Act II, Scene IV — Eastcheap. A Room in the Boar’s Head Tavern
Enter Prince Henry.
PRINCE. Ned, prithee, come out of that fat room, and lend me thy hand to laugh a little.
Enter Poins.
POINS. Where hast been, Hal?
PRINCE. With three or four loggerheads amongst three or fourscore hogsheads. I have sounded the very base-string of humility. Sirrah, I am sworn brother to a leash of drawers, and can call them all by their Christian names, as Tom, Dick, and Francis. They take it already upon their salvation, that though I be but Prince of Wales, yet I am the king of courtesy, and tell me flatly I am no proud Jack, like Falstaff, but a Corinthian, a lad of mettle, a good boy,—by the Lord, so they call me—and when I am King of England, I shall command all the good lads in Eastcheap. They call drinking deep, “dyeing scarlet,” and when you breathe in your watering, they cry “Hem!” and bid you “Play it off!” To conclude, I am so good a proficient in one quarter of an hour, that I can drink with any tinker in his own language during my life. I tell thee, Ned, thou hast lost much honour that thou wert not with me in this action; but, sweet Ned—to sweeten which name of Ned, I give thee this pennyworth of sugar, clapped even now into my hand by an underskinker, one that never spake other English in his life than “Eight shillings and sixpence,” and “You are welcome,” with this shrill addition, “Anon, anon, sir! Score a pint of bastard in the Half-moon,” or so. But, Ned, to drive away the time till Falstaff come, I prithee, do thou stand in some by-room, while I question my puny drawer to what end he gave me the sugar, and do thou never leave calling “Francis,” that his tale to me may be nothing but “Anon.” Step aside, and I’ll show thee a precedent.
[Exit Poins.]
POINS. [Within] Francis!
PRINCE. Thou art perfect.
POINS. [Within] Francis!
Enter Francis.
FRANCIS. Anon, anon, sir.—Look down into the Pomegarnet, Ralph.
PRINCE. Come hither, Francis.
FRANCIS. My lord?
PRINCE. How long hast thou to serve, Francis?
FRANCIS. Forsooth, five years, and as much as to—
POINS. [within.] Francis!
FRANCIS. Anon, anon, sir.
PRINCE. Five year! By’r Lady, a long lease for the clinking of pewter! But, Francis, darest thou be so valiant as to play the coward with thy indenture, and show it a fair pair of heels, and run from it?
FRANCIS. O Lord, sir, I’ll be sworn upon all the books in England, I could find in my heart—
POINS. [within.] Francis!
FRANCIS. Anon, sir.
PRINCE. How old art thou, Francis?
FRANCIS. Let me see, about Michaelmas next I shall be—
POINS. [within.] Francis!
FRANCIS. Anon, sir.—Pray, stay a little, my lord.
PRINCE. Nay, but hark you, Francis, for the sugar thou gavest me, ’twas a pennyworth, was’t not?
FRANCIS. O Lord, I would it had been two!
PRINCE. I will give thee for it a thousand pound. Ask me when thou wilt, and thou shalt have it.
POINS. [within.] Francis!
FRANCIS. Anon, anon.
PRINCE. Anon, Francis? No, Francis, but tomorrow, Francis; or, Francis, a Thursday; or indeed, Francis, when thou wilt. But, Francis,—
FRANCIS. My lord?
PRINCE. Wilt thou rob this leathern-jerkin, crystal-button, not-pated, agate-ring, puke-stocking, caddis-garter, smooth-tongue, Spanish-pouch—
FRANCIS. O Lord, sir, who do you mean?
PRINCE. Why, then, your brown bastard is your only drink, for look you, Francis, your white canvas doublet will sully. In Barbary, sir, it cannot come to so much.
FRANCIS. What, sir?
POINS. [within.] Francis!
PRINCE. Away, you rogue! Dost thou not hear them call?
[Here they both call him; the Drawer stands amazed, not knowing which way to go.]
Enter Vintner.
VINTNER. What, stand’st thou still, and hear’st such a calling? Look to the guests within.
[Exit Francis.]
My lord, old Sir John with half-a-dozen more are at the door. Shall I let them in?
PRINCE. Let them alone awhile, and then open the door.
[Exit Vintner.]
Poins!
Enter Poins.
POINS. Anon, anon, sir.
PRINCE. Sirrah, Falstaff and the rest of the thieves are at the door; shall we be merry?
POINS. As merry as crickets, my lad. But hark ye, what cunning match have you made with this jest of the drawer? Come, what’s the issue?
PRINCE. I am now of all humours that have showed themselves humours since the old days of goodman Adam to the pupil age of this present twelve o’clock at midnight.
Enter Francis.
What’s o’clock, Francis?
FRANCIS. Anon, anon, sir.
[Exit Francis.]
PRINCE. That ever this fellow should have fewer words than a parrot, and yet the son of a woman! His industry is upstairs and downstairs; his eloquence the parcel of a reckoning. I am not yet of Percy’s mind, the Hotspur of the north, he that kills me some six or seven dozen of Scots at a breakfast, washes his hands, and says to his wife, “Fie upon this quiet life! I want work.” “O my sweet Harry,” says she, “how many hast thou killed today?” “Give my roan horse a drench,” says he; and answers, “Some fourteen,” an hour after; “a trifle, a trifle.” I prithee, call in Falstaff. I’ll play Percy, and that damned brawn shall play Dame Mortimer his wife. Rivo! says the drunkard. Call in Ribs, call in Tallow.
Enter Falstaff, Gadshill, Bardolph and Peto; followed by Francis with wine.
POINS. Welcome, Jack. Where hast thou been?
FALSTAFF. A plague of all cowards, I say, and a vengeance too! Marry, and amen! Give me a cup of sack, boy. Ere I lead this life long, I’ll sew nether-stocks, and mend them and foot them too. A plague of all cowards! Give me a cup of sack, rogue. Is there no virtue extant?
[Drinks.]
PRINCE. Didst thou never see Titan kiss a dish of butter (pitiful-hearted Titan!), that melted at the sweet tale of the sun’s? If thou didst, then behold that compound.
FALSTAFF. You rogue, here’s lime in this sack too: there is nothing but roguery to be found in villainous man, yet a coward is worse than a cup of sack with lime in it. A villanous coward! Go thy ways, old Jack. Die when thou wilt, if manhood, good manhood, be not forgot upon the face of the Earth, then am I a shotten herring. There lives not three good men unhanged in England, and one of them is fat, and grows old, God help the while, a bad world, I say. I would I were a weaver; I could sing psalms or anything. A plague of all cowards, I say still.
PRINCE. How now, wool-sack, what mutter you?
FALSTAFF. A king’s son! If I do not beat thee out of thy kingdom with a dagger of lath, and drive all thy subjects afore thee like a flock of wild-geese, I’ll never wear hair on my face more. You, Prince of Wales!
PRINCE. Why, you whoreson round man, what’s the matter?
FALSTAFF. Are not you a coward? Answer me to that—and Poins there?
POINS. Zounds, ye fat paunch, an ye call me coward, by the Lord, I’ll stab thee.
FALSTAFF. I call thee coward? I’ll see thee damned ere I call thee coward, but I would give a thousand pound I could run as fast as thou canst. You are straight enough in the shoulders, you care not who sees your back. Call you that backing of your friends? A plague upon such backing! Give me them that will face me.—Give me a cup of sack. I am a rogue if I drunk today.
PRINCE. O villain! Thy lips are scarce wiped since thou drunk’st last.
FALSTAFF. All is one for that. A plague of all cowards, still say I.
[Drinks.]
PRINCE. What’s the matter?
FALSTAFF. What’s the matter? There be four of us here have ta’en a thousand pound this day morning.
PRINCE. Where is it, Jack, where is it?
FALSTAFF. Where is it? Taken from us it is: a hundred upon poor four of us.
PRINCE. What, a hundred, man?
FALSTAFF. I am a rogue if I were not at half-sword with a dozen of them two hours together. I have ’scaped by miracle. I am eight times thrust through the doublet, four through the hose, my buckler cut through and through, my sword hacked like a handsaw. Ecce signum! I never dealt better since I was a man: all would not do. A plague of all cowards! Let them speak. If they speak more or less than truth, they are villains, and the sons of darkness.
PRINCE. Speak, sirs, how was it?
GADSHILL. We four set upon some dozen.
FALSTAFF. Sixteen at least, my lord.
GADSHILL. And bound them.
PETO. No, no, they were not bound.
FALSTAFF. You rogue, they were bound, every man of them, or I am a Jew else, an Ebrew Jew.
GADSHILL. As we were sharing, some six or seven fresh men set upon us.
FALSTAFF. And unbound the rest, and then come in the other.
PRINCE. What, fought you with them all?
FALSTAFF. All? I know not what you call all, but if I fought not with fifty of them I am a bunch of radish. If there were not two or three and fifty upon poor old Jack, then am I no two-legged creature.
PRINCE. Pray God you have not murdered some of them.
FALSTAFF. Nay, that’s past praying for. I have peppered two of them. Two I am sure I have paid, two rogues in buckram suits. I tell thee what, Hal, if I tell thee a lie, spit in my face, call me horse. Thou knowest my old ward. Here I lay, and thus I bore my point. Four rogues in buckram let drive at me.
PRINCE. What, four? Thou saidst but two even now.
FALSTAFF. Four, Hal, I told thee four.
POINS. Ay, ay, he said four.
FALSTAFF. These four came all afront, and mainly thrust at me. I made me no more ado, but took all their seven points in my target, thus.
PRINCE. Seven? Why, there were but four even now.
FALSTAFF. In buckram?
POINS. Ay, four, in buckram suits.
FALSTAFF. Seven, by these hilts, or I am a villain else.
PRINCE. [aside to Poins.] Prithee let him alone, we shall have more anon.
FALSTAFF. Dost thou hear me, Hal?
PRINCE. Ay, and mark thee too, Jack.
FALSTAFF. Do so, for it is worth the listening to. These nine in buckram that I told thee of—
PRINCE. So, two more already.
FALSTAFF. Their points being broken—
POINS. Down fell their hose.
FALSTAFF. Began to give me ground; but I followed me close, came in foot and hand, and with a thought seven of the eleven I paid.
PRINCE. O monstrous! Eleven buckram men grown out of two!
FALSTAFF. But as the devil would have it, three misbegotten knaves in Kendal green came at my back and let drive at me, for it was so dark, Hal, that thou couldst not see thy hand.
PRINCE. These lies are like the father that begets them, gross as a mountain, open, palpable. Why, thou clay-brained guts, thou knotty-pated fool, thou whoreson, obscene greasy tallow-catch—
FALSTAFF. What, art thou mad? Art thou mad? Is not the truth the truth?
PRINCE. Why, how couldst thou know these men in Kendal green, when it was so dark thou couldst not see thy hand? Come, tell us your reason. What sayest thou to this?
POINS. Come, your reason, Jack, your reason.
FALSTAFF. What, upon compulsion? Zounds, an I were at the strappado, or all the racks in the world, I would not tell you on compulsion. Give you a reason on compulsion! If reasons were as plentiful as blackberries, I would give no man a reason upon compulsion, I.
PRINCE. I’ll be no longer guilty of this sin. This sanguine coward, this bed-presser, this horse-back-breaker, this huge hill of flesh—
FALSTAFF. ’Sblood, you starveling, you eel-skin, you dried neat’s-tongue, you bull’s pizzle, you stock-fish—O, for breath to utter what is like thee! You tailor’s-yard, you sheath, you bow-case, you vile standing tuck—
PRINCE. Well, breathe awhile, and then to it again, and when thou hast tired thyself in base comparisons, hear me speak but this.
POINS. Mark, Jack.
PRINCE. We two saw you four set on four, and bound them and were masters of their wealth. Mark now how a plain tale shall put you down. Then did we two set on you four, and, with a word, outfaced you from your prize, and have it, yea, and can show it you here in the house. And, Falstaff, you carried your guts away as nimbly, with as quick dexterity, and roared for mercy, and still ran and roared, as ever I heard bull-calf. What a slave art thou to hack thy sword as thou hast done, and then say it was in fight! What trick, what device, what starting-hole canst thou now find out to hide thee from this open and apparent shame?
POINS. Come, let’s hear, Jack, what trick hast thou now?
FALSTAFF. By the Lord, I knew ye as well as he that made ye. Why, hear you, my masters, was it for me to kill the heir-apparent? Should I turn upon the true prince? Why, thou knowest I am as valiant as Hercules: but beware instinct. The lion will not touch the true prince. Instinct is a great matter. I was now a coward on instinct. I shall think the better of myself, and thee, during my life—I for a valiant lion, and thou for a true prince. But, by the Lord, lads, I am glad you have the money.—Hostess, clap to the doors. Watch tonight, pray tomorrow. Gallants, lads, boys, hearts of gold, all the titles of good fellowship come to you! What, shall we be merry? Shall we have a play extempore?
PRINCE. Content; and the argument shall be thy running away.
FALSTAFF. Ah, no more of that, Hal, an thou lovest me!
Enter the Hostess.
HOSTESS. O Jesu, my lord the Prince—
PRINCE. How now, my lady the hostess! What say’st thou to me?
HOSTESS. Marry, my lord, there is a nobleman of the court at door would speak with you: he says he comes from your father.
PRINCE. Give him as much as will make him a royal man, and send him back again to my mother.
FALSTAFF. What manner of man is he?
HOSTESS. An old man.
FALSTAFF. What doth gravity out of his bed at midnight? Shall I give him his answer?
PRINCE. Prithee do, Jack.
FALSTAFF. Faith, and I’ll send him packing.
[Exit.]
PRINCE. Now, sirs: by’r Lady, you fought fair, so did you, Peto. So did you, Bardolph. You are lions, too, you ran away upon instinct, you will not touch the true prince, no, fie!
BARDOLPH. Faith, I ran when I saw others run.
PRINCE. Faith, tell me now in earnest, how came Falstaff’s sword so hacked?
PETO. Why, he hacked it with his dagger, and said he would swear truth out of England but he would make you believe it was done in fight, and persuaded us to do the like.
BARDOLPH. Yea, and to tickle our noses with spear-grass to make them bleed, and then to beslubber our garments with it, and swear it was the blood of true men. I did that I did not this seven year before: I blushed to hear his monstrous devices.
PRINCE. O villain, thou stolest a cup of sack eighteen years ago, and wert taken with the manner, and ever since thou hast blushed extempore. Thou hadst fire and sword on thy side, and yet thou ran’st away. What instinct hadst thou for it?
BARDOLPH. My lord, do you see these meteors? Do you behold these exhalations?
PRINCE. I do.
BARDOLPH. What think you they portend?
PRINCE. Hot livers and cold purses.
BARDOLPH. Choler, my lord, if rightly taken.
PRINCE. No, if rightly taken, halter.
Enter Falstaff.
Here comes lean Jack, here comes bare-bone. How now, my sweet creature of bombast? How long is’t ago, Jack, since thou sawest thine own knee?
FALSTAFF. My own knee? When I was about thy years, Hal, I was not an eagle’s talon in the waist. I could have crept into any alderman’s thumb-ring: a plague of sighing and grief! It blows a man up like a bladder. There’s villanous news abroad: here was Sir John Bracy from your father; you must to the court in the morning. That same mad fellow of the north, Percy, and he of Wales that gave Amamon the bastinado, and made Lucifer cuckold, and swore the devil his true liegeman upon the cross of a Welsh hook—what a plague call you him?
POINS. O, Glendower.
FALSTAFF. Owen, Owen, the same; and his son-in-law Mortimer, and old Northumberland, and that sprightly Scot of Scots, Douglas, that runs a-horseback up a hill perpendicular—
PRINCE. He that rides at high speed, and with his pistol kills a sparrow flying.
FALSTAFF. You have hit it.
PRINCE. So did he never the sparrow.
FALSTAFF. Well, that rascal hath good metal in him, he will not run.
PRINCE. Why, what a rascal art thou then, to praise him so for running!
FALSTAFF. A-horseback, ye cuckoo, but afoot he will not budge a foot.
PRINCE. Yes, Jack, upon instinct.
FALSTAFF. I grant ye, upon instinct. Well, he is there too, and one Mordake, and a thousand blue-caps more. Worcester is stolen away tonight; thy father’s beard is turned white with the news. You may buy land now as cheap as stinking mackerel.
PRINCE. Why then, it is like if there come a hot June, and this civil buffeting hold, we shall buy maidenheads as they buy hobnails, by the hundreds.
FALSTAFF. By the mass, lad, thou sayest true. It is like we shall have good trading that way. But tell me, Hal, art not thou horrible afeard? Thou being heir-apparent, could the world pick thee out three such enemies again as that fiend Douglas, that spirit Percy, and that devil Glendower? Art thou not horribly afraid? Doth not thy blood thrill at it?
PRINCE. Not a whit, i’faith. I lack some of thy instinct.
FALSTAFF. Well, thou wilt be horribly chid tomorrow when thou comest to thy father. If thou love me practise an answer.
PRINCE. Do thou stand for my father and examine me upon the particulars of my life.
FALSTAFF. Shall I? Content! This chair shall be my state, this dagger my sceptre, and this cushion my crown.
PRINCE. Thy state is taken for a joint-stool, thy golden sceptre for a leaden dagger, and thy precious rich crown for a pitiful bald crown.
FALSTAFF. Well, an the fire of grace be not quite out of thee, now shalt thou be moved. Give me a cup of sack to make my eyes look red, that it may be thought I have wept, for I must speak in passion, and I will do it in King Cambyses’ vein.
PRINCE. Well, here is my leg.
FALSTAFF. And here is my speech. Stand aside, nobility.
HOSTESS. O Jesu, this is excellent sport, i faith!
FALSTAFF. Weep not, sweet Queen, for trickling tears are vain.
HOSTESS. O, the Father, how he holds his countenance!
FALSTAFF. For God’s sake, lords, convey my tristful Queen, For tears do stop the floodgates of her eyes.
HOSTESS. O Jesu, he doth it as like one of these harlotry players as ever I see!
FALSTAFF. Peace, good pint-pot; peace, good tickle-brain.—Harry, I do not only marvel where thou spendest thy time, but also how thou art accompanied. For though the camomile, the more it is trodden on, the faster it grows, yet youth, the more it is wasted, the sooner it wears. That thou art my son I have partly thy mother’s word, partly my own opinion, but chiefly a villainous trick of thine eye, and a foolish hanging of thy nether lip, that doth warrant me. If then thou be son to me, here lies the point: why, being son to me, art thou so pointed at? Shall the blessed sun of heaven prove a micher, and eat blackberries? A question not to be asked. Shall the son of England prove a thief, and take purses? A question to be asked. There is a thing, Harry, which thou hast often heard of, and it is known to many in our land by the name of pitch. This pitch, as ancient writers do report, doth defile; so doth the company thou keepest. For, Harry, now I do not speak to thee in drink, but in tears; not in pleasure, but in passion; not in words only, but in woes also. And yet there is a virtuous man whom I have often noted in thy company, but I know not his name.
PRINCE. What manner of man, an it like your Majesty?
FALSTAFF. A goodly portly man, i’faith, and a corpulent; of a cheerful look, a pleasing eye, and a most noble carriage; and, as I think, his age some fifty, or, by’r Lady, inclining to threescore; and now I remember me, his name is Falstaff. If that man should be lewdly given, he deceiveth me; for, Harry, I see virtue in his looks. If then the tree may be known by the fruit, as the fruit by the tree, then peremptorily I speak it, there is virtue in that Falstaff; him keep with, the rest banish. And tell me now, thou naughty varlet, tell me where hast thou been this month?
PRINCE. Dost thou speak like a king? Do thou stand for me, and I’ll play my father.
FALSTAFF. Depose me? If thou dost it half so gravely, so majestically, both in word and matter, hang me up by the heels for a rabbit-sucker or a poulter’s hare.
PRINCE. Well, here I am set.
FALSTAFF. And here I stand. Judge, my masters.
PRINCE. Now, Harry, whence come you?
FALSTAFF. My noble lord, from Eastcheap.
PRINCE. The complaints I hear of thee are grievous.
FALSTAFF. ’Sblood, my lord, they are false.—Nay, I’ll tickle ye for a young prince, i’faith.
PRINCE. Swearest thou, ungracious boy? Henceforth ne’er look on me. Thou art violently carried away from grace. There is a devil haunts thee in the likeness of an old fat man. A tun of man is thy companion. Why dost thou converse with that trunk of humours, that bolting-hutch of beastliness, that swollen parcel of dropsies, that huge bombard of sack, that stuffed cloak-bag of guts, that roasted Manningtree ox with the pudding in his belly, that reverend Vice, that grey iniquity, that father ruffian, that vanity in years? Wherein is he good, but to taste sack and drink it? Wherein neat and cleanly, but to carve a capon and eat it? Wherein cunning, but in craft? Wherein crafty, but in villany? Wherein villainous, but in all things? Wherein worthy, but in nothing?
FALSTAFF. I would your Grace would take me with you. Whom means your Grace?
PRINCE. That villainous abominable misleader of youth, Falstaff, that old white-bearded Satan.
FALSTAFF. My lord, the man I know.
PRINCE. I know thou dost.
FALSTAFF. But to say I know more harm in him than in myself were to say more than I know. That he is old, the more the pity, his white hairs do witness it. But that he is, saving your reverence, a whoremaster, that I utterly deny. If sack and sugar be a fault, God help the wicked! If to be old and merry be a sin, then many an old host that I know is damned. If to be fat be to be hated, then Pharaoh’s lean kine are to be loved. No, my good lord, banish Peto, banish Bardolph, banish Poins, but for sweet Jack Falstaff, kind Jack Falstaff, true Jack Falstaff, valiant Jack Falstaff, and therefore more valiant, being as he is old Jack Falstaff, banish not him thy Harry’s company, banish not him thy Harry’s company. Banish plump Jack, and banish all the world.
PRINCE. I do, I will.
[A knocking heard.]
[Exeunt Hostess, Francis and Bardolph.]
Enter Bardolph, running.
BARDOLPH. O, my lord, my lord, the sheriff with a most monstrous watch is at the door.
FALSTAFF. Out, ye rogue! Play out the play. I have much to say in the behalf of that Falstaff.
Enter the Hostess, hastily.
HOSTESS. O Jesu, my lord, my lord—
PRINCE. Heigh, heigh, the devil rides upon a fiddlestick. What’s the matter?
HOSTESS. The sheriff and all the watch are at the door. They are come to search the house. Shall I let them in?
FALSTAFF. Dost thou hear, Hal? Never call a true piece of gold a counterfeit: thou art essentially made without seeming so.
PRINCE. And thou a natural coward without instinct.
FALSTAFF. I deny your major. If you will deny the sheriff, so; if not, let him enter. If I become not a cart as well as another man, a plague on my bringing up! I hope I shall as soon be strangled with a halter as another.
PRINCE. Go hide thee behind the arras. The rest walk up above. Now, my masters, for a true face and good conscience.
FALSTAFF. Both which I have had, but their date is out, and therefore I’ll hide me.
PRINCE. Call in the sheriff.
[Exeunt all but the Prince and Peto.]
Enter Sheriff and the Carrier.
Now, master sheriff, what is your will with me?
SHERIFF. First, pardon me, my lord. A hue and cry Hath followed certain men unto this house.
PRINCE. What men?
SHERIFF. One of them is well known, my gracious lord, A gross fat man.
CARRIER. As fat as butter.
PRINCE. The man I do assure you is not here, For I myself at this time have employ’d him. And, sheriff, I will engage my word to thee, That I will by tomorrow dinner-time, Send him to answer thee, or any man, For anything he shall be charged withal. And so let me entreat you leave the house.
SHERIFF. I will, my lord. There are two gentlemen Have in this robbery lost three hundred marks.
PRINCE. It may be so. If he have robb’d these men, He shall be answerable; and so, farewell.
SHERIFF. Good night, my noble lord.
PRINCE. I think it is good morrow, is it not?
SHERIFF. Indeed, my lord, I think it be two o’clock.
[Exit Sheriff with the Carrier.]
PRINCE. This oily rascal is known as well as Paul’s. Go, call him forth.
PETO. Falstaff!—Fast asleep behind the arras, and snorting like a horse.
PRINCE. Hark, how hard he fetches breath. Search his pockets.
[He searcheth his pocket, and findeth certain papers.]
What hast thou found?
PETO. Nothing but papers, my lord.
PRINCE. Let’s see what they be. Read them.
PETO. [reads] Item, a capon, . . . . . . . . . . . 2s. 2d. Item, sauce, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4d. Item, sack, two gallons, . . . 5s. 8d. Item, anchovies and sack after supper, 2s. 6d. Item, bread, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ob.
PRINCE. O monstrous! But one halfpennyworth of bread to this intolerable deal of sack! What there is else, keep close. We’ll read it at more advantage. There let him sleep till day. I’ll to the court in the morning. We must all to the wars, and thy place shall be honourable. I’ll procure this fat rogue a charge of foot, and I know his death will be a march of twelve score. The money shall be paid back again with advantage. Be with me betimes in the morning; and so, good morrow, Peto.
PETO. Good morrow, good my lord.
[Exeunt.]
Act III, Scene I — Bangor. A Room in the Archdeacon’s House
Enter Hotspur, Worcester, Mortimer and Glendower.
MORTIMER. These promises are fair, the parties sure, And our induction full of prosperous hope.
HOTSPUR. Lord Mortimer and cousin Glendower, Will you sit down? And uncle Worcester, A plague upon it! I have forgot the map.
GLENDOWER. No, here it is. Sit, cousin Percy, sit, good cousin Hotspur; For by that name as oft as Lancaster doth speak of you His cheek looks pale, and with a rising sigh He wisheth you in heaven.
HOTSPUR. And you in hell, As oft as he hears Owen Glendower spoke of.
GLENDOWER. I cannot blame him. At my nativity The front of heaven was full of fiery shapes, Of burning cressets, and at my birth The frame and huge foundation of the Earth Shaked like a coward.
HOTSPUR. Why, so it would have done At the same season, if your mother’s cat Had but kitten’d, though yourself had never been born.
GLENDOWER. I say the Earth did shake when I was born.
HOTSPUR. And I say the Earth was not of my mind, If you suppose as fearing you it shook.
GLENDOWER. The heavens were all on fire, the Earth did tremble.
HOTSPUR. O, then th’ Earth shook to see the heavens on fire, And not in fear of your nativity. Diseased nature oftentimes breaks forth In strange eruptions; oft the teeming Earth Is with a kind of colic pinch’d and vex’d By the imprisoning of unruly wind Within her womb, which for enlargement striving, Shakes the old beldam Earth, and topples down Steeples and moss-grown towers. At your birth Our grandam Earth, having this distemp’rature, In passion shook.
GLENDOWER. Cousin, of many men I do not bear these crossings. Give me leave To tell you once again that at my birth The front of heaven was full of fiery shapes, The goats ran from the mountains, and the herds Were strangely clamorous to the frighted fields. These signs have mark’d me extraordinary, And all the courses of my life do show I am not in the roll of common men. Where is he living, clipp’d in with the sea That chides the banks of England, Scotland, Wales, Which calls me pupil or hath read to me? And bring him out that is but woman’s son Can trace me in the tedious ways of art, And hold me pace in deep experiments.
HOTSPUR. I think there is no man speaks better Welsh. I’ll to dinner.
MORTIMER. Peace, cousin Percy, you will make him mad.
GLENDOWER. I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
HOTSPUR. Why, so can I, or so can any man, But will they come when you do call for them?
GLENDOWER. Why, I can teach you, cousin, to command the devil.
HOTSPUR. And I can teach thee, coz, to shame the devil By telling truth; tell truth, and shame the devil. If thou have power to raise him, bring him hither, And I’ll be sworn I have power to shame him hence. O, while you live, tell truth, and shame the devil!
MORTIMER. Come, come, no more of this unprofitable chat.
GLENDOWER. Three times hath Henry Bolingbroke made head Against my power; thrice from the banks of Wye And sandy-bottom’d Severn have I sent him Bootless home and weather-beaten back.
HOTSPUR. Home without boots, and in foul weather too! How ’scapes he agues, in the devil’s name!
GLENDOWER. Come, here’s the map, shall we divide our right According to our threefold order ta’en?
MORTIMER. The archdeacon hath divided it Into three limits very equally: England, from Trent and Severn hitherto, By south and east is to my part assign’d: All westward, Wales beyond the Severn shore, And all the fertile land within that bound, To Owen Glendower: and, dear coz, to you The remnant northward lying off from Trent. And our indentures tripartite are drawn, Which being sealed interchangeably, A business that this night may execute, Tomorrow, cousin Percy, you and I, And my good Lord of Worcester will set forth To meet your father and the Scottish power, As is appointed us, at Shrewsbury. My father Glendower is not ready yet, Nor shall we need his help these fourteen days. [To Glendower.] Within that space you may have drawn together Your tenants, friends, and neighbouring gentlemen.
GLENDOWER. A shorter time shall send me to you, lords, And in my conduct shall your ladies come, From whom you now must steal, and take no leave, For there will be a world of water shed Upon the parting of your wives and you.
HOTSPUR. Methinks my moiety, north from Burton here, In quantity equals not one of yours. See how this river comes me cranking in, And cuts me from the best of all my land A huge half-moon, a monstrous cantle out. I’ll have the current in this place dammed up, And here the smug and silver Trent shall run In a new channel, fair and evenly. It shall not wind with such a deep indent, To rob me of so rich a bottom here.
GLENDOWER. Not wind? It shall, it must. You see it doth.
MORTIMER. Yea, but mark how he bears his course, and runs me up With like advantage on the other side, Gelding the opposed continent as much As on the other side it takes from you.
WORCESTER. Yea, but a little charge will trench him here, And on this north side win this cape of land, And then he runs straight and even.
HOTSPUR. I’ll have it so, a little charge will do it.
GLENDOWER. I’ll not have it altered.
HOTSPUR. Will not you?
GLENDOWER. No, nor you shall not.
HOTSPUR. Who shall say me nay?
GLENDOWER. Why, that will I.
HOTSPUR. Let me not understand you, then; speak it in Welsh.
GLENDOWER. I can speak English, lord, as well as you, For I was train’d up in the English Court, Where being but young I framed to the harp Many an English ditty lovely well, And gave the tongue a helpful ornament— A virtue that was never seen in you.
HOTSPUR. Marry, and I am glad of it with all my heart. I had rather be a kitten, and cry “mew” Than one of these same metre ballad-mongers; I had rather hear a brazen canstick turn’d, Or a dry wheel grate on the axletree, And that would set my teeth nothing on edge, Nothing so much as mincing poetry. ’Tis like the forced gait of a shuffling nag.
GLENDOWER. Come, you shall have Trent turn’d.
HOTSPUR. I do not care. I’ll give thrice so much land To any well-deserving friend; But in the way of bargain, mark ye me, I’ll cavil on the ninth part of a hair. Are the indentures drawn? Shall we be gone?
GLENDOWER. The moon shines fair, you may away by night. I’ll haste the writer, and withal Break with your wives of your departure hence. I am afraid my daughter will run mad, So much she doteth on her Mortimer.
[Exit.]
MORTIMER. Fie, cousin Percy, how you cross my father!
HOTSPUR. I cannot choose. Sometimes he angers me With telling me of the moldwarp and the ant, Of the dreamer Merlin and his prophecies, And of a dragon and a finless fish, A clip-wing’d griffin and a moulten raven, A couching lion and a ramping cat, And such a deal of skimble-skamble stuff As puts me from my faith. I tell you what— He held me last night at least nine hours In reckoning up the several devils’ names That were his lackeys: I cried “Hum,” and “Well, go to,” But mark’d him not a word. O, he is as tedious As a tired horse, a railing wife, Worse than a smoky house. I had rather live With cheese and garlic in a windmill, far, Than feed on cates and have him talk to me In any summer house in Christendom.
MORTIMER. In faith, he is a worthy gentleman, Exceedingly well read, and profited In strange concealments, valiant as a lion, And wondrous affable, and as bountiful As mines of India. Shall I tell you, cousin? He holds your temper in a high respect And curbs himself even of his natural scope When you come cross his humour, faith, he does. I warrant you that man is not alive Might so have tempted him as you have done Without the taste of danger and reproof: But do not use it oft, let me entreat you.
WORCESTER. In faith, my lord, you are too wilful-blame, And since your coming hither have done enough To put him quite besides his patience. You must needs learn, lord, to amend this fault. Though sometimes it show greatness, courage, blood— And that’s the dearest grace it renders you— Yet oftentimes it doth present harsh rage, Defect of manners, want of government, Pride, haughtiness, opinion, and disdain, The least of which haunting a nobleman Loseth men’s hearts and leaves behind a stain Upon the beauty of all parts besides, Beguiling them of commendation.
HOTSPUR. Well, I am school’d. Good manners be your speed! Here come our wives, and let us take our leave.
Enter Glendower with Lady Mortimer and Lady Percy.
MORTIMER. This is the deadly spite that angers me, My wife can speak no English, I no Welsh.
GLENDOWER. My daughter weeps, she’ll not part with you, She’ll be a soldier too, she’ll to the wars.
MORTIMER. Good father, tell her that she and my aunt Percy Shall follow in your conduct speedily.
[Glendower speaks to Lady Mortimer in Welsh, and she answers him in the same.]
GLENDOWER. She is desperate here, a peevish self-willed harlotry, One that no persuasion can do good upon.
[Lady Mortimer speaks to Mortimer in Welsh.]
MORTIMER. I understand thy looks, that pretty Welsh Which thou pourest down from these swelling heavens I am too perfect in, and but for shame In such a parley should I answer thee.
[Lady Mortimer speaks to him again in Welsh.]
I understand thy kisses, and thou mine, And that’s a feeling disputation, But I will never be a truant, love, Till I have learnt thy language; for thy tongue Makes Welsh as sweet as ditties highly penn’d, Sung by a fair queen in a summer’s bower, With ravishing division, to her lute.
GLENDOWER. Nay, if you melt, then will she run mad.
[Lady Mortimer speaks to Mortimer again in Welsh.]
MORTIMER. O, I am ignorance itself in this!
GLENDOWER. She bids you on the wanton rushes lay you down, And rest your gentle head upon her lap, And she will sing the song that pleaseth you, And on your eyelids crown the god of sleep, Charming your blood with pleasing heaviness, Making such difference ’twixt wake and sleep As is the difference betwixt day and night, The hour before the heavenly-harness’d team Begins his golden progress in the east.
MORTIMER. With all my heart I’ll sit and hear her sing, By that time will our book, I think, be drawn.
GLENDOWER. Do so, and those musicians that shall play to you Hang in the air a thousand leagues from hence, And straight they shall be here: sit, and attend.
HOTSPUR. Come, Kate, thou art perfect in lying down. Come, quick, quick, that I may lay my head in thy lap.
LADY PERCY. Go, ye giddy goose.
[The music plays.]
HOTSPUR. Now I perceive the devil understands Welsh, And ’tis no marvel he’s so humorous. By’r Lady, he’s a good musician.
LADY PERCY. Then should you be nothing but musical, For you are altogether governed by humours. Lie still, ye thief, and hear the lady sing in Welsh.
HOTSPUR. I had rather hear Lady, my brach, howl in Irish.
LADY PERCY. Wouldst thou have thy head broken?
HOTSPUR. No.
LADY PERCY. Then be still.
HOTSPUR. Neither; ’tis a woman’s fault.
LADY PERCY. Now God help thee!
HOTSPUR. To the Welsh lady’s bed.
LADY PERCY. What’s that?
HOTSPUR. Peace, she sings.
[Here the lady sings a Welsh song.]
Come, Kate, I’ll have your song too.
LADY PERCY. Not mine, in good sooth.
HOTSPUR. Not yours, in good sooth! Heart! you swear like a comfit-maker’s wife! “Not you, in good sooth,” and “As true as I live,” and “As God shall mend me,” and “As sure as day” And givest such sarcenet surety for thy oaths As if thou never walk’dst further than Finsbury. Swear me, Kate, like a lady as thou art, A good mouth-filling oath, and leave “In sooth,” And such protest of pepper-gingerbread, To velvet-guards and Sunday citizens. Come, sing.
LADY PERCY. I will not sing.
HOTSPUR. ’Tis the next way to turn tailor, or be redbreast-teacher. An the indentures be drawn, I’ll away within these two hours; and so come in when ye will.
[Exit.]
GLENDOWER. Come, come, Lord Mortimer, you are as slow As hot Lord Percy is on fire to go. By this our book is drawn. We’ll but seal, And then to horse immediately.
MORTIMER. With all my heart.
[Exeunt.]
Act III, Scene II — London. A Room in the Palace
Enter King Henry, Prince Henry and Lords.
KING. Lords, give us leave; the Prince of Wales and I Must have some private conference: but be near at hand, For we shall presently have need of you.
[Exeunt Lords.]
I know not whether God will have it so For some displeasing service I have done, That, in His secret doom, out of my blood He’ll breed revengement and a scourge for me; But thou dost in thy passages of life Make me believe that thou art only mark’d For the hot vengeance and the rod of heaven To punish my mistreadings. Tell me else, Could such inordinate and low desires, Such poor, such bare, such lewd, such mean attempts, Such barren pleasures, rude society, As thou art match’d withal, and grafted to, Accompany the greatness of thy blood, And hold their level with thy princely heart?
PRINCE. So please your Majesty, I would I could Quit all offences with as clear excuse As well as I am doubtless I can purge Myself of many I am charged withal. Yet such extenuation let me beg As, in reproof of many tales devised, By smiling pickthanks and base newsmongers, Which oft the ear of greatness needs must hear, I may for some things true, wherein my youth Hath faulty wander’d and irregular, Find pardon on my true submission.
KING. God pardon thee! Yet let me wonder, Harry, At thy affections, which do hold a wing Quite from the flight of all thy ancestors. Thy place in Council thou hast rudely lost, Which by thy younger brother is supplied, And art almost an alien to the hearts Of all the court and princes of my blood. The hope and expectation of thy time Is ruin’d, and the soul of every man Prophetically do forethink thy fall. Had I so lavish of my presence been, So common-hackney’d in the eyes of men, So stale and cheap to vulgar company, Opinion, that did help me to the crown, Had still kept loyal to possession, And left me in reputeless banishment, A fellow of no mark nor likelihood. By being seldom seen, I could not stir But like a comet I was wonder’d at, That men would tell their children, “This is he.” Others would say, “Where, which is Bolingbroke?” And then I stole all courtesy from heaven, And dress’d myself in such humility That I did pluck allegiance from men’s hearts, Loud shouts and salutations from their mouths, Even in the presence of the crowned King. Thus did I keep my person fresh and new, My presence, like a robe pontifical, Ne’er seen but wonder’d at, and so my state, Seldom but sumptuous, showed like a feast, And won by rareness such solemnity. The skipping King, he ambled up and down With shallow jesters and rash bavin wits, Soon kindled and soon burnt; carded his state, Mingled his royalty, with cap’ring fools, Had his great name profaned with their scorns, And gave his countenance, against his name, To laugh at gibing boys, and stand the push Of every beardless vain comparative; Grew a companion to the common streets, Enfeoff’d himself to popularity, That, being daily swallow’d by men’s eyes, They surfeited with honey, and began To loathe the taste of sweetness, whereof a little More than a little is by much too much. So, when he had occasion to be seen, He was but as the cuckoo is in June, Heard, not regarded; seen, but with such eyes As, sick and blunted with community, Afford no extraordinary gaze, Such as is bent on sun-like majesty When it shines seldom in admiring eyes, But rather drowsed and hung their eyelids down, Slept in his face, and render’d such aspect As cloudy men use to their adversaries, Being with his presence glutted, gorged, and full. And in that very line, Harry, standest thou, For thou hast lost thy princely privilege With vile participation. Not an eye But is a-weary of thy common sight, Save mine, which hath desired to see thee more, Which now doth that I would not have it do, Make blind itself with foolish tenderness.
PRINCE. I shall hereafter, my thrice gracious lord, Be more myself.
KING. For all the world As thou art to this hour was Richard then When I from France set foot at Ravenspurgh, And even as I was then is Percy now. Now, by my sceptre, and my soul to boot, He hath more worthy interest to the state Than thou, the shadow of succession. For of no right, nor colour like to right, He doth fill fields with harness in the realm, Turns head against the lion’s armed jaws, And, being no more in debt to years than thou, Leads ancient lords and reverend bishops on To bloody battles and to bruising arms. What never-dying honour hath he got Against renowned Douglas! whose high deeds, Whose hot incursions and great name in arms, Holds from all soldiers chief majority And military title capital Through all the kingdoms that acknowledge Christ. Thrice hath this Hotspur, Mars in swathing clothes, This infant warrior, in his enterprises Discomfited great Douglas, ta’en him once, Enlarged him, and made a friend of him, To fill the mouth of deep defiance up, And shake the peace and safety of our throne. And what say you to this? Percy, Northumberland, The Archbishop’s Grace of York, Douglas, Mortimer, Capitulate against us and are up. But wherefore do I tell these news to thee? Why, Harry, do I tell thee of my foes, Which art my nearest and dearest enemy? Thou that art like enough, through vassal fear, Base inclination, and the start of spleen, To fight against me under Percy’s pay, To dog his heels, and curtsy at his frowns, To show how much thou art degenerate.
PRINCE. Do not think so, you shall not find it so. And God forgive them that so much have sway’d Your Majesty’s good thoughts away from me! I will redeem all this on Percy’s head, And, in the closing of some glorious day, Be bold to tell you that I am your son, When I will wear a garment all of blood, And stain my favours in a bloody mask, Which, wash’d away, shall scour my shame with it. And that shall be the day, whene’er it lights, That this same child of honour and renown, This gallant Hotspur, this all-praised knight, And your unthought-of Harry chance to meet. For every honour sitting on his helm, Would they were multitudes, and on my head My shames redoubled! For the time will come, That I shall make this northern youth exchange His glorious deeds for my indignities. Percy is but my factor, good my lord, To engross up glorious deeds on my behalf, And I will call him to so strict account That he shall render every glory up, Yea, even the slightest worship of his time, Or I will tear the reckoning from his heart. This in the name of God I promise here, The which if He be pleased I shall perform, I do beseech your Majesty may salve The long-grown wounds of my intemperance. If not, the end of life cancels all bands, And I will die a hundred thousand deaths Ere break the smallest parcel of this vow.
KING. A hundred thousand rebels die in this. Thou shalt have charge and sovereign trust herein.
Enter Sir Walter Blunt.
How now, good Blunt? Thy looks are full of speed.
BLUNT. So hath the business that I come to speak of. Lord Mortimer of Scotland hath sent word That Douglas and the English rebels met The eleventh of this month at Shrewsbury. A mighty and a fearful head they are, If promises be kept on every hand, As ever offer’d foul play in a state.
KING. The Earl of Westmoreland set forth today, With him my son, Lord John of Lancaster, For this advertisement is five days old. On Wednesday next you, Harry, shall set forward, On Thursday we ourselves will march. Our meeting is Bridgenorth. And, Harry, you Shall march through Gloustershire; by which account, Our business valued, some twelve days hence Our general forces at Bridgenorth shall meet. Our hands are full of business. Let’s away, Advantage feeds him fat while men delay.
[Exeunt.]
Act III, Scene III — Eastcheap. A Room in the Boar’s Head Tavern
Enter Falstaff and Bardolph.
FALSTAFF. Bardolph, am I not fallen away vilely since this last action? Do I not bate? Do I not dwindle? Why, my skin hangs about me like an old lady’s loose gown. I am withered like an old apple-john. Well, I’ll repent, and that suddenly, while I am in some liking. I shall be out of heart shortly, and then I shall have no strength to repent. An I have not forgotten what the inside of a church is made of, I am a peppercorn, a brewer’s horse. The inside of a church! Company, villainous company, hath been the spoil of me.
BARDOLPH. Sir John, you are so fretful, you cannot live long.
FALSTAFF. Why, there is it. Come, sing me a song, make me merry. I was as virtuously given as a gentleman need to be, virtuous enough; swore little; diced not above seven times—a week; went to a bawdy house not above once in a quarter—in an hour; paid money that I borrowed—three or four times; lived well and in good compass; and now I live out of all order, out of all compass.
BARDOLPH. Why, you are so fat, Sir John, that you must needs be out of all compass, out of all reasonable compass, Sir John.
FALSTAFF. Do thou amend thy face, and I’ll amend my life. Thou art our admiral, thou bearest the lantern in the poop, but ’tis in the nose of thee. Thou art the Knight of the Burning Lamp.
BARDOLPH. Why, Sir John, my face does you no harm.
FALSTAFF. No, I’ll be sworn, I make as good use of it as many a man doth of a death’s-head or a memento mori. I never see thy face but I think upon hell-fire, and Dives that lived in purple, for there he is in his robes, burning, burning. If thou wert any way given to virtue, I would swear by thy face. My oath should be, “By this fire, that’s God’s angel.” But thou art altogether given over; and wert indeed, but for the light in thy face, the son of utter darkness. When thou ran’st up Gad’s Hill in the night to catch my horse, if I did not think thou hadst been an ignis fatuus or a ball of wildfire, there’s no purchase in money. O, thou art a perpetual triumph, an everlasting bonfire-light! Thou hast saved me a thousand marks in links and torches, walking with thee in the night betwixt tavern and tavern: but the sack that thou hast drunk me would have bought me lights as good cheap at the dearest chandler’s in Europe. I have maintained that salamander of yours with fire any time this two-and-thirty years, God reward me for it!
BARDOLPH. ’Sblood, I would my face were in your belly!
FALSTAFF. God-a-mercy! so should I be sure to be heartburnt.
Enter the Hostess.
How now, Dame Partlet the hen, have you enquired yet who picked my pocket?
HOSTESS. Why, Sir John, what do you think, Sir John, do you think I keep thieves in my house? I have searched, I have enquired, so has my husband, man by man, boy by boy, servant by servant. The tithe of a hair was never lost in my house before.
FALSTAFF. Ye lie, hostess. Bardolph was shaved and lost many a hair, and I’ll be sworn my pocket was picked. Go to, you are a woman, go.
HOSTESS. Who, I? No; I defy thee: God’s light, I was never called so in mine own house before.
FALSTAFF. Go to, I know you well enough.
HOSTESS. No, Sir John, you do not know me, Sir John. I know you, Sir John, you owe me money, Sir John, and now you pick a quarrel to beguile me of it. I bought you a dozen of shirts to your back.
FALSTAFF. Dowlas, filthy dowlas. I have given them away to bakers’ wives; and they have made bolters of them.
HOSTESS. Now, as I am a true woman, holland of eight shillings an ell. You owe money here besides, Sir John, for your diet and by-drinkings, and money lent you, four-and-twenty pound.
FALSTAFF. He had his part of it, let him pay.
HOSTESS. He? Alas, he is poor, he hath nothing.
FALSTAFF. How? Poor? Look upon his face. What call you rich? Let them coin his nose, let them coin his cheeks. I’ll not pay a denier. What, will you make a younker of me? Shall I not take mine ease in mine inn but I shall have my pocket picked? I have lost a seal-ring of my grandfather’s worth forty mark.
HOSTESS. O Jesu, I have heard the Prince tell him, I know not how oft, that that ring was copper.
FALSTAFF. How? The Prince is a Jack, a sneak-up. ’Sblood, an he were here, I would cudgel him like a dog if he would say so.
Enter Prince Henry with Peto, marching. Falstaff meets him, playing on his truncheon like a fife.
How now, lad? Is the wind in that door, i’faith? Must we all march?
BARDOLPH. Yea, two and two, Newgate fashion.
HOSTESS. My lord, I pray you, hear me.
PRINCE. What say’st thou, Mistress Quickly? How doth thy husband? I love him well; he is an honest man.
HOSTESS. Good my lord, hear me.
FALSTAFF. Prithee, let her alone, and list to me.
PRINCE. What say’st thou, Jack?
FALSTAFF. The other night I fell asleep here, behind the arras, and had my pocket picked. This house is turned bawdy-house; they pick pockets.
PRINCE. What didst thou lose, Jack?
FALSTAFF. Wilt thou believe me, Hal, three or four bonds of forty pound apiece and a seal-ring of my grandfather’s.
PRINCE. A trifle, some eightpenny matter.
HOSTESS. So I told him, my lord, and I said I heard your Grace say so. And, my lord, he speaks most vilely of you, like a foul-mouthed man as he is, and said he would cudgel you.
PRINCE. What! he did not?
HOSTESS. There’s neither faith, truth, nor womanhood in me else.
FALSTAFF. There’s no more faith in thee than in a stewed prune, nor no more truth in thee than in a drawn fox; and, for woman-hood, Maid Marian may be the deputy’s wife of the ward to thee. Go, you thing, go.
HOSTESS. Say, what thing, what thing?
FALSTAFF. What thing? Why, a thing to thank God on.
HOSTESS. I am no thing to thank God on, I would thou shouldst know it! I am an honest man’s wife, and, setting thy knighthood aside, thou art a knave to call me so.
FALSTAFF. Setting thy womanhood aside, thou art a beast to say otherwise.
HOSTESS. Say, what beast, thou knave, thou?
FALSTAFF. What beast? Why, an otter.
PRINCE. An otter, Sir John? Why an otter?
FALSTAFF. Why, she’s neither fish nor flesh; a man knows not where to have her.
HOSTESS. Thou art an unjust man in saying so, thou or any man knows where to have me, thou knave, thou.
PRINCE. Thou say’st true, hostess, and he slanders thee most grossly.
HOSTESS. So he doth you, my lord, and said this other day you ought him a thousand pound.
PRINCE. Sirrah, do I owe you a thousand pound?
FALSTAFF.
A thousand pound, Hal? A million. Thy love is worth a million; thou owest me thy love.
HOSTESS. Nay, my lord, he call’d you Jack, and said he would cudgel you.
FALSTAFF. Did I, Bardolph?
BARDOLPH. Indeed, Sir John, you said so.
FALSTAFF. Yea, if he said my ring was copper.
PRINCE. I say ’tis copper. Darest thou be as good as thy word now?
FALSTAFF. Why, Hal, thou knowest, as thou art but man, I dare, but as thou art prince, I fear thee as I fear the roaring of the lion’s whelp.
PRINCE. And why not as the lion?
FALSTAFF. The King himself is to be feared as the lion. Dost thou think I’ll fear thee as I fear thy father? Nay, an I do, I pray God my girdle break.
PRINCE. O, if it should, how would thy guts fall about thy knees! But, sirrah, there’s no room for faith, truth, nor honesty in this bosom of thine; it is all filled up with midriff. Charge an honest woman with picking thy pocket! Why, thou whoreson, impudent, embossed rascal, if there were anything in thy pocket but tavern reckonings, memorandums of bawdy houses, and one poor pennyworth of sugar-candy to make thee long-winded, if thy pocket were enriched with any other injuries but these, I am a villain. And yet you will stand to it, you will not pocket up wrong. Art thou not ashamed!
FALSTAFF. Dost thou hear, Hal? Thou knowest in the state of innocency Adam fell, and what should poor Jack Falstaff do in the days of villainy? Thou seest I have more flesh than another man and therefore more frailty. You confess, then, you picked my pocket?
PRINCE. It appears so by the story.
FALSTAFF. Hostess, I forgive thee. Go make ready breakfast, love thy husband, look to thy servants, cherish thy guests. Thou shalt find me tractable to any honest reason. Thou seest I am pacified still. Nay, prithee, be gone.
[Exit Hostess.]
Now, Hal, to the news at court. For the robbery, lad, how is that answered?
PRINCE. O, my sweet beef, I must still be good angel to thee. The money is paid back again.
FALSTAFF. O, I do not like that paying back, ’tis a double labour.
PRINCE. I am good friends with my father, and may do anything.
FALSTAFF. Rob me the exchequer the first thing thou dost, and do it with unwashed hands too.
BARDOLPH. Do, my lord.
PRINCE. I have procured thee, Jack, a charge of foot.
FALSTAFF. I would it had been of horse. Where shall I find one that can steal well? O, for a fine thief, of the age of two-and-twenty or thereabouts! I am heinously unprovided. Well, God be thanked for these rebels; they offend none but the virtuous. I laud them, I praise them.
PRINCE. Bardolph!
BARDOLPH. My lord?
PRINCE. Go bear this letter to Lord John of Lancaster, To my brother John; this to my Lord of Westmoreland.
[Exit Bardolph.]
Go, Peto, to horse, to horse, for thou and I Have thirty miles to ride yet ere dinner-time.
[Exit Peto.]
Jack, meet me tomorrow in the Temple hall At two o’clock in the afternoon; There shalt thou know thy charge, and there receive Money and order for their furniture. The land is burning, Percy stands on high, And either we or they must lower lie.
[Exit.]
FALSTAFF. Rare words! Brave world!—Hostess, my breakfast, come.— O, I could wish this tavern were my drum.
[Exit.]
Act IV, Scene I — The Rebel Camp near Shrewsbury
Enter Hotspur, Worcester and Douglas.
HOTSPUR. Well said, my noble Scot. If speaking truth In this fine age were not thought flattery, Such attribution should the Douglas have As not a soldier of this season’s stamp Should go so general current through the world. By God, I cannot flatter, I do defy The tongues of soothers, but a braver place In my heart’s love hath no man than yourself. Nay, task me to my word; approve me, lord.
DOUGLAS. Thou art the king of honour. No man so potent breathes upon the ground But I will beard him.
HOTSPUR. Do so, and ’tis well.
Enter a Messenger with letters.
What letters hast thou there? I can but thank you.
MESSENGER. These letters come from your father.
HOTSPUR. Letters from him! Why comes he not himself?
MESSENGER. He cannot come, my lord, he is grievous sick.
HOTSPUR. Zounds, how has he the leisure to be sick In such a justling time? Who leads his power? Under whose government come they along?
MESSENGER. His letters bear his mind, not I, my lord.
WORCESTER. I prithee, tell me, doth he keep his bed?
MESSENGER. He did, my lord, four days ere I set forth, And at the time of my departure thence He was much fear’d by his physicians.
WORCESTER. I would the state of time had first been whole Ere he by sickness had been visited. His health was never better worth than now.
HOTSPUR. Sick now? Droop now? This sickness doth infect The very life-blood of our enterprise; ’Tis catching hither, even to our camp. He writes me here, that inward sickness— And that his friends by deputation could not So soon be drawn, nor did he think it meet To lay so dangerous and dear a trust On any soul removed but on his own. Yet doth he give us bold advertisement That with our small conjunction we should on, To see how fortune is disposed to us; For, as he writes, there is no quailing now, Because the King is certainly possess’d Of all our purposes. What say you to it?
WORCESTER. Your father’s sickness is a maim to us.
HOTSPUR. A perilous gash, a very limb lopp’d off— And yet, in faith, it is not! His present want Seems more than we shall find it. Were it good To set the exact wealth of all our states All at one cast? To set so rich a main On the nice hazard of one doubtful hour? It were not good, for therein should we read The very bottom and the soul of hope, The very list, the very utmost bound Of all our fortunes.
DOUGLAS. Faith, and so we should, where now remains A sweet reversion. We may boldly spend Upon the hope of what is to come in. A comfort of retirement lives in this.
HOTSPUR. A rendezvous, a home to fly unto, If that the devil and mischance look big Upon the maidenhead of our affairs.
WORCESTER. But yet I would your father had been here. The quality and hair of our attempt Brooks no division. It will be thought By some that know not why he is away, That wisdom, loyalty, and mere dislike Of our proceedings, kept the Earl from hence. And think how such an apprehension May turn the tide of fearful faction, And breed a kind of question in our cause. For well you know we of the off’ring side Must keep aloof from strict arbitrement, And stop all sight-holes, every loop from whence The eye of reason may pry in upon us. This absence of your father’s draws a curtain That shows the ignorant a kind of fear Before not dreamt of.
HOTSPUR. You strain too far. I rather of his absence make this use: It lends a lustre and more great opinion, A larger dare to our great enterprise, Than if the Earl were here; for men must think If we without his help can make a head To push against the kingdom, with his help We shall o’erturn it topsy-turvy down. Yet all goes well, yet all our joints are whole.
DOUGLAS. As heart can think. There is not such a word Spoke in Scotland as this term of fear.
Enter Sir Richard Vernon.
HOTSPUR. My cousin Vernon! Welcome, by my soul.
VERNON. Pray God my news be worth a welcome, lord. The Earl of Westmoreland, seven thousand strong, Is marching hitherwards, with him Prince John.
HOTSPUR. No harm, what more?
VERNON. And further, I have learn’d The King himself in person is set forth, Or hitherwards intended speedily, With strong and mighty preparation.
HOTSPUR. He shall be welcome too. Where is his son, The nimble-footed madcap Prince of Wales, And his comrades, that daffed the world aside And bid it pass?
VERNON. All furnish’d, all in arms; All plumed like estridges that with the wind Bated like eagles having lately bathed, Glittering in golden coats, like images, As full of spirit as the month of May, And gorgeous as the sun at midsummer; Wanton as youthful goats, wild as young bulls. I saw young Harry with his beaver on, His cuisses on his thighs, gallantly arm’d, Rise from the ground like feather’d Mercury, And vaulted with such ease into his seat As if an angel dropp’d down from the clouds, To turn and wind a fiery Pegasus, And witch the world with noble horsemanship.
HOTSPUR. No more, no more! Worse than the sun in March, This praise doth nourish agues. Let them come! They come like sacrifices in their trim, And to the fire-eyed maid of smoky war All hot and bleeding will we offer them. The mailed Mars shall on his altar sit Up to the ears in blood. I am on fire To hear this rich reprisal is so nigh, And yet not ours. Come, let me taste my horse, Who is to bear me like a thunderbolt Against the bosom of the Prince of Wales. Harry to Harry shall, hot horse to horse, Meet and ne’er part till one drop down a corse. O, that Glendower were come!
VERNON. There is more news. I learn’d in Worcester, as I rode along, He cannot draw his power this fourteen days.
DOUGLAS. That’s the worst tidings that I hear of yet.
WORCESTER. Ay, by my faith, that bears a frosty sound.
HOTSPUR. What may the King’s whole battle reach unto?
VERNON. To thirty thousand.
HOTSPUR. Forty let it be. My father and Glendower being both away, The powers of us may serve so great a day. Come, let us take a muster speedily. Doomsday is near; die all, die merrily.
DOUGLAS. Talk not of dying. I am out of fear Of death or death’s hand for this one half year.
[Exeunt.]
Act IV, Scene II — A public Road near Coventry
Enter Falstaff and Bardolph.
FALSTAFF. Bardolph, get thee before to Coventry; fill me a bottle of sack. Our soldiers shall march through; we’ll to Sutton Co’fil’ tonight.
BARDOLPH. Will you give me money, captain?
FALSTAFF. Lay out, lay out.
BARDOLPH. This bottle makes an angel.
FALSTAFF. An if it do, take it for thy labour. An if it make twenty, take them all, I’ll answer the coinage. Bid my lieutenant Peto meet me at town’s end.
BARDOLPH. I will, captain: farewell.
[Exit.]
FALSTAFF. If I be not ashamed of my soldiers, I am a soused gurnet. I have misused the King’s press damnably. I have got, in exchange of a hundred and fifty soldiers, three hundred and odd pounds. I press me none but good householders, yeomen’s sons, inquire me out contracted bachelors, such as had been asked twice on the banns, such a commodity of warm slaves as had as lief hear the devil as a drum, such as fear the report of a caliver worse than a struck fowl or a hurt wild duck. I pressed me none but such toasts-and-butter, with hearts in their bellies no bigger than pins’ heads, and they have bought out their services; and now my whole charge consists of ancients, corporals, lieutenants, gentlemen of companies—slaves as ragged as Lazarus in the painted cloth, where the glutton’s dogs licked his sores; and such as indeed were never soldiers, but discarded unjust servingmen, younger sons to younger brothers, revolted tapsters, and ostlers trade-fallen; the cankers of a calm world and a long peace, ten times more dishonourable-ragged than an old fazed ancient; and such have I to fill up the rooms of them that have bought out their services, that you would think that I had a hundred and fifty tattered prodigals lately come from swine-keeping, from eating draff and husks. A mad fellow met me on the way, and told me I had unloaded all the gibbets and pressed the dead bodies. No eye hath seen such scarecrows. I’ll not march through Coventry with them, that’s flat. Nay, and the villains march wide betwixt the legs as if they had gyves on, for indeed I had the most of them out of prison. There’s not a shirt and a half in all my company, and the half shirt is two napkins tacked together and thrown over the shoulders like a herald’s coat without sleeves; and the shirt, to say the truth, stolen from my host at Saint Albans, or the red-nose innkeeper of Daventry. But that’s all one; they’ll find linen enough on every hedge.
Enter Prince Henry and the Lord of Westmoreland.
PRINCE. How now, blown Jack? How now, quilt?
FALSTAFF. What, Hal! How now, mad wag? What a devil dost thou in Warwickshire? My good Lord of Westmoreland, I cry you mercy. I thought your honour had already been at Shrewsbury.
WESTMORELAND. Faith, Sir John, ’tis more than time that I were there, and you too, but my powers are there already. The King, I can tell you, looks for us all. We must away all night.
FALSTAFF. Tut, never fear me. I am as vigilant as a cat to steal cream.
PRINCE. I think, to steal cream indeed, for thy theft hath already made thee butter. But tell me, Jack, whose fellows are these that come after?
FALSTAFF. Mine, Hal, mine.
PRINCE. I did never see such pitiful rascals.
FALSTAFF. Tut, tut, good enough to toss; food for powder, food for powder, they’ll fill a pit as well as better. Tush, man, mortal men, mortal men.
WESTMORELAND. Ay, but, Sir John, methinks they are exceeding poor and bare, too beggarly.
FALSTAFF. Faith, for their poverty, I know not where they had that; and for their bareness, I am sure they never learned that of me.
PRINCE. No, I’ll be sworn, unless you call three fingers on the ribs bare. But, sirrah, make haste. Percy is already in the field.
[Exit.]
FALSTAFF. What, is the King encamped?
WESTMORELAND. He is, Sir John. I fear we shall stay too long.
[Exit.]
FALSTAFF. Well, To the latter end of a fray and the beginning of a feast Fits a dull fighter and a keen guest.
[Exit.]
Act IV, Scene III — The Rebel Camp near Shrewsbury
Enter Hotspur, Worcester, Douglas and Vernon.
HOTSPUR. We’ll fight with him tonight.
WORCESTER. It may not be.
DOUGLAS. You give him then advantage.
VERNON. Not a whit.
HOTSPUR. Why say you so? Looks he not for supply?
VERNON. So do we.
HOTSPUR. His is certain, ours is doubtful.
WORCESTER. Good cousin, be advised, stir not tonight.
VERNON. Do not, my lord.
DOUGLAS. You do not counsel well. You speak it out of fear and cold heart.
VERNON. Do me no slander, Douglas; by my life, And I dare well maintain it with my life, If well-respected honour bid me on, I hold as little counsel with weak fear As you, my lord, or any Scot that this day lives. Let it be seen tomorrow in the battle Which of us fears.
DOUGLAS. Yea, or tonight.
VERNON. Content.
HOTSPUR. Tonight, say I.
VERNON. Come, come, it may not be. I wonder much, Being men of such great leading as you are, That you foresee not what impediments Drag back our expedition. Certain horse Of my cousin Vernon’s are not yet come up. Your uncle Worcester’s horse came but today, And now their pride and mettle is asleep, Their courage with hard labour tame and dull, That not a horse is half the half himself.
HOTSPUR. So are the horses of the enemy In general, journey-bated and brought low. The better part of ours are full of rest.
WORCESTER. The number of the King exceedeth ours. For God’s sake, cousin, stay till all come in.
[The trumpet sounds a parley.]
Enter Sir Walter Blunt.
BLUNT. I come with gracious offers from the King, If you vouchsafe me hearing and respect.
HOTSPUR. Welcome, Sir Walter Blunt, and would to God You were of our determination! Some of us love you well, and even those some Envy your great deservings and good name, Because you are not of our quality, But stand against us like an enemy.
BLUNT. And God defend but still I should stand so, So long as out of limit and true rule You stand against anointed majesty. But to my charge. The King hath sent to know The nature of your griefs, and whereupon You conjure from the breast of civil peace Such bold hostility, teaching his duteous land Audacious cruelty. If that the King Have any way your good deserts forgot, Which he confesseth to be manifold, He bids you name your griefs, and with all speed You shall have your desires with interest And pardon absolute for yourself and these Herein misled by your suggestion.
HOTSPUR. The King is kind, and well we know the King Knows at what time to promise, when to pay. My father and my uncle and myself Did give him that same royalty he wears, And when he was not six-and-twenty strong, Sick in the world’s regard, wretched and low, A poor unminded outlaw sneaking home, My father gave him welcome to the shore: And when he heard him swear and vow to God He came but to be Duke of Lancaster, To sue his livery, and beg his peace With tears of innocence and terms of zeal, My father, in kind heart and pity moved, Swore him assistance, and performed it too. Now, when the lords and barons of the realm Perceived Northumberland did lean to him, The more and less came in with cap and knee, Met him in boroughs, cities, villages, Attended him on bridges, stood in lanes, Laid gifts before him, proffer’d him their oaths, Give him their heirs as pages, follow’d him Even at the heels in golden multitudes. He presently, as greatness knows itself, Steps me a little higher than his vow Made to my father while his blood was poor Upon the naked shore at Ravenspurgh; And now forsooth takes on him to reform Some certain edicts and some strait decrees That lie too heavy on the commonwealth; Cries out upon abuses, seems to weep Over his country’s wrongs; and by this face, This seeming brow of justice, did he win The hearts of all that he did angle for; Proceeded further—cut me off the heads Of all the favourites that the absent King In deputation left behind him here When he was personal in the Irish war.
BLUNT. Tut, I came not to hear this.
HOTSPUR. Then to the point. In short time after, he deposed the King, Soon after that deprived him of his life, And, in the neck of that, task’d the whole state. To make that worse, suffer’d his kinsman March (Who is, if every owner were well placed, Indeed his king) to be engaged in Wales, There without ransom to lie forfeited; Disgraced me in my happy victories, Sought to entrap me by intelligence, Rated mine uncle from the Council-board, In rage dismiss’d my father from the court, Broke oath on oath, committed wrong on wrong, And in conclusion drove us to seek out This head of safety, and withal to pry Into his title, the which now we find Too indirect for long continuance.
BLUNT. Shall I return this answer to the King?
HOTSPUR. Not so, Sir Walter. We’ll withdraw awhile. Go to the King, and let there be impawn’d Some surety for a safe return again, And in the morning early shall my uncle Bring him our purposes. And so, farewell.
BLUNT. I would you would accept of grace and love.
HOTSPUR. And maybe so we shall.
BLUNT. Pray God you do.
[Exeunt.]
Act IV, Scene IV — York. A Room in the Archbishop’s Palace
Enter the Archbishop of York and Sir Michael.
ARCHBISHOP. Hie, good Sir Michael; bear this sealed brief With winged haste to the Lord Marshal, This to my cousin Scroop, and all the rest To whom they are directed. If you knew How much they do import, you would make haste.
SIR MICHAEL. My good lord, I guess their tenour.
ARCHBISHOP. Like enough you do. Tomorrow, good Sir Michael, is a day Wherein the fortune of ten thousand men Must bide the touch; for, sir, at Shrewsbury, As I am truly given to understand, The King with mighty and quick-raised power Meets with Lord Harry. And, I fear, Sir Michael, What with the sickness of Northumberland, Whose power was in the first proportion, And what with Owen Glendower’s absence thence, Who with them was a rated sinew too, And comes not in, o’er-rul’d by prophecies, I fear the power of Percy is too weak To wage an instant trial with the King.
SIR MICHAEL. Why, my good lord, you need not fear, There is Douglas and Lord Mortimer.
ARCHBISHOP. No, Mortimer is not there.
SIR MICHAEL. But there is Mordake, Vernon, Lord Harry Percy, And there is my Lord of Worcester, and a head Of gallant warriors, noble gentlemen.
ARCHBISHOP. And so there is. But yet the King hath drawn The special head of all the land together: The Prince of Wales, Lord John of Lancaster, The noble Westmoreland, and warlike Blunt, And many more corrivals and dear men Of estimation and command in arms.
SIR MICHAEL. Doubt not, my lord, they shall be well opposed.
ARCHBISHOP. I hope no less, yet needful ’tis to fear; And to prevent the worst, Sir Michael, speed. For if Lord Percy thrive not, ere the King Dismiss his power he means to visit us, For he hath heard of our confederacy, And ’tis but wisdom to make strong against him. Therefore make haste. I must go write again To other friends; and so, farewell, Sir Michael.
[Exeunt.]
Act V, Scene I — The King’s Camp near Shrewsbury
Enter King Henry, Prince Henry, Lancaster, Sir Walter Blunt and Sir John Falstaff.
KING. How bloodily the sun begins to peer Above yon bulky hill! The day looks pale At his distemp’rature.
PRINCE. The southern wind Doth play the trumpet to his purposes, And by his hollow whistling in the leaves Foretells a tempest and a blust’ring day.
KING. Then with the losers let it sympathize, For nothing can seem foul to those that win.
[The trumpet sounds.]
Enter Worcester and Vernon.
How, now, my Lord of Worcester! ’Tis not well That you and I should meet upon such terms As now we meet. You have deceived our trust, And made us doff our easy robes of peace, To crush our old limbs in ungentle steel. This is not well, my lord, this is not well. What say you to it? Will you again unknit This churlish knot of all-abhorred war, And move in that obedient orb again Where you did give a fair and natural light, And be no more an exhaled meteor, A prodigy of fear, and a portent Of broached mischief to the unborn times?
WORCESTER. Hear me, my liege: For mine own part, I could be well content To entertain the lag end of my life With quiet hours. For I do protest I have not sought the day of this dislike.
KING. You have not sought it? How comes it, then?
FALSTAFF. Rebellion lay in his way, and he found it.
PRINCE. Peace, chewet, peace!
WORCESTER. It pleased your Majesty to turn your looks Of favour from myself and all our house; And yet I must remember you, my lord, We were the first and dearest of your friends. For you my staff of office did I break In Richard’s time, and posted day and night To meet you on the way, and kiss your hand, When yet you were in place and in account Nothing so strong and fortunate as I. It was myself, my brother, and his son, That brought you home, and boldly did outdare The dangers of the time. You swore to us, And you did swear that oath at Doncaster, That you did nothing purpose ’gainst the state, Nor claim no further than your new-fall’n right, The seat of Gaunt, dukedom of Lancaster. To this we swore our aid. But in short space It rain’d down fortune show’ring on your head, And such a flood of greatness fell on you, What with our help, what with the absent King, What with the injuries of a wanton time, The seeming sufferances that you had borne, And the contrarious winds that held the King So long in his unlucky Irish wars That all in England did repute him dead: And from this swarm of fair advantages You took occasion to be quickly woo’d To gripe the general sway into your hand, Forgot your oath to us at Doncaster; And, being fed by us, you used us so As that ungentle gull, the cuckoo’s bird, Useth the sparrow—did oppress our nest, Grew by our feeding to so great a bulk That even our love durst not come near your sight For fear of swallowing; but with nimble wing We were enforced, for safety sake to fly Out of your sight, and raise this present head, Whereby we stand opposed by such means As you yourself have forged against yourself, By unkind usage, dangerous countenance, And violation of all faith and troth Sworn to us in your younger enterprise.
KING. These things, indeed, you have articulate, Proclaim’d at market crosses, read in churches, To face the garment of rebellion With some fine colour that may please the eye Of fickle changelings and poor discontents, Which gape and rub the elbow at the news Of hurlyburly innovation. And never yet did insurrection want Such water-colours to impaint his cause, Nor moody beggars starving for a time Of pellmell havoc and confusion.
PRINCE. In both your armies there is many a soul Shall pay full dearly for this encounter If once they join in trial. Tell your nephew, The Prince of Wales doth join with all the world In praise of Henry Percy. By my hopes, This present enterprise set off his head, I do not think a braver gentleman, More active-valiant or more valiant-young, More daring or more bold, is now alive To grace this latter age with noble deeds. For my part, I may speak it to my shame, I have a truant been to chivalry, And so I hear he doth account me too. Yet this before my father’s Majesty— I am content that he shall take the odds Of his great name and estimation, And will, to save the blood on either side, Try fortune with him in a single fight.
KING. And, Prince of Wales, so dare we venture thee, Albeit considerations infinite Do make against it.—No, good Worcester, no. We love our people well, even those we love That are misled upon your cousin’s part, And, will they take the offer of our grace, Both he, and they, and you, yea, every man Shall be my friend again, and I’ll be his. So tell your cousin, and then bring me word What he will do. But if he will not yield, Rebuke and dread correction wait on us, And they shall do their office. So, be gone; We will not now be troubled with reply. We offer fair, take it advisedly.
[Exit Worcester with Vernon.]
PRINCE. It will not be accepted, on my life. The Douglas and the Hotspur both together Are confident against the world in arms.
KING. Hence, therefore, every leader to his charge; For on their answer, will we set on them, And God befriend us as our cause is just!
[Exeunt the King, Blunt and Prince John.]
FALSTAFF. Hal, if thou see me down in the battle and bestride me, so; ’tis a point of friendship.
PRINCE. Nothing but a colossus can do thee that friendship. Say thy prayers, and farewell.
FALSTAFF. I would ’twere bedtime, Hal, and all well.
PRINCE. Why, thou owest God a death.
[Exit.]
FALSTAFF. ’Tis not due yet, I would be loth to pay Him before His day. What need I be so forward with Him that calls not on me? Well, ’tis no matter, honour pricks me on. Yea, but how if honour prick me off when I come on? How then? Can honor set to a leg? No. Or an arm? No. Or take away the grief of a wound? No. Honour hath no skill in surgery then? No. What is honour? A word. What is in that word, “honour”? What is that “honour”? Air. A trim reckoning! Who hath it? He that died o’ Wednesday. Doth he feel it? No. Doth be hear it? No. ’Tis insensible, then? Yea, to the dead. But will it not live with the living? No. Why? Detraction will not suffer it. Therefore I’ll none of it. Honour is a mere scutcheon. And so ends my catechism.
[Exit.]
Act V, Scene II — The Rebel Camp
Enter Worcester and Vernon.
WORCESTER. O no, my nephew must not know, Sir Richard, The liberal and kind offer of the King.
VERNON. ’Twere best he did.
WORCESTER. Then are we all undone. It is not possible, it cannot be, The King should keep his word in loving us; He will suspect us still, and find a time To punish this offence in other faults. Suspicion all our lives shall be stuck full of eyes, For treason is but trusted like the fox, Who, ne’er so tame, so cherish’d and lock’d up, Will have a wild trick of his ancestors. Look how we can, or sad or merrily, Interpretation will misquote our looks, And we shall feed like oxen at a stall, The better cherish’d still the nearer death. My nephew’s trespass may be well forgot, It hath the excuse of youth and heat of blood, And an adopted name of privilege— A hare-brain’d Hotspur, govern’d by a spleen. All his offences live upon my head And on his father’s. We did train him on, And, his corruption being ta’en from us, We as the spring of all shall pay for all. Therefore, good cousin, let not Harry know In any case the offer of the King.
VERNON. Deliver what you will, I’ll say ’tis so. Here comes your cousin.
Enter Hotspur and Douglas; Officers and Soldiers behind.
HOTSPUR. My uncle is return’d. Deliver up my Lord of Westmoreland. Uncle, what news?
WORCESTER. The King will bid you battle presently.
DOUGLAS. Defy him by the Lord Of Westmoreland.
HOTSPUR. Lord Douglas, go you and tell him so.
DOUGLAS. Marry, I shall, and very willingly.
[Exit.]
WORCESTER. There is no seeming mercy in the King.
HOTSPUR. Did you beg any? God forbid!
WORCESTER. I told him gently of our grievances, Of his oath-breaking; which he mended thus, By now forswearing that he is forsworn. He calls us rebels, traitors, and will scourge With haughty arms this hateful name in us.
Enter Douglas.
DOUGLAS. Arm, gentlemen; to arms! For I have thrown A brave defiance in King Henry’s teeth, And Westmoreland, that was engaged, did bear it, Which cannot choose but bring him quickly on.
WORCESTER. The Prince of Wales stepp’d forth before the King, And, nephew, challenged you to single fight.
HOTSPUR. O, would the quarrel lay upon our heads, And that no man might draw short breath today But I and Harry Monmouth! Tell me, tell me, How show’d his tasking? Seem’d it in contempt?
VERNON. No, by my soul. I never in my life Did hear a challenge urged more modestly, Unless a brother should a brother dare To gentle exercise and proof of arms. He gave you all the duties of a man, Trimm’d up your praises with a princely tongue, Spoke your deservings like a chronicle, Making you ever better than his praise By still dispraising praise valued with you, And, which became him like a prince indeed, He made a blushing cital of himself, And chid his truant youth with such a grace As if he master’d there a double spirit Of teaching and of learning instantly. There did he pause: but let me tell the world, If he outlive the envy of this day, England did never owe so sweet a hope So much misconstrued in his wantonness.
HOTSPUR. Cousin, I think thou art enamoured Upon his follies. Never did I hear Of any prince so wild a liberty. But be he as he will, yet once ere night I will embrace him with a soldier’s arm, That he shall shrink under my courtesy. Arm, arm with speed! And, fellows, soldiers, friends, Better consider what you have to do Than I that have not well the gift of tongue Can lift your blood up with persuasion.
Enter a Messenger.
MESSENGER. My lord, here are letters for you.
HOTSPUR. I cannot read them now.— O gentlemen, the time of life is short! To spend that shortness basely were too long If life did ride upon a dial’s point, Still ending at the arrival of an hour. And if we live, we live to tread on kings; If die, brave death, when princes die with us! Now, for our consciences, the arms are fair When the intent of bearing them is just.
Enter another Messenger.
MESSENGER. My lord, prepare. The King comes on apace.
HOTSPUR. I thank him that he cuts me from my tale, For I profess not talking. Only this: Let each man do his best. And here draw I A sword whose temper I intend to stain With the best blood that I can meet withal In the adventure of this perilous day. Now, Esperance! Percy! And set on. Sound all the lofty instruments of war, And by that music let us all embrace, For, Heaven to Earth, some of us never shall A second time do such a courtesy.
[The trumpets sound. They embrace, and exeunt.]
Act V, Scene III — Plain between the Camps
The King enters with his power. Alarum to the battle. Then enter Douglas and Sir Walter Blunt.
BLUNT. What is thy name that in the battle thus Thou crossest me? What honour dost thou seek Upon my head?
DOUGLAS. Know then my name is Douglas, And I do haunt thee in the battle thus Because some tell me that thou art a king.
BLUNT. They tell thee true.
DOUGLAS. The Lord of Stafford dear today hath bought Thy likeness, for instead of thee, King Harry, This sword hath ended him. So shall it thee, Unless thou yield thee as my prisoner.
BLUNT. I was not born a yielder, thou proud Scot, And thou shalt find a king that will revenge Lord Stafford’s death.
[They fight, and Blunt is slain.]
Enter Hotspur.
HOTSPUR. O Douglas, hadst thou fought at Holmedon thus, I never had triumphed upon a Scot.
DOUGLAS. All’s done, all’s won; here breathless lies the King.
HOTSPUR. Where?
DOUGLAS. Here.
HOTSPUR. This, Douglas? No, I know this face full well. A gallant knight he was, his name was Blunt, Semblably furnish’d like the King himself.
DOUGLAS. A fool go with thy soul, whither it goes! A borrow’d title hast thou bought too dear. Why didst thou tell me that thou wert a king?
HOTSPUR. The King hath many marching in his coats.
DOUGLAS. Now, by my sword, I will kill all his coats; I’ll murder all his wardrobe, piece by piece, Until I meet the King.
HOTSPUR. Up, and away! Our soldiers stand full fairly for the day.
[Exeunt.]
Alarums. Enter Falstaff solus.
FALSTAFF. Though I could scape shot-free at London, I fear the shot here. Here’s no scoring but upon the pate.—Soft! who are you? Sir Walter Blunt. There’s honour for you. Here’s no vanity. I am as hot as molten lead, and as heavy too. God keep lead out of me, I need no more weight than mine own bowels. I have led my ragamuffins where they are peppered. There’s not three of my hundred and fifty left alive, and they are for the town’s end, to beg during life. But who comes here?
Enter Prince Henry.
PRINCE. What, stand’st thou idle here? Lend me thy sword. Many a nobleman lies stark and stiff Under the hoofs of vaunting enemies, Whose deaths are yet unrevenged. I prithee Lend me thy sword.
FALSTAFF. O Hal, I prithee give me leave to breathe awhile. Turk Gregory never did such deeds in arms as I have done this day. I have paid Percy, I have made him sure.
PRINCE. He is indeed, and living to kill thee. I prithee, lend me thy sword.
FALSTAFF. Nay, before God, Hal, if Percy be alive, thou gett’st not my sword; but take my pistol, if thou wilt.
PRINCE. Give it me. What, is it in the case?
FALSTAFF. Ay, Hal, ’tis hot, ’tis hot. There’s that will sack a city.
[The Prince draws out a bottle of sack.]
PRINCE. What, is it a time to jest and dally now?
[Throws it at him, and exit.]
FALSTAFF. Well, if Percy be alive, I’ll pierce him. If he do come in my way, so; if he do not, if I come in his willingly, let him make a carbonado of me. I like not such grinning honour as Sir Walter hath. Give me life, which if I can save, so: if not, honour comes unlooked for, and there’s an end.
[Exit.]
Act V, Scene IV — Another Part of the Field
Alarums. Excursions. Enter King Henry, Prince Henry, Lancaster and Westmoreland.
KING. I prithee, Harry, withdraw thyself, thou bleedest too much. Lord John of Lancaster, go you with him.
LANCASTER. Not I, my lord, unless I did bleed too.
PRINCE. I do beseech your Majesty, make up, Lest your retirement do amaze your friends.
KING. I will do so. My Lord of Westmoreland, Lead him to his tent.
WESTMORELAND. Come, my lord, I’ll lead you to your tent.
PRINCE. Lead me, my lord? I do not need your help, And God forbid a shallow scratch should drive The Prince of Wales from such a field as this, Where stain’d nobility lies trodden on, And rebels’ arms triumph in massacres!
LANCASTER. We breathe too long. Come, cousin Westmoreland, Our duty this way lies. For God’s sake, come.
[Exeunt Lancaster and Westmoreland.]
PRINCE. By Heaven, thou hast deceived me, Lancaster, I did not think thee lord of such a spirit. Before, I loved thee as a brother, John, But now I do respect thee as my soul.
KING. I saw him hold Lord Percy at the point With lustier maintenance than I did look for Of such an ungrown warrior.
PRINCE. O, this boy Lends mettle to us all!
[Exit.]
Enter Douglas.
DOUGLAS. Another king! They grow like Hydra’s heads. I am the Douglas, fatal to all those That wear those colours on them. What art thou That counterfeit’st the person of a king?
KING. The King himself, who, Douglas, grieves at heart So many of his shadows thou hast met, And not the very King. I have two boys Seek Percy and thyself about the field, But, seeing thou fall’st on me so luckily, I will assay thee, and defend thyself.
DOUGLAS. I fear thou art another counterfeit, And yet, in faith, thou bearest thee like a king. But mine I am sure thou art, whoe’er thou be, And thus I win thee.
They fight; the King being in danger, enter Prince Henry.
PRINCE. Hold up thy head, vile Scot, or thou art like Never to hold it up again! The spirits Of valiant Shirley, Stafford, Blunt are in my arms. It is the Prince of Wales that threatens thee, Who never promiseth but he means to pay.
[They fight. Douglas flies.]
Cheerly, my lord. How fares your Grace? Sir Nicholas Gawsey hath for succour sent, And so hath Clifton. I’ll to Clifton straight.
KING. Stay and breathe awhile. Thou hast redeem’d thy lost opinion, And show’d thou mak’st some tender of my life, In this fair rescue thou hast brought to me.
PRINCE. O God, they did me too much injury That ever said I hearken’d for your death. If it were so, I might have let alone The insulting hand of Douglas over you, Which would have been as speedy in your end As all the poisonous potions in the world, And saved the treacherous labour of your son.
KING. Make up to Clifton. I’ll to Sir Nicholas Gawsey.
[Exit.]
Enter Hotspur.
HOTSPUR. If I mistake not, thou art Harry Monmouth.
PRINCE. Thou speak’st as if I would deny my name.
HOTSPUR. My name is Harry Percy.
PRINCE. Why then I see A very valiant rebel of the name. I am the Prince of Wales; and think not, Percy, To share with me in glory any more. Two stars keep not their motion in one sphere, Nor can one England brook a double reign, Of Harry Percy and the Prince of Wales.
HOTSPUR. Nor shall it, Harry, for the hour is come To end the one of us, and would to God Thy name in arms were now as great as mine!
PRINCE. I’ll make it greater ere I part from thee, And all the budding honours on thy crest I’ll crop to make a garland for my head.
HOTSPUR. I can no longer brook thy vanities.
[They fight.]
Enter Falstaff.
FALSTAFF. Well said, Hal! To it, Hal! Nay, you shall find no boy’s play here, I can tell you.
Enter Douglas. He fights with Falstaff, who falls down as if he were dead, and exit Douglas. The Prince kills Hotspur.
HOTSPUR. O Harry, thou hast robb’d me of my youth! I better brook the loss of brittle life Than those proud titles thou hast won of me; They wound my thoughts worse than thy sword my flesh. But thoughts, the slaves of life, and life, time’s fool, And time, that takes survey of all the world, Must have a stop. O, I could prophesy, But that the earthy and cold hand of death Lies on my tongue. No, Percy, thou art dust, And food for—
[Dies.]
PRINCE. For worms, brave Percy. Fare thee well, great heart! Ill-weaved ambition, how much art thou shrunk! When that this body did contain a spirit, A kingdom for it was too small a bound; But now two paces of the vilest earth Is room enough. This earth that bears thee dead Bears not alive so stout a gentleman. If thou wert sensible of courtesy, I should not make so dear a show of zeal. But let my favours hide thy mangled face; And even in thy behalf I’ll thank myself For doing these fair rites of tenderness. Adieu, and take thy praise with thee to heaven! Thy ignominy sleep with thee in the grave, But not remember’d in thy epitaph!
[Sees Falstaff on the ground.]
What, old acquaintance, could not all this flesh Keep in a little life? Poor Jack, farewell! I could have better spared a better man. O, I should have a heavy miss of thee If I were much in love with vanity. Death hath not struck so fat a deer today, Though many dearer, in this bloody fray. Embowell’d will I see thee by and by, Till then in blood by noble Percy lie.
[Exit.]
Falstaff rises up.
FALSTAFF. Embowell’d! If thou embowel me today, I’ll give you leave to powder me and eat me too tomorrow. ’Sblood, ’twas time to counterfeit, or that hot termagant Scot had paid me scot and lot too. Counterfeit? I lie, I am no counterfeit. To die, is to be a counterfeit, for he is but the counterfeit of a man who hath not the life of a man: but to counterfeit dying, when a man thereby liveth, is to be no counterfeit, but the true and perfect image of life indeed. The better part of valour is discretion, in the which better part I have saved my life. Zounds, I am afraid of this gunpowder Percy, though he be dead. How if he should counterfeit too, and rise? By my faith, I am afraid he would prove the better counterfeit. Therefore I’ll make him sure, yea, and I’ll swear I killed him. Why may not he rise as well as I? Nothing confutes me but eyes, and nobody sees me. Therefore, sirrah, with a new wound in your thigh, come you along with me.
[Takes Hotspur on his back.]
Enter Prince Henry and Lancaster.
PRINCE. Come, brother John, full bravely hast thou flesh’d Thy maiden sword.
LANCASTER. But soft, whom have we here? Did you not tell me this fat man was dead?
PRINCE. I did; I saw him dead, Breathless and bleeding on the ground.—Art thou alive? Or is it fantasy that plays upon our eyesight? I prithee, speak, we will not trust our eyes Without our ears. Thou art not what thou seem’st.
FALSTAFF. No, that’s certain, I am not a double man. But if I be not Jack Falstaff, then am I a Jack. There is Percy! [Throwing the body down.] If your father will do me any honour, so; if not, let him kill the next Percy himself. I look to be either earl or duke, I can assure you.
PRINCE. Why, Percy I kill’d myself, and saw thee dead.
FALSTAFF. Didst thou? Lord, Lord, how this world is given to lying! I grant you I was down and out of breath, and so was he, but we rose both at an instant, and fought a long hour by Shrewsbury clock. If I may be believed, so; if not, let them that should reward valour bear the sin upon their own heads. I’ll take it upon my death, I gave him this wound in the thigh. If the man were alive, and would deny it, zounds, I would make him eat a piece of my sword.
LANCASTER. This is the strangest tale that ever I heard.
PRINCE. This is the strangest fellow, brother John.— Come, bring your luggage nobly on your back. For my part, if a lie may do thee grace, I’ll gild it with the happiest terms I have.
[A retreat is sounded.]
The trumpet sounds retreat; the day is ours. Come, brother, let us to the highest of the field, To see what friends are living, who are dead.
[Exeunt Prince Henry and Lancaster.]
FALSTAFF. I’ll follow, as they say, for reward. He that rewards me, God reward him! If I do grow great, I’ll grow less, for I’ll purge, and leave sack, and live cleanly as a nobleman should do.
[Exit, bearing off the body.]
Act V, Scene V — Another Part of the Field
The trumpets sound. Enter King Henry, Prince Henry, Lancaster, Westmoreland and others, with Worcester and Vernon prisoners.
KING. Thus ever did rebellion find rebuke. Ill-spirited Worcester, did not we send grace, Pardon, and terms of love to all of you? And wouldst thou turn our offers contrary? Misuse the tenour of thy kinsman’s trust? Three knights upon our party slain today, A noble earl, and many a creature else, Had been alive this hour, If, like a Christian, thou hadst truly borne Betwixt our armies true intelligence.
WORCESTER. What I have done my safety urged me to; And I embrace this fortune patiently, Since not to be avoided it falls on me.
KING. Bear Worcester to the death, and Vernon too. Other offenders we will pause upon.
[Exeunt Worcester and Vernon, guarded.]
How goes the field?
PRINCE. The noble Scot, Lord Douglas, when he saw The fortune of the day quite turn’d from him, The noble Percy slain, and all his men Upon the foot of fear, fled with the rest, And, falling from a hill, he was so bruised That the pursuers took him. At my tent The Douglas is, and I beseech your Grace I may dispose of him.
KING. With all my heart.
PRINCE. Then, brother John of Lancaster, to you This honourable bounty shall belong. Go to the Douglas and deliver him Up to his pleasure, ransomless and free. His valours shown upon our crests today Hath taught us how to cherish such high deeds, Even in the bosom of our adversaries.
LANCASTER. I thank your Grace for this high courtesy, Which I shall give away immediately.
KING. Then this remains, that we divide our power. You, son John, and my cousin Westmoreland, Towards York shall bend you with your dearest speed To meet Northumberland and the prelate Scroop, Who, as we hear, are busily in arms. Myself and you, son Harry, will towards Wales, To fight with Glendower and the Earl of March. Rebellion in this land shall lose his sway, Meeting the check of such another day, And since this business so fair is done, Let us not leave till all our own be won.
[Exeunt.]
THE SECOND PART OF KING HENRY THE FOURTH
Dramatis Personæ
RUMOUR, the Presenter. KING HENRY the Fourth. HENRY, PRINCE OF WALES, afterwards King Henry the Fifth. THOMAS, DUKE OF CLARENCE. PRINCE JOHN OF LANCASTER. PRINCE HUMPHREY OF GLOUCESTER. EARL OF WARWICK. EARL OF WESTMORELAND. EARL OF SURREY. GOWER. HARCOURT. SIR JOHN BLUNT. Lord CHIEF JUSTICE of the King’s Bench. A SERVANT of the Chief Justice. Henry Percy, Earl of NORTHUMBERLAND. Scroop, ARCHBISHOP of York. Lord MOWBRAY. Lord HASTINGS. LORD BARDOLPH. SIR JOHN COLEVILLE. TRAVERS and MORTON, retainers of Northumberland. SIR JOHN FALSTAFF. His Page. BARDOLPH. PISTOL. POINS. PETO. SHALLOW and SILENCE, country justices. DAVY, Servant to Shallow. MOULDY, SHADOW, WART, FEEBLE, and BULLCALF, recruits. FANG and SNARE, sheriff’s officers.
LADY NORTHUMBERLAND. LADY PERCY. MISTRESS QUICKLY, hostess of a tavern in Eastcheap. DOLL TEARSHEET.
Lords and Attendants; Porter, Drawers, Musicians, Beadles, Grooms, etc.
A Dancer, speaker of the epilogue.
SCENE: England.
Induction
Warkworth. Before the castle.
Enter Rumour, painted full of tongues.
RUMOUR. Open your ears; for which of you will stop The vent of hearing when loud Rumour speaks? I, from the orient to the drooping west, Making the wind my post-horse, still unfold The acts commenced on this ball of earth. Upon my tongues continual slanders ride, The which in every language I pronounce, Stuffing the ears of men with false reports. I speak of peace, while covert enmity Under the smile of safety wounds the world. And who but Rumour, who but only I, Make fearful musters and prepared defence, Whiles the big year, swoln with some other grief, Is thought with child by the stern tyrant war, And no such matter? Rumour is a pipe Blown by surmises, jealousies, conjectures, And of so easy and so plain a stop That the blunt monster with uncounted heads, The still-discordant wav’ring multitude, Can play upon it. But what need I thus My well-known body to anatomize Among my household? Why is Rumour here? I run before King Harry’s victory, Who in a bloody field by Shrewsbury Hath beaten down young Hotspur and his troops, Quenching the flame of bold rebellion Even with the rebels’ blood. But what mean I To speak so true at first? My office is To noise abroad that Harry Monmouth fell Under the wrath of noble Hotspur’s sword, And that the King before the Douglas’ rage Stoop’d his anointed head as low as death. This have I rumour’d through the peasant towns Between that royal field of Shrewsbury And this worm-eaten hold of ragged stone, Where Hotspur’s father, old Northumberland, Lies crafty-sick. The posts come tiring on, And not a man of them brings other news Than they have learnt of me. From Rumour’s tongues They bring smooth comforts false, worse than true wrongs.
[Exit.]