Act IV, Scene VII — Another room in the Castle…

Act IV, Scene VII — Another room in the Castle

Enter King and Laertes.

KING. Now must your conscience my acquittance seal, And you must put me in your heart for friend, Sith you have heard, and with a knowing ear, That he which hath your noble father slain Pursu’d my life.

LAERTES. It well appears. But tell me Why you proceeded not against these feats, So crimeful and so capital in nature, As by your safety, wisdom, all things else, You mainly were stirr’d up.

KING. O, for two special reasons, Which may to you, perhaps, seem much unsinew’d, But yet to me they are strong. The Queen his mother Lives almost by his looks; and for myself,— My virtue or my plague, be it either which,— She’s so conjunctive to my life and soul, That, as the star moves not but in his sphere, I could not but by her. The other motive, Why to a public count I might not go, Is the great love the general gender bear him, Who, dipping all his faults in their affection, Would like the spring that turneth wood to stone, Convert his gyves to graces; so that my arrows, Too slightly timber’d for so loud a wind, Would have reverted to my bow again, And not where I had aim’d them.

LAERTES. And so have I a noble father lost, A sister driven into desperate terms, Whose worth, if praises may go back again, Stood challenger on mount of all the age For her perfections. But my revenge will come.

KING. Break not your sleeps for that. You must not think That we are made of stuff so flat and dull That we can let our beard be shook with danger, And think it pastime. You shortly shall hear more. I lov’d your father, and we love ourself, And that, I hope, will teach you to imagine—

Enter a Messenger.

How now? What news?

MESSENGER. Letters, my lord, from Hamlet. This to your Majesty; this to the Queen.

KING. From Hamlet! Who brought them?

MESSENGER. Sailors, my lord, they say; I saw them not. They were given me by Claudio. He receiv’d them Of him that brought them.

KING. Laertes, you shall hear them. Leave us.

[Exit Messenger.]

[Reads.] ‘High and mighty, you shall know I am set naked on your kingdom. Tomorrow shall I beg leave to see your kingly eyes. When I shall, first asking your pardon thereunto, recount the occasions of my sudden and more strange return. HAMLET.’

What should this mean? Are all the rest come back? Or is it some abuse, and no such thing?

LAERTES. Know you the hand?

KING. ’Tis Hamlet’s character. ‘Naked!’ And in a postscript here he says ‘alone.’ Can you advise me?

LAERTES. I am lost in it, my lord. But let him come, It warms the very sickness in my heart That I shall live and tell him to his teeth, ‘Thus diest thou.’

KING. If it be so, Laertes,— As how should it be so? How otherwise?— Will you be rul’d by me?

LAERTES. Ay, my lord; So you will not o’errule me to a peace.

KING. To thine own peace. If he be now return’d, As checking at his voyage, and that he means No more to undertake it, I will work him To an exploit, now ripe in my device, Under the which he shall not choose but fall; And for his death no wind shall breathe, But even his mother shall uncharge the practice And call it accident.

LAERTES. My lord, I will be rul’d; The rather if you could devise it so That I might be the organ.

KING. It falls right. You have been talk’d of since your travel much, And that in Hamlet’s hearing, for a quality Wherein they say you shine. Your sum of parts Did not together pluck such envy from him As did that one, and that, in my regard, Of the unworthiest siege.

LAERTES. What part is that, my lord?

KING. A very riband in the cap of youth, Yet needful too, for youth no less becomes The light and careless livery that it wears Than settled age his sables and his weeds, Importing health and graveness. Two months since Here was a gentleman of Normandy,— I’ve seen myself, and serv’d against, the French, And they can well on horseback, but this gallant Had witchcraft in’t. He grew unto his seat, And to such wondrous doing brought his horse, As had he been incorps’d and demi-natur’d With the brave beast. So far he topp’d my thought That I in forgery of shapes and tricks, Come short of what he did.

LAERTES. A Norman was’t?

KING. A Norman.

LAERTES. Upon my life, Lamord.

KING. The very same.

LAERTES. I know him well. He is the brooch indeed And gem of all the nation.

KING. He made confession of you, And gave you such a masterly report For art and exercise in your defence, And for your rapier most especially, That he cried out ’twould be a sight indeed If one could match you. The scrimers of their nation He swore had neither motion, guard, nor eye, If you oppos’d them. Sir, this report of his Did Hamlet so envenom with his envy That he could nothing do but wish and beg Your sudden coming o’er to play with him. Now, out of this,—

LAERTES. What out of this, my lord?

KING. Laertes, was your father dear to you? Or are you like the painting of a sorrow, A face without a heart?

LAERTES. Why ask you this?

KING. Not that I think you did not love your father, But that I know love is begun by time, And that I see, in passages of proof, Time qualifies the spark and fire of it. There lives within the very flame of love A kind of wick or snuff that will abate it; And nothing is at a like goodness still, For goodness, growing to a pleurisy, Dies in his own too much. That we would do, We should do when we would; for this ‘would’ changes, And hath abatements and delays as many As there are tongues, are hands, are accidents; And then this ‘should’ is like a spendthrift sigh That hurts by easing. But to the quick o’ th’ulcer: Hamlet comes back: what would you undertake To show yourself your father’s son in deed, More than in words?

LAERTES. To cut his throat i’ th’ church.

KING. No place, indeed, should murder sanctuarize; Revenge should have no bounds. But good Laertes, Will you do this, keep close within your chamber. Hamlet return’d shall know you are come home: We’ll put on those shall praise your excellence, And set a double varnish on the fame The Frenchman gave you, bring you in fine together And wager on your heads. He, being remiss, Most generous, and free from all contriving, Will not peruse the foils; so that with ease, Or with a little shuffling, you may choose A sword unbated, and in a pass of practice, Requite him for your father.

LAERTES. I will do’t. And for that purpose I’ll anoint my sword. I bought an unction of a mountebank So mortal that, but dip a knife in it, Where it draws blood no cataplasm so rare, Collected from all simples that have virtue Under the moon, can save the thing from death This is but scratch’d withal. I’ll touch my point With this contagion, that if I gall him slightly, It may be death.

KING. Let’s further think of this, Weigh what convenience both of time and means May fit us to our shape. If this should fail, And that our drift look through our bad performance. ’Twere better not assay’d. Therefore this project Should have a back or second, that might hold If this did blast in proof. Soft, let me see. We’ll make a solemn wager on your cunnings,— I ha’t! When in your motion you are hot and dry, As make your bouts more violent to that end, And that he calls for drink, I’ll have prepar’d him A chalice for the nonce; whereon but sipping, If he by chance escape your venom’d stuck, Our purpose may hold there.

Enter Queen.

How now, sweet Queen?

QUEEN. One woe doth tread upon another’s heel, So fast they follow. Your sister’s drown’d, Laertes.

LAERTES. Drown’d! O, where?

QUEEN. There is a willow grows aslant a brook, That shows his hoary leaves in the glassy stream. There with fantastic garlands did she make Of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples, That liberal shepherds give a grosser name, But our cold maids do dead men’s fingers call them. There on the pendant boughs her coronet weeds Clamb’ring to hang, an envious sliver broke, When down her weedy trophies and herself Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide, And mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up, Which time she chaunted snatches of old tunes, As one incapable of her own distress, Or like a creature native and indued Unto that element. But long it could not be Till that her garments, heavy with their drink, Pull’d the poor wretch from her melodious lay To muddy death.

LAERTES. Alas, then she is drown’d?

QUEEN. Drown’d, drown’d.

LAERTES. Too much of water hast thou, poor Ophelia, And therefore I forbid my tears. But yet It is our trick; nature her custom holds, Let shame say what it will. When these are gone, The woman will be out. Adieu, my lord, I have a speech of fire, that fain would blaze, But that this folly douts it.

[Exit.]

KING. Let’s follow, Gertrude; How much I had to do to calm his rage! Now fear I this will give it start again; Therefore let’s follow.

[Exeunt.]

Act V, Scene I — A churchyard

Enter two Clowns with spades, &c.

FIRST CLOWN. Is she to be buried in Christian burial, when she wilfully seeks her own salvation?

SECOND CLOWN. I tell thee she is, and therefore make her grave straight. The crowner hath sat on her, and finds it Christian burial.

FIRST CLOWN. How can that be, unless she drowned herself in her own defence?

SECOND CLOWN. Why, ’tis found so.

FIRST CLOWN. It must be se offendendo, it cannot be else. For here lies the point: if I drown myself wittingly, it argues an act: and an act hath three branches. It is to act, to do, and to perform: argal, she drowned herself wittingly.

SECOND CLOWN. Nay, but hear you, goodman delver,—

FIRST CLOWN. Give me leave. Here lies the water; good. Here stands the man; good. If the man go to this water and drown himself, it is, will he nill he, he goes,—mark you that. But if the water come to him and drown him, he drowns not himself. Argal, he that is not guilty of his own death shortens not his own life.

SECOND CLOWN. But is this law?

FIRST CLOWN. Ay, marry, is’t, crowner’s quest law.

SECOND CLOWN. Will you ha’ the truth on’t? If this had not been a gentlewoman, she should have been buried out o’ Christian burial.

FIRST CLOWN. Why, there thou say’st. And the more pity that great folk should have countenance in this world to drown or hang themselves more than their even Christian. Come, my spade. There is no ancient gentlemen but gardeners, ditchers, and grave-makers: they hold up Adam’s profession.

SECOND CLOWN. Was he a gentleman?

FIRST CLOWN. He was the first that ever bore arms.

SECOND CLOWN. Why, he had none.

FIRST CLOWN. What, art a heathen? How dost thou understand the Scripture? The Scripture says Adam digg’d. Could he dig without arms? I’ll put another question to thee. If thou answerest me not to the purpose, confess thyself—

SECOND CLOWN. Go to.

FIRST CLOWN. What is he that builds stronger than either the mason, the shipwright, or the carpenter?

SECOND CLOWN. The gallows-maker; for that frame outlives a thousand tenants.

FIRST CLOWN. I like thy wit well in good faith, the gallows does well. But how does it well? It does well to those that do ill. Now, thou dost ill to say the gallows is built stronger than the church; argal, the gallows may do well to thee. To’t again, come.

SECOND CLOWN. Who builds stronger than a mason, a shipwright, or a carpenter?

FIRST CLOWN. Ay, tell me that, and unyoke.

SECOND CLOWN. Marry, now I can tell.

FIRST CLOWN. To’t.

SECOND CLOWN. Mass, I cannot tell.

Enter Hamlet and Horatio, at a distance.

FIRST CLOWN. Cudgel thy brains no more about it, for your dull ass will not mend his pace with beating; and when you are asked this question next, say ‘a grave-maker’. The houses he makes last till doomsday. Go, get thee to Yaughan; fetch me a stoup of liquor.

[Exit Second Clown.]

[Digs and sings.]

In youth when I did love, did love, Methought it was very sweet; To contract, O, the time for, a, my behove, O methought there was nothing meet.

HAMLET. Has this fellow no feeling of his business, that he sings at grave-making?

HORATIO. Custom hath made it in him a property of easiness.

HAMLET. ’Tis e’en so; the hand of little employment hath the daintier sense.

FIRST CLOWN. [Sings.] But age with his stealing steps Hath claw’d me in his clutch, And hath shipp’d me into the land, As if I had never been such.

[Throws up a skull.]

HAMLET. That skull had a tongue in it, and could sing once. How the knave jowls it to th’ ground, as if ’twere Cain’s jawbone, that did the first murder! This might be the pate of a politician which this ass now o’er-offices, one that would circumvent God, might it not?

HORATIO. It might, my lord.

HAMLET. Or of a courtier, which could say ‘Good morrow, sweet lord! How dost thou, good lord?’ This might be my lord such-a-one, that praised my lord such-a-one’s horse when he meant to beg it, might it not?

HORATIO. Ay, my lord.

HAMLET. Why, e’en so: and now my Lady Worm’s; chapless, and knocked about the mazard with a sexton’s spade. Here’s fine revolution, an we had the trick to see’t. Did these bones cost no more the breeding but to play at loggets with ’em? Mine ache to think on’t.

FIRST CLOWN. [Sings.] A pickaxe and a spade, a spade, For and a shrouding-sheet; O, a pit of clay for to be made For such a guest is meet.

[Throws up another skull.]

HAMLET. There’s another. Why may not that be the skull of a lawyer? Where be his quiddits now, his quillets, his cases, his tenures, and his tricks? Why does he suffer this rude knave now to knock him about the sconce with a dirty shovel, and will not tell him of his action of battery? Hum. This fellow might be in’s time a great buyer of land, with his statutes, his recognizances, his fines, his double vouchers, his recoveries. Is this the fine of his fines, and the recovery of his recoveries, to have his fine pate full of fine dirt? Will his vouchers vouch him no more of his purchases, and double ones too, than the length and breadth of a pair of indentures? The very conveyances of his lands will scarcely lie in this box; and must the inheritor himself have no more, ha?

HORATIO. Not a jot more, my lord.

HAMLET. Is not parchment made of sheep-skins?

HORATIO. Ay, my lord, and of calf-skins too.

HAMLET. They are sheep and calves which seek out assurance in that. I will speak to this fellow.—Whose grave’s this, sir?

FIRST CLOWN. Mine, sir. [Sings.] O, a pit of clay for to be made For such a guest is meet.

HAMLET. I think it be thine indeed, for thou liest in’t.

FIRST CLOWN. You lie out on’t, sir, and therefore ’tis not yours. For my part, I do not lie in’t, yet it is mine.

HAMLET. Thou dost lie in’t, to be in’t and say it is thine. ’Tis for the dead, not for the quick; therefore thou liest.

FIRST CLOWN. ’Tis a quick lie, sir; ’t will away again from me to you.

HAMLET. What man dost thou dig it for?

FIRST CLOWN. For no man, sir.

HAMLET. What woman then?

FIRST CLOWN. For none neither.

HAMLET. Who is to be buried in’t?

FIRST CLOWN. One that was a woman, sir; but, rest her soul, she’s dead.

HAMLET. How absolute the knave is! We must speak by the card, or equivocation will undo us. By the Lord, Horatio, these three years I have taken note of it, the age is grown so picked that the toe of the peasant comes so near the heel of the courtier he galls his kibe.—How long hast thou been a grave-maker?

FIRST CLOWN. Of all the days i’ th’ year, I came to’t that day that our last King Hamlet o’ercame Fortinbras.

HAMLET. How long is that since?

FIRST CLOWN. Cannot you tell that? Every fool can tell that. It was the very day that young Hamlet was born,—he that is mad, and sent into England.

HAMLET. Ay, marry, why was he sent into England?

FIRST CLOWN. Why, because he was mad; he shall recover his wits there; or if he do not, it’s no great matter there.

HAMLET. Why?

FIRST CLOWN. ’Twill not be seen in him there; there the men are as mad as he.

HAMLET. How came he mad?

FIRST CLOWN. Very strangely, they say.

HAMLET. How strangely?

FIRST CLOWN. Faith, e’en with losing his wits.

HAMLET. Upon what ground?

FIRST CLOWN. Why, here in Denmark. I have been sexton here, man and boy, thirty years.

HAMLET. How long will a man lie i’ th’earth ere he rot?

FIRST CLOWN. Faith, if he be not rotten before he die,—as we have many pocky corses nowadays that will scarce hold the laying in,—he will last you some eight year or nine year. A tanner will last you nine year.

HAMLET. Why he more than another?

FIRST CLOWN. Why, sir, his hide is so tann’d with his trade that he will keep out water a great while. And your water is a sore decayer of your whoreson dead body. Here’s a skull now; this skull hath lain in the earth three-and-twenty years.

HAMLET. Whose was it?

FIRST CLOWN. A whoreson, mad fellow’s it was. Whose do you think it was?

HAMLET. Nay, I know not.

FIRST CLOWN. A pestilence on him for a mad rogue! A pour’d a flagon of Rhenish on my head once. This same skull, sir, was Yorick’s skull, the King’s jester.

HAMLET. This?

FIRST CLOWN. E’en that.

HAMLET. Let me see. [Takes the skull.] Alas, poor Yorick. I knew him, Horatio, a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy. He hath borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how abhorred in my imagination it is! My gorge rises at it. Here hung those lips that I have kiss’d I know not how oft. Where be your gibes now? your gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment, that were wont to set the table on a roar? Not one now, to mock your own grinning? Quite chop-fallen? Now get you to my lady’s chamber, and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this favour she must come. Make her laugh at that.—Prithee, Horatio, tell me one thing.

HORATIO. What’s that, my lord?

HAMLET. Dost thou think Alexander looked o’ this fashion i’ th’earth?

HORATIO. E’en so.

HAMLET. And smelt so? Pah!

[Throws down the skull.]

HORATIO. E’en so, my lord.

HAMLET. To what base uses we may return, Horatio! Why may not imagination trace the noble dust of Alexander till he find it stopping a bung-hole?

HORATIO. ’Twere to consider too curiously to consider so.

HAMLET. No, faith, not a jot. But to follow him thither with modesty enough, and likelihood to lead it; as thus. Alexander died, Alexander was buried, Alexander returneth into dust; the dust is earth; of earth we make loam; and why of that loam whereto he was converted might they not stop a beer-barrel? Imperious Caesar, dead and turn’d to clay, Might stop a hole to keep the wind away. O, that that earth which kept the world in awe Should patch a wall t’expel the winter’s flaw. But soft! but soft! aside! Here comes the King.

Enter priests, &c, in procession; the corpse of Ophelia, Laertes and Mourners following; King, Queen, their Trains, &c.

The Queen, the courtiers. Who is that they follow? And with such maimed rites? This doth betoken The corse they follow did with desperate hand Fordo it own life. ’Twas of some estate. Couch we awhile and mark.

[Retiring with Horatio.]

LAERTES. What ceremony else?

HAMLET. That is Laertes, a very noble youth. Mark.

LAERTES. What ceremony else?

PRIEST. Her obsequies have been as far enlarg’d As we have warranties. Her death was doubtful; And but that great command o’ersways the order, She should in ground unsanctified have lodg’d Till the last trumpet. For charitable prayers, Shards, flints, and pebbles should be thrown on her. Yet here she is allowed her virgin rites, Her maiden strewments, and the bringing home Of bell and burial.

LAERTES. Must there no more be done?

PRIEST. No more be done. We should profane the service of the dead To sing sage requiem and such rest to her As to peace-parted souls.

LAERTES. Lay her i’ th’earth, And from her fair and unpolluted flesh May violets spring. I tell thee, churlish priest, A minist’ring angel shall my sister be When thou liest howling.

HAMLET. What, the fair Ophelia?

QUEEN. [Scattering flowers.] Sweets to the sweet. Farewell. I hop’d thou shouldst have been my Hamlet’s wife; I thought thy bride-bed to have deck’d, sweet maid, And not have strew’d thy grave.

LAERTES. O, treble woe Fall ten times treble on that cursed head Whose wicked deed thy most ingenious sense Depriv’d thee of. Hold off the earth a while, Till I have caught her once more in mine arms. [Leaps into the grave.] Now pile your dust upon the quick and dead, Till of this flat a mountain you have made, To o’ertop old Pelion or the skyish head Of blue Olympus.

HAMLET. [Advancing.] What is he whose grief Bears such an emphasis? whose phrase of sorrow Conjures the wand’ring stars, and makes them stand Like wonder-wounded hearers? This is I, Hamlet the Dane. [Leaps into the grave.]

LAERTES. [Grappling with him.] The devil take thy soul!

HAMLET. Thou pray’st not well. I prithee take thy fingers from my throat; For though I am not splenative and rash, Yet have I in me something dangerous, Which let thy wiseness fear. Away thy hand!

KING. Pluck them asunder.

QUEEN. Hamlet! Hamlet!

All. Gentlemen!

HORATIO. Good my lord, be quiet.

[The Attendants part them, and they come out of the grave.]

HAMLET. Why, I will fight with him upon this theme Until my eyelids will no longer wag.

QUEEN. O my son, what theme?

HAMLET. I lov’d Ophelia; forty thousand brothers Could not, with all their quantity of love, Make up my sum. What wilt thou do for her?

KING. O, he is mad, Laertes.

QUEEN. For love of God forbear him!

HAMLET. ’Swounds, show me what thou’lt do: Woul’t weep? woul’t fight? woul’t fast? woul’t tear thyself? Woul’t drink up eisel? eat a crocodile? I’ll do’t. Dost thou come here to whine? To outface me with leaping in her grave? Be buried quick with her, and so will I. And if thou prate of mountains, let them throw Millions of acres on us, till our ground, Singeing his pate against the burning zone, Make Ossa like a wart. Nay, an thou’lt mouth, I’ll rant as well as thou.

QUEEN. This is mere madness: And thus awhile the fit will work on him; Anon, as patient as the female dove, When that her golden couplets are disclos’d, His silence will sit drooping.

HAMLET. Hear you, sir; What is the reason that you use me thus? I lov’d you ever. But it is no matter. Let Hercules himself do what he may, The cat will mew, and dog will have his day.

[Exit.]

KING. I pray thee, good Horatio, wait upon him.

[Exit Horatio.]

[To Laertes] Strengthen your patience in our last night’s speech; We’ll put the matter to the present push.— Good Gertrude, set some watch over your son. This grave shall have a living monument. An hour of quiet shortly shall we see; Till then in patience our proceeding be.

[Exeunt.]

Act V, Scene II — A hall in the Castle

Enter Hamlet and Horatio.

HAMLET. So much for this, sir. Now let me see the other; You do remember all the circumstance?

HORATIO. Remember it, my lord!

HAMLET. Sir, in my heart there was a kind of fighting That would not let me sleep. Methought I lay Worse than the mutinies in the bilboes. Rashly, And prais’d be rashness for it,—let us know, Our indiscretion sometime serves us well, When our deep plots do pall; and that should teach us There’s a divinity that shapes our ends, Rough-hew them how we will.

HORATIO. That is most certain.

HAMLET. Up from my cabin, My sea-gown scarf’d about me, in the dark Grop’d I to find out them; had my desire, Finger’d their packet, and in fine, withdrew To mine own room again, making so bold, My fears forgetting manners, to unseal Their grand commission; where I found, Horatio, Oh royal knavery! an exact command, Larded with many several sorts of reasons, Importing Denmark’s health, and England’s too, With ho! such bugs and goblins in my life, That on the supervise, no leisure bated, No, not to stay the grinding of the axe, My head should be struck off.

HORATIO. Is’t possible?

HAMLET. Here’s the commission, read it at more leisure. But wilt thou hear me how I did proceed?

HORATIO. I beseech you.

HAMLET. Being thus benetted round with villanies,— Or I could make a prologue to my brains, They had begun the play,—I sat me down, Devis’d a new commission, wrote it fair: I once did hold it, as our statists do, A baseness to write fair, and labour’d much How to forget that learning; but, sir, now It did me yeoman’s service. Wilt thou know The effect of what I wrote?

HORATIO. Ay, good my lord.

HAMLET. An earnest conjuration from the King, As England was his faithful tributary, As love between them like the palm might flourish, As peace should still her wheaten garland wear And stand a comma ’tween their amities, And many such-like ‘as’es of great charge, That on the view and know of these contents, Without debatement further, more or less, He should the bearers put to sudden death, Not shriving-time allow’d.

HORATIO. How was this seal’d?

HAMLET. Why, even in that was heaven ordinant. I had my father’s signet in my purse, Which was the model of that Danish seal: Folded the writ up in the form of the other, Subscrib’d it: gave’t th’impression; plac’d it safely, The changeling never known. Now, the next day Was our sea-fight, and what to this was sequent Thou know’st already.

HORATIO. So Guildenstern and Rosencrantz go to’t.

HAMLET. Why, man, they did make love to this employment. They are not near my conscience; their defeat Does by their own insinuation grow. ’Tis dangerous when the baser nature comes Between the pass and fell incensed points Of mighty opposites.

HORATIO. Why, what a king is this!

HAMLET. Does it not, thinks’t thee, stand me now upon,— He that hath kill’d my king, and whor’d my mother, Popp’d in between th’election and my hopes, Thrown out his angle for my proper life, And with such cozenage—is’t not perfect conscience To quit him with this arm? And is’t not to be damn’d To let this canker of our nature come In further evil?

HORATIO. It must be shortly known to him from England What is the issue of the business there.

HAMLET. It will be short. The interim is mine; And a man’s life’s no more than to say ‘One’. But I am very sorry, good Horatio, That to Laertes I forgot myself; For by the image of my cause I see The portraiture of his. I’ll court his favours. But sure the bravery of his grief did put me Into a tow’ring passion.

HORATIO. Peace, who comes here?

Enter Osric.

OSRIC. Your lordship is right welcome back to Denmark.

HAMLET. I humbly thank you, sir. Dost know this waterfly?

HORATIO. No, my good lord.

HAMLET. Thy state is the more gracious; for ’tis a vice to know him. He hath much land, and fertile; let a beast be lord of beasts, and his crib shall stand at the king’s mess; ’tis a chough; but, as I say, spacious in the possession of dirt.

OSRIC. Sweet lord, if your lordship were at leisure, I should impart a thing to you from his Majesty.

HAMLET. I will receive it with all diligence of spirit. Put your bonnet to his right use; ’tis for the head.

OSRIC. I thank your lordship, ’tis very hot.

HAMLET. No, believe me, ’tis very cold, the wind is northerly.

OSRIC. It is indifferent cold, my lord, indeed.

HAMLET. Methinks it is very sultry and hot for my complexion.

OSRIC. Exceedingly, my lord; it is very sultry,—as ’twere—I cannot tell how. But, my lord, his Majesty bade me signify to you that he has laid a great wager on your head. Sir, this is the matter,—

HAMLET. I beseech you, remember,—

[Hamlet moves him to put on his hat.]

OSRIC. Nay, in good faith; for mine ease, in good faith. Sir, here is newly come to court Laertes; believe me, an absolute gentleman, full of most excellent differences, of very soft society and great showing. Indeed, to speak feelingly of him, he is the card or calendar of gentry; for you shall find in him the continent of what part a gentleman would see.

HAMLET. Sir, his definement suffers no perdition in you, though I know, to divide him inventorially would dizzy th’arithmetic of memory, and yet but yaw neither, in respect of his quick sail. But, in the verity of extolment, I take him to be a soul of great article and his infusion of such dearth and rareness as, to make true diction of him, his semblable is his mirror and who else would trace him his umbrage, nothing more.

OSRIC. Your lordship speaks most infallibly of him.

HAMLET. The concernancy, sir? Why do we wrap the gentleman in our more rawer breath?

OSRIC. Sir?

HORATIO. Is’t not possible to understand in another tongue? You will do’t, sir, really.

HAMLET. What imports the nomination of this gentleman?

OSRIC. Of Laertes?

HORATIO. His purse is empty already, all’s golden words are spent.

HAMLET. Of him, sir.

OSRIC. I know you are not ignorant,—

HAMLET. I would you did, sir; yet in faith if you did, it would not much approve me. Well, sir?

OSRIC. You are not ignorant of what excellence Laertes is,—

HAMLET. I dare not confess that, lest I should compare with him in excellence; but to know a man well were to know himself.

OSRIC. I mean, sir, for his weapon; but in the imputation laid on him, by them in his meed he’s unfellowed.

HAMLET. What’s his weapon?

OSRIC. Rapier and dagger.

HAMLET. That’s two of his weapons. But well.

OSRIC. The King, sir, hath wager’d with him six Barbary horses, against the which he has imponed, as I take it, six French rapiers and poniards, with their assigns, as girdle, hangers, and so. Three of the carriages, in faith, are very dear to fancy, very responsive to the hilts, most delicate carriages, and of very liberal conceit.

HAMLET. What call you the carriages?

HORATIO. I knew you must be edified by the margin ere you had done.

OSRIC. The carriages, sir, are the hangers.

HAMLET. The phrase would be more german to the matter if we could carry cannon by our sides. I would it might be hangers till then. But on. Six Barbary horses against six French swords, their assigns, and three liberal conceited carriages: that’s the French bet against the Danish. Why is this all imponed, as you call it?

OSRIC. The King, sir, hath laid that in a dozen passes between you and him, he shall not exceed you three hits. He hath laid on twelve for nine. And it would come to immediate trial if your lordship would vouchsafe the answer.

HAMLET. How if I answer no?

OSRIC. I mean, my lord, the opposition of your person in trial.

HAMLET. Sir, I will walk here in the hall. If it please his Majesty, it is the breathing time of day with me. Let the foils be brought, the gentleman willing, and the King hold his purpose, I will win for him if I can; if not, I will gain nothing but my shame and the odd hits.

OSRIC. Shall I re-deliver you e’en so?

HAMLET. To this effect, sir; after what flourish your nature will.

OSRIC. I commend my duty to your lordship.

HAMLET. Yours, yours.

[Exit Osric.]

He does well to commend it himself, there are no tongues else for’s turn.

HORATIO. This lapwing runs away with the shell on his head.

HAMLET. He did comply with his dug before he suck’d it. Thus has he,—and many more of the same bevy that I know the drossy age dotes on,— only got the tune of the time and outward habit of encounter; a kind of yeasty collection, which carries them through and through the most fanned and winnowed opinions; and do but blow them to their trial, the bubbles are out.

Enter a Lord.

LORD. My lord, his Majesty commended him to you by young Osric, who brings back to him that you attend him in the hall. He sends to know if your pleasure hold to play with Laertes or that you will take longer time.

HAMLET. I am constant to my purposes, they follow the King’s pleasure. If his fitness speaks, mine is ready. Now or whensoever, provided I be so able as now.

LORD. The King and Queen and all are coming down.

HAMLET. In happy time.

LORD. The Queen desires you to use some gentle entertainment to Laertes before you fall to play.

HAMLET. She well instructs me.

[Exit Lord.]

HORATIO. You will lose this wager, my lord.

HAMLET. I do not think so. Since he went into France, I have been in continual practice. I shall win at the odds. But thou wouldst not think how ill all’s here about my heart: but it is no matter.

HORATIO. Nay, good my lord.

HAMLET. It is but foolery; but it is such a kind of gain-giving as would perhaps trouble a woman.

HORATIO. If your mind dislike anything, obey it. I will forestall their repair hither, and say you are not fit.

HAMLET. Not a whit, we defy augury. There’s a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, ’tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come. The readiness is all. Since no man has aught of what he leaves, what is’t to leave betimes?

Enter King, Queen, Laertes, Lords, Osric and Attendants with foils &c.

KING. Come, Hamlet, come, and take this hand from me.

[The King puts Laertes’s hand into Hamlet’s.]

HAMLET. Give me your pardon, sir. I have done you wrong; But pardon’t as you are a gentleman. This presence knows, and you must needs have heard, How I am punish’d with sore distraction. What I have done That might your nature, honour, and exception Roughly awake, I here proclaim was madness. Was’t Hamlet wrong’d Laertes? Never Hamlet. If Hamlet from himself be ta’en away, And when he’s not himself does wrong Laertes, Then Hamlet does it not, Hamlet denies it. Who does it, then? His madness. If’t be so, Hamlet is of the faction that is wrong’d; His madness is poor Hamlet’s enemy. Sir, in this audience, Let my disclaiming from a purpos’d evil Free me so far in your most generous thoughts That I have shot my arrow o’er the house And hurt my brother.

LAERTES. I am satisfied in nature, Whose motive in this case should stir me most To my revenge. But in my terms of honour I stand aloof, and will no reconcilement Till by some elder masters of known honour I have a voice and precedent of peace To keep my name ungor’d. But till that time I do receive your offer’d love like love, And will not wrong it.

HAMLET. I embrace it freely, And will this brother’s wager frankly play.— Give us the foils; come on.

LAERTES. Come, one for me.

HAMLET. I’ll be your foil, Laertes; in mine ignorance Your skill shall like a star i’ th’ darkest night, Stick fiery off indeed.

LAERTES. You mock me, sir.

HAMLET. No, by this hand.

KING. Give them the foils, young Osric. Cousin Hamlet, You know the wager?

HAMLET. Very well, my lord. Your Grace has laid the odds o’ the weaker side.

KING. I do not fear it. I have seen you both; But since he is better’d, we have therefore odds.

LAERTES. This is too heavy. Let me see another.

HAMLET. This likes me well. These foils have all a length?

[They prepare to play.]

OSRIC. Ay, my good lord.

KING. Set me the stoups of wine upon that table. If Hamlet give the first or second hit, Or quit in answer of the third exchange, Let all the battlements their ordnance fire; The King shall drink to Hamlet’s better breath, And in the cup an union shall he throw Richer than that which four successive kings In Denmark’s crown have worn. Give me the cups; And let the kettle to the trumpet speak, The trumpet to the cannoneer without, The cannons to the heavens, the heavens to earth, ‘Now the King drinks to Hamlet.’ Come, begin. And you, the judges, bear a wary eye.

HAMLET. Come on, sir.

LAERTES. Come, my lord.

[They play.]

HAMLET. One.

LAERTES. No.

HAMLET. Judgement.

OSRIC. A hit, a very palpable hit.

LAERTES. Well; again.

KING. Stay, give me drink. Hamlet, this pearl is thine; Here’s to thy health.

[Trumpets sound, and cannon shot off within.]

Give him the cup.

HAMLET. I’ll play this bout first; set it by awhile.

[They play.]

Come. Another hit; what say you?

LAERTES. A touch, a touch, I do confess.

KING. Our son shall win.

QUEEN. He’s fat, and scant of breath. Here, Hamlet, take my napkin, rub thy brows. The Queen carouses to thy fortune, Hamlet.

HAMLET. Good madam.

KING. Gertrude, do not drink.

QUEEN. I will, my lord; I pray you pardon me.

KING. [Aside.] It is the poison’d cup; it is too late.

HAMLET. I dare not drink yet, madam. By and by.

QUEEN. Come, let me wipe thy face.

LAERTES. My lord, I’ll hit him now.

KING. I do not think’t.

LAERTES. [Aside.] And yet ’tis almost ’gainst my conscience.

HAMLET. Come for the third, Laertes. You do but dally. I pray you pass with your best violence. I am afeard you make a wanton of me.

LAERTES. Say you so? Come on.

[They play.]

OSRIC. Nothing neither way.

LAERTES. Have at you now.

[Laertes wounds Hamlet; then, in scuffling, they change rapiers, and Hamlet wounds Laertes.]

KING. Part them; they are incens’d.

HAMLET. Nay, come again!

[The Queen falls.]

OSRIC. Look to the Queen there, ho!

HORATIO. They bleed on both sides. How is it, my lord?

OSRIC. How is’t, Laertes?

LAERTES. Why, as a woodcock to my own springe, Osric. I am justly kill’d with mine own treachery.

HAMLET. How does the Queen?

KING. She swoons to see them bleed.

QUEEN. No, no, the drink, the drink! O my dear Hamlet! The drink, the drink! I am poison’d.

[Dies.]

HAMLET. O villany! Ho! Let the door be lock’d: Treachery! Seek it out.

[Laertes falls.]

LAERTES. It is here, Hamlet. Hamlet, thou art slain. No medicine in the world can do thee good. In thee there is not half an hour of life; The treacherous instrument is in thy hand, Unbated and envenom’d. The foul practice Hath turn’d itself on me. Lo, here I lie, Never to rise again. Thy mother’s poison’d. I can no more. The King, the King’s to blame.

HAMLET. The point envenom’d too! Then, venom, to thy work.

[Stabs the King.]

OSRIC and LORDS. Treason! treason!

KING. O yet defend me, friends. I am but hurt.

HAMLET. Here, thou incestuous, murderous, damned Dane, Drink off this potion. Is thy union here? Follow my mother.

[King dies.]

LAERTES. He is justly serv’d. It is a poison temper’d by himself. Exchange forgiveness with me, noble Hamlet. Mine and my father’s death come not upon thee, Nor thine on me.

[Dies.]

HAMLET. Heaven make thee free of it! I follow thee. I am dead, Horatio. Wretched Queen, adieu. You that look pale and tremble at this chance, That are but mutes or audience to this act, Had I but time,—as this fell sergeant, death, Is strict in his arrest,—O, I could tell you,— But let it be. Horatio, I am dead, Thou liv’st; report me and my cause aright To the unsatisfied.

HORATIO. Never believe it. I am more an antique Roman than a Dane. Here’s yet some liquor left.

HAMLET. As th’art a man, Give me the cup. Let go; by Heaven, I’ll have’t. O good Horatio, what a wounded name, Things standing thus unknown, shall live behind me. If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart, Absent thee from felicity awhile, And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain, To tell my story.

[March afar off, and shot within.]

What warlike noise is this?

OSRIC. Young Fortinbras, with conquest come from Poland, To the ambassadors of England gives This warlike volley.

HAMLET. O, I die, Horatio. The potent poison quite o’er-crows my spirit: I cannot live to hear the news from England, But I do prophesy th’election lights On Fortinbras. He has my dying voice. So tell him, with the occurrents more and less, Which have solicited. The rest is silence.

[Dies.]

HORATIO. Now cracks a noble heart. Good night, sweet prince, And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest. Why does the drum come hither?

[March within.]

Enter Fortinbras, the English Ambassadors and others.

FORTINBRAS. Where is this sight?

HORATIO. What is it you would see? If aught of woe or wonder, cease your search.

FORTINBRAS. This quarry cries on havoc. O proud death, What feast is toward in thine eternal cell, That thou so many princes at a shot So bloodily hast struck?

FIRST AMBASSADOR. The sight is dismal; And our affairs from England come too late. The ears are senseless that should give us hearing, To tell him his commandment is fulfill’d, That Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead. Where should we have our thanks?

HORATIO. Not from his mouth, Had it th’ability of life to thank you. He never gave commandment for their death. But since, so jump upon this bloody question, You from the Polack wars, and you from England Are here arriv’d, give order that these bodies High on a stage be placed to the view, And let me speak to th’ yet unknowing world How these things came about. So shall you hear Of carnal, bloody and unnatural acts, Of accidental judgements, casual slaughters, Of deaths put on by cunning and forc’d cause, And, in this upshot, purposes mistook Fall’n on the inventors’ heads. All this can I Truly deliver.

FORTINBRAS. Let us haste to hear it, And call the noblest to the audience. For me, with sorrow I embrace my fortune. I have some rights of memory in this kingdom, Which now to claim my vantage doth invite me.

HORATIO. Of that I shall have also cause to speak, And from his mouth whose voice will draw on more. But let this same be presently perform’d, Even while men’s minds are wild, lest more mischance On plots and errors happen.

FORTINBRAS. Let four captains Bear Hamlet like a soldier to the stage, For he was likely, had he been put on, To have prov’d most royally; and for his passage, The soldiers’ music and the rites of war Speak loudly for him. Take up the bodies. Such a sight as this Becomes the field, but here shows much amiss. Go, bid the soldiers shoot.

[A dead march.]

[Exeunt, bearing off the bodies, after which a peal of ordnance is shot off.]

THE FIRST PART OF KING HENRY THE FOURTH

Dramatis Personæ

KING HENRY the Fourth. HENRY, PRINCE of Wales, son to the King. Prince John of LANCASTER, son to the King. Earl of WESTMORELAND. Sir Walter BLUNT. Thomas Percy, Earl of WORCESTER. Henry Percy, Earl of NORTHUMBERLAND. Henry Percy, surnamed HOTSPUR, his son. Edmund MORTIMER, Earl of March. Scroop, ARCHBISHOP of York. SIR MICHAEL, a friend to the archbishop of York. Archibald, Earl of DOUGLAS. Owen GLENDOWER. Sir Richard VERNON. Sir John FALSTAFF. POINS. GADSHILL. PETO. BARDOLPH. LADY PERCY, Wife to Hotspur. Lady Mortimer, Daughter to Glendower. Mrs. Quickly, Hostess in Eastcheap. Lords, Officers, Sheriff, Vintner, Chamberlain, Drawers, Carriers, Ostler, Messengers, Servant, Travellers and Attendants.

SCENE. England and Wales.

Act I, Scene I — London. A Room in the Palace

Enter the King, Lord John of Lancaster, Earl of Westmoreland with others.

KING. So shaken as we are, so wan with care, Find we a time for frighted peace to pant, And breathe short-winded accents of new broils To be commenced in strands afar remote. No more the thirsty entrance of this soil Shall daub her lips with her own children’s blood, No more shall trenching war channel her fields, Nor bruise her flow’rets with the armed hoofs Of hostile paces: those opposed eyes, Which, like the meteors of a troubled heaven, All of one nature, of one substance bred, Did lately meet in the intestine shock And furious close of civil butchery, Shall now, in mutual well-beseeming ranks, March all one way, and be no more opposed Against acquaintance, kindred, and allies. The edge of war, like an ill-sheathed knife, No more shall cut his master. Therefore, friends, As far as to the sepulchre of Christ— Whose soldier now, under whose blessed cross We are impressed and engaged to fight— Forthwith a power of English shall we levy, Whose arms were molded in their mothers’ womb To chase these pagans in those holy fields Over whose acres walked those blessed feet Which fourteen hundred years ago were nailed For our advantage on the bitter cross. But this our purpose now is twelve month old, And bootless ’tis to tell you we will go; Therefore we meet not now. Then let me hear Of you, my gentle cousin Westmoreland, What yesternight our Council did decree In forwarding this dear expedience.

WESTMORELAND. My liege, this haste was hot in question, And many limits of the charge set down But yesternight, when all athwart there came A post from Wales loaden with heavy news, Whose worst was that the noble Mortimer, Leading the men of Herefordshire to fight Against the irregular and wild Glendower, Was by the rude hands of that Welshman taken, A thousand of his people butchered, Upon whose dead corpse there was such misuse, Such beastly shameless transformation, By those Welshwomen done, as may not be Without much shame retold or spoken of.

KING. It seems then that the tidings of this broil Brake off our business for the Holy Land.

WESTMORELAND. This, matched with other did, my gracious lord, For more uneven and unwelcome news Came from the North, and thus it did import: On Holy-rood day the gallant Hotspur there, Young Harry Percy, and brave Archibald, That ever-valiant and approved Scot, At Holmedon met, where they did spend A sad and bloody hour; As by discharge of their artillery, And shape of likelihood, the news was told; For he that brought them, in the very heat And pride of their contention did take horse, Uncertain of the issue any way.

KING. Here is a dear and true-industrious friend, Sir Walter Blunt, new lighted from his horse, Stained with the variation of each soil Betwixt that Holmedon and this seat of ours; And he hath brought us smooth and welcome news. The Earl of Douglas is discomfited; Ten thousand bold Scots, two-and-twenty knights, Balked in their own blood, did Sir Walter see On Holmedon’s plains; of prisoners Hotspur took Mordake, Earl of Fife and eldest son To beaten Douglas, and the Earl of Athol, Of Murray, Angus, and Menteith. And is not this an honourable spoil, A gallant prize? Ha, cousin, is it not?

WESTMORELAND. In faith, it is a conquest for a prince to boast of.

KING. Yea, there thou mak’st me sad, and mak’st me sin In envy that my Lord Northumberland Should be the father to so blest a son, A son who is the theme of honour’s tongue, Amongst a grove the very straightest plant, Who is sweet Fortune’s minion and her pride; Whilst I, by looking on the praise of him, See riot and dishonour stain the brow Of my young Harry. O, that it could be proved That some night-tripping fairy had exchanged In cradle-clothes our children where they lay, And called mine Percy, his Plantagenet! Then would I have his Harry, and he mine: But let him from my thoughts. What think you, coz, Of this young Percy’s pride? The prisoners, Which he in this adventure hath surprised To his own use he keeps, and sends me word I shall have none but Mordake, Earl of Fife.

WESTMORELAND. This is his uncle’s teaching, this is Worcester, Malevolent to you in all aspects, Which makes him prune himself, and bristle up The crest of youth against your dignity.

KING. But I have sent for him to answer this; And for this cause awhile we must neglect Our holy purpose to Jerusalem. Cousin, on Wednesday next our Council we Will hold at Windsor, so inform the lords: But come yourself with speed to us again, For more is to be said and to be done Than out of anger can be uttered.

WESTMORELAND. I will, my liege.

[Exeunt.]

Act I, Scene II — The same. An Apartment of Prince Henry’s

Enter Prince Henry and Sir John Falstaff.

FALSTAFF. Now, Hal, what time of day is it, lad?

PRINCE. Thou art so fat-witted, with drinking of old sack, and unbuttoning thee after supper, and sleeping upon benches after noon, that thou hast forgotten to demand that truly which thou wouldst truly know. What a devil hast thou to do with the time of the day? Unless hours were cups of sack, and minutes capons, and clocks the tongues of bawds, and dials the signs of leaping-houses, and the blessed sun himself a fair hot wench in flame-coloured taffeta, I see no reason why thou shouldst be so superfluous to demand the time of the day.

FALSTAFF. Indeed, you come near me now, Hal, for we that take purses go by the moon and the seven stars, and not by Phœbus, he, that wand’ring knight so fair. And I prithee, sweet wag, when thou art king, as God save thy Grace—Majesty I should say, for grace thou wilt have none—

PRINCE. What, none?

FALSTAFF. No, by my troth, not so much as will serve to be prologue to an egg and butter.

PRINCE. Well, how then? Come, roundly, roundly.

FALSTAFF. Marry then, sweet wag, when thou art king, let not us that are squires of the night’s body be called thieves of the day’s beauty: let us be Diana’s foresters, gentlemen of the shade, minions of the moon; and let men say we be men of good government, being governed, as the sea is, by our noble and chaste mistress the moon, under whose countenance we steal.

PRINCE. Thou sayest well, and it holds well too, for the fortune of us that are the moon’s men doth ebb and flow like the sea, being governed, as the sea is, by the moon. As for proof now: a purse of gold most resolutely snatched on Monday night, and most dissolutely spent on Tuesday morning, got with swearing “Lay by” and spent with crying “Bring in”; now in as low an ebb as the foot of the ladder, and by and by in as high a flow as the ridge of the gallows.

FALSTAFF. By the Lord, thou say’st true, lad. And is not my hostess of the tavern a most sweet wench?

PRINCE. As the honey of Hybla, my old lad of the castle. And is not a buff jerkin a most sweet robe of durance?

FALSTAFF. How now, how now, mad wag? What, in thy quips and thy quiddities? What a plague have I to do with a buff jerkin?

PRINCE. Why, what a pox have I to do with my hostess of the tavern?

FALSTAFF. Well, thou hast called her to a reckoning many a time and oft.

PRINCE. Did I ever call for thee to pay thy part?

FALSTAFF. No, I’ll give thee thy due, thou hast paid all there.

PRINCE. Yea, and elsewhere, so far as my coin would stretch, and where it would not, I have used my credit.

FALSTAFF. Yea, and so used it that were it not here apparent that thou art heir apparent—But I prithee sweet wag, shall there be gallows standing in England when thou art king? And resolution thus fubbed as it is with the rusty curb of old father Antic the law? Do not thou, when thou art king, hang a thief.

PRINCE. No, thou shalt.

FALSTAFF. Shall I? O rare! By the Lord, I’ll be a brave judge.

PRINCE. Thou judgest false already, I mean thou shalt have the hanging of the thieves, and so become a rare hangman.

FALSTAFF. Well, Hal, well; and in some sort it jumps with my humour, as well as waiting in the court, I can tell you.

PRINCE. For obtaining of suits?

FALSTAFF. Yea, for obtaining of suits, whereof the hangman hath no lean wardrobe. ’Sblood, I am as melancholy as a gib cat or a lugged bear.

PRINCE. Or an old lion, or a lover’s lute.

FALSTAFF. Yea, or the drone of a Lincolnshire bagpipe.

PRINCE. What sayest thou to a hare, or the melancholy of Moor-ditch?

FALSTAFF. Thou hast the most unsavoury similes, and art indeed the most comparative, rascalliest, sweet young prince. But, Hal, I prithee trouble me no more with vanity. I would to God thou and I knew where a commodity of good names were to be bought. An old lord of the Council rated me the other day in the street about you, sir, but I marked him not, and yet he talked very wisely, but I regarded him not, and yet he talked wisely, and in the street too.

PRINCE. Thou didst well, for wisdom cries out in the streets and no man regards it.

FALSTAFF. O, thou hast damnable iteration, and art indeed able to corrupt a saint. Thou hast done much harm upon me, Hal, God forgive thee for it. Before I knew thee, Hal, I knew nothing, and now am I, if a man should speak truly, little better than one of the wicked. I must give over this life, and I will give it over. By the Lord, an I do not, I am a villain. I’ll be damned for never a king’s son in Christendom.

PRINCE. Where shall we take a purse tomorrow, Jack?

FALSTAFF. Zounds, where thou wilt, lad, I’ll make one. An I do not, call me villain and baffle me.

PRINCE. I see a good amendment of life in thee, from praying to purse-taking.

FALSTAFF. Why, Hal, ’tis my vocation, Hal, ’tis no sin for a man to labour in his vocation.

Enter Poins.

Poins!—Now shall we know if Gadshill have set a match. O, if men were to be saved by merit, what hole in hell were hot enough for him? This is the most omnipotent villain that ever cried “Stand!” to a true man.

PRINCE. Good morrow, Ned.

POINS. Good morrow, sweet Hal.—What says Monsieur Remorse? What says Sir John Sack-and-sugar? Jack, how agrees the devil and thee about thy soul, that thou soldest him on Good Friday last for a cup of Madeira and a cold capon’s leg?

PRINCE. Sir John stands to his word, the devil shall have his bargain, for he was never yet a breaker of proverbs. He will give the devil his due.

POINS. Then art thou damned for keeping thy word with the devil.

PRINCE. Else he had been damned for cozening the devil.

POINS. But, my lads, my lads, tomorrow morning, by four o’clock early at Gad’s Hill, there are pilgrims going to Canterbury with rich offerings, and traders riding to London with fat purses. I have visards for you all; you have horses for yourselves. Gadshill lies tonight in Rochester. I have bespoke supper tomorrow night in Eastcheap. We may do it as secure as sleep. If you will go, I will stuff your purses full of crowns. If you will not, tarry at home and be hanged.

FALSTAFF. Hear ye, Yedward, if I tarry at home and go not, I’ll hang you for going.

POINS. You will, chops?

FALSTAFF. Hal, wilt thou make one?

PRINCE. Who, I rob? I a thief? Not I, by my faith.

FALSTAFF. There’s neither honesty, manhood, nor good fellowship in thee, nor thou cam’st not of the blood royal, if thou darest not stand for ten shillings.

PRINCE. Well then, once in my days I’ll be a madcap.

FALSTAFF. Why, that’s well said.

PRINCE. Well, come what will, I’ll tarry at home.

FALSTAFF. By the Lord, I’ll be a traitor then, when thou art king.

PRINCE. I care not.

POINS. Sir John, I prithee, leave the Prince and me alone. I will lay him down such reasons for this adventure, that he shall go.

FALSTAFF. Well, God give thee the spirit of persuasion, and him the ears of profiting, that what thou speakest may move, and what he hears may be believed, that the true prince may, for recreation sake, prove a false thief, for the poor abuses of the time want countenance. Farewell, you shall find me in Eastcheap.

PRINCE. Farewell, thou latter spring! Farewell, All-hallown summer!

[Exit Falstaff.]

POINS. Now, my good sweet honey lord, ride with us tomorrow. I have a jest to execute that I cannot manage alone. Falstaff, Bardolph, Peto, and Gadshill shall rob those men that we have already waylaid. Yourself and I will not be there. And when they have the booty, if you and I do not rob them, cut this head off from my shoulders.

PRINCE. But how shall we part with them in setting forth?

POINS. Why, we will set forth before or after them, and appoint them a place of meeting, wherein it is at our pleasure to fail; and then will they adventure upon the exploit themselves, which they shall have no sooner achieved but we’ll set upon them.

PRINCE. Yea, but ’tis like that they will know us by our horses, by our habits, and by every other appointment, to be ourselves.

POINS. Tut, our horses they shall not see, I’ll tie them in the wood; our visards we will change after we leave them; and, sirrah, I have cases of buckram for the nonce, to immask our noted outward garments.

PRINCE. Yea, but I doubt they will be too hard for us.

POINS. Well, for two of them, I know them to be as true-bred cowards as ever turned back; and for the third, if he fight longer than he sees reason, I’ll forswear arms. The virtue of this jest will be the incomprehensible lies that this same fat rogue will tell us when we meet at supper: how thirty at least he fought with, what wards, what blows, what extremities he endured; and in the reproof of this lives the jest.

PRINCE. Well, I’ll go with thee. Provide us all things necessary and meet me tomorrow night in Eastcheap; there I’ll sup. Farewell.

POINS. Farewell, my lord.

[Exit.]

PRINCE. I know you all, and will awhile uphold The unyok’d humour of your idleness. Yet herein will I imitate the sun, Who doth permit the base contagious clouds To smother up his beauty from the world, That, when he please again to be himself, Being wanted, he may be more wonder’d at, By breaking through the foul and ugly mists Of vapours that did seem to strangle him. If all the year were playing holidays, To sport would be as tedious as to work; But, when they seldom come, they wish’d-for come, And nothing pleaseth but rare accidents. So when this loose behaviour I throw off, And pay the debt I never promised, By how much better than my word I am, By so much shall I falsify men’s hopes; And, like bright metal on a sullen ground, My reformation, glitt’ring o’er my fault, Shall show more goodly and attract more eyes Than that which hath no foil to set it off. I’ll so offend, to make offence a skill, Redeeming time, when men think least I will.

[Exit.]

Act I, Scene III — The Same. A Room in the Palace

Enter King Henry, Northumberland, Worcester, Hotspur, Sir Walter Blunt and others.

KING. My blood hath been too cold and temperate, Unapt to stir at these indignities, And you have found me, for accordingly You tread upon my patience: but be sure I will from henceforth rather be myself, Mighty and to be fear’d, than my condition, Which hath been smooth as oil, soft as young down, And therefore lost that title of respect Which the proud soul ne’er pays but to the proud.

WORCESTER. Our house, my sovereign liege, little deserves The scourge of greatness to be used on it, And that same greatness too which our own hands Have holp to make so portly.

NORTHUMBERLAND. My lord,—

KING. Worcester, get thee gone, for I do see Danger and disobedience in thine eye: O, sir, your presence is too bold and peremptory, And majesty might never yet endure The moody frontier of a servant brow. You have good leave to leave us. When we need Your use and counsel, we shall send for you.

[Exit Worcester.]

[To Northumberland.]

You were about to speak.

NORTHUMBERLAND. Yea, my good lord. Those prisoners in your Highness’ name demanded, Which Harry Percy here at Holmedon took, Were, as he says, not with such strength denied As is deliver’d to your Majesty. Either envy, therefore, or misprision Is guilty of this fault, and not my son.

HOTSPUR. My liege, I did deny no prisoners. But I remember, when the fight was done, When I was dry with rage and extreme toil, Breathless and faint, leaning upon my sword, Came there a certain lord, neat and trimly dress’d, Fresh as a bridegroom, and his chin new reap’d Show’d like a stubble-land at harvest-home. He was perfumed like a milliner, And ’twixt his finger and his thumb he held A pouncet-box, which ever and anon He gave his nose, and took’t away again, Who therewith angry, when it next came there, Took it in snuff; and still he smiled and talk’d. And as the soldiers bore dead bodies by, He call’d them untaught knaves, unmannerly, To bring a slovenly unhandsome corse Betwixt the wind and his nobility. With many holiday and lady terms He question’d me, amongst the rest demanded My prisoners in your Majesty’s behalf. I then, all smarting with my wounds being cold, Out of my grief and my impatience To be so pester’d with a popinjay, Answer’d neglectingly, I know not what, He should, or he should not; for he made me mad To see him shine so brisk and smell so sweet, And talk so like a waiting-gentlewoman Of guns and drums and wounds, God save the mark! And telling me the sovereignest thing on Earth Was parmacety for an inward bruise, And that it was great pity, so it was, This villainous saltpetre should be digg’d Out of the bowels of the harmless earth, Which many a good tall fellow had destroy’d So cowardly, and but for these vile guns, He would himself have been a soldier. This bald unjointed chat of his, my lord, I answered indirectly, as I said, And I beseech you, let not his report Come current for an accusation Betwixt my love and your high Majesty.

BLUNT. The circumstance consider’d, good my lord, Whatever Harry Percy then had said To such a person, and in such a place, At such a time, with all the rest retold, May reasonably die, and never rise To do him wrong, or any way impeach What then he said, so he unsay it now.

KING. Why, yet he doth deny his prisoners, But with proviso and exception, That we at our own charge shall ransom straight His brother-in-law, the foolish Mortimer, Who, on my soul, hath wilfully betray’d The lives of those that he did lead to fight Against that great magician, damn’d Glendower, Whose daughter, as we hear, the Earl of March Hath lately married. Shall our coffers then Be emptied to redeem a traitor home? Shall we buy treason and indent with fears When they have lost and forfeited themselves? No, on the barren mountains let him starve; For I shall never hold that man my friend Whose tongue shall ask me for one penny cost To ransom home revolted Mortimer.

HOTSPUR. Revolted Mortimer! He never did fall off, my sovereign liege, But by the chance of war. To prove that true Needs no more but one tongue for all those wounds, Those mouthed wounds, which valiantly he took, When on the gentle Severn’s sedgy bank, In single opposition hand to hand, He did confound the best part of an hour In changing hardiment with great Glendower. Three times they breathed, and three times did they drink, Upon agreement, of swift Severn’s flood, Who then, affrighted with their bloody looks, Ran fearfully among the trembling reeds, And hid his crisp head in the hollow bank Blood-stained with these valiant combatants. Never did bare and rotten policy Colour her working with such deadly wounds, Nor never could the noble Mortimer Receive so many, and all willingly. Then let not him be slander’d with revolt.

KING. Thou dost belie him, Percy, thou dost belie him, He never did encounter with Glendower. I tell thee, he durst as well have met the devil alone As Owen Glendower for an enemy. Art not ashamed? But, sirrah, henceforth Let me not hear you speak of Mortimer. Send me your prisoners with the speediest means, Or you shall hear in such a kind from me As will displease you.—My Lord Northumberland, We license your departure with your son.— Send us your prisoners, or you’ll hear of it.

[Exit King Henry, Blunt and train.]

HOTSPUR. An if the devil come and roar for them, I will not send them. I will after straight And tell him so, for I will ease my heart, Albeit I make a hazard of my head.

NORTHUMBERLAND. What, drunk with choler? Stay, and pause awhile. Here comes your uncle.

Enter Worcester.

HOTSPUR. Speak of Mortimer? Zounds, I will speak of him, and let my soul Want mercy if I do not join with him. Yea, on his part I’ll empty all these veins, And shed my dear blood drop by drop in the dust, But I will lift the down-trod Mortimer As high in the air as this unthankful King, As this ingrate and canker’d Bolingbroke.

NORTHUMBERLAND. [To Worcester.] Brother, the King hath made your nephew mad.

WORCESTER. Who struck this heat up after I was gone?

HOTSPUR. He will forsooth have all my prisoners, And when I urged the ransom once again Of my wife’s brother, then his cheek look’d pale, And on my face he turn’d an eye of death, Trembling even at the name of Mortimer.

WORCESTER. I cannot blame him. Was not he proclaim’d By Richard that dead is, the next of blood?

NORTHUMBERLAND. He was; I heard the proclamation. And then it was when the unhappy King— Whose wrongs in us God pardon!—did set forth Upon his Irish expedition; From whence he, intercepted, did return To be deposed, and shortly murdered.

WORCESTER. And for whose death we in the world’s wide mouth Live scandalized and foully spoken of.

HOTSPUR. But soft, I pray you, did King Richard then Proclaim my brother Edmund Mortimer Heir to the crown?

NORTHUMBERLAND. He did; myself did hear it.

HOTSPUR. Nay, then I cannot blame his cousin King, That wish’d him on the barren mountains starve. But shall it be that you that set the crown Upon the head of this forgetful man, And for his sake wear the detested blot Of murderous subornation—shall it be, That you a world of curses undergo, Being the agents, or base second means, The cords, the ladder, or the hangman rather? O, pardon me, that I descend so low, To show the line and the predicament Wherein you range under this subtle King. Shall it for shame be spoken in these days, Or fill up chronicles in time to come, That men of your nobility and power Did gage them both in an unjust behalf (As both of you, God pardon it, have done) To put down Richard, that sweet lovely rose, And plant this thorn, this canker, Bolingbroke? And shall it in more shame be further spoken, That you are fool’d, discarded, and shook off By him for whom these shames ye underwent? No, yet time serves wherein you may redeem Your banish’d honours, and restore yourselves Into the good thoughts of the world again: Revenge the jeering and disdain’d contempt Of this proud King, who studies day and night To answer all the debt he owes to you Even with the bloody payment of your deaths. Therefore, I say—

WORCESTER. Peace, cousin, say no more. And now I will unclasp a secret book, And to your quick-conceiving discontents I’ll read you matter deep and dangerous, As full of peril and adventurous spirit As to o’er-walk a current roaring loud On the unsteadfast footing of a spear.

HOTSPUR. If we fall in, good night, or sink or swim! Send danger from the east unto the west, So honour cross it from the north to south, And let them grapple. O, the blood more stirs To rouse a lion than to start a hare!

NORTHUMBERLAND. Imagination of some great exploit Drives him beyond the bounds of patience.

HOTSPUR. By Heaven, methinks it were an easy leap To pluck bright honour from the pale-faced moon, Or dive into the bottom of the deep, Where fathom-line could never touch the ground, And pluck up drowned honour by the locks, So he that doth redeem her thence might wear Without corrival all her dignities. But out upon this half-faced fellowship!

WORCESTER. He apprehends a world of figures here, But not the form of what he should attend.— Good cousin, give me audience for a while.

HOTSPUR. I cry you mercy.

WORCESTER. Those same noble Scots That are your prisoners—

HOTSPUR. I’ll keep them all; By God, he shall not have a Scot of them, No, if a Scot would save his soul, he shall not. I’ll keep them, by this hand!

WORCESTER. You start away, And lend no ear unto my purposes: Those prisoners you shall keep—

HOTSPUR. Nay, I will: that’s flat. He said he would not ransom Mortimer, Forbade my tongue to speak of Mortimer, But I will find him when he lies asleep, And in his ear I’ll holla “Mortimer!” Nay, I’ll have a starling shall be taught to speak Nothing but “Mortimer”, and give it him, To keep his anger still in motion.

WORCESTER. Hear you, cousin, a word.

HOTSPUR. All studies here I solemnly defy, Save how to gall and pinch this Bolingbroke: And that same sword-and-buckler Prince of Wales, But that I think his father loves him not, And would be glad he met with some mischance— I would have him poison’d with a pot of ale.

WORCESTER. Farewell, kinsman. I will talk to you When you are better temper’d to attend.

NORTHUMBERLAND. Why, what a wasp-stung and impatient fool Art thou to break into this woman’s mood, Tying thine ear to no tongue but thine own!

HOTSPUR. Why, look you, I am whipp’d and scourged with rods, Nettled, and stung with pismires, when I hear Of this vile politician, Bolingbroke. In Richard’s time—what do you call the place? A plague upon’t! It is in Gloucestershire. ’Twas where the madcap Duke his uncle kept, His uncle York, where I first bow’d my knee Unto this king of smiles, this Bolingbroke, ’Sblood, when you and he came back from Ravenspurgh.

NORTHUMBERLAND. At Berkeley castle.

HOTSPUR. You say true. Why, what a candy deal of courtesy This fawning greyhound then did proffer me! “Look, when his infant fortune came to age,” And, “Gentle Harry Percy,” and “kind cousin.” O, the devil take such cozeners!—God forgive me! Good uncle, tell your tale. I have done.

WORCESTER. Nay, if you have not, to it again, We will stay your leisure.

HOTSPUR. I have done, i’faith.

WORCESTER. Then once more to your Scottish prisoners; Deliver them up without their ransom straight, And make the Douglas’ son your only mean For powers in Scotland, which, for divers reasons Which I shall send you written, be assured Will easily be granted.—[To Northumberland.] You, my lord, Your son in Scotland being thus employ’d, Shall secretly into the bosom creep Of that same noble prelate well beloved, The Archbishop.

HOTSPUR. Of York, is it not?

WORCESTER. True, who bears hard His brother’s death at Bristol, the Lord Scroop. I speak not this in estimation, As what I think might be, but what I know Is ruminated, plotted, and set down, And only stays but to behold the face Of that occasion that shall bring it on.

HOTSPUR. I smell it. Upon my life it will do well.

NORTHUMBERLAND. Before the game is afoot thou still let’st slip.

HOTSPUR. Why, it cannot choose but be a noble plot; And then the power of Scotland and of York To join with Mortimer, ha?

WORCESTER. And so they shall.

HOTSPUR. In faith, it is exceedingly well aim’d.

WORCESTER. And ’tis no little reason bids us speed, To save our heads by raising of a head; For, bear ourselves as even as we can, The King will always think him in our debt, And think we think ourselves unsatisfied, Till he hath found a time to pay us home: And see already how he doth begin To make us strangers to his looks of love.

HOTSPUR. He does, he does, we’ll be revenged on him.

WORCESTER. Cousin, farewell. No further go in this Than I by letters shall direct your course. When time is ripe, which will be suddenly, I’ll steal to Glendower and Lord Mortimer, Where you and Douglas, and our powers at once, As I will fashion it, shall happily meet, To bear our fortunes in our own strong arms, Which now we hold at much uncertainty.

NORTHUMBERLAND. Farewell, good brother; we shall thrive, I trust.

HOTSPUR. Uncle, adieu. O, let the hours be short, Till fields and blows and groans applaud our sport!

[Exeunt.]

Act II, Scene I — Rochester. An Inn-Yard

Enter a Carrier with a lantern in his hand.

FIRST CARRIER. Heigh-ho! an it be not four by the day, I’ll be hang’d. Charles’ wain is over the new chimney, and yet our horse not pack’d.—What, ostler!

OSTLER. [within.] Anon, anon.

FIRST CARRIER. I prithee, Tom, beat Cut’s saddle, put a few flocks in the point; poor jade is wrung in the withers out of all cess.

Enter another Carrier.

SECOND CARRIER. Peas and beans are as dank here as a dog, and that is the next way to give poor jades the bots. This house is turned upside down since Robin ostler died.

FIRST CARRIER. Poor fellow never joyed since the price of oats rose, it was the death of him.

SECOND CARRIER. I think this be the most villainous house in all London road for fleas. I am stung like a tench.

FIRST CARRIER. Like a tench! By the Mass, there is ne’er a king christen could be better bit than I have been since the first cock.

SECOND CARRIER. Why, they will allow us ne’er a jordan, and then we leak in your chimney, and your chamber-lye breeds fleas like a loach.

FIRST CARRIER. What, ostler! Come away and be hanged, come away.

SECOND CARRIER. I have a gammon of bacon and two razes of ginger, to be delivered as far as Charing Cross.

FIRST CARRIER. God’s body! The turkeys in my pannier are quite starved.—What, ostler! A plague on thee! Hast thou never an eye in thy head? Canst not hear? An ’twere not as good deed as drink to break the pate on thee, I am a very villain. Come, and be hanged. Hast no faith in thee?

Enter Gadshill.

GADSHILL. Good morrow, carriers. What’s o’clock?

FIRST CARRIER. I think it be two o’clock.

GADSHILL. I prithee, lend me thy lantern, to see my gelding in the stable.

FIRST CARRIER. Nay, by God, soft! I know a trick worth two of that, i’faith.

GADSHILL. I pray thee, lend me thine.

SECOND CARRIER. Ay, when? Canst tell? “Lend me thy lantern,” quoth he! Marry, I’ll see thee hanged first.

GADSHILL. Sirrah carrier, what time do you mean to come to London?

SECOND CARRIER. Time enough to go to bed with a candle, I warrant thee. Come, neighbour Mugs, we’ll call up the gentlemen. They will along with company, for they have great charge.

[Exeunt Carriers.]

GADSHILL. What, ho! Chamberlain!

Enter Chamberlain.

CHAMBERLAIN. At hand, quoth pick-purse.

GADSHILL. That’s even as fair as “at hand, quoth the chamberlain,” for thou variest no more from picking of purses than giving direction doth from labouring; thou layest the plot how.

CHAMBERLAIN. Good morrow, Master Gadshill. It holds current that I told you yesternight: there’s a franklin in the Wild of Kent hath brought three hundred marks with him in gold. I heard him tell it to one of his company last night at supper; a kind of auditor, one that hath abundance of charge too, God knows what. They are up already, and call for eggs and butter. They will away presently.

GADSHILL. Sirrah, if they meet not with Saint Nicholas’ clerks, I’ll give thee this neck.

CHAMBERLAIN. No, I’ll none of it. I pray thee, keep that for the hangman, for I know thou worshippest Saint Nicholas as truly as a man of falsehood may.

GADSHILL. What talkest thou to me of the hangman? If I hang, I’ll make a fat pair of gallows; for, if I hang, old Sir John hangs with me, and thou knowest he is no starveling. Tut, there are other Troyans that thou dream’st not of, the which for sport sake are content to do the profession some grace, that would, if matters should be looked into, for their own credit sake make all whole. I am joined with no foot-land-rakers, no long-staff sixpenny strikers, none of these mad mustachio purple-hued malt-worms, but with nobility and tranquillity, burgomasters and great oneyers, such as can hold in, such as will strike sooner than speak, and speak sooner than drink, and drink sooner than pray: and yet, zounds, I lie, for they pray continually to their saint the commonwealth, or rather not pray to her, but prey on her, for they ride up and down on her, and make her their boots.

CHAMBERLAIN. What, the commonwealth their boots? Will she hold out water in foul way?

GADSHILL. She will, she will; justice hath liquored her. We steal as in a castle, cock-sure; we have the receipt of fern-seed, we walk invisible.

CHAMBERLAIN. Nay, by my faith, I think you are more beholding to the night than to fern-seed for your walking invisible.

GADSHILL. Give me thy hand. Thou shalt have a share in our purchase, as I am a true man.

CHAMBERLAIN. Nay, rather let me have it, as you are a false thief.

GADSHILL. Go to; homo is a common name to all men. Bid the ostler bring my gelding out of the stable. Farewell, you muddy knave.

[Exeunt.]

Act II, Scene II — The Road by Gads-hill

Enter Prince Henry and Poins; Bardolph and Peto at some distance.

POINS. Come, shelter, shelter! I have removed Falstaff’s horse, and he frets like a gummed velvet.

PRINCE. Stand close.

[They retire.]

Enter Falstaff.

FALSTAFF. Poins! Poins, and be hanged! Poins!

PRINCE. [Coming forward.] Peace, ye fat-kidneyed rascal! What a brawling dost thou keep!

FALSTAFF. Where’s Poins, Hal?

PRINCE. He is walked up to the top of the hill. I’ll go seek him.

[Retires.]

FALSTAFF. I am accursed to rob in that thief’s company. The rascal hath removed my horse and tied him I know not where. If I travel but four foot by the square further afoot, I shall break my wind. Well, I doubt not but to die a fair death for all this, if I ’scape hanging for killing that rogue. I have forsworn his company hourly any time this two-and-twenty years, and yet I am bewitched with the rogue’s company. If the rascal have not given me medicines to make me love him, I’ll be hanged. It could not be else: I have drunk medicines. Poins! Hal! A plague upon you both! Bardolph! Peto! I’ll starve ere I’ll rob a foot further. An ’twere not as good a deed as drink, to turn true man, and to leave these rogues, I am the veriest varlet that ever chewed with a tooth. Eight yards of uneven ground is threescore and ten miles afoot with me, and the stony-hearted villains know it well enough. A plague upon it when thieves cannot be true one to another! [They whistle.] Whew! A plague upon you all! Give me my horse, you rogues, give me my horse and be hanged!

PRINCE. [Coming forward.] Peace, you fat guts, lie down, lay thine ear close to the ground, and list if thou canst hear the tread of travellers.

FALSTAFF. Have you any levers to lift me up again, being down? ’Sblood, I’ll not bear my own flesh so far afoot again for all the coin in thy father’s exchequer. What a plague mean ye to colt me thus?

PRINCE. Thou liest, thou art not colted, thou art uncolted.

FALSTAFF. I prithee, good Prince Hal, help me to my horse, good king’s son.

PRINCE. Out, ye rogue! Shall I be your ostler?

FALSTAFF. Hang thyself in thine own heir-apparent garters! If I be ta’en, I’ll peach for this. An I have not ballads made on you all, and sung to filthy tunes, let a cup of sack be my poison—when a jest is so forward, and afoot too! I hate it.

Enter Gadshill.

GADSHILL. Stand!

FALSTAFF. So I do, against my will.

POINS. O, ’tis our setter. I know his voice.

Comes forward with Bardolph and Peto.

BARDOLPH. What news?

GADSHILL. Case ye, case ye, on with your visards. There’s money of the King’s coming down the hill, ’tis going to the King’s exchequer.

FALSTAFF. You lie, ye rogue, ’tis going to the King’s tavern.

GADSHILL. There’s enough to make us all.

FALSTAFF. To be hanged.

PRINCE. Sirs, you four shall front them in the narrow lane. Ned Poins and I will walk lower; if they ’scape from your encounter, then they light on us.

PETO. How many be there of them?

GADSHILL. Some eight or ten.

FALSTAFF. Zounds, will they not rob us?

PRINCE. What, a coward, Sir John Paunch?

FALSTAFF. Indeed, I am not John of Gaunt, your grandfather, but yet no coward, Hal.

PRINCE. Well, we leave that to the proof.

POINS. Sirrah Jack, thy horse stands behind the hedge. When thou need’st him, there thou shalt find him. Farewell, and stand fast.

FALSTAFF. Now cannot I strike him, if I should be hanged.

PRINCE. [aside to Poins.] Ned, where are our disguises?

POINS. [aside to Prince Henry.] Here, hard by. Stand close.

[Exeunt Prince and Poins.]

FALSTAFF. Now, my masters, happy man be his dole, say I. Every man to his business.

Enter the Travellers.

FIRST TRAVELLER. Come, neighbour, the boy shall lead our horses down the hill; we’ll walk afoot awhile and ease our legs.

THIEVES. Stand!

SECOND TRAVELLER. Jesu bless us!

FALSTAFF. Strike, down with them, cut the villains’ throats! Ah, whoreson caterpillars, bacon-fed knaves, they hate us youth. Down with them, fleece them!

FIRST TRAVELLER. O, we are undone, both we and ours for ever!

FALSTAFF. Hang ye, gorbellied knaves, are ye undone? No, ye fat chuffs, I would your store were here! On, bacons, on! What, ye knaves! young men must live. You are grandjurors, are ye? We’ll jure ye, faith.

[Here they rob them and bind them. Exeunt]

Enter Prince Henry and Poins in buckram suits.

PRINCE. The thieves have bound the true men. Now could thou and I rob the thieves, and go merrily to London, it would be argument for a week, laughter for a month, and a good jest for ever.

POINS. Stand close, I hear them coming.

[They retire.]

Enter the Thieves again.

FALSTAFF. Come, my masters, let us share, and then to horse before day. An the Prince and Poins be not two arrant cowards, there’s no equity stirring. There’s no more valour in that Poins than in a wild duck.

[As they are sharing, the Prince and Poins set upon them.]

PRINCE. Your money!

POINS. Villains!

[Falstaff after a blow or two, and the others run away, leaving the booty behind them.]

PRINCE. Got with much ease. Now merrily to horse. The thieves are all scatter’d, and possess’d with fear So strongly that they dare not meet each other; Each takes his fellow for an officer. Away, good Ned. Falstaff sweats to death, And lards the lean earth as he walks along. Were’t not for laughing, I should pity him.

POINS. How the fat rogue roared!

[Exeunt.]

Act II, Scene III — Warkworth. A Room in the Castle

Enter Hotspur, reading a letter.

HOTSPUR. “But, for mine own part, my lord, I could be well contented to be there, in respect of the love I bear your house.” He could be contented; why is he not, then? In respect of the love he bears our house—he shows in this, he loves his own barn better than he loves our house. Let me see some more. “The purpose you undertake is dangerous”—Why, that’s certain. ’Tis dangerous to take a cold, to sleep, to drink; but I tell you, my lord fool, out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety. “The purpose you undertake is dangerous, the friends you have named uncertain, the time itself unsorted, and your whole plot too light for the counterpoise of so great an opposition.” Say you so, say you so? I say unto you again, you are a shallow, cowardly hind, and you lie. What a lack-brain is this! By the Lord, our plot is a good plot as ever was laid, our friends true and constant: a good plot, good friends, and full of expectation; an excellent plot, very good friends. What a frosty-spirited rogue is this! Why, my Lord of York commends the plot and the general course of the action. Zounds, an I were now by this rascal, I could brain him with his lady’s fan. Is there not my father, my uncle, and myself? Lord Edmund Mortimer, my Lord of York, and Owen Glendower? Is there not besides the Douglas? Have I not all their letters to meet me in arms by the ninth of the next month, and are they not some of them set forward already? What a pagan rascal is this, an infidel! Ha! You shall see now, in very sincerity of fear and cold heart, will he to the King, and lay open all our proceedings. O, I could divide myself, and go to buffets, for moving such a dish of skim milk with so honourable an action! Hang him, let him tell the King, we are prepared. I will set forward tonight.—

Enter Lady Percy.

How now, Kate! I must leave you within these two hours.

LADY PERCY. O my good lord, why are you thus alone? For what offence have I this fortnight been A banish’d woman from my Harry’s bed? Tell me, sweet lord, what is’t that takes from thee Thy stomach, pleasure, and thy golden sleep? Why dost thou bend thine eyes upon the earth, And start so often when thou sit’st alone? Why hast thou lost the fresh blood in thy cheeks, And given my treasures and my rights of thee To thick-eyed musing and curst melancholy? In thy faint slumbers I by thee have watch’d, And heard thee murmur tales of iron wars, Speak terms of manage to thy bounding steed, Cry “Courage! To the field!” And thou hast talk’d Of sallies and retires, of trenches, tents, Of palisadoes, frontiers, parapets, Of basilisks, of cannon, culverin, Of prisoners’ ransom, and of soldiers slain, And all the currents of a heady fight. Thy spirit within thee hath been so at war, And thus hath so bestirr’d thee in thy sleep, That beads of sweat have stood upon thy brow Like bubbles in a late-disturbed stream, And in thy face strange motions have appear’d, Such as we see when men restrain their breath On some great sudden hest. O, what portents are these? Some heavy business hath my lord in hand, And I must know it, else he loves me not.

HOTSPUR. What, ho!

Enter a Servant.

Is Gilliams with the packet gone?

SERVANT. He is, my lord, an hour ago.

HOTSPUR. Hath Butler brought those horses from the sheriff?

SERVANT. One horse, my lord, he brought even now.

HOTSPUR. What horse? A roan, a crop-ear, is it not?

SERVANT. It is, my lord.

HOTSPUR. That roan shall be my throne. Well, I will back him straight. O Esperance! Bid Butler lead him forth into the park.

[Exit Servant.]

LADY PERCY. But hear you, my lord.

HOTSPUR. What say’st thou, my lady?

LADY PERCY. What is it carries you away?

HOTSPUR. Why, my horse, my love, my horse.

LADY PERCY. Out, you mad-headed ape! A weasel hath not such a deal of spleen As you are toss’d with. In faith, I’ll know your business, Harry, that I will. I fear my brother Mortimer doth stir About his title, and hath sent for you To line his enterprise. But if you go—

HOTSPUR. So far afoot, I shall be weary, love.

LADY PERCY. Come, come, you paraquito, answer me Directly unto this question that I ask. In faith, I’ll break thy little finger, Harry, If thou wilt not tell me all things true.

HOTSPUR. Away, Away, you trifler! Love, I love thee not, I care not for thee, Kate. This is no world To play with mammets and to tilt with lips. We must have bloody noses and crack’d crowns, And pass them current too.—Gods me, my horse!— What say’st thou, Kate? What wouldst thou have with me?

LADY PERCY. Do you not love me? Do you not indeed? Well, do not, then, for since you love me not, I will not love myself. Do you not love me? Nay, tell me if you speak in jest or no.

HOTSPUR. Come, wilt thou see me ride? And when I am a-horseback I will swear I love thee infinitely. But hark you, Kate, I must not have you henceforth question me Whither I go, nor reason whereabout. Whither I must, I must; and, to conclude, This evening must I leave you, gentle Kate. I know you wise, but yet no farther wise Than Harry Percy’s wife; constant you are, But yet a woman; and for secrecy, No lady closer, for I well believe Thou wilt not utter what thou dost not know; And so far will I trust thee, gentle Kate.

LADY PERCY. How? So far?

HOTSPUR. Not an inch further. But hark you, Kate, Whither I go, thither shall you go too. Today will I set forth, tomorrow you. Will this content you, Kate?

LADY PERCY. It must, of force.

[Exeunt.]