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.


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.


[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.


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.


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.


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.


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.


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.


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.


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.


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.


FALSTAFF. Have you turned him out o' doors?


BARDOLPH. Yea, sir. The rascal's drunk. You have hurt him, sir, i' th' shoulder.


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.


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.


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.


[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?


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.


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?


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.


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?


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.


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.


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.


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.


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.


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.


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.


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?


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!


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?


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!


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?


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.


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.


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.


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.


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.


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.


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.


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.


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.


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.


LANCASTER. I trust, lords, we shall lie tonight together.


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.


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.


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.


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.


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.


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.


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.


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.


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.


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.


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.


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.


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.


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?


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.


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!


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.


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.


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.


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!


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.


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


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.


DAVY. [To Bardolph.] There's a dish of leather-coats for you.


DAVY. Your worship? I'll be with you straight. [To Bardolph] A cup of wine, sir?


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.


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.


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.


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


FALSTAFF. [To Silence, seeing him take off a bumper.] Why, now you have done me right.


Do me right, And dub me knight: Samingo.


FALSTAFF. 'Tis so.


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


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


FALSTAFF. From the court? Let him come in.


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.


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!


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!