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Henry IV, Part 2

by William Shakespeare

Dramatis Personae

Act 1

Scene 1

Enter the Lord Bardolph at one door.

Lord Bardolph:Who keeps the gate here, ho? [Enter the Porter.] Where is the Earl?

Porter:What shall I say you are?

Lord Bardolph:Tell thou the Earl That the Lord Bardolph doth attend him here.

Porter:His Lordship is walked forth into the orchard. Please it your Honor knock but at the gate And he himself will answer.

Enter the Earl Northumberland, his head wrapped in a kerchief and supporting himself with a crutch.

Lord Bardolph:Here comes the Earl.

Porter exits.

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

Lord Bardolph:Noble earl, I bring you certain news from Shrewsbury.

Earl of Northumberland:Good, an God will!

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

Earl of Northumberland:How is this derived? Saw you the field? Came you from Shrewsbury?

Lord Bardolph:I spake with one, my lord, that came from thence, A gentleman well bred and of good name, That freely rendered me these news for true.

Enter Travers.

Earl of Northumberland:Here comes my servant Travers, who I sent On Tuesday last to listen after news.

Lord Bardolph:My lord, I overrode him on the way, And he is furnished with no certainties More than he haply may retail from me.

Earl of Northumberland:Now, Travers, what good tidings comes with you?

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

Earl of Northumberland:Ha? Again: Said he young Harry Percy’s spur was cold? Of Hotspur, Coldspur? That rebellion Had met ill luck?

Lord Bardolph:My lord, I’ll tell you what: If my young lord your son have not the day, Upon mine honor, for a silken point I’ll give my barony. Never talk of it.

Earl of Northumberland:Why should that gentleman that rode by Travers Give then such instances of loss?

Lord Bardolph:Who, he? He was some hilding fellow that had stol’n The horse he rode on and, upon my life, Spoke at a venture. [Enter Morton.] Look, here comes more news.

Earl of Northumberland:Yea, this man’s brow, like to a title leaf, Foretells the nature of a tragic volume. So looks the strand whereon the imperious flood Hath left a witnessed usurpation.— Say, Morton, didst thou come from Shrewsbury?

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

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

Morton:Douglas is living, and your brother yet, But for my lord your son—

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

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

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

Lord Bardolph:I cannot think, my lord, your son is dead.

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

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

Lord Bardolph:This strainèd passion doth you wrong, my lord.

Morton:Sweet earl, divorce not wisdom from your honor. The lives of all your loving complices Lean on your health, the which, if you give o’er To stormy passion, must perforce decay. You cast th’ event of war, my noble lord, And summed the accompt of chance before you said "Let us make head." It was your presurmise That in the dole of blows your son might drop. You knew he walked o’er perils on an edge, More likely to fall in than to get o’er. You were advised his flesh was capable Of wounds and scars, and that his forward spirit Would lift him where most trade of danger ranged. Yet did you say "Go forth," and none of this, Though strongly apprehended, could restrain The stiff-borne action. What hath then befall’n, Or what did this bold enterprise bring forth, More than that being which was like to be?

Lord Bardolph:We all that are engagèd to this loss Knew that we ventured on such dangerous seas That if we wrought out life, ’twas ten to one; And yet we ventured, for the gain proposed Choked the respect of likely peril feared; And since we are o’erset, venture again. Come, we will all put forth, body and goods.

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

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

They exit.

Scene 2

Enter Sir John Falstaff, with his Page bearing his sword and buckler.

Sir John Falstaff:Sirrah, you giant, what says the doctor to my water?

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

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

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

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

Falstaff’s Page:He’s gone in Smithfield to buy your Worship a horse.

Sir John Falstaff:I bought him in Paul’s, and he’ll buy me a horse in Smithfield. An I could get me but a wife in the stews, I were manned, horsed, and wived.

Enter Lord Chief Justice and Servant.

Falstaff’s Page:[to Falstaff] Sir, here comes the nobleman that committed the Prince for striking him about Bardolph.

Sir John Falstaff:Wait close. I will not see him.

They begin to exit.

Lord Chief Justice:[to Servant] What’s he that goes there?

Servant:Falstaff, an ’t please your Lordship.

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

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

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

Servant:Sir John Falstaff!

Sir John Falstaff:Boy, tell him I am deaf.

Falstaff’s Page:You must speak louder. My master is deaf.

Lord Chief Justice:I am sure he is, to the hearing of anything good.—Go pluck him by the elbow. I must speak with him.

Servant:[plucking Falstaff’s sleeve] Sir John!

Sir John Falstaff:What, a young knave and begging? Is there not wars? Is there not employment? Doth not the King lack subjects? Do not the rebels need soldiers? Though it be a shame to be on any side but one, it is worse shame to beg than to be on the worst side, were it worse than the name of rebellion can tell how to make it.

Servant:You mistake me, sir.

Sir John Falstaff:Why sir, did I say you were an honest man? Setting my knighthood and my soldiership aside, I had lied in my throat if I had said so.

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

Sir John Falstaff:I give thee leave to tell me so? I lay aside that which grows to me? If thou gett’st any leave of me, hang me; if thou tak’st leave, thou wert better be hanged. You hunt counter. Hence! Avaunt!

Servant:Sir, my lord would speak with you.

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

Sir John Falstaff:My good lord. God give your Lordship good time of the day. I am glad to see your Lordship abroad. I heard say your Lordship was sick. I hope your Lordship goes abroad by advice. Your Lordship, though not clean past your youth, have yet some smack of an ague in you, some relish of the saltness of time in you, and I most humbly beseech your Lordship to have a reverend care of your health.

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

Sir John Falstaff:An ’t please your Lordship, I hear his Majesty is returned with some discomfort from Wales.

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

Sir John Falstaff:And I hear, moreover, his Highness is fallen into this same whoreson apoplexy.

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

Sir John Falstaff:This apoplexy, as I take it, is a kind of lethargy, an ’t please your Lordship, a kind of sleeping in the blood, a whoreson tingling.

Lord Chief Justice:What tell you me of it? Be it as it is.

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

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

Sir John Falstaff:Very well, my lord, very well. Rather, an ’t please you, it is the disease of not listening, the malady of not marking, that I am troubled withal.

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

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

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

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

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

Sir John Falstaff:He that buckles himself in my belt cannot live in less.

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

Sir John Falstaff:I would it were otherwise. I would my means were greater and my waist slender.

Lord Chief Justice:You have misled the youthful prince.

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

Lord Chief Justice:Well, I am loath to gall a new-healed wound. Your day’s service at Shrewsbury hath a little gilded over your night’s exploit on Gad’s Hill. You may thank th’ unquiet time for your quiet o’erposting that action.

Sir John Falstaff:My lord.

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

Sir John Falstaff:To wake a wolf is as bad as to smell a fox.

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

Sir John Falstaff:A wassail candle, my lord, all tallow. If I did say of wax, my growth would approve the truth.

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

Sir John Falstaff:His effect of gravy, gravy, gravy.

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

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

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

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

Lord Chief Justice:Well, God send the Prince a better companion.

Sir John Falstaff:God send the companion a better prince. I cannot rid my hands of him.

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

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

Lord Chief Justice:Well, be honest, be honest, and God bless your expedition.

Sir John Falstaff:Will your Lordship lend me a thousand pound to furnish me forth?

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

Lord Chief Justice and his Servant exit.

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

Falstaff’s Page:Sir.

Sir John Falstaff:What money is in my purse?

Falstaff’s Page:Seven groats and two pence.

Sir John Falstaff:I can get no remedy against this consumption of the purse. Borrowing only lingers and lingers it out, but the disease is incurable. [Giving papers to the Page.] Go bear this letter to my Lord of Lancaster, this to the Prince, this to the Earl of Westmoreland, and this to old Mistress Ursula, whom I have weekly sworn to marry since I perceived the first white hair of my chin. About it. You know where to find me. [Page exits.] A pox of this gout! Or a gout of this pox, for the one or the other plays the rogue with my great toe. ’Tis no matter if I do halt. I have the wars for my color, and my pension shall seem the more reasonable. A good wit will make use of anything. I will turn diseases to commodity.

He exits.

Scene 3

Enter th’ Archbishop of York, Thomas Mowbray (Earl Marshal), the Lord Hastings, and Lord Bardolph.

Richard Scroop, Archbishop:Thus have you heard our cause and known our means, And, my most noble friends, I pray you all Speak plainly your opinions of our hopes. And first, Lord Marshal, what say you to it?

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

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

Lord Bardolph:The question, then, Lord Hastings, standeth thus: Whether our present five-and-twenty thousand May hold up head without Northumberland.

Lord Hastings:With him we may.

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

Richard Scroop, Archbishop:’Tis very true, Lord Bardolph, for indeed It was young Hotspur’s cause at Shrewsbury.

Lord Bardolph:It was, my lord; who lined himself with hope, Eating the air and promise of supply, Flatt’ring himself in project of a power Much smaller than the smallest of his thoughts, And so, with great imagination Proper to madmen, led his powers to death And, winking, leapt into destruction.

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

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

Lord Hastings:Grant that our hopes, yet likely of fair birth, Should be stillborn and that we now possessed The utmost man of expectation, I think we are a body strong enough, Even as we are, to equal with the King.

Lord Bardolph:What, is the King but five-and-twenty thousand?

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

Richard Scroop, Archbishop:That he should draw his several strengths together And come against us in full puissance Need not to be dreaded.

Lord Hastings:If he should do so, He leaves his back unarmed, the French and Welsh Baying him at the heels. Never fear that.

Lord Bardolph:Who is it like should lead his forces hither?

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

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

Lord Mowbray:Shall we go draw our numbers and set on?

Lord Hastings:We are time’s subjects, and time bids begone.

They exit.

Act 2

Scene 1

Enter Hostess Quickly of the tavern with two Officers, Fang and Snare, who lags behind.

Hostess:Master Fang, have you entered the action?

Fang:It is entered.

Hostess:Where’s your yeoman? Is ’t a lusty yeoman? Will he stand to ’t?

Fang:[calling] Sirrah! Where’s Snare?

Hostess:O Lord, ay, good Master Snare.

Snare:[catching up to them] Here, here.

Fang:Snare, we must arrest Sir John Falstaff.

Hostess:Yea, good Master Snare, I have entered him and all.

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

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

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

Hostess:No, nor I neither. I’ll be at your elbow.

Fang:An I but fist him once, an he come but within my view—

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

Enter Sir John Falstaff and Bardolph, and the Page.

Sir John Falstaff:How now, whose mare’s dead? What’s the matter?

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

Sir John Falstaff:Away, varlets!—Draw, Bardolph. Cut me off the villain’s head. Throw the quean in the channel.

They draw.

Hostess:Throw me in the channel? I’ll throw thee in the channel. Wilt thou, wilt thou, thou bastardly rogue?—Murder, murder!—Ah, thou honeysuckle villain, wilt thou kill God’s officers and the King’s? Ah, thou honeyseed rogue, thou art a honeyseed, a man-queller, and a woman-queller.

Sir John Falstaff:Keep them off, Bardolph.

Fang, Snare:A rescue, a rescue!

Hostess:Good people, bring a rescue or two.—Thou wot, wot thou? Thou wot, wot ta? Do, do, thou rogue. Do, thou hempseed.

Falstaff’s Page:Away, you scullion, you rampallian, you fustilarian! I’ll tickle your catastrophe.

Enter Lord Chief Justice and his Men.

Lord Chief Justice:What is the matter? Keep the peace here, ho!

Hostess:Good my lord, be good to me. I beseech you stand to me.

Lord Chief Justice:How now, Sir John? What, are you brawling here? Doth this become your place, your time, and business? You should have been well on your way to York.— Stand from him, fellow. Wherefore hang’st thou upon him?

Hostess:O my most worshipful lord, an ’t please your Grace, I am a poor widow of Eastcheap, and he is arrested at my suit.

Lord Chief Justice:For what sum?

Hostess:It is more than for some, my lord; it is for all I have. He hath eaten me out of house and home. He hath put all my substance into that fat belly of his. [To Falstaff.] But I will have some of it out again, or I will ride thee o’ nights like the mare.

Sir John Falstaff:I think I am as like to ride the mare if I have any vantage of ground to get up.

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

Sir John Falstaff:What is the gross sum that I owe thee?

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

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

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

Hostess:Yea, in truth, my lord.

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

Sir John Falstaff:My lord, I will not undergo this sneap without reply. You call honorable boldness "impudent sauciness." If a man will make curtsy and say nothing, he is virtuous. No, my lord, my humble duty remembered, I will not be your suitor. I say to you, I do desire deliverance from these officers, being upon hasty employment in the King’s affairs.

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

Sir John Falstaff:Come hither, hostess.

He speaks aside to the Hostess.

Enter a Messenger, Master Gower.

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

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

He gives the Chief Justice a paper to read.

Sir John Falstaff:[to the Hostess] As I am a gentleman!

Hostess:Faith, you said so before.

Sir John Falstaff:As I am a gentleman. Come. No more words of it.

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

Sir John Falstaff:Glasses, glasses, is the only drinking. And for thy walls, a pretty slight drollery, or the story of the Prodigal or the German hunting in waterwork is worth a thousand of these bed-hangers and these fly-bitten tapestries. Let it be ten pound, if thou canst. Come, an ’twere not for thy humors, there’s not a better wench in England. Go wash thy face, and draw the action. Come, thou must not be in this humor with me. Dost not know me? Come, come. I know thou wast set on to this.

Hostess:Pray thee, Sir John, let it be but twenty nobles. I’ faith, I am loath to pawn my plate, so God save me, la.

Sir John Falstaff:Let it alone. I’ll make other shift. You’ll be a fool still.

Hostess:Well, you shall have it, though I pawn my gown. I hope you’ll come to supper. You’ll pay me all together?

Sir John Falstaff:Will I live? [Aside to Bardolph.] Go with her, with her. Hook on, hook on.

Hostess:Will you have Doll Tearsheet meet you at supper?

Sir John Falstaff:No more words. Let’s have her.

Hostess, Fang, Snare, Bardolph, Page, and others exit.

Lord Chief Justice:[to Gower] I have heard better news.

Sir John Falstaff:[to Chief Justice] What’s the news, my good lord?

Lord Chief Justice:[to Gower] Where lay the King tonight?

Gower:At Basingstoke, my lord.

Sir John Falstaff:[to Chief Justice] I hope, my lord, all’s well. What is the news, my lord?

Lord Chief Justice:[to Gower] Come all his forces back?

Gower:No. Fifteen hundred foot, five hundred horse Are marched up to my Lord of Lancaster Against Northumberland and the Archbishop.

Sir John Falstaff:[to Chief Justice] Comes the King back from Wales, my noble lord?

Lord Chief Justice:[to Gower] You shall have letters of me presently. Come. Go along with me, good Master Gower.

Sir John Falstaff:My lord!

Lord Chief Justice:What’s the matter?

Sir John Falstaff:Master Gower, shall I entreat you with me to dinner?

Gower:I must wait upon my good lord here. I thank you, good Sir John.

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

Sir John Falstaff:Will you sup with me, Master Gower?

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

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

Lord Chief Justice:Now the Lord lighten thee. Thou art a great fool.

They separate and exit.

Scene 2

Enter the Prince and Poins.

Prince Hal:Before God, I am exceeding weary.

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

Prince Hal:Faith, it does me, though it discolors the complexion of my greatness to acknowledge it. Doth it not show vilely in me to desire small beer?

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

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

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

Prince Hal:Shall I tell thee one thing, Poins?

Poins:Yes, faith, and let it be an excellent good thing.

Prince Hal:It shall serve among wits of no higher breeding than thine.

Poins:Go to. I stand the push of your one thing that you will tell.

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

Poins:Very hardly, upon such a subject.

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

Poins:The reason?

Prince Hal:What wouldst thou think of me if I should weep?

Poins:I would think thee a most princely hypocrite.

Prince Hal:It would be every man’s thought, and thou art a blessed fellow to think as every man thinks. Never a man’s thought in the world keeps the roadway better than thine. Every man would think me an hypocrite indeed. And what accites your most worshipful thought to think so?

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

Prince Hal:And to thee.

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

Enter Bardolph and Page.

Prince Hal:And the boy that I gave Falstaff. He had him from me Christian, and look if the fat villain have not transformed him ape.

Bardolph:God save your Grace.

Prince Hal:And yours, most noble Bardolph.

Poins:[to Bardolph] Come, you virtuous ass, you bashful fool, must you be blushing? Wherefore blush you now? What a maidenly man-at-arms are you become! Is ’t such a matter to get a pottle-pot’s maidenhead?

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

Prince Hal:Has not the boy profited?

Bardolph:[to Page] Away, you whoreson upright rabbit, away!

Falstaff’s Page:Away, you rascally Althea’s dream, away!

Prince Hal:Instruct us, boy. What dream, boy?

Falstaff’s Page:Marry, my lord, Althea dreamt she was delivered of a firebrand, and therefore I call him her dream.

Prince Hal:A crown’s worth of good interpretation. There ’tis, boy.

He gives the Page money.

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

He gives the Page money.

Bardolph:An you do not make him be hanged among you, the gallows shall have wrong.

Prince Hal:And how doth thy master, Bardolph?

Bardolph:Well, my good lord. He heard of your Grace’s coming to town. There’s a letter for you.

He gives the Prince a paper.

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 Hal: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.

He shows the letter to Poins.

Poins:[reads the superscription] 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 Hal:Nay, they will be kin to us, or they will fetch it from Japheth. But to the letter: [Reads.] 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 Hal:Peace! [Reads.] I will imitate the honorable Romans in brevity.

Poins:He sure means brevity in breath, short-winded.

Prince Hal:[reads] I commend me to thee, I commend thee, and I leave thee. Be not too familiar with Poins, for he misuses thy favors 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 Hal: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 Hal:Well, thus we play the fools with the time, and the spirits of the wise sit in the clouds and mock us. [To Bardolph.] Is your master here in London?

Bardolph:Yea, my lord.

Prince Hal:Where sups he? Doth the old boar feed in the old frank?

Bardolph:At the old place, my lord, in Eastcheap.

Prince Hal:What company?

Falstaff’s Page:Ephesians, my lord, of the old church.

Prince Hal:Sup any women with him?

Falstaff’s Page:None, my lord, but old Mistress Quickly and Mistress Doll Tearsheet.

Prince Hal:What pagan may that be?

Falstaff’s Page:A proper gentlewoman, sir, and a kinswoman of my master’s.

Prince Hal: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 Hal:Sirrah—you, boy—and Bardolph, no word to your master that I am yet come to town. There’s for your silence.

He gives money.

Bardolph:I have no tongue, sir.

Falstaff’s Page:And for mine, sir, I will govern it.

Prince Hal:Fare you well. Go. [Bardolph and Page exit.] This Doll Tearsheet should be some road.

Poins:I warrant you, as common as the way between Saint Albans and London.

Prince Hal:How might we see Falstaff bestow himself tonight in his true colors, and not ourselves be seen?

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

Prince Hal: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.

They exit.

Scene 3

Enter Northumberland, his wife, and the wife to Harry Percy.

Earl of 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.

Northumberland’s wife:I have given over. I will speak no more. Do what you will; your wisdom be your guide.

Earl of Northumberland:Alas, sweet wife, my honor is at pawn, And, but my going, nothing can redeem it.

Lady Percy:O yet, for God’s sake, go not to these wars. The time was, father, that you broke your word When you were more endeared to it than now, When your own Percy, when my heart’s dear Harry, Threw many a northward look to see his father Bring up his powers; but he did long in vain. Who then persuaded you to stay at home? There were two honors 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 gray 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 practiced not his gait; And speaking thick, which nature made his blemish, Became the accents of the valiant; For those that could speak low and tardily Would turn their own perfection to abuse To seem like him. So that in speech, in gait, In diet, in affections of delight, In military rules, humors of blood, He was the mark and glass, copy and book, That fashioned 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 honor 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 talked of Monmouth’s grave.

Earl of 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.

Northumberland’s wife:O, fly to Scotland Till that the nobles and the armèd 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 suffered. 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.

Earl of Northumberland:Come, come, go in with me. ’Tis with my mind As with the tide swelled 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.

They exit.

Scene 4

Enter Francis and another Drawer.

Francis:What the devil hast thou brought there— applejohns? Thou knowest Sir John cannot endure an applejohn.

Second Drawer:Mass, thou sayst 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.

Francis: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.

Enter Will.

Will: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.

Second Drawer:By the Mass, here will be old utis. It will be an excellent stratagem.

Francis:I’ll see if I can find out Sneak.

He exits with the Second Drawer.

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 color, I warrant you, is as red as any rose, in good truth, la. But, i’ faith, you have drunk too much canaries, and that’s a marvellous searching wine, and it perfumes the blood ere one can say "What’s this?" How do you now?

Doll Tearsheet:Better than I was. Hem.

Hostess:Why, that’s well said. A good heart’s worth gold. Lo, here comes Sir John.

Enter Sir John Falstaff.

Sir John Falstaff:[singing] When Arthur first in court— [To Will.] Empty the jordan. [Will exits.] And was a worthy king— How now, Mistress Doll?

Hostess:Sick of a calm, yea, good faith.

Sir John Falstaff:So is all her sect. An they be once in a calm, they are sick.

Doll Tearsheet:A pox damn you, you muddy rascal. Is that all the comfort you give me?

Sir John Falstaff:You make fat rascals, Mistress Doll.

Doll Tearsheet:I make them? Gluttony and diseases make them; I make them not.

Sir John Falstaff:If the cook help to make the gluttony, you help to make the diseases, Doll. We catch of you, Doll, we catch of you. Grant that, my poor virtue, grant that.

Doll Tearsheet:Yea, joy, our chains and our jewels.

Sir John 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 Tearsheet: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 [to Doll] that must be you. You are the weaker vessel, as they say, the emptier vessel.

Doll Tearsheet:Can a weak empty vessel bear such a huge full hogshead? There’s a whole merchant’s venture of Bordeaux stuff in him. You have not seen a hulk better stuffed in the hold.—Come, I’ll be friends with thee, Jack. Thou art going to the wars, and whether I shall ever see thee again or no, there is nobody cares.

Enter Drawer.

Drawer:Sir, Ancient Pistol’s below and would speak with you.

Doll Tearsheet:Hang him, swaggering rascal! Let him not come hither. It is the foul-mouthed’st rogue in England.

Hostess:If he swagger, let him not come here. No, by my faith, I must live among my neighbors. 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.

Sir John Falstaff:Dost thou hear, hostess?

Hostess:Pray you pacify yourself, Sir John. There comes no swaggerers here.

Sir John Falstaff:Dost thou hear? It is mine ancient.

Hostess:Tilly-vally, Sir John, ne’er tell me. And your ancient swaggerer comes not in my doors. I was before Master Tisick the debuty t’ other day, and, as he said to me—’twas no longer ago than Wednesday last, i’ good faith—"Neighbor Quickly," says he—Master Dumb, our minister, was by then— "Neighbor 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.

Sir John 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.

Drawer exits.

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

Doll Tearsheet:So you do, hostess.

Hostess:Do I? Yea, in very truth, do I, an ’twere an aspen leaf. I cannot abide swaggerers.

Enter Ancient Pistol, Bardolph, and Page.

Pistol:God save you, Sir John.

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.

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

Pistol:I know you, Mistress Dorothy.

Doll Tearsheet:Away, you cutpurse 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.

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

Bardolph:[to Pistol] Pray thee go down, good ancient.

Sir John Falstaff:Hark thee hither, Mistress Doll.

Pistol:[to Bardolph] Not I. I tell thee what, Corporal Bardolph, I could tear her. I’ll be revenged of her.

Falstaff’s Page:Pray thee go down.

Pistol:I’ll see her damned first to Pluto’s damnèd lake, by this hand, to th’ infernal deep with Erebus and tortures vile also. Hold hook and line, say I. Down, down, dogs! Down, Fates! Have we not Hiren here?

He draws his sword.

Hostess:Good Captain Peesell, be quiet. ’Tis very late, i’ faith. I beseek you now, aggravate your choler.

Pistol:These be good humors indeed. Shall pack-horses and hollow pampered jades of Asia, which cannot go but thirty mile a day, compare with Caesars and with cannibals and Troyant 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:Begone, good ancient. This will grow to a brawl anon.

Pistol:Die men like dogs! Give crowns like pins! Have we not Hiren here?

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

Pistol:Then feed and be fat, my fair Calipolis. Come, give ’s some sack. Si fortune me tormente, sperato me contento. Fear we broadsides? No, let the fiend give fire. Give me some sack, and, sweetheart, lie thou there. [Laying down his sword.] Come we to full points here? And are etceteras nothings?

Sir John Falstaff:Pistol, I would be quiet.

Pistol:Sweet knight, I kiss thy neaf. What, we have seen the seven stars.

Doll Tearsheet:For God’s sake, thrust him downstairs. I cannot endure such a fustian rascal.

Pistol:"Thrust him downstairs"? Know we not Galloway nags?

Sir John 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:[taking up his sword] What, shall we have incision? Shall we imbrue? 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!

Sir John Falstaff:Give me my rapier, boy.

Doll Tearsheet:I pray thee, Jack, I pray thee do not draw.

Sir John Falstaff:[to Pistol] Get you downstairs.

They fight.

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.

Bardolph and Pistol exit.

Doll Tearsheet:I pray thee, Jack, be quiet. The rascal’s gone. Ah, you whoreson little valiant villain, you.

Hostess:[to Falstaff] Are you not hurt i’ th’ groin? Methought he made a shrewd thrust at your belly.

Enter Bardolph.

Sir John Falstaff:Have you turned him out o’ doors?

Bardolph:Yea, sir. The rascal’s drunk. You have hurt him, sir, i’ th’ shoulder.

Sir John Falstaff:A rascal to brave me!

Doll Tearsheet: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!

Sir John Falstaff:Ah, rascally slave! I will toss the rogue in a blanket.

Doll Tearsheet:Do, an thou darest for thy heart. An thou dost, I’ll canvass thee between a pair of sheets.

Enter Musicians and Francis.

Falstaff’s Page:The music is come, sir.

Sir John Falstaff:Let them play.—Play, sirs.—Sit on my knee, Doll. A rascal bragging slave! The rogue fled from me like quicksilver.

Doll Tearsheet:I’ faith, and thou followed’st 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 them Prince and Poins disguised.

Sir John Falstaff:Peace, good Doll. Do not speak like a death’s-head; do not bid me remember mine end.

Doll Tearsheet:Sirrah, what humor’s the Prince of?

Sir John Falstaff:A good shallow young fellow, he would have made a good pantler; he would ’a chipped bread well.

Doll Tearsheet:They say Poins has a good wit.

Sir John Falstaff:He a good wit? Hang him, baboon. His wit’s as thick as Tewkesbury mustard. There’s no more conceit in him than is in a mallet.

Doll Tearsheet:Why does the Prince love him so then?

Sir John 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 Hal:[aside to Poins] Would not this nave of a wheel have his ears cut off?

Poins:Let’s beat him before his whore.

Prince Hal: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?

Sir John Falstaff:Kiss me, Doll.

Prince Hal:[aside to Poins] 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 notebook, his counsel keeper.

Sir John Falstaff:[to Doll] Thou dost give me flattering busses.

Doll Tearsheet:By my troth, I kiss thee with a most constant heart.

Sir John Falstaff:I am old, I am old.

Doll Tearsheet:I love thee better than I love e’er a scurvy young boy of them all.

Sir John Falstaff:What stuff wilt thou have a kirtle of? I shall receive money o’ Thursday; thou 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 Tearsheet:By my troth, thou ’lt set me a-weeping an thou sayst so. Prove that ever I dress myself handsome till thy return. Well, harken a’ th’ end.

Sir John Falstaff:Some sack, Francis.

Prince Hal, Poins:[coming forward] Anon, anon, sir.

Sir John Falstaff:Ha? A bastard son of the King’s?—And art not thou Poins his brother?

Prince Hal:Why, thou globe of sinful continents, what a life dost thou lead?

Sir John Falstaff:A better than thou. I am a gentleman. Thou art a drawer.

Prince Hal:Very true, sir, and I come to draw you out by the ears.

Hostess:O, the Lord preserve thy good Grace! By my troth, welcome to London. Now the Lord bless that sweet face of thine. O Jesu, are you come from Wales?

Sir John Falstaff:[to Prince] Thou whoreson mad compound of majesty, by this light flesh and corrupt blood, thou art welcome.

Doll Tearsheet:How? You fat fool, I scorn you.

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

Prince Hal:[to Falstaff] 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.

Sir John Falstaff:[to Prince] Didst thou hear me?

Prince Hal: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.

Sir John Falstaff:No, no, no, not so. I did not think thou wast within hearing.

Prince Hal:I shall drive you, then, to confess the wilfull abuse, and then I know how to handle you.

Sir John Falstaff:No abuse, Hal, o’ mine honor, no abuse.

Prince Hal:Not to dispraise me and call me pantler and bread-chipper and I know not what?

Sir John Falstaff:No abuse, Hal.

Poins:No abuse?

Sir John Falstaff:No abuse, Ned, i’ th’ world, honest Ned, none. I dispraised him before the wicked, [(to Prince)] 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 Hal: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.

Sir John 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 blinds him too.

Prince Hal:For the women?

Sir John 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.

Sir John 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 vitlars do so. What’s a joint of mutton or two in a whole Lent?

Prince Hal:[to Doll] You, gentlewoman.

Doll Tearsheet:What says your Grace?

Sir John 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.

Francis exits.

Enter Peto.

Prince Hal: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 Hal: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 vapor, doth begin to melt And drop upon our bare unarmèd heads.— Give me my sword and cloak.—Falstaff, good night.

Prince, Peto, and Poins exit.

Sir John Falstaff:Now comes in the sweetest morsel of the night, and we must hence and leave it unpicked. [(Knocking. Bardolph exits.)] More knocking at the door? [(Bardolph returns.)] How now, what’s the matter?

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

Sir John Falstaff:[to Page] Pay the musicians, sirrah.— Farewell, hostess.—Farewell, Doll. You see, my good wenches, how men of merit are sought after. The undeserver may sleep when the man of action is called on. Farewell, good wenches. If I be not sent away post, I will see you again ere I go.

Doll Tearsheet:I cannot speak. If my heart be not ready to burst—well, sweet Jack, have a care of thyself.

Sir John Falstaff:Farewell, farewell.

He exits with Bardolph, Page, and Musicians.

Hostess:Well, fare thee well. I have known thee these twenty-nine years, come peasecod 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?

They exit.

Act 3

Scene 1

Enter the King in his nightgown with a Page.

King Henry IV:Go call the Earls of Surrey and of Warwick; But, ere they come, bid them o’erread these letters And well consider of them. Make good speed. [Page exits.] How many thousand of my poorest subjects Are at this hour asleep! O sleep, O gentle sleep, Nature’s soft nurse, how have I frighted thee, That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down And steep my senses in forgetfulness? Why rather, sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs, Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee, And hushed with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber, Than in the perfumed chambers of the great, Under the canopies of costly state, And lulled 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 shipboy’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 clamor 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, Surrey and Sir John Blunt.

Earl of Warwick:Many good morrows to your Majesty.

King Henry IV:Is it good morrow, lords?

Earl of Warwick:’Tis one o’clock, and past.

King Henry IV:Why then, good morrow to you all, my lords. Have you read o’er the letter that I sent you?

Earl of Warwick:We have, my liege.

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

Earl of Warwick:It is but as a body yet distempered, Which to his former strength may be restored With good advice and little medicine. My Lord Northumberland will soon be cooled.

King Henry IV:O God, that one might read the book of fate And see the revolution of the times Make mountains level, and the continent, Weary of solid firmness, melt itself Into the sea, and other times to see The beachy girdle of the ocean Too wide for Neptune’s hips; how 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 toiled 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 checked 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 bowed the state That I and greatness were compelled 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.

Earl of 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 intreasurèd. Such things become the hatch and brood of time, And by the necessary form of this, King Richard might create a perfect guess That great Northumberland, then false to him, Would of that seed grow to a greater falseness, Which should not find a ground to root upon Unless on you.

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

Earl of Warwick:It cannot be, my lord. Rumor 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 unseasoned hours perforce must add Unto your sickness.

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

They exit.

Scene 2

Enter Justice Shallow and Justice Silence.

Justice Robert 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?

Justice Silence:Good morrow, good cousin Shallow.

Justice Robert Shallow:And how doth my cousin your bedfellow? And your fairest daughter and mine, my goddaughter Ellen?

Justice Silence:Alas, a black ousel, cousin Shallow.

Justice Robert 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?

Justice Silence:Indeed, sir, to my cost.

Justice Robert 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.

Justice Silence:You were called "Lusty Shallow" then, cousin.

Justice Robert 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.

Justice Silence:This Sir John, cousin, that comes hither anon about soldiers?

Justice Robert 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 Grey’s Inn. Jesu, Jesu, the mad days that I have spent! And to see how many of my old acquaintance are dead.

Justice Silence:We shall all follow, cousin.

Justice Robert 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?

Justice Silence:By my troth, cousin, I was not there.

Justice Robert Shallow:Death is certain. Is old Dooble of your town living yet?

Justice Silence:Dead, sir.

Justice Robert Shallow:Jesu, Jesu, dead! He drew a good bow, and dead? He shot a fine shoot. John o’ 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?

Justice Silence:Thereafter as they be, a score of good ewes may be worth ten pounds.

Justice Robert Shallow:And is old Dooble dead?

Justice Silence:Here come two of Sir John Falstaff’s men, as I think.

Enter Bardolph and one with him.

Justice Robert Shallow:Good morrow, honest gentlemen.

Bardolph:I beseech you, which is Justice Shallow?

Justice Robert 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.

Justice Robert 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.

Justice Robert 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 soldierlike 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.

Enter Falstaff.

Justice Robert 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.

Sir John Falstaff:I am glad to see you well, good Master Robert Shallow.—Master Sure-card, as I think?

Justice Robert Shallow:No, Sir John. It is my cousin Silence, in commission with me.

Sir John Falstaff:Good Master Silence, it well befits you should be of the peace.

Justice Silence:Your good Worship is welcome.

Sir John Falstaff:Fie, this is hot weather, gentlemen. Have you provided me here half a dozen sufficient men?

Justice Robert Shallow:Marry, have we, sir. Will you sit?

They sit at a table.

Sir John Falstaff:Let me see them, I beseech you.

Justice Robert 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.—Rafe Mouldy!— Let them appear as I call, let them do so, let them do so. [Enter Mouldy, followed by Shadow, Wart, Feeble, and Bullcalf.] Let me see, where is Mouldy?

Mouldy:[coming forward] Here, an it please you.

Justice Robert Shallow:What think you, Sir John? A good-limbed fellow, young, strong, and of good friends.

Sir John Falstaff:Is thy name Mouldy?

Mouldy:Yea, an ’t please you.

Sir John Falstaff:’Tis the more time thou wert used.

Justice Robert 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.

Sir John Falstaff:Prick him.

Shallow marks the scroll.

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.

Sir John Falstaff:Go to. Peace, Mouldy. You shall go. Mouldy, it is time you were spent.

Mouldy:Spent?

Justice Robert Shallow:Peace, fellow, peace. Stand aside. Know you where you are?—For th’ other, Sir John. Let me see.—Simon Shadow!

Sir John Falstaff:Yea, marry, let me have him to sit under. He’s like to be a cold soldier.

Justice Robert Shallow:Where’s Shadow?

Shadow:[coming forward] Here, sir.

Sir John Falstaff:Shadow, whose son art thou?

Shadow:My mother’s son, sir.

Sir John 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.

Justice Robert Shallow:Do you like him, Sir John?

Sir John Falstaff:Shadow will serve for summer. Prick him, for we have a number of shadows to fill up the muster book.

Justice Robert Shallow:Thomas Wart!

Sir John Falstaff:Where’s he?

Wart:[coming forward] Here, sir.

Sir John Falstaff:Is thy name Wart?

Wart:Yea, sir.

Sir John Falstaff:Thou art a very ragged wart.

Justice Robert Shallow:Shall I prick him down, Sir John?

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.

Justice Robert Shallow:Ha, ha, ha. You can do it, sir, you can do it. I commend you well.—Francis Feeble!

Feeble:[coming forward] Here, sir.

Justice Robert Shallow:What trade art thou, Feeble?

Feeble:A woman’s tailor, sir.

Justice Robert Shallow:Shall I prick him, sir?

Sir John Falstaff:You may, but if he had been a man’s tailor, he’d ha’ pricked you.—Wilt thou make as many holes in an enemy’s battle as thou hast done in a woman’s petticoat?

Feeble:I will do my good will, sir. You can have no more.

Sir John 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.

Sir John 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.

Sir John Falstaff:I am bound to thee, reverend Feeble.—Who is the next?

Justice Robert Shallow:Peter Bullcalf o’ th’ green.

Sir John Falstaff:Yea, marry, let’s see Bullcalf.

Bullcalf:[coming forward] Here, sir.

Sir John Falstaff:Fore God, a likely fellow. Come, prick me Bullcalf till he roar again.

Bullcalf:O Lord, good my lord captain—

Sir John Falstaff:What, dost thou roar before thou art pricked?

Bullcalf:O Lord, sir, I am a diseased man.

Sir John 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.

Sir John 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?

Justice Robert 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.

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

Justice Robert Shallow:O, Sir John, do you remember since we lay all night in the windmill in Saint George’s Field?

Sir John Falstaff:No more of that, good Master Shallow, no more of that.

Justice Robert Shallow:Ha, ’twas a merry night. And is Jane Nightwork alive?

Sir John Falstaff:She lives, Master Shallow.

Justice Robert Shallow:She never could away with me.

Sir John Falstaff:Never, never. She would always say she could not abide Master Shallow.

Justice Robert Shallow:By the Mass, I could anger her to th’ heart. She was then a bona roba. Doth she hold her own well?

Sir John Falstaff:Old, old, Master Shallow.

Justice Robert 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.

Justice Silence:That’s fifty-five year ago.

Justice Robert Shallow:Ha, cousin Silence, that thou hadst seen that that this knight and I have seen!—Ha, Sir John, said I well?

Sir John Falstaff:We have heard the chimes at midnight, Master Shallow.

Justice Robert 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.

Shallow, Silence, and Falstaff rise and exit.

Bullcalf:Good Master Corporate Bardolph, stand my friend, and here’s four Harry ten-shillings in French crowns for you. [He gives Bardolph money.] 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.

He gives money.

Bardolph:Go to. Stand aside.

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

Bardolph:Well said. Th’ art a good fellow.

Feeble:Faith, I’ll bear no base mind.

Enter Falstaff and the Justices.

Sir John Falstaff:Come, sir, which men shall I have?

Justice Robert Shallow:Four of which you please.

Bardolph:[aside to Falstaff] Sir, a word with you. I have three pound to free Mouldy and Bullcalf.

Sir John Falstaff:Go to, well.

Justice Robert Shallow:Come, Sir John, which four will you have?

Sir John Falstaff:Do you choose for me.

Justice Robert Shallow:Marry, then, Mouldy, Bullcalf, Feeble, and Shadow.

Sir John 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.

Mouldy and Bullcalf exit.

Justice Robert Shallow:Sir John, Sir John, do not yourself wrong. They are your likeliest men, and I would have you served with the best.

Sir John 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:[giving Wart a musket] Hold, Wart. Traverse. Thas, thas, thas.

Sir John Falstaff:[to Wart] Come, manage me your caliver: so, very well, go to, very good, exceeding good. O, give me always a little, lean, old, chopped, bald shot. Well said, i’ faith, Wart. Th’ art a good scab. Hold, there’s a tester for thee.

He gives Wart money.

Justice Robert 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. [Shallow performs with the musket.] 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.

Sir John 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.

Justice Robert 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 you to the court.

Sir John Falstaff:Fore God, would you would, Master Shallow.

Justice Robert Shallow:Go to. I have spoke at a word. God keep you.

Sir John Falstaff:Fare you well, gentle gentlemen. [Shallow and Silence exit.] On, Bardolph. Lead the men away. [All but Falstaff exit.] 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 swore they were his fancies or his good-nights. And now is this Vice’s dagger become a squire, and talks as familiarly of John o’ 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 o’ 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.

He exits.

Act 4

Scene 1

Enter the Archbishop of York, Mowbray, Lord Bardolph, Hastings, and their officers within the Forest of Gaultree.

Richard Scroop, Archbishop:What is this forest called?

Lord Hastings:’Tis Gaultree Forest, an ’t shall please your Grace.

Richard Scroop, Archbishop:Here stand, my lords, and send discoverers forth To know the numbers of our enemies.

Lord Hastings:We have sent forth already.

Richard Scroop, 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.

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

Enter Messenger.

Lord 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.

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

Enter Westmoreland.

Richard Scroop, Archbishop:What well-appointed leader fronts us here?

Lord Mowbray:I think it is my Lord of Westmoreland.

Earl of Westmoreland:Health and fair greeting from our general, The Prince Lord John and Duke of Lancaster.

Richard Scroop, Archbishop:Say on, my Lord of Westmoreland, in peace, What doth concern your coming.

Earl of 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 rage, And countenanced by boys and beggary— I say, if damned commotion so appeared 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 honors. You, Lord Archbishop, Whose see is by a civil peace maintained, Whose beard the silver hand of peace hath touched, Whose learning and good letters peace hath tutored, Whose white investments figure innocence, The dove and very blessèd spirit of peace, Wherefore do you so ill translate yourself Out of the speech of peace, that bears such grace, Into the harsh and boist’rous 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?

Richard Scroop, 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 weighed What wrongs our arms may do, what wrongs we suffer, And find our griefs heavier than our offenses. 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 offered to the King And might by no suit gain our audience. When we are wronged 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.

Earl of Westmoreland:Whenever yet was your appeal denied? Wherein have you been gallèd by the King? What peer hath been suborned 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?

Richard Scroop, Archbishop:My brother general, the commonwealth, To brother born an household cruelty, I make my quarrel in particular.

Earl of Westmoreland:There is no need of any such redress, Or if there were, it not belongs to you.

Lord 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 honors?

Earl of 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 seigniories, Your noble and right well remembered father’s?

Lord Mowbray:What thing, in honor, 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 compelled to banish him, And then that Henry Bolingbroke and he, Being mounted and both rousèd in their seats, Their neighing coursers daring of the spur, Their armèd 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 stayed 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.

Earl of 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 blessed 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.

Lord Mowbray:But he hath forced us to compel this offer, And it proceeds from policy, not love.

Earl of 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 honor, 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 armor all as strong, our cause the best. Then reason will our hearts should be as good. Say you not then our offer is compelled.

Lord Mowbray:Well, by my will, we shall admit no parley.

Earl of Westmoreland:That argues but the shame of your offense. A rotten case abides no handling.

Lord 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?

Earl of Westmoreland:That is intended in the General’s name. I muse you make so slight a question.

Richard Scroop, Archbishop:[giving Westmoreland a paper] Then take, my Lord of Westmoreland, this schedule, For this contains our general grievances. Each several article herein redressed, All members of our cause, both here and hence That are insinewed 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.

Earl of 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.

Richard Scroop, Archbishop:My lord, we will do so.

Westmoreland exits.

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

Lord 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.

Lord Mowbray:Yea, but our valuation shall be such That every slight and false-derivèd 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 winnowed with so rough a wind That even our corn shall seem as light as chaff, And good from bad find no partition.

Richard Scroop, 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 telltale 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 upreared to execution.

Lord 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.

Richard Scroop, 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.

Lord Mowbray:Be it so. Here is returned my Lord of Westmoreland.

Enter Westmoreland.

Earl of Westmoreland:[to the Archbishop] The Prince is here at hand. Pleaseth your Lordship To meet his Grace just distance ’tween our armies.

Enter Prince John and his army.

Lord Mowbray:[to the Archbishop] Your Grace of York, in God’s name then set forward.

Richard Scroop, Archbishop:Before, and greet his Grace.—My lord, we come.

All move forward.

John of Lancaster:You are well encountered 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 showed 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 talking, 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 favor, 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 favorite doth his prince’s name, In deeds dishonorable? 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-swarmed them.

Richard Scroop, 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 misordered 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 charmed asleep With grant of our most just and right desires, And true obedience, of this madness cured, Stoop tamely to the foot of majesty.

Lord Mowbray:If not, we ready are to try our fortunes To the last man.

Lord 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 his quarrel up Whiles England shall have generation.

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

Earl of Westmoreland:Pleaseth your Grace to answer them directly How far forth you do like their articles.

John of Lancaster:I like them all, and do allow them well, And swear here by the honor of my blood My father’s purposes have been mistook, And some about him have too lavishly Wrested his meaning and authority. [To the Archbishop.] My lord, these griefs shall be with speed redressed; 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 restorèd love and amity.

Richard Scroop, Archbishop:I take your princely word for these redresses.

John of Lancaster:I give it you, and will maintain my word, And thereupon I drink unto your Grace.

The Leaders of both armies begin to drink together.

Lord Hastings:[to an Officer] Go, captain, and deliver to the army This news of peace. Let them have pay, and part. I know it will well please them. Hie thee, captain.

Officer exits.

Richard Scroop, Archbishop:[toasting Westmoreland] To you, my noble Lord of Westmoreland.

Earl of Westmoreland:[returning the toast] I pledge your Grace, and if you knew what pains I have bestowed to breed this present peace, You would drink freely. But my love to you Shall show itself more openly hereafter.

Richard Scroop, Archbishop:I do not doubt you.

Earl of Westmoreland:I am glad of it.— Health to my lord and gentle cousin, Mowbray.

Lord Mowbray:You wish me health in very happy season, For I am on the sudden something ill.

Richard Scroop, Archbishop:Against ill chances men are ever merry, But heaviness foreruns the good event.

Earl of Westmoreland:Therefore be merry, coz, since sudden sorrow Serves to say thus: "Some good thing comes tomorrow."

Richard Scroop, Archbishop:Believe me, I am passing light in spirit.

Lord Mowbray:So much the worse if your own rule be true.

Shout within.

John of Lancaster:The word of peace is rendered. Hark how they shout.

Lord Mowbray:This had been cheerful after victory.

Richard Scroop, Archbishop:A peace is of the nature of a conquest, For then both parties nobly are subdued, And neither party loser.

John of Lancaster:[to Westmoreland] Go, my lord, And let our army be dischargèd too. [Westmoreland exits.] [To the Archbishop.] And, good my lord, so please you, let our trains March by us, that we may peruse the men We should have coped withal.

Richard Scroop, Archbishop:Go, good Lord Hastings, And ere they be dismissed, let them march by.

Hastings exits.

John of Lancaster:I trust, lords, we shall lie tonight together. [Enter Westmoreland.] Now, cousin, wherefore stands our army still?

Earl of Westmoreland:The leaders, having charge from you to stand, Will not go off until they hear you speak.

John of Lancaster:They know their duties.

Enter Hastings.

Lord Hastings:[to the Archbishop] 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.

Earl of 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.

Lord Mowbray:Is this proceeding just and honorable?

Earl of Westmoreland:Is your assembly so?

Richard Scroop, Archbishop:Will you thus break your faith?

John of Lancaster:I pawned thee none. I promised you redress of these same grievances Whereof you did complain, which, by mine honor, 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 scattered 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.

They exit.

Scene 2

Alarum. Excursions. Enter Falstaff and Colevile.

Sir John Falstaff:What’s your name, sir? Of what condition are you, and of what place, I pray?

Sir John Colevile:I am a knight, sir, and my name is Colevile of the Dale.

Sir John 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.

Sir John Colevile:Are not you Sir John Falstaff?

Sir John Falstaff:As good a man as he, sir, whoe’er I am. Do you 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.

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

Sir John 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 John, Westmoreland, and the rest.

John of Lancaster:The heat is past. Follow no further now. Call in the powers, good cousin Westmoreland. [Westmoreland exits. Retreat is sounded.] 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.

Sir John Falstaff:I would be sorry, my lord, but it should be thus. I never knew yet but rebuke and check was the reward of valor. 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 ninescore and odd posts, and here, travel-tainted as I am, have in my pure and immaculate valor 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, "There, cousin, I came, saw, and overcame."

John of Lancaster:It was more of his courtesy than your deserving.

Sir John 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.

John of Lancaster:Thine’s too heavy to mount.

Sir John Falstaff:Let it shine, then.

John of Lancaster:Thine’s too thick to shine.

Sir John Falstaff:Let it do something, my good lord, that may do me good, and call it what you will.

John of Lancaster:Is thy name Colevile?

Sir John Colevile:It is, my lord.

John of Lancaster:A famous rebel art thou, Colevile.

Sir John Falstaff:And a famous true subject took him.

Sir John 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.

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

Enter Westmoreland.

John of Lancaster:Now, have you left pursuit?

Earl of Westmoreland:Retreat is made and execution stayed.

John of Lancaster:Send Colevile with his confederates To York, to present execution.— Blunt, lead him hence, and see you guard him sure. [Blunt exits 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, [To Westmoreland.] Which, cousin, you shall bear to comfort him, And we with sober speed will follow you.

Sir John 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.

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

All but Falstaff exit.

Sir John 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 overcool 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 vapors 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 valor 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 endeavor 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 human principle I would teach them should be to forswear thin potations and to addict themselves to sack. [Enter Bardolph.] How now, Bardolph?

Bardolph:The army is discharged all and gone.

Sir John Falstaff:Let them go. I’ll through Gloucestershire, and there will I visit Master Robert Shallow, Esquire. I have him already temp’ring between my finger and my thumb, and shortly will I seal with him. Come away.

They exit.

Scene 3

Enter the King in a chair, Warwick, Thomas Duke of Clarence, Humphrey Duke of Gloucester, and Attendants.

King Henry IV:Now, lords, if God doth give successful end To this debate that bleedeth at our doors, We will our youth lead on to higher fields And draw no swords but what are sanctified. Our navy is addressed, 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.

Earl of Warwick:Both which we doubt not but your Majesty Shall soon enjoy.

King Henry IV:Humphrey, my son of Gloucester, where is the Prince your brother?

Humphrey of Gloucester:I think he’s gone to hunt, my lord, at Windsor.

King Henry IV:And how accompanied?

Humphrey of Gloucester:I do not know, my lord.

King Henry IV:Is not his brother Thomas of Clarence with him?

Humphrey of Gloucester:No, my good lord, he is in presence here.

Thomas of Clarence:[coming forward] What would my lord and father?

King Henry IV:Nothing but well to thee, Thomas of Clarence. How chance thou art not with the Prince thy brother? He loves thee, and thou dost neglect him, Thomas. Thou hast a better place in his affection Than all thy brothers. Cherish it, my boy, And noble offices thou mayst effect Of mediation, after I am dead, Between his greatness and thy other brethren. Therefore omit him not, blunt not his love, Nor lose the good advantage of his grace By seeming cold or careless of his will. For he is gracious if he be observed; He hath a tear for pity, and a hand Open as day for melting charity; Yet notwithstanding, being incensed he is flint, As humorous as winter, and as sudden As flaws congealèd 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.

Thomas of Clarence:I shall observe him with all care and love.

King Henry IV:Why art thou not at Windsor with him, Thomas?

Thomas of Clarence:He is not there today; he dines in London.

King Henry IV:And how accompanied? Canst thou tell that?

Thomas of Clarence:With Poins and other his continual followers.

King Henry IV:Most subject is the fattest soil to weeds, And he, the noble image of my youth, Is overspread with them; therefore my grief Stretches itself beyond the hour of death. The blood weeps from my heart when I do shape, In forms imaginary, 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!

Earl of 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 others, Turning past evils to advantages.

King Henry IV:’Tis seldom when the bee doth leave her comb In the dead carrion. [Enter Westmoreland.] Who’s here? Westmoreland?

Earl of 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.

He gives the King a paper.

King Henry IV:O Westmoreland, thou art a summer bird, Which ever in the haunch of winter sings The lifting up of day. [Enter Harcourt.] Look, here’s more news.

Harcourt:From enemies heavens 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.

He gives the King papers.

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

Humphrey of Gloucester:Comfort, your Majesty.

Thomas of Clarence:O, my royal father!

Earl of Westmoreland:My sovereign lord, cheer up yourself, look up.

Earl of 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.

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

Humphrey of Gloucester:The people fear me, for they do observe Unfathered heirs and loathly births of nature. The seasons change their manners, as the year Had found some months asleep and leapt them over.

Thomas of Clarence:The river hath thrice flowed, no ebb between, And the old folk, time’s doting chronicles, Say it did so a little time before That our great-grandsire, Edward, sicked and died.

Earl of Warwick:Speak lower, princes, for the King recovers.

Humphrey of Gloucester:This apoplexy will certain be his end.

King Henry IV:I pray you take me up and bear me hence Into some other chamber. Softly, pray. [The King is carried to a bed on another part of the stage.] Let there be no noise made, my gentle friends, Unless some dull and favorable hand Will whisper music to my weary spirit.

Earl of Warwick:[to an Attendant] Call for the music in the other room.

King Henry IV:Set me the crown upon my pillow here.

The crown is placed on the bed.

Thomas of Clarence:[aside to the others] His eye is hollow, and he changes much.

Earl of Warwick:Less noise, less noise.

Enter Prince Harry.

Prince Hal:Who saw the Duke of Clarence?

Thomas of Clarence:[weeping] I am here, brother, full of heaviness.

Prince Hal:How now, rain within doors, and none abroad? How doth the King?

Humphrey of Gloucester:Exceeding ill.

Prince Hal:Heard he the good news yet? Tell it him.

Humphrey of Gloucester:He altered much upon the hearing it.

Prince Hal:If he be sick with joy, he’ll recover without physic.

Earl of Warwick:Not so much noise, my lords.—Sweet prince, speak low. The King your father is disposed to sleep.

Thomas of Clarence:Let us withdraw into the other room.

Earl of Warwick:Will ’t please your Grace to go along with us?

Prince Hal:No, I will sit and watch here by the King. [All but Prince and King exit.] Why doth the crown lie there upon his pillow, Being so troublesome a bedfellow? O polished 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 armor 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. [He puts on the crown.] 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 honor from me. This from thee Will I to mine leave, as ’tis left to me.

He exits with the crown.

King Henry IV:[rising up in his bed] Warwick! Gloucester! Clarence!

Enter Warwick, Gloucester, Clarence, and others.

Thomas of Clarence:Doth the King call?

Earl of Warwick:What would your Majesty? How fares your Grace?

King Henry IV:Why did you leave me here alone, my lords?

Thomas of Clarence:We left the Prince my brother here, my liege, Who undertook to sit and watch by you.

King Henry IV:The Prince of Wales? Where is he? Let me see him. He is not here.

Earl of Warwick:This door is open. He is gone this way.

Humphrey of Gloucester:He came not through the chamber where we stayed.

King Henry IV:Where is the crown? Who took it from my pillow?

Earl of Warwick:When we withdrew, my liege, we left it here.

King Henry IV:The Prince hath ta’en it hence. Go seek him out. Is he so hasty that he doth suppose my sleep my death? Find him, my Lord of Warwick. Chide him hither. [Warwick exits.] 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 overcareful fathers Have broke their sleep with thoughts, Their brains with care, their bones with industry. For this they have engrossèd and piled up The cankered heaps of strange-achievèd 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 packed with wax, our mouths with honey, We bring it to the hive and, like the bees, Are murdered for our pains. This bitter taste Yields his engrossments to the ending father. [Enter Warwick.] Now where is he that will not stay so long Till his friend sickness hath determined me?

Earl of Warwick:My lord, I found the Prince in the next room, Washing with kindly tears his gentle cheeks, With such a deep demeanor in great sorrow That tyranny, which never quaffed but blood, Would, by beholding him, have washed his knife With gentle eyedrops. He is coming hither.

King Henry IV:But wherefore did he take away the crown? [Enter Prince Harry with the crown.] Lo where he comes.—Come hither to me, Harry.— Depart the chamber. Leave us here alone.

Gloucester, Clarence, Warwick, and others exit.

Prince Hal:I never thought to hear you speak again.

King Henry IV:Thy wish was father, Harry, to that thought. I stay too long by thee; I weary thee. Dost thou so hunger for mine empty chair That thou wilt needs invest thee with my honors 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 stol’n that which after some few hours Were thine without offense, and at my death Thou hast sealed 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, Whom 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 crownèd, 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 crowned. Up, vanity, Down, royal state, all you sage councillors, hence, And to the English court assemble now, From every region, apes of idleness. Now, neighbor 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, honor, might, For the fifth Harry from curbed 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 Hal:[placing the crown on the pillow] O pardon me, my liege! But for my tears, The moist impediments unto my speech, I had forestalled 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. [He kneels.] If I affect it more Than as your honor 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 purposèd. 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 honored, most renowned, 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 murdered 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 forever keep it from my head And make me as the poorest vassal is That doth with awe and terror kneel to it.

King Henry IV:O my son, God put it in thy mind to take it hence That thou mightst win the more thy father’s love, Pleading so wisely in excuse of it. Come hither, Harry, sit thou by my bed And hear, I think, the very latest counsel That ever I shall breathe. [The Prince rises from his knees and sits near the bed.] God knows, my son, By what bypaths 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 seemed in me But as an honor snatched with boist’rous hand, And I had many living to upbraid My gain of it by their assistances, Which daily grew to quarrel and to bloodshed, Wounding supposèd peace. All these bold fears Thou seest with peril I have answerèd, 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 Hal: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 John of Lancaster and others.

King Henry IV:Look, look, here comes my John of Lancaster.

John of Lancaster:Health, peace, and happiness to my royal father.

King Henry IV:Thou bring’st me happiness and peace, son John, But health, alack, with youthful wings is flown From this bare withered trunk. Upon thy sight My worldly business makes a period. Where is my Lord of Warwick?

Prince Hal:My Lord of Warwick.

Enter Warwick.

King Henry IV:Doth any name particular belong Unto the lodging where I first did swoon?

Earl of Warwick:’Tis called Jerusalem, my noble lord.

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

They exit.

Act 5

Scene 1

Enter Shallow, Falstaff, Page, and Bardolph.

Justice Robert Shallow:By cock and pie, sir, you shall not away tonight.—What, Davy, I say!

Sir John Falstaff:You must excuse me, Master Robert Shallow.

Justice Robert Shallow:I will not excuse you. You shall not be excused. Excuses shall not be admitted. There is no excuse shall serve. You shall not be excused.— Why, Davy!

Enter Davy.

Davy:Here, sir.

Justice Robert 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?

Justice Robert 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 plow irons.

He gives Shallow a paper.

Justice Robert 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?

Justice Robert 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.

Shallow and Davy walk aside.

Davy:Doth the man of war stay all night, sir?

Justice Robert 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 back-bitten, sir, for they have marvelous foul linen.

Justice Robert 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.

Justice Robert 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; an 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 you let him be countenanced.

Justice Robert Shallow:Go to, I say, he shall have no wrong. Look about, Davy. [Davy exits.] 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.

Justice Robert Shallow:I thank thee with all my heart, kind Master Bardolph, [(to Page)] and welcome, my tall fellow.—Come, Sir John.

Sir John Falstaff:I’ll follow you, good Master Robert Shallow. [Shallow exits.] Bardolph, look to our horses. [Bardolph and Page exit.] 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 servingman. 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 humor 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.

Justice Robert Shallow:[within] Sir John.

Sir John Falstaff:I come, Master Shallow, I come, Master Shallow.

He exits.

Scene 2

Enter Warwick and Lord Chief Justice.

Earl of Warwick:How now, my Lord Chief Justice, whither away?

Lord Chief Justice:How doth the King?

Earl of Warwick:Exceeding well. His cares are now all ended.

Lord Chief Justice:I hope, not dead.

Earl of Warwick:He’s walked the way of nature, And to our purposes he lives no more.

Lord Chief Justice:I would his Majesty had called me with him. The service that I truly did his life Hath left me open to all injuries.

Earl of Warwick:Indeed, I think the young king loves you not.

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

Enter John, Thomas, and Humphrey.

Earl of Warwick:Here come 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!

Lord Chief Justice:O God, I fear all will be overturned.

John of Lancaster:Good morrow, cousin Warwick, good morrow.

Humphrey of Gloucester, Thomas of Clarence:Good morrow, cousin.

John of Lancaster:We meet like men that had forgot to speak.

Earl of Warwick:We do remember, but our argument Is all too heavy to admit much talk.

John of Lancaster:Well, peace be with him that hath made us heavy.

Lord Chief Justice:Peace be with us, lest we be heavier.

Humphrey of 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.

John of Lancaster:[to the Chief Justice] Though no man be assured what grace to find, You stand in coldest expectation. I am the sorrier; would ’twere otherwise.

Thomas of Clarence:Well, you must now speak Sir John Falstaff fair, Which swims against your stream of quality.

Lord Chief Justice:Sweet princes, what I did I did in honor, Led by th’ impartial conduct of my soul; And never shall you see that I will beg A ragged and forestalled 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.

Enter the Prince, as Henry V, and Blunt.

Earl of Warwick:Here comes the Prince.

Lord Chief Justice:Good morrow, and God save your Majesty.

Prince Hal: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.

John of Lancaster, Thomas of Clarence, Humphrey of Gloucester:We hope no otherwise from your Majesty.

Prince Hal:You all look strangely on me. [To the Chief Justice.] And you most. You are, I think, assured I love you not.

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

Prince Hal: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 washed in Lethe and forgotten?

Lord Chief Justice:I then did use the person of your father; The image of his power lay then in me. And in th’ administration of his law, Whiles I was busy for the commonwealth, Your Highness pleasèd to forget my place, The majesty and power of law and justice, The image of the King whom I presented, And struck me in my very seat of judgment, Whereon, as an offender to your father, I gave bold way to my authority And did commit you. If the deed were ill, Be you contented, wearing now the garland, To have a son set your decrees at nought? To pluck down justice from your awful bench? To trip the course of law and blunt the sword That guards the peace and safety of your person? Nay more, to spurn at your most royal image And mock your workings in a second body? Question your royal thoughts, make the case yours; Be now the father and propose a son, Hear your own dignity so much profaned, See your most dreadful laws so loosely slighted, Behold yourself so by a son disdained, 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.

Prince Hal:You are right, justice, and you weigh this well. Therefore still bear the balance and the sword. And I do wish your honors 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’ unstainèd 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. [They clasp hands.] 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-practiced 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 spirits 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 flowed 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-governed nation; That war, or peace, or both at once, may be As things acquainted and familiar to us, [To the Chief Justice.] In which you, father, shall have foremost hand. Our coronation done, we will accite, As I before remembered, 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.

They exit.

Scene 3

Enter Sir John Falstaff, Shallow, Silence, Davy, Bardolph, and Page.

Justice Robert Shallow:Nay, you shall see my orchard, where, in an arbor, 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.

Sir John Falstaff:Fore God, you have here a goodly dwelling, and a rich.

Justice Robert Shallow:Barren, barren, barren, beggars all, beggars all, Sir John. Marry, good air.—Spread, Davy, spread, Davy. Well said, Davy.

Sir John Falstaff:This Davy serves you for good uses. He is your servingman and your husband.

Justice Robert 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.

Justice Silence:Ah, sirrah, quoth he, we shall [Sings.] 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.

Sir John Falstaff:There’s a merry heart!—Good Master Silence, I’ll give you a health for that anon.

Justice Robert Shallow:Give Master Bardolph some wine, Davy.

Davy:[to the guests] 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.

He exits.

Justice Robert Shallow:Be merry, Master Bardolph.—And, my little soldier there, be merry.

Justice Silence:[sings] Be merry, be merry, my wife has all, For women are shrews, both short and tall. ’Tis merry in hall when beards wags all, And welcome merry Shrovetide. Be merry, be merry.

Sir John Falstaff:I did not think Master Silence had been a man of this mettle.

Justice Silence:Who, I? I have been merry twice and once ere now.

Enter Davy.

Davy:[to the guests] There’s a dish of leather-coats for you.

Justice Robert Shallow:Davy!

Davy:Your Worship, I’ll be with you straight.—A cup of wine, sir.

Justice Silence:[sings] A cup of wine that’s brisk and fine, And drink unto thee, leman mine, And a merry heart lives long-a.

Sir John Falstaff:Well said, Master Silence.

Justice Silence:And we shall be merry; now comes in the sweet o’ th’ night.

Sir John Falstaff:Health and long life to you, Master Silence.

Justice Silence:[sings] Fill the cup, and let it come, I’ll pledge you a mile to th’ bottom.

Justice Robert Shallow:Honest Bardolph, welcome. If thou want’st anything and wilt not call, beshrew thy heart.— Welcome, my little tiny thief, and welcome indeed too. I’ll drink to Master Bardolph, and to all the cabileros about London.

Davy:I hope to see London once ere I die.

Bardolph:An I might see you there, Davy!

Justice Robert Shallow:By the Mass, you’ll crack a quart together, ha, will you not, Master Bardolph?

Bardolph:Yea, sir, in a pottle-pot.

Justice Robert 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.

Justice Robert Shallow:Why, there spoke a king. Lack nothing, be merry. [(One knocks at door.)] Look who’s at door there, ho. Who knocks?

Davy exits.

Sir John Falstaff:Why, now you have done me right.

Justice Silence:[sings] Do me right, And dub me knight, Samingo. Is ’t not so?

Sir John Falstaff:’Tis so.

Justice Silence:Is ’t so? Why then, say an old man can do somewhat.

Enter Davy.

Davy:An ’t please your Worship, there’s one Pistol come from the court with news.

Sir John Falstaff:From the court? Let him come in. [Enter Pistol.] How now, Pistol?

Pistol:Sir John, God save you.

Sir John 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.

Justice 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.

Sir John 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.

Sir John Falstaff:O base Assyrian knight, what is thy news? Let King Cophetua know the truth thereof.

Justice Silence:[sings] 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.

Justice Robert Shallow:Honest gentleman, I know not your breeding.

Pistol:Why then, lament therefor.

Justice Robert Shallow:Give me pardon, sir. If, sir, you come with news from the court, I take it there’s but two ways, either to utter them, or to conceal them. I am, sir, under the King in some authority.

Pistol:Under which king, besonian? Speak or die.

Justice Robert Shallow:Under King Harry.

Pistol:Harry the Fourth, or Fifth?

Justice Robert 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.

Pistol makes a fig.

Sir John Falstaff:What, is the old king dead?

Pistol:As nail in door. The things I speak are just.

Sir John 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 knight-hood for my fortune.

Pistol:What, I do bring good news!

Sir John 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!

Pistol:Let vultures vile seize on his lungs also! "Where is the life that late I led?" say they. Why, here it is. Welcome these pleasant days.

They exit.

Scene 4

Enter Hostess Quickly, Doll Tearsheet, and Beadles.

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

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

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

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

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

Doll Tearsheet:I’ll tell you what, you thin man in a censer, I will have you as soundly swinged for this, you bluebottle rogue, you filthy famished correctioner. If you be not swinged, I’ll forswear half-kirtles.

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

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

Doll Tearsheet:Come, you rogue, come, bring me to a justice.

Hostess:Ay, come, you starved bloodhound.

Doll Tearsheet:Goodman Death, Goodman Bones!

Hostess:Thou atomy, thou!

Doll Tearsheet:Come, you thin thing, come, you rascal.

Beadle:Very well.

They exit.

Scene 5

Enter two Grooms.

First Groom:More rushes, more rushes.

Second Groom:The trumpets have sounded twice.

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

Grooms exit.

Trumpets sound, and the King and his train pass over the stage. After them enter Falstaff, Shallow, Pistol, Bardolph, and the Page.

Sir John Falstaff:Stand here by me, Master Robert Shallow. I will make the King do you grace. I will leer upon him as he comes by, and do but mark the countenance that he will give me.

Pistol:God bless thy lungs, good knight!

Sir John Falstaff:Come here, Pistol, stand behind me.—O, if I had had time to have made new liveries, I would have bestowed the thousand pound I borrowed of you. But ’tis no matter. This poor show doth better. This doth infer the zeal I had to see him.

Justice Robert Shallow:It doth so.

Sir John Falstaff:It shows my earnestness of affection—

Justice Robert Shallow:It doth so.

Sir John Falstaff:My devotion—

Justice Robert Shallow:It doth, it doth, it doth.

Sir John Falstaff:As it were, to ride day and night, and not to deliberate, not to remember, not to have patience to shift me—

Justice Robert Shallow:It is best, certain.

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

Pistol:’Tis semper idem, for obsque hoc nihil est; ’tis all in every part.

Justice Robert Shallow:’Tis so indeed.

Pistol:My knight, I will inflame thy noble liver, and make thee rage. Thy Doll and Helen of thy noble thoughts is in base durance and contagious prison, haled thither by most mechanical and dirty hand. Rouse up revenge from ebon den with fell Alecto’s snake, for Doll is in. Pistol speaks nought but truth.

Sir John Falstaff:I will deliver her.

Shouts within. The trumpets sound.

Pistol:There roared the sea, and trumpet-clangor sounds.

Enter the King and his train.

Sir John Falstaff:God save thy Grace, King Hal, my royal Hal.

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

Sir John Falstaff:God save thee, my sweet boy!

Prince Hal:My Lord Chief Justice, speak to that vain man.

Lord Chief Justice:[to Falstaff] Have you your wits? Know you what ’tis you speak?

Sir John Falstaff:[to the King] My king, my Jove, I speak to thee, my heart!

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

King and his train exit.

Sir John Falstaff:Master Shallow, I owe you a thousand pound.

Justice Robert Shallow:Yea, marry, Sir John, which I beseech you to let me have home with me.

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

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

Sir John Falstaff:Sir, I will be as good as my word. This that you heard was but a color.

Justice Robert Shallow:A color that I fear you will die in, Sir John.

Sir John Falstaff:Fear no colors. Go with me to dinner.— Come, lieutenant Pistol.—Come, Bardolph.—I shall be sent for soon at night.

Enter the Lord Chief Justice and Prince John, with Officers.

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

Sir John Falstaff:My lord, my lord —

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

Pistol:Si fortuna me tormenta, spero me contenta.

All but John of Lancaster and Chief Justice exit.

John of Lancaster:I like this fair proceeding of the King’s. He hath intent his wonted followers Shall all be very well provided for, But all are banished till their conversations Appear more wise and modest to the world.

Lord Chief Justice:And so they are.

John of Lancaster:The King hath called his parliament, my lord.

Lord Chief Justice:He hath.

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

They exit.