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2 KING HENRY IV
DRAMATIS PERSONAE

KING HENRY      the Fourth. (KING HENRY IV:)

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

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

SCROOP,
ARCHBISHOP OF YORK      (ARCHBISHOP OF YORK:)

SIR JOHN COLEVILE       (COLEVILE:)

TRAVERS

|
| retainers of Northumberland.

SIR JOHN FALSTAFF       (FALSTAFF:)

His Page. (Page:)

SHALLOW

|
| country justices.

DAVY

servant to Shallow.

MOULDY

|
|

SHADOW

|
|

WART

| recruits.
|

FEEBLE

|
|

BULLCALF        |

FANG

|
| sheriff's officers.

MISTRESS QUICKLY        hostess of a tavern in Eastcheap.

Lords and Attendants; Porter, Drawers,
Beadles, Grooms, &c.
(First Messenger:)
(Porter:)
(First Drawer:)
(Second Drawer:)
(First Beadle:)
(First Groom:)
(Second Groom:)
A Dancer, speaker of the epilogue.

2 KING HENRY IV
INDUCTION
[Warkworth. Before the castle]
[Enter RUMOUR, painted full of tongues]

RUMOUR

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

[Exit]
2 KING HENRY IV

[Enter LORD BARDOLPH]

[The Porter opens the gate]

                       Where is the earl?

That the Lord Bardolph doth attend him here.

Porter

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

[Enter NORTHUMBERLAND]

[Exit Porter]

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.

I bring you certain news from Shrewsbury.

LORD BARDOLPH                     As good as heart can wish:
        The king is almost wounded to the death;
        And, in the fortune of my lord your son,
        Prince Harry slain outright; and both the Blunts
        Kill'd by the hand of Douglas; young Prince John

And Westmoreland and Stafford fled the field;
And Harry Monmouth's brawn, the hulk Sir John,
Is prisoner to your son: O, such a day,
So fought, so follow'd and so fairly won,
Came not till now to dignify the times,
Since Caesar's fortunes!

Saw you the field? came you from Shrewsbury?

A gentleman well bred and of good name,
That freely render'd me these news for true.

On Tuesday last to listen after news.
[Enter TRAVERS]

And he is furnish'd with no certainties
More than he haply may retail from me.

TRAVERS

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

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

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

Give then such instances of loss?

He was some hilding fellow that had stolen
The horse he rode on, and, upon my life,
Spoke at a venture. Look, here comes more news.
[Enter MORTON]

Foretells the nature of a tragic volume:
So looks the strand whereon the imperious flood Hath left a witness'd usurpation.
Say, Morton, didst thou come from Shrewsbury?

MORTON

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

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

MORTON

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

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

MORTON

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

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

MORTON

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

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

MORTON

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

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

MORTON

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

This present grief had wiped it from my mind.
Go in with me; and counsel every man
The aptest way for safety and revenge:
Get posts and letters, and make friends with speed: Never so few, and never yet more need.
[Exeunt]
2 KING HENRY IV

SCENE II        London. A street.

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

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

Page

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

FALSTAFF        Men of all sorts take a pride to gird at me: the
        brain of this foolish-compounded clay, man, is not
        able to invent anything that tends to laughter, more
        than I invent or is invented on me: I am not only
        witty in myself, but the cause that wit is in other

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

Page

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

FALSTAFF        Let him be damned, like the glutton! pray God his
        tongue be hotter! A whoreson Achitophel! a rascally
        yea-forsooth knave! to bear a gentleman in hand,
        and then stand upon security! The whoreson
        smooth-pates do now wear nothing but high shoes, and

bunches of keys at their girdles; and if a man is through with them in honest taking up, then they must stand upon security. I had as lief they would put ratsbane in my mouth as offer to stop it with security. I looked a' should have sent me two and twenty yards of satin, as I am a true knight, and he sends me security. Well, he may sleep in security; for he hath the horn of abundance, and the lightness of his wife shines through it: and yet cannot he see, though he have his own lanthorn to light him. Where's Bardolph?

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

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

[Enter the Lord Chief-Justice and Servant]

Page

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

FALSTAFF        Wait, close; I will not see him.

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

Servant Falstaff, an't please your lordship.

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

Servant

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

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

Servant Sir John Falstaff!

FALSTAFF        Boy, tell him I am deaf.

Page    You must speak louder; my master is deaf.

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

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.

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

Servant

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

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

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

FALSTAFF        My good lord! God give your lordship good time of
        day. I am glad to see your lordship abroad: I heard
        say your lordship was sick: I hope your lordship
        goes abroad by advice. Your lordship, though not
        clean past your youth, hath yet some smack of age in

you, some relish of the saltness of time; and I must humbly beseech your lordship to have a reverent care of your health.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lord Chief-Justice      You have misled the youthful prince.

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

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

FALSTAFF        My lord?

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

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

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

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

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

FALSTAFF        His effect of gravy, gravy, gravy.

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

FALSTAFF        Not so, my lord; your ill angel is light; but I hope
        he that looks upon me will take me without weighing:
        and yet, in some respects, I grant, I cannot go: I
        cannot tell. Virtue is of so little regard in these
        costermonger times that true valour is turned

bear-herd: pregnancy is made a tapster, and hath his quick wit wasted in giving reckonings: all the other gifts appertinent to man, as the malice of this age shapes them, are not worth a gooseberry. You that are old consider not the capacities of us that are young; you do measure the heat of our
livers with the bitterness of your galls: and we that are in the vaward of our youth, I must confess, are wags too.

Lord Chief-Justice      Do you set down your name in the scroll of youth,
        that are written down old with all the characters of
        age? Have you not a moist eye? a dry hand? a
        yellow cheek? a white beard? a decreasing leg? an
        increasing belly? is not your voice broken? your

wind short? your chin double? your wit single? and every part about you blasted with antiquity? and will you yet call yourself young? Fie, fie, fie, Sir John!

FALSTAFF        My lord, I was born about three of the clock in the
        afternoon, with a white head and something a round
        belly. For my voice, I have lost it with halloing
        and singing of anthems. To approve my youth
        further, I will not: the truth is, I am only old in

judgment and understanding; and he that will caper with me for a thousand marks, let him lend me the money, and have at him! For the box of the ear that the prince gave you, he gave it like a rude prince, and you took it like a sensible lord. I have
chequed him for it, and the young lion repents; marry, not in ashes and sackcloth, but in new silk and old sack.

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

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

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

FALSTAFF        Yea; I thank your pretty sweet wit for it. But look
        you pray, all you that kiss my lady Peace at home,
        that our armies join not in a hot day; for, by the
        Lord, I take but two shirts out with me, and I mean
        not to sweat extraordinarily: if it be a hot day,

and I brandish any thing but a bottle, I would I might never spit white again. There is not a
dangerous action can peep out his head but I am thrust upon it: well, I cannot last ever: but it was alway yet the trick of our English nation, if they have a good thing, to make it too common. If ye will needs say I am an old man, you should give me rest. I would to God my name were not so
terrible to the enemy as it is: I were better to be eaten to death with a rust than to be scoured to nothing with perpetual motion.

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

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

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

[Exeunt Chief-Justice and Servant]

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

Page    Sir?

FALSTAFF        What money is in my purse?

Page    Seven groats and two pence.

FALSTAFF        I can get no remedy against this consumption of the
        purse: borrowing only lingers and lingers it out,
        but the disease is incurable. Go bear this letter
        to my Lord of Lancaster; this to the prince; this
        to the Earl of Westmoreland; and this to old

Mistress Ursula, whom I have weekly sworn to marry since I perceived the first white hair on my chin. About it: you know where to find me.
[Exit Page]
A pox of this gout! or, a gout of this pox! for the one or the other plays the rogue with my great toe. 'Tis no matter if I do halt; I have the wars for my colour, and my pension shall seem the more reasonable. A good wit will make use of any thing: I will turn diseases to commodity.
[Exit]
2 KING HENRY IV

SCENE III       York. The Archbishop's palace.

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

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

MOWBRAY

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

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

Whether our present five and twenty thousand
May hold up head without Northumberland?

HASTINGS        With him, we may.

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

Conjecture, expectation, and surmise
Of aids incertain should not be admitted.

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

Eating the air on promise of supply,
Flattering himself in project of a power
Much smaller than the smallest of his thoughts: And so, with great imagination
Proper to madmen, led his powers to death
And winking leap'd into destruction.

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

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

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

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

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

In three divided; and his coffers sound
With hollow poverty and emptiness.

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

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

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

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

ARCHBISHOP OF YORK      Let us on,
        And publish the occasion of our arms.
        The commonwealth is sick of their own choice;
        Their over-greedy love hath surfeited:
        An habitation giddy and unsure

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

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

[Exeunt]
2 KING HENRY IV

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

MISTRESS QUICKLY        Master Fang, have you entered the action?

FANG    It is entered.

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

FANG    Sirrah, where's Snare?

MISTRESS QUICKLY        O Lord, ay! good Master Snare.

FANG    Snare, we must arrest Sir John Falstaff.

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

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

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

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

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

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

MISTRESS QUICKLY        I am undone by his going; I warrant you, he's an
        infinitive thing upon my score. Good Master Fang,
        hold him sure: good Master Snare, let him not
        'scape. A' comes continuantly to Pie-corner--saving
        your manhoods--to buy a saddle; and he is indited to

dinner to the Lubber's-head in Lumbert street, to Master Smooth's the silkman: I pray ye, since my exion is entered and my case so openly known to the world, let him be brought in to his answer. A
hundred mark is a long one for a poor lone woman to bear: and I have borne, and borne, and borne, and have been fubbed off, and fubbed off, and fubbed off, from this day to that day, that it is a shame to be thought on. There is no honesty in such
dealing; unless a woman should be made an ass and a beast, to bear every knave's wrong. Yonder he
comes; and that errant malmsey-nose knave, Bardolph, with him. Do your offices, do your offices: Master Fang and Master Snare, do me, do me, do me your offices.
[Enter FALSTAFF, Page, and BARDOLPH]

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

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

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

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

FALSTAFF        Keep them off, Bardolph.

FANG    A rescue! a rescue!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lord Chief-Justice      For what sum?

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

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

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

FALSTAFF        What is the gross sum that I owe thee?

MISTRESS QUICKLY        Marry, if thou wert an honest man, thyself and the
        money too. Thou didst swear to me upon a
        parcel-gilt goblet, sitting in my Dolphin-chamber,
        at the round table, by a sea-coal fire, upon
        Wednesday in Wheeson week, when the prince broke

thy head for liking his father to a singing-man of Windsor, thou didst swear to me then, as I was
washing thy wound, to marry me and make me my lady thy wife. Canst thou deny it? Did not goodwife
Keech, the butcher's wife, come in then and call me gossip Quickly? coming in to borrow a mess of
vinegar; telling us she had a good dish of prawns; whereby thou didst desire to eat some; whereby I told thee they were ill for a green wound? And
didst thou not, when she was gone down stairs,
desire me to be no more so familiarity with such poor people; saying that ere long they should call me madam? And didst thou not kiss me and bid me fetch thee thirty shillings? I put thee now to thy book-oath: deny it, if thou canst.

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

Lord Chief-Justice      Sir John, Sir John, I am well acquainted with your
        manner of wrenching the true cause the false way. It
        is not a confident brow, nor the throng of words
        that come with such more than impudent sauciness
        from you, can thrust me from a level consideration:

you have, as it appears to me, practised upon the easy-yielding spirit of this woman, and made her serve your uses both in purse and in person.

MISTRESS QUICKLY        Yea, in truth, my lord.

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

FALSTAFF        My lord, I will not undergo this sneap without
        reply. You call honourable boldness impudent
        sauciness: if a man will make courtesy and say
        nothing, he is virtuous: no, my lord, my humble
        duty remembered, I will not be your suitor. I say

to you, I do desire deliverance from these officers, being upon hasty employment in the king's affairs.

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

FALSTAFF        Come hither, hostess.

[Enter GOWER]

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

GOWER

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

FALSTAFF        As I am a gentleman.

MISTRESS QUICKLY        Faith, you said so before.

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

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

FALSTAFF        Glasses, glasses is the only drinking: and for thy
        walls, a pretty slight drollery, or the story of
        the Prodigal, or the German hunting in water-work,
        is worth a thousand of these bed-hangings and these
        fly-bitten tapestries. Let it be ten pound, if thou

canst. Come, an 'twere not for thy humours, there's not a better wench in England. Go, wash thy face, and draw the action. Come, thou must not be in
this humour with me; dost not know me? come, come, I know thou wast set on to this.

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

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

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

FALSTAFF        Will I live?

[To BARDOLPH]
Go, with her, with her; hook on, hook on.

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

FALSTAFF        No more words; let's have her.

[Exeunt MISTRESS QUICKLY, BARDOLPH, Officers and Boy]

Lord Chief-Justice      I have heard better news.

FALSTAFF        What's the news, my lord?

Lord Chief-Justice      Where lay the king last night?

GOWER   At Basingstoke, my lord.

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

Lord Chief-Justice      Come all his forces back?

GOWER

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

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

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

FALSTAFF        My lord!

Lord Chief-Justice      What's the matter?

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

GOWER

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

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

FALSTAFF        Will you sup with me, Master Gower?

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

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

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

[Exeunt]
2 KING HENRY IV

SCENE II        London. Another street.

[Enter PRINCE HENRY and POINS]

POINS

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

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.

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

POINS

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

POINS

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

sad, now my father is sick: albeit I could tell thee, as to one it pleases me, for fault of a
better, to call my friend, I could be sad, and sad indeed too.

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.

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

POINS

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

POINS

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

[Enter BARDOLPH and Page]

me Christian; and look, if the fat villain have not transformed him ape.

BARDOLPH        God save your grace!

PRINCE HENRY    And yours, most noble Bardolph!

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

Page

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

PRINCE HENRY    Has not the boy profited?

BARDOLPH        Away, you whoreson upright rabbit, away!

Page

Away, you rascally Althaea's dream, away!

Page

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

boy.

POINS

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

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

PRINCE HENRY    And how doth thy master, Bardolph?

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

POINS

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

BARDOLPH        In bodily health, sir.

POINS

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

dog; and he holds his place; for look you how be writes.

POINS

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

from Japhet. But to the letter.

POINS

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

POINS

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

you use me thus, Ned? must I marry your sister?

spirits of the wise sit in the clouds and mock us. Is your master here in London?

BARDOLPH        Yea, my lord.

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

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

Page

Ephesians, my lord, of the old church.

Page

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

Page

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

bull. Shall we steal upon them, Ned, at supper?

master that I am yet come to town: there's for
your silence.

BARDOLPH        I have no tongue, sir.

Page

And for mine, sir, I will govern it.

[Exeunt BARDOLPH and Page]
This Doll Tearsheet should be some road.

POINS

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

in his true colours, and not ourselves be seen?

POINS

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

Jove's case. From a prince to a prentice? a low transformation! that shall be mine; for in every thing the purpose must weigh with the folly.
Follow me, Ned.
[Exeunt]
2 KING HENRY IV

SCENE III       Warkworth. Before the castle.

[Enter NORTHUMBERLAND, LADY NORTHUMBERLAND, and LADY PERCY]

Give even way unto my rough affairs:
Put not you on the visage of the times
And be like them to Percy troublesome.

Do what you will; your wisdom be your guide.

And, but my going, nothing can redeem it.

LADY PERCY      O yet, for God's sake, go not to these wars!
        The time was, father, that you broke your word,
        When you were more endeared to it than now;
        When your own Percy, when my heart's dear Harry,
        Threw many a northward look to see his father

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

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.

Till that the nobles and the armed commons
Have of their puissance made a little taste.

LADY PERCY      If they get ground and vantage of the king,
        Then join you with them, like a rib of steel,
        To make strength stronger; but, for all our loves,
        First let them try themselves. So did your son;
        He was so suffer'd: so came I a widow;

And never shall have length of life enough
To rain upon remembrance with mine eyes,
That it may grow and sprout as high as heaven,
For recordation to my noble husband.

As with the tide swell'd up unto his height,
That makes a still-stand, running neither way:
Fain would I go to meet the archbishop,
But many thousand reasons hold me back.
I will resolve for Scotland: there am I,
Till time and vantage crave my company.
[Exeunt]
2 KING HENRY IV

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

[Enter two Drawers]

thou knowest Sir John cannot endure an apple-john.

of apple-johns before him, and told him there were five more Sir Johns, and, putting off his hat, said 'I will now take my leave of these six dry, round, old, withered knights.' It angered him to the
heart: but he hath forgot that.

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.

anon; and they will put on two of our jerkins and aprons; and Sir John must not know of it: Bardolph hath brought word.

excellent stratagem.

[Exit]
[Enter MISTRESS QUICKLY and DOLL TEARSHEET]

MISTRESS QUICKLY        I' faith, sweetheart, methinks now you are in an
        excellent good temperality: your pulsidge beats as
        extraordinarily as heart would desire; and your
        colour, I warrant you, is as red as any rose, in good
        truth, la! But, i' faith, you have drunk too much

canaries; and that's a marvellous searching wine, and it perfumes the blood ere one can say 'What's this?' How do you now?

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

[Enter FALSTAFF]

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

[Exit First Drawer]
[Singing]
--'And was a worthy king.' How now, Mistress Doll!

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

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

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

FALSTAFF        You make fat rascals, Mistress Doll.

make them not.

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

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

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

you: you are the weaker vessel, as they say, the emptier vessel.

hogshead? there's a whole merchant's venture of Bourdeaux stuff in him; you have not seen a hulk better stuffed in the hold. Come, I'll be friends with thee, Jack: thou art going to the wars; and whether I shall ever see thee again or no, there is nobody cares.
[Re-enter First Drawer]

you.

hither: it is the foul-mouthed'st rogue in England.

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

FALSTAFF        Dost thou hear, hostess?

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

FALSTAFF        Dost thou hear? it is mine ancient.

MISTRESS QUICKLY        Tilly-fally, Sir John, ne'er tell me: your ancient
        swaggerer comes not in my doors. I was before Master
        Tisick, the debuty, t'other day; and, as he said to
        me, 'twas no longer ago than Wednesday last, 'I'
        good faith, neighbour Quickly,' says he; Master

Dumbe, our minister, was by then; 'neighbour
Quickly,' says he, 'receive those that are civil; for,' said he, 'you are in an ill name:' now a' said so, I can tell whereupon; 'for,' says he, 'you are an honest woman, and well thought on; therefore take heed what guests you receive: receive,' says he, 'no swaggering companions.' There comes none here: you would bless you to hear what he said: no, I'll no swaggerers.

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

[Exit First Drawer]

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

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

[Enter PISTOL, BARDOLPH, and Page]

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

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

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

you poor, base, rascally, cheating, lack-linen
mate! Away, you mouldy rogue, away! I am meat for your master.

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!

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

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

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

BARDOLPH        Pray thee, go down, good ancient.

FALSTAFF        Hark thee hither, Mistress Doll.

PISTOL

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

Page

Pray thee, go down.

PISTOL

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

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

PISTOL

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

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

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

PISTOL

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

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

PISTOL

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

[Laying down his sword]
Come we to full points here; and are etceteras nothing?

FALSTAFF        Pistol, I would be quiet.

PISTOL

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

endure such a fustian rascal.

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

BARDOLPH        Come, get you down stairs.

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

MISTRESS QUICKLY        Here's goodly stuff toward!

FALSTAFF        Give me my rapier, boy.

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

FALSTAFF        Get you down stairs.

[Drawing, and driving PISTOL out]

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

[Exeunt PISTOL and BARDOLPH]

Ah, you whoreson little valiant villain, you!

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

[Re-enter BARDOLPH]

FALSTAFF        Have you turned him out o' doors?

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

FALSTAFF        A rascal! to brave me!

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

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

I'll canvass thee between a pair of sheets.
[Enter Music]

Page    The music is come, sir.

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

Thou whoreson little tidy Bartholomew boar-pig, when wilt thou leave fighting o' days and foining o' nights, and begin to patch up thine old body for heaven?
[Enter, behind, PRINCE HENRY and POINS, disguised]

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

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

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

FALSTAFF        Because their legs are both of a bigness, and a'
        plays at quoits well, and eats conger and fennel,
        and drinks off candles' ends for flap-dragons, and
        rides the wild-mare with the boys, and jumps upon
        joined-stools, and swears with a good grace, and

wears his boots very smooth, like unto the sign of the leg, and breeds no bate with telling of discreet stories; and such other gambol faculties a' has, that show a weak mind and an able body, for the which the prince admits him: for the prince himself is such another; the weight of a hair will turn the scales between their avoirdupois.

clawed like a parrot.

POINS

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

FALSTAFF        Kiss me, Doll.

says the almanac to that?

POINS

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

FALSTAFF        Thou dost give me flattering busses.

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

FALSTAFF        I am old, I am old.

boy of them all.

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

sayest so: prove that ever I dress myself handsome till thy return: well, harken at the end.

FALSTAFF        Some sack, Francis.

| Anon, anon, sir.

[Coming forward]

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

dost thou lead!

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

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

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

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

POINS

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

speak of me even now before this honest, virtuous, civil gentlewoman!

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

FALSTAFF        Didst thou hear me?

by Gad's-hill: you knew I was at your back, and spoke it on purpose to try my patience.

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

and then I know how to handle you.

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

bread-chipper and I know not what?

FALSTAFF        No abuse, Hal.

POINS   No abuse?

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

No abuse, Hal: none, Ned, none: no, faith, boys, none.

not make thee wrong this virtuous gentlewoman to close with us? is she of the wicked? is thine
hostess here of the wicked? or is thy boy of the wicked? or honest Bardolph, whose zeal burns in his nose, of the wicked?

POINS   Answer, thou dead elm, answer.

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

PRINCE HENRY    For the women?

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

MISTRESS QUICKLY        No, I warrant you.

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

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

FALSTAFF        His grace says that which his flesh rebels against.

[Knocking within]

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

[Enter PETO]

PETO

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

So idly to profane the precious time,
When tempest of commotion, like the south
Borne with black vapour, doth begin to melt
And drop upon our bare unarmed heads.
Give me my sword and cloak. Falstaff, good night.
[Exeunt PRINCE HENRY, POINS, PETO and BARDOLPH]

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

[Knocking within]
More knocking at the door!
[Re-enter BARDOLPH]
How now! what's the matter?

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

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

I will see you again ere I go.

well, sweet Jack, have a care of thyself.

FALSTAFF        Farewell, farewell.

[Exeunt FALSTAFF and BARDOLPH]

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

BARDOLPH        [Within]  Mistress Tearsheet!

MISTRESS QUICKLY        What's the matter?

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

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

[She comes blubbered]
Yea, will you come, Doll?
[Exeunt]
2 KING HENRY IV

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

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

Have you read o'er the letters that I sent you?

How foul it is; what rank diseases grow
And with what danger, near the heart of it.

WARWICK

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

And see the revolution of the times
Make mountains level, and the continent,
Weary of solid firmness, melt itself
Into the sea! and, other times, to see
The beachy girdle of the ocean
Too wide for Neptune's hips; how chances mock,
And changes fill the cup of alteration
With divers liquors! O, if this were seen,
The happiest youth, viewing his progress through, What perils past, what crosses to ensue,
Would shut the book, and sit him down and die.
'Tis not 'ten years gone
Since Richard and Northumberland, great friends, Did feast together, and in two years after
Were they at wars: it is but eight years since
This Percy was the man nearest my soul,
Who like a brother toil'd in my affairs
And laid his love and life under my foot,
Yea, for my sake, even to the eyes of Richard
Gave him defiance. But which of you was by--
You, cousin Nevil, as I may remember--
[To WARWICK]
When Richard, with his eye brimful of tears,
Then cheque'd and rated by Northumberland,
Did speak these words, now proved a prophecy?
'Northumberland, thou ladder by the which
My cousin Bolingbroke ascends my throne;'
Though then, God knows, I had no such intent,
But that necessity so bow'd the state
That I and greatness were compell'd to kiss:
'The time shall come,' thus did he follow it,
'The time will come, that foul sin, gathering head, Shall break into corruption:' so went on,
Foretelling this same time's condition
And the division of our amity.

WARWICK

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

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

WARWICK

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

And were these inward wars once out of hand,
We would, dear lords, unto the Holy Land.
[Exeunt]
2 KING HENRY IV

SCENE II        Gloucestershire. Before SHALLOW'S house.

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

SHALLOW

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

SHALLOW

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

SHALLOW

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

SHALLOW

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

SHALLOW

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

SHALLOW

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

SHADOW

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

SHALLOW

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

SHALLOW

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

SILENCE

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

[Enter BARDOLPH and one with him]

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

SHALLOW

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

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

SHALLOW

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

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

SHALLOW

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

BARDOLPH        Pardon me, sir; I have heard the word. Phrase call
        you it? by this good day, I know not the phrase;
        but I will maintain the word with my sword to be a
        soldier-like word, and a word of exceeding good
        command, by heaven. Accommodated; that is, when a

man is, as they say, accommodated; or when a man is, being, whereby a' may be thought to be accommodated; which is an excellent thing.

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

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

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

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

FALSTAFF        Let me see them, I beseech you.

SHALLOW

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

SHALLOW

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

FALSTAFF        Is thy name Mouldy?

MOULDY  Yea, an't please you.

FALSTAFF        'Tis the more time thou wert used.

SHALLOW

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

FALSTAFF        Prick him.

MOULDY

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

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

SHALLOW

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

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

FALSTAFF        Shadow, whose son art thou?

SHADOW  My mother's son, sir.

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

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

FALSTAFF        Where's he?

WART    Here, sir.

FALSTAFF        Is thy name Wart?

WART    Yea, sir.

FALSTAFF        Thou art a very ragged wart.

SHALLOW Shall I prick him down, Sir John?

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

SHALLOW

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

FALSTAFF        What trade art thou, Feeble?

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

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.

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.

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

SHALLOW Peter Bullcalf o' the green!

FALSTAFF        Yea, marry, let's see Bullcalf.

BULLCALF        Here, sir.

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

BULLCALF        O Lord! good my lord captain,--

FALSTAFF        What, dost thou roar before thou art pricked?

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

FALSTAFF        What disease hast thou?

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

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

SHALLOW

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

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

SHALLOW

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

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

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

FALSTAFF        She lives, Master Shallow.

SHALLOW She never could away with me.

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

SHALLOW

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

FALSTAFF        Old, old, Master Shallow.

SHALLOW

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

SHALLOW

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

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

SHALLOW

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

[Exeunt FALSTAFF and Justices]

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

and, for mine own part, have a desire to stay with my friends; else, sir, I did not care, for mine own part, so much.

BARDOLPH        Go to; stand aside.

MOULDY

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

BARDOLPH        Go to; stand aside.

FEEBLE

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

BARDOLPH        Well said; thou'rt a good fellow.

[Re-enter FALSTAFF and the Justices]

FALSTAFF        Come, sir, which men shall I have?

SHALLOW Four of which you please.

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

FALSTAFF        Go to; well.

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

FALSTAFF        Do you choose for me.

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

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

SHALLOW

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

FALSTAFF        Will you tell me, Master Shallow, how to choose a
        man? Care I for the limb, the thewes, the stature,
        bulk, and big assemblance of a man! Give me the
        spirit, Master Shallow. Here's Wart; you see what a
        ragged appearance it is; a' shall charge you and

discharge you with the motion of a pewterer's
hammer, come off and on swifter than he that gibbets on the brewer's bucket. And this same half-faced fellow, Shadow; give me this man: he presents no mark to the enemy; the foeman may with as great aim level at the edge of a penknife. And for a retreat; how swiftly will this Feeble the woman's tailor run off! O, give me the spare men, and spare me the great ones. Put me a caliver into Wart's hand, Bardolph.

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

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

SHALLOW

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

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

SHALLOW

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

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

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

FALSTAFF        Fare you well, gentle gentlemen.

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

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

ARCHBISHOP OF YORK      What is this forest call'd?

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

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

HASTINGS        We have sent forth already.

ARCHBISHOP OF YORK      'Tis well done.
        My friends and brethren in these great affairs,
        I must acquaint you that I have received
        New-dated letters from Northumberland;
        Their cold intent, tenor and substance, thus:

Here doth he wish his person, with such powers
As might hold sortance with his quality,
The which he could not levy; whereupon
He is retired, to ripe his growing fortunes,
To Scotland: and concludes in hearty prayers
That your attempts may overlive the hazard
And fearful melting of their opposite.

MOWBRAY

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

[Enter a Messenger]

HASTINGS        Now, what news?

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

MOWBRAY

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

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

[Enter WESTMORELAND]

The prince, Lord John and Duke of Lancaster.

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

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

ARCHBISHOP OF YORK      Wherefore do I this? so the question stands.
        Briefly to this end: we are all diseased,
        And with our surfeiting and wanton hours
        Have brought ourselves into a burning fever,
        And we must bleed for it; of which disease

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

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

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

Or if there were, it not belongs to you.

MOWBRAY

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

WESTMORELAND                      O, my good Lord Mowbray,
        Construe the times to their necessities,
        And you shall say indeed, it is the time,
        And not the king, that doth you injuries.
        Yet for your part, it not appears to me

Either from the king or in the present time
That you should have an inch of any ground
To build a grief on: were you not restored
To all the Duke of Norfolk's signories,
Your noble and right well remember'd father's?

MOWBRAY

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

The Earl of Hereford was reputed then
In England the most valiant gentlemen:
Who knows on whom fortune would then have smiled? But if your father had been victor there,
He ne'er had borne it out of Coventry:
For all the country in a general voice
Cried hate upon him; and all their prayers and love Were set on Hereford, whom they doted on
And bless'd and graced indeed, more than the king. But this is mere digression from my purpose.
Here come I from our princely general
To know your griefs; to tell you from his grace That he will give you audience; and wherein
It shall appear that your demands are just,
You shall enjoy them, every thing set off
That might so much as think you enemies.

MOWBRAY

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

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

A rotten case abides no handling.

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

I muse you make so slight a question.

ARCHBISHOP OF YORK      Then take, my Lord of Westmoreland, this schedule,
        For this contains our general grievances:
        Each several article herein redress'd,
        All members of our cause, both here and hence,
        That are insinew'd to this action,

Acquitted by a true substantial form
And present execution of our wills
To us and to our purposes confined,
We come within our awful banks again
And knit our powers to the arm of peace.

In sight of both our battles we may meet;
And either end in peace, which God so frame!
Or to the place of difference call the swords
Which must decide it.

ARCHBISHOP OF YORK      My lord, we will do so.

[Exit WESTMORELAND]

MOWBRAY

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

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

MOWBRAY

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

ARCHBISHOP OF YORK      No, no, my lord. Note this; the king is weary
        Of dainty and such picking grievances:
        For he hath found to end one doubt by death
        Revives two greater in the heirs of life,
        And therefore will he wipe his tables clean

And keep no tell-tale to his memory
That may repeat and history his loss
To new remembrance; for full well he knows
He cannot so precisely weed this land
As his misdoubts present occasion:
His foes are so enrooted with his friends
That, plucking to unfix an enemy,
He doth unfasten so and shake a friend:
So that this land, like an offensive wife
That hath enraged him on to offer strokes,
As he is striking, holds his infant up
And hangs resolved correction in the arm
That was uprear'd to execution.

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

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

MOWBRAY

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

[Re-enter WESTMORELAND]

To meet his grace just distance 'tween our armies.

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

[Exeunt]
2 KING HENRY IV

SCENE II        Another part of the forest.

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

LANCASTER       You are well encounter'd here, my cousin Mowbray:
        Good day to you, gentle lord archbishop;
        And so to you, Lord Hastings, and to all.
        My Lord of York, it better show'd with you
        When that your flock, assembled by the bell,

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

ARCHBISHOP OF YORK      Good my Lord of Lancaster,
        I am not here against your father's peace;
        But, as I told my lord of Westmoreland,
        The time misorder'd doth, in common sense,
        Crowd us and crush us to this monstrous form,

To hold our safety up. I sent your grace
The parcels and particulars of our grief,
The which hath been with scorn shoved from the court, Whereon this Hydra son of war is born;
Whose dangerous eyes may well be charm'd asleep With grant of our most just and right desires,
And true obedience, of this madness cured,
Stoop tamely to the foot of majesty.

MOWBRAY

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

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

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

How far forth you do like their articles.

LANCASTER       I like them all, and do allow them well,
        And swear here, by the honour of my blood,
        My father's purposes have been mistook,
        And some about him have too lavishly
        Wrested his meaning and authority.

My lord, these griefs shall be with speed redress'd; Upon my soul, they shall. If this may please you, Discharge your powers unto their several counties, As we will ours: and here between the armies
Let's drink together friendly and embrace,
That all their eyes may bear those tokens home
Of our restored love and amity.

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

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

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

[Exit Officer]

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

I have bestow'd to breed this present peace,
You would drink freely: but my love to ye
Shall show itself more openly hereafter.

ARCHBISHOP OF YORK      I do not doubt you.

Health to my lord and gentle cousin, Mowbray.

MOWBRAY

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

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

Serves to say thus, 'some good thing comes
to-morrow.'

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

[Shouts within]

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

MOWBRAY This had been cheerful after victory.

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

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

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

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

[Exit HASTINGS]

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

[Re-enter WESTMORELAND]
Now, cousin, wherefore stands our army still?

Will not go off until they hear you speak.

LANCASTER       They know their duties.

[Re-enter HASTINGS]

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

I do arrest thee, traitor, of high treason:
And you, lord archbishop, and you, Lord Mowbray, Of capitol treason I attach you both.

WESTMORELAND    Is your assembly so?

ARCHBISHOP OF YORK      Will you thus break your faith?

LANCASTER       I pawn'd thee none:
        I promised you redress of these same grievances
        Whereof you did complain; which, by mine honour,
        I will perform with a most Christian care.
        But for you, rebels, look to taste the due

Meet for rebellion and such acts as yours.
Most shallowly did you these arms commence,
Fondly brought here and foolishly sent hence.
Strike up our drums, pursue the scatter'd stray: God, and not we, hath safely fought to-day.
Some guard these traitors to the block of death, Treason's true bed and yielder up of breath.
[Exeunt]
2 KING HENRY IV

SCENE III       Another part of the forest.

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

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

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

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

COLEVILE        Are not you Sir John Falstaff?

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

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

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

Here comes our general.
[Enter PRINCE JOHN OF LANCASTER, WESTMORELAND,
BLUNT, and others]

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

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

FALSTAFF        I would be sorry, my lord, but it should be thus: I
        never knew yet but rebuke and cheque was the reward
        of valour. Do you think me a swallow, an arrow, or a
        bullet? have I, in my poor and old motion, the
        expedition of thought? I have speeded hither with

the very extremest inch of possibility; I have
foundered nine score and odd posts: and here,
travel-tainted as I am, have in my pure and
immaculate valour, taken Sir John Colevile of the dale, a most furious knight and valorous enemy. But what of that? he saw me, and yielded; that I may justly say, with the hook-nosed fellow of Rome, 'I came, saw, and overcame.'

LANCASTER       It was more of his courtesy than your deserving.

FALSTAFF        I know not: here he is, and here I yield him: and
        I beseech your grace, let it be booked with the
        rest of this day's deeds; or, by the Lord, I will
        have it in a particular ballad else, with mine own
        picture on the top on't, Colevile kissing my foot:

to the which course if I be enforced, if you do not all show like gilt twopences to me, and I in the clear sky of fame o'ershine you as much as the full moon doth the cinders of the element, which show like pins' heads to her, believe not the word of the noble: therefore let me have right, and let desert mount.

LANCASTER       Thine's too heavy to mount.

FALSTAFF        Let it shine, then.

LANCASTER       Thine's too thick to shine.

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

LANCASTER       Is thy name Colevile?

COLEVILE        It is, my lord.

LANCASTER       A famous rebel art thou, Colevile.

FALSTAFF        And a famous true subject took him.

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

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

[Re-enter WESTMORELAND]

LANCASTER       Now, have you left pursuit?

WESTMORELAND    Retreat is made and execution stay'd.

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

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

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

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

[Exeunt all but Falstaff]

FALSTAFF        I would you had but the wit: 'twere better than
        your dukedom. Good faith, this same young sober-
        blooded boy doth not love me; nor a man cannot make
        him laugh; but that's no marvel, he drinks no wine.
        There's never none of these demure boys come to any

proof; for thin drink doth so over-cool their blood, and making many fish-meals, that they fall into a kind of male green-sickness; and then when they marry, they get wenches: they are generally fools and cowards; which some of us should be too, but for inflammation. A good sherris sack hath a two-fold operation in it. It ascends me into the brain;
dries me there all the foolish and dull and curdy vapours which environ it; makes it apprehensive, quick, forgetive, full of nimble fiery and
delectable shapes, which, delivered o'er to the voice, the tongue, which is the birth, becomes
excellent wit. The second property of your
excellent sherris is, the warming of the blood; which, before cold and settled, left the liver
white and pale, which is the badge of pusillanimity and cowardice; but the sherris warms it and makes it course from the inwards to the parts extreme: it illumineth the face, which as a beacon gives warning to all the rest of this little kingdom, man, to arm; and then the vital commoners and
inland petty spirits muster me all to their captain, the heart, who, great and puffed up with this
retinue, doth any deed of courage; and this valour comes of sherris. So that skill in the weapon is nothing without sack, for that sets it a-work; and learning a mere hoard of gold kept by a devil, till sack commences it and sets it in act and use.
Hereof comes it that Prince Harry is valiant; for the cold blood he did naturally inherit of his
father, he hath, like lean, sterile and bare land, manured, husbanded and tilled with excellent
endeavour of drinking good and good store of fertile sherris, that he is become very hot and valiant. If I had a thousand sons, the first humane principle I would teach them should be, to forswear thin
potations and to addict themselves to sack.
[Enter BARDOLPH]
How now Bardolph?

BARDOLPH        The army is discharged all and gone.

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

[Exeunt]
2 KING HENRY IV

SCENE IV        Westminster. The Jerusalem Chamber.

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

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

WARWICK

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

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

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

KING HENRY IV   And how accompanied?

GLOUCESTER      I do not know, my lord.

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

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

CLARENCE        What would my lord and father?

How chance thou art not with the prince thy brother? He loves thee, and thou dost neglect him, Thomas; Thou hast a better place in his affection
Than all thy brothers: cherish it, my boy,
And noble offices thou mayst effect
Of mediation, after I am dead,
Between his greatness and thy other brethren:
Therefore omit him not; blunt not his love,
Nor lose the good advantage of his grace
By seeming cold or careless of his will;
For he is gracious, if he be observed:
He hath a tear for pity and a hand
Open as day for melting charity:
Yet notwithstanding, being incensed, he's flint, As humorous as winter and as sudden
As flaws congealed in the spring of day.
His temper, therefore, must be well observed:
Chide him for faults, and do it reverently,
When thou perceive his blood inclined to mirth; But, being moody, give him line and scope,
Till that his passions, like a whale on ground, Confound themselves with working. Learn this, Thomas, And thou shalt prove a shelter to thy friends,
A hoop of gold to bind thy brothers in,
That the united vessel of their blood,
Mingled with venom of suggestion--
As, force perforce, the age will pour it in--
Shall never leak, though it do work as strong
As aconitum or rash gunpowder.

CLARENCE        I shall observe him with all care and love.

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

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

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

CLARENCE        With Poins, and other his continual followers.

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

WARWICK

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

In the dead carrion.
[Enter WESTMORELAND]
Who's here? Westmoreland?

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

Which ever in the haunch of winter sings
The lifting up of day.
[Enter HARCOURT]
Look, here's more news.

HARCOURT        From enemies heaven keep your majesty;
        And, when they stand against you, may they fall
        As those that I am come to tell you of!
        The Earl Northumberland and the Lord Bardolph,
        With a great power of English and of Scots

Are by the sheriff of Yorkshire overthrown:
The manner and true order of the fight
This packet, please it you, contains at large.

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

GLOUCESTER      Comfort, your majesty!

CLARENCE        O my royal father!

WARWICK

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

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

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

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

GLOUCESTER      This apoplexy will certain be his end.

Into some other chamber: softly, pray.
2 KING HENRY IV

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

Unless some dull and favourable hand
Will whisper music to my weary spirit.

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

CLARENCE        His eye is hollow, and he changes much.

[Enter PRINCE HENRY]

PRINCE HENRY    Who saw the Duke of Clarence?

CLARENCE        I am here, brother, full of heaviness.

How doth the king?

GLOUCESTER      Exceeding ill.

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

GLOUCESTER      He alter'd much upon the hearing it.

WARWICK

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

CLARENCE        Let us withdraw into the other room.

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

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

CLARENCE        Doth the king call?

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

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

He is not here.

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

Is he so hasty that he doth suppose
My sleep my death?
Find him, my Lord of Warwick; chide him hither.
[Exit WARWICK]
This part of his conjoins with my disease,
And helps to end me. See, sons, what things you are! How quickly nature falls into revolt
When gold becomes her object!
For this the foolish over-careful fathers
Have broke their sleep with thoughts, their brains with care, Their bones with industry;
For this they have engrossed and piled up
The canker'd heaps of strange-achieved gold;
For this they have been thoughtful to invest
Their sons with arts and martial exercises:
When, like the bee, culling from every flower
The virtuous sweets,
Our thighs pack'd with wax, our mouths with honey, We bring it to the hive, and, like the bees,
Are murdered for our pains. This bitter taste
Yield his engrossments to the ending father.
[Re-enter WARWICK]
Now, where is he that will not stay so long
Till his friend sickness hath determined me?

WARWICK

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

[Re-enter PRINCE HENRY]
Lo, where he comes. Come hither to me, Harry.
Depart the chamber, leave us here alone.
[Exeunt WARWICK and the rest]

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

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

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

You won it, wore it, kept it, gave it me;
Then plain and right must my possession be:
Which I with more than with a common pain
'Gainst all the world will rightfully maintain.
[Enter Lord John of LANCASTER]

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

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

But health, alack, with youthful wings is flown From this bare wither'd trunk: upon thy sight
My worldly business makes a period.
Where is my Lord of Warwick?

[Enter WARWICK, and others]

Unto the lodging where I first did swoon?

It hath been prophesied to me many years,
I should not die but in Jerusalem;
Which vainly I supposed the Holy Land:
But bear me to that chamber; there I'll lie;
In that Jerusalem shall Harry die.
[Exeunt]
2 KING HENRY IV

[Enter SHALLOW, FALSTAFF, BARDOLPH, and Page]

SHALLOW

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

FALSTAFF        You must excuse me, Master Robert Shallow.

SHALLOW

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

[Enter DAVY]

DAVY

Here, sir.

SHALLOW

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

DAVY

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

SHALLOW

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

DAVY

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

DAVY

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

SHALLOW

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

DAVY

Doth the man of war stay all night, sir?

SHALLOW

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

DAVY

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

DAVY

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

SHALLOW

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

DAVY

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

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

BARDOLPH        I am glad to see your worship.

SHALLOW

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

[To the Page]
Come, Sir John.

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

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

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

[Exit]
2 KING HENRY IV

SCENE II        Westminster. The palace.

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

Lord Chief-Justice      How doth the king?

WARWICK Exceeding well; his cares are now all ended.

Lord Chief-Justice      I hope, not dead.

WARWICK

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

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

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

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

WARWICK

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

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

LANCASTER       Good morrow, cousin Warwick, good morrow.

GLOUCESTER      |
        |  Good morrow, cousin.
CLARENCE        |

LANCASTER       We meet like men that had forgot to speak.

WARWICK

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lord Chief-Justice      Sweet princes, what I did, I did in honour,
        Led by the impartial conduct of my soul:
        And never shall you see that I will beg
        A ragged and forestall'd remission.
        If truth and upright innocency fail me,

I'll to the king my master that is dead,
And tell him who hath sent me after him.

[Enter KING HENRY V, attended]

Lord Chief-Justice      Good morrow; and God save your 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.

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.

How might a prince of my great hopes forget
So great indignities you laid upon me?
What! rate, rebuke, and roughly send to prison
The immediate heir of England! Was this easy?
May this be wash'd in Lethe, and forgotten?

Lord Chief-Justice      I then did use the person of your father;
        The image of his power lay then in me:
        And, in the administration of his law,
        Whiles I was busy for the commonwealth,
        Your highness pleased to forget my place,

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

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

SCENE III       Gloucestershire. SHALLOW'S orchard.

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

SHALLOW

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

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

SHALLOW

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

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

SHALLOW

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

SILENCE

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

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

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

DAVY

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

[Exit]

SHALLOW

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

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

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

[Re-enter DAVY]

DAVY

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

[To BARDOLPH]

DAVY

Your worship! I'll be with you straight.

[To BARDOLPH]
A cup of wine, sir?

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

FALSTAFF        Well said, Master Silence.

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

FALSTAFF        Health and long life to you, Master Silence.

[Singing]
I'll pledge you a mile to the bottom.

SHALLOW

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

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

DAVY    I hove to see London once ere I die.

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

SHALLOW

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

BARDOLPH        Yea, sir, in a pottle-pot.

SHALLOW

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

BARDOLPH        And I'll stick by him, sir.

[Knocking within]
Look who's at door there, ho! who knocks?
[Exit DAVY]

FALSTAFF        Why, now you have done me right.

[To SILENCE, seeing him take off a bumper]

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

FALSTAFF        'Tis so.

[Re-enter DAVY]

DAVY

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

FALSTAFF        From the court! let him come in.

[Enter PISTOL]
How now, Pistol!

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.

PISTOL

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

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

PISTOL

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

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

[Singing]

PISTOL

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

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                    Harry the Fourth? or Fifth?

PISTOL

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

FALSTAFF        What, is the old king dead?

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

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

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

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

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

PISTOL

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

[Exeunt]
2 KING HENRY IV

SCENE IV        London. A street.

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

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

she shall have whipping-cheer enough, I warrant her: there hath been a man or two lately killed about her.

thee what, thou damned tripe-visaged rascal, an the child I now go with do miscarry, thou wert
better thou hadst struck thy mother, thou
paper-faced villain.

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

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.

will have you as soundly swinged for this,--you blue-bottle rogue, you filthy famished correctioner, if you be not swinged, I'll forswear half-kirtles.

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

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

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

DOLL TEARSHEET  Goodman death, goodman bones!

MISTRESS QUICKLY        Thou atomy, thou!

[Exeunt]
2 KING HENRY IV

[Enter two Grooms, strewing rushes]

coronation: dispatch, dispatch.
[Exeunt]
[Enter FALSTAFF, SHALLOW, PISTOL,
BARDOLPH, and Page]

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

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.

FALSTAFF        It shows my earnestness of affection,--

SHALLOW It doth so.

FALSTAFF        My devotion,--

SHALLOW It doth, it doth, it doth.

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

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.

PISTOL

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

FALSTAFF        I will deliver her.

[Shouts within, and the trumpets sound]

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

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

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

FALSTAFF        God save thee, my sweet boy!

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

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

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

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

FALSTAFF        Master Shallow, I owe you a thousand pound.

SHALLOW

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

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

SHALLOW

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

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

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

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

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

FALSTAFF        My lord, my lord,--

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

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

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

Lord Chief-Justice      And so they are.

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

Lord Chief-Justice      He hath.

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

[Exeunt]
2 KING HENRY IV
EPILOGUE
[Spoken by a Dancer]
First my fear; then my courtesy; last my speech. My fear is, your displeasure; my courtesy, my duty; and my speech, to beg your pardons. If you look for a good speech now, you undo me: for what I have to say is of mine own making; and what indeed I should say will, I doubt, prove mine own marring. But to the purpose, and so to the venture. Be it known to you, as it is very well, I was lately here in the end of a displeasing play, to pray your
patience for it and to promise you a better. I
meant indeed to pay you with this; which, if like an ill venture it come unluckily home, I break, and you, my gentle creditors, lose. Here I promised you I would be and here I commit my body to your
mercies: bate me some and I will pay you some and, as most debtors do, promise you infinitely.
If my tongue cannot entreat you to acquit me, will you command me to use my legs? and yet that were but light payment, to dance out of your debt. But a good conscience will make any possible satisfaction, and so would I. All the gentlewomen here have
forgiven me: if the gentlemen will not, then the gentlemen do not agree with the gentlewomen, which was never seen before in such an assembly.
One word more, I beseech you. If you be not too much cloyed with fat meat, our humble author will continue the story, with Sir John in it, and make you merry with fair Katharine of France: where, for any thing I know, Falstaff shall die of a sweat, unless already a' be killed with your hard
opinions; for Oldcastle died a martyr, and this is not the man. My tongue is weary; when my legs are too, I will bid you good night: and so kneel down before you; but, indeed, to pray for the queen.