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The Second Part of Henry the Fourth

by William Shakespeare

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1-1

Enter LORD BARDOLPH

LORD BARDOLPH

Who keeps the gate here, ho?

Where is the earl?

PORTER

What shall I say you are?

LORD BARDOLPH

Tell thou the earl

5That 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

10What 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

15Noble 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;

20And, 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,

25Is 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?

30Saw 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

35On 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

40My 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.

45He 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,

50And 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

55Ha! 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;

60If 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

65Who, 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,

70Foretells 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;

75Where 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.

80Even 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,

85And 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,

90Thou 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.

95See 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,

100And 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.

105I 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,

110Not 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

115I 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,

120To 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,

125Being 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:

130And 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

135Than 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,

140'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,

145Under 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,

150Being 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,

155Weaken'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

160Which 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

165Keep 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

170On 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

175Lean 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,

180That, 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

185Would 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,

190More 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

195Choked 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,

200The 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;

205For 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,

210This 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;

215And 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;

220And 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:

225Get posts and letters, and make friends with speed:

Never so few, and never yet more need.

Exeunt

1-2

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

5Men 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

10men. 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

15in 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

20not 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

25face-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

30the 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

35tongue 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

40through 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

45sends 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

50He'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

55Prince 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

60He, 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

65Boy, 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

70What! 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,

75were 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

80in 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

85I 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

90Sir 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

95clean 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

100Shrewsbury.

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

105And 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,

110an'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

115his 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

120of 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:

125your 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

130I 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

135He 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

140The 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

145thank 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

150To 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

155There 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

160Not 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

165bear-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

170that 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,

175that 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

180every 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

185and 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

190the 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

195Well, 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

200against 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

205Lord, 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

210thrust 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

215terrible 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

220Will 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

225If 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

230Sir?

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,

235but 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.

240About it: you know where to find me.

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

245reasonable. A good wit will make use of any thing:

I will turn diseases to commodity.

Exit

1-3

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

5I 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

10Our 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

15The 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:

20But 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

25Of 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,

30Flattering 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

35But, 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

40We 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,

45Then 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,

50Which 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,

55How 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

60Beyond 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,

65Should 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

70To 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

75In 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

80If 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;

85Against 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.

90The 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

95Didst 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.

100So, 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?

105They 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,

110Criest 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

2-1

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

5Sirrah, 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

10and 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

15cares 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

20No, 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

25Fang, 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,

30since 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

35fubbed 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,

40Bardolph, 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

45Away, 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

50villain! 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

55Good 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

60What 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.

65Stand 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,

70all 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

75any 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

80What 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

85Wednesday 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

90Keech, 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

95didst 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

100book-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

105officers, 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

110from 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

115Pray 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

120reply. 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,

125being 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

130Now, 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

135As 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

140walls, 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

145not 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'

150faith, 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

155hope you'll come to supper. You'll pay me all together?

FALSTAFF

Will I live?

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

160I 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

165Come 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

170You 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

175I 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

180What 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

2-2

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

5complexion 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,

10by 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

15take 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

20than 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

25of 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,

30you 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

35It 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

40thee, 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

45book 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

50The 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

55a 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

60engraffed 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

65proper 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

70God 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

75matter 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

80new 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

85Marry, 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

90cankers! 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

95town: 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

100that 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

'John Falstaff, knight,'--every man must

105know 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

110conceive. 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

'Sir John Falstaff, knight, to the son of

115the king, nearest his father, Harry Prince of

Wales, greeting.' Why, this is a certificate.

PRINCE HENRY

Peace!

POINS

'I will imitate the honourable Romans in

brevity:' he sure means brevity in breath,

120short-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.

125Thine, 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

130That'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.

135Is 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

140Ephesians, 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

145A 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

150master 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.

155This 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

160Put 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

165thing the purpose must weigh with the folly.

Follow me, Ned.

Exeunt

2-3

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

5I 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!

10The 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.

15Who 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

20Did 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,

25Became 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,

30In 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,

35To 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

40To 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,

45Have 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,

50Or 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

55If 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;

60And 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

65As 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