PROLOGUE.

_For us, and for our tragedy, Here stooping to your clemency, We beg your hearing patiently._ HAMLET. Is this a prologue, or the posy of a ring? OPHELIA. ’Tis brief, my lord. HAMLET. As woman’s love. Enter a King and a Queen. PLAYER KING. Full thirty times hath Phoebus’ cart gone round Neptune’s salt wash and Tellus’ orbed ground, And thirty dozen moons with borrow’d sheen About the world have times twelve thirties been, Since love our hearts, and Hymen did our hands Unite commutual in most sacred bands. PLAYER QUEEN. So many journeys may the sun and moon Make us again count o’er ere love be done. But, woe is me, you are so sick of late, So far from cheer and from your former state, That I distrust you. Yet, though I distrust, Discomfort you, my lord, it nothing must: For women’s fear and love holds quantity, In neither aught, or in extremity. Now what my love is, proof hath made you know, And as my love is siz’d, my fear is so. Where love is great, the littlest doubts are fear; Where little fears grow great, great love grows there. PLAYER KING. Faith, I must leave thee, love, and shortly too: My operant powers their functions leave to do: And thou shalt live in this fair world behind, Honour’d, belov’d, and haply one as kind For husband shalt thou— PLAYER QUEEN. O confound the rest. Such love must needs be treason in my breast. In second husband let me be accurst! None wed the second but who kill’d the first. HAMLET. [_Aside._] Wormwood, wormwood. PLAYER QUEEN. The instances that second marriage move Are base respects of thrift, but none of love. A second time I kill my husband dead, When second husband kisses me in bed. PLAYER KING. I do believe you think what now you speak; But what we do determine, oft we break. Purpose is but the slave to memory, Of violent birth, but poor validity: Which now, like fruit unripe, sticks on the tree, But fall unshaken when they mellow be. Most necessary ’tis that we forget To pay ourselves what to ourselves is debt. What to ourselves in passion we propose, The passion ending, doth the purpose lose. The violence of either grief or joy Their own enactures with themselves destroy. Where joy most revels, grief doth most lament; Grief joys, joy grieves, on slender accident. This world is not for aye; nor ’tis not strange That even our loves should with our fortunes change, For ’tis a question left us yet to prove, Whether love lead fortune, or else fortune love. The great man down, you mark his favourite flies, The poor advanc’d makes friends of enemies; And hitherto doth love on fortune tend: For who not needs shall never lack a friend, And who in want a hollow friend doth try, Directly seasons him his enemy. But orderly to end where I begun, Our wills and fates do so contrary run That our devices still are overthrown. Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own. So think thou wilt no second husband wed, But die thy thoughts when thy first lord is dead. PLAYER QUEEN. Nor earth to me give food, nor heaven light, Sport and repose lock from me day and night, To desperation turn my trust and hope, An anchor’s cheer in prison be my scope, Each opposite that blanks the face of joy, Meet what I would have well, and it destroy! Both here and hence pursue me lasting strife, If, once a widow, ever I be wife. HAMLET. [_To Ophelia._] If she should break it now. PLAYER KING. ’Tis deeply sworn. Sweet, leave me here awhile. My spirits grow dull, and fain I would beguile The tedious day with sleep. [_Sleeps._] PLAYER QUEEN. Sleep rock thy brain, And never come mischance between us twain. [_Exit._] HAMLET. Madam, how like you this play? QUEEN. The lady protests too much, methinks. HAMLET. O, but she’ll keep her word. KING. Have you heard the argument? Is there no offence in’t? HAMLET. No, no, they do but jest, poison in jest; no offence i’ th’ world. KING. What do you call the play? HAMLET. _The Mousetrap._ Marry, how? Tropically. This play is the image of a murder done in Vienna. Gonzago is the Duke’s name, his wife Baptista: you shall see anon; ’tis a knavish piece of work: but what o’ that? Your majesty, and we that have free souls, it touches us not. Let the gall’d jade wince; our withers are unwrung. Enter Lucianus. This is one Lucianus, nephew to the King. OPHELIA. You are a good chorus, my lord. HAMLET. I could interpret between you and your love, if I could see the puppets dallying. OPHELIA. You are keen, my lord, you are keen. HAMLET. It would cost you a groaning to take off my edge. OPHELIA. Still better, and worse. HAMLET. So you mistake your husbands.—Begin, murderer. Pox, leave thy damnable faces, and begin. Come, the croaking raven doth bellow for revenge. LUCIANUS. Thoughts black, hands apt, drugs fit, and time agreeing, Confederate season, else no creature seeing; Thou mixture rank, of midnight weeds collected, With Hecate’s ban thrice blasted, thrice infected, Thy natural magic and dire property On wholesome life usurp immediately. [_Pours the poison into the sleeper’s ears._] HAMLET. He poisons him i’ th’garden for’s estate. His name’s Gonzago. The story is extant, and written in very choice Italian. You shall see anon how the murderer gets the love of Gonzago’s wife. OPHELIA. The King rises. HAMLET. What, frighted with false fire? QUEEN. How fares my lord? POLONIUS. Give o’er the play. KING. Give me some light. Away. All. Lights, lights, lights. [_Exeunt all but Hamlet and Horatio._] HAMLET. Why, let the strucken deer go weep, The hart ungalled play; For some must watch, while some must sleep, So runs the world away. Would not this, sir, and a forest of feathers, if the rest of my fortunes turn Turk with me; with two Provincial roses on my razed shoes, get me a fellowship in a cry of players, sir? HORATIO. Half a share. HAMLET. A whole one, I. For thou dost know, O Damon dear, This realm dismantled was Of Jove himself, and now reigns here A very, very—pajock. HORATIO. You might have rhymed. HAMLET. O good Horatio, I’ll take the ghost’s word for a thousand pound. Didst perceive? HORATIO. Very well, my lord. HAMLET. Upon the talk of the poisoning? HORATIO. I did very well note him. HAMLET. Ah, ha! Come, some music. Come, the recorders. For if the king like not the comedy, Why then, belike he likes it not, perdie. Come, some music. Enter Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. GUILDENSTERN. Good my lord, vouchsafe me a word with you. HAMLET. Sir, a whole history. GUILDENSTERN. The King, sir— HAMLET. Ay, sir, what of him? GUILDENSTERN. Is in his retirement, marvellous distempered. HAMLET. With drink, sir? GUILDENSTERN. No, my lord; rather with choler. HAMLET. Your wisdom should show itself more richer to signify this to the doctor, for me to put him to his purgation would perhaps plunge him into far more choler. GUILDENSTERN. Good my lord, put your discourse into some frame, and start not so wildly from my affair. HAMLET. I am tame, sir, pronounce. GUILDENSTERN. The Queen your mother, in most great affliction of spirit, hath sent me to you. HAMLET. You are welcome. GUILDENSTERN. Nay, good my lord, this courtesy is not of the right breed. If it shall please you to make me a wholesome answer, I will do your mother’s commandment; if not, your pardon and my return shall be the end of my business. HAMLET. Sir, I cannot. GUILDENSTERN. What, my lord? HAMLET. Make you a wholesome answer. My wit’s diseased. But, sir, such answer as I can make, you shall command; or rather, as you say, my mother. Therefore no more, but to the matter. My mother, you say,— ROSENCRANTZ. Then thus she says: your behaviour hath struck her into amazement and admiration. HAMLET. O wonderful son, that can so stonish a mother! But is there no sequel at the heels of this mother’s admiration? ROSENCRANTZ. She desires to speak with you in her closet ere you go to bed. HAMLET. We shall obey, were she ten times our mother. Have you any further trade with us? ROSENCRANTZ. My lord, you once did love me. HAMLET. And so I do still, by these pickers and stealers. ROSENCRANTZ. Good my lord, what is your cause of distemper? You do surely bar the door upon your own liberty if you deny your griefs to your friend. HAMLET. Sir, I lack advancement. ROSENCRANTZ. How can that be, when you have the voice of the King himself for your succession in Denmark? HAMLET. Ay, sir, but while the grass grows—the proverb is something musty. Re-enter the Players with recorders. O, the recorders. Let me see one.—To withdraw with you, why do you go about to recover the wind of me, as if you would drive me into a toil? GUILDENSTERN. O my lord, if my duty be too bold, my love is too unmannerly. HAMLET. I do not well understand that. Will you play upon this pipe? GUILDENSTERN. My lord, I cannot. HAMLET. I pray you. GUILDENSTERN. Believe me, I cannot. HAMLET. I do beseech you. GUILDENSTERN. I know no touch of it, my lord. HAMLET. ’Tis as easy as lying: govern these ventages with your finger and thumb, give it breath with your mouth, and it will discourse most eloquent music. Look you, these are the stops. GUILDENSTERN. But these cannot I command to any utterance of harmony. I have not the skill. HAMLET. Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of me! You would play upon me; you would seem to know my stops; you would pluck out the heart of my mystery; you would sound me from my lowest note to the top of my compass; and there is much music, excellent voice, in this little organ, yet cannot you make it speak. ’Sblood, do you think I am easier to be played on than a pipe? Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret me, you cannot play upon me. Enter Polonius. God bless you, sir. POLONIUS. My lord, the Queen would speak with you, and presently. HAMLET. Do you see yonder cloud that’s almost in shape of a camel? POLONIUS. By the mass, and ’tis like a camel indeed. HAMLET. Methinks it is like a weasel. POLONIUS. It is backed like a weasel. HAMLET. Or like a whale. POLONIUS. Very like a whale. HAMLET. Then will I come to my mother by and by.—They fool me to the top of my bent.—I will come by and by. POLONIUS. I will say so. [_Exit._] HAMLET. By and by is easily said. Leave me, friends. [_Exeunt all but Hamlet._] ’Tis now the very witching time of night, When churchyards yawn, and hell itself breathes out Contagion to this world. Now could I drink hot blood, And do such bitter business as the day Would quake to look on. Soft now, to my mother. O heart, lose not thy nature; let not ever The soul of Nero enter this firm bosom: Let me be cruel, not unnatural. I will speak daggers to her, but use none; My tongue and soul in this be hypocrites. How in my words somever she be shent, To give them seals never, my soul, consent. [_Exit._] SCENE III. A room in the Castle. Enter King, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. KING. I like him not, nor stands it safe with us To let his madness range. Therefore prepare you, I your commission will forthwith dispatch, And he to England shall along with you. The terms of our estate may not endure Hazard so near us as doth hourly grow Out of his lunacies. GUILDENSTERN. We will ourselves provide. Most holy and religious fear it is To keep those many many bodies safe That live and feed upon your Majesty. ROSENCRANTZ. The single and peculiar life is bound With all the strength and armour of the mind, To keep itself from ’noyance; but much more That spirit upon whose weal depend and rest The lives of many. The cease of majesty Dies not alone; but like a gulf doth draw What’s near it with it. It is a massy wheel Fix’d on the summit of the highest mount, To whose huge spokes ten thousand lesser things Are mortis’d and adjoin’d; which when it falls, Each small annexment, petty consequence, Attends the boist’rous ruin. Never alone Did the King sigh, but with a general groan. KING. Arm you, I pray you, to this speedy voyage; For we will fetters put upon this fear, Which now goes too free-footed. ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN. We will haste us. [_Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern._] Enter Polonius. POLONIUS. My lord, he’s going to his mother’s closet. Behind the arras I’ll convey myself To hear the process. I’ll warrant she’ll tax him home, And as you said, and wisely was it said, ’Tis meet that some more audience than a mother, Since nature makes them partial, should o’erhear The speech of vantage. Fare you well, my liege, I’ll call upon you ere you go to bed, And tell you what I know. KING. Thanks, dear my lord. [_Exit Polonius._] O, my offence is rank, it smells to heaven; It hath the primal eldest curse upon’t,— A brother’s murder! Pray can I not, Though inclination be as sharp as will: My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent, And, like a man to double business bound, I stand in pause where I shall first begin, And both neglect. What if this cursed hand Were thicker than itself with brother’s blood, Is there not rain enough in the sweet heavens To wash it white as snow? Whereto serves mercy But to confront the visage of offence? And what’s in prayer but this twofold force, To be forestalled ere we come to fall, Or pardon’d being down? Then I’ll look up. My fault is past. But O, what form of prayer Can serve my turn? Forgive me my foul murder! That cannot be; since I am still possess’d Of those effects for which I did the murder,— My crown, mine own ambition, and my queen. May one be pardon’d and retain th’offence? In the corrupted currents of this world Offence’s gilded hand may shove by justice, And oft ’tis seen the wicked prize itself Buys out the law. But ’tis not so above; There is no shuffling, there the action lies In his true nature, and we ourselves compell’d Even to the teeth and forehead of our faults, To give in evidence. What then? What rests? Try what repentance can. What can it not? Yet what can it, when one cannot repent? O wretched state! O bosom black as death! O limed soul, that struggling to be free, Art more engag’d! Help, angels! Make assay: Bow, stubborn knees; and heart with strings of steel, Be soft as sinews of the new-born babe. All may be well. [_Retires and kneels._] Enter Hamlet. HAMLET. Now might I do it pat, now he is praying. And now I’ll do’t. And so he goes to heaven; And so am I reveng’d. That would be scann’d: A villain kills my father, and for that I, his sole son, do this same villain send To heaven. O, this is hire and salary, not revenge. He took my father grossly, full of bread, With all his crimes broad blown, as flush as May; And how his audit stands, who knows save heaven? But in our circumstance and course of thought, ’Tis heavy with him. And am I then reveng’d, To take him in the purging of his soul, When he is fit and season’d for his passage? No. Up, sword, and know thou a more horrid hent: When he is drunk asleep; or in his rage, Or in th’incestuous pleasure of his bed, At gaming, swearing; or about some act That has no relish of salvation in’t, Then trip him, that his heels may kick at heaven, And that his soul may be as damn’d and black As hell, whereto it goes. My mother stays. This physic but prolongs thy sickly days. [_Exit._] The King rises and advances. KING. My words fly up, my thoughts remain below. Words without thoughts never to heaven go. [_Exit._] SCENE IV. Another room in the Castle. Enter Queen and Polonius. POLONIUS. He will come straight. Look you lay home to him, Tell him his pranks have been too broad to bear with, And that your Grace hath screen’d and stood between Much heat and him. I’ll silence me e’en here. Pray you be round with him. HAMLET. [_Within._] Mother, mother, mother. QUEEN. I’ll warrant you, Fear me not. Withdraw, I hear him coming. [_Polonius goes behind the arras._] Enter Hamlet. HAMLET. Now, mother, what’s the matter? QUEEN. Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended. HAMLET. Mother, you have my father much offended. QUEEN. Come, come, you answer with an idle tongue. HAMLET. Go, go, you question with a wicked tongue. QUEEN. Why, how now, Hamlet? HAMLET. What’s the matter now? QUEEN. Have you forgot me? HAMLET. No, by the rood, not so. You are the Queen, your husband’s brother’s wife, And, would it were not so. You are my mother. QUEEN. Nay, then I’ll set those to you that can speak. HAMLET. Come, come, and sit you down, you shall not budge. You go not till I set you up a glass Where you may see the inmost part of you. QUEEN. What wilt thou do? Thou wilt not murder me? Help, help, ho! POLONIUS. [_Behind._] What, ho! help, help, help! HAMLET. How now? A rat? [_Draws._] Dead for a ducat, dead! [_Makes a pass through the arras._] POLONIUS. [_Behind._] O, I am slain! [_Falls and dies._] QUEEN. O me, what hast thou done? HAMLET. Nay, I know not. Is it the King? [_Draws forth Polonius._] QUEEN. O what a rash and bloody deed is this! HAMLET. A bloody deed. Almost as bad, good mother, As kill a king and marry with his brother. QUEEN. As kill a king? HAMLET. Ay, lady, ’twas my word.— [_To Polonius._] Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell! I took thee for thy better. Take thy fortune, Thou find’st to be too busy is some danger.— Leave wringing of your hands. Peace, sit you down, And let me wring your heart, for so I shall, If it be made of penetrable stuff; If damned custom have not braz’d it so, That it is proof and bulwark against sense. QUEEN. What have I done, that thou dar’st wag thy tongue In noise so rude against me? HAMLET. Such an act That blurs the grace and blush of modesty, Calls virtue hypocrite, takes off the rose From the fair forehead of an innocent love, And sets a blister there. Makes marriage vows As false as dicers’ oaths. O such a deed As from the body of contraction plucks The very soul, and sweet religion makes A rhapsody of words. Heaven’s face doth glow, Yea this solidity and compound mass, With tristful visage, as against the doom, Is thought-sick at the act. QUEEN. Ay me, what act, That roars so loud, and thunders in the index? HAMLET. Look here upon this picture, and on this, The counterfeit presentment of two brothers. See what a grace was seated on this brow, Hyperion’s curls, the front of Jove himself, An eye like Mars, to threaten and command, A station like the herald Mercury New lighted on a heaven-kissing hill: A combination and a form indeed, Where every god did seem to set his seal, To give the world assurance of a man. This was your husband. Look you now what follows. Here is your husband, like a mildew’d ear Blasting his wholesome brother. Have you eyes? Could you on this fair mountain leave to feed, And batten on this moor? Ha! have you eyes? You cannot call it love; for at your age The hey-day in the blood is tame, it’s humble, And waits upon the judgement: and what judgement Would step from this to this? Sense sure you have, Else could you not have motion; but sure that sense Is apoplex’d, for madness would not err Nor sense to ecstacy was ne’er so thrall’d But it reserv’d some quantity of choice To serve in such a difference. What devil was’t That thus hath cozen’d you at hoodman-blind? Eyes without feeling, feeling without sight, Ears without hands or eyes, smelling sans all, Or but a sickly part of one true sense Could not so mope. O shame! where is thy blush? Rebellious hell, If thou canst mutine in a matron’s bones, To flaming youth let virtue be as wax, And melt in her own fire. Proclaim no shame When the compulsive ardour gives the charge, Since frost itself as actively doth burn, And reason panders will. QUEEN. O Hamlet, speak no more. Thou turn’st mine eyes into my very soul, And there I see such black and grained spots As will not leave their tinct. HAMLET. Nay, but to live In the rank sweat of an enseamed bed, Stew’d in corruption, honeying and making love Over the nasty sty. QUEEN. O speak to me no more; These words like daggers enter in mine ears; No more, sweet Hamlet. HAMLET. A murderer and a villain; A slave that is not twentieth part the tithe Of your precedent lord. A vice of kings, A cutpurse of the empire and the rule, That from a shelf the precious diadem stole And put it in his pocket! QUEEN. No more. HAMLET. A king of shreds and patches!— Enter Ghost. Save me and hover o’er me with your wings, You heavenly guards! What would your gracious figure? QUEEN. Alas, he’s mad. HAMLET. Do you not come your tardy son to chide, That, laps’d in time and passion, lets go by The important acting of your dread command? O say! GHOST. Do not forget. This visitation Is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose. But look, amazement on thy mother sits. O step between her and her fighting soul. Conceit in weakest bodies strongest works. Speak to her, Hamlet. HAMLET. How is it with you, lady? QUEEN. Alas, how is’t with you, That you do bend your eye on vacancy, And with the incorporal air do hold discourse? Forth at your eyes your spirits wildly peep, And, as the sleeping soldiers in the alarm, Your bedded hairs, like life in excrements, Start up and stand an end. O gentle son, Upon the heat and flame of thy distemper Sprinkle cool patience. Whereon do you look? HAMLET. On him, on him! Look you how pale he glares, His form and cause conjoin’d, preaching to stones, Would make them capable.—Do not look upon me, Lest with this piteous action you convert My stern effects. Then what I have to do Will want true colour; tears perchance for blood. QUEEN. To whom do you speak this? HAMLET. Do you see nothing there? QUEEN. Nothing at all; yet all that is I see. HAMLET. Nor did you nothing hear? QUEEN. No, nothing but ourselves. HAMLET. Why, look you there! look how it steals away! My father, in his habit as he liv’d! Look where he goes even now out at the portal. [_Exit Ghost._] QUEEN. This is the very coinage of your brain. This bodiless creation ecstasy Is very cunning in. HAMLET. Ecstasy! My pulse as yours doth temperately keep time, And makes as healthful music. It is not madness That I have utter’d. Bring me to the test, And I the matter will re-word; which madness Would gambol from. Mother, for love of grace, Lay not that flattering unction to your soul That not your trespass, but my madness speaks. It will but skin and film the ulcerous place, Whilst rank corruption, mining all within, Infects unseen. Confess yourself to heaven, Repent what’s past, avoid what is to come; And do not spread the compost on the weeds, To make them ranker. Forgive me this my virtue; For in the fatness of these pursy times Virtue itself of vice must pardon beg, Yea, curb and woo for leave to do him good. QUEEN. O Hamlet, thou hast cleft my heart in twain. HAMLET. O throw away the worser part of it, And live the purer with the other half. Good night. But go not to mine uncle’s bed. Assume a virtue, if you have it not. That monster custom, who all sense doth eat, Of habits evil, is angel yet in this, That to the use of actions fair and good He likewise gives a frock or livery That aptly is put on. Refrain tonight, And that shall lend a kind of easiness To the next abstinence. The next more easy; For use almost can change the stamp of nature, And either curb the devil, or throw him out With wondrous potency. Once more, good night, And when you are desirous to be bles’d, I’ll blessing beg of you. For this same lord [_Pointing to Polonius._] I do repent; but heaven hath pleas’d it so, To punish me with this, and this with me, That I must be their scourge and minister. I will bestow him, and will answer well The death I gave him. So again, good night. I must be cruel, only to be kind: Thus bad begins, and worse remains behind. One word more, good lady. QUEEN. What shall I do? HAMLET. Not this, by no means, that I bid you do: Let the bloat King tempt you again to bed, Pinch wanton on your cheek, call you his mouse, And let him, for a pair of reechy kisses, Or paddling in your neck with his damn’d fingers, Make you to ravel all this matter out, That I essentially am not in madness, But mad in craft. ’Twere good you let him know, For who that’s but a queen, fair, sober, wise, Would from a paddock, from a bat, a gib, Such dear concernings hide? Who would do so? No, in despite of sense and secrecy, Unpeg the basket on the house’s top, Let the birds fly, and like the famous ape, To try conclusions, in the basket creep And break your own neck down. QUEEN. Be thou assur’d, if words be made of breath, And breath of life, I have no life to breathe What thou hast said to me. HAMLET. I must to England, you know that? QUEEN. Alack, I had forgot. ’Tis so concluded on. HAMLET. There’s letters seal’d: and my two schoolfellows, Whom I will trust as I will adders fang’d,— They bear the mandate, they must sweep my way And marshal me to knavery. Let it work; For ’tis the sport to have the enginer Hoist with his own petard, and ’t shall go hard But I will delve one yard below their mines And blow them at the moon. O, ’tis most sweet, When in one line two crafts directly meet. This man shall set me packing. I’ll lug the guts into the neighbour room. Mother, good night. Indeed, this counsellor Is now most still, most secret, and most grave, Who was in life a foolish prating knave. Come, sir, to draw toward an end with you. Good night, mother. [_Exit Hamlet dragging out Polonius._] ACT IV SCENE I. A room in the Castle. Enter King, Queen, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. KING. There’s matter in these sighs. These profound heaves You must translate; ’tis fit we understand them. Where is your son? QUEEN. Bestow this place on us a little while. [_To Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, who go out._] Ah, my good lord, what have I seen tonight! KING. What, Gertrude? How does Hamlet? QUEEN. Mad as the sea and wind, when both contend Which is the mightier. In his lawless fit Behind the arras hearing something stir, Whips out his rapier, cries ‘A rat, a rat!’ And in this brainish apprehension kills The unseen good old man. KING. O heavy deed! It had been so with us, had we been there. His liberty is full of threats to all; To you yourself, to us, to everyone. Alas, how shall this bloody deed be answer’d? It will be laid to us, whose providence Should have kept short, restrain’d, and out of haunt This mad young man. But so much was our love We would not understand what was most fit, But like the owner of a foul disease, To keep it from divulging, let it feed Even on the pith of life. Where is he gone? QUEEN. To draw apart the body he hath kill’d, O’er whom his very madness, like some ore Among a mineral of metals base, Shows itself pure. He weeps for what is done. KING. O Gertrude, come away! The sun no sooner shall the mountains touch But we will ship him hence, and this vile deed We must with all our majesty and skill Both countenance and excuse.—Ho, Guildenstern! Re-enter Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Friends both, go join you with some further aid: Hamlet in madness hath Polonius slain, And from his mother’s closet hath he dragg’d him. Go seek him out, speak fair, and bring the body Into the chapel. I pray you haste in this. [_Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern._] Come, Gertrude, we’ll call up our wisest friends, And let them know both what we mean to do And what’s untimely done, so haply slander, Whose whisper o’er the world’s diameter, As level as the cannon to his blank, Transports his poison’d shot, may miss our name, And hit the woundless air. O, come away! My soul is full of discord and dismay. [_Exeunt._] SCENE II. Another room in the Castle. Enter Hamlet. HAMLET. Safely stowed. ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN. [_Within._] Hamlet! Lord Hamlet! HAMLET. What noise? Who calls on Hamlet? O, here they come. Enter Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. ROSENCRANTZ. What have you done, my lord, with the dead body? HAMLET. Compounded it with dust, whereto ’tis kin. ROSENCRANTZ. Tell us where ’tis, that we may take it thence, And bear it to the chapel. HAMLET. Do not believe it. ROSENCRANTZ. Believe what? HAMLET. That I can keep your counsel, and not mine own. Besides, to be demanded of a sponge—what replication should be made by the son of a king? ROSENCRANTZ. Take you me for a sponge, my lord? HAMLET. Ay, sir; that soaks up the King’s countenance, his rewards, his authorities. But such officers do the King best service in the end: he keeps them, like an ape, in the corner of his jaw; first mouthed, to be last swallowed: when he needs what you have gleaned, it is but squeezing you, and, sponge, you shall be dry again. ROSENCRANTZ. I understand you not, my lord. HAMLET. I am glad of it. A knavish speech sleeps in a foolish ear. ROSENCRANTZ. My lord, you must tell us where the body is and go with us to the King. HAMLET. The body is with the King, but the King is not with the body. The King is a thing— GUILDENSTERN. A thing, my lord! HAMLET. Of nothing. Bring me to him. Hide fox, and all after. [_Exeunt._] SCENE III. Another room in the Castle. Enter King, attended. KING. I have sent to seek him and to find the body. How dangerous is it that this man goes loose! Yet must not we put the strong law on him: He’s lov’d of the distracted multitude, Who like not in their judgement, but their eyes; And where ’tis so, th’offender’s scourge is weigh’d, But never the offence. To bear all smooth and even, This sudden sending him away must seem Deliberate pause. Diseases desperate grown By desperate appliance are reliev’d, Or not at all. Enter Rosencrantz. How now? What hath befall’n? ROSENCRANTZ. Where the dead body is bestow’d, my lord, We cannot get from him. KING. But where is he? ROSENCRANTZ. Without, my lord, guarded, to know your pleasure. KING. Bring him before us. ROSENCRANTZ. Ho, Guildenstern! Bring in my lord. Enter Hamlet and Guildenstern. KING. Now, Hamlet, where’s Polonius? HAMLET. At supper. KING. At supper? Where? HAMLET. Not where he eats, but where he is eaten. A certain convocation of politic worms are e’en at him. Your worm is your only emperor for diet. We fat all creatures else to fat us, and we fat ourselves for maggots. Your fat king and your lean beggar is but variable service,—two dishes, but to one table. That’s the end. KING. Alas, alas! HAMLET. A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a king, and eat of the fish that hath fed of that worm. KING. What dost thou mean by this? HAMLET. Nothing but to show you how a king may go a progress through the guts of a beggar. KING. Where is Polonius? HAMLET. In heaven. Send thither to see. If your messenger find him not there, seek him i’ th’other place yourself. But indeed, if you find him not within this month, you shall nose him as you go up the stairs into the lobby. KING. [_To some Attendants._] Go seek him there. HAMLET. He will stay till you come. [_Exeunt Attendants._] KING. Hamlet, this deed, for thine especial safety,— Which we do tender, as we dearly grieve For that which thou hast done,—must send thee hence With fiery quickness. Therefore prepare thyself; The bark is ready, and the wind at help, Th’associates tend, and everything is bent For England. HAMLET. For England? KING. Ay, Hamlet. HAMLET. Good. KING. So is it, if thou knew’st our purposes. HAMLET. I see a cherub that sees them. But, come; for England! Farewell, dear mother. KING. Thy loving father, Hamlet. HAMLET. My mother. Father and mother is man and wife; man and wife is one flesh; and so, my mother. Come, for England. [_Exit._] KING. Follow him at foot. Tempt him with speed aboard; Delay it not; I’ll have him hence tonight. Away, for everything is seal’d and done That else leans on th’affair. Pray you make haste. [_Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern._] And England, if my love thou hold’st at aught,— As my great power thereof may give thee sense, Since yet thy cicatrice looks raw and red After the Danish sword, and thy free awe Pays homage to us,—thou mayst not coldly set Our sovereign process, which imports at full, By letters conjuring to that effect, The present death of Hamlet. Do it, England; For like the hectic in my blood he rages, And thou must cure me. Till I know ’tis done, Howe’er my haps, my joys were ne’er begun. [_Exit._] SCENE IV. A plain in Denmark. Enter Fortinbras and Forces marching. FORTINBRAS. Go, Captain, from me greet the Danish king. Tell him that by his license, Fortinbras Craves the conveyance of a promis’d march Over his kingdom. You know the rendezvous. If that his Majesty would aught with us, We shall express our duty in his eye; And let him know so. CAPTAIN. I will do’t, my lord. FORTINBRAS. Go softly on. [_Exeunt all but the Captain._] Enter Hamlet, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern &c. HAMLET. Good sir, whose powers are these? CAPTAIN. They are of Norway, sir. HAMLET. How purpos’d, sir, I pray you? CAPTAIN. Against some part of Poland. HAMLET. Who commands them, sir? CAPTAIN. The nephew to old Norway, Fortinbras. HAMLET. Goes it against the main of Poland, sir, Or for some frontier? CAPTAIN. Truly to speak, and with no addition, We go to gain a little patch of ground That hath in it no profit but the name. To pay five ducats, five, I would not farm it; Nor will it yield to Norway or the Pole A ranker rate, should it be sold in fee. HAMLET. Why, then the Polack never will defend it. CAPTAIN. Yes, it is already garrison’d. HAMLET. Two thousand souls and twenty thousand ducats Will not debate the question of this straw! This is th’imposthume of much wealth and peace, That inward breaks, and shows no cause without Why the man dies. I humbly thank you, sir. CAPTAIN. God b’ wi’ you, sir. [_Exit._] ROSENCRANTZ. Will’t please you go, my lord? HAMLET. I’ll be with you straight. Go a little before. [_Exeunt all but Hamlet._] How all occasions do inform against me, And spur my dull revenge. What is a man If his chief good and market of his time Be but to sleep and feed? A beast, no more. Sure he that made us with such large discourse, Looking before and after, gave us not That capability and godlike reason To fust in us unus’d. Now whether it be Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple Of thinking too precisely on th’event,— A thought which, quarter’d, hath but one part wisdom And ever three parts coward,—I do not know Why yet I live to say this thing’s to do, Sith I have cause, and will, and strength, and means To do’t. Examples gross as earth exhort me, Witness this army of such mass and charge, Led by a delicate and tender prince, Whose spirit, with divine ambition puff’d, Makes mouths at the invisible event, Exposing what is mortal and unsure To all that fortune, death, and danger dare, Even for an eggshell. Rightly to be great Is not to stir without great argument, But greatly to find quarrel in a straw When honour’s at the stake. How stand I then, That have a father kill’d, a mother stain’d, Excitements of my reason and my blood, And let all sleep, while to my shame I see The imminent death of twenty thousand men That, for a fantasy and trick of fame, Go to their graves like beds, fight for a plot Whereon the numbers cannot try the cause, Which is not tomb enough and continent To hide the slain? O, from this time forth, My thoughts be bloody or be nothing worth. [_Exit._] SCENE V. Elsinore. A room in the Castle. Enter Queen, Horatio and a Gentleman. QUEEN. I will not speak with her. GENTLEMAN. She is importunate, indeed distract. Her mood will needs be pitied. QUEEN. What would she have? GENTLEMAN. She speaks much of her father; says she hears There’s tricks i’ th’ world, and hems, and beats her heart, Spurns enviously at straws, speaks things in doubt, That carry but half sense. Her speech is nothing, Yet the unshaped use of it doth move The hearers to collection; they aim at it, And botch the words up fit to their own thoughts, Which, as her winks, and nods, and gestures yield them, Indeed would make one think there might be thought, Though nothing sure, yet much unhappily. ’Twere good she were spoken with, for she may strew Dangerous conjectures in ill-breeding minds. QUEEN. Let her come in. [_Exit Gentleman._] To my sick soul, as sin’s true nature is, Each toy seems prologue to some great amiss. So full of artless jealousy is guilt, It spills itself in fearing to be spilt. Enter Ophelia. OPHELIA. Where is the beauteous Majesty of Denmark? QUEEN. How now, Ophelia? OPHELIA. [_Sings._] How should I your true love know From another one? By his cockle hat and staff And his sandal shoon. QUEEN. Alas, sweet lady, what imports this song? OPHELIA. Say you? Nay, pray you mark. [_Sings._] He is dead and gone, lady, He is dead and gone, At his head a grass green turf, At his heels a stone. QUEEN. Nay, but Ophelia— OPHELIA. Pray you mark. [_Sings._] White his shroud as the mountain snow. Enter King. QUEEN. Alas, look here, my lord! OPHELIA. [_Sings._] Larded all with sweet flowers; Which bewept to the grave did not go With true-love showers. KING. How do you, pretty lady? OPHELIA. Well, God dild you! They say the owl was a baker’s daughter. Lord, we know what we are, but know not what we may be. God be at your table! KING. Conceit upon her father. OPHELIA. Pray you, let’s have no words of this; but when they ask you what it means, say you this: [_Sings._] Tomorrow is Saint Valentine’s day, All in the morning betime, And I a maid at your window, To be your Valentine. Then up he rose and donn’d his clothes, And dupp’d the chamber door, Let in the maid, that out a maid Never departed more. KING. Pretty Ophelia! OPHELIA. Indeed la, without an oath, I’ll make an end on’t. [_Sings._] By Gis and by Saint Charity, Alack, and fie for shame! Young men will do’t if they come to’t; By Cock, they are to blame. Quoth she, before you tumbled me, You promis’d me to wed. So would I ha’ done, by yonder sun, An thou hadst not come to my bed. KING. How long hath she been thus? OPHELIA. I hope all will be well. We must be patient. But I cannot choose but weep, to think they would lay him i’ th’ cold ground. My brother shall know of it. And so I thank you for your good counsel. Come, my coach! Good night, ladies; good night, sweet ladies; good night, good night. [_Exit._] KING. Follow her close; give her good watch, I pray you. [_Exit Horatio._] O, this is the poison of deep grief; it springs All from her father’s death. O Gertrude, Gertrude, When sorrows come, they come not single spies, But in battalions. First, her father slain; Next, your son gone; and he most violent author Of his own just remove; the people muddied, Thick, and unwholesome in their thoughts and whispers For good Polonius’ death; and we have done but greenly In hugger-mugger to inter him. Poor Ophelia Divided from herself and her fair judgement, Without the which we are pictures or mere beasts. Last, and as much containing as all these, Her brother is in secret come from France, Feeds on his wonder, keeps himself in clouds, And wants not buzzers to infect his ear With pestilent speeches of his father’s death, Wherein necessity, of matter beggar’d, Will nothing stick our person to arraign In ear and ear. O my dear Gertrude, this, Like to a murdering piece, in many places Gives me superfluous death. [_A noise within._] QUEEN. Alack, what noise is this? KING. Where are my Switzers? Let them guard the door. Enter a Gentleman. What is the matter? GENTLEMAN. Save yourself, my lord. The ocean, overpeering of his list, Eats not the flats with more impetuous haste Than young Laertes, in a riotous head, O’erbears your offices. The rabble call him lord, And, as the world were now but to begin, Antiquity forgot, custom not known, The ratifiers and props of every word, They cry ‘Choose we! Laertes shall be king!’ Caps, hands, and tongues applaud it to the clouds, ‘Laertes shall be king, Laertes king.’ QUEEN. How cheerfully on the false trail they cry. O, this is counter, you false Danish dogs. [_A noise within._] KING. The doors are broke. Enter Laertes, armed; Danes following. LAERTES. Where is this king?—Sirs, stand you all without. Danes. No, let’s come in. LAERTES. I pray you, give me leave. DANES. We will, we will. [_They retire without the door._] LAERTES. I thank you. Keep the door. O thou vile king, Give me my father. QUEEN. Calmly, good Laertes. LAERTES. That drop of blood that’s calm proclaims me bastard; Cries cuckold to my father, brands the harlot Even here between the chaste unsmirched brow Of my true mother. KING. What is the cause, Laertes, That thy rebellion looks so giant-like?— Let him go, Gertrude. Do not fear our person. There’s such divinity doth hedge a king, That treason can but peep to what it would, Acts little of his will.—Tell me, Laertes, Why thou art thus incens’d.—Let him go, Gertrude:— Speak, man. LAERTES. Where is my father? KING. Dead. QUEEN. But not by him. KING. Let him demand his fill. LAERTES. How came he dead? I’ll not be juggled with. To hell, allegiance! Vows, to the blackest devil! Conscience and grace, to the profoundest pit! I dare damnation. To this point I stand, That both the worlds, I give to negligence, Let come what comes; only I’ll be reveng’d Most throughly for my father. KING. Who shall stay you? LAERTES. My will, not all the world. And for my means, I’ll husband them so well, They shall go far with little. KING. Good Laertes, If you desire to know the certainty Of your dear father’s death, is’t writ in your revenge That, sweepstake, you will draw both friend and foe, Winner and loser? LAERTES. None but his enemies. KING. Will you know them then? LAERTES. To his good friends thus wide I’ll ope my arms; And, like the kind life-rendering pelican, Repast them with my blood. KING. Why, now you speak Like a good child and a true gentleman. That I am guiltless of your father’s death, And am most sensibly in grief for it, It shall as level to your judgement ’pear As day does to your eye. DANES. [_Within._] Let her come in. LAERTES. How now! What noise is that? Re-enter Ophelia, fantastically dressed with straws and flowers. O heat, dry up my brains. Tears seven times salt, Burn out the sense and virtue of mine eye. By heaven, thy madness shall be paid by weight, Till our scale turn the beam. O rose of May! Dear maid, kind sister, sweet Ophelia! O heavens, is’t possible a young maid’s wits Should be as mortal as an old man’s life? Nature is fine in love, and where ’tis fine, It sends some precious instance of itself After the thing it loves. OPHELIA. [_Sings._] They bore him barefac’d on the bier, Hey non nonny, nonny, hey nonny And on his grave rain’d many a tear.— Fare you well, my dove! LAERTES. Hadst thou thy wits, and didst persuade revenge, It could not move thus. OPHELIA. You must sing ‘Down a-down, and you call him a-down-a.’ O, how the wheel becomes it! It is the false steward that stole his master’s daughter. LAERTES. This nothing’s more than matter. OPHELIA. There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance; pray love, remember. And there is pansies, that’s for thoughts. LAERTES. A document in madness, thoughts and remembrance fitted. OPHELIA. There’s fennel for you, and columbines. There’s rue for you; and here’s some for me. We may call it herb of grace o’ Sundays. O you must wear your rue with a difference. There’s a daisy. I would give you some violets, but they wither’d all when my father died. They say he made a good end. [_Sings._] For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy. LAERTES. Thought and affliction, passion, hell itself She turns to favour and to prettiness. OPHELIA. [_Sings._] And will he not come again? And will he not come again? No, no, he is dead, Go to thy death-bed, He never will come again. His beard was as white as snow, All flaxen was his poll. He is gone, he is gone, And we cast away moan. God ha’ mercy on his soul. And of all Christian souls, I pray God. God b’ wi’ ye. [_Exit._] LAERTES. Do you see this, O God? KING. Laertes, I must commune with your grief, Or you deny me right. Go but apart, Make choice of whom your wisest friends you will, And they shall hear and judge ’twixt you and me. If by direct or by collateral hand They find us touch’d, we will our kingdom give, Our crown, our life, and all that we call ours To you in satisfaction; but if not, Be you content to lend your patience to us, And we shall jointly labour with your soul To give it due content. LAERTES. Let this be so; His means of death, his obscure burial,— No trophy, sword, nor hatchment o’er his bones, No noble rite, nor formal ostentation,— Cry to be heard, as ’twere from heaven to earth, That I must call’t in question. KING. So you shall. And where th’offence is let the great axe fall. I pray you go with me. [_Exeunt._] SCENE VI. Another room in the Castle. Enter Horatio and a Servant. HORATIO. What are they that would speak with me? SERVANT. Sailors, sir. They say they have letters for you. HORATIO. Let them come in. [_Exit Servant._] I do not know from what part of the world I should be greeted, if not from Lord Hamlet. Enter Sailors. FIRST SAILOR. God bless you, sir. HORATIO. Let him bless thee too. FIRST SAILOR. He shall, sir, and’t please him. There’s a letter for you, sir. It comes from th’ambassador that was bound for England; if your name be Horatio, as I am let to know it is. HORATIO. [_Reads._] ‘Horatio, when thou shalt have overlooked this, give these fellows some means to the King. They have letters for him. Ere we were two days old at sea, a pirate of very warlike appointment gave us chase. Finding ourselves too slow of sail, we put on a compelled valour, and in the grapple I boarded them. On the instant they got clear of our ship, so I alone became their prisoner. They have dealt with me like thieves of mercy. But they knew what they did; I am to do a good turn for them. Let the King have the letters I have sent, and repair thou to me with as much haste as thou wouldst fly death. I have words to speak in thine ear will make thee dumb; yet are they much too light for the bore of the matter. These good fellows will bring thee where I am. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern hold their course for England: of them I have much to tell thee. Farewell. He that thou knowest thine, HAMLET.’ Come, I will give you way for these your letters, And do’t the speedier, that you may direct me To him from whom you brought them. [_Exeunt._] SCENE VII. Another room in the Castle. Enter King and Laertes. KING. Now must your conscience my acquittance seal, And you must put me in your heart for friend, Sith you have heard, and with a knowing ear, That he which hath your noble father slain Pursu’d my life. LAERTES. It well appears. But tell me Why you proceeded not against these feats, So crimeful and so capital in nature, As by your safety, wisdom, all things else, You mainly were stirr’d up. KING. O, for two special reasons, Which may to you, perhaps, seem much unsinew’d, But yet to me they are strong. The Queen his mother Lives almost by his looks; and for myself,— My virtue or my plague, be it either which,— She’s so conjunctive to my life and soul, That, as the star moves not but in his sphere, I could not but by her. The other motive, Why to a public count I might not go, Is the great love the general gender bear him, Who, dipping all his faults in their affection, Would like the spring that turneth wood to stone, Convert his gyves to graces; so that my arrows, Too slightly timber’d for so loud a wind, Would have reverted to my bow again, And not where I had aim’d them. LAERTES. And so have I a noble father lost, A sister driven into desperate terms, Whose worth, if praises may go back again, Stood challenger on mount of all the age For her perfections. But my revenge will come. KING. Break not your sleeps for that. You must not think That we are made of stuff so flat and dull That we can let our beard be shook with danger, And think it pastime. You shortly shall hear more. I lov’d your father, and we love ourself, And that, I hope, will teach you to imagine— Enter a Messenger. How now? What news? MESSENGER. Letters, my lord, from Hamlet. This to your Majesty; this to the Queen. KING. From Hamlet! Who brought them? MESSENGER. Sailors, my lord, they say; I saw them not. They were given me by Claudio. He receiv’d them Of him that brought them. KING. Laertes, you shall hear them. Leave us. [_Exit Messenger._] [_Reads._] ‘High and mighty, you shall know I am set naked on your kingdom. Tomorrow shall I beg leave to see your kingly eyes. When I shall, first asking your pardon thereunto, recount the occasions of my sudden and more strange return. HAMLET.’ What should this mean? Are all the rest come back? Or is it some abuse, and no such thing? LAERTES. Know you the hand? KING. ’Tis Hamlet’s character. ‘Naked!’ And in a postscript here he says ‘alone.’ Can you advise me? LAERTES. I am lost in it, my lord. But let him come, It warms the very sickness in my heart That I shall live and tell him to his teeth, ‘Thus diest thou.’ KING. If it be so, Laertes,— As how should it be so? How otherwise?— Will you be rul’d by me? LAERTES. Ay, my lord; So you will not o’errule me to a peace. KING. To thine own peace. If he be now return’d, As checking at his voyage, and that he means No more to undertake it, I will work him To an exploit, now ripe in my device, Under the which he shall not choose but fall; And for his death no wind shall breathe, But even his mother shall uncharge the practice And call it accident. LAERTES. My lord, I will be rul’d; The rather if you could devise it so That I might be the organ. KING. It falls right. You have been talk’d of since your travel much, And that in Hamlet’s hearing, for a quality Wherein they say you shine. Your sum of parts Did not together pluck such envy from him As did that one, and that, in my regard, Of the unworthiest siege. LAERTES. What part is that, my lord? KING. A very riband in the cap of youth, Yet needful too, for youth no less becomes The light and careless livery that it wears Than settled age his sables and his weeds, Importing health and graveness. Two months since Here was a gentleman of Normandy,— I’ve seen myself, and serv’d against, the French, And they can well on horseback, but this gallant Had witchcraft in’t. He grew unto his seat, And to such wondrous doing brought his horse, As had he been incorps’d and demi-natur’d With the brave beast. So far he topp’d my thought That I in forgery of shapes and tricks, Come short of what he did. LAERTES. A Norman was’t? KING. A Norman. LAERTES. Upon my life, Lamord. KING. The very same. LAERTES. I know him well. He is the brooch indeed And gem of all the nation. KING. He made confession of you, And gave you such a masterly report For art and exercise in your defence, And for your rapier most especially, That he cried out ’twould be a sight indeed If one could match you. The scrimers of their nation He swore had neither motion, guard, nor eye, If you oppos’d them. Sir, this report of his Did Hamlet so envenom with his envy That he could nothing do but wish and beg Your sudden coming o’er to play with him. Now, out of this,— LAERTES. What out of this, my lord? KING. Laertes, was your father dear to you? Or are you like the painting of a sorrow, A face without a heart? LAERTES. Why ask you this? KING. Not that I think you did not love your father, But that I know love is begun by time, And that I see, in passages of proof, Time qualifies the spark and fire of it. There lives within the very flame of love A kind of wick or snuff that will abate it; And nothing is at a like goodness still, For goodness, growing to a pleurisy, Dies in his own too much. That we would do, We should do when we would; for this ‘would’ changes, And hath abatements and delays as many As there are tongues, are hands, are accidents; And then this ‘should’ is like a spendthrift sigh That hurts by easing. But to the quick o’ th’ulcer: Hamlet comes back: what would you undertake To show yourself your father’s son in deed, More than in words? LAERTES. To cut his throat i’ th’ church. KING. No place, indeed, should murder sanctuarize; Revenge should have no bounds. But good Laertes, Will you do this, keep close within your chamber. Hamlet return’d shall know you are come home: We’ll put on those shall praise your excellence, And set a double varnish on the fame The Frenchman gave you, bring you in fine together And wager on your heads. He, being remiss, Most generous, and free from all contriving, Will not peruse the foils; so that with ease, Or with a little shuffling, you may choose A sword unbated, and in a pass of practice, Requite him for your father. LAERTES. I will do’t. And for that purpose I’ll anoint my sword. I bought an unction of a mountebank So mortal that, but dip a knife in it, Where it draws blood no cataplasm so rare, Collected from all simples that have virtue Under the moon, can save the thing from death This is but scratch’d withal. I’ll touch my point With this contagion, that if I gall him slightly, It may be death. KING. Let’s further think of this, Weigh what convenience both of time and means May fit us to our shape. If this should fail, And that our drift look through our bad performance. ’Twere better not assay’d. Therefore this project Should have a back or second, that might hold If this did blast in proof. Soft, let me see. We’ll make a solemn wager on your cunnings,— I ha’t! When in your motion you are hot and dry, As make your bouts more violent to that end, And that he calls for drink, I’ll have prepar’d him A chalice for the nonce; whereon but sipping, If he by chance escape your venom’d stuck, Our purpose may hold there. Enter Queen. How now, sweet Queen? QUEEN. One woe doth tread upon another’s heel, So fast they follow. Your sister’s drown’d, Laertes. LAERTES. Drown’d! O, where? QUEEN. There is a willow grows aslant a brook, That shows his hoary leaves in the glassy stream. There with fantastic garlands did she make Of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples, That liberal shepherds give a grosser name, But our cold maids do dead men’s fingers call them. There on the pendant boughs her coronet weeds Clamb’ring to hang, an envious sliver broke, When down her weedy trophies and herself Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide, And mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up, Which time she chaunted snatches of old tunes, As one incapable of her own distress, Or like a creature native and indued Unto that element. But long it could not be Till that her garments, heavy with their drink, Pull’d the poor wretch from her melodious lay To muddy death. LAERTES. Alas, then she is drown’d? QUEEN. Drown’d, drown’d. LAERTES. Too much of water hast thou, poor Ophelia, And therefore I forbid my tears. But yet It is our trick; nature her custom holds, Let shame say what it will. When these are gone, The woman will be out. Adieu, my lord, I have a speech of fire, that fain would blaze, But that this folly douts it. [_Exit._] KING. Let’s follow, Gertrude; How much I had to do to calm his rage! Now fear I this will give it start again; Therefore let’s follow. [_Exeunt._] ACT V SCENE I. A churchyard. Enter two Clowns with spades, &c. FIRST CLOWN. Is she to be buried in Christian burial, when she wilfully seeks her own salvation? SECOND CLOWN. I tell thee she is, and therefore make her grave straight. The crowner hath sat on her, and finds it Christian burial. FIRST CLOWN. How can that be, unless she drowned herself in her own defence? SECOND CLOWN. Why, ’tis found so. FIRST CLOWN. It must be _se offendendo_, it cannot be else. For here lies the point: if I drown myself wittingly, it argues an act: and an act hath three branches. It is to act, to do, and to perform: argal, she drowned herself wittingly. SECOND CLOWN. Nay, but hear you, goodman delver,— FIRST CLOWN. Give me leave. Here lies the water; good. Here stands the man; good. If the man go to this water and drown himself, it is, will he nill he, he goes,—mark you that. But if the water come to him and drown him, he drowns not himself. Argal, he that is not guilty of his own death shortens not his own life. SECOND CLOWN. But is this law? FIRST CLOWN. Ay, marry, is’t, crowner’s quest law. SECOND CLOWN. Will you ha’ the truth on’t? If this had not been a gentlewoman, she should have been buried out o’ Christian burial. FIRST CLOWN. Why, there thou say’st. And the more pity that great folk should have countenance in this world to drown or hang themselves more than their even Christian. Come, my spade. There is no ancient gentlemen but gardeners, ditchers, and grave-makers: they hold up Adam’s profession. SECOND CLOWN. Was he a gentleman? FIRST CLOWN. He was the first that ever bore arms. SECOND CLOWN. Why, he had none. FIRST CLOWN. What, art a heathen? How dost thou understand the Scripture? The Scripture says Adam digg’d. Could he dig without arms? I’ll put another question to thee. If thou answerest me not to the purpose, confess thyself— SECOND CLOWN. Go to. FIRST CLOWN. What is he that builds stronger than either the mason, the shipwright, or the carpenter? SECOND CLOWN. The gallows-maker; for that frame outlives a thousand tenants. FIRST CLOWN. I like thy wit well in good faith, the gallows does well. But how does it well? It does well to those that do ill. Now, thou dost ill to say the gallows is built stronger than the church; argal, the gallows may do well to thee. To’t again, come. SECOND CLOWN. Who builds stronger than a mason, a shipwright, or a carpenter? FIRST CLOWN. Ay, tell me that, and unyoke. SECOND CLOWN. Marry, now I can tell. FIRST CLOWN. To’t. SECOND CLOWN. Mass, I cannot tell. Enter Hamlet and Horatio, at a distance. FIRST CLOWN. Cudgel thy brains no more about it, for your dull ass will not mend his pace with beating; and when you are asked this question next, say ‘a grave-maker’. The houses he makes last till doomsday. Go, get thee to Yaughan; fetch me a stoup of liquor. [_Exit Second Clown._] [_Digs and sings._] In youth when I did love, did love, Methought it was very sweet; To contract, O, the time for, a, my behove, O methought there was nothing meet. HAMLET. Has this fellow no feeling of his business, that he sings at grave-making? HORATIO. Custom hath made it in him a property of easiness. HAMLET. ’Tis e’en so; the hand of little employment hath the daintier sense. FIRST CLOWN. [_Sings._] But age with his stealing steps Hath claw’d me in his clutch, And hath shipp’d me into the land, As if I had never been such. [_Throws up a skull._] HAMLET. That skull had a tongue in it, and could sing once. How the knave jowls it to th’ ground, as if ’twere Cain’s jawbone, that did the first murder! This might be the pate of a politician which this ass now o’er-offices, one that would circumvent God, might it not? HORATIO. It might, my lord. HAMLET. Or of a courtier, which could say ‘Good morrow, sweet lord! How dost thou, good lord?’ This might be my lord such-a-one, that praised my lord such-a-one’s horse when he meant to beg it, might it not? HORATIO. Ay, my lord. HAMLET. Why, e’en so: and now my Lady Worm’s; chapless, and knocked about the mazard with a sexton’s spade. Here’s fine revolution, an we had the trick to see’t. Did these bones cost no more the breeding but to play at loggets with ’em? Mine ache to think on’t. FIRST CLOWN. [_Sings._] A pickaxe and a spade, a spade, For and a shrouding-sheet; O, a pit of clay for to be made For such a guest is meet. [_Throws up another skull._] HAMLET. There’s another. Why may not that be the skull of a lawyer? Where be his quiddits now, his quillets, his cases, his tenures, and his tricks? Why does he suffer this rude knave now to knock him about the sconce with a dirty shovel, and will not tell him of his action of battery? Hum. This fellow might be in’s time a great buyer of land, with his statutes, his recognizances, his fines, his double vouchers, his recoveries. Is this the fine of his fines, and the recovery of his recoveries, to have his fine pate full of fine dirt? Will his vouchers vouch him no more of his purchases, and double ones too, than the length and breadth of a pair of indentures? The very conveyances of his lands will scarcely lie in this box; and must the inheritor himself have no more, ha? HORATIO. Not a jot more, my lord. HAMLET. Is not parchment made of sheep-skins? HORATIO. Ay, my lord, and of calf-skins too. HAMLET. They are sheep and calves which seek out assurance in that. I will speak to this fellow.—Whose grave’s this, sir? FIRST CLOWN. Mine, sir. [_Sings._] O, a pit of clay for to be made For such a guest is meet. HAMLET. I think it be thine indeed, for thou liest in’t. FIRST CLOWN. You lie out on’t, sir, and therefore ’tis not yours. For my part, I do not lie in’t, yet it is mine. HAMLET. Thou dost lie in’t, to be in’t and say it is thine. ’Tis for the dead, not for the quick; therefore thou liest. FIRST CLOWN. ’Tis a quick lie, sir; ’t will away again from me to you. HAMLET. What man dost thou dig it for? FIRST CLOWN. For no man, sir. HAMLET. What woman then? FIRST CLOWN. For none neither. HAMLET. Who is to be buried in’t? FIRST CLOWN. One that was a woman, sir; but, rest her soul, she’s dead. HAMLET. How absolute the knave is! We must speak by the card, or equivocation will undo us. By the Lord, Horatio, these three years I have taken note of it, the age is grown so picked that the toe of the peasant comes so near the heel of the courtier he galls his kibe.—How long hast thou been a grave-maker? FIRST CLOWN. Of all the days i’ th’ year, I came to’t that day that our last King Hamlet o’ercame Fortinbras. HAMLET. How long is that since? FIRST CLOWN. Cannot you tell that? Every fool can tell that. It was the very day that young Hamlet was born,—he that is mad, and sent into England. HAMLET. Ay, marry, why was he sent into England? FIRST CLOWN. Why, because he was mad; he shall recover his wits there; or if he do not, it’s no great matter there. HAMLET. Why? FIRST CLOWN. ’Twill not be seen in him there; there the men are as mad as he. HAMLET. How came he mad? FIRST CLOWN. Very strangely, they say. HAMLET. How strangely? FIRST CLOWN. Faith, e’en with losing his wits. HAMLET. Upon what ground? FIRST CLOWN. Why, here in Denmark. I have been sexton here, man and boy, thirty years. HAMLET. How long will a man lie i’ th’earth ere he rot? FIRST CLOWN. Faith, if he be not rotten before he die,—as we have many pocky corses nowadays that will scarce hold the laying in,—he will last you some eight year or nine year. A tanner will last you nine year. HAMLET. Why he more than another? FIRST CLOWN. Why, sir, his hide is so tann’d with his trade that he will keep out water a great while. And your water is a sore decayer of your whoreson dead body. Here’s a skull now; this skull hath lain in the earth three-and-twenty years. HAMLET. Whose was it? FIRST CLOWN. A whoreson, mad fellow’s it was. Whose do you think it was? HAMLET. Nay, I know not. FIRST CLOWN. A pestilence on him for a mad rogue! A pour’d a flagon of Rhenish on my head once. This same skull, sir, was Yorick’s skull, the King’s jester. HAMLET. This? FIRST CLOWN. E’en that. HAMLET. Let me see. [_Takes the skull._] Alas, poor Yorick. I knew him, Horatio, a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy. He hath borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how abhorred in my imagination it is! My gorge rises at it. Here hung those lips that I have kiss’d I know not how oft. Where be your gibes now? your gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment, that were wont to set the table on a roar? Not one now, to mock your own grinning? Quite chop-fallen? Now get you to my lady’s chamber, and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this favour she must come. Make her laugh at that.—Prithee, Horatio, tell me one thing. HORATIO. What’s that, my lord? HAMLET. Dost thou think Alexander looked o’ this fashion i’ th’earth? HORATIO. E’en so. HAMLET. And smelt so? Pah! [_Throws down the skull._] HORATIO. E’en so, my lord. HAMLET. To what base uses we may return, Horatio! Why may not imagination trace the noble dust of Alexander till he find it stopping a bung-hole? HORATIO. ’Twere to consider too curiously to consider so. HAMLET. No, faith, not a jot. But to follow him thither with modesty enough, and likelihood to lead it; as thus. Alexander died, Alexander was buried, Alexander returneth into dust; the dust is earth; of earth we make loam; and why of that loam whereto he was converted might they not stop a beer-barrel? Imperious Caesar, dead and turn’d to clay, Might stop a hole to keep the wind away. O, that that earth which kept the world in awe Should patch a wall t’expel the winter’s flaw. But soft! but soft! aside! Here comes the King. Enter priests, &c, in procession; the corpse of Ophelia, Laertes and Mourners following; King, Queen, their Trains, &c. The Queen, the courtiers. Who is that they follow? And with such maimed rites? This doth betoken The corse they follow did with desperate hand Fordo it own life. ’Twas of some estate. Couch we awhile and mark. [_Retiring with Horatio._] LAERTES. What ceremony else? HAMLET. That is Laertes, a very noble youth. Mark. LAERTES. What ceremony else? PRIEST. Her obsequies have been as far enlarg’d As we have warranties. Her death was doubtful; And but that great command o’ersways the order, She should in ground unsanctified have lodg’d Till the last trumpet. For charitable prayers, Shards, flints, and pebbles should be thrown on her. Yet here she is allowed her virgin rites, Her maiden strewments, and the bringing home Of bell and burial. LAERTES. Must there no more be done? PRIEST. No more be done. We should profane the service of the dead To sing sage requiem and such rest to her As to peace-parted souls. LAERTES. Lay her i’ th’earth, And from her fair and unpolluted flesh May violets spring. I tell thee, churlish priest, A minist’ring angel shall my sister be When thou liest howling. HAMLET. What, the fair Ophelia? QUEEN. [_Scattering flowers._] Sweets to the sweet. Farewell. I hop’d thou shouldst have been my Hamlet’s wife; I thought thy bride-bed to have deck’d, sweet maid, And not have strew’d thy grave. LAERTES. O, treble woe Fall ten times treble on that cursed head Whose wicked deed thy most ingenious sense Depriv’d thee of. Hold off the earth a while, Till I have caught her once more in mine arms. [_Leaps into the grave._] Now pile your dust upon the quick and dead, Till of this flat a mountain you have made, To o’ertop old Pelion or the skyish head Of blue Olympus. HAMLET. [_Advancing._] What is he whose grief Bears such an emphasis? whose phrase of sorrow Conjures the wand’ring stars, and makes them stand Like wonder-wounded hearers? This is I, Hamlet the Dane. [_Leaps into the grave._] LAERTES. [_Grappling with him._] The devil take thy soul! HAMLET. Thou pray’st not well. I prithee take thy fingers from my throat; For though I am not splenative and rash, Yet have I in me something dangerous, Which let thy wiseness fear. Away thy hand! KING. Pluck them asunder. QUEEN. Hamlet! Hamlet! All. Gentlemen! HORATIO. Good my lord, be quiet. [_The Attendants part them, and they come out of the grave._] HAMLET. Why, I will fight with him upon this theme Until my eyelids will no longer wag. QUEEN. O my son, what theme? HAMLET. I lov’d Ophelia; forty thousand brothers Could not, with all their quantity of love, Make up my sum. What wilt thou do for her? KING. O, he is mad, Laertes. QUEEN. For love of God forbear him! HAMLET. ’Swounds, show me what thou’lt do: Woul’t weep? woul’t fight? woul’t fast? woul’t tear thyself? Woul’t drink up eisel? eat a crocodile? I’ll do’t. Dost thou come here to whine? To outface me with leaping in her grave? Be buried quick with her, and so will I. And if thou prate of mountains, let them throw Millions of acres on us, till our ground, Singeing his pate against the burning zone, Make Ossa like a wart. Nay, an thou’lt mouth, I’ll rant as well as thou. QUEEN. This is mere madness: And thus awhile the fit will work on him; Anon, as patient as the female dove, When that her golden couplets are disclos’d, His silence will sit drooping. HAMLET. Hear you, sir; What is the reason that you use me thus? I lov’d you ever. But it is no matter. Let Hercules himself do what he may, The cat will mew, and dog will have his day. [_Exit._] KING. I pray thee, good Horatio, wait upon him. [_Exit Horatio._] [_To Laertes_] Strengthen your patience in our last night’s speech; We’ll put the matter to the present push.— Good Gertrude, set some watch over your son. This grave shall have a living monument. An hour of quiet shortly shall we see; Till then in patience our proceeding be. [_Exeunt._] SCENE II. A hall in the Castle. Enter Hamlet and Horatio. HAMLET. So much for this, sir. Now let me see the other; You do remember all the circumstance? HORATIO. Remember it, my lord! HAMLET. Sir, in my heart there was a kind of fighting That would not let me sleep. Methought I lay Worse than the mutinies in the bilboes. Rashly, And prais’d be rashness for it,—let us know, Our indiscretion sometime serves us well, When our deep plots do pall; and that should teach us There’s a divinity that shapes our ends, Rough-hew them how we will. HORATIO. That is most certain. HAMLET. Up from my cabin, My sea-gown scarf’d about me, in the dark Grop’d I to find out them; had my desire, Finger’d their packet, and in fine, withdrew To mine own room again, making so bold, My fears forgetting manners, to unseal Their grand commission; where I found, Horatio, Oh royal knavery! an exact command, Larded with many several sorts of reasons, Importing Denmark’s health, and England’s too, With ho! such bugs and goblins in my life, That on the supervise, no leisure bated, No, not to stay the grinding of the axe, My head should be struck off. HORATIO. Is’t possible? HAMLET. Here’s the commission, read it at more leisure. But wilt thou hear me how I did proceed? HORATIO. I beseech you. HAMLET. Being thus benetted round with villanies,— Or I could make a prologue to my brains, They had begun the play,—I sat me down, Devis’d a new commission, wrote it fair: I once did hold it, as our statists do, A baseness to write fair, and labour’d much How to forget that learning; but, sir, now It did me yeoman’s service. Wilt thou know The effect of what I wrote? HORATIO. Ay, good my lord. HAMLET. An earnest conjuration from the King, As England was his faithful tributary, As love between them like the palm might flourish, As peace should still her wheaten garland wear And stand a comma ’tween their amities, And many such-like ‘as’es of great charge, That on the view and know of these contents, Without debatement further, more or less, He should the bearers put to sudden death, Not shriving-time allow’d. HORATIO. How was this seal’d? HAMLET. Why, even in that was heaven ordinant. I had my father’s signet in my purse, Which was the model of that Danish seal: Folded the writ up in the form of the other, Subscrib’d it: gave’t th’impression; plac’d it safely, The changeling never known. Now, the next day Was our sea-fight, and what to this was sequent Thou know’st already. HORATIO. So Guildenstern and Rosencrantz go to’t. HAMLET. Why, man, they did make love to this employment. They are not near my conscience; their defeat Does by their own insinuation grow. ’Tis dangerous when the baser nature comes Between the pass and fell incensed points Of mighty opposites. HORATIO. Why, what a king is this! HAMLET. Does it not, thinks’t thee, stand me now upon,— He that hath kill’d my king, and whor’d my mother, Popp’d in between th’election and my hopes, Thrown out his angle for my proper life, And with such cozenage—is’t not perfect conscience To quit him with this arm? And is’t not to be damn’d To let this canker of our nature come In further evil? HORATIO. It must be shortly known to him from England What is the issue of the business there. HAMLET. It will be short. The interim is mine; And a man’s life’s no more than to say ‘One’. But I am very sorry, good Horatio, That to Laertes I forgot myself; For by the image of my cause I see The portraiture of his. I’ll court his favours. But sure the bravery of his grief did put me Into a tow’ring passion. HORATIO. Peace, who comes here? Enter Osric. OSRIC. Your lordship is right welcome back to Denmark. HAMLET. I humbly thank you, sir. Dost know this waterfly? HORATIO. No, my good lord. HAMLET. Thy state is the more gracious; for ’tis a vice to know him. He hath much land, and fertile; let a beast be lord of beasts, and his crib shall stand at the king’s mess; ’tis a chough; but, as I say, spacious in the possession of dirt. OSRIC. Sweet lord, if your lordship were at leisure, I should impart a thing to you from his Majesty. HAMLET. I will receive it with all diligence of spirit. Put your bonnet to his right use; ’tis for the head. OSRIC. I thank your lordship, ’tis very hot. HAMLET. No, believe me, ’tis very cold, the wind is northerly. OSRIC. It is indifferent cold, my lord, indeed. HAMLET. Methinks it is very sultry and hot for my complexion. OSRIC. Exceedingly, my lord; it is very sultry,—as ’twere—I cannot tell how. But, my lord, his Majesty bade me signify to you that he has laid a great wager on your head. Sir, this is the matter,— HAMLET. I beseech you, remember,— [_Hamlet moves him to put on his hat._] OSRIC. Nay, in good faith; for mine ease, in good faith. Sir, here is newly come to court Laertes; believe me, an absolute gentleman, full of most excellent differences, of very soft society and great showing. Indeed, to speak feelingly of him, he is the card or calendar of gentry; for you shall find in him the continent of what part a gentleman would see. HAMLET. Sir, his definement suffers no perdition in you, though I know, to divide him inventorially would dizzy th’arithmetic of memory, and yet but yaw neither, in respect of his quick sail. But, in the verity of extolment, I take him to be a soul of great article and his infusion of such dearth and rareness as, to make true diction of him, his semblable is his mirror and who else would trace him his umbrage, nothing more. OSRIC. Your lordship speaks most infallibly of him. HAMLET. The concernancy, sir? Why do we wrap the gentleman in our more rawer breath? OSRIC. Sir? HORATIO. Is’t not possible to understand in another tongue? You will do’t, sir, really. HAMLET. What imports the nomination of this gentleman? OSRIC. Of Laertes? HORATIO. His purse is empty already, all’s golden words are spent. HAMLET. Of him, sir. OSRIC. I know you are not ignorant,— HAMLET. I would you did, sir; yet in faith if you did, it would not much approve me. Well, sir? OSRIC. You are not ignorant of what excellence Laertes is,— HAMLET. I dare not confess that, lest I should compare with him in excellence; but to know a man well were to know himself. OSRIC. I mean, sir, for his weapon; but in the imputation laid on him, by them in his meed he’s unfellowed. HAMLET. What’s his weapon? OSRIC. Rapier and dagger. HAMLET. That’s two of his weapons. But well. OSRIC. The King, sir, hath wager’d with him six Barbary horses, against the which he has imponed, as I take it, six French rapiers and poniards, with their assigns, as girdle, hangers, and so. Three of the carriages, in faith, are very dear to fancy, very responsive to the hilts, most delicate carriages, and of very liberal conceit. HAMLET. What call you the carriages? HORATIO. I knew you must be edified by the margin ere you had done. OSRIC. The carriages, sir, are the hangers. HAMLET. The phrase would be more german to the matter if we could carry cannon by our sides. I would it might be hangers till then. But on. Six Barbary horses against six French swords, their assigns, and three liberal conceited carriages: that’s the French bet against the Danish. Why is this all imponed, as you call it? OSRIC. The King, sir, hath laid that in a dozen passes between you and him, he shall not exceed you three hits. He hath laid on twelve for nine. And it would come to immediate trial if your lordship would vouchsafe the answer. HAMLET. How if I answer no? OSRIC. I mean, my lord, the opposition of your person in trial. HAMLET. Sir, I will walk here in the hall. If it please his Majesty, it is the breathing time of day with me. Let the foils be brought, the gentleman willing, and the King hold his purpose, I will win for him if I can; if not, I will gain nothing but my shame and the odd hits. OSRIC. Shall I re-deliver you e’en so? HAMLET. To this effect, sir; after what flourish your nature will. OSRIC. I commend my duty to your lordship. HAMLET. Yours, yours. [_Exit Osric._] He does well to commend it himself, there are no tongues else for’s turn. HORATIO. This lapwing runs away with the shell on his head. HAMLET. He did comply with his dug before he suck’d it. Thus has he,—and many more of the same bevy that I know the drossy age dotes on,— only got the tune of the time and outward habit of encounter; a kind of yeasty collection, which carries them through and through the most fanned and winnowed opinions; and do but blow them to their trial, the bubbles are out. Enter a Lord. LORD. My lord, his Majesty commended him to you by young Osric, who brings back to him that you attend him in the hall. He sends to know if your pleasure hold to play with Laertes or that you will take longer time. HAMLET. I am constant to my purposes, they follow the King’s pleasure. If his fitness speaks, mine is ready. Now or whensoever, provided I be so able as now. LORD. The King and Queen and all are coming down. HAMLET. In happy time. LORD. The Queen desires you to use some gentle entertainment to Laertes before you fall to play. HAMLET. She well instructs me. [_Exit Lord._] HORATIO. You will lose this wager, my lord. HAMLET. I do not think so. Since he went into France, I have been in continual practice. I shall win at the odds. But thou wouldst not think how ill all’s here about my heart: but it is no matter. HORATIO. Nay, good my lord. HAMLET. It is but foolery; but it is such a kind of gain-giving as would perhaps trouble a woman. HORATIO. If your mind dislike anything, obey it. I will forestall their repair hither, and say you are not fit. HAMLET. Not a whit, we defy augury. There’s a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, ’tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come. The readiness is all. Since no man has aught of what he leaves, what is’t to leave betimes? Enter King, Queen, Laertes, Lords, Osric and Attendants with foils &c. KING. Come, Hamlet, come, and take this hand from me. [_The King puts Laertes’s hand into Hamlet’s._] HAMLET. Give me your pardon, sir. I have done you wrong; But pardon’t as you are a gentleman. This presence knows, and you must needs have heard, How I am punish’d with sore distraction. What I have done That might your nature, honour, and exception Roughly awake, I here proclaim was madness. Was’t Hamlet wrong’d Laertes? Never Hamlet. If Hamlet from himself be ta’en away, And when he’s not himself does wrong Laertes, Then Hamlet does it not, Hamlet denies it. Who does it, then? His madness. If’t be so, Hamlet is of the faction that is wrong’d; His madness is poor Hamlet’s enemy. Sir, in this audience, Let my disclaiming from a purpos’d evil Free me so far in your most generous thoughts That I have shot my arrow o’er the house And hurt my brother. LAERTES. I am satisfied in nature, Whose motive in this case should stir me most To my revenge. But in my terms of honour I stand aloof, and will no reconcilement Till by some elder masters of known honour I have a voice and precedent of peace To keep my name ungor’d. But till that time I do receive your offer’d love like love, And will not wrong it. HAMLET. I embrace it freely, And will this brother’s wager frankly play.— Give us the foils; come on. LAERTES. Come, one for me. HAMLET. I’ll be your foil, Laertes; in mine ignorance Your skill shall like a star i’ th’ darkest night, Stick fiery off indeed. LAERTES. You mock me, sir. HAMLET. No, by this hand. KING. Give them the foils, young Osric. Cousin Hamlet, You know the wager? HAMLET. Very well, my lord. Your Grace has laid the odds o’ the weaker side. KING. I do not fear it. I have seen you both; But since he is better’d, we have therefore odds. LAERTES. This is too heavy. Let me see another. HAMLET. This likes me well. These foils have all a length? [_They prepare to play._] OSRIC. Ay, my good lord. KING. Set me the stoups of wine upon that table. If Hamlet give the first or second hit, Or quit in answer of the third exchange, Let all the battlements their ordnance fire; The King shall drink to Hamlet’s better breath, And in the cup an union shall he throw Richer than that which four successive kings In Denmark’s crown have worn. Give me the cups; And let the kettle to the trumpet speak, The trumpet to the cannoneer without, The cannons to the heavens, the heavens to earth, ‘Now the King drinks to Hamlet.’ Come, begin. And you, the judges, bear a wary eye. HAMLET. Come on, sir. LAERTES. Come, my lord. [_They play._] HAMLET. One. LAERTES. No. HAMLET. Judgement. OSRIC. A hit, a very palpable hit. LAERTES. Well; again. KING. Stay, give me drink. Hamlet, this pearl is thine; Here’s to thy health. [_Trumpets sound, and cannon shot off within._] Give him the cup. HAMLET. I’ll play this bout first; set it by awhile. [_They play._] Come. Another hit; what say you? LAERTES. A touch, a touch, I do confess. KING. Our son shall win. QUEEN. He’s fat, and scant of breath. Here, Hamlet, take my napkin, rub thy brows. The Queen carouses to thy fortune, Hamlet. HAMLET. Good madam. KING. Gertrude, do not drink. QUEEN. I will, my lord; I pray you pardon me. KING. [_Aside._] It is the poison’d cup; it is too late. HAMLET. I dare not drink yet, madam. By and by. QUEEN. Come, let me wipe thy face. LAERTES. My lord, I’ll hit him now. KING. I do not think’t. LAERTES. [_Aside._] And yet ’tis almost ’gainst my conscience. HAMLET. Come for the third, Laertes. You do but dally. I pray you pass with your best violence. I am afeard you make a wanton of me. LAERTES. Say you so? Come on. [_They play._] OSRIC. Nothing neither way. LAERTES. Have at you now. [_Laertes wounds Hamlet; then, in scuffling, they change rapiers, and Hamlet wounds Laertes._] KING. Part them; they are incens’d. HAMLET. Nay, come again! [_The Queen falls._] OSRIC. Look to the Queen there, ho! HORATIO. They bleed on both sides. How is it, my lord? OSRIC. How is’t, Laertes? LAERTES. Why, as a woodcock to my own springe, Osric. I am justly kill’d with mine own treachery. HAMLET. How does the Queen? KING. She swoons to see them bleed. QUEEN. No, no, the drink, the drink! O my dear Hamlet! The drink, the drink! I am poison’d. [_Dies._] HAMLET. O villany! Ho! Let the door be lock’d: Treachery! Seek it out. [_Laertes falls._] LAERTES. It is here, Hamlet. Hamlet, thou art slain. No medicine in the world can do thee good. In thee there is not half an hour of life; The treacherous instrument is in thy hand, Unbated and envenom’d. The foul practice Hath turn’d itself on me. Lo, here I lie, Never to rise again. Thy mother’s poison’d. I can no more. The King, the King’s to blame. HAMLET. The point envenom’d too! Then, venom, to thy work. [_Stabs the King._] OSRIC and LORDS. Treason! treason! KING. O yet defend me, friends. I am but hurt. HAMLET. Here, thou incestuous, murderous, damned Dane, Drink off this potion. Is thy union here? Follow my mother. [_King dies._] LAERTES. He is justly serv’d. It is a poison temper’d by himself. Exchange forgiveness with me, noble Hamlet. Mine and my father’s death come not upon thee, Nor thine on me. [_Dies._] HAMLET. Heaven make thee free of it! I follow thee. I am dead, Horatio. Wretched Queen, adieu. You that look pale and tremble at this chance, That are but mutes or audience to this act, Had I but time,—as this fell sergeant, death, Is strict in his arrest,—O, I could tell you,— But let it be. Horatio, I am dead, Thou liv’st; report me and my cause aright To the unsatisfied. HORATIO. Never believe it. I am more an antique Roman than a Dane. Here’s yet some liquor left. HAMLET. As th’art a man, Give me the cup. Let go; by Heaven, I’ll have’t. O good Horatio, what a wounded name, Things standing thus unknown, shall live behind me. If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart, Absent thee from felicity awhile, And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain, To tell my story. [_March afar off, and shot within._] What warlike noise is this? OSRIC. Young Fortinbras, with conquest come from Poland, To the ambassadors of England gives This warlike volley. HAMLET. O, I die, Horatio. The potent poison quite o’er-crows my spirit: I cannot live to hear the news from England, But I do prophesy th’election lights On Fortinbras. He has my dying voice. So tell him, with the occurrents more and less, Which have solicited. The rest is silence. [_Dies._] HORATIO. Now cracks a noble heart. Good night, sweet prince, And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest. Why does the drum come hither? [_March within._] Enter Fortinbras, the English Ambassadors and others. FORTINBRAS. Where is this sight? HORATIO. What is it you would see? If aught of woe or wonder, cease your search. FORTINBRAS. This quarry cries on havoc. O proud death, What feast is toward in thine eternal cell, That thou so many princes at a shot So bloodily hast struck? FIRST AMBASSADOR. The sight is dismal; And our affairs from England come too late. The ears are senseless that should give us hearing, To tell him his commandment is fulfill’d, That Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead. Where should we have our thanks? HORATIO. Not from his mouth, Had it th’ability of life to thank you. He never gave commandment for their death. But since, so jump upon this bloody question, You from the Polack wars, and you from England Are here arriv’d, give order that these bodies High on a stage be placed to the view, And let me speak to th’ yet unknowing world How these things came about. So shall you hear Of carnal, bloody and unnatural acts, Of accidental judgements, casual slaughters, Of deaths put on by cunning and forc’d cause, And, in this upshot, purposes mistook Fall’n on the inventors’ heads. All this can I Truly deliver. FORTINBRAS. Let us haste to hear it, And call the noblest to the audience. For me, with sorrow I embrace my fortune. I have some rights of memory in this kingdom, Which now to claim my vantage doth invite me. HORATIO. Of that I shall have also cause to speak, And from his mouth whose voice will draw on more. But let this same be presently perform’d, Even while men’s minds are wild, lest more mischance On plots and errors happen. FORTINBRAS. Let four captains Bear Hamlet like a soldier to the stage, For he was likely, had he been put on, To have prov’d most royally; and for his passage, The soldiers’ music and the rites of war Speak loudly for him. Take up the bodies. Such a sight as this Becomes the field, but here shows much amiss. Go, bid the soldiers shoot. [_A dead march._] [_Exeunt, bearing off the bodies, after which a peal of ordnance is shot off._] THE FIRST PART OF KING HENRY THE FOURTH Contents ACT I Scene I. London. A Room in the Palace. Scene II. The same. An Apartment of Prince Henry’s. Scene III. The Same. A Room in the Palace. ACT II Scene I. Rochester. An Inn-Yard. Scene II. The Road by Gads-hill. Scene III. Warkworth. A Room in the Castle. Scene IV. Eastcheap. A Room in the Boar’s Head Tavern. ACT III Scene I. Bangor. A Room in the Archdeacon’s House. Scene II. London. A Room in the Palace. Scene III. Eastcheap. A Room in the Boar’s Head Tavern. ACT IV Scene I. The Rebel Camp near Shrewsbury. Scene II. A public Road near Coventry. Scene III. The Rebel Camp near Shrewsbury. Scene IV. York. A Room in the Archbishop’s Palace. ACT V Scene I. The King’s Camp near Shrewsbury. Scene II. The Rebel Camp. Scene III. Plain between the Camps. Scene IV. Another Part of the Field. Scene V. Another Part of the Field. Dramatis Personæ KING HENRY the Fourth. HENRY, PRINCE of Wales, son to the King. Prince John of LANCASTER, son to the King. Earl of WESTMORELAND. Sir Walter BLUNT. Thomas Percy, Earl of WORCESTER. Henry Percy, Earl of NORTHUMBERLAND. Henry Percy, surnamed HOTSPUR, his son. Edmund MORTIMER, Earl of March. Scroop, ARCHBISHOP of York. SIR MICHAEL, a friend to the archbishop of York. Archibald, Earl of DOUGLAS. Owen GLENDOWER. Sir Richard VERNON. Sir John FALSTAFF. POINS. GADSHILL. PETO. BARDOLPH. LADY PERCY, Wife to Hotspur. Lady Mortimer, Daughter to Glendower. Mrs. Quickly, Hostess in Eastcheap. Lords, Officers, Sheriff, Vintner, Chamberlain, Drawers, Carriers, Ostler, Messengers, Servant, Travellers and Attendants. SCENE. England and Wales. ACT I SCENE I. London. A Room in the Palace. Enter the King, Lord John of Lancaster, Earl of Westmoreland with others. KING. So shaken as we are, so wan with care, Find we a time for frighted peace to pant, And breathe short-winded accents of new broils To be commenced in strands afar remote. No more the thirsty entrance of this soil Shall daub her lips with her own children’s blood, No more shall trenching war channel her fields, Nor bruise her flow’rets with the armed hoofs Of hostile paces: those opposed eyes, Which, like the meteors of a troubled heaven, All of one nature, of one substance bred, Did lately meet in the intestine shock And furious close of civil butchery, Shall now, in mutual well-beseeming ranks, March all one way, and be no more opposed Against acquaintance, kindred, and allies. The edge of war, like an ill-sheathed knife, No more shall cut his master. Therefore, friends, As far as to the sepulchre of Christ— Whose soldier now, under whose blessed cross We are impressed and engaged to fight— Forthwith a power of English shall we levy, Whose arms were molded in their mothers’ womb To chase these pagans in those holy fields Over whose acres walked those blessed feet Which fourteen hundred years ago were nailed For our advantage on the bitter cross. But this our purpose now is twelve month old, And bootless ’tis to tell you we will go; Therefore we meet not now. Then let me hear Of you, my gentle cousin Westmoreland, What yesternight our Council did decree In forwarding this dear expedience. WESTMORELAND. My liege, this haste was hot in question, And many limits of the charge set down But yesternight, when all athwart there came A post from Wales loaden with heavy news, Whose worst was that the noble Mortimer, Leading the men of Herefordshire to fight Against the irregular and wild Glendower, Was by the rude hands of that Welshman taken, A thousand of his people butchered, Upon whose dead corpse there was such misuse, Such beastly shameless transformation, By those Welshwomen done, as may not be Without much shame retold or spoken of. KING. It seems then that the tidings of this broil Brake off our business for the Holy Land. WESTMORELAND. This, matched with other did, my gracious lord, For more uneven and unwelcome news Came from the North, and thus it did import: On Holy-rood day the gallant Hotspur there, Young Harry Percy, and brave Archibald, That ever-valiant and approved Scot, At Holmedon met, where they did spend A sad and bloody hour; As by discharge of their artillery, And shape of likelihood, the news was told; For he that brought them, in the very heat And pride of their contention did take horse, Uncertain of the issue any way. KING. Here is a dear and true-industrious friend, Sir Walter Blunt, new lighted from his horse, Stained with the variation of each soil Betwixt that Holmedon and this seat of ours; And he hath brought us smooth and welcome news. The Earl of Douglas is discomfited; Ten thousand bold Scots, two-and-twenty knights, Balked in their own blood, did Sir Walter see On Holmedon’s plains; of prisoners Hotspur took Mordake, Earl of Fife and eldest son To beaten Douglas, and the Earl of Athol, Of Murray, Angus, and Menteith. And is not this an honourable spoil, A gallant prize? Ha, cousin, is it not? WESTMORELAND. In faith, it is a conquest for a prince to boast of. KING. Yea, there thou mak’st me sad, and mak’st me sin In envy that my Lord Northumberland Should be the father to so blest a son, A son who is the theme of honour’s tongue, Amongst a grove the very straightest plant, Who is sweet Fortune’s minion and her pride; Whilst I, by looking on the praise of him, See riot and dishonour stain the brow Of my young Harry. O, that it could be proved That some night-tripping fairy had exchanged In cradle-clothes our children where they lay, And called mine Percy, his Plantagenet! Then would I have his Harry, and he mine: But let him from my thoughts. What think you, coz, Of this young Percy’s pride? The prisoners, Which he in this adventure hath surprised To his own use he keeps, and sends me word I shall have none but Mordake, Earl of Fife. WESTMORELAND. This is his uncle’s teaching, this is Worcester, Malevolent to you in all aspects, Which makes him prune himself, and bristle up The crest of youth against your dignity. KING. But I have sent for him to answer this; And for this cause awhile we must neglect Our holy purpose to Jerusalem. Cousin, on Wednesday next our Council we Will hold at Windsor, so inform the lords: But come yourself with speed to us again, For more is to be said and to be done Than out of anger can be uttered. WESTMORELAND. I will, my liege. [_Exeunt._] SCENE II. The same. An Apartment of Prince Henry’s. Enter Prince Henry and Sir John Falstaff. FALSTAFF. Now, Hal, what time of day is it, lad? PRINCE. Thou art so fat-witted, with drinking of old sack, and unbuttoning thee after supper, and sleeping upon benches after noon, that thou hast forgotten to demand that truly which thou wouldst truly know. What a devil hast thou to do with the time of the day? Unless hours were cups of sack, and minutes capons, and clocks the tongues of bawds, and dials the signs of leaping-houses, and the blessed sun himself a fair hot wench in flame-coloured taffeta, I see no reason why thou shouldst be so superfluous to demand the time of the day. FALSTAFF. Indeed, you come near me now, Hal, for we that take purses go by the moon and the seven stars, and not by Phœbus, he, that wand’ring knight so fair. And I prithee, sweet wag, when thou art king, as God save thy Grace—Majesty I should say, for grace thou wilt have none— PRINCE. What, none? FALSTAFF. No, by my troth, not so much as will serve to be prologue to an egg and butter. PRINCE. Well, how then? Come, roundly, roundly. FALSTAFF. Marry then, sweet wag, when thou art king, let not us that are squires of the night’s body be called thieves of the day’s beauty: let us be Diana’s foresters, gentlemen of the shade, minions of the moon; and let men say we be men of good government, being governed, as the sea is, by our noble and chaste mistress the moon, under whose countenance we steal. PRINCE. Thou sayest well, and it holds well too, for the fortune of us that are the moon’s men doth ebb and flow like the sea, being governed, as the sea is, by the moon. As for proof now: a purse of gold most resolutely snatched on Monday night, and most dissolutely spent on Tuesday morning, got with swearing “Lay by” and spent with crying “Bring in”; now in as low an ebb as the foot of the ladder, and by and by in as high a flow as the ridge of the gallows. FALSTAFF. By the Lord, thou say’st true, lad. And is not my hostess of the tavern a most sweet wench? PRINCE. As the honey of Hybla, my old lad of the castle. And is not a buff jerkin a most sweet robe of durance? FALSTAFF. How now, how now, mad wag? What, in thy quips and thy quiddities? What a plague have I to do with a buff jerkin? PRINCE. Why, what a pox have I to do with my hostess of the tavern? FALSTAFF. Well, thou hast called her to a reckoning many a time and oft. PRINCE. Did I ever call for thee to pay thy part? FALSTAFF. No, I’ll give thee thy due, thou hast paid all there. PRINCE. Yea, and elsewhere, so far as my coin would stretch, and where it would not, I have used my credit. FALSTAFF. Yea, and so used it that were it not here apparent that thou art heir apparent—But I prithee sweet wag, shall there be gallows standing in England when thou art king? And resolution thus fubbed as it is with the rusty curb of old father Antic the law? Do not thou, when thou art king, hang a thief. PRINCE. No, thou shalt. FALSTAFF. Shall I? O rare! By the Lord, I’ll be a brave judge. PRINCE. Thou judgest false already, I mean thou shalt have the hanging of the thieves, and so become a rare hangman. FALSTAFF. Well, Hal, well; and in some sort it jumps with my humour, as well as waiting in the court, I can tell you. PRINCE. For obtaining of suits? FALSTAFF. Yea, for obtaining of suits, whereof the hangman hath no lean wardrobe. ’Sblood, I am as melancholy as a gib cat or a lugged bear. PRINCE. Or an old lion, or a lover’s lute. FALSTAFF. Yea, or the drone of a Lincolnshire bagpipe. PRINCE. What sayest thou to a hare, or the melancholy of Moor-ditch? FALSTAFF. Thou hast the most unsavoury similes, and art indeed the most comparative, rascalliest, sweet young prince. But, Hal, I prithee trouble me no more with vanity. I would to God thou and I knew where a commodity of good names were to be bought. An old lord of the Council rated me the other day in the street about you, sir, but I marked him not, and yet he talked very wisely, but I regarded him not, and yet he talked wisely, and in the street too. PRINCE. Thou didst well, for wisdom cries out in the streets and no man regards it. FALSTAFF. O, thou hast damnable iteration, and art indeed able to corrupt a saint. Thou hast done much harm upon me, Hal, God forgive thee for it. Before I knew thee, Hal, I knew nothing, and now am I, if a man should speak truly, little better than one of the wicked. I must give over this life, and I will give it over. By the Lord, an I do not, I am a villain. I’ll be damned for never a king’s son in Christendom. PRINCE. Where shall we take a purse tomorrow, Jack? FALSTAFF. Zounds, where thou wilt, lad, I’ll make one. An I do not, call me villain and baffle me. PRINCE. I see a good amendment of life in thee, from praying to purse-taking. FALSTAFF. Why, Hal, ’tis my vocation, Hal, ’tis no sin for a man to labour in his vocation. Enter Poins. Poins!—Now shall we know if Gadshill have set a match. O, if men were to be saved by merit, what hole in hell were hot enough for him? This is the most omnipotent villain that ever cried “Stand!” to a true man. PRINCE. Good morrow, Ned. POINS. Good morrow, sweet Hal.—What says Monsieur Remorse? What says Sir John Sack-and-sugar? Jack, how agrees the devil and thee about thy soul, that thou soldest him on Good Friday last for a cup of Madeira and a cold capon’s leg? PRINCE. Sir John stands to his word, the devil shall have his bargain, for he was never yet a breaker of proverbs. He will give the devil his due. POINS. Then art thou damned for keeping thy word with the devil. PRINCE. Else he had been damned for cozening the devil. POINS. But, my lads, my lads, tomorrow morning, by four o’clock early at Gad’s Hill, there are pilgrims going to Canterbury with rich offerings, and traders riding to London with fat purses. I have visards for you all; you have horses for yourselves. Gadshill lies tonight in Rochester. I have bespoke supper tomorrow night in Eastcheap. We may do it as secure as sleep. If you will go, I will stuff your purses full of crowns. If you will not, tarry at home and be hanged. FALSTAFF. Hear ye, Yedward, if I tarry at home and go not, I’ll hang you for going. POINS. You will, chops? FALSTAFF. Hal, wilt thou make one? PRINCE. Who, I rob? I a thief? Not I, by my faith. FALSTAFF. There’s neither honesty, manhood, nor good fellowship in thee, nor thou cam’st not of the blood royal, if thou darest not stand for ten shillings. PRINCE. Well then, once in my days I’ll be a madcap. FALSTAFF. Why, that’s well said. PRINCE. Well, come what will, I’ll tarry at home. FALSTAFF. By the Lord, I’ll be a traitor then, when thou art king. PRINCE. I care not. POINS. Sir John, I prithee, leave the Prince and me alone. I will lay him down such reasons for this adventure, that he shall go. FALSTAFF. Well, God give thee the spirit of persuasion, and him the ears of profiting, that what thou speakest may move, and what he hears may be believed, that the true prince may, for recreation sake, prove a false thief, for the poor abuses of the time want countenance. Farewell, you shall find me in Eastcheap. PRINCE. Farewell, thou latter spring! Farewell, All-hallown summer! [_Exit Falstaff._] POINS. Now, my good sweet honey lord, ride with us tomorrow. I have a jest to execute that I cannot manage alone. Falstaff, Bardolph, Peto, and Gadshill shall rob those men that we have already waylaid. Yourself and I will not be there. And when they have the booty, if you and I do not rob them, cut this head off from my shoulders. PRINCE. But how shall we part with them in setting forth? POINS. Why, we will set forth before or after them, and appoint them a place of meeting, wherein it is at our pleasure to fail; and then will they adventure upon the exploit themselves, which they shall have no sooner achieved but we’ll set upon them. PRINCE. Yea, but ’tis like that they will know us by our horses, by our habits, and by every other appointment, to be ourselves. POINS. Tut, our horses they shall not see, I’ll tie them in the wood; our visards we will change after we leave them; and, sirrah, I have cases of buckram for the nonce, to immask our noted outward garments. PRINCE. Yea, but I doubt they will be too hard for us. POINS. Well, for two of them, I know them to be as true-bred cowards as ever turned back; and for the third, if he fight longer than he sees reason, I’ll forswear arms. The virtue of this jest will be the incomprehensible lies that this same fat rogue will tell us when we meet at supper: how thirty at least he fought with, what wards, what blows, what extremities he endured; and in the reproof of this lives the jest. PRINCE. Well, I’ll go with thee. Provide us all things necessary and meet me tomorrow night in Eastcheap; there I’ll sup. Farewell. POINS. Farewell, my lord. [_Exit._] PRINCE. I know you all, and will awhile uphold The unyok’d humour of your idleness. Yet herein will I imitate the sun, Who doth permit the base contagious clouds To smother up his beauty from the world, That, when he please again to be himself, Being wanted, he may be more wonder’d at, By breaking through the foul and ugly mists Of vapours that did seem to strangle him. If all the year were playing holidays, To sport would be as tedious as to work; But, when they seldom come, they wish’d-for come, And nothing pleaseth but rare accidents. So when this loose behaviour I throw off, And pay the debt I never promised, By how much better than my word I am, By so much shall I falsify men’s hopes; And, like bright metal on a sullen ground, My reformation, glitt’ring o’er my fault, Shall show more goodly and attract more eyes Than that which hath no foil to set it off. I’ll so offend, to make offence a skill, Redeeming time, when men think least I will. [_Exit._] SCENE III. The Same. A Room in the Palace. Enter King Henry, Northumberland, Worcester, Hotspur, Sir Walter Blunt and others. KING. My blood hath been too cold and temperate, Unapt to stir at these indignities, And you have found me, for accordingly You tread upon my patience: but be sure I will from henceforth rather be myself, Mighty and to be fear’d, than my condition, Which hath been smooth as oil, soft as young down, And therefore lost that title of respect Which the proud soul ne’er pays but to the proud. WORCESTER. Our house, my sovereign liege, little deserves The scourge of greatness to be used on it, And that same greatness too which our own hands Have holp to make so portly. NORTHUMBERLAND. My lord,— KING. Worcester, get thee gone, for I do see Danger and disobedience in thine eye: O, sir, your presence is too bold and peremptory, And majesty might never yet endure The moody frontier of a servant brow. You have good leave to leave us. When we need Your use and counsel, we shall send for you. [_Exit Worcester._] [_To Northumberland._] You were about to speak. NORTHUMBERLAND. Yea, my good lord. Those prisoners in your Highness’ name demanded, Which Harry Percy here at Holmedon took, Were, as he says, not with such strength denied As is deliver’d to your Majesty. Either envy, therefore, or misprision Is guilty of this fault, and not my son. HOTSPUR. My liege, I did deny no prisoners. But I remember, when the fight was done, When I was dry with rage and extreme toil, Breathless and faint, leaning upon my sword, Came there a certain lord, neat and trimly dress’d, Fresh as a bridegroom, and his chin new reap’d Show’d like a stubble-land at harvest-home. He was perfumed like a milliner, And ’twixt his finger and his thumb he held A pouncet-box, which ever and anon He gave his nose, and took’t away again, Who therewith angry, when it next came there, Took it in snuff; and still he smiled and talk’d. And as the soldiers bore dead bodies by, He call’d them untaught knaves, unmannerly, To bring a slovenly unhandsome corse Betwixt the wind and his nobility. With many holiday and lady terms He question’d me, amongst the rest demanded My prisoners in your Majesty’s behalf. I then, all smarting with my wounds being cold, Out of my grief and my impatience To be so pester’d with a popinjay, Answer’d neglectingly, I know not what, He should, or he should not; for he made me mad To see him shine so brisk and smell so sweet, And talk so like a waiting-gentlewoman Of guns and drums and wounds, God save the mark! And telling me the sovereignest thing on Earth Was parmacety for an inward bruise, And that it was great pity, so it was, This villainous saltpetre should be digg’d Out of the bowels of the harmless earth, Which many a good tall fellow had destroy’d So cowardly, and but for these vile guns, He would himself have been a soldier. This bald unjointed chat of his, my lord, I answered indirectly, as I said, And I beseech you, let not his report Come current for an accusation Betwixt my love and your high Majesty. BLUNT. The circumstance consider’d, good my lord, Whatever Harry Percy then had said To such a person, and in such a place, At such a time, with all the rest retold, May reasonably die, and never rise To do him wrong, or any way impeach What then he said, so he unsay it now. KING. Why, yet he doth deny his prisoners, But with proviso and exception, That we at our own charge shall ransom straight His brother-in-law, the foolish Mortimer, Who, on my soul, hath wilfully betray’d The lives of those that he did lead to fight Against that great magician, damn’d Glendower, Whose daughter, as we hear, the Earl of March Hath lately married. Shall our coffers then Be emptied to redeem a traitor home? Shall we buy treason and indent with fears When they have lost and forfeited themselves? No, on the barren mountains let him starve; For I shall never hold that man my friend Whose tongue shall ask me for one penny cost To ransom home revolted Mortimer. HOTSPUR. Revolted Mortimer! He never did fall off, my sovereign liege, But by the chance of war. To prove that true Needs no more but one tongue for all those wounds, Those mouthed wounds, which valiantly he took, When on the gentle Severn’s sedgy bank, In single opposition hand to hand, He did confound the best part of an hour In changing hardiment with great Glendower. Three times they breathed, and three times did they drink, Upon agreement, of swift Severn’s flood, Who then, affrighted with their bloody looks, Ran fearfully among the trembling reeds, And hid his crisp head in the hollow bank Blood-stained with these valiant combatants. Never did bare and rotten policy Colour her working with such deadly wounds, Nor never could the noble Mortimer Receive so many, and all willingly. Then let not him be slander’d with revolt. KING. Thou dost belie him, Percy, thou dost belie him, He never did encounter with Glendower. I tell thee, he durst as well have met the devil alone As Owen Glendower for an enemy. Art not ashamed? But, sirrah, henceforth Let me not hear you speak of Mortimer. Send me your prisoners with the speediest means, Or you shall hear in such a kind from me As will displease you.—My Lord Northumberland, We license your departure with your son.— Send us your prisoners, or you’ll hear of it. [_Exit King Henry, Blunt and train._] HOTSPUR. An if the devil come and roar for them, I will not send them. I will after straight And tell him so, for I will ease my heart, Albeit I make a hazard of my head. NORTHUMBERLAND. What, drunk with choler? Stay, and pause awhile. Here comes your uncle. Enter Worcester. HOTSPUR. Speak of Mortimer? Zounds, I will speak of him, and let my soul Want mercy if I do not join with him. Yea, on his part I’ll empty all these veins, And shed my dear blood drop by drop in the dust, But I will lift the down-trod Mortimer As high in the air as this unthankful King, As this ingrate and canker’d Bolingbroke. NORTHUMBERLAND. [_To Worcester._] Brother, the King hath made your nephew mad. WORCESTER. Who struck this heat up after I was gone? HOTSPUR. He will forsooth have all my prisoners, And when I urged the ransom once again Of my wife’s brother, then his cheek look’d pale, And on my face he turn’d an eye of death, Trembling even at the name of Mortimer. WORCESTER. I cannot blame him. Was not he proclaim’d By Richard that dead is, the next of blood? NORTHUMBERLAND. He was; I heard the proclamation. And then it was when the unhappy King— Whose wrongs in us God pardon!—did set forth Upon his Irish expedition; From whence he, intercepted, did return To be deposed, and shortly murdered. WORCESTER. And for whose death we in the world’s wide mouth Live scandalized and foully spoken of. HOTSPUR. But soft, I pray you, did King Richard then Proclaim my brother Edmund Mortimer Heir to the crown? NORTHUMBERLAND. He did; myself did hear it. HOTSPUR. Nay, then I cannot blame his cousin King, That wish’d him on the barren mountains starve. But shall it be that you that set the crown Upon the head of this forgetful man, And for his sake wear the detested blot Of murderous subornation—shall it be, That you a world of curses undergo, Being the agents, or base second means, The cords, the ladder, or the hangman rather? O, pardon me, that I descend so low, To show the line and the predicament Wherein you range under this subtle King. Shall it for shame be spoken in these days, Or fill up chronicles in time to come, That men of your nobility and power Did gage them both in an unjust behalf (As both of you, God pardon it, have done) To put down Richard, that sweet lovely rose, And plant this thorn, this canker, Bolingbroke? And shall it in more shame be further spoken, That you are fool’d, discarded, and shook off By him for whom these shames ye underwent? No, yet time serves wherein you may redeem Your banish’d honours, and restore yourselves Into the good thoughts of the world again: Revenge the jeering and disdain’d contempt Of this proud King, who studies day and night To answer all the debt he owes to you Even with the bloody payment of your deaths. Therefore, I say— WORCESTER. Peace, cousin, say no more. And now I will unclasp a secret book, And to your quick-conceiving discontents I’ll read you matter deep and dangerous, As full of peril and adventurous spirit As to o’er-walk a current roaring loud On the unsteadfast footing of a spear. HOTSPUR. If we fall in, good night, or sink or swim! Send danger from the east unto the west, So honour cross it from the north to south, And let them grapple. O, the blood more stirs To rouse a lion than to start a hare! NORTHUMBERLAND. Imagination of some great exploit Drives him beyond the bounds of patience. HOTSPUR. By Heaven, methinks it were an easy leap To pluck bright honour from the pale-faced moon, Or dive into the bottom of the deep, Where fathom-line could never touch the ground, And pluck up drowned honour by the locks, So he that doth redeem her thence might wear Without corrival all her dignities. But out upon this half-faced fellowship! WORCESTER. He apprehends a world of figures here, But not the form of what he should attend.— Good cousin, give me audience for a while. HOTSPUR. I cry you mercy. WORCESTER. Those same noble Scots That are your prisoners— HOTSPUR. I’ll keep them all; By God, he shall not have a Scot of them, No, if a Scot would save his soul, he shall not. I’ll keep them, by this hand! WORCESTER. You start away, And lend no ear unto my purposes: Those prisoners you shall keep— HOTSPUR. Nay, I will: that’s flat. He said he would not ransom Mortimer, Forbade my tongue to speak of Mortimer, But I will find him when he lies asleep, And in his ear I’ll holla “Mortimer!” Nay, I’ll have a starling shall be taught to speak Nothing but “Mortimer”, and give it him, To keep his anger still in motion. WORCESTER. Hear you, cousin, a word. HOTSPUR. All studies here I solemnly defy, Save how to gall and pinch this Bolingbroke: And that same sword-and-buckler Prince of Wales, But that I think his father loves him not, And would be glad he met with some mischance— I would have him poison’d with a pot of ale. WORCESTER. Farewell, kinsman. I will talk to you When you are better temper’d to attend. NORTHUMBERLAND. Why, what a wasp-stung and impatient fool Art thou to break into this woman’s mood, Tying thine ear to no tongue but thine own! HOTSPUR. Why, look you, I am whipp’d and scourged with rods, Nettled, and stung with pismires, when I hear Of this vile politician, Bolingbroke. In Richard’s time—what do you call the place? A plague upon’t! It is in Gloucestershire. ’Twas where the madcap Duke his uncle kept, His uncle York, where I first bow’d my knee Unto this king of smiles, this Bolingbroke, ’Sblood, when you and he came back from Ravenspurgh. NORTHUMBERLAND. At Berkeley castle. HOTSPUR. You say true. Why, what a candy deal of courtesy This fawning greyhound then did proffer me! “Look, when his infant fortune came to age,” And, “Gentle Harry Percy,” and “kind cousin.” O, the devil take such cozeners!—God forgive me! Good uncle, tell your tale. I have done. WORCESTER. Nay, if you have not, to it again, We will stay your leisure. HOTSPUR. I have done, i’faith. WORCESTER. Then once more to your Scottish prisoners; Deliver them up without their ransom straight, And make the Douglas’ son your only mean For powers in Scotland, which, for divers reasons Which I shall send you written, be assured Will easily be granted.—[_To Northumberland._] You, my lord, Your son in Scotland being thus employ’d, Shall secretly into the bosom creep Of that same noble prelate well beloved, The Archbishop. HOTSPUR. Of York, is it not? WORCESTER. True, who bears hard His brother’s death at Bristol, the Lord Scroop. I speak not this in estimation, As what I think might be, but what I know Is ruminated, plotted, and set down, And only stays but to behold the face Of that occasion that shall bring it on. HOTSPUR. I smell it. Upon my life it will do well. NORTHUMBERLAND. Before the game is afoot thou still let’st slip. HOTSPUR. Why, it cannot choose but be a noble plot; And then the power of Scotland and of York To join with Mortimer, ha? WORCESTER. And so they shall. HOTSPUR. In faith, it is exceedingly well aim’d. WORCESTER. And ’tis no little reason bids us speed, To save our heads by raising of a head; For, bear ourselves as even as we can, The King will always think him in our debt, And think we think ourselves unsatisfied, Till he hath found a time to pay us home: And see already how he doth begin To make us strangers to his looks of love. HOTSPUR. He does, he does, we’ll be revenged on him. WORCESTER. Cousin, farewell. No further go in this Than I by letters shall direct your course. When time is ripe, which will be suddenly, I’ll steal to Glendower and Lord Mortimer, Where you and Douglas, and our powers at once, As I will fashion it, shall happily meet, To bear our fortunes in our own strong arms, Which now we hold at much uncertainty. NORTHUMBERLAND. Farewell, good brother; we shall thrive, I trust. HOTSPUR. Uncle, adieu. O, let the hours be short, Till fields and blows and groans applaud our sport! [_Exeunt._] ACT II SCENE I. Rochester. An Inn-Yard. Enter a Carrier with a lantern in his hand. FIRST CARRIER. Heigh-ho! an it be not four by the day, I’ll be hang’d. Charles’ wain is over the new chimney, and yet our horse not pack’d.—What, ostler! OSTLER. [_within._] Anon, anon. FIRST CARRIER. I prithee, Tom, beat Cut’s saddle, put a few flocks in the point; poor jade is wrung in the withers out of all cess. Enter another Carrier. SECOND CARRIER. Peas and beans are as dank here as a dog, and that is the next way to give poor jades the bots. This house is turned upside down since Robin ostler died. FIRST CARRIER. Poor fellow never joyed since the price of oats rose, it was the death of him. SECOND CARRIER. I think this be the most villainous house in all London road for fleas. I am stung like a tench. FIRST CARRIER. Like a tench! By the Mass, there is ne’er a king christen could be better bit than I have been since the first cock. SECOND CARRIER. Why, they will allow us ne’er a jordan, and then we leak in your chimney, and your chamber-lye breeds fleas like a loach. FIRST CARRIER. What, ostler! Come away and be hanged, come away. SECOND CARRIER. I have a gammon of bacon and two razes of ginger, to be delivered as far as Charing Cross. FIRST CARRIER. God’s body! The turkeys in my pannier are quite starved.—What, ostler! A plague on thee! Hast thou never an eye in thy head? Canst not hear? An ’twere not as good deed as drink to break the pate on thee, I am a very villain. Come, and be hanged. Hast no faith in thee? Enter Gadshill. GADSHILL. Good morrow, carriers. What’s o’clock? FIRST CARRIER. I think it be two o’clock. GADSHILL. I prithee, lend me thy lantern, to see my gelding in the stable. FIRST CARRIER. Nay, by God, soft! I know a trick worth two of that, i’faith. GADSHILL. I pray thee, lend me thine. SECOND CARRIER. Ay, when? Canst tell? “Lend me thy lantern,” quoth he! Marry, I’ll see thee hanged first. GADSHILL. Sirrah carrier, what time do you mean to come to London? SECOND CARRIER. Time enough to go to bed with a candle, I warrant thee. Come, neighbour Mugs, we’ll call up the gentlemen. They will along with company, for they have great charge. [_Exeunt Carriers._] GADSHILL. What, ho! Chamberlain! Enter Chamberlain. CHAMBERLAIN. At hand, quoth pick-purse. GADSHILL. That’s even as fair as “at hand, quoth the chamberlain,” for thou variest no more from picking of purses than giving direction doth from labouring; thou layest the plot how. CHAMBERLAIN. Good morrow, Master Gadshill. It holds current that I told you yesternight: there’s a franklin in the Wild of Kent hath brought three hundred marks with him in gold. I heard him tell it to one of his company last night at supper; a kind of auditor, one that hath abundance of charge too, God knows what. They are up already, and call for eggs and butter. They will away presently. GADSHILL. Sirrah, if they meet not with Saint Nicholas’ clerks, I’ll give thee this neck. CHAMBERLAIN. No, I’ll none of it. I pray thee, keep that for the hangman, for I know thou worshippest Saint Nicholas as truly as a man of falsehood may. GADSHILL. What talkest thou to me of the hangman? If I hang, I’ll make a fat pair of gallows; for, if I hang, old Sir John hangs with me, and thou knowest he is no starveling. Tut, there are other Troyans that thou dream’st not of, the which for sport sake are content to do the profession some grace, that would, if matters should be looked into, for their own credit sake make all whole. I am joined with no foot-land-rakers, no long-staff sixpenny strikers, none of these mad mustachio purple-hued malt-worms, but with nobility and tranquillity, burgomasters and great oneyers, such as can hold in, such as will strike sooner than speak, and speak sooner than drink, and drink sooner than pray: and yet, zounds, I lie, for they pray continually to their saint the commonwealth, or rather not pray to her, but prey on her, for they ride up and down on her, and make her their boots. CHAMBERLAIN. What, the commonwealth their boots? Will she hold out water in foul way? GADSHILL. She will, she will; justice hath liquored her. We steal as in a castle, cock-sure; we have the receipt of fern-seed, we walk invisible. CHAMBERLAIN. Nay, by my faith, I think you are more beholding to the night than to fern-seed for your walking invisible. GADSHILL. Give me thy hand. Thou shalt have a share in our purchase, as I am a true man. CHAMBERLAIN. Nay, rather let me have it, as you are a false thief. GADSHILL. Go to; _homo_ is a common name to all men. Bid the ostler bring my gelding out of the stable. Farewell, you muddy knave. [_Exeunt._] SCENE II. The Road by Gads-hill. Enter Prince Henry and Poins; Bardolph and Peto at some distance. POINS. Come, shelter, shelter! I have removed Falstaff’s horse, and he frets like a gummed velvet. PRINCE. Stand close. [_They retire._] Enter Falstaff. FALSTAFF. Poins! Poins, and be hanged! Poins! PRINCE. [_Coming forward._] Peace, ye fat-kidneyed rascal! What a brawling dost thou keep! FALSTAFF. Where’s Poins, Hal? PRINCE. He is walked up to the top of the hill. I’ll go seek him. [_Retires._] FALSTAFF. I am accursed to rob in that thief’s company. The rascal hath removed my horse and tied him I know not where. If I travel but four foot by the square further afoot, I shall break my wind. Well, I doubt not but to die a fair death for all this, if I ’scape hanging for killing that rogue. I have forsworn his company hourly any time this two-and-twenty years, and yet I am bewitched with the rogue’s company. If the rascal have not given me medicines to make me love him, I’ll be hanged. It could not be else: I have drunk medicines. Poins! Hal! A plague upon you both! Bardolph! Peto! I’ll starve ere I’ll rob a foot further. An ’twere not as good a deed as drink, to turn true man, and to leave these rogues, I am the veriest varlet that ever chewed with a tooth. Eight yards of uneven ground is threescore and ten miles afoot with me, and the stony-hearted villains know it well enough. A plague upon it when thieves cannot be true one to another! [_They whistle._] Whew! A plague upon you all! Give me my horse, you rogues, give me my horse and be hanged! PRINCE. [_Coming forward._] Peace, you fat guts, lie down, lay thine ear close to the ground, and list if thou canst hear the tread of travellers. FALSTAFF. Have you any levers to lift me up again, being down? ’Sblood, I’ll not bear my own flesh so far afoot again for all the coin in thy father’s exchequer. What a plague mean ye to colt me thus? PRINCE. Thou liest, thou art not colted, thou art uncolted. FALSTAFF. I prithee, good Prince Hal, help me to my horse, good king’s son. PRINCE. Out, ye rogue! Shall I be your ostler? FALSTAFF. Hang thyself in thine own heir-apparent garters! If I be ta’en, I’ll peach for this. An I have not ballads made on you all, and sung to filthy tunes, let a cup of sack be my poison—when a jest is so forward, and afoot too! I hate it. Enter Gadshill. GADSHILL. Stand! FALSTAFF. So I do, against my will. POINS. O, ’tis our setter. I know his voice. Comes forward with Bardolph and Peto. BARDOLPH. What news? GADSHILL. Case ye, case ye, on with your visards. There’s money of the King’s coming down the hill, ’tis going to the King’s exchequer. FALSTAFF. You lie, ye rogue, ’tis going to the King’s tavern. GADSHILL. There’s enough to make us all. FALSTAFF. To be hanged. PRINCE. Sirs, you four shall front them in the narrow lane. Ned Poins and I will walk lower; if they ’scape from your encounter, then they light on us. PETO. How many be there of them? GADSHILL. Some eight or ten. FALSTAFF. Zounds, will they not rob us? PRINCE. What, a coward, Sir John Paunch? FALSTAFF. Indeed, I am not John of Gaunt, your grandfather, but yet no coward, Hal. PRINCE. Well, we leave that to the proof. POINS. Sirrah Jack, thy horse stands behind the hedge. When thou need’st him, there thou shalt find him. Farewell, and stand fast. FALSTAFF. Now cannot I strike him, if I should be hanged. PRINCE. [_aside to Poins._] Ned, where are our disguises? POINS. [_aside to Prince Henry._] Here, hard by. Stand close. [_Exeunt Prince and Poins._] FALSTAFF. Now, my masters, happy man be his dole, say I. Every man to his business. Enter the Travellers. FIRST TRAVELLER. Come, neighbour, the boy shall lead our horses down the hill; we’ll walk afoot awhile and ease our legs. THIEVES. Stand! SECOND TRAVELLER. Jesu bless us! FALSTAFF. Strike, down with them, cut the villains’ throats! Ah, whoreson caterpillars, bacon-fed knaves, they hate us youth. Down with them, fleece them! FIRST TRAVELLER. O, we are undone, both we and ours for ever! FALSTAFF. Hang ye, gorbellied knaves, are ye undone? No, ye fat chuffs, I would your store were here! On, bacons, on! What, ye knaves! young men must live. You are grandjurors, are ye? We’ll jure ye, faith. [_Here they rob them and bind them. Exeunt_] Enter Prince Henry and Poins in buckram suits. PRINCE. The thieves have bound the true men. Now could thou and I rob the thieves, and go merrily to London, it would be argument for a week, laughter for a month, and a good jest for ever. POINS. Stand close, I hear them coming. [_They retire._] Enter the Thieves again. FALSTAFF. Come, my masters, let us share, and then to horse before day. An the Prince and Poins be not two arrant cowards, there’s no equity stirring. There’s no more valour in that Poins than in a wild duck. [_As they are sharing, the Prince and Poins set upon them._] PRINCE. Your money! POINS. Villains! [_Falstaff after a blow or two, and the others run away, leaving the booty behind them._] PRINCE. Got with much ease. Now merrily to horse. The thieves are all scatter’d, and possess’d with fear So strongly that they dare not meet each other; Each takes his fellow for an officer. Away, good Ned. Falstaff sweats to death, And lards the lean earth as he walks along. Were’t not for laughing, I should pity him. POINS. How the fat rogue roared! [_Exeunt._] SCENE III. Warkworth. A Room in the Castle. Enter Hotspur, reading a letter. HOTSPUR. “But, for mine own part, my lord, I could be well contented to be there, in respect of the love I bear your house.” He could be contented; why is he not, then? In respect of the love he bears our house—he shows in this, he loves his own barn better than he loves our house. Let me see some more. “The purpose you undertake is dangerous”—Why, that’s certain. ’Tis dangerous to take a cold, to sleep, to drink; but I tell you, my lord fool, out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety. “The purpose you undertake is dangerous, the friends you have named uncertain, the time itself unsorted, and your whole plot too light for the counterpoise of so great an opposition.” Say you so, say you so? I say unto you again, you are a shallow, cowardly hind, and you lie. What a lack-brain is this! By the Lord, our plot is a good plot as ever was laid, our friends true and constant: a good plot, good friends, and full of expectation; an excellent plot, very good friends. What a frosty-spirited rogue is this! Why, my Lord of York commends the plot and the general course of the action. Zounds, an I were now by this rascal, I could brain him with his lady’s fan. Is there not my father, my uncle, and myself? Lord Edmund Mortimer, my Lord of York, and Owen Glendower? Is there not besides the Douglas? Have I not all their letters to meet me in arms by the ninth of the next month, and are they not some of them set forward already? What a pagan rascal is this, an infidel! Ha! You shall see now, in very sincerity of fear and cold heart, will he to the King, and lay open all our proceedings. O, I could divide myself, and go to buffets, for moving such a dish of skim milk with so honourable an action! Hang him, let him tell the King, we are prepared. I will set forward tonight.— Enter Lady Percy. How now, Kate! I must leave you within these two hours. LADY PERCY. O my good lord, why are you thus alone? For what offence have I this fortnight been A banish’d woman from my Harry’s bed? Tell me, sweet lord, what is’t that takes from thee Thy stomach, pleasure, and thy golden sleep? Why dost thou bend thine eyes upon the earth, And start so often when thou sit’st alone? Why hast thou lost the fresh blood in thy cheeks, And given my treasures and my rights of thee To thick-eyed musing and curst melancholy? In thy faint slumbers I by thee have watch’d, And heard thee murmur tales of iron wars, Speak terms of manage to thy bounding steed, Cry “Courage! To the field!” And thou hast talk’d Of sallies and retires, of trenches, tents, Of palisadoes, frontiers, parapets, Of basilisks, of cannon, culverin, Of prisoners’ ransom, and of soldiers slain, And all the currents of a heady fight. Thy spirit within thee hath been so at war, And thus hath so bestirr’d thee in thy sleep, That beads of sweat have stood upon thy brow Like bubbles in a late-disturbed stream, And in thy face strange motions have appear’d, Such as we see when men restrain their breath On some great sudden hest. O, what portents are these? Some heavy business hath my lord in hand, And I must know it, else he loves me not. HOTSPUR. What, ho! Enter a Servant. Is Gilliams with the packet gone? SERVANT. He is, my lord, an hour ago. HOTSPUR. Hath Butler brought those horses from the sheriff? SERVANT. One horse, my lord, he brought even now. HOTSPUR. What horse? A roan, a crop-ear, is it not? SERVANT. It is, my lord. HOTSPUR. That roan shall be my throne. Well, I will back him straight. O Esperance! Bid Butler lead him forth into the park. [_Exit Servant._] LADY PERCY. But hear you, my lord. HOTSPUR. What say’st thou, my lady? LADY PERCY. What is it carries you away? HOTSPUR. Why, my horse, my love, my horse. LADY PERCY. Out, you mad-headed ape! A weasel hath not such a deal of spleen As you are toss’d with. In faith, I’ll know your business, Harry, that I will. I fear my brother Mortimer doth stir About his title, and hath sent for you To line his enterprise. But if you go— HOTSPUR. So far afoot, I shall be weary, love. LADY PERCY. Come, come, you paraquito, answer me Directly unto this question that I ask. In faith, I’ll break thy little finger, Harry, If thou wilt not tell me all things true. HOTSPUR. Away, Away, you trifler! Love, I love thee not, I care not for thee, Kate. This is no world To play with mammets and to tilt with lips. We must have bloody noses and crack’d crowns, And pass them current too.—Gods me, my horse!— What say’st thou, Kate? What wouldst thou have with me? LADY PERCY. Do you not love me? Do you not indeed? Well, do not, then, for since you love me not, I will not love myself. Do you not love me? Nay, tell me if you speak in jest or no. HOTSPUR. Come, wilt thou see me ride? And when I am a-horseback I will swear I love thee infinitely. But hark you, Kate, I must not have you henceforth question me Whither I go, nor reason whereabout. Whither I must, I must; and, to conclude, This evening must I leave you, gentle Kate. I know you wise, but yet no farther wise Than Harry Percy’s wife; constant you are, But yet a woman; and for secrecy, No lady closer, for I well believe Thou wilt not utter what thou dost not know; And so far will I trust thee, gentle Kate. LADY PERCY. How? So far? HOTSPUR. Not an inch further. But hark you, Kate, Whither I go, thither shall you go too. Today will I set forth, tomorrow you. Will this content you, Kate? LADY PERCY. It must, of force. [_Exeunt._] SCENE IV. Eastcheap. A Room in the Boar’s Head Tavern. Enter Prince Henry. PRINCE. Ned, prithee, come out of that fat room, and lend me thy hand to laugh a little. Enter Poins. POINS. Where hast been, Hal? PRINCE. With three or four loggerheads amongst three or fourscore hogsheads. I have sounded the very base-string of humility. Sirrah, I am sworn brother to a leash of drawers, and can call them all by their Christian names, as Tom, Dick, and Francis. They take it already upon their salvation, that though I be but Prince of Wales, yet I am the king of courtesy, and tell me flatly I am no proud Jack, like Falstaff, but a Corinthian, a lad of mettle, a good boy,—by the Lord, so they call me—and when I am King of England, I shall command all the good lads in Eastcheap. They call drinking deep, “dyeing scarlet,” and when you breathe in your watering, they cry “Hem!” and bid you “Play it off!” To conclude, I am so good a proficient in one quarter of an hour, that I can drink with any tinker in his own language during my life. I tell thee, Ned, thou hast lost much honour that thou wert not with me in this action; but, sweet Ned—to sweeten which name of Ned, I give thee this pennyworth of sugar, clapped even now into my hand by an underskinker, one that never spake other English in his life than “Eight shillings and sixpence,” and “You are welcome,” with this shrill addition, “Anon, anon, sir! Score a pint of bastard in the Half-moon,” or so. But, Ned, to drive away the time till Falstaff come, I prithee, do thou stand in some by-room, while I question my puny drawer to what end he gave me the sugar, and do thou never leave calling “Francis,” that his tale to me may be nothing but “Anon.” Step aside, and I’ll show thee a precedent. [_Exit Poins._] POINS. [_Within_] Francis! PRINCE. Thou art perfect. POINS. [_Within_] Francis! Enter Francis. FRANCIS. Anon, anon, sir.—Look down into the Pomegarnet, Ralph. PRINCE. Come hither, Francis. FRANCIS. My lord? PRINCE. How long hast thou to serve, Francis? FRANCIS. Forsooth, five years, and as much as to— POINS. [_within._] Francis! FRANCIS. Anon, anon, sir. PRINCE. Five year! By’r Lady, a long lease for the clinking of pewter! But, Francis, darest thou be so valiant as to play the coward with thy indenture, and show it a fair pair of heels, and run from it? FRANCIS. O Lord, sir, I’ll be sworn upon all the books in England, I could find in my heart— POINS. [_within._] Francis! FRANCIS. Anon, sir. PRINCE. How old art thou, Francis? FRANCIS. Let me see, about Michaelmas next I shall be— POINS. [_within._] Francis! FRANCIS. Anon, sir.—Pray, stay a little, my lord. PRINCE. Nay, but hark you, Francis, for the sugar thou gavest me, ’twas a pennyworth, was’t not? FRANCIS. O Lord, I would it had been two! PRINCE. I will give thee for it a thousand pound. Ask me when thou wilt, and thou shalt have it. POINS. [_within._] Francis! FRANCIS. Anon, anon. PRINCE. Anon, Francis? No, Francis, but tomorrow, Francis; or, Francis, a Thursday; or indeed, Francis, when thou wilt. But, Francis,— FRANCIS. My lord? PRINCE. Wilt thou rob this leathern-jerkin, crystal-button, not-pated, agate-ring, puke-stocking, caddis-garter, smooth-tongue, Spanish-pouch— FRANCIS. O Lord, sir, who do you mean? PRINCE. Why, then, your brown bastard is your only drink, for look you, Francis, your white canvas doublet will sully. In Barbary, sir, it cannot come to so much. FRANCIS. What, sir? POINS. [_within._] Francis! PRINCE. Away, you rogue! Dost thou not hear them call? [_Here they both call him; the Drawer stands amazed, not knowing which way to go._] Enter Vintner. VINTNER. What, stand’st thou still, and hear’st such a calling? Look to the guests within. [_Exit Francis._] My lord, old Sir John with half-a-dozen more are at the door. Shall I let them in? PRINCE. Let them alone awhile, and then open the door. [_Exit Vintner._] Poins! Enter Poins. POINS. Anon, anon, sir. PRINCE. Sirrah, Falstaff and the rest of the thieves are at the door; shall we be merry? POINS. As merry as crickets, my lad. But hark ye, what cunning match have you made with this jest of the drawer? Come, what’s the issue? PRINCE. I am now of all humours that have showed themselves humours since the old days of goodman Adam to the pupil age of this present twelve o’clock at midnight. Enter Francis. What’s o’clock, Francis? FRANCIS. Anon, anon, sir. [_Exit Francis._] PRINCE. That ever this fellow should have fewer words than a parrot, and yet the son of a woman! His industry is upstairs and downstairs; his eloquence the parcel of a reckoning. I am not yet of Percy’s mind, the Hotspur of the north, he that kills me some six or seven dozen of Scots at a breakfast, washes his hands, and says to his wife, “Fie upon this quiet life! I want work.” “O my sweet Harry,” says she, “how many hast thou killed today?” “Give my roan horse a drench,” says he; and answers, “Some fourteen,” an hour after; “a trifle, a trifle.” I prithee, call in Falstaff. I’ll play Percy, and that damned brawn shall play Dame Mortimer his wife. _Rivo!_ says the drunkard. Call in Ribs, call in Tallow. Enter Falstaff, Gadshill, Bardolph and Peto; followed by Francis with wine. POINS. Welcome, Jack. Where hast thou been? FALSTAFF. A plague of all cowards, I say, and a vengeance too! Marry, and amen! Give me a cup of sack, boy. Ere I lead this life long, I’ll sew nether-stocks, and mend them and foot them too. A plague of all cowards! Give me a cup of sack, rogue. Is there no virtue extant? [_Drinks._] PRINCE. Didst thou never see Titan kiss a dish of butter (pitiful-hearted Titan!), that melted at the sweet tale of the sun’s? If thou didst, then behold that compound. FALSTAFF. You rogue, here’s lime in this sack too: there is nothing but roguery to be found in villainous man, yet a coward is worse than a cup of sack with lime in it. A villanous coward! Go thy ways, old Jack. Die when thou wilt, if manhood, good manhood, be not forgot upon the face of the Earth, then am I a shotten herring. There lives not three good men unhanged in England, and one of them is fat, and grows old, God help the while, a bad world, I say. I would I were a weaver; I could sing psalms or anything. A plague of all cowards, I say still. PRINCE. How now, wool-sack, what mutter you? FALSTAFF. A king’s son! If I do not beat thee out of thy kingdom with a dagger of lath, and drive all thy subjects afore thee like a flock of wild-geese, I’ll never wear hair on my face more. You, Prince of Wales! PRINCE. Why, you whoreson round man, what’s the matter? FALSTAFF. Are not you a coward? Answer me to that—and Poins there? POINS. Zounds, ye fat paunch, an ye call me coward, by the Lord, I’ll stab thee. FALSTAFF. I call thee coward? I’ll see thee damned ere I call thee coward, but I would give a thousand pound I could run as fast as thou canst. You are straight enough in the shoulders, you care not who sees your back. Call you that backing of your friends? A plague upon such backing! Give me them that will face me.—Give me a cup of sack. I am a rogue if I drunk today. PRINCE. O villain! Thy lips are scarce wiped since thou drunk’st last. FALSTAFF. All is one for that. A plague of all cowards, still say I. [_Drinks._] PRINCE. What’s the matter? FALSTAFF. What’s the matter? There be four of us here have ta’en a thousand pound this day morning. PRINCE. Where is it, Jack, where is it? FALSTAFF. Where is it? Taken from us it is: a hundred upon poor four of us. PRINCE. What, a hundred, man? FALSTAFF. I am a rogue if I were not at half-sword with a dozen of them two hours together. I have ’scaped by miracle. I am eight times thrust through the doublet, four through the hose, my buckler cut through and through, my sword hacked like a handsaw. _Ecce signum!_ I never dealt better since I was a man: all would not do. A plague of all cowards! Let them speak. If they speak more or less than truth, they are villains, and the sons of darkness. PRINCE. Speak, sirs, how was it? GADSHILL. We four set upon some dozen. FALSTAFF. Sixteen at least, my lord. GADSHILL. And bound them. PETO. No, no, they were not bound. FALSTAFF. You rogue, they were bound, every man of them, or I am a Jew else, an Ebrew Jew. GADSHILL. As we were sharing, some six or seven fresh men set upon us. FALSTAFF. And unbound the rest, and then come in the other. PRINCE. What, fought you with them all? FALSTAFF. All? I know not what you call all, but if I fought not with fifty of them I am a bunch of radish. If there were not two or three and fifty upon poor old Jack, then am I no two-legged creature. PRINCE. Pray God you have not murdered some of them. FALSTAFF. Nay, that’s past praying for. I have peppered two of them. Two I am sure I have paid, two rogues in buckram suits. I tell thee what, Hal, if I tell thee a lie, spit in my face, call me horse. Thou knowest my old ward. Here I lay, and thus I bore my point. Four rogues in buckram let drive at me. PRINCE. What, four? Thou saidst but two even now. FALSTAFF. Four, Hal, I told thee four. POINS. Ay, ay, he said four. FALSTAFF. These four came all afront, and mainly thrust at me. I made me no more ado, but took all their seven points in my target, thus. PRINCE. Seven? Why, there were but four even now. FALSTAFF. In buckram? POINS. Ay, four, in buckram suits. FALSTAFF. Seven, by these hilts, or I am a villain else. PRINCE. [_aside to Poins._] Prithee let him alone, we shall have more anon. FALSTAFF. Dost thou hear me, Hal? PRINCE. Ay, and mark thee too, Jack. FALSTAFF. Do so, for it is worth the listening to. These nine in buckram that I told thee of— PRINCE. So, two more already. FALSTAFF. Their points being broken— POINS. Down fell their hose. FALSTAFF. Began to give me ground; but I followed me close, came in foot and hand, and with a thought seven of the eleven I paid. PRINCE. O monstrous! Eleven buckram men grown out of two! FALSTAFF. But as the devil would have it, three misbegotten knaves in Kendal green came at my back and let drive at me, for it was so dark, Hal, that thou couldst not see thy hand. PRINCE. These lies are like the father that begets them, gross as a mountain, open, palpable. Why, thou clay-brained guts, thou knotty-pated fool, thou whoreson, obscene greasy tallow-catch— FALSTAFF. What, art thou mad? Art thou mad? Is not the truth the truth? PRINCE. Why, how couldst thou know these men in Kendal green, when it was so dark thou couldst not see thy hand? Come, tell us your reason. What sayest thou to this? POINS. Come, your reason, Jack, your reason. FALSTAFF. What, upon compulsion? Zounds, an I were at the strappado, or all the racks in the world, I would not tell you on compulsion. Give you a reason on compulsion! If reasons were as plentiful as blackberries, I would give no man a reason upon compulsion, I. PRINCE. I’ll be no longer guilty of this sin. This sanguine coward, this bed-presser, this horse-back-breaker, this huge hill of flesh— FALSTAFF. ’Sblood, you starveling, you eel-skin, you dried neat’s-tongue, you bull’s pizzle, you stock-fish—O, for breath to utter what is like thee! You tailor’s-yard, you sheath, you bow-case, you vile standing tuck— PRINCE. Well, breathe awhile, and then to it again, and when thou hast tired thyself in base comparisons, hear me speak but this. POINS. Mark, Jack. PRINCE. We two saw you four set on four, and bound them and were masters of their wealth. Mark now how a plain tale shall put you down. Then did we two set on you four, and, with a word, outfaced you from your prize, and have it, yea, and can show it you here in the house. And, Falstaff, you carried your guts away as nimbly, with as quick dexterity, and roared for mercy, and still ran and roared, as ever I heard bull-calf. What a slave art thou to hack thy sword as thou hast done, and then say it was in fight! What trick, what device, what starting-hole canst thou now find out to hide thee from this open and apparent shame? POINS. Come, let’s hear, Jack, what trick hast thou now? FALSTAFF. By the Lord, I knew ye as well as he that made ye. Why, hear you, my masters, was it for me to kill the heir-apparent? Should I turn upon the true prince? Why, thou knowest I am as valiant as Hercules: but beware instinct. The lion will not touch the true prince. Instinct is a great matter. I was now a coward on instinct. I shall think the better of myself, and thee, during my life—I for a valiant lion, and thou for a true prince. But, by the Lord, lads, I am glad you have the money.—Hostess, clap to the doors. Watch tonight, pray tomorrow. Gallants, lads, boys, hearts of gold, all the titles of good fellowship come to you! What, shall we be merry? Shall we have a play extempore? PRINCE. Content; and the argument shall be thy running away. FALSTAFF. Ah, no more of that, Hal, an thou lovest me! Enter the Hostess. HOSTESS. O Jesu, my lord the Prince— PRINCE. How now, my lady the hostess! What say’st thou to me? HOSTESS. Marry, my lord, there is a nobleman of the court at door would speak with you: he says he comes from your father. PRINCE. Give him as much as will make him a royal man, and send him back again to my mother. FALSTAFF. What manner of man is he? HOSTESS. An old man. FALSTAFF. What doth gravity out of his bed at midnight? Shall I give him his answer? PRINCE. Prithee do, Jack. FALSTAFF. Faith, and I’ll send him packing. [_Exit._] PRINCE. Now, sirs: by’r Lady, you fought fair, so did you, Peto. So did you, Bardolph. You are lions, too, you ran away upon instinct, you will not touch the true prince, no, fie! BARDOLPH. Faith, I ran when I saw others run. PRINCE. Faith, tell me now in earnest, how came Falstaff’s sword so hacked? PETO. Why, he hacked it with his dagger, and said he would swear truth out of England but he would make you believe it was done in fight, and persuaded us to do the like. BARDOLPH. Yea, and to tickle our noses with spear-grass to make them bleed, and then to beslubber our garments with it, and swear it was the blood of true men. I did that I did not this seven year before: I blushed to hear his monstrous devices. PRINCE. O villain, thou stolest a cup of sack eighteen years ago, and wert taken with the manner, and ever since thou hast blushed extempore. Thou hadst fire and sword on thy side, and yet thou ran’st away. What instinct hadst thou for it? BARDOLPH. My lord, do you see these meteors? Do you behold these exhalations? PRINCE. I do. BARDOLPH. What think you they portend? PRINCE. Hot livers and cold purses. BARDOLPH. Choler, my lord, if rightly taken. PRINCE. No, if rightly taken, halter. Enter Falstaff. Here comes lean Jack, here comes bare-bone. How now, my sweet creature of bombast? How long is’t ago, Jack, since thou sawest thine own knee? FALSTAFF. My own knee? When I was about thy years, Hal, I was not an eagle’s talon in the waist. I could have crept into any alderman’s thumb-ring: a plague of sighing and grief! It blows a man up like a bladder. There’s villanous news abroad: here was Sir John Bracy from your father; you must to the court in the morning. That same mad fellow of the north, Percy, and he of Wales that gave Amamon the bastinado, and made Lucifer cuckold, and swore the devil his true liegeman upon the cross of a Welsh hook—what a plague call you him? POINS. O, Glendower. FALSTAFF. Owen, Owen, the same; and his son-in-law Mortimer, and old Northumberland, and that sprightly Scot of Scots, Douglas, that runs a-horseback up a hill perpendicular— PRINCE. He that rides at high speed, and with his pistol kills a sparrow flying. FALSTAFF. You have hit it. PRINCE. So did he never the sparrow. FALSTAFF. Well, that rascal hath good metal in him, he will not run. PRINCE. Why, what a rascal art thou then, to praise him so for running! FALSTAFF. A-horseback, ye cuckoo, but afoot he will not budge a foot. PRINCE. Yes, Jack, upon instinct. FALSTAFF. I grant ye, upon instinct. Well, he is there too, and one Mordake, and a thousand blue-caps more. Worcester is stolen away tonight; thy father’s beard is turned white with the news. You may buy land now as cheap as stinking mackerel. PRINCE. Why then, it is like if there come a hot June, and this civil buffeting hold, we shall buy maidenheads as they buy hobnails, by the hundreds. FALSTAFF. By the mass, lad, thou sayest true. It is like we shall have good trading that way. But tell me, Hal, art not thou horrible afeard? Thou being heir-apparent, could the world pick thee out three such enemies again as that fiend Douglas, that spirit Percy, and that devil Glendower? Art thou not horribly afraid? Doth not thy blood thrill at it? PRINCE. Not a whit, i’faith. I lack some of thy instinct. FALSTAFF. Well, thou wilt be horribly chid tomorrow when thou comest to thy father. If thou love me practise an answer. PRINCE. Do thou stand for my father and examine me upon the particulars of my life. FALSTAFF. Shall I? Content! This chair shall be my state, this dagger my sceptre, and this cushion my crown. PRINCE. Thy state is taken for a joint-stool, thy golden sceptre for a leaden dagger, and thy precious rich crown for a pitiful bald crown. FALSTAFF. Well, an the fire of grace be not quite out of thee, now shalt thou be moved. Give me a cup of sack to make my eyes look red, that it may be thought I have wept, for I must speak in passion, and I will do it in King Cambyses’ vein. PRINCE. Well, here is my leg. FALSTAFF. And here is my speech. Stand aside, nobility. HOSTESS. O Jesu, this is excellent sport, i faith! FALSTAFF. Weep not, sweet Queen, for trickling tears are vain. HOSTESS. O, the Father, how he holds his countenance! FALSTAFF. For God’s sake, lords, convey my tristful Queen, For tears do stop the floodgates of her eyes. HOSTESS. O Jesu, he doth it as like one of these harlotry players as ever I see! FALSTAFF. Peace, good pint-pot; peace, good tickle-brain.—Harry, I do not only marvel where thou spendest thy time, but also how thou art accompanied. For though the camomile, the more it is trodden on, the faster it grows, yet youth, the more it is wasted, the sooner it wears. That thou art my son I have partly thy mother’s word, partly my own opinion, but chiefly a villainous trick of thine eye, and a foolish hanging of thy nether lip, that doth warrant me. If then thou be son to me, here lies the point: why, being son to me, art thou so pointed at? Shall the blessed sun of heaven prove a micher, and eat blackberries? A question not to be asked. Shall the son of England prove a thief, and take purses? A question to be asked. There is a thing, Harry, which thou hast often heard of, and it is known to many in our land by the name of pitch. This pitch, as ancient writers do report, doth defile; so doth the company thou keepest. For, Harry, now I do not speak to thee in drink, but in tears; not in pleasure, but in passion; not in words only, but in woes also. And yet there is a virtuous man whom I have often noted in thy company, but I know not his name. PRINCE. What manner of man, an it like your Majesty? FALSTAFF. A goodly portly man, i’faith, and a corpulent; of a cheerful look, a pleasing eye, and a most noble carriage; and, as I think, his age some fifty, or, by’r Lady, inclining to threescore; and now I remember me, his name is Falstaff. If that man should be lewdly given, he deceiveth me; for, Harry, I see virtue in his looks. If then the tree may be known by the fruit, as the fruit by the tree, then peremptorily I speak it, there is virtue in that Falstaff; him keep with, the rest banish. And tell me now, thou naughty varlet, tell me where hast thou been this month? PRINCE. Dost thou speak like a king? Do thou stand for me, and I’ll play my father. FALSTAFF. Depose me? If thou dost it half so gravely, so majestically, both in word and matter, hang me up by the heels for a rabbit-sucker or a poulter’s hare. PRINCE. Well, here I am set. FALSTAFF. And here I stand. Judge, my masters. PRINCE. Now, Harry, whence come you? FALSTAFF. My noble lord, from Eastcheap. PRINCE. The complaints I hear of thee are grievous. FALSTAFF. ’Sblood, my lord, they are false.—Nay, I’ll tickle ye for a young prince, i’faith. PRINCE. Swearest thou, ungracious boy? Henceforth ne’er look on me. Thou art violently carried away from grace. There is a devil haunts thee in the likeness of an old fat man. A tun of man is thy companion. Why dost thou converse with that trunk of humours, that bolting-hutch of beastliness, that swollen parcel of dropsies, that huge bombard of sack, that stuffed cloak-bag of guts, that roasted Manningtree ox with the pudding in his belly, that reverend Vice, that grey iniquity, that father ruffian, that vanity in years? Wherein is he good, but to taste sack and drink it? Wherein neat and cleanly, but to carve a capon and eat it? Wherein cunning, but in craft? Wherein crafty, but in villany? Wherein villainous, but in all things? Wherein worthy, but in nothing? FALSTAFF. I would your Grace would take me with you. Whom means your Grace? PRINCE. That villainous abominable misleader of youth, Falstaff, that old white-bearded Satan. FALSTAFF. My lord, the man I know. PRINCE. I know thou dost. FALSTAFF. But to say I know more harm in him than in myself were to say more than I know. That he is old, the more the pity, his white hairs do witness it. But that he is, saving your reverence, a whoremaster, that I utterly deny. If sack and sugar be a fault, God help the wicked! If to be old and merry be a sin, then many an old host that I know is damned. If to be fat be to be hated, then Pharaoh’s lean kine are to be loved. No, my good lord, banish Peto, banish Bardolph, banish Poins, but for sweet Jack Falstaff, kind Jack Falstaff, true Jack Falstaff, valiant Jack Falstaff, and therefore more valiant, being as he is old Jack Falstaff, banish not him thy Harry’s company, banish not him thy Harry’s company. Banish plump Jack, and banish all the world. PRINCE. I do, I will. [_A knocking heard._] [_Exeunt Hostess, Francis and Bardolph._] Enter Bardolph, running. BARDOLPH. O, my lord, my lord, the sheriff with a most monstrous watch is at the door. FALSTAFF. Out, ye rogue! Play out the play. I have much to say in the behalf of that Falstaff. Enter the Hostess, hastily. HOSTESS. O Jesu, my lord, my lord— PRINCE. Heigh, heigh, the devil rides upon a fiddlestick. What’s the matter? HOSTESS. The sheriff and all the watch are at the door. They are come to search the house. Shall I let them in? FALSTAFF. Dost thou hear, Hal? Never call a true piece of gold a counterfeit: thou art essentially made without seeming so. PRINCE. And thou a natural coward without instinct. FALSTAFF. I deny your major. If you will deny the sheriff, so; if not, let him enter. If I become not a cart as well as another man, a plague on my bringing up! I hope I shall as soon be strangled with a halter as another. PRINCE. Go hide thee behind the arras. The rest walk up above. Now, my masters, for a true face and good conscience. FALSTAFF. Both which I have had, but their date is out, and therefore I’ll hide me. PRINCE. Call in the sheriff. [_Exeunt all but the Prince and Peto._] Enter Sheriff and the Carrier. Now, master sheriff, what is your will with me? SHERIFF. First, pardon me, my lord. A hue and cry Hath followed certain men unto this house. PRINCE. What men? SHERIFF. One of them is well known, my gracious lord, A gross fat man. CARRIER. As fat as butter. PRINCE. The man I do assure you is not here, For I myself at this time have employ’d him. And, sheriff, I will engage my word to thee, That I will by tomorrow dinner-time, Send him to answer thee, or any man, For anything he shall be charged withal. And so let me entreat you leave the house. SHERIFF. I will, my lord. There are two gentlemen Have in this robbery lost three hundred marks. PRINCE. It may be so. If he have robb’d these men, He shall be answerable; and so, farewell. SHERIFF. Good night, my noble lord. PRINCE. I think it is good morrow, is it not? SHERIFF. Indeed, my lord, I think it be two o’clock. [_Exit Sheriff with the Carrier._] PRINCE. This oily rascal is known as well as Paul’s. Go, call him forth. PETO. Falstaff!—Fast asleep behind the arras, and snorting like a horse. PRINCE. Hark, how hard he fetches breath. Search his pockets. [_He searcheth his pocket, and findeth certain papers._] What hast thou found? PETO. Nothing but papers, my lord. PRINCE. Let’s see what they be. Read them. PETO. [_reads_] Item, a capon, . . . . . . . . . . . 2s. 2d. Item, sauce, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4d. Item, sack, two gallons, . . . 5s. 8d. Item, anchovies and sack after supper, 2s. 6d. Item, bread, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ob. PRINCE. O monstrous! But one halfpennyworth of bread to this intolerable deal of sack! What there is else, keep close. We’ll read it at more advantage. There let him sleep till day. I’ll to the court in the morning. We must all to the wars, and thy place shall be honourable. I’ll procure this fat rogue a charge of foot, and I know his death will be a march of twelve score. The money shall be paid back again with advantage. Be with me betimes in the morning; and so, good morrow, Peto. PETO. Good morrow, good my lord. [_Exeunt._] ACT III SCENE I. Bangor. A Room in the Archdeacon’s House. Enter Hotspur, Worcester, Mortimer and Glendower. MORTIMER. These promises are fair, the parties sure, And our induction full of prosperous hope. HOTSPUR. Lord Mortimer and cousin Glendower, Will you sit down? And uncle Worcester, A plague upon it! I have forgot the map. GLENDOWER. No, here it is. Sit, cousin Percy, sit, good cousin Hotspur; For by that name as oft as Lancaster doth speak of you His cheek looks pale, and with a rising sigh He wisheth you in heaven. HOTSPUR. And you in hell, As oft as he hears Owen Glendower spoke of. GLENDOWER. I cannot blame him. At my nativity The front of heaven was full of fiery shapes, Of burning cressets, and at my birth The frame and huge foundation of the Earth Shaked like a coward. HOTSPUR. Why, so it would have done At the same season, if your mother’s cat Had but kitten’d, though yourself had never been born. GLENDOWER. I say the Earth did shake when I was born. HOTSPUR. And I say the Earth was not of my mind, If you suppose as fearing you it shook. GLENDOWER. The heavens were all on fire, the Earth did tremble. HOTSPUR. O, then th’ Earth shook to see the heavens on fire, And not in fear of your nativity. Diseased nature oftentimes breaks forth In strange eruptions; oft the teeming Earth Is with a kind of colic pinch’d and vex’d By the imprisoning of unruly wind Within her womb, which for enlargement striving, Shakes the old beldam Earth, and topples down Steeples and moss-grown towers. At your birth Our grandam Earth, having this distemp’rature, In passion shook. GLENDOWER. Cousin, of many men I do not bear these crossings. Give me leave To tell you once again that at my birth The front of heaven was full of fiery shapes, The goats ran from the mountains, and the herds Were strangely clamorous to the frighted fields. These signs have mark’d me extraordinary, And all the courses of my life do show I am not in the roll of common men. Where is he living, clipp’d in with the sea That chides the banks of England, Scotland, Wales, Which calls me pupil or hath read to me? And bring him out that is but woman’s son Can trace me in the tedious ways of art, And hold me pace in deep experiments. HOTSPUR. I think there is no man speaks better Welsh. I’ll to dinner. MORTIMER. Peace, cousin Percy, you will make him mad. GLENDOWER. I can call spirits from the vasty deep. HOTSPUR. Why, so can I, or so can any man, But will they come when you do call for them? GLENDOWER. Why, I can teach you, cousin, to command the devil. HOTSPUR. And I can teach thee, coz, to shame the devil By telling truth; tell truth, and shame the devil. If thou have power to raise him, bring him hither, And I’ll be sworn I have power to shame him hence. O, while you live, tell truth, and shame the devil! MORTIMER. Come, come, no more of this unprofitable chat. GLENDOWER. Three times hath Henry Bolingbroke made head Against my power; thrice from the banks of Wye And sandy-bottom’d Severn have I sent him Bootless home and weather-beaten back. HOTSPUR. Home without boots, and in foul weather too! How ’scapes he agues, in the devil’s name! GLENDOWER. Come, here’s the map, shall we divide our right According to our threefold order ta’en? MORTIMER. The archdeacon hath divided it Into three limits very equally: England, from Trent and Severn hitherto, By south and east is to my part assign’d: All westward, Wales beyond the Severn shore, And all the fertile land within that bound, To Owen Glendower: and, dear coz, to you The remnant northward lying off from Trent. And our indentures tripartite are drawn, Which being sealed interchangeably, A business that this night may execute, Tomorrow, cousin Percy, you and I, And my good Lord of Worcester will set forth To meet your father and the Scottish power, As is appointed us, at Shrewsbury. My father Glendower is not ready yet, Nor shall we need his help these fourteen days. [_To Glendower._] Within that space you may have drawn together Your tenants, friends, and neighbouring gentlemen. GLENDOWER. A shorter time shall send me to you, lords, And in my conduct shall your ladies come, From whom you now must steal, and take no leave, For there will be a world of water shed Upon the parting of your wives and you. HOTSPUR. Methinks my moiety, north from Burton here, In quantity equals not one of yours. See how this river comes me cranking in, And cuts me from the best of all my land A huge half-moon, a monstrous cantle out. I’ll have the current in this place dammed up, And here the smug and silver Trent shall run In a new channel, fair and evenly. It shall not wind with such a deep indent, To rob me of so rich a bottom here. GLENDOWER. Not wind? It shall, it must. You see it doth. MORTIMER. Yea, but mark how he bears his course, and runs me up With like advantage on the other side, Gelding the opposed continent as much As on the other side it takes from you. WORCESTER. Yea, but a little charge will trench him here, And on this north side win this cape of land, And then he runs straight and even. HOTSPUR. I’ll have it so, a little charge will do it. GLENDOWER. I’ll not have it altered. HOTSPUR. Will not you? GLENDOWER. No, nor you shall not. HOTSPUR. Who shall say me nay? GLENDOWER. Why, that will I. HOTSPUR. Let me not understand you, then; speak it in Welsh. GLENDOWER. I can speak English, lord, as well as you, For I was train’d up in the English Court, Where being but young I framed to the harp Many an English ditty lovely well, And gave the tongue a helpful ornament— A virtue that was never seen in you. HOTSPUR. Marry, and I am glad of it with all my heart. I had rather be a kitten, and cry “mew” Than one of these same metre ballad-mongers; I had rather hear a brazen canstick turn’d, Or a dry wheel grate on the axletree, And that would set my teeth nothing on edge, Nothing so much as mincing poetry. ’Tis like the forced gait of a shuffling nag. GLENDOWER. Come, you shall have Trent turn’d. HOTSPUR. I do not care. I’ll give thrice so much land To any well-deserving friend; But in the way of bargain, mark ye me, I’ll cavil on the ninth part of a hair. Are the indentures drawn? Shall we be gone? GLENDOWER. The moon shines fair, you may away by night. I’ll haste the writer, and withal Break with your wives of your departure hence. I am afraid my daughter will run mad, So much she doteth on her Mortimer. [_Exit._] MORTIMER. Fie, cousin Percy, how you cross my father! HOTSPUR. I cannot choose. Sometimes he angers me With telling me of the moldwarp and the ant, Of the dreamer Merlin and his prophecies, And of a dragon and a finless fish, A clip-wing’d griffin and a moulten raven, A couching lion and a ramping cat, And such a deal of skimble-skamble stuff As puts me from my faith. I tell you what— He held me last night at least nine hours In reckoning up the several devils’ names That were his lackeys: I cried “Hum,” and “Well, go to,” But mark’d him not a word. O, he is as tedious As a tired horse, a railing wife, Worse than a smoky house. I had rather live With cheese and garlic in a windmill, far, Than feed on cates and have him talk to me In any summer house in Christendom. MORTIMER. In faith, he is a worthy gentleman, Exceedingly well read, and profited In strange concealments, valiant as a lion, And wondrous affable, and as bountiful As mines of India. Shall I tell you, cousin? He holds your temper in a high respect And curbs himself even of his natural scope When you come cross his humour, faith, he does. I warrant you that man is not alive Might so have tempted him as you have done Without the taste of danger and reproof: But do not use it oft, let me entreat you. WORCESTER. In faith, my lord, you are too wilful-blame, And since your coming hither have done enough To put him quite besides his patience. You must needs learn, lord, to amend this fault. Though sometimes it show greatness, courage, blood— And that’s the dearest grace it renders you— Yet oftentimes it doth present harsh rage, Defect of manners, want of government, Pride, haughtiness, opinion, and disdain, The least of which haunting a nobleman Loseth men’s hearts and leaves behind a stain Upon the beauty of all parts besides, Beguiling them of commendation. HOTSPUR. Well, I am school’d. Good manners be your speed! Here come our wives, and let us take our leave. Enter Glendower with Lady Mortimer and Lady Percy. MORTIMER. This is the deadly spite that angers me, My wife can speak no English, I no Welsh. GLENDOWER. My daughter weeps, she’ll not part with you, She’ll be a soldier too, she’ll to the wars. MORTIMER. Good father, tell her that she and my aunt Percy Shall follow in your conduct speedily. [_Glendower speaks to Lady Mortimer in Welsh, and she answers him in the same._] GLENDOWER. She is desperate here, a peevish self-willed harlotry, One that no persuasion can do good upon. [_Lady Mortimer speaks to Mortimer in Welsh._] MORTIMER. I understand thy looks, that pretty Welsh Which thou pourest down from these swelling heavens I am too perfect in, and but for shame In such a parley should I answer thee. [_Lady Mortimer speaks to him again in Welsh._] I understand thy kisses, and thou mine, And that’s a feeling disputation, But I will never be a truant, love, Till I have learnt thy language; for thy tongue Makes Welsh as sweet as ditties highly penn’d, Sung by a fair queen in a summer’s bower, With ravishing division, to her lute. GLENDOWER. Nay, if you melt, then will she run mad. [_Lady Mortimer speaks to Mortimer again in Welsh._] MORTIMER. O, I am ignorance itself in this! GLENDOWER. She bids you on the wanton rushes lay you down, And rest your gentle head upon her lap, And she will sing the song that pleaseth you, And on your eyelids crown the god of sleep, Charming your blood with pleasing heaviness, Making such difference ’twixt wake and sleep As is the difference betwixt day and night, The hour before the heavenly-harness’d team Begins his golden progress in the east. MORTIMER. With all my heart I’ll sit and hear her sing, By that time will our book, I think, be drawn. GLENDOWER. Do so, and those musicians that shall play to you Hang in the air a thousand leagues from hence, And straight they shall be here: sit, and attend. HOTSPUR. Come, Kate, thou art perfect in lying down. Come, quick, quick, that I may lay my head in thy lap. LADY PERCY. Go, ye giddy goose. [_The music plays._] HOTSPUR. Now I perceive the devil understands Welsh, And ’tis no marvel he’s so humorous. By’r Lady, he’s a good musician. LADY PERCY. Then should you be nothing but musical, For you are altogether governed by humours. Lie still, ye thief, and hear the lady sing in Welsh. HOTSPUR. I had rather hear Lady, my brach, howl in Irish. LADY PERCY. Wouldst thou have thy head broken? HOTSPUR. No. LADY PERCY. Then be still. HOTSPUR. Neither; ’tis a woman’s fault. LADY PERCY. Now God help thee! HOTSPUR. To the Welsh lady’s bed. LADY PERCY. What’s that? HOTSPUR. Peace, she sings. [_Here the lady sings a Welsh song._] Come, Kate, I’ll have your song too. LADY PERCY. Not mine, in good sooth. HOTSPUR. Not yours, in good sooth! Heart! you swear like a comfit-maker’s wife! “Not you, in good sooth,” and “As true as I live,” and “As God shall mend me,” and “As sure as day” And givest such sarcenet surety for thy oaths As if thou never walk’dst further than Finsbury. Swear me, Kate, like a lady as thou art, A good mouth-filling oath, and leave “In sooth,” And such protest of pepper-gingerbread, To velvet-guards and Sunday citizens. Come, sing. LADY PERCY. I will not sing. HOTSPUR. ’Tis the next way to turn tailor, or be redbreast-teacher. An the indentures be drawn, I’ll away within these two hours; and so come in when ye will. [_Exit._] GLENDOWER. Come, come, Lord Mortimer, you are as slow As hot Lord Percy is on fire to go. By this our book is drawn. We’ll but seal, And then to horse immediately. MORTIMER. With all my heart. [_Exeunt._] SCENE II. London. A Room in the Palace. Enter King Henry, Prince Henry and Lords. KING. Lords, give us leave; the Prince of Wales and I Must have some private conference: but be near at hand, For we shall presently have need of you. [_Exeunt Lords._] I know not whether God will have it so For some displeasing service I have done, That, in His secret doom, out of my blood He’ll breed revengement and a scourge for me; But thou dost in thy passages of life Make me believe that thou art only mark’d For the hot vengeance and the rod of heaven To punish my mistreadings. Tell me else, Could such inordinate and low desires, Such poor, such bare, such lewd, such mean attempts, Such barren pleasures, rude society, As thou art match’d withal, and grafted to, Accompany the greatness of thy blood, And hold their level with thy princely heart? PRINCE. So please your Majesty, I would I could Quit all offences with as clear excuse As well as I am doubtless I can purge Myself of many I am charged withal. Yet such extenuation let me beg As, in reproof of many tales devised, By smiling pickthanks and base newsmongers, Which oft the ear of greatness needs must hear, I may for some things true, wherein my youth Hath faulty wander’d and irregular, Find pardon on my true submission. KING. God pardon thee! Yet let me wonder, Harry, At thy affections, which do hold a wing Quite from the flight of all thy ancestors. Thy place in Council thou hast rudely lost, Which by thy younger brother is supplied, And art almost an alien to the hearts Of all the court and princes of my blood. The hope and expectation of thy time Is ruin’d, and the soul of every man Prophetically do forethink thy fall. Had I so lavish of my presence been, So common-hackney’d in the eyes of men, So stale and cheap to vulgar company, Opinion, that did help me to the crown, Had still kept loyal to possession, And left me in reputeless banishment, A fellow of no mark nor likelihood. By being seldom seen, I could not stir But like a comet I was wonder’d at, That men would tell their children, “This is he.” Others would say, “Where, which is Bolingbroke?” And then I stole all courtesy from heaven, And dress’d myself in such humility That I did pluck allegiance from men’s hearts, Loud shouts and salutations from their mouths, Even in the presence of the crowned King. Thus did I keep my person fresh and new, My presence, like a robe pontifical, Ne’er seen but wonder’d at, and so my state, Seldom but sumptuous, showed like a feast, And won by rareness such solemnity. The skipping King, he ambled up and down With shallow jesters and rash bavin wits, Soon kindled and soon burnt; carded his state, Mingled his royalty, with cap’ring fools, Had his great name profaned with their scorns, And gave his countenance, against his name, To laugh at gibing boys, and stand the push Of every beardless vain comparative; Grew a companion to the common streets, Enfeoff’d himself to popularity, That, being daily swallow’d by men’s eyes, They surfeited with honey, and began To loathe the taste of sweetness, whereof a little More than a little is by much too much. So, when he had occasion to be seen, He was but as the cuckoo is in June, Heard, not regarded; seen, but with such eyes As, sick and blunted with community, Afford no extraordinary gaze, Such as is bent on sun-like majesty When it shines seldom in admiring eyes, But rather drowsed and hung their eyelids down, Slept in his face, and render’d such aspect As cloudy men use to their adversaries, Being with his presence glutted, gorged, and full. And in that very line, Harry, standest thou, For thou hast lost thy princely privilege With vile participation. Not an eye But is a-weary of thy common sight, Save mine, which hath desired to see thee more, Which now doth that I would not have it do, Make blind itself with foolish tenderness. PRINCE. I shall hereafter, my thrice gracious lord, Be more myself. KING. For all the world As thou art to this hour was Richard then When I from France set foot at Ravenspurgh, And even as I was then is Percy now. Now, by my sceptre, and my soul to boot, He hath more worthy interest to the state Than thou, the shadow of succession. For of no right, nor colour like to right, He doth fill fields with harness in the realm, Turns head against the lion’s armed jaws, And, being no more in debt to years than thou, Leads ancient lords and reverend bishops on To bloody battles and to bruising arms. What never-dying honour hath he got Against renowned Douglas! whose high deeds, Whose hot incursions and great name in arms, Holds from all soldiers chief majority And military title capital Through all the kingdoms that acknowledge Christ. Thrice hath this Hotspur, Mars in swathing clothes, This infant warrior, in his enterprises Discomfited great Douglas, ta’en him once, Enlarged him, and made a friend of him, To fill the mouth of deep defiance up, And shake the peace and safety of our throne. And what say you to this? Percy, Northumberland, The Archbishop’s Grace of York, Douglas, Mortimer, Capitulate against us and are up. But wherefore do I tell these news to thee? Why, Harry, do I tell thee of my foes, Which art my nearest and dearest enemy? Thou that art like enough, through vassal fear, Base inclination, and the start of spleen, To fight against me under Percy’s pay, To dog his heels, and curtsy at his frowns, To show how much thou art degenerate. PRINCE. Do not think so, you shall not find it so. And God forgive them that so much have sway’d Your Majesty’s good thoughts away from me! I will redeem all this on Percy’s head, And, in the closing of some glorious day, Be bold to tell you that I am your son, When I will wear a garment all of blood, And stain my favours in a bloody mask, Which, wash’d away, shall scour my shame with it. And that shall be the day, whene’er it lights, That this same child of honour and renown, This gallant Hotspur, this all-praised knight, And your unthought-of Harry chance to meet. For every honour sitting on his helm, Would they were multitudes, and on my head My shames redoubled! For the time will come, That I shall make this northern youth exchange His glorious deeds for my indignities. Percy is but my factor, good my lord, To engross up glorious deeds on my behalf, And I will call him to so strict account That he shall render every glory up, Yea, even the slightest worship of his time, Or I will tear the reckoning from his heart. This in the name of God I promise here, The which if He be pleased I shall perform, I do beseech your Majesty may salve The long-grown wounds of my intemperance. If not, the end of life cancels all bands, And I will die a hundred thousand deaths Ere break the smallest parcel of this vow. KING. A hundred thousand rebels die in this. Thou shalt have charge and sovereign trust herein. Enter Sir Walter Blunt. How now, good Blunt? Thy looks are full of speed. BLUNT. So hath the business that I come to speak of. Lord Mortimer of Scotland hath sent word That Douglas and the English rebels met The eleventh of this month at Shrewsbury. A mighty and a fearful head they are, If promises be kept on every hand, As ever offer’d foul play in a state. KING. The Earl of Westmoreland set forth today, With him my son, Lord John of Lancaster, For this advertisement is five days old. On Wednesday next you, Harry, shall set forward, On Thursday we ourselves will march. Our meeting is Bridgenorth. And, Harry, you Shall march through Gloustershire; by which account, Our business valued, some twelve days hence Our general forces at Bridgenorth shall meet. Our hands are full of business. Let’s away, Advantage feeds him fat while men delay. [_Exeunt._] SCENE III. Eastcheap. A Room in the Boar’s Head Tavern. Enter Falstaff and Bardolph. FALSTAFF. Bardolph, am I not fallen away vilely since this last action? Do I not bate? Do I not dwindle? Why, my skin hangs about me like an old lady’s loose gown. I am withered like an old apple-john. Well, I’ll repent, and that suddenly, while I am in some liking. I shall be out of heart shortly, and then I shall have no strength to repent. An I have not forgotten what the inside of a church is made of, I am a peppercorn, a brewer’s horse. The inside of a church! Company, villainous company, hath been the spoil of me. BARDOLPH. Sir John, you are so fretful, you cannot live long. FALSTAFF. Why, there is it. Come, sing me a song, make me merry. I was as virtuously given as a gentleman need to be, virtuous enough; swore little; diced not above seven times—a week; went to a bawdy house not above once in a quarter—in an hour; paid money that I borrowed—three or four times; lived well and in good compass; and now I live out of all order, out of all compass. BARDOLPH. Why, you are so fat, Sir John, that you must needs be out of all compass, out of all reasonable compass, Sir John. FALSTAFF. Do thou amend thy face, and I’ll amend my life. Thou art our admiral, thou bearest the lantern in the poop, but ’tis in the nose of thee. Thou art the Knight of the Burning Lamp. BARDOLPH. Why, Sir John, my face does you no harm. FALSTAFF. No, I’ll be sworn, I make as good use of it as many a man doth of a death’s-head or a _memento mori_. I never see thy face but I think upon hell-fire, and Dives that lived in purple, for there he is in his robes, burning, burning. If thou wert any way given to virtue, I would swear by thy face. My oath should be, “By this fire, that’s God’s angel.” But thou art altogether given over; and wert indeed, but for the light in thy face, the son of utter darkness. When thou ran’st up Gad’s Hill in the night to catch my horse, if I did not think thou hadst been an _ignis fatuus_ or a ball of wildfire, there’s no purchase in money. O, thou art a perpetual triumph, an everlasting bonfire-light! Thou hast saved me a thousand marks in links and torches, walking with thee in the night betwixt tavern and tavern: but the sack that thou hast drunk me would have bought me lights as good cheap at the dearest chandler’s in Europe. I have maintained that salamander of yours with fire any time this two-and-thirty years, God reward me for it! BARDOLPH. ’Sblood, I would my face were in your belly! FALSTAFF. God-a-mercy! so should I be sure to be heartburnt. Enter the Hostess. How now, Dame Partlet the hen, have you enquired yet who picked my pocket? HOSTESS. Why, Sir John, what do you think, Sir John, do you think I keep thieves in my house? I have searched, I have enquired, so has my husband, man by man, boy by boy, servant by servant. The tithe of a hair was never lost in my house before. FALSTAFF. Ye lie, hostess. Bardolph was shaved and lost many a hair, and I’ll be sworn my pocket was picked. Go to, you are a woman, go. HOSTESS. Who, I? No; I defy thee: God’s light, I was never called so in mine own house before. FALSTAFF. Go to, I know you well enough. HOSTESS. No, Sir John, you do not know me, Sir John. I know you, Sir John, you owe me money, Sir John, and now you pick a quarrel to beguile me of it. I bought you a dozen of shirts to your back. FALSTAFF. Dowlas, filthy dowlas. I have given them away to bakers’ wives; and they have made bolters of them. HOSTESS. Now, as I am a true woman, holland of eight shillings an ell. You owe money here besides, Sir John, for your diet and by-drinkings, and money lent you, four-and-twenty pound. FALSTAFF. He had his part of it, let him pay. HOSTESS. He? Alas, he is poor, he hath nothing. FALSTAFF. How? Poor? Look upon his face. What call you rich? Let them coin his nose, let them coin his cheeks. I’ll not pay a denier. What, will you make a younker of me? Shall I not take mine ease in mine inn but I shall have my pocket picked? I have lost a seal-ring of my grandfather’s worth forty mark. HOSTESS. O Jesu, I have heard the Prince tell him, I know not how oft, that that ring was copper. FALSTAFF. How? The Prince is a Jack, a sneak-up. ’Sblood, an he were here, I would cudgel him like a dog if he would say so. Enter Prince Henry with Peto, marching. Falstaff meets him, playing on his truncheon like a fife. How now, lad? Is the wind in that door, i’faith? Must we all march? BARDOLPH. Yea, two and two, Newgate fashion. HOSTESS. My lord, I pray you, hear me. PRINCE. What say’st thou, Mistress Quickly? How doth thy husband? I love him well; he is an honest man. HOSTESS. Good my lord, hear me. FALSTAFF. Prithee, let her alone, and list to me. PRINCE. What say’st thou, Jack? FALSTAFF. The other night I fell asleep here, behind the arras, and had my pocket picked. This house is turned bawdy-house; they pick pockets. PRINCE. What didst thou lose, Jack? FALSTAFF. Wilt thou believe me, Hal, three or four bonds of forty pound apiece and a seal-ring of my grandfather’s. PRINCE. A trifle, some eightpenny matter. HOSTESS. So I told him, my lord, and I said I heard your Grace say so. And, my lord, he speaks most vilely of you, like a foul-mouthed man as he is, and said he would cudgel you. PRINCE. What! he did not? HOSTESS. There’s neither faith, truth, nor womanhood in me else. FALSTAFF. There’s no more faith in thee than in a stewed prune, nor no more truth in thee than in a drawn fox; and, for woman-hood, Maid Marian may be the deputy’s wife of the ward to thee. Go, you thing, go. HOSTESS. Say, what thing, what thing? FALSTAFF. What thing? Why, a thing to thank God on. HOSTESS. I am no thing to thank God on, I would thou shouldst know it! I am an honest man’s wife, and, setting thy knighthood aside, thou art a knave to call me so. FALSTAFF. Setting thy womanhood aside, thou art a beast to say otherwise. HOSTESS. Say, what beast, thou knave, thou? FALSTAFF. What beast? Why, an otter. PRINCE. An otter, Sir John? Why an otter? FALSTAFF. Why, she’s neither fish nor flesh; a man knows not where to have her. HOSTESS. Thou art an unjust man in saying so, thou or any man knows where to have me, thou knave, thou. PRINCE. Thou say’st true, hostess, and he slanders thee most grossly. HOSTESS. So he doth you, my lord, and said this other day you ought him a thousand pound. PRINCE. Sirrah, do I owe you a thousand pound? FALSTAFF. A thousand pound, Hal? A million. Thy love is worth a million; thou owest me thy love. HOSTESS. Nay, my lord, he call’d you Jack, and said he would cudgel you. FALSTAFF. Did I, Bardolph? BARDOLPH. Indeed, Sir John, you said so. FALSTAFF. Yea, if he said my ring was copper. PRINCE. I say ’tis copper. Darest thou be as good as thy word now? FALSTAFF. Why, Hal, thou knowest, as thou art but man, I dare, but as thou art prince, I fear thee as I fear the roaring of the lion’s whelp. PRINCE. And why not as the lion? FALSTAFF. The King himself is to be feared as the lion. Dost thou think I’ll fear thee as I fear thy father? Nay, an I do, I pray God my girdle break. PRINCE. O, if it should, how would thy guts fall about thy knees! But, sirrah, there’s no room for faith, truth, nor honesty in this bosom of thine; it is all filled up with midriff. Charge an honest woman with picking thy pocket! Why, thou whoreson, impudent, embossed rascal, if there were anything in thy pocket but tavern reckonings, memorandums of bawdy houses, and one poor pennyworth of sugar-candy to make thee long-winded, if thy pocket were enriched with any other injuries but these, I am a villain. And yet you will stand to it, you will not pocket up wrong. Art thou not ashamed! FALSTAFF. Dost thou hear, Hal? Thou knowest in the state of innocency Adam fell, and what should poor Jack Falstaff do in the days of villainy? Thou seest I have more flesh than another man and therefore more frailty. You confess, then, you picked my pocket? PRINCE. It appears so by the story. FALSTAFF. Hostess, I forgive thee. Go make ready breakfast, love thy husband, look to thy servants, cherish thy guests. Thou shalt find me tractable to any honest reason. Thou seest I am pacified still. Nay, prithee, be gone. [_Exit Hostess._] Now, Hal, to the news at court. For the robbery, lad, how is that answered? PRINCE. O, my sweet beef, I must still be good angel to thee. The money is paid back again. FALSTAFF. O, I do not like that paying back, ’tis a double labour. PRINCE. I am good friends with my father, and may do anything. FALSTAFF. Rob me the exchequer the first thing thou dost, and do it with unwashed hands too. BARDOLPH. Do, my lord. PRINCE. I have procured thee, Jack, a charge of foot. FALSTAFF. I would it had been of horse. Where shall I find one that can steal well? O, for a fine thief, of the age of two-and-twenty or thereabouts! I am heinously unprovided. Well, God be thanked for these rebels; they offend none but the virtuous. I laud them, I praise them. PRINCE. Bardolph! BARDOLPH. My lord? PRINCE. Go bear this letter to Lord John of Lancaster, To my brother John; this to my Lord of Westmoreland. [_Exit Bardolph._] Go, Peto, to horse, to horse, for thou and I Have thirty miles to ride yet ere dinner-time. [_Exit Peto._] Jack, meet me tomorrow in the Temple hall At two o’clock in the afternoon; There shalt thou know thy charge, and there receive Money and order for their furniture. The land is burning, Percy stands on high, And either we or they must lower lie. [_Exit._] FALSTAFF. Rare words! Brave world!—Hostess, my breakfast, come.— O, I could wish this tavern were my drum. [_Exit._] ACT IV SCENE I. The Rebel Camp near Shrewsbury. Enter Hotspur, Worcester and Douglas. HOTSPUR. Well said, my noble Scot. If speaking truth In this fine age were not thought flattery, Such attribution should the Douglas have As not a soldier of this season’s stamp Should go so general current through the world. By God, I cannot flatter, I do defy The tongues of soothers, but a braver place In my heart’s love hath no man than yourself. Nay, task me to my word; approve me, lord. DOUGLAS. Thou art the king of honour. No man so potent breathes upon the ground But I will beard him. HOTSPUR. Do so, and ’tis well. Enter a Messenger with letters. What letters hast thou there? I can but thank you. MESSENGER. These letters come from your father. HOTSPUR. Letters from him! Why comes he not himself? MESSENGER. He cannot come, my lord, he is grievous sick. HOTSPUR. Zounds, how has he the leisure to be sick In such a justling time? Who leads his power? Under whose government come they along? MESSENGER. His letters bear his mind, not I, my lord. WORCESTER. I prithee, tell me, doth he keep his bed? MESSENGER. He did, my lord, four days ere I set forth, And at the time of my departure thence He was much fear’d by his physicians. WORCESTER. I would the state of time had first been whole Ere he by sickness had been visited. His health was never better worth than now. HOTSPUR. Sick now? Droop now? This sickness doth infect The very life-blood of our enterprise; ’Tis catching hither, even to our camp. He writes me here, that inward sickness— And that his friends by deputation could not So soon be drawn, nor did he think it meet To lay so dangerous and dear a trust On any soul removed but on his own. Yet doth he give us bold advertisement That with our small conjunction we should on, To see how fortune is disposed to us; For, as he writes, there is no quailing now, Because the King is certainly possess’d Of all our purposes. What say you to it? WORCESTER. Your father’s sickness is a maim to us. HOTSPUR. A perilous gash, a very limb lopp’d off— And yet, in faith, it is not! His present want Seems more than we shall find it. Were it good To set the exact wealth of all our states All at one cast? To set so rich a main On the nice hazard of one doubtful hour? It were not good, for therein should we read The very bottom and the soul of hope, The very list, the very utmost bound Of all our fortunes. DOUGLAS. Faith, and so we should, where now remains A sweet reversion. We may boldly spend Upon the hope of what is to come in. A comfort of retirement lives in this. HOTSPUR. A rendezvous, a home to fly unto, If that the devil and mischance look big Upon the maidenhead of our affairs. WORCESTER. But yet I would your father had been here. The quality and hair of our attempt Brooks no division. It will be thought By some that know not why he is away, That wisdom, loyalty, and mere dislike Of our proceedings, kept the Earl from hence. And think how such an apprehension May turn the tide of fearful faction, And breed a kind of question in our cause. For well you know we of the off’ring side Must keep aloof from strict arbitrement, And stop all sight-holes, every loop from whence The eye of reason may pry in upon us. This absence of your father’s draws a curtain That shows the ignorant a kind of fear Before not dreamt of. HOTSPUR. You strain too far. I rather of his absence make this use: It lends a lustre and more great opinion, A larger dare to our great enterprise, Than if the Earl were here; for men must think If we without his help can make a head To push against the kingdom, with his help We shall o’erturn it topsy-turvy down. Yet all goes well, yet all our joints are whole. DOUGLAS. As heart can think. There is not such a word Spoke in Scotland as this term of fear. Enter Sir Richard Vernon. HOTSPUR. My cousin Vernon! Welcome, by my soul. VERNON. Pray God my news be worth a welcome, lord. The Earl of Westmoreland, seven thousand strong, Is marching hitherwards, with him Prince John. HOTSPUR. No harm, what more? VERNON. And further, I have learn’d The King himself in person is set forth, Or hitherwards intended speedily, With strong and mighty preparation. HOTSPUR. He shall be welcome too. Where is his son, The nimble-footed madcap Prince of Wales, And his comrades, that daffed the world aside And bid it pass? VERNON. All furnish’d, all in arms; All plumed like estridges that with the wind Bated like eagles having lately bathed, Glittering in golden coats, like images, As full of spirit as the month of May, And gorgeous as the sun at midsummer; Wanton as youthful goats, wild as young bulls. I saw young Harry with his beaver on, His cuisses on his thighs, gallantly arm’d, Rise from the ground like feather’d Mercury, And vaulted with such ease into his seat As if an angel dropp’d down from the clouds, To turn and wind a fiery Pegasus, And witch the world with noble horsemanship. HOTSPUR. No more, no more! Worse than the sun in March, This praise doth nourish agues. Let them come! They come like sacrifices in their trim, And to the fire-eyed maid of smoky war All hot and bleeding will we offer them. The mailed Mars shall on his altar sit Up to the ears in blood. I am on fire To hear this rich reprisal is so nigh, And yet not ours. Come, let me taste my horse, Who is to bear me like a thunderbolt Against the bosom of the Prince of Wales. Harry to Harry shall, hot horse to horse, Meet and ne’er part till one drop down a corse. O, that Glendower were come! VERNON. There is more news. I learn’d in Worcester, as I rode along, He cannot draw his power this fourteen days. DOUGLAS. That’s the worst tidings that I hear of yet. WORCESTER. Ay, by my faith, that bears a frosty sound. HOTSPUR. What may the King’s whole battle reach unto? VERNON. To thirty thousand. HOTSPUR. Forty let it be. My father and Glendower being both away, The powers of us may serve so great a day. Come, let us take a muster speedily. Doomsday is near; die all, die merrily. DOUGLAS. Talk not of dying. I am out of fear Of death or death’s hand for this one half year. [_Exeunt._] SCENE II. A public Road near Coventry. Enter Falstaff and Bardolph. FALSTAFF. Bardolph, get thee before to Coventry; fill me a bottle of sack. Our soldiers shall march through; we’ll to Sutton Co’fil’ tonight. BARDOLPH. Will you give me money, captain? FALSTAFF. Lay out, lay out. BARDOLPH. This bottle makes an angel. FALSTAFF. An if it do, take it for thy labour. An if it make twenty, take them all, I’ll answer the coinage. Bid my lieutenant Peto meet me at town’s end. BARDOLPH. I will, captain: farewell. [_Exit._] FALSTAFF. If I be not ashamed of my soldiers, I am a soused gurnet. I have misused the King’s press damnably. I have got, in exchange of a hundred and fifty soldiers, three hundred and odd pounds. I press me none but good householders, yeomen’s sons, inquire me out contracted bachelors, such as had been asked twice on the banns, such a commodity of warm slaves as had as lief hear the devil as a drum, such as fear the report of a caliver worse than a struck fowl or a hurt wild duck. I pressed me none but such toasts-and-butter, with hearts in their bellies no bigger than pins’ heads, and they have bought out their services; and now my whole charge consists of ancients, corporals, lieutenants, gentlemen of companies—slaves as ragged as Lazarus in the painted cloth, where the glutton’s dogs licked his sores; and such as indeed were never soldiers, but discarded unjust servingmen, younger sons to younger brothers, revolted tapsters, and ostlers trade-fallen; the cankers of a calm world and a long peace, ten times more dishonourable-ragged than an old fazed ancient; and such have I to fill up the rooms of them that have bought out their services, that you would think that I had a hundred and fifty tattered prodigals lately come from swine-keeping, from eating draff and husks. A mad fellow met me on the way, and told me I had unloaded all the gibbets and pressed the dead bodies. No eye hath seen such scarecrows. I’ll not march through Coventry with them, that’s flat. Nay, and the villains march wide betwixt the legs as if they had gyves on, for indeed I had the most of them out of prison. There’s not a shirt and a half in all my company, and the half shirt is two napkins tacked together and thrown over the shoulders like a herald’s coat without sleeves; and the shirt, to say the truth, stolen from my host at Saint Albans, or the red-nose innkeeper of Daventry. But that’s all one; they’ll find linen enough on every hedge. Enter Prince Henry and the Lord of Westmoreland. PRINCE. How now, blown Jack? How now, quilt? FALSTAFF. What, Hal! How now, mad wag? What a devil dost thou in Warwickshire? My good Lord of Westmoreland, I cry you mercy. I thought your honour had already been at Shrewsbury. WESTMORELAND. Faith, Sir John, ’tis more than time that I were there, and you too, but my powers are there already. The King, I can tell you, looks for us all. We must away all night. FALSTAFF. Tut, never fear me. I am as vigilant as a cat to steal cream. PRINCE. I think, to steal cream indeed, for thy theft hath already made thee butter. But tell me, Jack, whose fellows are these that come after? FALSTAFF. Mine, Hal, mine. PRINCE. I did never see such pitiful rascals. FALSTAFF. Tut, tut, good enough to toss; food for powder, food for powder, they’ll fill a pit as well as better. Tush, man, mortal men, mortal men. WESTMORELAND. Ay, but, Sir John, methinks they are exceeding poor and bare, too beggarly. FALSTAFF. Faith, for their poverty, I know not where they had that; and for their bareness, I am sure they never learned that of me. PRINCE. No, I’ll be sworn, unless you call three fingers on the ribs bare. But, sirrah, make haste. Percy is already in the field. [_Exit._] FALSTAFF. What, is the King encamped? WESTMORELAND. He is, Sir John. I fear we shall stay too long. [_Exit._] FALSTAFF. Well, To the latter end of a fray and the beginning of a feast Fits a dull fighter and a keen guest. [_Exit._] SCENE III. The Rebel Camp near Shrewsbury. Enter Hotspur, Worcester, Douglas and Vernon. HOTSPUR. We’ll fight with him tonight. WORCESTER. It may not be. DOUGLAS. You give him then advantage. VERNON. Not a whit. HOTSPUR. Why say you so? Looks he not for supply? VERNON. So do we. HOTSPUR. His is certain, ours is doubtful. WORCESTER. Good cousin, be advised, stir not tonight. VERNON. Do not, my lord. DOUGLAS. You do not counsel well. You speak it out of fear and cold heart. VERNON. Do me no slander, Douglas; by my life, And I dare well maintain it with my life, If well-respected honour bid me on, I hold as little counsel with weak fear As you, my lord, or any Scot that this day lives. Let it be seen tomorrow in the battle Which of us fears. DOUGLAS. Yea, or tonight. VERNON. Content. HOTSPUR. Tonight, say I. VERNON. Come, come, it may not be. I wonder much, Being men of such great leading as you are, That you foresee not what impediments Drag back our expedition. Certain horse Of my cousin Vernon’s are not yet come up. Your uncle Worcester’s horse came but today, And now their pride and mettle is asleep, Their courage with hard labour tame and dull, That not a horse is half the half himself. HOTSPUR. So are the horses of the enemy In general, journey-bated and brought low. The better part of ours are full of rest. WORCESTER. The number of the King exceedeth ours. For God’s sake, cousin, stay till all come in. [_The trumpet sounds a parley._] Enter Sir Walter Blunt. BLUNT. I come with gracious offers from the King, If you vouchsafe me hearing and respect. HOTSPUR. Welcome, Sir Walter Blunt, and would to God You were of our determination! Some of us love you well, and even those some Envy your great deservings and good name, Because you are not of our quality, But stand against us like an enemy. BLUNT. And God defend but still I should stand so, So long as out of limit and true rule You stand against anointed majesty. But to my charge. The King hath sent to know The nature of your griefs, and whereupon You conjure from the breast of civil peace Such bold hostility, teaching his duteous land Audacious cruelty. If that the King Have any way your good deserts forgot, Which he confesseth to be manifold, He bids you name your griefs, and with all speed You shall have your desires with interest And pardon absolute for yourself and these Herein misled by your suggestion. HOTSPUR. The King is kind, and well we know the King Knows at what time to promise, when to pay. My father and my uncle and myself Did give him that same royalty he wears, And when he was not six-and-twenty strong, Sick in the world’s regard, wretched and low, A poor unminded outlaw sneaking home, My father gave him welcome to the shore: And when he heard him swear and vow to God He came but to be Duke of Lancaster, To sue his livery, and beg his peace With tears of innocence and terms of zeal, My father, in kind heart and pity moved, Swore him assistance, and performed it too. Now, when the lords and barons of the realm Perceived Northumberland did lean to him, The more and less came in with cap and knee, Met him in boroughs, cities, villages, Attended him on bridges, stood in lanes, Laid gifts before him, proffer’d him their oaths, Give him their heirs as pages, follow’d him Even at the heels in golden multitudes. He presently, as greatness knows itself, Steps me a little higher than his vow Made to my father while his blood was poor Upon the naked shore at Ravenspurgh; And now forsooth takes on him to reform Some certain edicts and some strait decrees That lie too heavy on the commonwealth; Cries out upon abuses, seems to weep Over his country’s wrongs; and by this face, This seeming brow of justice, did he win The hearts of all that he did angle for; Proceeded further—cut me off the heads Of all the favourites that the absent King In deputation left behind him here When he was personal in the Irish war. BLUNT. Tut, I came not to hear this. HOTSPUR. Then to the point. In short time after, he deposed the King, Soon after that deprived him of his life, And, in the neck of that, task’d the whole state. To make that worse, suffer’d his kinsman March (Who is, if every owner were well placed, Indeed his king) to be engaged in Wales, There without ransom to lie forfeited; Disgraced me in my happy victories, Sought to entrap me by intelligence, Rated mine uncle from the Council-board, In rage dismiss’d my father from the court, Broke oath on oath, committed wrong on wrong, And in conclusion drove us to seek out This head of safety, and withal to pry Into his title, the which now we find Too indirect for long continuance. BLUNT. Shall I return this answer to the King? HOTSPUR. Not so, Sir Walter. We’ll withdraw awhile. Go to the King, and let there be impawn’d Some surety for a safe return again, And in the morning early shall my uncle Bring him our purposes. And so, farewell. BLUNT. I would you would accept of grace and love. HOTSPUR. And maybe so we shall. BLUNT. Pray God you do. [_Exeunt._] SCENE IV. York. A Room in the Archbishop’s Palace. Enter the Archbishop of York and Sir Michael. ARCHBISHOP. Hie, good Sir Michael; bear this sealed brief With winged haste to the Lord Marshal, This to my cousin Scroop, and all the rest To whom they are directed. If you knew How much they do import, you would make haste. SIR MICHAEL. My good lord, I guess their tenour. ARCHBISHOP. Like enough you do. Tomorrow, good Sir Michael, is a day Wherein the fortune of ten thousand men Must bide the touch; for, sir, at Shrewsbury, As I am truly given to understand, The King with mighty and quick-raised power Meets with Lord Harry. And, I fear, Sir Michael, What with the sickness of Northumberland, Whose power was in the first proportion, And what with Owen Glendower’s absence thence, Who with them was a rated sinew too, And comes not in, o’er-rul’d by prophecies, I fear the power of Percy is too weak To wage an instant trial with the King. SIR MICHAEL. Why, my good lord, you need not fear, There is Douglas and Lord Mortimer. ARCHBISHOP. No, Mortimer is not there. SIR MICHAEL. But there is Mordake, Vernon, Lord Harry Percy, And there is my Lord of Worcester, and a head Of gallant warriors, noble gentlemen. ARCHBISHOP. And so there is. But yet the King hath drawn The special head of all the land together: The Prince of Wales, Lord John of Lancaster, The noble Westmoreland, and warlike Blunt, And many more corrivals and dear men Of estimation and command in arms. SIR MICHAEL. Doubt not, my lord, they shall be well opposed. ARCHBISHOP. I hope no less, yet needful ’tis to fear; And to prevent the worst, Sir Michael, speed. For if Lord Percy thrive not, ere the King Dismiss his power he means to visit us, For he hath heard of our confederacy, And ’tis but wisdom to make strong against him. Therefore make haste. I must go write again To other friends; and so, farewell, Sir Michael. [_Exeunt._] ACT V SCENE I. The King’s Camp near Shrewsbury. Enter King Henry, Prince Henry, Lancaster, Sir Walter Blunt and Sir John Falstaff. KING. How bloodily the sun begins to peer Above yon bulky hill! The day looks pale At his distemp’rature. PRINCE. The southern wind Doth play the trumpet to his purposes, And by his hollow whistling in the leaves Foretells a tempest and a blust’ring day. KING. Then with the losers let it sympathize, For nothing can seem foul to those that win. [_The trumpet sounds_.] Enter Worcester and Vernon. How, now, my Lord of Worcester! ’Tis not well That you and I should meet upon such terms As now we meet. You have deceived our trust, And made us doff our easy robes of peace, To crush our old limbs in ungentle steel. This is not well, my lord, this is not well. What say you to it? Will you again unknit This churlish knot of all-abhorred war, And move in that obedient orb again Where you did give a fair and natural light, And be no more an exhaled meteor, A prodigy of fear, and a portent Of broached mischief to the unborn times? WORCESTER. Hear me, my liege: For mine own part, I could be well content To entertain the lag end of my life With quiet hours. For I do protest I have not sought the day of this dislike. KING. You have not sought it? How comes it, then? FALSTAFF. Rebellion lay in his way, and he found it. PRINCE. Peace, chewet, peace! WORCESTER. It pleased your Majesty to turn your looks Of favour from myself and all our house; And yet I must remember you, my lord, We were the first and dearest of your friends. For you my staff of office did I break In Richard’s time, and posted day and night To meet you on the way, and kiss your hand, When yet you were in place and in account Nothing so strong and fortunate as I. It was myself, my brother, and his son, That brought you home, and boldly did outdare The dangers of the time. You swore to us, And you did swear that oath at Doncaster, That you did nothing purpose ’gainst the state, Nor claim no further than your new-fall’n right, The seat of Gaunt, dukedom of Lancaster. To this we swore our aid. But in short space It rain’d down fortune show’ring on your head, And such a flood of greatness fell on you, What with our help, what with the absent King, What with the injuries of a wanton time, The seeming sufferances that you had borne, And the contrarious winds that held the King So long in his unlucky Irish wars That all in England did repute him dead: And from this swarm of fair advantages You took occasion to be quickly woo’d To gripe the general sway into your hand, Forgot your oath to us at Doncaster; And, being fed by us, you used us so As that ungentle gull, the cuckoo’s bird, Useth the sparrow—did oppress our nest, Grew by our feeding to so great a bulk That even our love durst not come near your sight For fear of swallowing; but with nimble wing We were enforced, for safety sake to fly Out of your sight, and raise this present head, Whereby we stand opposed by such means As you yourself have forged against yourself, By unkind usage, dangerous countenance, And violation of all faith and troth Sworn to us in your younger enterprise. KING. These things, indeed, you have articulate, Proclaim’d at market crosses, read in churches, To face the garment of rebellion With some fine colour that may please the eye Of fickle changelings and poor discontents, Which gape and rub the elbow at the news Of hurlyburly innovation. And never yet did insurrection want Such water-colours to impaint his cause, Nor moody beggars starving for a time Of pellmell havoc and confusion. PRINCE. In both your armies there is many a soul Shall pay full dearly for this encounter If once they join in trial. Tell your nephew, The Prince of Wales doth join with all the world In praise of Henry Percy. By my hopes, This present enterprise set off his head, I do not think a braver gentleman, More active-valiant or more valiant-young, More daring or more bold, is now alive To grace this latter age with noble deeds. For my part, I may speak it to my shame, I have a truant been to chivalry, And so I hear he doth account me too. Yet this before my father’s Majesty— I am content that he shall take the odds Of his great name and estimation, And will, to save the blood on either side, Try fortune with him in a single fight. KING. And, Prince of Wales, so dare we venture thee, Albeit considerations infinite Do make against it.—No, good Worcester, no. We love our people well, even those we love That are misled upon your cousin’s part, And, will they take the offer of our grace, Both he, and they, and you, yea, every man Shall be my friend again, and I’ll be his. So tell your cousin, and then bring me word What he will do. But if he will not yield, Rebuke and dread correction wait on us, And they shall do their office. So, be gone; We will not now be troubled with reply. We offer fair, take it advisedly. [_Exit Worcester with Vernon._] PRINCE. It will not be accepted, on my life. The Douglas and the Hotspur both together Are confident against the world in arms. KING. Hence, therefore, every leader to his charge; For on their answer, will we set on them, And God befriend us as our cause is just! [_Exeunt the King, Blunt and Prince John._] FALSTAFF. Hal, if thou see me down in the battle and bestride me, so; ’tis a point of friendship. PRINCE. Nothing but a colossus can do thee that friendship. Say thy prayers, and farewell. FALSTAFF. I would ’twere bedtime, Hal, and all well. PRINCE. Why, thou owest God a death. [_Exit._] FALSTAFF. ’Tis not due yet, I would be loth to pay Him before His day. What need I be so forward with Him that calls not on me? Well, ’tis no matter, honour pricks me on. Yea, but how if honour prick me off when I come on? How then? Can honor set to a leg? No. Or an arm? No. Or take away the grief of a wound? No. Honour hath no skill in surgery then? No. What is honour? A word. What is in that word, “honour”? What is that “honour”? Air. A trim reckoning! Who hath it? He that died o’ Wednesday. Doth he feel it? No. Doth be hear it? No. ’Tis insensible, then? Yea, to the dead. But will it not live with the living? No. Why? Detraction will not suffer it. Therefore I’ll none of it. Honour is a mere scutcheon. And so ends my catechism. [_Exit._] SCENE II. The Rebel Camp. Enter Worcester and Vernon. WORCESTER. O no, my nephew must not know, Sir Richard, The liberal and kind offer of the King. VERNON. ’Twere best he did. WORCESTER. Then are we all undone. It is not possible, it cannot be, The King should keep his word in loving us; He will suspect us still, and find a time To punish this offence in other faults. Suspicion all our lives shall be stuck full of eyes, For treason is but trusted like the fox, Who, ne’er so tame, so cherish’d and lock’d up, Will have a wild trick of his ancestors. Look how we can, or sad or merrily, Interpretation will misquote our looks, And we shall feed like oxen at a stall, The better cherish’d still the nearer death. My nephew’s trespass may be well forgot, It hath the excuse of youth and heat of blood, And an adopted name of privilege— A hare-brain’d Hotspur, govern’d by a spleen. All his offences live upon my head And on his father’s. We did train him on, And, his corruption being ta’en from us, We as the spring of all shall pay for all. Therefore, good cousin, let not Harry know In any case the offer of the King. VERNON. Deliver what you will, I’ll say ’tis so. Here comes your cousin. Enter Hotspur and Douglas; Officers and Soldiers behind. HOTSPUR. My uncle is return’d. Deliver up my Lord of Westmoreland. Uncle, what news? WORCESTER. The King will bid you battle presently. DOUGLAS. Defy him by the Lord Of Westmoreland. HOTSPUR. Lord Douglas, go you and tell him so. DOUGLAS. Marry, I shall, and very willingly. [_Exit._] WORCESTER. There is no seeming mercy in the King. HOTSPUR. Did you beg any? God forbid! WORCESTER. I told him gently of our grievances, Of his oath-breaking; which he mended thus, By now forswearing that he is forsworn. He calls us rebels, traitors, and will scourge With haughty arms this hateful name in us. Enter Douglas. DOUGLAS. Arm, gentlemen; to arms! For I have thrown A brave defiance in King Henry’s teeth, And Westmoreland, that was engaged, did bear it, Which cannot choose but bring him quickly on. WORCESTER. The Prince of Wales stepp’d forth before the King, And, nephew, challenged you to single fight. HOTSPUR. O, would the quarrel lay upon our heads, And that no man might draw short breath today But I and Harry Monmouth! Tell me, tell me, How show’d his tasking? Seem’d it in contempt? VERNON. No, by my soul. I never in my life Did hear a challenge urged more modestly, Unless a brother should a brother dare To gentle exercise and proof of arms. He gave you all the duties of a man, Trimm’d up your praises with a princely tongue, Spoke your deservings like a chronicle, Making you ever better than his praise By still dispraising praise valued with you, And, which became him like a prince indeed, He made a blushing cital of himself, And chid his truant youth with such a grace As if he master’d there a double spirit Of teaching and of learning instantly. There did he pause: but let me tell the world, If he outlive the envy of this day, England did never owe so sweet a hope So much misconstrued in his wantonness. HOTSPUR. Cousin, I think thou art enamoured Upon his follies. Never did I hear Of any prince so wild a liberty. But be he as he will, yet once ere night I will embrace him with a soldier’s arm, That he shall shrink under my courtesy. Arm, arm with speed! And, fellows, soldiers, friends, Better consider what you have to do Than I that have not well the gift of tongue Can lift your blood up with persuasion. Enter a Messenger. MESSENGER. My lord, here are letters for you. HOTSPUR. I cannot read them now.— O gentlemen, the time of life is short! To spend that shortness basely were too long If life did ride upon a dial’s point, Still ending at the arrival of an hour. And if we live, we live to tread on kings; If die, brave death, when princes die with us! Now, for our consciences, the arms are fair When the intent of bearing them is just. Enter another Messenger. MESSENGER. My lord, prepare. The King comes on apace. HOTSPUR. I thank him that he cuts me from my tale, For I profess not talking. Only this: Let each man do his best. And here draw I A sword whose temper I intend to stain With the best blood that I can meet withal In the adventure of this perilous day. Now, Esperance! Percy! And set on. Sound all the lofty instruments of war, And by that music let us all embrace, For, Heaven to Earth, some of us never shall A second time do such a courtesy. [_The trumpets sound. They embrace, and exeunt._] SCENE III. Plain between the Camps. The King enters with his power. Alarum to the battle. Then enter Douglas and Sir Walter Blunt. BLUNT. What is thy name that in the battle thus Thou crossest me? What honour dost thou seek Upon my head? DOUGLAS. Know then my name is Douglas, And I do haunt thee in the battle thus Because some tell me that thou art a king. BLUNT. They tell thee true. DOUGLAS. The Lord of Stafford dear today hath bought Thy likeness, for instead of thee, King Harry, This sword hath ended him. So shall it thee, Unless thou yield thee as my prisoner. BLUNT. I was not born a yielder, thou proud Scot, And thou shalt find a king that will revenge Lord Stafford’s death. [_They fight, and Blunt is slain._] Enter Hotspur. HOTSPUR. O Douglas, hadst thou fought at Holmedon thus, I never had triumphed upon a Scot. DOUGLAS. All’s done, all’s won; here breathless lies the King. HOTSPUR. Where? DOUGLAS. Here. HOTSPUR. This, Douglas? No, I know this face full well. A gallant knight he was, his name was Blunt, Semblably furnish’d like the King himself. DOUGLAS. A fool go with thy soul, whither it goes! A borrow’d title hast thou bought too dear. Why didst thou tell me that thou wert a king? HOTSPUR. The King hath many marching in his coats. DOUGLAS. Now, by my sword, I will kill all his coats; I’ll murder all his wardrobe, piece by piece, Until I meet the King. HOTSPUR. Up, and away! Our soldiers stand full fairly for the day. [_Exeunt._] Alarums. Enter Falstaff solus. FALSTAFF. Though I could scape shot-free at London, I fear the shot here. Here’s no scoring but upon the pate.—Soft! who are you? Sir Walter Blunt. There’s honour for you. Here’s no vanity. I am as hot as molten lead, and as heavy too. God keep lead out of me, I need no more weight than mine own bowels. I have led my ragamuffins where they are peppered. There’s not three of my hundred and fifty left alive, and they are for the town’s end, to beg during life. But who comes here? Enter Prince Henry. PRINCE. What, stand’st thou idle here? Lend me thy sword. Many a nobleman lies stark and stiff Under the hoofs of vaunting enemies, Whose deaths are yet unrevenged. I prithee Lend me thy sword. FALSTAFF. O Hal, I prithee give me leave to breathe awhile. Turk Gregory never did such deeds in arms as I have done this day. I have paid Percy, I have made him sure. PRINCE. He is indeed, and living to kill thee. I prithee, lend me thy sword. FALSTAFF. Nay, before God, Hal, if Percy be alive, thou gett’st not my sword; but take my pistol, if thou wilt. PRINCE. Give it me. What, is it in the case? FALSTAFF. Ay, Hal, ’tis hot, ’tis hot. There’s that will sack a city. [_The Prince draws out a bottle of sack._] PRINCE. What, is it a time to jest and dally now? [_Throws it at him, and exit._] FALSTAFF. Well, if Percy be alive, I’ll pierce him. If he do come in my way, so; if he do not, if I come in his willingly, let him make a carbonado of me. I like not such grinning honour as Sir Walter hath. Give me life, which if I can save, so: if not, honour comes unlooked for, and there’s an end. [_Exit._] SCENE IV. Another Part of the Field. Alarums. Excursions. Enter King Henry, Prince Henry, Lancaster and Westmoreland. KING. I prithee, Harry, withdraw thyself, thou bleedest too much. Lord John of Lancaster, go you with him. LANCASTER. Not I, my lord, unless I did bleed too. PRINCE. I do beseech your Majesty, make up, Lest your retirement do amaze your friends. KING. I will do so. My Lord of Westmoreland, Lead him to his tent. WESTMORELAND. Come, my lord, I’ll lead you to your tent. PRINCE. Lead me, my lord? I do not need your help, And God forbid a shallow scratch should drive The Prince of Wales from such a field as this, Where stain’d nobility lies trodden on, And rebels’ arms triumph in massacres! LANCASTER. We breathe too long. Come, cousin Westmoreland, Our duty this way lies. For God’s sake, come. [_Exeunt Lancaster and Westmoreland._] PRINCE. By Heaven, thou hast deceived me, Lancaster, I did not think thee lord of such a spirit. Before, I loved thee as a brother, John, But now I do respect thee as my soul. KING. I saw him hold Lord Percy at the point With lustier maintenance than I did look for Of such an ungrown warrior. PRINCE. O, this boy Lends mettle to us all! [_Exit._] Enter Douglas. DOUGLAS. Another king! They grow like Hydra’s heads. I am the Douglas, fatal to all those That wear those colours on them. What art thou That counterfeit’st the person of a king? KING. The King himself, who, Douglas, grieves at heart So many of his shadows thou hast met, And not the very King. I have two boys Seek Percy and thyself about the field, But, seeing thou fall’st on me so luckily, I will assay thee, and defend thyself. DOUGLAS. I fear thou art another counterfeit, And yet, in faith, thou bearest thee like a king. But mine I am sure thou art, whoe’er thou be, And thus I win thee. They fight; the King being in danger, enter Prince Henry. PRINCE. Hold up thy head, vile Scot, or thou art like Never to hold it up again! The spirits Of valiant Shirley, Stafford, Blunt are in my arms. It is the Prince of Wales that threatens thee, Who never promiseth but he means to pay. [_They fight. Douglas flies._] Cheerly, my lord. How fares your Grace? Sir Nicholas Gawsey hath for succour sent, And so hath Clifton. I’ll to Clifton straight. KING. Stay and breathe awhile. Thou hast redeem’d thy lost opinion, And show’d thou mak’st some tender of my life, In this fair rescue thou hast brought to me. PRINCE. O God, they did me too much injury That ever said I hearken’d for your death. If it were so, I might have let alone The insulting hand of Douglas over you, Which would have been as speedy in your end As all the poisonous potions in the world, And saved the treacherous labour of your son. KING. Make up to Clifton. I’ll to Sir Nicholas Gawsey. [_Exit._] Enter Hotspur. HOTSPUR. If I mistake not, thou art Harry Monmouth. PRINCE. Thou speak’st as if I would deny my name. HOTSPUR. My name is Harry Percy. PRINCE. Why then I see A very valiant rebel of the name. I am the Prince of Wales; and think not, Percy, To share with me in glory any more. Two stars keep not their motion in one sphere, Nor can one England brook a double reign, Of Harry Percy and the Prince of Wales. HOTSPUR. Nor shall it, Harry, for the hour is come To end the one of us, and would to God Thy name in arms were now as great as mine! PRINCE. I’ll make it greater ere I part from thee, And all the budding honours on thy crest I’ll crop to make a garland for my head. HOTSPUR. I can no longer brook thy vanities. [_They fight._] Enter Falstaff. FALSTAFF. Well said, Hal! To it, Hal! Nay, you shall find no boy’s play here, I can tell you. Enter Douglas. He fights with Falstaff, who falls down as if he were dead, and exit Douglas. The Prince kills Hotspur. HOTSPUR. O Harry, thou hast robb’d me of my youth! I better brook the loss of brittle life Than those proud titles thou hast won of me; They wound my thoughts worse than thy sword my flesh. But thoughts, the slaves of life, and life, time’s fool, And time, that takes survey of all the world, Must have a stop. O, I could prophesy, But that the earthy and cold hand of death Lies on my tongue. No, Percy, thou art dust, And food for— [_Dies._] PRINCE. For worms, brave Percy. Fare thee well, great heart! Ill-weaved ambition, how much art thou shrunk! When that this body did contain a spirit, A kingdom for it was too small a bound; But now two paces of the vilest earth Is room enough. This earth that bears thee dead Bears not alive so stout a gentleman. If thou wert sensible of courtesy, I should not make so dear a show of zeal. But let my favours hide thy mangled face; And even in thy behalf I’ll thank myself For doing these fair rites of tenderness. Adieu, and take thy praise with thee to heaven! Thy ignominy sleep with thee in the grave, But not remember’d in thy epitaph! [_Sees Falstaff on the ground._] What, old acquaintance, could not all this flesh Keep in a little life? Poor Jack, farewell! I could have better spared a better man. O, I should have a heavy miss of thee If I were much in love with vanity. Death hath not struck so fat a deer today, Though many dearer, in this bloody fray. Embowell’d will I see thee by and by, Till then in blood by noble Percy lie. [_Exit._] Falstaff rises up. FALSTAFF. Embowell’d! If thou embowel me today, I’ll give you leave to powder me and eat me too tomorrow. ’Sblood, ’twas time to counterfeit, or that hot termagant Scot had paid me scot and lot too. Counterfeit? I lie, I am no counterfeit. To die, is to be a counterfeit, for he is but the counterfeit of a man who hath not the life of a man: but to counterfeit dying, when a man thereby liveth, is to be no counterfeit, but the true and perfect image of life indeed. The better part of valour is discretion, in the which better part I have saved my life. Zounds, I am afraid of this gunpowder Percy, though he be dead. How if he should counterfeit too, and rise? By my faith, I am afraid he would prove the better counterfeit. Therefore I’ll make him sure, yea, and I’ll swear I killed him. Why may not he rise as well as I? Nothing confutes me but eyes, and nobody sees me. Therefore, sirrah, with a new wound in your thigh, come you along with me. [_Takes Hotspur on his back._] Enter Prince Henry and Lancaster. PRINCE. Come, brother John, full bravely hast thou flesh’d Thy maiden sword. LANCASTER. But soft, whom have we here? Did you not tell me this fat man was dead? PRINCE. I did; I saw him dead, Breathless and bleeding on the ground.—Art thou alive? Or is it fantasy that plays upon our eyesight? I prithee, speak, we will not trust our eyes Without our ears. Thou art not what thou seem’st. FALSTAFF. No, that’s certain, I am not a double man. But if I be not Jack Falstaff, then am I a Jack. There is Percy! [_Throwing the body down._] If your father will do me any honour, so; if not, let him kill the next Percy himself. I look to be either earl or duke, I can assure you. PRINCE. Why, Percy I kill’d myself, and saw thee dead. FALSTAFF. Didst thou? Lord, Lord, how this world is given to lying! I grant you I was down and out of breath, and so was he, but we rose both at an instant, and fought a long hour by Shrewsbury clock. If I may be believed, so; if not, let them that should reward valour bear the sin upon their own heads. I’ll take it upon my death, I gave him this wound in the thigh. If the man were alive, and would deny it, zounds, I would make him eat a piece of my sword. LANCASTER. This is the strangest tale that ever I heard. PRINCE. This is the strangest fellow, brother John.— Come, bring your luggage nobly on your back. For my part, if a lie may do thee grace, I’ll gild it with the happiest terms I have. [_A retreat is sounded._] The trumpet sounds retreat; the day is ours. Come, brother, let us to the highest of the field, To see what friends are living, who are dead. [_Exeunt Prince Henry and Lancaster._] FALSTAFF. I’ll follow, as they say, for reward. He that rewards me, God reward him! If I do grow great, I’ll grow less, for I’ll purge, and leave sack, and live cleanly as a nobleman should do. [_Exit, bearing off the body._] SCENE V. Another Part of the Field. The trumpets sound. Enter King Henry, Prince Henry, Lancaster, Westmoreland and others, with Worcester and Vernon prisoners. KING. Thus ever did rebellion find rebuke. Ill-spirited Worcester, did not we send grace, Pardon, and terms of love to all of you? And wouldst thou turn our offers contrary? Misuse the tenour of thy kinsman’s trust? Three knights upon our party slain today, A noble earl, and many a creature else, Had been alive this hour, If, like a Christian, thou hadst truly borne Betwixt our armies true intelligence. WORCESTER. What I have done my safety urged me to; And I embrace this fortune patiently, Since not to be avoided it falls on me. KING. Bear Worcester to the death, and Vernon too. Other offenders we will pause upon. [_Exeunt Worcester and Vernon, guarded._] How goes the field? PRINCE. The noble Scot, Lord Douglas, when he saw The fortune of the day quite turn’d from him, The noble Percy slain, and all his men Upon the foot of fear, fled with the rest, And, falling from a hill, he was so bruised That the pursuers took him. At my tent The Douglas is, and I beseech your Grace I may dispose of him. KING. With all my heart. PRINCE. Then, brother John of Lancaster, to you This honourable bounty shall belong. Go to the Douglas and deliver him Up to his pleasure, ransomless and free. His valours shown upon our crests today Hath taught us how to cherish such high deeds, Even in the bosom of our adversaries. LANCASTER. I thank your Grace for this high courtesy, Which I shall give away immediately. KING. Then this remains, that we divide our power. You, son John, and my cousin Westmoreland, Towards York shall bend you with your dearest speed To meet Northumberland and the prelate Scroop, Who, as we hear, are busily in arms. Myself and you, son Harry, will towards Wales, To fight with Glendower and the Earl of March. Rebellion in this land shall lose his sway, Meeting the check of such another day, And since this business so fair is done, Let us not leave till all our own be won. [_Exeunt._] THE SECOND PART OF KING HENRY THE FOURTH Contents INDUCTION ACT I Scene I. The same. Scene II. London. A street. Scene III. York. The Archbishop’s palace. ACT II Scene I. London. A street. Scene II. London. Another street. Scene III. Warkworth. Before the castle. Scene IV. The Boar’s head Tavern in Eastcheap. ACT III Scene I. Westminster. The palace. Scene II. Gloucestershire. Before Justice Shallow’s house. ACT IV Scene I. Yorkshire. Gaultree Forest. Scene II. Another part of the forest. Scene III. Another part of the forest. Scene IV. Westminster. The Jerusalem Chamber. Scene V. Another chamber. ACT V Scene I. Gloucestershire. Shallow’s house. Scene II. Westminster. The palace. Scene III. Gloucestershire. Shallow’s orchard. Scene IV. London. A street. Scene V. A public place near Westminster Abbey. EPILOGUE Dramatis Personæ RUMOUR, the Presenter. KING HENRY the Fourth. HENRY, PRINCE OF WALES, afterwards King Henry the Fifth. THOMAS, DUKE OF CLARENCE. PRINCE JOHN OF LANCASTER. PRINCE HUMPHREY OF GLOUCESTER. EARL OF WARWICK. EARL OF WESTMORELAND. EARL OF SURREY. GOWER. HARCOURT. SIR JOHN BLUNT. Lord CHIEF JUSTICE of the King’s Bench. A SERVANT of the Chief Justice. Henry Percy, Earl of NORTHUMBERLAND. Scroop, ARCHBISHOP of York. Lord MOWBRAY. Lord HASTINGS. LORD BARDOLPH. SIR JOHN COLEVILLE. TRAVERS and MORTON, retainers of Northumberland. SIR JOHN FALSTAFF. His Page. BARDOLPH. PISTOL. POINS. PETO. SHALLOW and SILENCE, country justices. DAVY, Servant to Shallow. MOULDY, SHADOW, WART, FEEBLE, and BULLCALF, recruits. FANG and SNARE, sheriff’s officers. LADY NORTHUMBERLAND. LADY PERCY. MISTRESS QUICKLY, hostess of a tavern in Eastcheap. DOLL TEARSHEET. Lords and Attendants; Porter, Drawers, Musicians, Beadles, Grooms, etc. A Dancer, speaker of the epilogue. SCENE: England. 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 wav’ring 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 rebels’ 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 learnt of me. From Rumour’s tongues They bring smooth comforts false, worse than true wrongs. [_Exit._] 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 will 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 dread 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, Rend’ring faint quittance, wearied and outbreathed, 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 that noble Worcester Too soon ta’en prisoner; and that furious Scot, The bloody Douglas, whose well-labouring sword Had three times slain th’ 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 coif! 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 th’ 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! LORD BARDOLPH. This strained passion doth you wrong, my lord. MORTON. Sweet earl, divorce not wisdom from your honour. 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 th’ 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 befall’n, 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 out 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 put forth, body and goods. MORTON. ’Tis more than time. And, my most noble lord, I hear for certain, and dare 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 follow’d 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._] 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 moe 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 judgement. 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 fledge. I will sooner have a beard grow in the palm of my hand than he shall get one off 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 Dommelton 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 he 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. CHIEF JUSTICE. What’s he that goes there? SERVANT. Falstaff, an ’t please your lordship. 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. 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. CHIEF JUSTICE. I am sure he is, to the hearing of anything 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 your 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 get’st any leave of me, hang me; if thou tak’st leave, thou wert better be hanged. You hunt counter. Hence! Avaunt! SERVANT. Sir, my lord would speak with you. 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 most humbly beseech your lordship to have a reverend care of your health. 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. 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. CHIEF JUSTICE. Well, God mend him! I pray you let me speak with you. FALSTAFF. This apoplexy, as I take it, is a kind of lethargy, an ’t please your lordship, a kind of sleeping in the blood, a whoreson tingling. CHIEF JUSTICE. What tell you me of it? Be it as it is. FALSTAFF. It hath it 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. 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. 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 I should be your patient to follow your prescriptions, the wise may make some dram of a scruple, or indeed a scruple itself. 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. CHIEF JUSTICE. Well, the truth is, Sir John, you live in great infamy. FALSTAFF. He that buckles himself in my belt cannot live in less. 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. 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. 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 th’ unquiet time for your quiet o’er-posting that action. FALSTAFF. My 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 smell a fox. 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. CHIEF JUSTICE. There is not a white hair in your face but should have his effect of gravity. FALSTAFF. His effect of gravy, gravy, gravy. 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 costermongers’ times that true valour is turned bearherd; 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. 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 judgement 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 checked him for it, and the young lion repents. Marry, not in ashes and sackcloth, but in new silk and old sack. 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. 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 anything 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. 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? 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 he 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 of 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 anything. I will turn diseases to commodity. [_Exit._] SCENE III. York. The Archbishop’s palace. Enter the Archbishop, the Lords Hastings, Mowbray and Bardolph. ARCHBISHOP. 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 judgement 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. ’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, Flatt’ring 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 th’ 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 we must 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 least 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. 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. 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 provok’st 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 th’ 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._] ACT II SCENE I. London. A street. Enter Hostess with two Officers, Fang and Snare, following. HOSTESS. Master Fang, have you entered the action? FANG. It is entered. HOSTESS. Where’s your yeoman? Is ’t a lusty yeoman? Will he stand to ’t? FANG. Sirrah, where’s Snare? HOSTESS. O Lord, ay! Good Master Snare. SNARE. Here, here. FANG. Snare, we must arrest Sir John Falstaff. HOSTESS. Yea, good Master Snare, I have entered him and all. SNARE. It may chance cost some of our lives, for he will stab. HOSTESS. 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. HOSTESS. No, nor I neither. I’ll be at your elbow. FANG. An I but fist him once, an he come but within my vice,— HOSTESS. 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. He 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 you, 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 arrant 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, Bardolph and Page. 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. HOSTESS. 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 honeyseed rogue, thou art a honeyseed, a man-queller, and a woman-queller. FALSTAFF. Keep them off, Bardolph. FANG. A rescue! A rescue! HOSTESS. 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 hempseed! PAGE. Away, you scullion! you rampallian! you fustilarian! I’ll tickle your catastrophe. Enter the Lord Chief Justice and his men. CHIEF JUSTICE. What is the matter? Keep the peace here, ho! HOSTESS. Good my lord, be good to me. I beseech you stand to me. 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 thou upon him? HOSTESS. O my most worshipful lord, an’t please your Grace, I am a poor widow of Eastcheap, and he is arrested at my suit. CHIEF JUSTICE. For what sum? HOSTESS. 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. 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? HOSTESS. 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 green wound? And didst thou not, when she was gone downstairs, 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 her 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. 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. HOSTESS. Yea, in truth, my lord. CHIEF JUSTICE. Pray thee, peace. Pay her the debt you owe her, and unpay the villany you have done with 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 curtsy 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. CHIEF JUSTICE. You speak as having power to do wrong; but answer in th’ effect of your reputation, and satisfy the poor woman. FALSTAFF. Come hither, hostess. Enter Gower. 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. HOSTESS. Faith, you said so before. FALSTAFF. As I am a gentleman. Come, no more words of it. HOSTESS. 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 waterwork, is worth a thousand of these bed-hangers 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. HOSTESS. 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. HOSTESS. 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. HOSTESS. Will you have Doll Tearsheet meet you at supper? FALSTAFF. No more words, let’s have her. [_Exeunt Hostess, Fang, Snare, Bardolph and Page._] CHIEF JUSTICE. I have heard better news. FALSTAFF. What’s the news, my lord? CHIEF JUSTICE. Where lay the King tonight? GOWER. At Basingstoke, my lord. FALSTAFF. I hope, my lord, all’s well. What is the news, my lord? CHIEF JUSTICE. Come all his forces back? GOWER. No, fifteen hundred foot, five hundred horse Are march’d up to my Lord of Lancaster, Against Northumberland and the Archbishop. FALSTAFF. Comes the King back from Wales, my noble lord? CHIEF JUSTICE. You shall have letters of me presently. Come, go along with me, good Master Gower. FALSTAFF. My 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. 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? 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. CHIEF JUSTICE. Now the Lord lighten thee, thou art a great fool. [_Exeunt._] SCENE II. London. Another street. Enter Prince Henry and Poins. PRINCE. 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. 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. 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 tomorrow! 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 of 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. Shall I tell thee one thing, Poins? POINS. Yes, faith, and let it be an excellent good thing. PRINCE. 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. Marry, I tell thee it is not meet that I should be sad, now my father is sick; albeit I could tell to 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. 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. What wouldst thou think of me if I should weep? POINS. I would think thee a most princely hypocrite. PRINCE. 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 roadway 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. And to thee. POINS. By this light, I am well spoke on; I can hear it with mine 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. And the boy that I gave Falstaff. He had him from me Christian, and look if the fat villain have not transformed him ape. BARDOLPH. God save your Grace! PRINCE. And yours, most noble Bardolph! POINS. 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. He 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. Has not the boy profited? BARDOLPH. Away, you whoreson upright rabbit, away! PAGE. Away, you rascally Althaea’s dream, away! PRINCE. Instruct us, boy; what dream, boy? PAGE. Marry, my lord, Althaea dreamt she was delivered of a firebrand; and therefore I call him her dream. PRINCE. A crown’s worth of good interpretation. There ’tis, boy. POINS. O, that this blossom could be kept from cankers! Well, there is sixpence to preserve thee. BARDOLPH. An you do not make him be hanged among you, the gallows shall have wrong. PRINCE. 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. I do allow this wen to be as familiar with me as my dog, and he holds his place, for look you how he 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. Nay, they will be kin to us, or they will fetch it from Japhet. But to the letter: “Sir John Falstaff, knight, to the son of the King, nearest his father, Harry Prince of Wales, greeting.” POINS. Why, this is a certificate. PRINCE. Peace! “I will imitate the honourable Romans in brevity.” POINS. He sure means brevity in breath, short-winded. PRINCE. “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 mayst, 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.” POINS. My lord, I’ll steep this letter in sack and make him eat it. PRINCE. 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. 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. Where sups he? Doth the old boar feed in the old frank? BARDOLPH. At the old place, my lord, in Eastcheap. PRINCE. What company? PAGE. Ephesians, my lord, of the old church. PRINCE. Sup any women with him? PAGE. None, my lord, but old Mistress Quickly and Mistress Doll Tearsheet. PRINCE. What pagan may that be? PAGE. A proper gentlewoman, sir, and a kinswoman of my master’s. PRINCE. 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. 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. 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 Albans and London. PRINCE. How might we see Falstaff bestow himself tonight 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. From a god to a bull? A heavy descension! It was Jove’s case. From a prince to a ’prentice? A low transformation that shall be mine, for in everything the purpose must weigh with the folly. Follow me, Ned. [_Exeunt._] 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 endear’d 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 practis’d not his gait; And speaking thick, which nature made his blemish, Became the accents of the valiant; For those who 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, Today 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._] SCENE IV. London. The Boar’s head Tavern in Eastcheap. Enter two Drawers. FIRST DRAWER. What the devil hast thou brought there—applejohns? Thou knowest Sir John cannot endure an applejohn. SECOND DRAWER. Mass, thou sayest true. The Prince once set a dish of applejohns 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 Hostess and Doll Tearsheet. HOSTESS. 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. Better than I was. Hem! HOSTESS. 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! HOSTESS. Sick of a calm, yea, good faith. FALSTAFF. So is all her sect; an they be once in a calm, they are sick. DOLL. A pox damn you, you muddy rascal, is that all the comfort you give me? FALSTAFF. You make fat rascals, Mistress Doll. DOLL. 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. Yea, joy, our chains and our jewels. FALSTAFF. “Your brooches, 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. Hang yourself, you muddy conger, hang yourself! HOSTESS. 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 as they say, the emptier vessel. DOLL. 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. Enter First Drawer. FIRST DRAWER. Sir, Ancient Pistol’s below, and would speak with you. DOLL. Hang him, swaggering rascal! Let him not come hither: it is the foul-mouthed’st rogue in England. HOSTESS. 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? HOSTESS. Pray ye pacify yourself, Sir John. There comes no swaggerers here. FALSTAFF. Dost thou hear? It is mine ancient. HOSTESS. Tilly-fally, Sir John, ne’er tell me. And our 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 Dumb, our minister, was by then—“Neighbour Quickly,” says he, “receive those that are civil, for,” said he “you are in an ill name.” Now he 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._] HOSTESS. 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. So you do, hostess. HOSTESS. 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 not hardly offend her. HOSTESS. 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. 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. 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. HOSTESS. No, good Captain Pistol, not here, sweet captain. DOLL. 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 th’ infernal deep, with Erebus and tortures vile also. Hold hook and line, say I. Down, down, dogs! Down, faitors! Have we not Hiren here? HOSTESS. Good Captain Peesel, be quiet, ’tis very late, i’ faith. I beseek you now, aggravate your choler. PISTOL. These be good humours, indeed! Shall packhorses And hollow pamper’d jades of Asia, Which cannot go but thirty mile a day, Compare with Caesars and with Cannibals, And Trojant Greeks? Nay, rather damn them with King Cerberus; and let the welkin roar. Shall we fall foul for toys? HOSTESS. By my troth, captain, these are very bitter words. BARDOLPH. Be gone, good ancient. This will grow to a brawl anon. PISTOL. Die men like dogs! Give crowns like pins! Have we not Hiren here? HOSTESS. 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 nothings? FALSTAFF. Pistol, I would be quiet. PISTOL. Sweet knight, I kiss thy neaf. What! we have seen the seven stars. DOLL. For God’s sake, thrust him downstairs. I cannot endure such a fustian rascal. PISTOL. Thrust him downstairs? Know we not Galloway nags? FALSTAFF. Quoit him down, Bardolph, like a shove-groat shilling. Nay, an he do nothing but speak nothing, he shall be nothing here. BARDOLPH. Come, get you downstairs. 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 Untwind the Sisters Three! Come, Atropos, I say! HOSTESS. Here’s goodly stuff toward! FALSTAFF. Give me my rapier, boy. DOLL. I pray thee, Jack, I pray thee, do not draw. FALSTAFF. Get you downstairs. [_Drawing, and driving Pistol out._] HOSTESS. 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 Bardolph and Pistol._] DOLL. I pray thee, Jack, be quiet. The rascal’s gone. Ah, you whoreson little valiant villain, you! HOSTESS. Are you not hurt i’ th’ groin? Methought he made a shrewd thrust at your belly. Enter Bardolph. FALSTAFF. Have you turned him out o’ doors? BARDOLPH. Yea, sir. The rascal’s drunk. You have hurt him, sir, i’ th’ shoulder. FALSTAFF. A rascal, to brave me! DOLL. Ah, you sweet little rogue, you! Alas, poor ape, how thou sweat’st! 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. 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. I’ faith, and thou followedst him like a church. Thou whoreson little tidy Bartholomew boar-pig, when wilt thou leave fighting a-days and foining a-nights, and begin to patch up thine old body for heaven? Enter, behind, Prince Henry and Poins, disguised as drawers. FALSTAFF. Peace, good Doll, do not speak like a death’s-head; do not bid me remember mine end. DOLL. Sirrah, what humour ’s the Prince of? FALSTAFF. A good shallow young fellow; he would have made a good pantler; he would ha’ chipped bread well. DOLL. 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. Why does the Prince love him so, then? FALSTAFF. Because their legs are both of a bigness, and he 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 joint 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 he 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. Would not this nave of a wheel have his ears cut off? POINS. Let’s beat him before his whore. PRINCE. Look whe’er 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. Saturn and Venus this year in conjunction! What says th’ 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. By my troth, I kiss thee with a most constant heart. FALSTAFF. I am old, I am old. DOLL. 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 tomorrow. A merry song! Come, it grows late, we’ll to bed. Thou’lt forget me when I am gone. DOLL. By my troth, thou’lt set me a-weeping an thou sayest so. Prove that ever I dress myself handsome till thy return. Well, hearken a’ th’ end. FALSTAFF. Some sack, Francis. PRINCE & POINS. Anon, anon, sir. [_Coming forward._] FALSTAFF. Ha! A bastard son of the King’s? And art thou not Poins his brother? PRINCE. 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. Very true, sir, and I come to draw you out by the ears. HOSTESS. O, the Lord preserve thy 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. 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. You whoreson candle-mine, you, how vilely did you speak of me even now before this honest, virtuous, civil gentlewoman! HOSTESS. God’s blessing of your good heart! and so she is, by my troth. FALSTAFF. Didst thou hear me? PRINCE. 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. 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. Not to dispraise me, and call me pantler and bread-chipper and I know not what? FALSTAFF. No abuse, Hal. POINS. No abuse? FALSTAFF. No abuse, Ned, i’ th’ world, honest Ned, none. I dispraised him before the wicked, that the wicked might not fall in love with thee; 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. 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. For the women? FALSTAFF. For one of them, she’s in hell already, and burns poor souls. For th’ other, I owe her money, and whether she be damned for that I know not. HOSTESS. 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. HOSTESS. All victuallers do so. What’s a joint of mutton or two in a whole Lent? PRINCE. You, gentlewoman. DOLL. What says your Grace? FALSTAFF. His grace says that which his flesh rebels against. [Peto _knocks at door._] HOSTESS. Who knocks so loud at door? Look to th’ door there, Francis. Enter Peto. PRINCE. 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, Bareheaded, sweating, knocking at the taverns, And asking everyone for Sir John Falstaff. PRINCE. 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, 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? 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. I cannot speak; if my heart be not ready to burst—well, sweet Jack, have a care of thyself. FALSTAFF. Farewell, farewell. [_Exeunt Falstaff and Bardolph._] HOSTESS. 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! HOSTESS. What’s the matter? BARDOLPH. [_Within_.] Bid Mistress Tearsheet come to my master. HOSTESS. O, run, Doll, run; run, good Doll; come. She comes blubbered. Yea, will you come, Doll? [_Exeunt._] ACT III SCENE I. Westminster. The palace. Enter the King in his nightgown, with a Page. KING. 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 thousands 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 hushed 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 deafing 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. Is it good morrow, lords? WARWICK. ’Tis one o’clock, and past. KING. 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. 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. 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 chance’s mocks 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— [_To Warwick_.] You, cousin Nevil, as I may remember— When Richard, with his eye brimful of tears, Then check’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 natures 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, who in their seeds And weak beginning 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. 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 feared. 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. I will take your counsel. And were these inward wars once out of hand, We would, dear lords, unto the Holy Land. [_Exeunt._] SCENE II. Gloucestershire. Before Justice 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. 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 no, 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. He 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 anything, and I would have done anything 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 Scoggin’s head at the court gate, when he 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. SHALLOW. 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! He drew a good bow, and dead! He shot a fine shoot. John a Gaunt loved him well, and betted much money on his head. Dead! He would have clapped i’ th’ 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. SHALLOW. Good morrow, honest gentlemen. BARDOLPH. 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, sir, I have heard the word—phrase call you it? By this 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 he 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, so, so, so, 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 it 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 th’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, 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’d 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’ th’ 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 will have away thy cold, and I will take such order that thy 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 th’ 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 watchword was “Hem boys!” Come, let’s to dinner; come, let’s to dinner. Jesus, the days that we have seen! Come, come. [_Exeunt Falstaff, Shallow and Silence._] 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 anything 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’s 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, th’art a good fellow. FEEBLE. Faith, I’ll bear no base mind. 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 thews, 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. He 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. Thas, thas, thas. FALSTAFF. Come, manage me your caliver. So, very well, go to, very good, exceeding good. O, give me always a little, lean, old, chopt, bald shot. Well said, i’ faith, Wart. Th’art 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 he would manage you his piece thus. And he would about and about, and come you in and come you in. “Rah, tah, tah,” would he say. “Bounce” would he say; and away again would he go, and again would he 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 tonight. 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 he was naked, he was, for all the world, like a forked radish, with a head fantastically carved upon it with a knife. He was so forlorn, that his dimensions to any thick sight were invincible. He was the very genius of famine, yet lecherous as a monkey, and the whores called him mandrake. He came ever in the rearward of the fashion, and sung those tunes to the overscutched huswives that he heard the carmen whistle, and sware 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 he 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 ’t shall go hard but I’ll 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._] ACT IV SCENE I. Yorkshire. Gaultree Forest. Enter the Archbishop of York, Mowbray, Hastings and others. ARCHBISHOP. What is this forest call’d? HASTINGS. ’Tis Gaultree Forest, an ’t shall please your Grace. ARCHBISHOP. Here stand, my lords, and send discoverers forth To know the numbers of our enemies. HASTINGS. We have sent forth already. ARCHBISHOP. ’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 meeting 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. Enter Westmoreland. ARCHBISHOP. What well-appointed leader fronts us here? 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. 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 maintain’d, 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 you do so ill translate yourself 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 loud trumpet and a point of war? ARCHBISHOP. 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 th’ 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. Whenever 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. 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 rememb’red 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 Henry 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 sparkling 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 gentleman. 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, everything set off That might so much as think you enemies. MOWBRAY. But he hath forc’d 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 hearts 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. 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. 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. 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. ’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. 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. Before, and greet his Grace. My lord, we come. [_Exeunt._] SCENE II. Another part of the forest. Enter, from one side, Mowbray, attended; afterwards, the Archbishop, 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 abroach 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 th’ 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. 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. 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 please them. Hie thee, captain. [_Exit Officer._] ARCHBISHOP. 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. 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. 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 tomorrow.” ARCHBISHOP. 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. 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. Go, good Lord Hastings, And, ere they be dismiss’d, let them march by. [_Exit Hastings._] LANCASTER. I trust, lords, we shall lie tonight together. 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. 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 capital treason I attach you both. MOWBRAY. Is this proceeding just and honourable? WESTMORELAND. Is your assembly so? ARCHBISHOP. 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 scattr’d stray: God, and not we, hath safely fought today. Some guard these traitors to the block of death, Treason’s true bed and yielder-up of breath. [_Exeunt._] 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 indifferency, 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 everything 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 check 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. 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 crudy 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’ extremes. 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._] SCENE IV. Westminster. The Jerusalem Chamber. Enter the King, Warwick, Thomas Duke of Clarence and Humphrey Duke of Gloucester and others. KING. 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 everything 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. Humphrey, my son of Gloucester, Where is the Prince your brother? GLOUCESTER. I think he’s gone to hunt, my lord, at Windsor. KING. And how accompanied? GLOUCESTER. I do not know, my lord. KING. 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. 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 you perceive his blood inclined to mirth; But, being moody, give him time 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. Why art thou not at Windsor with him, Thomas? CLARENCE. He is not there today; he dines in London. KING. And how accompanied? Canst thou tell that? CLARENCE. With Poins, and other his continual followers. KING. 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 th’ 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 looked upon and learned; which once attained, 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 other, Turning past evils to advantages. KING. ’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 unsheathed, But Peace puts forth her olive everywhere. The manner how this action hath been borne Here at more leisure may your Highness read, With every course in his particular. KING. 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 shrieve of Yorkshire overthrown. The manner and true order of the fight This packet, please it you, contains at large. KING. 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. Th’ 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. I pray you take me up, and bear me hence Into some other chamber: softly, pray. [_Exeunt._] SCENE V. Another chamber. The King lying on a bed. Clarence, Gloucester, Warwick and others in attendance. KING. 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. 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. Who saw the Duke of Clarence? CLARENCE. I am here, brother, full of heaviness. PRINCE. How now, rain within doors, and none abroad? How doth the King? GLOUCESTER. Exceeding ill. PRINCE. Heard he the good news yet? Tell it him. GLOUCESTER. He alt’red much upon the hearing it. PRINCE. 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. No, I will sit and watch here by the King. [_Exeunt all but the Prince._] 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 scald’st 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 from thy place and blood, Derives itself to me. Lo, where 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. Warwick! Gloucester! Clarence! Enter Warwick, Gloucester, Clarence and the rest. CLARENCE. Doth the King call? WARWICK. What would your Majesty? How fares your Grace? KING. 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. 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. Where is the crown? Who took it from my pillow? WARWICK. When we withdrew, my liege, we left it here. KING. 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, tolling 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 Yields his engrossments to the ending father. Enter Warwick. Now where is he that will not stay so long Till his friend sickness hath determin’d me? WARWICK. My lord, I found the Prince in the next room, Washing with kindly tears his gentle cheeks, With such a deep demeanour 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. But wherefore did he take away the crown? 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. I never thought to hear you speak again. KING. 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 overwhelm 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 loved’st me not, And thou wilt have me die assured of it. Thou hid’st 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 license 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. 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 th’ 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 med’cine 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. 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 better 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 seest with peril I have answered; For all my reign hath been but as a scene Acting that argument. And now my death Changes the mood, 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. 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 and others. KING. Look, look, here comes my John of Lancaster. LANCASTER. Health, peace, and happiness to my royal father! KING. 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. My Lord of Warwick! Enter Warwick and others. KING. Doth any name particular belong Unto the lodging where I first did swoon? WARWICK. ’Tis call’d Jerusalem, my noble lord. KING. 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._] ACT V SCENE I. Gloucestershire. Shallow’s house. Enter Shallow, Falstaff, Bardolph and Page. SHALLOW. By cock and pie, sir, you shall not away tonight. 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 hade land 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 needs 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. He 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’ th’ 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 o’ th’ 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 he 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._] SCENE II. Westminster. The palace. Enter Warwick and the Lord Chief Justice, meeting. WARWICK. How now, my Lord Chief Justice, whither away? CHIEF JUSTICE. How doth the King? WARWICK. Exceeding well. His cares are now all ended. CHIEF JUSTICE. I hope, not dead. WARWICK. He’s walk’d the way of nature, And to our purposes he lives no more. 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. 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 and others. WARWICK. Here comes the heavy issue of dead Harry. O that the living Harry had the temper Of he the worst of these three gentlemen! How many nobles then should hold their places, That must strike sail to spirits of vile sort! CHIEF JUSTICE. O God, I fear all will be overturn’d. LANCASTER. Good morrow, cousin Warwick, good morrow. GLOUCESTER & CLARENCE. Good morrow, cousin. 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! 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. CHIEF JUSTICE. Sweet Princes, what I did I did in honour, Led by th’ 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 the Fifth, attended. CHIEF JUSTICE. Good morrow, and God save your Majesty! KING. 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 otherwise from your Majesty. KING. You all look strangely on me. And you most; You are, I think, assured I love you not. CHIEF JUSTICE. I am assured, if I be measured rightly, Your Majesty hath no just cause to hate me. KING. 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 Th’ immediate heir of England? Was this easy? May this be wash’d in Lethe and forgotten? 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 judgement; 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. 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 Th’ 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._] 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 mine 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 [_Singing._] _Do nothing but eat, and make good cheer, 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. [_Singing._] _Be merry, be merry, my wife has all, 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. Enter Davy. DAVY. [_To Bardolph_.] There’s a dish of leather-coats for you. SHALLOW. Davy! DAVY. Your worship? I’ll be with you straight. [_To Bardolph_] A cup of wine, sir? SILENCE. [_Singing._] _A cup of wine that’s brisk and fine, And drink unto thee, 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’ th’ night. FALSTAFF. Health and long life to you, Master Silence. SILENCE. [_Singing._] _Fill the cup, and let it come, I’ll pledge you a mile to th’ bottom._ SHALLOW. Honest Bardolph, welcome! If thou want’st anything 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 cabileros about London. DAVY. I hope 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. He will not out, he. ’Tis 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. [_To Silence, seeing him take off a bumper_.] Why, now you have done me right. 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. 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 he 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. [_Singing_.] _And Robin Hood, Scarlet, and John._ PISTOL. Shall dunghill curs confront the Helicons? And shall good news be baffled? Then, Pistol, lay thy head in Furies’ lap. SHALLOW. Honest gentleman, I know not your breeding. PISTOL. Why then, lament therefor. 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 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._] SCENE IV. London. A street. Enter Beadles, dragging in Hostess Quickly and Doll Tearsheet. HOSTESS. 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. 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. HOSTESS. 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. I’ll tell you what, you thin man in a censer, I will have you as soundly swinged for this, you bluebottle rogue, you filthy famished correctioner, if you be not swinged, I’ll forswear half-kirtles. FIRST BEADLE. Come, come, you she knight-errant, come. HOSTESS. O God, that right should thus overcome might! Well, of sufferance comes ease. DOLL. Come, you rogue, come, bring me to a justice. HOSTESS. Ay, come, you starved bloodhound. DOLL. Goodman death, goodman bones! HOSTESS. Thou atomy, thou! DOLL. Come, you thin thing, come, you rascal! FIRST BEADLE. Very well. [_Exeunt._] 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._] Trumpets sound, and the King and his train pass over the stage. 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 he 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. The trumpets sound._] PISTOL. There roar’d the sea, and trumpet-clangor sounds. Enter the King 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. My Lord Chief Justice, speak to that vain man. CHIEF JUSTICE. Have you your wits? Know you what ’tis you speak? FALSTAFF. My King! My Jove! I speak to thee, my heart! KING. I know thee not, old man. Fall to thy prayers. How ill white hairs becomes a fool and jester! I have long dreamt 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 evils. 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 with his train._] FALSTAFF. Master Shallow, I owe you a thousand pounds. 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 perceive how, unless you 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. Enter the Lord Chief Justice and Prince John, Officers with them. CHIEF JUSTICE. Go, carry Sir John Falstaff to the Fleet. Take all his company along with him. FALSTAFF. My lord, my lord,— CHIEF JUSTICE. I cannot now speak. I will hear you soon. Take them away. PISTOL. _Si fortuna me tormenta, spero me 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. CHIEF JUSTICE. And so they are. LANCASTER. The King hath call’d his parliament, my 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 heard a bird so sing, Whose music, to my thinking, pleased the King. Come, will you hence? [_Exeunt._] EPILOGUE. First my fear; then my curtsy; last my speech. My fear is your displeasure; my curtsy, 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 anything I know, Falstaff shall die of a sweat, unless already he 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. THE LIFE OF KING HENRY THE FIFTH Contents ACT I