[This PUBLIC DOMAIN Shakespeare text is courtesy of Moby Lexical Tools.]


	2 KING HENRY IV


	DRAMATIS PERSONAE


RUMOUR	the Presenter.

KING HENRY	the Fourth. (KING HENRY IV:)


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


EARL OF WARWICK	(WARWICK:)

EARL OF
WESTMORELAND	(WESTMORELAND:)

EARL OF SURREY:

GOWER:

HARCOURT:

BLUNT:

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

	A Servant of the Chief-Justice.

EARL OF
NORTHUMBERLAND	(NORTHUMBERLAND:)

SCROOP,
ARCHBISHOP OF YORK	(ARCHBISHOP OF YORK:)

LORD MOWBRAY	(MOWBRAY:)

LORD HASTINGS	(HASTINGS:)

LORD BARDOLPH:

SIR JOHN COLEVILE	(COLEVILE:)


TRAVERS	|
	|  retainers of Northumberland.
MORTON	|


SIR JOHN FALSTAFF	(FALSTAFF:)

	His Page. (Page:)

BARDOLPH:

PISTOL:

POINS:

PETO:


SHALLOW	|
	|  country justices.
SILENCE	|


DAVY	servant to Shallow.


MOULDY	|
	|
SHADOW	|
	|
WART	|  recruits.
	|
FEEBLE	|
	|
BULLCALF	|


FANG	|
	|  sheriff's officers.
SNARE	|


LADY
NORTHUMBERLAND:

LADY PERCY:

MISTRESS QUICKLY	hostess of a tavern in Eastcheap.

DOLL TEARSHEET:

	Lords and Attendants; Porter, Drawers,
	Beadles, Grooms, &c.
	(First Messenger:)
	(Porter:)
	(First Drawer:)
	(Second Drawer:)
	(First Beadle:)
	(First Groom:)
	(Second Groom:)

	A Dancer, speaker of the epilogue.


SCENE	England.




	2 KING HENRY IV

	INDUCTION


	[Warkworth. Before the castle]

	[Enter RUMOUR, painted full of tongues]

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

	[Exit]




	2 KING HENRY IV


ACT I



SCENE I	The same.


	[Enter LORD BARDOLPH]

LORD BARDOLPH	Who keeps the gate here, ho?

	[The Porter opens the gate]

		       Where is the earl?

Porter	What shall I say you are?

LORD BARDOLPH	Tell thou the earl
	That the Lord Bardolph doth attend him here.

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

	[Enter NORTHUMBERLAND]

LORD BARDOLPH	Here comes the earl.

	[Exit Porter]

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

LORD BARDOLPH	Noble earl,
	I bring you certain news from Shrewsbury.

NORTHUMBERLAND	Good, an God will!

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

NORTHUMBERLAND	How is this derived?
	Saw you the field? came you from Shrewsbury?

LORD BARDOLPH	I spake with one, my lord, that came from thence,
	A gentleman well bred and of good name,
	That freely render'd me these news for true.

NORTHUMBERLAND	Here comes my servant Travers, whom I sent
	On Tuesday last to listen after news.

	[Enter TRAVERS]

LORD BARDOLPH	My lord, I over-rode him on the way;
	And he is furnish'd with no certainties
	More than he haply may retail from me.

NORTHUMBERLAND	Now, Travers, what good tidings comes with you?

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

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

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

NORTHUMBERLAND	Why should that gentleman that rode by Travers
	Give then such instances of loss?

LORD BARDOLPH	Who, he?
	He was some hilding fellow that had stolen
	The horse he rode on, and, upon my life,
	Spoke at a venture. Look, here comes more news.

	[Enter MORTON]

NORTHUMBERLAND	Yea, this man's brow, like to a title-leaf,
	Foretells the nature of a tragic volume:
	So looks the strand whereon the imperious flood
	Hath left a witness'd usurpation.
	Say, Morton, didst thou come from Shrewsbury?

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

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

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

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

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

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

LORD BARDOLPH	I cannot think, my lord, your son is dead.

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

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

TRAVERS	This strained passion doth you wrong, my lord.

LORD BARDOLPH	Sweet earl, divorce not wisdom from your honour.

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

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

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

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

	[Exeunt]




	2 KING HENRY IV


ACT I



SCENE II	London. A street.


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

	[Enter the Lord Chief-Justice and Servant]

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

FALSTAFF	Wait, close; I will not see him.

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

Servant	Falstaff, an't please your lordship.

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

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

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

Servant	Sir John Falstaff!

FALSTAFF	Boy, tell him I am deaf.

Page	You must speak louder; my master is deaf.

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

Servant	Sir John!

FALSTAFF	What! a young knave, and begging! Is there not
	wars? is there not employment? doth not the king
	lack subjects? do not the rebels need soldiers?
	Though it be a shame to be on any side but one, it
	is worse shame to beg than to be on the worst side,
	were it worse than the name of rebellion can tell
	how to make it.

Servant	You mistake me, sir.

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

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

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

Servant	Sir, my lord would speak with you.

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

FALSTAFF	My good lord! God give your lordship good time of
	day. I am glad to see your lordship abroad: I heard
	say your lordship was sick: I hope your lordship
	goes abroad by advice. Your lordship, though not
	clean past your youth, hath yet some smack of age in
	you, some relish of the saltness of time; and I must
	humbly beseech your lordship to have a reverent care
	of your health.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lord Chief-Justice	You have misled the youthful prince.

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

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

FALSTAFF	My lord?

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

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

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

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

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

FALSTAFF	His effect of gravy, gravy, gravy.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

	[Exeunt Chief-Justice and Servant]

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

Page	Sir?

FALSTAFF	What money is in my purse?

Page	Seven groats and two pence.

FALSTAFF	I can get no remedy against this consumption of the
	purse: borrowing only lingers and lingers it out,
	but the disease is incurable. Go bear this letter
	to my Lord of Lancaster; this to the prince; this
	to the Earl of Westmoreland; and this to old
	Mistress Ursula, whom I have weekly sworn to marry
	since I perceived the first white hair on my chin.
	About it: you know where to find me.

	[Exit Page]

	A pox of this gout! or, a gout of this pox! for
	the one or the other plays the rogue with my great
	toe. 'Tis no matter if I do halt; I have the wars
	for my colour, and my pension shall seem the more
	reasonable. A good wit will make use of any thing:
	I will turn diseases to commodity.

	[Exit]




	2 KING HENRY IV


ACT I



SCENE III	York. The Archbishop's palace.


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

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

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

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

LORD BARDOLPH	The question then, Lord Hastings, standeth thus;
	Whether our present five and twenty thousand
	May hold up head without Northumberland?

HASTINGS	With him, we may.

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

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

LORD BARDOLPH	It was, my lord; who lined himself with hope,
	Eating the air on promise of supply,
	Flattering himself in project of a power
	Much smaller than the smallest of his thoughts:
	And so, with great imagination
	Proper to madmen, led his powers to death
	And winking leap'd into destruction.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

MOWBRAY	Shall we go draw our numbers and set on?

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

	[Exeunt]




	2 KING HENRY IV


ACT II



SCENE I	London. A street.


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

MISTRESS QUICKLY	Master Fang, have you entered the action?

FANG	It is entered.

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

FANG	Sirrah, where's Snare?

MISTRESS QUICKLY	O Lord, ay! good Master Snare.

SNARE	Here, here.

FANG	Snare, we must arrest Sir John Falstaff.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

	[Enter FALSTAFF, Page, and BARDOLPH]

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

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

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

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

FALSTAFF	Keep them off, Bardolph.

FANG	A rescue! a rescue!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lord Chief-Justice	For what sum?

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

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

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

FALSTAFF	What is the gross sum that I owe thee?

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

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

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

MISTRESS QUICKLY	Yea, in truth, my lord.

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

FALSTAFF	My lord, I will not undergo this sneap without
	reply. You call honourable boldness impudent
	sauciness: if a man will make courtesy and say
	nothing, he is virtuous: no, my lord, my humble
	duty remembered, I will not be your suitor. I say
	to you, I do desire deliverance from these officers,
	being upon hasty employment in the king's affairs.

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

FALSTAFF	Come hither, hostess.

	[Enter GOWER]

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

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

FALSTAFF	As I am a gentleman.

MISTRESS QUICKLY	Faith, you said so before.

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

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

FALSTAFF	Glasses, glasses is the only drinking: and for thy
	walls, a pretty slight drollery, or the story of
	the Prodigal, or the German hunting in water-work,
	is worth a thousand of these bed-hangings and these
	fly-bitten tapestries. Let it be ten pound, if thou
	canst. Come, an 'twere not for thy humours, there's
	not a better wench in England. Go, wash thy face,
	and draw the action. Come, thou must not be in
	this humour with me; dost not know me? come, come, I
	know thou wast set on to this.

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

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

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

FALSTAFF	Will I live?

	[To BARDOLPH]

	Go, with her, with her; hook on, hook on.

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

FALSTAFF	No more words; let's have her.

	[Exeunt MISTRESS QUICKLY, BARDOLPH, Officers and Boy]

Lord Chief-Justice	I have heard better news.

FALSTAFF	What's the news, my lord?

Lord Chief-Justice	Where lay the king last night?

GOWER	At Basingstoke, my lord.

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

Lord Chief-Justice	Come all his forces back?

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

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

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

FALSTAFF	My lord!

Lord Chief-Justice	What's the matter?

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

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

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

FALSTAFF	Will you sup with me, Master Gower?

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

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

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

	[Exeunt]




	2 KING HENRY IV


ACT II



SCENE II	London. Another street.


	[Enter PRINCE HENRY and POINS]

PRINCE HENRY	Before God, I am exceeding weary.

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

PRINCE HENRY	Faith, it does me; though it discolours the
	complexion of my greatness to acknowledge it. Doth
	it not show vilely in me to desire small beer?

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

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

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

PRINCE HENRY	Shall I tell thee one thing, Poins?

POINS	Yes, faith; and let it be an excellent good thing.

PRINCE HENRY	It shall serve among wits of no higher breeding than thine.

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

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

POINS	Very hardly upon such a subject.

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

POINS	The reason?

PRINCE HENRY	What wouldst thou think of me, if I should weep?

POINS	I would think thee a most princely hypocrite.

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

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

PRINCE HENRY	And to thee.

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

	[Enter BARDOLPH and Page]

PRINCE HENRY	And the boy that I gave Falstaff: a' had him from
	me Christian; and look, if the fat villain have not
	transformed him ape.

BARDOLPH	God save your grace!

PRINCE HENRY	And yours, most noble Bardolph!

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

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

PRINCE HENRY	Has not the boy profited?

BARDOLPH	Away, you whoreson upright rabbit, away!

Page	Away, you rascally Althaea's dream, away!

PRINCE HENRY	Instruct us, boy; what dream, boy?

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

PRINCE HENRY	A crown's worth of good interpretation: there 'tis,
	boy.

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

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

PRINCE HENRY	And how doth thy master, Bardolph?

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

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

BARDOLPH	In bodily health, sir.

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

PRINCE HENRY	I do allow this wen to be as familiar with me as my
	dog; and he holds his place; for look you how be writes.

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

PRINCE HENRY	Nay, they will be kin to us, or they will fetch it
	from Japhet. But to the letter.

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

PRINCE HENRY	Peace!

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

PRINCE HENRY	That's to make him eat twenty of his words. But do
	you use me thus, Ned? must I marry your sister?

POINS	God send the wench no worse fortune! But I never said so.

PRINCE HENRY	Well, thus we play the fools with the time, and the
	spirits of the wise sit in the clouds and mock us.
	Is your master here in London?

BARDOLPH	Yea, my lord.

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

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

PRINCE HENRY	What company?

Page	Ephesians, my lord, of the old church.

PRINCE HENRY	Sup any women with him?

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

PRINCE HENRY	What pagan may that be?

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

PRINCE HENRY	Even such kin as the parish heifers are to the town
	bull. Shall we steal upon them, Ned, at supper?

POINS	I am your shadow, my lord; I'll follow you.

PRINCE HENRY	Sirrah, you boy, and Bardolph, no word to your
	master that I am yet come to town: there's for
	your silence.

BARDOLPH	I have no tongue, sir.

Page	And for mine, sir, I will govern it.

PRINCE HENRY	Fare you well; go.

	[Exeunt BARDOLPH and Page]

	This Doll Tearsheet should be some road.

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

PRINCE HENRY	How might we see Falstaff bestow himself to-night
	in his true colours, and not ourselves be seen?

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

PRINCE HENRY	From a God to a bull? a heavy decension! it was
	Jove's case. From a prince to a prentice? a low
	transformation! that shall be mine; for in every
	thing the purpose must weigh with the folly.
	Follow me, Ned.

	[Exeunt]




	2 KING HENRY IV


ACT II



SCENE III	Warkworth. Before the castle.


	[Enter NORTHUMBERLAND, LADY NORTHUMBERLAND, and LADY PERCY]

NORTHUMBERLAND	I pray thee, loving wife, and gentle daughter,
	Give even way unto my rough affairs:
	Put not you on the visage of the times
	And be like them to Percy troublesome.

LADY
NORTHUMBERLAND	I have given over, I will speak no more:
	Do what you will; your wisdom be your guide.

NORTHUMBERLAND	Alas, sweet wife, my honour is at pawn;
	And, but my going, nothing can redeem it.

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

NORTHUMBERLAND	Beshrew your heart,
	Fair daughter, you do draw my spirits from me
	With new lamenting ancient oversights.
	But I must go and meet with danger there,
	Or it will seek me in another place
	And find me worse provided.

LADY
NORTHUMBERLAND	O, fly to Scotland,
	Till that the nobles and the armed commons
	Have of their puissance made a little taste.

LADY PERCY	If they get ground and vantage of the king,
	Then join you with them, like a rib of steel,
	To make strength stronger; but, for all our loves,
	First let them try themselves. So did your son;
	He was so suffer'd: so came I a widow;
	And never shall have length of life enough
	To rain upon remembrance with mine eyes,
	That it may grow and sprout as high as heaven,
	For recordation to my noble husband.

NORTHUMBERLAND	Come, come, go in with me. 'Tis with my mind
	As with the tide swell'd up unto his height,
	That makes a still-stand, running neither way:
	Fain would I go to meet the archbishop,
	But many thousand reasons hold me back.
	I will resolve for Scotland: there am I,
	Till time and vantage crave my company.

	[Exeunt]




	2 KING HENRY IV


ACT II



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


	[Enter two Drawers]

First Drawer	What the devil hast thou brought there? apple-johns?
	thou knowest Sir John cannot endure an apple-john.

Second Drawer	Mass, thou sayest true. The prince once set a dish
	of apple-johns before him, and told him there were
	five more Sir Johns, and, putting off his hat, said
	'I will now take my leave of these six dry, round,
	old, withered knights.' It angered him to the
	heart: but he hath forgot that.

First Drawer	Why, then, cover, and set them down: and see if
	thou canst find out Sneak's noise; Mistress
	Tearsheet would fain hear some music. Dispatch: the
	room where they supped is too hot; they'll come in straight.

Second Drawer	Sirrah, here will be the prince and Master Poins
	anon; and they will put on two of our jerkins and
	aprons; and Sir John must not know of it: Bardolph
	hath brought word.

First Drawer	By the mass, here will be old Utis: it will be an
	excellent stratagem.

Second Drawer	I'll see if I can find out Sneak.

	[Exit]

	[Enter MISTRESS QUICKLY and DOLL TEARSHEET]

MISTRESS QUICKLY	I' faith, sweetheart, methinks now you are in an
	excellent good temperality: your pulsidge beats as
	extraordinarily as heart would desire; and your
	colour, I warrant you, is as red as any rose, in good
	truth, la! But, i' faith, you have drunk too much
	canaries; and that's a marvellous searching wine,
	and it perfumes the blood ere one can say 'What's
	this?' How do you now?

DOLL TEARSHEET	Better than I was: hem!

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

	[Enter FALSTAFF]

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

	[Exit First Drawer]

	[Singing]

	--'And was a worthy king.' How now, Mistress Doll!

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

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

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

FALSTAFF	You make fat rascals, Mistress Doll.

DOLL TEARSHEET	I make them! gluttony and diseases make them; I
	make them not.

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

DOLL TEARSHEET	Yea, joy, our chains and our jewels.

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

DOLL TEARSHEET	Hang yourself, you muddy conger, hang yourself!

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

DOLL TEARSHEET	Can a weak empty vessel bear such a huge full
	hogshead? there's a whole merchant's venture of
	Bourdeaux stuff in him; you have not seen a hulk
	better stuffed in the hold. Come, I'll be friends
	with thee, Jack: thou art going to the wars; and
	whether I shall ever see thee again or no, there is
	nobody cares.

	[Re-enter First Drawer]

First Drawer	Sir, Ancient Pistol's below, and would speak with
	you.

DOLL TEARSHEET	Hang him, swaggering rascal! let him not come
	hither: it is the foul-mouthed'st rogue in England.

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

FALSTAFF	Dost thou hear, hostess?

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

FALSTAFF	Dost thou hear? it is mine ancient.

MISTRESS QUICKLY	Tilly-fally, Sir John, ne'er tell me: your ancient
	swaggerer comes not in my doors. I was before Master
	Tisick, the debuty, t'other day; and, as he said to
	me, 'twas no longer ago than Wednesday last, 'I'
	good faith, neighbour Quickly,' says he; Master
	Dumbe, our minister, was by then; 'neighbour
	Quickly,' says he, 'receive those that are civil;
	for,' said he, 'you are in an ill name:' now a'
	said so, I can tell whereupon; 'for,' says he, 'you
	are an honest woman, and well thought on; therefore
	take heed what guests you receive: receive,' says
	he, 'no swaggering companions.' There comes none
	here: you would bless you to hear what he said:
	no, I'll no swaggerers.

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

	[Exit First Drawer]

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

DOLL TEARSHEET	So you do, hostess.

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

	[Enter PISTOL, BARDOLPH, and Page]

PISTOL	God save you, Sir John!

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

PISTOL	I will discharge upon her, Sir John, with two bullets.

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

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

PISTOL	Then to you, Mistress Dorothy; I will charge you.

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

PISTOL	I know you, Mistress Dorothy.

DOLL TEARSHEET	Away, you cut-purse rascal! you filthy bung, away!
	by this wine, I'll thrust my knife in your mouldy
	chaps, an you play the saucy cuttle with me. Away,
	you bottle-ale rascal! you basket-hilt stale
	juggler, you! Since when, I pray you, sir? God's
	light, with two points on your shoulder? much!

PISTOL	God let me not live, but I will murder your ruff for this.

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

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

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

BARDOLPH	Pray thee, go down, good ancient.

FALSTAFF	Hark thee hither, Mistress Doll.

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

Page	Pray thee, go down.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

	[Laying down his sword]

	Come we to full points here; and are etceteras nothing?

FALSTAFF	Pistol, I would be quiet.

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

DOLL TEARSHEET	For God's sake, thrust him down stairs: I cannot
	endure such a fustian rascal.

PISTOL	Thrust him down stairs! know we not Galloway nags?

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

BARDOLPH	Come, get you down stairs.

PISTOL	What! shall we have incision? shall we imbrue?

	[Snatching up his sword]

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

MISTRESS QUICKLY	Here's goodly stuff toward!

FALSTAFF	Give me my rapier, boy.

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

FALSTAFF	Get you down stairs.

	[Drawing, and driving PISTOL out]

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

	[Exeunt PISTOL and BARDOLPH]

DOLL TEARSHEET	I pray thee, Jack, be quiet; the rascal's gone.
	Ah, you whoreson little valiant villain, you!

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

	[Re-enter BARDOLPH]

FALSTAFF	Have you turned him out o' doors?

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

FALSTAFF	A rascal! to brave me!

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

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

DOLL TEARSHEET	Do, an thou darest for thy heart: an thou dost,
	I'll canvass thee between a pair of sheets.

	[Enter Music]

Page	The music is come, sir.

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

DOLL TEARSHEET	I' faith, and thou followedst him like a church.
	Thou whoreson little tidy Bartholomew boar-pig,
	when wilt thou leave fighting o' days and foining
	o' nights, and begin to patch up thine old body for heaven?

	[Enter, behind, PRINCE HENRY and POINS, disguised]

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

DOLL TEARSHEET	Sirrah, what humour's the prince of?

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

DOLL TEARSHEET	They say Poins has a good wit.

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

DOLL TEARSHEET	Why does the prince love him so, then?

FALSTAFF	Because their legs are both of a bigness, and a'
	plays at quoits well, and eats conger and fennel,
	and drinks off candles' ends for flap-dragons, and
	rides the wild-mare with the boys, and jumps upon
	joined-stools, and swears with a good grace, and
	wears his boots very smooth, like unto the sign of
	the leg, and breeds no bate with telling of discreet
	stories; and such other gambol faculties a' has,
	that show a weak mind and an able body, for the
	which the prince admits him: for the prince himself
	is such another; the weight of a hair will turn the
	scales between their avoirdupois.

PRINCE HENRY	Would not this nave of a wheel have his ears cut off?

POINS	Let's beat him before his whore.

PRINCE HENRY	Look, whether the withered elder hath not his poll
	clawed like a parrot.

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

FALSTAFF	Kiss me, Doll.

PRINCE HENRY	Saturn and Venus this year in conjunction! what
	says the almanac to that?

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

FALSTAFF	Thou dost give me flattering busses.

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

FALSTAFF	I am old, I am old.

DOLL TEARSHEET	I love thee better than I love e'er a scurvy young
	boy of them all.

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

DOLL TEARSHEET	By my troth, thou'lt set me a-weeping, an thou
	sayest so: prove that ever I dress myself handsome
	till thy return: well, harken at the end.

FALSTAFF	Some sack, Francis.


PRINCE HENRY	|
	|  Anon, anon, sir.
POINS	|


	[Coming forward]

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

PRINCE HENRY	Why, thou globe of sinful continents! what a life
	dost thou lead!

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

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

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

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

DOLL TEARSHEET	How, you fat fool! I scorn you.

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

PRINCE HENRY	You whoreson candle-mine, you, how vilely did you
	speak of me even now before this honest, virtuous,
	civil gentlewoman!

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

FALSTAFF	Didst thou hear me?

PRINCE HENRY	Yea, and you knew me, as you did when you ran away
	by Gad's-hill: you knew I was at your back, and
	spoke it on purpose to try my patience.

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

PRINCE HENRY	I shall drive you then to confess the wilful abuse;
	and then I know how to handle you.

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

PRINCE HENRY	Not to dispraise me, and call me pantier and
	bread-chipper and I know not what?

FALSTAFF	No abuse, Hal.

POINS	No abuse?

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

PRINCE HENRY	See now, whether pure fear and entire cowardice doth
	not make thee wrong this virtuous gentlewoman to
	close with us? is she of the wicked? is thine
	hostess here of the wicked? or is thy boy of the
	wicked? or honest Bardolph, whose zeal burns in his
	nose, of the wicked?

POINS	Answer, thou dead elm, answer.

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

PRINCE HENRY	For the women?

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

MISTRESS QUICKLY	No, I warrant you.

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

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

PRINCE HENRY	You, gentlewoman,-

DOLL TEARSHEET	What says your grace?

FALSTAFF	His grace says that which his flesh rebels against.

	[Knocking within]

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

	[Enter PETO]

PRINCE HENRY	Peto, how now! what news?

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

PRINCE HENRY	By heaven, Poins, I feel me much to blame,
	So idly to profane the precious time,
	When tempest of commotion, like the south
	Borne with black vapour, doth begin to melt
	And drop upon our bare unarmed heads.
	Give me my sword and cloak. Falstaff, good night.

	[Exeunt PRINCE HENRY, POINS, PETO and BARDOLPH]

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

	[Knocking within]

	More knocking at the door!

	[Re-enter BARDOLPH]

	How now! what's the matter?

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

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

DOLL TEARSHEET	I cannot speak; if my heart be not read to burst,--
	well, sweet Jack, have a care of thyself.

FALSTAFF	Farewell, farewell.

	[Exeunt FALSTAFF and BARDOLPH]

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

BARDOLPH	[Within]  Mistress Tearsheet!

MISTRESS QUICKLY	What's the matter?

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

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

	[She comes blubbered]

	Yea, will you come, Doll?

	[Exeunt]




	2 KING HENRY IV


ACT III



SCENE I	Westminster. The palace.


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

KING HENRY IV	Go call the Earls of Surrey and of Warwick;
	But, ere they come, bid them o'er-read these letters,
	And well consider of them; make good speed.

	[Exit Page]

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

	[Enter WARWICK and SURREY]

WARWICK	Many good morrows to your majesty!

KING HENRY IV	Is it good morrow, lords?

WARWICK	'Tis one o'clock, and past.

KING HENRY IV	Why, then, good morrow to you all, my lords.
	Have you read o'er the letters that I sent you?

WARWICK	We have, my liege.

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

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

KING HENRY IV	O God! that one might read the book of fate,
	And see the revolution of the times
	Make mountains level, and the continent,
	Weary of solid firmness, melt itself
	Into the sea! and, other times, to see
	The beachy girdle of the ocean
	Too wide for Neptune's hips; how chances mock,
	And changes fill the cup of alteration
	With divers liquors! O, if this were seen,
	The happiest youth, viewing his progress through,
	What perils past, what crosses to ensue,
	Would shut the book, and sit him down and die.
	'Tis not 'ten years gone
	Since Richard and Northumberland, great friends,
	Did feast together, and in two years after
	Were they at wars: it is but eight years since
	This Percy was the man nearest my soul,
	Who like a brother toil'd in my affairs
	And laid his love and life under my foot,
	Yea, for my sake, even to the eyes of Richard
	Gave him defiance. But which of you was by--
	You, cousin Nevil, as I may remember--

	[To WARWICK]

	When Richard, with his eye brimful of tears,
	Then cheque'd and rated by Northumberland,
	Did speak these words, now proved a prophecy?
	'Northumberland, thou ladder by the which
	My cousin Bolingbroke ascends my throne;'
	Though then, God knows, I had no such intent,
	But that necessity so bow'd the state
	That I and greatness were compell'd to kiss:
	'The time shall come,' thus did he follow it,
	'The time will come, that foul sin, gathering head,
	Shall break into corruption:' so went on,
	Foretelling this same time's condition
	And the division of our amity.

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

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

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

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

	[Exeunt]




	2 KING HENRY IV


ACT III



SCENE II	Gloucestershire. Before SHALLOW'S house.


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

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

SILENCE	Good morrow, good cousin Shallow.

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

SILENCE	Alas, a black ousel, cousin Shallow!

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

SILENCE	Indeed, sir, to my cost.

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

SILENCE	You were called 'lusty Shallow' then, cousin.

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

SILENCE	This Sir John, cousin, that comes hither anon about soldiers?

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

SILENCE	We shall all follow, cousin.

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

SILENCE	By my troth, I was not there.

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

SILENCE	Dead, sir.

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

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

SHALLOW	And is old Double dead?

SILENCE	Here come two of Sir John Falstaff's men, as I think.

	[Enter BARDOLPH and one with him]

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

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

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

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

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

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

BARDOLPH	Pardon me, sir; I have heard the word. Phrase call
	you it? by this good day, I know not the phrase;
	but I will maintain the word with my sword to be a
	soldier-like word, and a word of exceeding good
	command, by heaven. Accommodated; that is, when a
	man is, as they say, accommodated; or when a man is,
	being, whereby a' may be thought to be accommodated;
	which is an excellent thing.

SHALLOW	It is very just.

	[Enter FALSTAFF]

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

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

SHALLOW	No, Sir John; it is my cousin Silence, in commission with me.

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

SILENCE	Your good-worship is welcome.

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

SHALLOW	Marry, have we, sir. Will you sit?

FALSTAFF	Let me see them, I beseech you.

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

MOULDY	Here, an't please you.

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

FALSTAFF	Is thy name Mouldy?

MOULDY	Yea, an't please you.

FALSTAFF	'Tis the more time thou wert used.

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

FALSTAFF	Prick him.

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

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

MOULDY	Spent!

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

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

SHALLOW	Where's Shadow?

SHADOW	Here, sir.

FALSTAFF	Shadow, whose son art thou?

SHADOW	My mother's son, sir.

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

SHALLOW	Do you like him, Sir John?

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

SHALLOW	Thomas Wart!

FALSTAFF	Where's he?

WART	Here, sir.

FALSTAFF	Is thy name Wart?

WART	Yea, sir.

FALSTAFF	Thou art a very ragged wart.

SHALLOW	Shall I prick him down, Sir John?

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

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

FEEBLE	Here, sir.

FALSTAFF	What trade art thou, Feeble?

FEEBLE	A woman's tailor, sir.

SHALLOW	Shall I prick him, sir?

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

FEEBLE	I will do my good will, sir; you can have no more.

FALSTAFF	Well said, good woman's tailor! well said,
	courageous Feeble! thou wilt be as valiant as the
	wrathful dove or most magnanimous mouse. Prick the
	woman's tailor: well, Master Shallow; deep, Master Shallow.

FEEBLE	I would Wart might have gone, sir.

FALSTAFF	I would thou wert a man's tailor, that thou mightst
	mend him and make him fit to go. I cannot put him
	to a private soldier that is the leader of so many
	thousands: let that suffice, most forcible Feeble.

FEEBLE	It shall suffice, sir.

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

SHALLOW	Peter Bullcalf o' the green!

FALSTAFF	Yea, marry, let's see Bullcalf.

BULLCALF	Here, sir.

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

BULLCALF	O Lord! good my lord captain,--

FALSTAFF	What, dost thou roar before thou art pricked?

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

FALSTAFF	What disease hast thou?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

FALSTAFF	She lives, Master Shallow.

SHALLOW	She never could away with me.

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

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

FALSTAFF	Old, old, Master Shallow.

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

SILENCE	That's fifty-five year ago.

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

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

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

	[Exeunt FALSTAFF and Justices]

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

BARDOLPH	Go to; stand aside.

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

BARDOLPH	Go to; stand aside.

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

BARDOLPH	Well said; thou'rt a good fellow.

FEEBLE	Faith, I'll bear no base mind.

	[Re-enter FALSTAFF and the Justices]

FALSTAFF	Come, sir, which men shall I have?

SHALLOW	Four of which you please.

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

FALSTAFF	Go to; well.

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

FALSTAFF	Do you choose for me.

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

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

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

FALSTAFF	Will you tell me, Master Shallow, how to choose a
	man? Care I for the limb, the thewes, the stature,
	bulk, and big assemblance of a man! Give me the
	spirit, Master Shallow. Here's Wart; you see what a
	ragged appearance it is; a' shall charge you and
	discharge you with the motion of a pewterer's
	hammer, come off and on swifter than he that gibbets
	on the brewer's bucket. And this same half-faced
	fellow, Shadow; give me this man: he presents no
	mark to the enemy; the foeman may with as great aim
	level at the edge of a penknife. And for a retreat;
	how swiftly will this Feeble the woman's tailor run
	off! O, give me the spare men, and spare me the
	great ones. Put me a caliver into Wart's hand, Bardolph.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

FALSTAFF	Fare you well, gentle gentlemen.

	[Exeunt Justices]

	On, Bardolph; lead the men away.

	[Exeunt BARDOLPH, Recruits, &c]

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

	[Exit]




	2 KING HENRY IV


ACT IV



SCENE I	Yorkshire. Gaultree Forest.


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

ARCHBISHOP OF YORK	What is this forest call'd?

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

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

HASTINGS	We have sent forth already.

ARCHBISHOP OF YORK	'Tis well done.
	My friends and brethren in these great affairs,
	I must acquaint you that I have received
	New-dated letters from Northumberland;
	Their cold intent, tenor and substance, thus:
	Here doth he wish his person, with such powers
	As might hold sortance with his quality,
	The which he could not levy; whereupon
	He is retired, to ripe his growing fortunes,
	To Scotland: and concludes in hearty prayers
	That your attempts may overlive the hazard
	And fearful melting of their opposite.

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

	[Enter a Messenger]

HASTINGS	Now, what news?

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

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

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

	[Enter WESTMORELAND]

MOWBRAY	I think it is my Lord of Westmoreland.

WESTMORELAND	Health and fair greeting from our general,
	The prince, Lord John and Duke of Lancaster.

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

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

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

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

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

WESTMORELAND	There is no need of any such redress;
	Or if there were, it not belongs to you.

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

WESTMORELAND	                  O, my good Lord Mowbray,
	Construe the times to their necessities,
	And you shall say indeed, it is the time,
	And not the king, that doth you injuries.
	Yet for your part, it not appears to me
	Either from the king or in the present time
	That you should have an inch of any ground
	To build a grief on: were you not restored
	To all the Duke of Norfolk's signories,
	Your noble and right well remember'd father's?

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

WESTMORELAND	You speak, Lord Mowbray, now you know not what.
	The Earl of Hereford was reputed then
	In England the most valiant gentlemen:
	Who knows on whom fortune would then have smiled?
	But if your father had been victor there,
	He ne'er had borne it out of Coventry:
	For all the country in a general voice
	Cried hate upon him; and all their prayers and love
	Were set on Hereford, whom they doted on
	And bless'd and graced indeed, more than the king.
	But this is mere digression from my purpose.
	Here come I from our princely general
	To know your griefs; to tell you from his grace
	That he will give you audience; and wherein
	It shall appear that your demands are just,
	You shall enjoy them, every thing set off
	That might so much as think you enemies.

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

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

MOWBRAY	Well, by my will we shall admit no parley.

WESTMORELAND	That argues but the shame of your offence:
	A rotten case abides no handling.

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

WESTMORELAND	That is intended in the general's name:
	I muse you make so slight a question.

ARCHBISHOP OF YORK	Then take, my Lord of Westmoreland, this schedule,
	For this contains our general grievances:
	Each several article herein redress'd,
	All members of our cause, both here and hence,
	That are insinew'd to this action,
	Acquitted by a true substantial form
	And present execution of our wills
	To us and to our purposes confined,
	We come within our awful banks again
	And knit our powers to the arm of peace.

WESTMORELAND	This will I show the general. Please you, lords,
	In sight of both our battles we may meet;
	And either end in peace, which God so frame!
	Or to the place of difference call the swords
	Which must decide it.

ARCHBISHOP OF YORK	My lord, we will do so.

	[Exit WESTMORELAND]

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

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

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

ARCHBISHOP OF YORK	No, no, my lord. Note this; the king is weary
	Of dainty and such picking grievances:
	For he hath found to end one doubt by death
	Revives two greater in the heirs of life,
	And therefore will he wipe his tables clean
	And keep no tell-tale to his memory
	That may repeat and history his loss
	To new remembrance; for full well he knows
	He cannot so precisely weed this land
	As his misdoubts present occasion:
	His foes are so enrooted with his friends
	That, plucking to unfix an enemy,
	He doth unfasten so and shake a friend:
	So that this land, like an offensive wife
	That hath enraged him on to offer strokes,
	As he is striking, holds his infant up
	And hangs resolved correction in the arm
	That was uprear'd to execution.

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

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

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

	[Re-enter WESTMORELAND]

WESTMORELAND	The prince is here at hand: pleaseth your lordship
	To meet his grace just distance 'tween our armies.

MOWBRAY	Your grace of York, in God's name then, set forward.

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

	[Exeunt]




	2 KING HENRY IV


ACT IV



SCENE II	Another part of the forest.


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

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

ARCHBISHOP OF YORK	Good my Lord of Lancaster,
	I am not here against your father's peace;
	But, as I told my lord of Westmoreland,
	The time misorder'd doth, in common sense,
	Crowd us and crush us to this monstrous form,
	To hold our safety up. I sent your grace
	The parcels and particulars of our grief,
	The which hath been with scorn shoved from the court,
	Whereon this Hydra son of war is born;
	Whose dangerous eyes may well be charm'd asleep
	With grant of our most just and right desires,
	And true obedience, of this madness cured,
	Stoop tamely to the foot of majesty.

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

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

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

WESTMORELAND	Pleaseth your grace to answer them directly
	How far forth you do like their articles.

LANCASTER	I like them all, and do allow them well,
	And swear here, by the honour of my blood,
	My father's purposes have been mistook,
	And some about him have too lavishly
	Wrested his meaning and authority.
	My lord, these griefs shall be with speed redress'd;
	Upon my soul, they shall. If this may please you,
	Discharge your powers unto their several counties,
	As we will ours: and here between the armies
	Let's drink together friendly and embrace,
	That all their eyes may bear those tokens home
	Of our restored love and amity.

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

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

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

	[Exit Officer]

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

WESTMORELAND	I pledge your grace; and, if you knew what pains
	I have bestow'd to breed this present peace,
	You would drink freely: but my love to ye
	Shall show itself more openly hereafter.

ARCHBISHOP OF YORK	I do not doubt you.

WESTMORELAND	I am glad of it.
	Health to my lord and gentle cousin, Mowbray.

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

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

WESTMORELAND	Therefore be merry, coz; since sudden sorrow
	Serves to say thus, 'some good thing comes
	to-morrow.'

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

MOWBRAY	So much the worse, if your own rule be true.

	[Shouts within]

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

MOWBRAY	This had been cheerful after victory.

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

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

	[Exit WESTMORELAND]

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

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

	[Exit HASTINGS]

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

	[Re-enter WESTMORELAND]

	Now, cousin, wherefore stands our army still?

WESTMORELAND	The leaders, having charge from you to stand,
	Will not go off until they hear you speak.

LANCASTER	They know their duties.

	[Re-enter HASTINGS]

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

WESTMORELAND	Good tidings, my Lord Hastings; for the which
	I do arrest thee, traitor, of high treason:
	And you, lord archbishop, and you, Lord Mowbray,
	Of capitol treason I attach you both.

MOWBRAY	Is this proceeding just and honourable?

WESTMORELAND	Is your assembly so?

ARCHBISHOP OF YORK	Will you thus break your faith?

LANCASTER	I pawn'd thee none:
	I promised you redress of these same grievances
	Whereof you did complain; which, by mine honour,
	I will perform with a most Christian care.
	But for you, rebels, look to taste the due
	Meet for rebellion and such acts as yours.
	Most shallowly did you these arms commence,
	Fondly brought here and foolishly sent hence.
	Strike up our drums, pursue the scatter'd stray:
	God, and not we, hath safely fought to-day.
	Some guard these traitors to the block of death,
	Treason's true bed and yielder up of breath.

	[Exeunt]




	2 KING HENRY IV


ACT IV



SCENE III	Another part of the forest.


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

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

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

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

COLEVILE	Are not you Sir John Falstaff?

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

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

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

	[Enter PRINCE JOHN OF LANCASTER, WESTMORELAND,
	BLUNT, and others]

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

	[Exit WESTMORELAND]

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

FALSTAFF	I would be sorry, my lord, but it should be thus: I
	never knew yet but rebuke and cheque was the reward
	of valour. Do you think me a swallow, an arrow, or a
	bullet? have I, in my poor and old motion, the
	expedition of thought? I have speeded hither with
	the very extremest inch of possibility; I have
	foundered nine score and odd posts: and here,
	travel-tainted as I am, have in my pure and
	immaculate valour, taken Sir John Colevile of the
	dale, a most furious knight and valorous enemy.
	But what of that? he saw me, and yielded; that I
	may justly say, with the hook-nosed fellow of Rome,
	'I came, saw, and overcame.'

LANCASTER	It was more of his courtesy than your deserving.

FALSTAFF	I know not: here he is, and here I yield him: and
	I beseech your grace, let it be booked with the
	rest of this day's deeds; or, by the Lord, I will
	have it in a particular ballad else, with mine own
	picture on the top on't, Colevile kissing my foot:
	to the which course if I be enforced, if you do not
	all show like gilt twopences to me, and I in the
	clear sky of fame o'ershine you as much as the full
	moon doth the cinders of the element, which show
	like pins' heads to her, believe not the word of
	the noble: therefore let me have right, and let
	desert mount.

LANCASTER	Thine's too heavy to mount.

FALSTAFF	Let it shine, then.

LANCASTER	Thine's too thick to shine.

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

LANCASTER	Is thy name Colevile?

COLEVILE	It is, my lord.

LANCASTER	A famous rebel art thou, Colevile.

FALSTAFF	And a famous true subject took him.

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

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

	[Re-enter WESTMORELAND]

LANCASTER	Now, have you left pursuit?

WESTMORELAND	Retreat is made and execution stay'd.

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

	[Exeunt BLUNT and others with COLEVILE]

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

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

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

	[Exeunt all but Falstaff]

FALSTAFF	I would you had but the wit: 'twere better than
	your dukedom. Good faith, this same young sober-
	blooded boy doth not love me; nor a man cannot make
	him laugh; but that's no marvel, he drinks no wine.
	There's never none of these demure boys come to any
	proof; for thin drink doth so over-cool their blood,
	and making many fish-meals, that they fall into a
	kind of male green-sickness; and then when they
	marry, they get wenches: they are generally fools
	and cowards; which some of us should be too, but for
	inflammation. A good sherris sack hath a two-fold
	operation in it. It ascends me into the brain;
	dries me there all the foolish and dull and curdy
	vapours which environ it; makes it apprehensive,
	quick, forgetive, full of nimble fiery and
	delectable shapes, which, delivered o'er to the
	voice, the tongue, which is the birth, becomes
	excellent wit. The second property of your
	excellent sherris is, the warming of the blood;
	which, before cold and settled, left the liver
	white and pale, which is the badge of pusillanimity
	and cowardice; but the sherris warms it and makes
	it course from the inwards to the parts extreme:
	it illumineth the face, which as a beacon gives
	warning to all the rest of this little kingdom,
	man, to arm; and then the vital commoners and
	inland petty spirits muster me all to their captain,
	the heart, who, great and puffed up with this
	retinue, doth any deed of courage; and this valour
	comes of sherris. So that skill in the weapon is
	nothing without sack, for that sets it a-work; and
	learning a mere hoard of gold kept by a devil, till
	sack commences it and sets it in act and use.
	Hereof comes it that Prince Harry is valiant; for
	the cold blood he did naturally inherit of his
	father, he hath, like lean, sterile and bare land,
	manured, husbanded and tilled with excellent
	endeavour of drinking good and good store of fertile
	sherris, that he is become very hot and valiant. If
	I had a thousand sons, the first humane principle I
	would teach them should be, to forswear thin
	potations and to addict themselves to sack.

	[Enter BARDOLPH]

	How now Bardolph?

BARDOLPH	The army is discharged all and gone.

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

	[Exeunt]




	2 KING HENRY IV


ACT IV



SCENE IV	Westminster. The Jerusalem Chamber.


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

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

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

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

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

KING HENRY IV	And how accompanied?

GLOUCESTER	I do not know, my lord.

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

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

CLARENCE	What would my lord and father?

KING HENRY IV	Nothing but well to thee, Thomas of Clarence.
	How chance thou art not with the prince thy brother?
	He loves thee, and thou dost neglect him, Thomas;
	Thou hast a better place in his affection
	Than all thy brothers: cherish it, my boy,
	And noble offices thou mayst effect
	Of mediation, after I am dead,
	Between his greatness and thy other brethren:
	Therefore omit him not; blunt not his love,
	Nor lose the good advantage of his grace
	By seeming cold or careless of his will;
	For he is gracious, if he be observed:
	He hath a tear for pity and a hand
	Open as day for melting charity:
	Yet notwithstanding, being incensed, he's flint,
	As humorous as winter and as sudden
	As flaws congealed in the spring of day.
	His temper, therefore, must be well observed:
	Chide him for faults, and do it reverently,
	When thou perceive his blood inclined to mirth;
	But, being moody, give him line and scope,
	Till that his passions, like a whale on ground,
	Confound themselves with working. Learn this, Thomas,
	And thou shalt prove a shelter to thy friends,
	A hoop of gold to bind thy brothers in,
	That the united vessel of their blood,
	Mingled with venom of suggestion--
	As, force perforce, the age will pour it in--
	Shall never leak, though it do work as strong
	As aconitum or rash gunpowder.

CLARENCE	I shall observe him with all care and love.

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

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

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

CLARENCE	With Poins, and other his continual followers.

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

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

KING HENRY IV	'Tis seldom when the bee doth leave her comb
	In the dead carrion.

	[Enter WESTMORELAND]

		Who's here? Westmoreland?

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

KING HENRY IV	O Westmoreland, thou art a summer bird,
	Which ever in the haunch of winter sings
	The lifting up of day.

	[Enter HARCOURT]

		 Look, here's more news.

HARCOURT	From enemies heaven keep your majesty;
	And, when they stand against you, may they fall
	As those that I am come to tell you of!
	The Earl Northumberland and the Lord Bardolph,
	With a great power of English and of Scots
	Are by the sheriff of Yorkshire overthrown:
	The manner and true order of the fight
	This packet, please it you, contains at large.

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

GLOUCESTER	Comfort, your majesty!

CLARENCE	O my royal father!

WESTMORELAND	My sovereign lord, cheer up yourself, look up.

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

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

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

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

WARWICK	Speak lower, princes, for the king recovers.

GLOUCESTER	This apoplexy will certain be his end.

KING HENRY IV	I pray you, take me up, and bear me hence
	Into some other chamber: softly, pray.




	2 KING HENRY IV


ACT IV



SCENE V	Another chamber.


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

KING HENRY IV	Let there be no noise made, my gentle friends;
	Unless some dull and favourable hand
	Will whisper music to my weary spirit.

WARWICK	Call for the music in the other room.

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

CLARENCE	His eye is hollow, and he changes much.

WARWICK	Less noise, less noise!

	[Enter PRINCE HENRY]

PRINCE HENRY	Who saw the Duke of Clarence?

CLARENCE	I am here, brother, full of heaviness.

PRINCE HENRY	How now! rain within doors, and none abroad!
	How doth the king?

GLOUCESTER	Exceeding ill.

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

GLOUCESTER	He alter'd much upon the hearing it.

PRINCE HENRY	If he be sick with joy, he'll recover without physic.

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

CLARENCE	Let us withdraw into the other room.

WARWICK	Will't please your grace to go along with us?

PRINCE HENRY	No; I will sit and watch here by the king.

	[Exeunt all but PRINCE HENRY]

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

	[Exit]

KING HENRY IV	Warwick! Gloucester! Clarence!

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

CLARENCE	Doth the king call?

WARWICK	What would your majesty? How fares your grace?

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

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

KING HENRY IV	The Prince of Wales! Where is he? let me see him:
	He is not here.

WARWICK	This door is open; he is gone this way.

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

KING HENRY IV	Where is the crown? who took it from my pillow?

WARWICK	When we withdrew, my liege, we left it here.

KING HENRY IV	The prince hath ta'en it hence: go, seek him out.
	Is he so hasty that he doth suppose
	My sleep my death?
	Find him, my Lord of Warwick; chide him hither.

	[Exit WARWICK]

	This part of his conjoins with my disease,
	And helps to end me. See, sons, what things you are!
	How quickly nature falls into revolt
	When gold becomes her object!
	For this the foolish over-careful fathers
	Have broke their sleep with thoughts, their brains with care,
	Their bones with industry;
	For this they have engrossed and piled up
	The canker'd heaps of strange-achieved gold;
	For this they have been thoughtful to invest
	Their sons with arts and martial exercises:
	When, like the bee, culling from every flower
	The virtuous sweets,
	Our thighs pack'd with wax, our mouths with honey,
	We bring it to the hive, and, like the bees,
	Are murdered for our pains. This bitter taste
	Yield his engrossments to the ending father.

	[Re-enter WARWICK]

	Now, where is he that will not stay so long
	Till his friend sickness hath determined me?

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

KING HENRY IV	But wherefore did he take away the crown?

	[Re-enter PRINCE HENRY]

	Lo, where he comes. Come hither to me, Harry.
	Depart the chamber, leave us here alone.

	[Exeunt WARWICK and the rest]

PRINCE HENRY	I never thought to hear you speak again.

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

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

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

PRINCE HENRY	My gracious liege,
	You won it, wore it, kept it, gave it me;
	Then plain and right must my possession be:
	Which I with more than with a common pain
	'Gainst all the world will rightfully maintain.

	[Enter Lord John of LANCASTER]

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

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

KING HENRY IV	Thou bring'st me happiness and peace, son John;
	But health, alack, with youthful wings is flown
	From this bare wither'd trunk: upon thy sight
	My worldly business makes a period.
	Where is my Lord of Warwick?

PRINCE HENRY	My Lord of Warwick!

	[Enter WARWICK, and others]

KING HENRY IV	Doth any name particular belong
	Unto the lodging where I first did swoon?

WARWICK	'Tis call'd Jerusalem, my noble lord.

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

	[Exeunt]




	2 KING HENRY IV


ACT V



SCENE I	Gloucestershire. SHALLOW'S house.


	[Enter SHALLOW, FALSTAFF, BARDOLPH, and Page]

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

FALSTAFF	You must excuse me, Master Robert Shallow.

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

	[Enter DAVY]

DAVY	Here, sir.

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

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

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

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

SHALLOW	Let it be cast and paid. Sir John, you shall not be excused.

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

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

DAVY	Doth the man of war stay all night, sir?

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

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

SHALLOW	Well conceited, Davy: about thy business, Davy.

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

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

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

SHALLOW	Go to; I say he shall have no wrong. Look about, Davy.

	[Exit DAVY]

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

BARDOLPH	I am glad to see your worship.

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

	[To the Page]

	Come, Sir John.

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

	[Exit SHALLOW]

	Bardolph, look to our horses.

	[Exeunt BARDOLPH and Page]

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

SHALLOW	[Within]  Sir John!

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

	[Exit]




	2 KING HENRY IV


ACT V



SCENE II	Westminster. The palace.


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

WARWICK	How now, my lord chief-justice! whither away?

Lord Chief-Justice	How doth the king?

WARWICK	Exceeding well; his cares are now all ended.

Lord Chief-Justice	I hope, not dead.

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

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

WARWICK	Indeed I think the young king loves you not.

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

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

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

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

LANCASTER	Good morrow, cousin Warwick, good morrow.


GLOUCESTER	|
	|  Good morrow, cousin.
CLARENCE	|


LANCASTER	We meet like men that had forgot to speak.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lord Chief-Justice	Sweet princes, what I did, I did in honour,
	Led by the impartial conduct of my soul:
	And never shall you see that I will beg
	A ragged and forestall'd remission.
	If truth and upright innocency fail me,
	I'll to the king my master that is dead,
	And tell him who hath sent me after him.

WARWICK	Here comes the prince.

	[Enter KING HENRY V, attended]

Lord Chief-Justice	Good morrow; and God save your majesty!

KING HENRY V	This new and gorgeous garment, majesty,
	Sits not so easy on me as you think.
	Brothers, you mix your sadness with some fear:
	This is the English, not the Turkish court;
	Not Amurath an Amurath succeeds,
	But Harry Harry. Yet be sad, good brothers,
	For, by my faith, it very well becomes you:
	Sorrow so royally in you appears
	That I will deeply put the fashion on
	And wear it in my heart: why then, be sad;
	But entertain no more of it, good brothers,
	Than a joint burden laid upon us all.
	For me, by heaven, I bid you be assured,
	I'll be your father and your brother too;
	Let me but bear your love, I 'll bear your cares:
	Yet weep that Harry's dead; and so will I;
	But Harry lives, that shall convert those tears
	By number into hours of happiness.

Princes	We hope no other from your majesty.

KING HENRY V	You all look strangely on me: and you most;
	You are, I think, assured I love you not.

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

KING HENRY V	No!
	How might a prince of my great hopes forget
	So great indignities you laid upon me?
	What! rate, rebuke, and roughly send to prison
	The immediate heir of England! Was this easy?
	May this be wash'd in Lethe, and forgotten?

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

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

	[Exeunt]




	2 KING HENRY IV


ACT V



SCENE III	Gloucestershire. SHALLOW'S orchard.


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

	[Singing]

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

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

SHALLOW	Give Master Bardolph some wine, Davy.

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

	[Exit]

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

SILENCE	Be merry, be merry, my wife has all;

	[Singing]

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

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

SILENCE	Who, I? I have been merry twice and once ere now.

	[Re-enter DAVY]

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

	[To BARDOLPH]

SHALLOW	Davy!

DAVY	Your worship! I'll be with you straight.

	[To BARDOLPH]

	A cup of wine, sir?

SILENCE	A cup of wine that's brisk and fine,

	[Singing]

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

FALSTAFF	Well said, Master Silence.

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

FALSTAFF	Health and long life to you, Master Silence.

SILENCE	Fill the cup, and let it come;

	[Singing]

	I'll pledge you a mile to the bottom.

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

	[To the Page]

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

DAVY	I hove to see London once ere I die.

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

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

BARDOLPH	Yea, sir, in a pottle-pot.

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

BARDOLPH	And I'll stick by him, sir.

SHALLOW	Why, there spoke a king. Lack nothing: be merry.

	[Knocking within]

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

	[Exit DAVY]

FALSTAFF	Why, now you have done me right.

	[To SILENCE, seeing him take off a bumper]

SILENCE	[Singing]

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

FALSTAFF	'Tis so.

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

	[Re-enter DAVY]

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

FALSTAFF	From the court! let him come in.

	[Enter PISTOL]

	How now, Pistol!

PISTOL	Sir John, God save you!

FALSTAFF	What wind blew you hither, Pistol?

PISTOL	Not the ill wind which blows no man to good. Sweet
	knight, thou art now one of the greatest men in this realm.

SILENCE	By'r lady, I think a' be, but goodman Puff of Barson.

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

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

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

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

SILENCE	And Robin Hood, Scarlet, and John.

	[Singing]

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

SILENCE	Honest gentleman, I know not your breeding.

PISTOL	Why then, lament therefore.

SHALLOW	Give me pardon, sir: if, sir, you come with news
	from the court, I take it there's but two ways,
	either to utter them, or to conceal them. I am,
	sir, under the king, in some authority.

PISTOL	Under which king, Besonian? speak, or die.

SHALLOW	Under King Harry.

PISTOL	                  Harry the Fourth? or Fifth?

SHALLOW	Harry the Fourth.

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

FALSTAFF	What, is the old king dead?

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

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

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

PISTOL	What! I do bring good news.

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

	[Exit BARDOLPH]

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

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

	[Exeunt]




	2 KING HENRY IV


ACT V



SCENE IV	London. A street.


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

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

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

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

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

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

DOLL TEARSHEET	I'll tell you what, you thin man in a censer, I
	will have you as soundly swinged for this,--you
	blue-bottle rogue, you filthy famished correctioner,
	if you be not swinged, I'll forswear half-kirtles.

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

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

DOLL TEARSHEET	Come, you rogue, come; bring me to a justice.

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

DOLL TEARSHEET	Goodman death, goodman bones!

MISTRESS QUICKLY	Thou atomy, thou!

DOLL TEARSHEET	Come, you thin thing; come you rascal.

First Beadle	Very well.

	[Exeunt]




	2 KING HENRY IV


ACT V



SCENE V	A public place near Westminster Abbey.


	[Enter two Grooms, strewing rushes]

First Groom	More rushes, more rushes.

Second Groom	The trumpets have sounded twice.

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

	[Exeunt]

	[Enter FALSTAFF, SHALLOW, PISTOL,
	BARDOLPH, and Page]

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

PISTOL	God bless thy lungs, good knight.

FALSTAFF	Come here, Pistol; stand behind me. O, if I had had
	time to have made new liveries, I would have
	bestowed the thousand pound I borrowed of you. But
	'tis no matter; this poor show doth better: this
	doth infer the zeal I had to see him.

SHALLOW	It doth so.

FALSTAFF	It shows my earnestness of affection,--

SHALLOW	It doth so.

FALSTAFF	My devotion,--

SHALLOW	It doth, it doth, it doth.

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

SHALLOW	It is best, certain.

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

PISTOL	'Tis 'semper idem,' for 'obsque hoc nihil est:'
	'tis all in every part.

SHALLOW	'Tis so, indeed.

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

FALSTAFF	I will deliver her.

	[Shouts within, and the trumpets sound]

PISTOL	There roar'd the sea, and trumpet-clangor sounds.

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

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

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

FALSTAFF	God save thee, my sweet boy!

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

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

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

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

	[Exeunt KING HENRY V, &c]

FALSTAFF	Master Shallow, I owe you a thousand pound.

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

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

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

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

SHALLOW	A colour that I fear you will die in, Sir John.

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

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

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

FALSTAFF	My lord, my lord,--

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

PISTOL	Si fortune me tormenta, spero contenta.

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

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

Lord Chief-Justice	And so they are.

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

Lord Chief-Justice	He hath.

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

	[Exeunt]




	2 KING HENRY IV

	EPILOGUE


	[Spoken by a Dancer]

	First my fear; then my courtesy; last my speech.
	My fear is, your displeasure; my courtesy, my duty;
	and my speech, to beg your pardons. If you look
	for a good speech now, you undo me: for what I have
	to say is of mine own making; and what indeed I
	should say will, I doubt, prove mine own marring.
	But to the purpose, and so to the venture. Be it
	known to you, as it is very well, I was lately here
	in the end of a displeasing play, to pray your
	patience for it and to promise you a better. I
	meant indeed to pay you with this; which, if like an
	ill venture it come unluckily home, I break, and
	you, my gentle creditors, lose. Here I promised you
	I would be and here I commit my body to your
	mercies: bate me some and I will pay you some and,
	as most debtors do, promise you infinitely.

	If my tongue cannot entreat you to acquit me, will
	you command me to use my legs? and yet that were but
	light payment, to dance out of your debt. But a
	good conscience will make any possible satisfaction,
	and so would I. All the gentlewomen here have
	forgiven me: if the gentlemen will not, then the
	gentlemen do not agree with the gentlewomen, which
	was never seen before in such an assembly.

	One word more, I beseech you. If you be not too
	much cloyed with fat meat, our humble author will
	continue the story, with Sir John in it, and make
	you merry with fair Katharine of France: where, for
	any thing I know, Falstaff shall die of a sweat,
	unless already a' be killed with your hard
	opinions; for Oldcastle died a martyr, and this is
	not the man. My tongue is weary; when my legs are
	too, I will bid you good night: and so kneel down
	before you; but, indeed, to pray for the queen.