCE HENRY    What wouldst thou think of me, if I should weep?

POINS    I would think thee a most princely hypocrite.

PRINCE HENRY    It would be every man's thought; and thou art a
    blessed fellow to think as every man thinks: never
    a man's thought in the world keeps the road-way
    better than thine: every man would think me an
    hypocrite indeed. And what accites your most
    worshipful thought to think so?

POINS    Why, because you have been so lewd and so much
    engraffed to Falstaff.

PRINCE HENRY    And to thee.

POINS    By this light, I am well spoke on; I can hear it
    with my own ears: the worst that they can say of
    me is that I am a second brother and that I am a
    proper fellow of my hands; and those two things, I
    confess, I cannot help. By the mass, here comes Bardolph.

    [Enter BARDOLPH and Page]

PRINCE HENRY    And the boy that I gave Falstaff: a' had him from
    me Christian; and look, if the fat villain have not
    transformed him ape.

BARDOLPH    God save your grace!

PRINCE HENRY    And yours, most noble Bardolph!

BARDOLPH    Come, you virtuous ass, you bashful fool, must you
    be blushing? wherefore blush you now? What a
    maidenly man-at-arms are you become! Is't such a
    matter to get a pottle-pot's maidenhead?

Page    A' calls me e'en now, my lord, through a red
    lattice, and I could discern no part of his face
    from the window: at last I spied his eyes, and
    methought he had made two holes in the ale-wife's
    new petticoat and so peeped through.

PRINCE HENRY    Has not the boy profited?

BARDOLPH    Away, you whoreson upright rabbit, away!

Page    Away, you rascally Althaea's dream, away!

PRINCE HENRY    Instruct us, boy; what dream, boy?

Page    Marry, my lord, Althaea dreamed she was delivered
    of a fire-brand; and therefore I call him her dream.

PRINCE HENRY    A crown's worth of good interpretation: there 'tis,
    boy.

POINS    O, that this good blossom could be kept from
    cankers! Well, there is sixpence to preserve thee.

BARDOLPH    An you do not make him hanged among you, the
    gallows shall have wrong.

PRINCE HENRY    And how doth thy master, Bardolph?

BARDOLPH    Well, my lord. He heard of your grace's coming to
    town: there's a letter for you.

POINS    Delivered with good respect. And how doth the
    martlemas, your master?

BARDOLPH    In bodily health, sir.

POINS    Marry, the immortal part needs a physician; but
    that moves not him: though that be sick, it dies
    not.

PRINCE HENRY    I do allow this wen to be as familiar with me as my
    dog; and he holds his place; for look you how be writes.

POINS    [Reads]  'John Falstaff, knight,'--every man must
    know that, as oft as he has occasion to name
    himself: even like those that are kin to the king;
    for they never prick their finger but they say,
    'There's some of the king's blood spilt.' 'How
    comes that?' says he, that takes upon him not to
    conceive. The answer is as ready as a borrower's
    cap, 'I am the king's poor cousin, sir.'

PRINCE HENRY    Nay, they will be kin to us, or they will fetch it
    from Japhet. But to the letter.

POINS    [Reads]  'Sir John Falstaff, knight, to the son of
    the king, nearest his father, Harry Prince of
    Wales, greeting.' Why, this is a certificate.

PRINCE HENRY    Peace!

POINS    [Reads]  'I will imitate the honourable Romans in
    brevity:' he sure means brevity in breath,
    short-winded. 'I commend me to thee, I commend
    thee, and I leave thee. Be not too familiar with
    Poins; for he misuses thy favours so much, that he
    swears thou art to marry his sister Nell. Repent
    at idle times as thou mayest; and so, farewell.
    Thine, by yea and no, which is as much as to
    say, as thou usest him, JACK FALSTAFF with my
    familiars, JOHN with my brothers and sisters,
    and SIR JOHN with all Europe.'
    My lord, I'll steep this letter in sack and make him eat it.

PRINCE HENRY    That's to make him eat twenty of his words. But do
    you use me thus, Ned? must I marry your sister?

POINS    God send the wench no worse fortune! But I never said so.

PRINCE HENRY    Well, thus we play the fools with the time, and the
    spirits of the wise sit in the clouds and mock us.
    Is your master here in London?

BARDOLPH    Yea, my lord.

PRINCE HENRY    Where sups he? doth the old boar feed in the old frank?

BARDOLPH    At the old place, my lord, in Eastcheap.

PRINCE HENRY    What company?

Page    Ephesians, my lord, of the old church.

PRINCE HENRY    Sup any women with him?

Page    None, my lord, but old Mistress Quickly and
    Mistress Doll Tearsheet.

PRINCE HENRY    What pagan may that be?

Page    A proper gentlewoman, sir, and a kinswoman of my master's.

PRINCE HENRY    Even such kin as the parish heifers are to the town
    bull. Shall we steal upon them, Ned, at supper?

POINS    I am your shadow, my lord; I'll follow you.

PRINCE HENRY    Sirrah, you boy, and Bardolph, no word to your
    master that I am yet come to town: there's for
    your silence.

BARDOLPH    I have no tongue, sir.

Page    And for mine, sir, I will govern it.

PRINCE HENRY    Fare you well; go.

    [Exeunt BARDOLPH and Page]

    This Doll Tearsheet should be some road.

POINS    I warrant you, as common as the way between Saint
    Alban's and London.

PRINCE HENRY    How might we see Falstaff bestow himself to-night
    in his true colours, and not ourselves be seen?

POINS    Put on two leathern jerkins and aprons, and wait
    upon him at his table as drawers.

PRINCE HENRY    From a God to a bull? a heavy decension! it was
    Jove's case. From a prince to a prentice? a low
    transformation! that shall be mine; for in every
    thing the purpose must weigh with the folly.
    Follow me, Ned.

    [Exeunt]




    2 KING HENRY IV


ACT II



SCENE III    Warkworth. Before the castle.


    [Enter NORTHUMBERLAND, LADY NORTHUMBERLAND, and LADY PERCY]

NORTHUMBERLAND    I pray thee, loving wife, and gentle daughter,
    Give even way unto my rough affairs:
    Put not you on the visage of the times
    And be like them to Percy troublesome.

LADY
NORTHUMBERLAND    I have given over, I will speak no more:
    Do what you will; your wisdom be your guide.

NORTHUMBERLAND    Alas, sweet wife, my honour is at pawn;
    And, but my going, nothing can redeem it.

LADY PERCY    O yet, for God's sake, go not to these wars!
    The time was, father, that you broke your word,
    When you were more endeared to it than now;
    When your own Percy, when my heart's dear Harry,
    Threw many a northward look to see his father
    Bring up his powers; but he did long in vain.
    Who then persuaded you to stay at home?
    There were two honours lost, yours and your son's.
    For yours, the God of heaven brighten it!
    For his, it stuck upon him as the sun
    In the grey vault of heaven, and by his light
    Did all the chivalry of England move
    To do brave acts: he was indeed the glass
    Wherein the noble youth did dress themselves:
    He had no legs that practised not his gait;
    And speaking thick, which nature made his blemish,
    Became the accents of the valiant;
    For those that could speak low and tardily
    Would turn their own perfection to abuse,
    To seem like him: so that in speech, in gait,
    In diet, in affections of delight,
    In military rules, humours of blood,
    He was the mark and glass, copy and book,
    That fashion'd others. And him, O wondrous him!
    O miracle of men! him did you leave,
    Second to none, unseconded by you,
    To look upon the hideous god of war
    In disadvantage; to abide a field
    Where nothing but the sound of Hotspur's name
    Did seem defensible: so you left him.
    Never, O never, do his ghost the wrong
    To hold your honour more precise and nice
    With others than with him! let them alone:
    The marshal and the archbishop are strong:
    Had my sweet Harry had but half their numbers,
    To-day might I, hanging on Hotspur's neck,
    Have talk'd of Monmouth's grave.

NORTHUMBERLAND    Beshrew your heart,
    Fair daughter, you do draw my spirits from me
    With new lamenting ancient oversights.
    But I must go and meet with danger there,
    Or it will seek me in another place
    And find me worse provided.

LADY
NORTHUMBERLAND    O, fly to Scotland,
    Till that the nobles and the armed commons
    Have of their puissance made a little taste.

LADY PERCY    If they get ground and vantage of the king,
    Then join you with them, like a rib of steel,
    To make strength stronger; but, for all our loves,
    First let them try themselves. So did your son;
    He was so suffer'd: so came I a widow;
    And never shall have length of life enough
    To rain upon remembrance with mine eyes,
    That it may grow and sprout as high as heaven,
    For recordation to my noble husband.

NORTHUMBERLAND    Come, come, go in with me. 'Tis with my mind
    As with the tide swell'd up unto his height,
    That makes a still-stand, running neither way:
    Fain would I go to meet the archbishop,
    But many thousand reasons hold me back.
    I will resolve for Scotland: there am I,
    Till time and vantage crave my company.

    [Exeunt]




    2 KING HENRY IV


ACT II



SCENE IV    London. The Boar's-head Tavern in Eastcheap.


    [Enter two Drawers]

First Drawer    What the devil hast thou brought there? apple-johns?
    thou knowest Sir John cannot endure an apple-john.

Second Drawer    Mass, thou sayest true. The prince once set a dish
    of apple-johns before him, and told him there were
    five more Sir Johns, and, putting off his hat, said
    'I will now take my leave of these six dry, round,
    old, withered knights.' It angered him to the
    heart: but he hath forgot that.

First Drawer    Why, then, cover, and set them down: and see if
    thou canst find out Sneak's noise; Mistress
    Tearsheet would fain hear some music. Dispatch: the
    room where they supped is too hot; they'll come in straight.

Second Drawer    Sirrah, here will be the prince and Master Poins
    anon; and they will put on two of our jerkins and
    aprons; and Sir John must not know of it: Bardolph
    hath brought word.

First Drawer    By the mass, here will be old Utis: it will be an
    excellent stratagem.

Second Drawer    I'll see if I can find out Sneak.

    [Exit]

    [Enter MISTRESS QUICKLY and DOLL TEARSHEET]

MISTRESS QUICKLY    I' faith, sweetheart, methinks now you are in an
    excellent good temperality: your pulsidge beats as
    extraordinarily as heart would desire; and your
    colour, I warrant you, is as red as any rose, in good
    truth, la! But, i' faith, you have drunk too much
    canaries; and that's a marvellous searching wine,
    and it perfumes the blood ere one can say 'What's
    this?' How do you now?

DOLL TEARSHEET    Better than I was: hem!

MISTRESS QUICKLY    Why, that's well said; a good heart's worth gold.
    Lo, here comes Sir John.

    [Enter FALSTAFF]

FALSTAFF    [Singing]  'When Arthur first in court,'
    --Empty the jordan.

    [Exit First Drawer]

    [Singing]

    --'And was a worthy king.' How now, Mistress Doll!

MISTRESS QUICKLY    Sick of a calm; yea, good faith.

FALSTAFF    So is all her sect; an they be once in a calm, they are sick.

DOLL TEARSHEET    You muddy rascal, is that all the comfort you give me?

FALSTAFF    You make fat rascals, Mistress Doll.

DOLL TEARSHEET    I make them! gluttony and diseases make them; I
    make them not.

FALSTAFF    If the cook help to make the gluttony, you help to
    make the diseases, Doll: we catch of you, Doll, we
    catch of you; grant that, my poor virtue grant that.

DOLL TEARSHEET    Yea, joy, our chains and our jewels.

FALSTAFF    'Your broaches, pearls, and ouches:' for to serve
    bravely is to come halting off, you know: to come
    off the breach with his pike bent bravely, and to
    surgery bravely; to venture upon the charged
    chambers bravely,--

DOLL TEARSHEET    Hang yourself, you muddy conger, hang yourself!

MISTRESS QUICKLY    By my troth, this is the old fashion; you two never
    meet but you fall to some discord: you are both,
    i' good truth, as rheumatic as two dry toasts; you
    cannot one bear with another's confirmities. What
    the good-year! one must bear, and that must be
    you: you are the weaker vessel, as they say, the
    emptier vessel.

DOLL TEARSHEET    Can a weak empty vessel bear such a huge full
    hogshead? there's a whole merchant's venture of
    Bourdeaux stuff in him; you have not seen a hulk
    better stuffed in the hold. Come, I'll be friends
    with thee, Jack: thou art going to the wars; and
    whether I shall ever see thee again or no, there is
    nobody cares.

    [Re-enter First Drawer]

First Drawer    Sir, Ancient Pistol's below, and would speak with
    you.

DOLL TEARSHEET    Hang him, swaggering rascal! let him not come
    hither: it is the foul-mouthed'st rogue in England.

MISTRESS QUICKLY    If he swagger, let him not come here: no, by my
    faith; I must live among my neighbours: I'll no
    swaggerers: I am in good name and fame with the
    very best: shut the door; there comes no swaggerers
    here: I have not lived all this while, to have
    swaggering now: shut the door, I pray you.

FALSTAFF    Dost thou hear, hostess?

MISTRESS QUICKLY    Pray ye, pacify yourself, Sir John: there comes no
    swaggerers here.

FALSTAFF    Dost thou hear? it is mine ancient.

MISTRESS QUICKLY    Tilly-fally, Sir John, ne'er tell me: your ancient
    swaggerer comes not in my doors. I was before Master
    Tisick, the debuty, t'other day; and, as he said to
    me, 'twas no longer ago than Wednesday last, 'I'
    good faith, neighbour Quickly,' says he; Master
    Dumbe, our minister, was by then; 'neighbour
    Quickly,' says he, 'receive those that are civil;
    for,' said he, 'you are in an ill name:' now a'
    said so, I can tell whereupon; 'for,' says he, 'you
    are an honest woman, and well thought on; therefore
    take heed what guests you receive: receive,' says
    he, 'no swaggering companions.' There comes none
    here: you would bless you to hear what he said:
    no, I'll no swaggerers.

FALSTAFF    He's no swaggerer, hostess; a tame cheater, i'
    faith; you may stroke him as gently as a puppy
    greyhound: he'll not swagger with a Barbary hen, if
    her feathers turn back in any show of resistance.
    Call him up, drawer.

    [Exit First Drawer]

MISTRESS QUICKLY    Cheater, call you him? I will bar no honest man my
    house, nor no cheater: but I do not love
    swaggering, by my troth; I am the worse, when one
    says swagger: feel, masters, how I shake; look you,
    I warrant you.

DOLL TEARSHEET    So you do, hostess.

MISTRESS QUICKLY    Do I? yea, in very truth, do I, an 'twere an aspen
    leaf: I cannot abide swaggerers.

    [Enter PISTOL, BARDOLPH, and Page]

PISTOL    God save you, Sir John!

FALSTAFF    Welcome, Ancient Pistol. Here, Pistol, I charge
    you with a cup of sack: do you discharge upon mine hostess.

PISTOL    I will discharge upon her, Sir John, with two bullets.

FALSTAFF    She is Pistol-proof, sir; you shall hardly offend
    her.

MISTRESS QUICKLY    Come, I'll drink no proofs nor no bullets: I'll
    drink no more than will do me good, for no man's
    pleasure, I.

PISTOL    Then to you, Mistress Dorothy; I will charge you.

DOLL TEARSHEET    Charge me! I scorn you, scurvy companion. What!
    you poor, base, rascally, cheating, lack-linen
    mate! Away, you mouldy rogue, away! I am meat for
    your master.

PISTOL    I know you, Mistress Dorothy.

DOLL TEARSHEET    Away, you cut-purse rascal! you filthy bung, away!
    by this wine, I'll thrust my knife in your mouldy
    chaps, an you play the saucy cuttle with me. Away,
    you bottle-ale rascal! you basket-hilt stale
    juggler, you! Since when, I pray you, sir? God's
    light, with two points on your shoulder? much!

PISTOL    God let me not live, but I will murder your ruff for this.

FALSTAFF    No more, Pistol; I would not have you go off here:
    discharge yourself of our company, Pistol.

MISTRESS QUICKLY    No, Good Captain Pistol; not here, sweet captain.

DOLL TEARSHEET    Captain! thou abominable damned cheater, art thou
    not ashamed to be called captain? An captains were
    of my mind, they would truncheon you out, for
    taking their names upon you before you have earned
    them. You a captain! you slave, for what? for
    tearing a poor whore's ruff in a bawdy-house? He a
    captain! hang him, rogue! he lives upon mouldy
    stewed prunes and dried cakes. A captain! God's
    light, these villains will make the word as odious
    as the word 'occupy;' which was an excellent good
    word before it was ill sorted: therefore captains
    had need look to 't.

BARDOLPH    Pray thee, go down, good ancient.

FALSTAFF    Hark thee hither, Mistress Doll.

PISTOL    Not I    I tell thee what, Corporal Bardolph, I could
    tear her: I'll be revenged of her.

Page    Pray thee, go down.

PISTOL    I'll see her damned first; to Pluto's damned lake,
    by this hand, to the infernal deep, with Erebus and
    tortures vile also. Hold hook and line, say I.
    Down, down, dogs! down, faitors! Have we not
    Hiren here?

MISTRESS QUICKLY    Good Captain Peesel, be quiet; 'tis very late, i'
    faith: I beseek you now, aggravate your choler.

PISTOL    These be good humours, indeed! Shall pack-horses
    And hollow pamper'd jades of Asia,
    Which cannot go but thirty mile a-day,
    Compare with Caesars, and with Cannibals,
    And Trojan Greeks? nay, rather damn them with
    King Cerberus; and let the welkin roar.
    Shall we fall foul for toys?

MISTRESS QUICKLY    By my troth, captain, these are very bitter words.

BARDOLPH    Be gone, good ancient: this will grow to abrawl anon.

PISTOL    Die men like dogs! give crowns like pins! Have we
    not Heren here?

MISTRESS QUICKLY    O' my word, captain, there's none such here. What
    the good-year! do you think I would deny her? For
    God's sake, be quiet.

PISTOL    Then feed, and be fat, my fair Calipolis.
    Come, give's some sack.
    'Si fortune me tormente, sperato me contento.'
    Fear we broadsides? no, let the fiend give fire:
    Give me some sack: and, sweetheart, lie thou there.

    [Laying down his sword]

    Come we to full points here; and are etceteras nothing?

FALSTAFF    Pistol, I would be quiet.

PISTOL    Sweet knight, I kiss thy neaf: what! we have seen
    the seven stars.

DOLL TEARSHEET    For God's sake, thrust him down stairs: I cannot
    endure such a fustian rascal.

PISTOL    Thrust him down stairs! know we not Galloway nags?

FALSTAFF    Quoit him down, Bardolph, like a shove-groat
    shilling: nay, an a' do nothing but speak nothing,
    a' shall be nothing here.

BARDOLPH    Come, get you down stairs.

PISTOL    What! shall we have incision? shall we imbrue?

    [Snatching up his sword]

    Then death rock me asleep, abridge my doleful days!
    Why, then, let grievous, ghastly, gaping wounds
    Untwine the Sisters Three! Come, Atropos, I say!

MISTRESS QUICKLY    Here's goodly stuff toward!

FALSTAFF    Give me my rapier, boy.

DOLL TEARSHEET    I pray thee, Jack, I pray thee, do not draw.

FALSTAFF    Get you down stairs.

    [Drawing, and driving PISTOL out]

MISTRESS QUICKLY    Here's a goodly tumult! I'll forswear keeping
    house, afore I'll be in these tirrits and frights.
    So; murder, I warrant now. Alas, alas! put up
    your naked weapons, put up your naked weapons.

    [Exeunt PISTOL and BARDOLPH]

DOLL TEARSHEET    I pray thee, Jack, be quiet; the rascal's gone.
    Ah, you whoreson little valiant villain, you!

MISTRESS QUICKLY    He you not hurt i' the groin? methought a' made a
    shrewd thrust at your belly.

    [Re-enter BARDOLPH]

FALSTAFF    Have you turned him out o' doors?

BARDOLPH    Yea, sir. The rascal's drunk: you have hurt him,
    sir, i' the shoulder.

FALSTAFF    A rascal! to brave me!

DOLL TEARSHEET    Ah, you sweet little rogue, you! alas, poor ape,
    how thou sweatest! come, let me wipe thy face;
    come on, you whoreson chops: ah, rogue! i'faith, I
    love thee: thou art as valorous as Hector of Troy,
    worth five of Agamemnon, and ten times better than
    the Nine Worthies: ah, villain!

FALSTAFF    A rascally slave! I will toss the rogue in a blanket.

DOLL TEARSHEET    Do, an thou darest for thy heart: an thou dost,
    I'll canvass thee between a pair of sheets.

    [Enter Music]

Page    The music is come, sir.

FALSTAFF    Let them play. Play, sirs. Sit on my knee, Doll.
    A rascal bragging slave! the rogue fled from me
    like quicksilver.

DOLL TEARSHEET    I' faith, and thou followedst him like a church.
    Thou whoreson little tidy Bartholomew boar-pig,
    when wilt thou leave fighting o' days and foining
    o' nights, and begin to patch up thine old body for heaven?

    [Enter, behind, PRINCE HENRY and POINS, disguised]

FALSTAFF    Peace, good Doll! do not speak like a death's-head;
    do not bid me remember mine end.

DOLL TEARSHEET    Sirrah, what humour's the prince of?

FALSTAFF    A good shallow young fellow: a' would have made a
    good pantler, a' would ha' chipp'd bread well.

DOLL TEARSHEET    They say Poins has a good wit.

FALSTAFF    He a good wit? hang him, baboon! his wit's as thick
    as Tewksbury mustard; there's no more conceit in him
    than is in a mallet.

DOLL TEARSHEET    Why does the prince love him so, then?

FALSTAFF    Because their legs are both of a bigness, and a'
    plays at quoits well, and eats conger and fennel,
    and drinks off candles' ends for flap-dragons, and
    rides the wild-mare with the boys, and jumps upon
    joined-stools, and swears with a good grace, and
    wears his boots very smooth, like unto the sign of
    the leg, and breeds no bate with telling of discreet
    stories; and such other gambol faculties a' has,
    that show a weak mind and an able body, for the
    which the prince admits him: for the prince himself
    is such another; the weight of a hair will turn the
    scales between their avoirdupois.

PRINCE HENRY    Would not this nave of a wheel have his ears cut off?

POINS    Let's beat him before his whore.

PRINCE HENRY    Look, whether the withered elder hath not his poll
    clawed like a parrot.

POINS    Is it not strange that desire should so many years
    outlive performance?

FALSTAFF    Kiss me, Doll.

PRINCE HENRY    Saturn and Venus this year in conjunction! what
    says the almanac to that?

POINS    And look, whether the fiery Trigon, his man, be not
    lisping to his master's old tables, his note-book,
    his counsel-keeper.

FALSTAFF    Thou dost give me flattering busses.

DOLL TEARSHEET    By my troth, I kiss thee with a most constant heart.

FALSTAFF    I am old, I am old.

DOLL TEARSHEET    I love thee better than I love e'er a scurvy young
    boy of them all.

FALSTAFF    What stuff wilt have a kirtle of? I shall receive
    money o' Thursday: shalt have a cap to-morrow. A
    merry song, come: it grows late; we'll to bed.
    Thou'lt forget me when I am gone.

DOLL TEARSHEET    By my troth, thou'lt set me a-weeping, an thou
    sayest so: prove that ever I dress myself handsome
    till thy return: well, harken at the end.

FALSTAFF    Some sack, Francis.


PRINCE HENRY    |
    |  Anon, anon, sir.
POINS    |


    [Coming forward]

FALSTAFF    Ha! a bastard son of the king's? And art not thou
    Poins his brother?

PRINCE HENRY    Why, thou globe of sinful continents! what a life
    dost thou lead!

FALSTAFF    A better than thou: I am a gentleman; thou art a drawer.

PRINCE HENRY    Very true, sir; and I come to draw you out by the ears.

MISTRESS QUICKLY    O, the Lord preserve thy good grace! by my troth,
    welcome to London. Now, the Lord bless that sweet
    face of thine! O, Jesu, are you come from Wales?

FALSTAFF    Thou whoreson mad compound of majesty, by this light
    flesh and corrupt blood, thou art welcome.

DOLL TEARSHEET    How, you fat fool! I scorn you.

POINS    My lord, he will drive you out of your revenge and
    turn all to a merriment, if you take not the heat.

PRINCE HENRY    You whoreson candle-mine, you, how vilely did you
    speak of me even now before this honest, virtuous,
    civil gentlewoman!

MISTRESS QUICKLY    God's blessing of your good heart! and so she is,
    by my troth.

FALSTAFF    Didst thou hear me?

PRINCE HENRY    Yea, and you knew me, as you did when you ran away
    by Gad's-hill: you knew I was at your back, and
    spoke it on purpose to try my patience.

FALSTAFF    No, no, no; not so; I did not think thou wast within hearing.

PRINCE HENRY    I shall drive you then to confess the wilful abuse;
    and then I know how to handle you.

FALSTAFF    No abuse, Hal, o' mine honour, no abuse.

PRINCE HENRY    Not to dispraise me, and call me pantier and
    bread-chipper and I know not what?

FALSTAFF    No abuse, Hal.

POINS    No abuse?

FALSTAFF    No abuse, Ned, i' the world; honest Ned, none. I
    dispraised him before the wicked, that the wicked
    might not fall in love with him; in which doing, I
    have done the part of a careful friend and a true
    subject, and thy father is to give me thanks for it.
    No abuse, Hal: none, Ned, none: no, faith, boys, none.

PRINCE HENRY    See now, whether pure fear and entire cowardice doth
    not make thee wrong this virtuous gentlewoman to
    close with us? is she of the wicked? is thine
    hostess here of the wicked? or is thy boy of the
    wicked? or honest Bardolph, whose zeal burns in his
    nose, of the wicked?

POINS    Answer, thou dead elm, answer.

FALSTAFF    The fiend hath pricked down Bardolph irrecoverable;
    and his face is Lucifer's privy-kitchen, where he
    doth nothing but roast malt-worms. For the boy,
    there is a good angel about him; but the devil
    outbids him too.

PRINCE HENRY    For the women?

FALSTAFF    For one of them, she is in hell already, and burns
    poor souls. For the other, I owe her money, and
    whether she be damned for that, I know not.

MISTRESS QUICKLY    No, I warrant you.

FALSTAFF    No, I think thou art not; I think thou art quit for
    that. Marry, there is another indictment upon thee,
    for suffering flesh to be eaten in thy house,
    contrary to the law; for the which I think thou wilt howl.

MISTRESS QUICKLY    All victuallers do so; what's a joint of mutton or
    two in a whole Lent?

PRINCE HENRY    You, gentlewoman,-

DOLL TEARSHEET    What says your grace?

FALSTAFF    His grace says that which his flesh rebels against.

    [Knocking within]

MISTRESS QUICKLY    Who knocks so loud at door? Look to the door there, Francis.

    [Enter PETO]

PRINCE HENRY    Peto, how now! what news?

PETO    The king your father is at Westminster:
    And there are twenty weak and wearied posts
    Come from the north: and, as I came along,
    I met and overtook a dozen captains,
    Bare-headed, sweating, knocking at the taverns,
    And asking every one for Sir John Falstaff.

PRINCE HENRY    By heaven, Poins, I feel me much to blame,
    So idly to profane the precious time,
    When tempest of commotion, like the south
    Borne with black vapour, doth begin to melt
    And drop upon our bare unarmed heads.
    Give me my sword and cloak. Falstaff, good night.

    [Exeunt PRINCE HENRY, POINS, PETO and BARDOLPH]

FALSTAFF    Now comes in the sweetest morsel of the night, and
    we must hence and leave it unpicked.

    [Knocking within]

    More knocking at the door!

    [Re-enter BARDOLPH]

    How now! what's the matter?

BARDOLPH    You must away to court, sir, presently;
    A dozen captains stay at door for you.

FALSTAFF    [To the Page]  Pay the musicians, sirrah. Farewell,
    hostess; farewell, Doll. You see, my good wenches,
    how men of merit are sought after: the undeserver
    may sleep, when the man of action is called on.
    Farewell good wenches: if I be not sent away post,
    I will see you again ere I go.

DOLL TEARSHEET    I cannot speak; if my heart be not read to burst,--
    well, sweet Jack, have a care of thyself.

FALSTAFF    Farewell, farewell.

    [Exeunt FALSTAFF and BARDOLPH]

MISTRESS QUICKLY    Well, fare thee well: I have known thee these
    twenty-nine years, come peascod-time; but an
    honester and truer-hearted man,--well, fare thee well.

BARDOLPH    [Within]  Mistress Tearsheet!

MISTRESS QUICKLY    What's the matter?

BARDOLPH    [Within]  Good Mistress Tearsheet, come to my master.

MISTRESS QUICKLY    O, run, Doll, run; run, good Doll: come.

    [She comes blubbered]

    Yea, will you come, Doll?

    [Exeunt]




    2 KING HENRY IV


ACT III



SCENE I    Westminster. The palace.


    [Enter KING HENRY IV in his nightgown, with a Page]

KING HENRY IV    Go call the Earls of Surrey and of Warwick;
    But, ere they come, bid them o'er-read these letters,
    And well consider of them; make good speed.

    [Exit Page]

    How many thousand of my poorest subjects
    Are at this hour asleep! O sleep, O gentle sleep,
    Nature's soft nurse, how have I frighted thee,
    That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down
    And steep my senses in forgetfulness?
    Why rather, sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs,
    Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee
    And hush'd with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber,
    Than in the perfumed chambers of the great,
    Under the canopies of costly state,
    And lull'd with sound of sweetest melody?
    O thou dull god, why liest thou with the vile
    In loathsome beds, and leavest the kingly couch
    A watch-case or a common 'larum-bell?
    Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast
    Seal up the ship-boy's eyes, and rock his brains
    In cradle of the rude imperious surge
    And in the visitation of the winds,
    Who take the ruffian billows by the top,
    Curling their monstrous heads and hanging them
    With deafening clamour in the slippery clouds,
    That, with the hurly, death itself awakes?
    Canst thou, O partial sleep, give thy repose
    To the wet sea-boy in an hour so rude,
    And in the calmest and most stillest night,
    With all appliances and means to boot,
    Deny it to a king? Then happy low, lie down!
    Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.

    [Enter WARWICK and SURREY]

WARWICK    Many good morrows to your majesty!

KING HENRY IV    Is it good morrow, lords?

WARWICK    'Tis one o'clock, and past.

KING HENRY IV    Why, then, good morrow to you all, my lords.
    Have you read o'er the letters that I sent you?

WARWICK    We have, my liege.

KING HENRY IV    Then you perceive the body of our kingdom
    How foul it is; what rank diseases grow
    And with what danger, near the heart of it.

WARWICK    It is but as a body yet distemper'd;
    Which to his former strength may be restored
    With good advice and little medicine:
    My Lord Northumberland will soon be cool'd.

KING HENRY IV    O God! that one might read the book of fate,
    And see the revolution of the times
    Make mountains level, and the continent,
    Weary of solid firmness, melt itself
    Into the sea! and, other times, to see
    The beachy girdle of the ocean
    Too wide for Neptune's hips; how chances mock,
    And changes fill the cup of alteration
    With divers liquors! O, if this were seen,
    The happiest youth, viewing his progress through,
    What perils past, what crosses to ensue,
    Would shut the book, and sit him down and die.
    'Tis not 'ten years gone
    Since Richard and Northumberland, great friends,
    Did feast together, and in two years after
    Were they at wars: it is but eight years since
    This Percy was the man nearest my soul,
    Who like a brother toil'd in my affairs
    And laid his love and life under my foot,
    Yea, for my sake, even to the eyes of Richard
    Gave him defiance. But which of you was by--
    You, cousin Nevil, as I may remember--

    [To WARWICK]

    When Richard, with his eye brimful of tears,
    Then cheque'd and rated by Northumberland,
    Did speak these words, now proved a prophecy?
    'Northumberland, thou ladder by the which
    My cousin Bolingbroke ascends my throne;'
    Though then, God knows, I had no such intent,
    But that necessity so bow'd the state
    That I and greatness were compell'd to kiss:
    'The time shall come,' thus did he follow it,
    'The time will come, that foul sin, gathering head,
    Shall break into corruption:' so went on,
    Foretelling this same time's condition
    And the division of our amity.

WARWICK    There is a history in all men's lives,
    Figuring the nature of the times deceased;
    The which observed, a man may prophesy,
    With a near aim, of the main chance of things
    As yet not come to life, which in their seeds
    And weak beginnings lie intreasured.
    Such things become the hatch and brood of time;
    And by the necessary form of this
    King Richard might create a perfect guess
    That great Northumberland, then false to him,
    Would of that seed grow to a greater falseness;
    Which should not find a ground to root upon,
    Unless on you.

KING HENRY IV                      Are these things then necessities?
    Then let us meet them like necessities:
    And that same word even now cries out on us:
    They say the bishop and Northumberland
    Are fifty thousand strong.

WARWICK    It cannot be, my lord;
    Rumour doth double, like the voice and echo,
    The numbers of the fear'd. Please it your grace
    To go to bed. Upon my soul, my lord,
    The powers that you already have sent forth
    Shall bring this prize in very easily.
    To comfort you the more, I have received
    A certain instance that Glendower is dead.
    Your majesty hath been this fortnight ill,
    And these unseason'd hours perforce must add
    Unto your sickness.

KING HENRY IV    I will take your counsel:
    And were these inward wars once out of hand,
    We would, dear lords, unto the Holy Land.

    [Exeunt]




    2 KING HENRY IV


ACT III



SCENE II    Gloucestershire. Before SHALLOW'S house.


    [Enter SHALLOW and SILENCE, meeting; MOULDY,
    SHADOW, WART, FEEBLE, BULLCALF, a Servant or two
    with them]

SHALLOW    Come on, come on, come on, sir; give me your hand,
    sir, give me your hand, sir: an early stirrer, by
    the rood! And how doth my good cousin Silence?

SILENCE    Good morrow, good cousin Shallow.

SHALLOW    And how doth my cousin, your bedfellow? and your
    fairest daughter and mine, my god-daughter Ellen?

SILENCE    Alas, a black ousel, cousin Shallow!

SHALLOW    By yea and nay, sir, I dare say my cousin William is
    become a good scholar: he is at Oxford still, is he not?

SILENCE    Indeed, sir, to my cost.

SHALLOW    A' must, then, to the inns o' court shortly. I was
    once of Clement's Inn, where I think they will
    talk of mad Shallow yet.

SILENCE    You were called 'lusty Shallow' then, cousin.

SHALLOW    By the mass, I was called any thing; and I would
    have done any thing indeed too, and roundly too.
    There was I, and little John Doit of Staffordshire,
    and black George Barnes, and Francis Pickbone, and
    Will Squele, a Cotswold man; you had not four such
    swinge-bucklers in all the inns o' court again: and
    I may say to you, we knew where the bona-robas were
    and had the best of them all at commandment. Then
    was Jack Falstaff, now Sir John, a boy, and page to
    Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk.

SILENCE    This Sir John, cousin, that comes hither anon about soldiers?

SHALLOW    The same Sir John, the very same. I  see him break
    Skogan's head at the court-gate, when a' was a
    crack not thus high: and the very same day did I
    fight with one Sampson Stockfish, a fruiterer,
    behind Gray's Inn. Jesu, Jesu, the mad days that I
    have spent! and to see how many of my old
    acquaintance are dead!

SILENCE    We shall all follow, cousin.

SHADOW    Certain, 'tis certain; very sure, very sure: death,
    as the Psalmist saith, is certain to all; all shall
    die. How a good yoke of bullocks at Stamford fair?

SILENCE    By my troth, I was not there.

SHALLOW    Death is certain. Is old Double of your town living
    yet?

SILENCE    Dead, sir.

SHALLOW    Jesu, Jesu, dead! a' drew a good bow; and dead! a'
    shot a fine shoot: John a Gaunt loved him well, and
    betted much money on his head. Dead! a' would have
    clapped i' the clout at twelve score; and carried
    you a forehand shaft a fourteen and fourteen and a
    half, that it would have done a man's heart good to
    see. How a score of ewes now?

SILENCE    Thereafter as they be: a score of good ewes may be
    worth ten pounds.

SHALLOW    And is old Double dead?

SILENCE    Here come two of Sir John Falstaff's men, as I think.

    [Enter BARDOLPH and one with him]

BARDOLPH    Good morrow, honest gentlemen: I beseech you, which
    is Justice Shallow?

SHALLOW    I am Robert Shallow, sir; a poor esquire of this
    county, and one of the king's justices of the peace:
    What is your good pleasure with me?

BARDOLPH    My captain, sir, commends him to you; my captain,
    Sir John Falstaff, a tall gentleman, by heaven, and
    a most gallant leader.

SHALLOW    He greets me well, sir. I knew him a good backsword
    man. How doth the good knight? may I ask how my
    lady his wife doth?

BARDOLPH    Sir, pardon; a soldier is better accommodated than
    with a wife.

SHALLOW    It is well said, in faith, sir; and it is well said
    indeed too. Better accommodated! it is good; yea,
    indeed, is it: good phrases are surely, and ever
    were, very commendable. Accommodated! it comes of
    'accommodo' very good; a good phrase.

BARDOLPH    Pardon me, sir; I have heard the word. Phrase call
    you it? by this good day, I know not the phrase;
    but I will maintain the word with my sword to be a
    soldier-like word, and a word of exceeding good
    command, by heaven. Accommodated; that is, when a
    man is, as they say, accommodated; or when a man is,
    being, whereby a' may be thought to be accommodated;
    which is an excellent thing.

SHALLOW    It is very just.

    [Enter FALSTAFF]

    Look, here comes good Sir John. Give me your good
    hand, give me your worship's good hand: by my
    troth, you like well and bear your years very well:
    welcome, good Sir John.

FALSTAFF    I am glad to see you well, good Master Robert
    Shallow: Master Surecard, as I think?

SHALLOW    No, Sir John; it is my cousin Silence, in commission with me.

FALSTAFF    Good Master Silence, it well befits you should be of
    the peace.

SILENCE    Your good-worship is welcome.

FALSTAFF    Fie! this is hot weather, gentlemen. Have you
    provided me here half a dozen sufficient men?

SHALLOW    Marry, have we, sir. Will you sit?

FALSTAFF    Let me see them, I beseech you.

SHALLOW    Where's the roll? where's the roll? where's the
    roll? Let me see, let me see, let me see. So, so:
    yea, marry, sir: Ralph Mouldy! Let them appear as
    I call; let them do so, let them do so. Let me
    see; where is Mouldy?

MOULDY    Here, an't please you.

SHALLOW    What think you, Sir John? a good-limbed fellow;
    young, strong, and of good friends.

FALSTAFF    Is thy name Mouldy?

MOULDY    Yea, an't please you.

FALSTAFF    'Tis the more time thou wert used.

SHALLOW    Ha, ha, ha! most excellent, i' faith! Things that
    are mouldy lack use: very singular good! in faith,
    well said, Sir John, very well said.

FALSTAFF    Prick him.

MOULDY    I was pricked well enough before, an you could have
    let me alone: my old dame will be undone now for
    one to do her husbandry and her drudgery: you need
    not to have pricked me; there are other men fitter
    to go out than I.

FALSTAFF    Go to: peace, Mouldy; you shall go. Mouldy, it is
    time you were spent.

MOULDY    Spent!

SHALLOW    Peace, fellow, peace; stand aside: know you where
    you are? For the other, Sir John: let me see:
    Simon Shadow!

FALSTAFF    Yea, marry, let me have him to sit under: he's like
    to be a cold soldier.

SHALLOW    Where's Shadow?

SHADOW    Here, sir.

FALSTAFF    Shadow, whose son art thou?

SHADOW    My mother's son, sir.

FALSTAFF    Thy mother's son! like enough, and thy father's
    shadow: so the son of the female is the shadow of
    the male: it is often so, indeed; but much of the
    father's substance!

SHALLOW    Do you like him, Sir John?

FALSTAFF    Shadow will serve for summer; prick him, for we have
    a number of shadows to fill up the muster-book.

SHALLOW    Thomas Wart!

FALSTAFF    Where's he?

WART    Here, sir.

FALSTAFF    Is thy name Wart?

WART    Yea, sir.

FALSTAFF    Thou art a very ragged wart.

SHALLOW    Shall I prick him down, Sir John?

FALSTAFF    It were superfluous; for his apparel is built upon
    his back and the whole frame stands upon pins:
    prick him no more.

SHALLOW    Ha, ha, ha! you can do it, sir; you can do it: I
    commend you well. Francis Feeble!

FEEBLE    Here, sir.

FALSTAFF    What trade art thou, Feeble?

FEEBLE    A woman's tailor, sir.

SHALLOW    Shall I prick him, sir?

FALSTAFF    You may: but if he had been a man's tailor, he'ld
    ha' pricked you. Wilt thou make as many holes in
    an enemy's battle as thou hast done in a woman's petticoat?

FEEBLE    I will do my good will, sir; you can have no more.

FALSTAFF    Well said, good woman's tailor! well said,
    courageous Feeble! thou wilt be as valiant as the
    wrathful dove or most magnanimous mouse. Prick the
    woman's tailor: well, Master Shallow; deep, Master Shallow.

FEEBLE    I would Wart might have gone, sir.

FALSTAFF    I would thou wert a man's tailor, that thou mightst
    mend him and make him fit to go. I cannot put him
    to a private soldier that is the leader of so many
    thousands: let that suffice, most forcible Feeble.

FEEBLE    It shall suffice, sir.

FALSTAFF    I am bound to thee, reverend Feeble. Who is next?

SHALLOW    Peter Bullcalf o' the green!

FALSTAFF    Yea, marry, let's see Bullcalf.

BULLCALF    Here, sir.

FALSTAFF    'Fore God, a likely fellow! Come, prick me Bullcalf
    till he roar again.

BULLCALF    O Lord! good my lord captain,--

FALSTAFF    What, dost thou roar before thou art pricked?

BULLCALF    O Lord, sir! I am a diseased man.

FALSTAFF    What disease hast thou?

BULLCALF    A whoreson cold, sir, a cough, sir, which I caught
    with ringing in the king's affairs upon his
    coronation-day, sir.

FALSTAFF    Come, thou shalt go to the wars in a gown; we wilt
    have away thy cold; and I will take such order that
    my friends shall ring for thee. Is here all?

SHALLOW    Here is two more called than your number, you must
    have but four here, sir: and so, I pray you, go in
    with me to dinner.

FALSTAFF    Come, I will go drink with you, but I cannot tarry
    dinner. I am glad to see you, by my troth, Master Shallow.

SHALLOW    O, Sir John, do you remember since we lay all night
    in the windmill in Saint George's field?

FALSTAFF    No more of that, good Master Shallow, no more of that.

SHALLOW    Ha! 'twas a merry night. And is Jane Nightwork alive?

FALSTAFF    She lives, Master Shallow.

SHALLOW    She never could away with me.

FALSTAFF    Never, never; she would always say she could not
    abide Master Shallow.

SHALLOW    By the mass, I could anger her to the heart. She
    was then a bona-roba. Doth she hold her own well?

FALSTAFF    Old, old, Master Shallow.

SHALLOW    Nay, she must be old; she cannot choose but be old;
    certain she's old; and had Robin Nightwork by old
    Nightwork before I came to Clement's Inn.

SILENCE    That's fifty-five year ago.

SHALLOW    Ha, cousin Silence, that thou hadst seen that that
    this knight and I have seen! Ha, Sir John, said I well?

FALSTAFF    We have heard the chimes at midnight, Master Shallow.

SHALLOW    That we have, that we have, that we have; in faith,
    Sir John, we have: our watch-word was 'Hem boys!'
    Come, let's to dinner; come, let's to dinner:
    Jesus, the days that we have seen! Come, come.

    [Exeunt FALSTAFF and Justices]

BULLCALF    Good Master Corporate Bardolph, stand my friend;
    and here's four Harry ten shillings in French crowns
    for you. In very truth, sir, I had as lief be
    hanged, sir, as go: and yet, for mine own part, sir,
    I do not care; but rather, because I am unwilling,
    and, for mine own part, have a desire to stay with
    my friends; else, sir, I did not care, for mine own
    part, so much.

BARDOLPH    Go to; stand aside.

MOULDY    And, good master corporal captain, for my old
    dame's sake, stand my friend: she has nobody to do
    any thing about her when I am gone; and she is old,
    and cannot help herself: You shall have forty, sir.

BARDOLPH    Go to; stand aside.

FEEBLE    By my troth, I care not; a man can die but once: we
    owe God a death: I'll ne'er bear a base mind:
    an't be my destiny, so; an't be not, so: no man is
    too good to serve's prince; and let it go which way
    it will, he that dies this year is quit for the next.

BARDOLPH    Well said; thou'rt a good fellow.

FEEBLE    Faith, I'll bear no base mind.

    [Re-enter FALSTAFF and the Justices]

FALSTAFF    Come, sir, which men shall I have?

SHALLOW    Four of which you please.

BARDOLPH    Sir, a word with you: I have three pound to free
    Mouldy and Bullcalf.

FALSTAFF    Go to; well.

SHALLOW    Come, Sir John, which four will you have?

FALSTAFF    Do you choose for me.

SHALLOW    Marry, then, Mouldy, Bullcalf, Feeble and Shadow.

FALSTAFF    Mouldy and Bullcalf: for you, Mouldy, stay at home
    till you are past service: and for your part,
    Bullcalf, grow till you come unto it: I will none of you.

SHALLOW    Sir John, Sir John, do not yourself wrong: they are
    your likeliest men, and I would have you served with the best.

FALSTAFF    Will you tell me, Master Shallow, how to choose a
    man? Care I for the limb, the thewes, the stature,
    bulk, and big assemblance of a man! Give me the
    spirit, Master Shallow. Here's Wart; you see what a
    ragged appearance it is; a' shall charge you and
    discharge you with the motion of a pewterer's
    hammer, come off and on swifter than he that gibbets
    on the brewer's bucket. And this same half-faced
    fellow, Shadow; give me this man: he presents no
    mark to the enemy; the foeman may with as great aim
    level at the edge of a penknife. And for a retreat;
    how swiftly will this Feeble the woman's tailor run
    off! O, give me the spare men, and spare me the
    great ones. Put me a caliver into Wart's hand, Bardolph.

BARDOLPH    Hold, Wart, traverse; thus, thus, thus.

FALSTAFF    Come, manage me your caliver. So: very well: go
    to: very good, exceeding good. O, give me always a
    little, lean, old, chapt, bald shot. Well said, i'
    faith, Wart; thou'rt a good scab: hold, there's a
    tester for thee.

SHALLOW    He is not his craft's master; he doth not do it
    right. I remember at Mile-end Green, when I lay at
    Clement's Inn--I was then Sir Dagonet in Arthur's
    show,--there was a little quiver fellow, and a'
    would manage you his piece thus; and a' would about
    and about, and come you in and come you in: 'rah,
    tah, tah,' would a' say; 'bounce' would a' say; and
    away again would a' go, and again would a' come: I
    shall ne'er see such a fellow.

FALSTAFF    These fellows will do well, Master Shallow. God
    keep you, Master Silence: I will not use many words
    with you. Fare you well, gentlemen both: I thank
    you: I must a dozen mile to-night. Bardolph, give
    the soldiers coats.

SHALLOW    Sir John, the Lord bless you! God prosper your
    affairs! God send us peace! At your return visit
    our house; let our old acquaintance be renewed;
    peradventure I will with ye to the court.

FALSTAFF    'Fore God, I would you would, Master Shallow.

SHALLOW    Go to; I have spoke at a word. God keep you.

FALSTAFF    Fare you well, gentle gentlemen.

    [Exeunt Justices]

    On, Bardolph; lead the men away.

    [Exeunt BARDOLPH, Recruits, &c]

    As I return, I will fetch off these justices: I do
    see the bottom of Justice Shallow. Lord, Lord, how
    subject we old men are to this vice of lying! This
    same starved justice hath done nothing but prate to
    me of the wildness of his youth, and the feats he
    hath done about Turnbull Street: and every third
    word a lie, duer paid to the hearer than the Turk's
    tribute. I do remember him at Clement's Inn like a
    man made after supper of a cheese-paring: when a'
    was naked, he was, for all the world, like a forked
    radish, with a head fantastically carved upon it
    with a knife: a' was so forlorn, that his
    dimensions to any thick sight were invincible: a'
    was the very genius of famine; yet lecherous as a
    monkey, and the whores called him mandrake: a' came
    ever in the rearward of the fashion, and sung those
    tunes to the overscutched huswives that he heard the
    carmen whistle, and swear they were his fancies or
    his good-nights. And now is this Vice's dagger
    become a squire, and talks as familiarly of John a
    Gaunt as if he had been sworn brother to him; and
    I'll be sworn a' ne'er saw him but once in the
    Tilt-yard; and then he burst his head for crowding
    among the marshal's men. I saw it, and told John a
    Gaunt he beat his own name; for you might have
    thrust him and all his apparel into an eel-skin; the
    case of a treble hautboy was a mansion for him, a
    court: and now has he land and beefs. Well, I'll
    be acquainted with him, if I return; and it shall
    go hard but I will make him a philosopher's two
    stones to me: if the young dace be a bait for the
    old pike, I see no reason in the law of nature but I
    may snap at him. Let time shape, and there an end.

    [Exit]




    2 KING HENRY IV


ACT IV



SCENE I    Yorkshire. Gaultree Forest.


    [Enter the ARCHBISHOP OF YORK, MOWBRAY, LORD
    HASTINGS, and others]

ARCHBISHOP OF YORK    What is this forest call'd?

HASTINGS    'Tis Gaultree Forest, an't shall please your grace.

ARCHBISHOP OF YORK    Here stand, my lords; and send discoverers forth
    To know the numbers of our enemies.

HASTINGS    We have sent forth already.

ARCHBISHOP OF YORK    'Tis well done.
    My friends and brethren in these great affairs,
    I must acquaint you that I have received
    New-dated letters from Northumberland;
    Their cold intent, tenor and substance, thus:
    Here doth he wish his person, with such powers
    As might hold sortance with his quality,
    The which he could not levy; whereupon
    He is retired, to ripe his growing fortunes,
    To Scotland: and concludes in hearty prayers
    That your attempts may overlive the hazard
    And fearful melting of their opposite.

MOWBRAY    Thus do the hopes we have in him touch ground
    And dash themselves to pieces.

    [Enter a Messenger]

HASTINGS    Now, what news?

Messenger    West of this forest, scarcely off a mile,
    In goodly form comes on the enemy;
    And, by the ground they hide, I judge their number
    Upon or near the rate of thirty thousand.

MOWBRAY    The just proportion that we gave them out
    Let us sway on and face them in the field.

ARCHBISHOP OF YORK    What well-appointed leader fronts us here?

    [Enter WESTMORELAND]

MOWBRAY    I think it is my Lord of Westmoreland.

WESTMORELAND    Health and fair greeting from our general,
    The prince, Lord John and Duke of Lancaster.

ARCHBISHOP OF YORK    Say on, my Lord of Westmoreland, in peace:
    What doth concern your coming?

WESTMORELAND    Then, my lord,
    Unto your grace do I in chief address
    The substance of my speech. If that rebellion
    Came like itself, in base and abject routs,
    Led on by bloody youth, guarded with rags,
    And countenanced by boys and beggary,
    I say, if damn'd commotion so appear'd,
    In his true, native and most proper shape,
    You, reverend father, and these noble lords
    Had not been here, to dress the ugly form
    Of base and bloody insurrection
    With your fair honours. You, lord archbishop,
    Whose see is by a civil peace maintained,
    Whose beard the silver hand of peace hath touch'd,
    Whose learning and good letters peace hath tutor'd,
    Whose white investments figure innocence,
    The dove and very blessed spirit of peace,
    Wherefore do you so ill translate ourself
    Out of the speech of peace that bears such grace,
    Into the harsh and boisterous tongue of war;
    Turning your books to graves, your ink to blood,
    Your pens to lances and your tongue divine
    To a trumpet and a point of war?

ARCHBISHOP OF YORK    Wherefore do I this? so the question stands.
    Briefly to this end: we are all diseased,
    And with our surfeiting and wanton hours
    Have brought ourselves into a burning fever,
    And we must bleed for it; of which disease
    Our late king, Richard, being infected, died.
    But, my most noble Lord of Westmoreland,
    I take not on me here as a physician,
    Nor do I as an enemy to peace
    Troop in the throngs of military men;
    But rather show awhile like fearful war,
    To diet rank minds sick of happiness
    And purge the obstructions which begin to stop
    Our very veins of life. Hear me more plainly.
    I have in equal balance justly weigh'd
    What wrongs our arms may do, what wrongs we suffer,
    And find our griefs heavier than our offences.
    We see which way the stream of time doth run,
    And are enforced from our most quiet there
    By the rough torrent of occasion;
    And have the summary of all our griefs,
    When time shall serve, to show in articles;
    Which long ere this we offer'd to the king,
    And might by no suit gain our audience:
    When we are wrong'd and would unfold our griefs,
    We are denied access unto his person
    Even by those men that most have done us wrong.
    The dangers of the days but newly gone,
    Whose memory is written on the earth
    With yet appearing blood, and the examples
    Of every minute's instance, present now,
    Hath put us in these ill-beseeming arms,
    Not to break peace or any branch of it,
    But to establish here a peace indeed,
    Concurring both in name and quality.

WESTMORELAND    When ever yet was your appeal denied?
    Wherein have you been galled by the king?
    What peer hath been suborn'd to grate on you,
    That you should seal this lawless bloody book
    Of forged rebellion with a seal divine
    And consecrate commotion's bitter edge?

ARCHBISHOP OF YORK    My brother general, the commonwealth,
    To brother born an household cruelty,
    I make my quarrel in particular.

WESTMORELAND    There is no need of any such redress;
    Or if there were, it not belongs to you.

MOWBRAY    Why not to him in part, and to us all
    That feel the bruises of the days before,
    And suffer the condition of these times
    To lay a heavy and unequal hand
    Upon our honours?

WESTMORELAND                      O, my good Lord Mowbray,
    Construe the times to their necessities,
    And you shall say indeed, it is the time,
    And not the king, that doth you injuries.
    Yet for your part, it not appears to me
    Either from the king or in the present time
    That you should have an inch of any ground
    To build a grief on: were you not restored
    To all the Duke of Norfolk's signories,
    Your noble and right well remember'd father's?

MOWBRAY    What thing, in honour, had my father lost,
    That need to be revived and breathed in me?
    The king that loved him, as the state stood then,
    Was force perforce compell'd to banish him:
    And then that Harry Bolingbroke and he,
    Being mounted and both roused in their seats,
    Their neighing coursers daring of the spur,
    Their armed staves in charge, their beavers down,
    Their eyes of fire sparking through sights of steel
    And the loud trumpet blowing them together,
    Then, then, when there was nothing could have stay'd
    My father from the breast of Bolingbroke,
    O when the king did throw his warder down,
    His own life hung upon the staff he threw;
    Then threw he down himself and all their lives
    That by indictment and by dint of sword
    Have since miscarried under Bolingbroke.

WESTMORELAND    You speak, Lord Mowbray, now you know not what.
    The Earl of Hereford was reputed then
    In England the most valiant gentlemen:
    Who knows on whom fortune would then have smiled?
    But if your father had been victor there,
    He ne'er had borne it out of Coventry:
    For all the country in a general voice
    Cried hate upon him; and all their prayers and love
    Were set on Hereford, whom they doted on
    And bless'd and graced indeed, more than the king.
    But this is mere digression from my purpose.
    Here come I from our princely general
    To know your griefs; to tell you from his grace
    That he will give you audience; and wherein
    It shall appear that your demands are just,
    You shall enjoy them, every thing set off
    That might so much as think you enemies.

MOWBRAY    But he hath forced us to compel this offer;
    And it proceeds from policy, not love.

WESTMORELAND    Mowbray, you overween to take it so;
    This offer comes from mercy, not from fear:
    For, lo! within a ken our army lies,
    Upon mine honour, all too confident
    To give admittance to a thought of fear.
    Our battle is more full of names than yours,
    Our men more perfect in the use of arms,
    Our armour all as strong, our cause the best;
    Then reason will our heart should be as good
    Say you not then our offer is compell'd.

MOWBRAY    Well, by my will we shall admit no parley.

WESTMORELAND    That argues but the shame of your offence:
    A rotten case abides no handling.

HASTINGS    Hath the Prince John a full commission,
    In very ample virtue of his father,
    To hear and absolutely to determine
    Of what conditions we shall stand upon?

WESTMORELAND    That is intended in the general's name:
    I muse you make so slight a question.

ARCHBISHOP OF YORK    Then take, my Lord of Westmoreland, this schedule,
    For this contains our general grievances:
    Each several article herein redress'd,
    All members of our cause, both here and hence,
    That are insinew'd to this action,
    Acquitted by a true substantial form
    And present execution of our wills
    To us and to our purposes confined,
    We come within our awful banks again
    And knit our powers to the arm of peace.

WESTMORELAND    This will I show the general. Please you, lords,
    In sight of both our battles we may meet;
    And either end in peace, which God so frame!
    Or to the place of difference call the swords
    Which must decide it.

ARCHBISHOP OF YORK    My lord, we will do so.

    [Exit WESTMORELAND]

MOWBRAY    There is a thing within my bosom tells me
    That no conditions of our peace can stand.

HASTINGS    Fear you not that: if we can make our peace
    Upon such large terms and so absolute
    As our conditions shall consist upon,
    Our peace shall stand as firm as rocky mountains.

MOWBRAY    Yea, but our valuation shall be such
    That every slight and false-derived cause,
    Yea, every idle, nice and wanton reason
    Shall to the king taste of this action;
    That, were our royal faiths martyrs in love,
    We shall be winnow'd with so rough a wind
    That even our corn shall seem as light as chaff
    And good from bad find no partition.

ARCHBISHOP OF YORK    No, no, my lord. Note this; the king is weary
    Of dainty and such picking grievances:
    For he hath found to end one doubt by death
    Revives two greater in the heirs of life,
    And therefore will he wipe his tables clean
    And keep no tell-tale to his memory
    That may repeat and history his loss
    To new remembrance; for full well he knows
    He cannot so precisely weed this land
    As his misdoubts present occasion:
    His foes are so enrooted with his friends
    That, plucking to unfix an enemy,
    He doth unfasten so and shake a friend:
    So that this land, like an offensive wife
    That hath enraged him on to offer strokes,
    As he is striking, holds his infant up
    And hangs resolved correction in the arm
    That was uprear'd to execution.

HASTINGS    Besides, the king hath wasted all his rods
    On late offenders, that he now doth lack
    The very instruments of chastisement:
    So that his power, like to a fangless lion,
    May offer, but not hold.

ARCHBISHOP OF YORK    'Tis very true:
    And therefore be assured, my good lord marshal,
    If we do now make our atonement well,
    Our peace will, like a broken limb united,
    Grow stronger for the breaking.

MOWBRAY    Be it so.
    Here is return'd my Lord of Westmoreland.

    [Re-enter WESTMORELAND]

WESTMORELAND    The prince is here at hand: pleaseth your lordship
    To meet his grace just distance 'tween our armies.

MOWBRAY    Your grace of York, in God's name then, set forward.

ARCHBISHOP OF YORK    Before, and greet his grace: my lord, we come.

    [Exeunt]




    2 KING HENRY IV


ACT IV



SCENE II    Another part of the forest.


    [Enter, from one side, MOWBRAY, attended; afterwards
    the ARCHBISHOP OF YORK, HASTINGS, and others: from
    the other side, Prince John of LANCASTER, and
    WESTMORELAND; Officers, and others with them]

LANCASTER    You are well encounter'd here, my cousin Mowbray:
    Good day to you, gentle lord archbishop;
    And so to you, Lord Hastings, and to all.
    My Lord of York, it better show'd with you
    When that your flock, assembled by the bell,
    Encircled you to hear with reverence
    Your exposition on the holy text
    Than now to see you here an iron man,
    Cheering a rout of rebels with your drum,
    Turning the word to sword and life to death.
    That man that sits within a monarch's heart,
    And ripens in the sunshine of his favour,
    Would he abuse the countenance of the king,
    Alack, what mischiefs might he set abrooch
    In shadow of such greatness! With you, lord bishop,
    It is even so. Who hath not heard it spoken
    How deep you were within the books of God?
    To us the speaker in his parliament;
    To us the imagined voice of God himself;
    The very opener and intelligencer
    Between the grace, the sanctities of heaven
    And our dull workings. O, who shall believe
    But you misuse the reverence of your place,
    Employ the countenance and grace of heaven,
    As a false favourite doth his prince's name,
    In deeds dishonourable? You have ta'en up,
    Under the counterfeited zeal of God,
    The subjects of his substitute, my father,
    And both against the peace of heaven and him
    Have here up-swarm'd them.

ARCHBISHOP OF YORK    Good my Lord of Lancaster,
    I am not here against your father's peace;
    But, as I told my lord of Westmoreland,
    The time misorder'd doth, in common sense,
    Crowd us and crush us to this monstrous form,
    To hold our safety up. I sent your grace
    The parcels and particulars of our grief,
    The which hath been with scorn shoved from the court,
    Whereon this Hydra son of war is born;
    Whose dangerous eyes may well be charm'd asleep
    With grant of our most just and right desires,
    And true obedience, of this madness cured,
    Stoop tamely to the foot of majesty.

MOWBRAY    If not, we ready are to try our fortunes
    To the last man.

HASTINGS                      And though we here fall down,
    We have supplies to second our attempt:
    If they miscarry, theirs shall second them;
    And so success of mischief shall be born
    And heir from heir shall hold this quarrel up
    Whiles England shall have generation.

LANCASTER    You are too shallow, Hastings, much too shallow,
    To sound the bottom of the after-times.

WESTMORELAND    Pleaseth your grace to answer them directly
    How far forth you do like their articles.

LANCASTER    I like them all, and do allow them well,
    And swear here, by the honour of my blood,
    My father's purposes have been mistook,
    And some about him have too lavishly
    Wrested his meaning and authority.
    My lord, these griefs shall be with speed redress'd;
    Upon my soul, they shall. If this may please you,
    Discharge your powers unto their several counties,
    As we will ours: and here between the armies
    Let's drink together friendly and embrace,
    That all their eyes may bear those tokens home
    Of our restored love and amity.

ARCHBISHOP OF YORK    I take your princely word for these redresses.

LANCASTER    I give it you, and will maintain my word:
    And thereupon I drink unto your grace.

HASTINGS    Go, captain, and deliver to the army
    This news of peace: let them have pay, and part:
    I know it will well please them. Hie thee, captain.

    [Exit Officer]

ARCHBISHOP OF YORK    To you, my noble Lord of Westmoreland.

WESTMORELAND    I pledge your grace; and, if you knew what pains
    I have bestow'd to breed this present peace,
    You would drink freely: but my love to ye
    Shall show itself more openly hereafter.

ARCHBISHOP OF YORK    I do not doubt you.

WESTMORELAND    I am glad of it.
    Health to my lord and gentle cousin, Mowbray.

MOWBRAY    You wish me health in very happy season;
    For I am, on the sudden, something ill.

ARCHBISHOP OF YORK    Against ill chances men are ever merry;
    But heaviness foreruns the good event.

WESTMORELAND    Therefore be merry, coz; since sudden sorrow
    Serves to say thus, 'some good thing comes
    to-morrow.'

ARCHBISHOP OF YORK    Believe me, I am passing light in spirit.

MOWBRAY    So much the worse, if your own rule be true.

    [Shouts within]

LANCASTER    The word of peace is render'd: hark, how they shout!

MOWBRAY    This had been cheerful after victory.

ARCHBISHOP OF YORK    A peace is of the nature of a conquest;
    For then both parties nobly are subdued,
    And neither party loser.

LANCASTER    Go, my lord,
    And let our army be discharged too.

    [Exit WESTMORELAND]

    And, good my lord, so please you, let our trains
    March, by us, that we may peruse the men
    We should have coped withal.

ARCHBISHOP OF YORK    Go, good Lord Hastings,
    And, ere they be dismissed, let them march by.

    [Exit HASTINGS]

LANCASTER    I trust, lords, we shall lie to-night together.

    [Re-enter WESTMORELAND]

    Now, cousin, wherefore stands our army still?

WESTMORELAND    The leaders, having charge from you to stand,
    Will not go off until they hear you speak.

LANCASTER    They know their duties.

    [Re-enter HASTINGS]

HASTINGS    My lord, our army is dispersed already;
    Like youthful steers unyoked, they take their courses
    East, west, north, south; or, like a school broke up,
    Each hurries toward his home and sporting-place.

WESTMORELAND    Good tidings, my Lord Hastings; for the which
    I do arrest thee, traitor, of high treason:
    And you, lord archbishop, and you, Lord Mowbray,
    Of capitol treason I attach you both.

MOWBRAY    Is this proceeding just and honourable?

WESTMORELAND    Is your assembly so?

ARCHBISHOP OF YORK    Will you thus break your faith?

LANCASTER    I pawn'd thee none:
    I promised you redress of these same grievances
    Whereof you did complain; which, by mine honour,
    I will perform with a most Christian care.
    But for you, rebels, look to taste the due
    Meet for rebellion and such acts as yours.
    Most shallowly did you these arms commence,
    Fondly brought here and foolishly sent hence.
    Strike up our drums, pursue the scatter'd stray:
    God, and not we, hath safely fought to-day.
    Some guard these traitors to the block of death,
    Treason's true bed and yielder up of breath.

    [Exeunt]




    2 KING HENRY IV


ACT IV



SCENE III    Another part of the forest.


    [Alarum. Excursions. Enter FALSTAFF and COLEVILE, meeting]

FALSTAFF    What's your name, sir? of what condition are you,
    and of what place, I pray?

COLEVILE    I am a knight, sir, and my name is Colevile of the dale.

FALSTAFF    Well, then, Colevile is your name, a knight is your
    degree, and your place the dale: Colevile shall be
    still your name, a traitor your degree, and the
    dungeon your place, a place deep enough; so shall
    you be still Colevile of the dale.

COLEVILE    Are not you Sir John Falstaff?

FALSTAFF    As good a man as he, sir, whoe'er I am. Do ye
    yield, sir? or shall I sweat for you? if I do
    sweat, they are the drops of thy lovers, and they
    weep for thy death: therefore rouse up fear and
    trembling, and do observance to my mercy.

COLEVILE    I think you are Sir John Falstaff, and in that
    thought yield me.

FALSTAFF    I have a whole school of tongues in this belly of
    mine, and not a tongue of them all speaks any other
    word but my name. An I had but a belly of any
    indifference, I were simply the most active fellow
    in Europe: my womb, my womb, my womb, undoes me.
    Here comes our general.

    [Enter PRINCE JOHN OF LANCASTER, WESTMORELAND,
    BLUNT, and others]

LANCASTER    The heat is past; follow no further now:
    Call in the powers, good cousin Westmoreland.

    [Exit WESTMORELAND]

    Now, Falstaff, where have you been all this while?
    When every thing is ended, then you come:
    These tardy tricks of yours will, on my life,
    One time or other break some gallows' back.

FALSTAFF    I would be sorry, my lord, but it should be thus: I
    never knew yet but rebuke and cheque was the reward
    of valour. Do you think me a swallow, an arrow, or a
    bullet? have I, in my poor and old motion, the
    expedition of thought? I have speeded hither with
    the very extremest inch of possibility; I have
    foundered nine score and odd posts: and here,
    travel-tainted as I am, have in my pure and
    immaculate valour, taken Sir John Colevile of the
    dale, a most furious knight and valorous enemy.
    But what of that? he saw me, and yielded; that I
    may justly say, with the hook-nosed fellow of Rome,
    'I came, saw, and overcame.'

LANCASTER    It was more of his courtesy than your deserving.

FALSTAFF    I know not: here he is, and here I yield him: and
    I beseech your grace, let it be booked with the
    rest of this day's deeds; or, by the Lord, I will
    have it in a particular ballad else, with mine own
    picture on the top on't, Colevile kissing my foot:
    to the which course if I be enforced, if you do not
    all show like gilt twopences to me, and I in the
    clear sky of fame o'ershine you as much as the full
    moon doth the cinders of the element, which show
    like pins' heads to her, believe not the word of
    the noble: therefore let me have right, and let
    desert mount.

LANCASTER    Thine's too heavy to mount.

FALSTAFF    Let it shine, then.

LANCASTER    Thine's too thick to shine.

FALSTAFF    Let it do something, my good lord, that may do me
    good, and call it what you will.

LANCASTER    Is thy name Colevile?

COLEVILE    It is, my lord.

LANCASTER    A famous rebel art thou, Colevile.

FALSTAFF    And a famous true subject took him.

COLEVILE    I am, my lord, but as my betters are
    That led me hither: had they been ruled by me,
    You should have won them dearer than you have.

FALSTAFF    I know not how they sold themselves: but thou, like
    a kind fellow, gavest thyself away gratis; and I
    thank thee for thee.

    [Re-enter WESTMORELAND]

LANCASTER    Now, have you left pursuit?

WESTMORELAND    Retreat is made and execution stay'd.

LANCASTER    Send Colevile with his confederates
    To York, to present execution:
    Blunt, lead him hence; and see you guard him sure.

    [Exeunt BLUNT and others with COLEVILE]

    And now dispatch we toward the court, my lords:
    I hear the king my father is sore sick:
    Our news shall go before us to his majesty,
    Which, cousin, you shall bear to comfort him,
    And we with sober speed will follow you.

FALSTAFF    My lord, I beseech you, give me leave to go
    Through Gloucestershire: and, when you come to court,
    Stand my good lord, pray, in your good report.

LANCASTER    Fare you well, Falstaff: I, in my condition,
    Shall better speak of you than you deserve.

    [Exeunt all but Falstaff]

FALSTAFF    I would you had but the wit: 'twere better than
    your dukedom. Good faith, this same young sober-
    blooded boy doth not love me; nor a man cannot make
    him laugh; but that's no marvel, he drinks no wine.
    There's never none of these demure boys come to any
    proof; for thin drink doth so over-cool their blood,
    and making many fish-meals, that they fall into a
    kind of male green-sickness; and then when they
    marry, they get wenches: they are generally fools
    and cowards; which some of us should be too, but for
    inflammation. A good sherris sack hath a two-fold
    operation in it. It ascends me into the brain;
    dries me there all the foolish and dull and curdy
    vapours which environ it; makes it apprehensive,
    quick, forgetive, full of nimble fiery and
    delectable shapes, which, delivered o'er to the
    voice, the tongue, which is the birth, becomes
    excellent wit. The second property of your
    excellent sherris is, the warming of the blood;
    which, before cold and settled, left the liver
    white and pale, which is the badge of pusillanimity
    and cowardice; but the sherris warms it and makes
    it course from the inwards to the parts extreme:
    it illumineth the face, which as a beacon gives
    warning to all the rest of this little kingdom,
    man, to arm; and then the vital commoners and
    inland petty spirits muster me all to their captain,
    the heart, who, great and puffed up with this
    retinue, doth any deed of courage; and this valour
    comes of sherris. So that skill in the weapon is
    nothing without sack, for that sets it a-work; and
    learning a mere hoard of gold kept by a devil, till
    sack commences it and sets it in act and use.
    Hereof comes it that Prince Harry is valiant; for
    the cold blood he did naturally inherit of his
    father, he hath, like lean, sterile and bare land,
    manured, husbanded and tilled with excellent
    endeavour of drinking good and good store of fertile
    sherris, that he is become very hot and valiant. If
    I had a thousand sons, the first humane principle I
    would teach them should be, to forswear thin
    potations and to addict themselves to sack.

    [Enter BARDOLPH]

    How now Bardolph?

BARDOLPH    The army is discharged all and gone.

FALSTAFF    Let them go. I'll through Gloucestershire; and
    there will I visit Master Robert Shallow, esquire:
    I have him already tempering between my finger and
    my thumb, and shortly will I seal with him. Come away.

    [Exeunt]




    2 KING HENRY IV


ACT IV



SCENE IV    Westminster. The Jerusalem Chamber.


    [Enter KING HENRY IV, the Princes Thomas of CLARENCE
    and Humphrey of GLOUCESTER, WARWICK, and others]

KING HENRY IV    Now, lords, if God doth give successful end
    To this debate that bleedeth at our doors,
    We will our youth lead on to higher fields
    And draw no swords but what are sanctified.
    Our navy is address'd, our power collected,
    Our substitutes in absence well invested,
    And every thing lies level to our wish:
    Only, we want a little personal strength;
    And pause us, till these rebels, now afoot,
    Come underneath the yoke of government.

WARWICK    Both which we doubt not but your majesty
    Shall soon enjoy.

KING HENRY IV                      Humphrey, my son of Gloucester,
    Where is the prince your brother?

GLOUCESTER    I think he's gone to hunt, my lord, at Windsor.

KING HENRY IV    And how accompanied?

GLOUCESTER    I do not know, my lord.

KING HENRY IV    Is not his brother, Thomas of Clarence, with him?

GLOUCESTER    No, my good lord; he is in presence here.

CLARENCE    What would my lord and father?

KING HENRY IV    Nothing but well to thee, Thomas of Clarence.
    How chance thou art not with the prince thy brother?
    He loves thee, and thou dost neglect him, Thomas;
    Thou hast a better place in his affection
    Than all thy brothers: cherish it, my boy,
    And noble offices thou mayst effect
    Of mediation, after I am dead,
    Between his greatness and thy other brethren:
    Therefore omit him not; blunt not his love,
    Nor lose the good advantage of his grace
    By seeming cold or careless of his will;
    For he is gracious, if he be observed:
    He hath a tear for pity and a hand
    Open as day for melting charity:
    Yet notwithstanding, being incensed, he's flint,
    As humorous as winter and as sudden
    As flaws congealed in the spring of day.
    His temper, therefore, must be well observed:
    Chide him for faults, and do it reverently,
    When thou perceive his blood inclined to mirth;
    But, being moody, give him line and scope,
    Till that his passions, like a whale on ground,
    Confound themselves with working. Learn this, Thomas,
    And thou shalt prove a shelter to thy friends,
    A hoop of gold to bind thy brothers in,
    That the united vessel of their blood,
    Mingled with venom of suggestion--
    As, force perforce, the age will pour it in--
    Shall never leak, though it do work as strong
    As aconitum or rash gunpowder.

CLARENCE    I shall observe him with all care and love.

KING HENRY IV    Why art thou not at Windsor with him, Thomas?

CLARENCE    He is not there to-day; he dines in London.

KING HENRY IV    And how accompanied? canst thou tell that?

CLARENCE    With Poins, and other his continual followers.

KING HENRY IV    Most subject is the fattest soil to weeds;
    And he, the noble image of my youth,
    Is overspread with them: therefore my grief
    Stretches itself beyond the hour of death:
    The blood weeps from my heart when I do shape
    In forms imaginary the unguided days
    And rotten times that you shall look upon
    When I am sleeping with my ancestors.
    For when his headstrong riot hath no curb,
    When rage and hot blood are his counsellors,
    When means and lavish manners meet together,
    O, with what wings shall his affections fly
    Towards fronting peril and opposed decay!

WARWICK    My gracious lord, you look beyond him quite:
    The prince but studies his companions
    Like a strange tongue, wherein, to gain the language,
    'Tis needful that the most immodest word
    Be look'd upon and learn'd; which once attain'd,
    Your highness knows, comes to no further use
    But to be known and hated. So, like gross terms,
    The prince will in the perfectness of time
    Cast off his followers; and their memory
    Shall as a pattern or a measure live,
    By which his grace must mete the lives of others,
    Turning past evils to advantages.

KING HENRY IV    'Tis seldom when the bee doth leave her comb
    In the dead carrion.

    [Enter WESTMORELAND]

        Who's here? Westmoreland?

WESTMORELAND    Health to my sovereign, and new happiness
    Added to that that I am to deliver!
    Prince John your son doth kiss your grace's hand:
    Mowbray, the Bishop Scroop, Hastings and all
    Are brought to the correction of your law;
    There is not now a rebel's sword unsheath'd
    But peace puts forth her olive every where.
    The manner how this action hath been borne
    Here at more leisure may your highness read,
    With every course in his particular.

KING HENRY IV    O Westmoreland, thou art a summer bird,
    Which ever in the haunch of winter sings
    The lifting up of day.

    [Enter HARCOURT]

         Look, here's more news.

HARCOURT    From enemies heaven keep your majesty;
    And, when they stand against you, may they fall
    As those that I am come to tell you of!
    The Earl Northumberland and the Lord Bardolph,
    With a great power of English and of Scots
    Are by the sheriff of Yorkshire overthrown:
    The manner and true order of the fight
    This packet, please it you, contains at large.

KING HENRY IV    And wherefore should these good news make me sick?
    Will fortune never come with both hands full,
    But write her fair words still in foulest letters?
    She either gives a stomach and no food;
    Such are the poor, in health; or else a feast
    And takes away the stomach; such are the rich,
    That have abundance and enjoy it not.
    I should rejoice now at this happy news;
    And now my sight fails, and my brain is giddy:
    O me! come near me; now I am much ill.

GLOUCESTER    Comfort, your majesty!

CLARENCE    O my royal father!

WESTMORELAND    My sovereign lord, cheer up yourself, look up.

WARWICK    Be patient, princes; you do know, these fits
    Are with his highness very ordinary.
    Stand from him. Give him air; he'll straight be well.

CLARENCE    No, no, he cannot long hold out these pangs:
    The incessant care and labour of his mind
    Hath wrought the mure that should confine it in
    So thin that life looks through and will break out.

GLOUCESTER    The people fear me; for they do observe
    Unfather'd heirs and loathly births of nature:
    The seasons change their manners, as the year
    Had found some months asleep and leap'd them over.

CLARENCE    The river hath thrice flow'd, no ebb between;
    And the old folk, time's doting chronicles,
    Say it did so a little time before
    That our great-grandsire, Edward, sick'd and died.

WARWICK    Speak lower, princes, for the king recovers.

GLOUCESTER    This apoplexy will certain be his end.

KING HENRY IV    I pray you, take me up, and bear me hence
    Into some other chamber: softly, pray.




    2 KING HENRY IV


ACT IV



SCENE V    Another chamber.


    [KING HENRY IV lying on a bed: CLARENCE,
    GLOUCESTER, WARWICK, and others in attendance]

KING HENRY IV    Let there be no noise made, my gentle friends;
    Unless some dull and favourable hand
    Will whisper music to my weary spirit.

WARWICK    Call for the music in the other room.

KING HENRY IV    Set me the crown upon my pillow here.

CLARENCE    His eye is hollow, and he changes much.

WARWICK    Less noise, less noise!

    [Enter PRINCE HENRY]

PRINCE HENRY    Who saw the Duke of Clarence?

CLARENCE    I am here, brother, full of heaviness.

PRINCE HENRY    How now! rain within doors, and none abroad!
    How doth the king?

GLOUCESTER    Exceeding ill.

PRINCE HENRY                      Heard he the good news yet?
    Tell it him.

GLOUCESTER    He alter'd much upon the hearing it.

PRINCE HENRY    If he be sick with joy, he'll recover without physic.

WARWICK    Not so much noise, my lords: sweet prince,
    speak low;
    The king your father is disposed to sleep.

CLARENCE    Let us withdraw into the other room.

WARWICK    Will't please your grace to go along with us?

PRINCE HENRY    No; I will sit and watch here by the king.

    [Exeunt all but PRINCE HENRY]

    Why doth the crown lie there upon his pillow,
    Being so troublesome a bedfellow?
    O polish'd perturbation! golden care!
    That keep'st the ports of slumber open wide
    To many a watchful night! sleep with it now!
    Yet not so sound and half so deeply sweet
    As he whose brow with homely biggen bound
    Snores out the watch of night. O majesty!
    When thou dost pinch thy bearer, thou dost sit
    Like a rich armour worn in heat of day,
    That scalds with safety. By his gates of breath
    There lies a downy feather which stirs not:
    Did he suspire, that light and weightless down
    Perforce must move. My gracious lord! my father!
    This sleep is sound indeed, this is a sleep
    That from this golden rigol hath divorced
    So many English kings. Thy due from me
    Is tears and heavy sorrows of the blood,
    Which nature, love, and filial tenderness,
    Shall, O dear father, pay thee plenteously:
    My due from thee is this imperial crown,
    Which, as immediate as thy place and blood,
    Derives itself to me. Lo, here it sits,
    Which God shall guard: and put the world's whole strength
    Into one giant arm, it shall not force
    This lineal honour from me: this from thee
    Will I to mine leave, as 'tis left to me.

    [Exit]

KING HENRY IV    Warwick! Gloucester! Clarence!

    [Re-enter WARWICK, GLOUCESTER, CLARENCE, and the rest]

CLARENCE    Doth the king call?

WARWICK    What would your majesty? How fares your grace?

KING HENRY IV    Why did you leave me here alone, my lords?

CLARENCE    We left the prince my brother here, my liege,
    Who undertook to sit and watch by you.

KING HENRY IV    The Prince of Wales! Where is he? let me see him:
    He is not here.

WARWICK    This door is open; he is gone this way.

GLOUCESTER    He came not through the chamber where we stay'd.

KING HENRY IV    Where is the crown? who took it from my pillow?

WARWICK    When we withdrew, my liege, we left it here.

KING HENRY IV    The prince hath ta'en it hence: go, seek him out.
    Is he so hasty that he doth suppose
    My sleep my death?
    Find him, my Lord of Warwick; chide him hither.

    [Exit WARWICK]

    This part of his conjoins with my disease,
    And helps to end me. See, sons, what things you are!
    How quickly nature falls into revolt
    When gold becomes her object!
    For this the foolish over-careful fathers
    Have broke their sleep with thoughts, their brains with care,
    Their bones with industry;
    For this they have engrossed and piled up
    The canker'd heaps of strange-achieved gold;
    For this they have been thoughtful to invest
    Their sons with arts and martial exercises:
    When, like the bee, culling from every flower
    The virtuous sweets,
    Our thighs pack'd with wax, our mouths with honey,
    We bring it to the hive, and, like the bees,
    Are murdered for our pains. This bitter taste
    Yield his engrossments to the ending father.

    [Re-enter WARWICK]

    Now, where is he that will not stay so long
    Till his friend sickness hath determined me?

WARWICK    My lord, I found the prince in the next room,
    Washing with kindly tears his gentle cheeks,
    With such a deep demeanor in great sorrow
    That tyranny, which never quaff'd but blood,
    Would, by beholding him, have wash'd his knife
    With gentle eye-drops. He is coming hither.

KING HENRY IV    But wherefore did he take away the crown?

    [Re-enter PRINCE HENRY]

    Lo, where he comes. Come hither to me, Harry.
    Depart the chamber, leave us here alone.

    [Exeunt WARWICK and the rest]

PRINCE HENRY    I never thought to hear you speak again.

KING HENRY IV    Thy wish was father, Harry, to that thought:
    I stay too long by thee, I weary thee.
    Dost thou so hunger for mine empty chair
    That thou wilt needs invest thee with my honours
    Before thy hour be ripe? O foolish youth!
    Thou seek'st the greatness that will o'erwhelm thee.
    Stay but a little; for my cloud of dignity
    Is held from falling with so weak a wind
    That it will quickly drop: my day is dim.
    Thou hast stolen that which after some few hours
    Were thine without offence; and at my death
    Thou hast seal'd up my expectation:
    Thy life did manifest thou lovedst me not,
    And thou wilt have me die assured of it.
    Thou hidest a thousand daggers in thy thoughts,
    Which thou hast whetted on thy stony heart,
    To stab at half an hour of my life.
    What! canst thou not forbear me half an hour?
    Then get thee gone and dig my grave thyself,
    And bid the merry bells ring to thine ear
    That thou art crowned, not that I am dead.
    Let all the tears that should bedew my hearse
    Be drops of balm to sanctify thy head:
    Only compound me with forgotten dust
    Give that which gave thee life unto the worms.
    Pluck down my officers, break my decrees;
    For now a time is come to mock at form:
    Harry the Fifth is crown'd: up, vanity!
    Down, royal state! all you sage counsellors, hence!
    And to the English court assemble now,
    From every region, apes of idleness!
    Now, neighbour confines, purge you of your scum:
    Have you a ruffian that will swear, drink, dance,
    Revel the night, rob, murder, and commit
    The oldest sins the newest kind of ways?
    Be happy, he will trouble you no more;
    England shall double gild his treble guilt,
    England shall give him office, honour, might;
    For the fifth Harry from curb'd licence plucks
    The muzzle of restraint, and the wild dog
    Shall flesh his tooth on every innocent.
    O my poor kingdom, sick with civil blows!
    When that my care could not withhold thy riots,
    What wilt thou do when riot is thy care?
    O, thou wilt be a wilderness again,
    Peopled with wolves, thy old inhabitants!

PRINCE HENRY    O, pardon me, my liege! but for my tears,
    The moist impediments unto my speech,
    I had forestall'd this dear and deep rebuke
    Ere you with grief had spoke and I had heard
    The course of it so far. There is your crown;
    And He that wears the crown immortally
    Long guard it yours! If I affect it more
    Than as your honour and as your renown,
    Let me no more from this obedience rise,
    Which my most inward true and duteous spirit
    Teacheth, this prostrate and exterior bending.
    God witness with me, when I here came in,
    And found no course of breath within your majesty,
    How cold it struck my heart! If I do feign,
    O, let me in my present wildness die
    And never live to show the incredulous world
    The noble change that I have purposed!
    Coming to look on you, thinking you dead,
    And dead almost, my liege, to think you were,
    I spake unto this crown as having sense,
    And thus upbraided it: 'The care on thee depending
    Hath fed upon the body of my father;
    Therefore, thou best of gold art worst of gold:
    Other, less fine in carat, is more precious,
    Preserving life in medicine potable;
    But thou, most fine, most honour'd: most renown'd,
    Hast eat thy bearer up.' Thus, my most royal liege,
    Accusing it, I put it on my head,
    To try with it, as with an enemy
    That had before my face murder'd my father,
    The quarrel of a true inheritor.
    But if it did infect my blood with joy,
    Or swell my thoughts to any strain of pride;
    If any rebel or vain spirit of mine
    Did with the least affection of a welcome
    Give entertainment to the might of it,
    Let God for ever keep it from my head
    And make me as the poorest vassal is
    That doth with awe and terror kneel to it!

KING HENRY IV    O my son,
    God put it in thy mind to take it hence,
    That thou mightst win the more thy father's love,
    Pleading so wisely in excuse of it!
    Come hither, Harry, sit thou by my bed;
    And hear, I think, the very latest counsel
    That ever I shall breathe. God knows, my son,
    By what by-paths and indirect crook'd ways
    I met this crown; and I myself know well
    How troublesome it sat upon my head.
    To thee it shall descend with bitter quiet,
    Better opinion, better confirmation;
    For all the soil of the achievement goes
    With me into the earth. It seem'd in me
    But as an honour snatch'd with boisterous hand,
    And I had many living to upbraid
    My gain of it by their assistances;
    Which daily grew to quarrel and to bloodshed,
    Wounding supposed peace: all these bold fears
    Thou see'st with peril I have answered;
    For all my reign hath been but as a scene
    Acting that argument: and now my death
    Changes the mode; for what in me was purchased,
    Falls upon thee in a more fairer sort;
    So thou the garland wear'st successively.
    Yet, though thou stand'st more sure than I could do,
    Thou art not firm enough, since griefs are green;
    And all my friends, which thou must make thy friends,
    Have but their stings and teeth newly ta'en out;
    By whose fell working I was first advanced
    And by whose power I well might lodge a fear
    To be again displaced: which to avoid,
    I cut them off; and had a purpose now
    To lead out many to the Holy Land,
    Lest rest and lying still might make them look
    Too near unto my state. Therefore, my Harry,
    Be it thy course to busy giddy minds
    With foreign quarrels; that action, hence borne out,
    May waste the memory of the former days.
    More would I, but my lungs are wasted so
    That strength of speech is utterly denied me.
    How I came by the crown, O God forgive;
    And grant it may with thee in true peace live!

PRINCE HENRY    My gracious liege,
    You won it, wore it, kept it, gave it me;
    Then plain and right must my possession be:
    Which I with more than with a common pain
    'Gainst all the world will rightfully maintain.

    [Enter Lord John of LANCASTER]

KING HENRY IV    Look, look, here comes my John of Lancaster.

LANCASTER    Health, peace, and happiness to my royal father!

KING HENRY IV    Thou bring'st me happiness and peace, son John;
    But health, alack, with youthful wings is flown
    From this bare wither'd trunk: upon thy sight
    My worldly business makes a period.
    Where is my Lord of Warwick?

PRINCE HENRY    My Lord of Warwick!

    [Enter WARWICK, and others]

KING HENRY IV    Doth any name particular belong
    Unto the lodging where I first did swoon?

WARWICK    'Tis call'd Jerusalem, my noble lord.

KING HENRY IV    Laud be to God! even there my life must end.
    It hath been prophesied to me many years,
    I should not die but in Jerusalem;
    Which vainly I supposed the Holy Land:
    But bear me to that chamber; there I'll lie;
    In that Jerusalem shall Harry die.

    [Exeunt]




    2 KING HENRY IV


ACT V



SCENE I    Gloucestershire. SHALLOW'S house.


    [Enter SHALLOW, FALSTAFF, BARDOLPH, and Page]

SHALLOW    By cock and pie, sir, you shall not away to-night.
    What, Davy, I say!

FALSTAFF    You must excuse me, Master Robert Shallow.

SHALLOW    I will not excuse you; you shall not be excused;
    excuses shall not be admitted; there is no excuse
    shall serve; you shall not be excused. Why, Davy!

    [Enter DAVY]

DAVY    Here, sir.

SHALLOW    Davy, Davy, Davy, Davy, let me see, Davy; let me
    see, Davy; let me see: yea, marry, William cook,
    bid him come hither. Sir John, you shall not be excused.

DAVY    Marry, sir, thus; those precepts cannot be served:
    and, again, sir, shall we sow the headland with wheat?

SHALLOW    With red wheat, Davy. But for William cook: are
    there no young pigeons?

DAVY    Yes, sir. Here is now the smith's note for shoeing
    and plough-irons.

SHALLOW    Let it be cast and paid. Sir John, you shall not be excused.

DAVY    Now, sir, a new link to the bucket must need be
    had: and, sir, do you mean to stop any of William's
    wages, about the sack he lost the other day at
    Hinckley fair?

SHALLOW    A' shall answer it. Some pigeons, Davy, a couple
    of short-legged hens, a joint of mutton, and any
    pretty little tiny kickshaws, tell William cook.

DAVY    Doth the man of war stay all night, sir?

SHALLOW    Yea, Davy. I will use him well: a friend i' the
    court is better than a penny in purse. Use his men
    well, Davy; for they are arrant knaves, and will backbite.

DAVY    No worse than they are backbitten, sir; for they
    have marvellous foul linen.

SHALLOW    Well conceited, Davy: about thy business, Davy.

DAVY    I beseech you, sir, to countenance William Visor of
    Woncot against Clement Perkes of the hill.

SHALLOW    There is many complaints, Davy, against that Visor:
    that Visor is an arrant knave, on my knowledge.

DAVY    I grant your worship that he is a knave, sir; but
    yet, God forbid, sir, but a knave should have some
    countenance at his friend's request. An honest
    man, sir, is able to speak for himself, when a knave
    is not. I have served your worship truly, sir,
    this eight years; and if I cannot once or twice in
    a quarter bear out a knave against an honest man, I
    have but a very little credit with your worship. The
    knave is mine honest friend, sir; therefore, I
    beseech your worship, let him be countenanced.

SHALLOW    Go to; I say he shall have no wrong. Look about, Davy.

    [Exit DAVY]

    Where are you, Sir John? Come, come, come, off
    with your boots. Give me your hand, Master Bardolph.

BARDOLPH    I am glad to see your worship.

SHALLOW    I thank thee with all my heart, kind
    Master Bardolph: and welcome, my tall fellow.

    [To the Page]

    Come, Sir John.

FALSTAFF    I'll follow you, good Master Robert Shallow.

    [Exit SHALLOW]

    Bardolph, look to our horses.

    [Exeunt BARDOLPH and Page]

    If I were sawed into quantities, I should make four
    dozen of such bearded hermits' staves as Master
    Shallow. It is a wonderful thing to see the
    semblable coherence of his men's spirits and his:
    they, by observing of him, do bear themselves like
    foolish justices; he, by conversing with them, is
    turned into a justice-like serving-man: their
    spirits are so married in conjunction with the
    participation of society that they flock together in
    consent, like so many wild-geese. If I had a suit
    to Master Shallow, I would humour his men with the
    imputation of being near their master: if to his
    men, I would curry with Master Shallow that no man
    could better command his servants. It is certain
    that either wise bearing or ignorant carriage is
    caught, as men take diseases, one of another:
    therefore let men take heed of their company. I
    will devise matter enough out of this Shallow to
    keep Prince Harry in continual laughter the wearing
    out of six fashions, which is four terms, or two
    actions, and a' shall laugh without intervallums. O,
    it is much that a lie with a slight oath and a jest
    with a sad brow will do with a fellow that never
    had the ache in his shoulders! O, you shall see him
    laugh till his face be like a wet cloak ill laid up!

SHALLOW    [Within]  Sir John!

FALSTAFF    I come, Master Shallow; I come, Master Shallow.

    [Exit]




    2 KING HENRY IV


ACT V



SCENE II    Westminster. The palace.


    [Enter WARWICK and the Lord Chief-Justice, meeting]

WARWICK    How now, my lord chief-justice! whither away?

Lord Chief-Justice    How doth the king?

WARWICK    Exceeding well; his cares are now all ended.

Lord Chief-Justice    I hope, not dead.

WARWICK    He's walk'd the way of nature;
    And to our purposes he lives no more.

Lord Chief-Justice    I would his majesty had call'd me with him:
    The service that I truly did his life
    Hath left me open to all injuries.

WARWICK    Indeed I think the young king loves you not.

Lord Chief-Justice    I know he doth not, and do arm myself
    To welcome the condition of the time,
    Which cannot look more hideously upon me
    Than I have drawn it in my fantasy.

    [Enter LANCASTER, CLARENCE, GLOUCESTER,
    WESTMORELAND, and others]

WARWICK    Here come the heavy issue of dead Harry:
    O that the living Harry had the temper
    Of him, the worst of these three gentlemen!
    How many nobles then should hold their places
    That must strike sail to spirits of vile sort!

Lord Chief-Justice    O God, I fear all will be overturn'd!

LANCASTER    Good morrow, cousin Warwick, good morrow.


GLOUCESTER    |
    |  Good morrow, cousin.
CLARENCE    |


LANCASTER    We meet like men that had forgot to speak.

WARWICK    We do remember; but our argument
    Is all too heavy to admit much talk.

LANCASTER    Well, peace be with him that hath made us heavy.

Lord Chief-Justice    Peace be with us, lest we be heavier!

GLOUCESTER    O, good my lord, you have lost a friend indeed;
    And I dare swear you borrow not that face
    Of seeming sorrow, it is sure your own.

LANCASTER    Though no man be assured what grace to find,
    You stand in coldest expectation:
    I am the sorrier; would 'twere otherwise.

CLARENCE    Well, you must now speak Sir John Falstaff fair;
    Which swims against your stream of quality.

Lord Chief-Justice    Sweet princes, what I did, I did in honour,
    Led by the impartial conduct of my soul:
    And never shall you see that I will beg
    A ragged and forestall'd remission.
    If truth and upright innocency fail me,
    I'll to the king my master that is dead,
    And tell him who hath sent me after him.

WARWICK    Here comes the prince.

    [Enter KING HENRY V, attended]

Lord Chief-Justice    Good morrow; and God save your majesty!

KING HENRY V    This new and gorgeous garment, majesty,
    Sits not so easy on me as you think.
    Brothers, you mix your sadness with some fear:
    This is the English, not the Turkish court;
    Not Amurath an Amurath succeeds,
    But Harry Harry. Yet be sad, good brothers,
    For, by my faith, it very well becomes you:
    Sorrow so royally in you appears
    That I will deeply put the fashion on
    And wear it in my heart: why then, be sad;
    But entertain no more of it, good brothers,
    Than a joint burden laid upon us all.
    For me, by heaven, I bid you be assured,
    I'll be your father and your brother too;
    Let me but bear your love, I 'll bear your cares:
    Yet weep that Harry's dead; and so will I;
    But Harry lives, that shall convert those tears
    By number into hours of happiness.

Princes    We hope no other from your majesty.

KING HENRY V    You all look strangely on me: and you most;
    You are, I think, assured I love you not.

Lord Chief-Justice    I am assured, if I be measured rightly,
    Your majesty hath no just cause to hate me.

KING HENRY V    No!
    How might a prince of my great hopes forget
    So great indignities you laid upon me?
    What! rate, rebuke, and roughly send to prison
    The immediate heir of England! Was this easy?
    May this be wash'd in Lethe, and forgotten?

Lord Chief-Justice    I then did use the person of your father;
    The image of his power lay then in me:
    And, in the administration of his law,
    Whiles I was busy for the commonwealth,
    Your highness pleased to forget my place,
    The majesty and power of law and justice,
    The image of the king whom I presented,
    And struck me in my very seat of judgment;
    Whereon, as an offender to your father,
    I gave bold way to my authority
    And did commit you. If the deed were ill,
    Be you contented, wearing now the garland,
    To have a son set your decrees at nought,
    To pluck down justice from your awful bench,
    To trip the course of law and blunt the sword
    That guards the peace and safety of your person;
    Nay, more, to spurn at your most royal image
    And mock your workings in a second body.
    Question your royal thoughts, make the case yours;
    Be now the father and propose a son,
    Hear your own dignity so much profaned,
    See your most dreadful laws so loosely slighted,
    Behold yourself so by a son disdain'd;
    And then imagine me taking your part
    And in your power soft silencing your son:
    After this cold considerance, sentence me;
    And, as you are a king, speak in your state
    What I have done that misbecame my place,
    My person, or my liege's sovereignty.

KING HENRY V    You are right, justice, and you weigh this well;
    Therefore still bear the balance and the sword:
    And I do wish your honours may increase,
    Till you do live to see a son of mine
    Offend you and obey you, as I did.
    So shall I live to speak my father's words:
    'Happy am I, that have a man so bold,
    That dares do justice on my proper son;
    And not less happy, having such a son,
    That would deliver up his greatness so
    Into the hands of justice.' You did commit me:
    For which, I do commit into your hand
    The unstained sword that you have used to bear;
    With this remembrance, that you use the same
    With the like bold, just and impartial spirit
    As you have done 'gainst me. There is my hand.
    You shall be as a father to my youth:
    My voice shall sound as you do prompt mine ear,
    And I will stoop and humble my intents
    To your well-practised wise directions.
    And, princes all, believe me, I beseech you;
    My father is gone wild into his grave,
    For in his tomb lie my affections;
    And with his spirit sadly I survive,
    To mock the expectation of the world,
    To frustrate prophecies and to raze out
    Rotten opinion, who hath writ me down
    After my seeming. The tide of blood in me
    Hath proudly flow'd in vanity till now:
    Now doth it turn and ebb back to the sea,
    Where it shall mingle with the state of floods
    And flow henceforth in formal majesty.
    Now call we our high court of parliament:
    And let us choose such limbs of noble counsel,
    That the great body of our state may go
    In equal rank with the best govern'd nation;
    That war, or peace, or both at once, may be
    As things acquainted and familiar to us;
    In which you, father, shall have foremost hand.
    Our coronation done, we will accite,
    As I before remember'd, all our state:
    And, God consigning to my good intents,
    No prince nor peer shall have just cause to say,
    God shorten Harry's happy life one day!

    [Exeunt]




    2 KING HENRY IV


ACT V



SCENE III    Gloucestershire. SHALLOW'S orchard.


    [Enter FALSTAFF, SHALLOW, SILENCE, DAVY, BARDOLPH,
    and the Page]

SHALLOW    Nay, you shall see my orchard, where, in an arbour,
    we will eat a last year's pippin of my own graffing,
    with a dish of caraways, and so forth: come,
    cousin Silence: and then to bed.

FALSTAFF    'Fore God, you have here a goodly dwelling and a rich.

SHALLOW    Barren, barren, barren; beggars all, beggars all,
    Sir John: marry, good air. Spread, Davy; spread,
    Davy; well said, Davy.

FALSTAFF    This Davy serves you for good uses; he is your
    serving-man and your husband.

SHALLOW    A good varlet, a good varlet, a very good varlet,
    Sir John: by the mass, I have drunk too much sack
    at supper: a good varlet. Now sit down, now sit
    down: come, cousin.

SILENCE    Ah, sirrah! quoth-a, we shall
    Do nothing but eat, and make good cheer,

    [Singing]

    And praise God for the merry year;
    When flesh is cheap and females dear,
    And lusty lads roam here and there
    So merrily,
    And ever among so merrily.

FALSTAFF    There's a merry heart! Good Master Silence, I'll
    give you a health for that anon.

SHALLOW    Give Master Bardolph some wine, Davy.

DAVY    Sweet sir, sit; I'll be with you anon. most sweet
    sir, sit. Master page, good master page, sit.
    Proface! What you want in meat, we'll have in drink:
    but you must bear; the heart's all.

    [Exit]

SHALLOW    Be merry, Master Bardolph; and, my little soldier
    there, be merry.

SILENCE    Be merry, be merry, my wife has all;

    [Singing]

    For women are shrews, both short and tall:
    'Tis merry in hall when beards wag all,
    And welcome merry Shrove-tide.
    Be merry, be merry.

FALSTAFF    I did not think Master Silence had been a man of
    this mettle.

SILENCE    Who, I? I have been merry twice and once ere now.

    [Re-enter DAVY]

DAVY    There's a dish of leather-coats for you.

    [To BARDOLPH]

SHALLOW    Davy!

DAVY    Your worship! I'll be with you straight.

    [To BARDOLPH]

    A cup of wine, sir?

SILENCE    A cup of wine that's brisk and fine,

    [Singing]

    And drink unto the leman mine;
    And a merry heart lives long-a.

FALSTAFF    Well said, Master Silence.

SILENCE    An we shall be merry, now comes in the sweet o' the night.

FALSTAFF    Health and long life to you, Master Silence.

SILENCE    Fill the cup, and let it come;

    [Singing]

    I'll pledge you a mile to the bottom.

SHALLOW    Honest Bardolph, welcome: if thou wantest any
    thing, and wilt not call, beshrew thy heart.
    Welcome, my little tiny thief.

    [To the Page]

    And welcome indeed too. I'll drink to Master
    Bardolph, and to all the cavaleros about London.

DAVY    I hove to see London once ere I die.

BARDOLPH    An I might see you there, Davy,--

SHALLOW    By the mass, you'll crack a quart together, ha!
    Will you not, Master Bardolph?

BARDOLPH    Yea, sir, in a pottle-pot.

SHALLOW    By God's liggens, I thank thee: the knave will
    stick by thee, I can assure thee that. A' will not
    out; he is true bred.

BARDOLPH    And I'll stick by him, sir.

SHALLOW    Why, there spoke a king. Lack nothing: be merry.

    [Knocking within]

    Look who's at door there, ho! who knocks?

    [Exit DAVY]

FALSTAFF    Why, now you have done me right.

    [To SILENCE, seeing him take off a bumper]

SILENCE    [Singing]

    Do me right,
    And dub me knight: Samingo.
    Is't not so?

FALSTAFF    'Tis so.

SILENCE    Is't so? Why then, say an old man can do somewhat.

    [Re-enter DAVY]

DAVY    An't please your worship, there's one Pistol come
    from the court with news.

FALSTAFF    From the court! let him come in.

    [Enter PISTOL]

    How now, Pistol!

PISTOL    Sir John, God save you!

FALSTAFF    What wind blew you hither, Pistol?

PISTOL    Not the ill wind which blows no man to good. Sweet
    knight, thou art now one of the greatest men in this realm.

SILENCE    By'r lady, I think a' be, but goodman Puff of Barson.

PISTOL    Puff!
    Puff in thy teeth, most recreant coward base!
    Sir John, I am thy Pistol and thy friend,
    And helter-skelter have I rode to thee,
    And tidings do I bring and lucky joys
    And golden times and happy news of price.

FALSTAFF    I pray thee now, deliver them like a man of this world.

PISTOL    A foutre for the world and worldlings base!
    I speak of Africa and golden joys.

FALSTAFF    O base Assyrian knight, what is thy news?
    Let King Cophetua know the truth thereof.

SILENCE    And Robin Hood, Scarlet, and John.

    [Singing]

PISTOL    Shall dunghill curs confront the Helicons?
    And shall good news be baffled?
    Then, Pistol, lay thy head in Furies' lap.

SILENCE    Honest gentleman, I know not your breeding.

PISTOL    Why then, lament therefore.

SHALLOW    Give me pardon, sir: if, sir, you come with news
    from the court, I take it there's but two ways,
    either to utter them, or to conceal them. I am,
    sir, under the king, in some authority.

PISTOL    Under which king, Besonian? speak, or die.

SHALLOW    Under King Harry.

PISTOL                      Harry the Fourth? or Fifth?

SHALLOW    Harry the Fourth.

PISTOL    A foutre for thine office!
    Sir John, thy tender lambkin now is king;
    Harry the Fifth's the man. I speak the truth:
    When Pistol lies, do this; and fig me, like
    The bragging Spaniard.

FALSTAFF    What, is the old king dead?

PISTOL    As nail in door: the things I speak are just.

FALSTAFF    Away, Bardolph! saddle my horse. Master Robert
    Shallow, choose what office thou wilt in the land,
    'tis thine. Pistol, I will double-charge thee with dignities.

BARDOLPH    O joyful day!
    I would not take a knighthood for my fortune.

PISTOL    What! I do bring good news.

FALSTAFF    Carry Master Silence to bed. Master Shallow, my
    Lord Shallow,--be what thou wilt; I am fortune's
    steward--get on thy boots: we'll ride all night.
    O sweet Pistol! Away, Bardolph!

    [Exit BARDOLPH]

    Come, Pistol, utter more to me; and withal devise
    something to do thyself good. Boot, boot, Master
    Shallow: I know the young king is sick for me. Let
    us take any man's horses; the laws of England are at
    my commandment. Blessed are they that have been my
    friends; and woe to my lord chief-justice!

PISTOL    Let vultures vile seize on his lungs also!
    'Where is the life that late I led?' say they:
    Why, here it is; welcome these pleasant days!

    [Exeunt]




    2 KING HENRY IV


ACT V



SCENE IV    London. A street.


    [Enter Beadles, dragging in HOSTESS QUICKLY
    and DOLL TEARSHEET]

MISTRESS QUICKLY    No, thou arrant knave; I would to God that I might
    die, that I might have thee hanged: thou hast
    drawn my shoulder out of joint.

First Beadle    The constables have delivered her over to me; and
    she shall have whipping-cheer enough, I warrant
    her: there hath been a man or two lately killed about her.

DOLL TEARSHEET    Nut-hook, nut-hook, you lie. Come on; I 'll tell
    thee what, thou damned tripe-visaged rascal, an
    the child I now go with do miscarry, thou wert
    better thou hadst struck thy mother, thou
    paper-faced villain.

MISTRESS QUICKLY    O the Lord, that Sir John were come! he would make
    this a bloody day to somebody. But I pray God the
    fruit of her womb miscarry!

First Beadle    If it do, you shall have a dozen of cushions again;
    you have but eleven now. Come, I charge you both go
    with me; for the man is dead that you and Pistol
    beat amongst you.

DOLL TEARSHEET    I'll tell you what, you thin man in a censer, I
    will have you as soundly swinged for this,--you
    blue-bottle rogue, you filthy famished correctioner,
    if you be not swinged, I'll forswear half-kirtles.

First Beadle    Come, come, you she knight-errant, come.

MISTRESS QUICKLY    O God, that right should thus overcome might!
    Well, of sufferance comes ease.

DOLL TEARSHEET    Come, you rogue, come; bring me to a justice.

MISTRESS QUICKLY    Ay, come, you starved blood-hound.

DOLL TEARSHEET    Goodman death, goodman bones!

MISTRESS QUICKLY    Thou atomy, thou!

DOLL TEARSHEET    Come, you thin thing; come you rascal.

First Beadle    Very well.

    [Exeunt]




    2 KING HENRY IV


ACT V



SCENE V    A public place near Westminster Abbey.


    [Enter two Grooms, strewing rushes]

First Groom    More rushes, more rushes.

Second Groom    The trumpets have sounded twice.

First Groom    'Twill be two o'clock ere they come from the
    coronation: dispatch, dispatch.

    [Exeunt]

    [Enter FALSTAFF, SHALLOW, PISTOL,
    BARDOLPH, and Page]

FALSTAFF    Stand here by me, Master Robert Shallow; I will
    make the king do you grace: I will leer upon him as
    a' comes by; and do but mark the countenance that he
    will give me.

PISTOL    God bless thy lungs, good knight.

FALSTAFF    Come here, Pistol; stand behind me. O, if I had had
    time to have made new liveries, I would have
    bestowed the thousand pound I borrowed of you. But
    'tis no matter; this poor show doth better: this
    doth infer the zeal I had to see him.

SHALLOW    It doth so.

FALSTAFF    It shows my earnestness of affection,--

SHALLOW    It doth so.

FALSTAFF    My devotion,--

SHALLOW    It doth, it doth, it doth.

FALSTAFF    As it were, to ride day and night; and not to
    deliberate, not to remember, not to have patience
    to shift me,--

SHALLOW    It is best, certain.

FALSTAFF    But to stand stained with travel, and sweating with
    desire to see him; thinking of nothing else,
    putting all affairs else in oblivion, as if there
    were nothing else to be done but to see him.

PISTOL    'Tis 'semper idem,' for 'obsque hoc nihil est:'
    'tis all in every part.

SHALLOW    'Tis so, indeed.

PISTOL    My knight, I will inflame thy noble liver,
    And make thee rage.
    Thy Doll, and Helen of thy noble thoughts,
    Is in base durance and contagious prison;
    Haled thither
    By most mechanical and dirty hand:
    Rouse up revenge from ebon den with fell
    Alecto's snake,
    For Doll is in. Pistol speaks nought but truth.

FALSTAFF    I will deliver her.

    [Shouts within, and the trumpets sound]

PISTOL    There roar'd the sea, and trumpet-clangor sounds.

    [Enter KING HENRY V and his train, the Lord Chief-
    Justice among them]

FALSTAFF    God save thy grace, King Hal! my royal Hal!

PISTOL    The heavens thee guard and keep, most royal imp of fame!

FALSTAFF    God save thee, my sweet boy!

KING HENRY IV    My lord chief-justice, speak to that vain man.

Lord Chief-Justice    Have you your wits? know you what 'tis to speak?

FALSTAFF    My king! my Jove! I speak to thee, my heart!

KING HENRY IV    I know thee not, old man: fall to thy prayers;
    How ill white hairs become a fool and jester!
    I have long dream'd of such a kind of man,
    So surfeit-swell'd, so old and so profane;
    But, being awaked, I do despise my dream.
    Make less thy body hence, and more thy grace;
    Leave gormandizing; know the grave doth gape
    For thee thrice wider than for other men.
    Reply not to me with a fool-born jest:
    Presume not that I am the thing I was;
    For God doth know, so shall the world perceive,
    That I have turn'd away my former self;
    So will I those that kept me company.
    When thou dost hear I am as I have been,
    Approach me, and thou shalt be as thou wast,
    The tutor and the feeder of my riots:
    Till then, I banish thee, on pain of death,
    As I have done the rest of my misleaders,
    Not to come near our person by ten mile.
    For competence of life I will allow you,
    That lack of means enforce you not to evil:
    And, as we hear you do reform yourselves,
    We will, according to your strengths and qualities,
    Give you advancement. Be it your charge, my lord,
    To see perform'd the tenor of our word. Set on.

    [Exeunt KING HENRY V, &c]

FALSTAFF    Master Shallow, I owe you a thousand pound.

SHALLOW    Yea, marry, Sir John; which I beseech you to let me
    have home with me.

FALSTAFF    That can hardly be, Master Shallow. Do not you
    grieve at this; I shall be sent for in private to
    him: look you, he must seem thus to the world:
    fear not your advancements; I will be the man yet
    that shall make you great.

SHALLOW    I cannot well perceive how, unless you should give
    me your doublet and stuff me out with straw. I
    beseech you, good Sir John, let me have five hundred
    of my thousand.

FALSTAFF    Sir, I will be as good as my word: this that you
    heard was but a colour.

SHALLOW    A colour that I fear you will die in, Sir John.

FALSTAFF    Fear no colours: go with me to dinner: come,
    Lieutenant Pistol; come, Bardolph: I shall be sent
    for soon at night.

    [Re-enter Prince John of LANCASTER, the Lord
    Chief-Justice; Officers with them]

Lord Chief-Justice    Go, carry Sir John Falstaff to the Fleet:
    Take all his company along with him.

FALSTAFF    My lord, my lord,--

Lord Chief-Justice    I cannot now speak: I will hear you soon.
    Take them away.

PISTOL    Si fortune me tormenta, spero contenta.

    [Exeunt all but PRINCE JOHN and the Lord
    Chief-Justice]

LANCASTER    I like this fair proceeding of the king's:
    He hath intent his wonted followers
    Shall all be very well provided for;
    But all are banish'd till their conversations
    Appear more wise and modest to the world.

Lord Chief-Justice    And so they are.

LANCASTER    The king hath call'd his parliament, my lord.

Lord Chief-Justice    He hath.

LANCASTER    I will lay odds that, ere this year expire,
    We bear our civil swords and native fire
    As far as France: I beard a bird so sing,
    Whose music, to my thinking, pleased the king.
    Come, will you hence?

    [Exeunt]




    2 KING HENRY IV

    EPILOGUE


    [Spoken by a Dancer]

    First my fear; then my courtesy; last my speech.
    My fear is, your displeasure; my courtesy, my duty;
    and my speech, to beg your pardons. If you look
    for a good speech now, you undo me: for what I have
    to say is of mine own making; and what indeed I
    should say will, I doubt, prove mine own marring.
    But to the purpose, and so to the venture. Be it
    known to you, as it is very well, I was lately here
    in the end of a displeasing play, to pray your
    patience for it and to promise you a better. I
    meant indeed to pay you with this; which, if like an
    ill venture it come unluckily home, I break, and
    you, my gentle creditors, lose. Here I promised you
    I would be and here I commit my body to your
    mercies: bate me some and I will pay you some and,
    as most debtors do, promise you infinitely.

    If my tongue cannot entreat you to acquit me, will
    you command me to use my legs? and yet that were but
    light payment, to dance out of your debt. But a
    good conscience will make any possible satisfaction,
    and so would I. All the gentlewomen here have
    forgiven me: if the gentlemen will not, then the
    gentlemen do not agree with the gentlewomen, which
    was never seen before in such an assembly.

    One word more, I beseech you. If you be not too
    much cloyed with fat meat, our humble author will
    continue the story, with Sir John in it, and make
    you merry with fair Katharine of France: where, for
    any thing I know, Falstaff shall die of a sweat,
    unless already a' be killed with your hard
    opinions; for Oldcastle died a martyr, and this is
    not the man. My tongue is weary; when my legs are
    too, I will bid you good night: and so kneel down
    before you; but, indeed, to pray for the queen.
ə