Henry IV, Part 2
by William Shakespeare
Edited by Barbara A. Mowat and Paul Werstine
  with Michael Poston and Rebecca Niles
Folger Shakespeare Library
http://www.folgerdigitaltexts.org/?chapter=5&play=2H4
Created on Jul 31, 2015, from FDT version 0.9.2

Characters in the Play
======================
RUMOR, Presenter of the Induction
KING HENRY IV, formerly Henry Bolingbroke
PRINCE HAL, Prince of Wales and heir to the throne, later KING HENRY V
Younger sons of King Henry IV:
  JOHN OF LANCASTER
  THOMAS OF CLARENCE
  HUMPHREY OF GLOUCESTER
EARL OF NORTHUMBERLAND, Henry Percy
NORTHUMBERLAND'S WIFE
LADY PERCY, widow of Hotspur
In rebellion against King Henry IV:
  Richard Scroop, ARCHBISHOP of York
  LORD MOWBRAY
  LORD HASTINGS
  LORD BARDOLPH
  TRAVERS
  MORTON
  SIR JOHN COLEVILE
Supporters of King Henry IV:
  EARL OF WESTMORELAND
  EARL OF WARWICK
  EARL OF SURREY
  SIR JOHN BLUNT
  GOWER
  HARCOURT
LORD CHIEF JUSTICE
SIR JOHN FALSTAFF
POINS
BARDOLPH
PETO
PISTOL
FALSTAFF'S PAGE
HOSTESS of the tavern (also called Mistress Quickly)
DOLL TEARSHEET
JUSTICE ROBERT SHALLOW
JUSTICE SILENCE
DAVY, servant to Shallow
Men of Gloucestershire:
  MOULDY
  SHADOW
  WART
  FEEBLE
  BULLCALF
London officers:
  FANG
  SNARE
EPILOGUE
Drawers, Musicians, Beadles, Grooms, Messenger, Soldiers, Lords, Attendants, Page, Porter, Servants, Officers


INDUCTION
=========
[Enter Rumor, painted full of tongues.]


RUMOR
Open your ears, for which of you will stop
The vent of hearing when loud Rumor 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 Rumor, who but only I,
Make fearful musters and prepared defense
Whiles the big year, swoll'n with some other grief,
Is thought with child by the stern tyrant war,
And no such matter? Rumor is a pipe
Blown by surmises, jealousies, conjectures,
And of so easy and so plain a stop
That the blunt monster with uncounted heads,
The still-discordant wav'ring multitude,
Can play upon it. But what need I thus
My well-known body to anatomize
Among my household? Why is Rumor here?
I run before King Harry's victory,
Who in a bloody field by Shrewsbury
Hath beaten down young Hotspur and his troops,
Quenching the flame of bold rebellion
Even with the rebels' blood. But what mean I
To speak so true at first? My office is
To noise abroad that Harry Monmouth fell
Under the wrath of noble Hotspur's sword,
And that the King before the Douglas' rage
Stooped his anointed head as low as death.
This have I rumored through the peasant towns
Between that royal field of Shrewsbury
And this worm-eaten hold of ragged stone,
Where Hotspur's father, old Northumberland,
Lies crafty-sick. The posts come tiring on,
And not a man of them brings other news
Than they have learnt of me. From Rumor's
tongues
They bring smooth comforts false, worse than
true wrongs.
[Rumor exits.]


ACT 1
=====

Scene 1
=======
[Enter the Lord Bardolph at one door.]


LORD BARDOLPH
Who keeps the gate here, ho?

[Enter the Porter.]

Where is the Earl?

PORTER
What shall I say you are?

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

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

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


LORD BARDOLPH  Here comes the Earl.
[Porter exits.]

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
Killed by the hand of Douglas; young Prince John
And Westmoreland and Stafford fled the field;
And Harry Monmouth's brawn, the hulk Sir John,
Is prisoner to your son. O, such a day,
So fought, so followed, and so fairly won,
Came not till now to dignify the times
Since Caesar's fortunes.

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

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

[Enter Travers.]


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

LORD BARDOLPH  Who, he?
He was some hilding fellow that had stol'n
The horse he rode on and, upon my life,
Spoke at a venture.

[Enter Morton.]

Look, here comes more news.

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

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

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

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

NORTHUMBERLAND  Why, he is dead.
See what a ready tongue suspicion hath!
He that but fears the thing he would not know
Hath, by instinct, knowledge from others' eyes
That what he feared is 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 shak'st thy head and hold'st it fear or sin
To speak a truth. If he be slain, say so.
The tongue offends not that reports his death;
And he doth sin that doth belie the dead,
Not he which says the dead is not alive.
Yet the first bringer of unwelcome news
Hath but a losing office, and his tongue
Sounds ever after as a sullen bell
Remembered tolling a departing friend.

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

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

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

LORD BARDOLPH
This strained passion doth you wrong, my lord.

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

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

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

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

Scene 2
=======
[Enter Sir John Falstaff, with his Page bearing his sword
and buckler.]


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

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
smoothy-pates do now wear nothing but high shoes
and bunches of keys at their girdles; and if a man is
through with them in honest taking up, then they
must stand upon security. I had as lief they would
put ratsbane in my mouth as offer to stop it with
"security." I looked he should have sent me two-and-twenty
yards of satin, as I am a true knight, and
he sends me "security." Well, he may sleep in
security, for he hath the horn of abundance, and the
lightness of his wife shines through it, and yet
cannot he see though he have his own lantern to
light him. Where's Bardolph?

PAGE  He's gone in 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 Lord Chief Justice and Servant.]


PAGE, [to Falstaff]  Sir, here comes the nobleman that
committed the Prince for striking him about
Bardolph.

FALSTAFF  Wait close. I will not see him.
[They begin to exit.]

CHIEF JUSTICE, [to Servant]  What's he that goes there?

SERVANT  Falstaff, an 't please your Lordship.

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.

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.

CHIEF JUSTICE  I am sure he is, to the hearing of
anything good.--Go pluck him by the elbow. I must
speak with him.

SERVANT, [plucking Falstaff's sleeve]  Sir John!

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
your soldiership aside, and give me leave to tell you,
you lie in your throat if you say I am any other than
an honest man.

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

SERVANT  Sir, my lord would speak with you.

CHIEF JUSTICE  Sir John Falstaff, a word with you.

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

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.

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.

CHIEF JUSTICE  Well, God mend him. I pray you let me
speak with you.

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

CHIEF JUSTICE  What tell you me of it? Be it as it is.

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

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.

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
I should be your patient to follow your prescriptions,
the wise may make some dram of a scruple,
or indeed a scruple itself.

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.

CHIEF JUSTICE  Well, the truth is, Sir John, you live in
great infamy.

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

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 slender.

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.

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

FALSTAFF  My 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.

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.

CHIEF JUSTICE  There is not a white hair in your face but
should have his effect of gravity.

FALSTAFF  His effect of gravy, gravy, gravy.

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
costermongers' times that true valor is turned bearherd;
pregnancy is made a tapster, and hath his
quick wit wasted in giving reckonings. All the other
gifts appurtenant to man, as the malice of this age
shapes them, are not worth a gooseberry. You that
are old consider not the capacities of us that are
young. You do measure the heat of our livers with
the bitterness of your galls, and we that are in the
vaward of our youth, I must confess, are wags too.

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
checked him for it, and the young lion repents.
[Aside.] Marry, not in ashes and sackcloth, but in
new silk and old sack.

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.

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

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?

CHIEF JUSTICE  Not a penny, not a penny. You are too
impatient to bear crosses. Fare you well. Commend
me to my cousin Westmoreland.
[Lord Chief Justice and his Servant exit.]

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

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. [Giving
papers to the Page.] Go bear this letter to my Lord
of Lancaster, this to the Prince, this to the Earl
of Westmoreland, and this to old Mistress Ursula,
whom I have weekly sworn to marry since I perceived
the first white hair of my chin. About it. You
know where to find me. [Page exits.] A pox of this
gout! Or a gout of this pox, for the one or the other
plays the rogue with my great toe. 'Tis no matter if I
do halt. I have the wars for my color, and my
pension shall seem the more reasonable. A good wit
will make use of anything. I will turn diseases to
commodity.
[He exits.]

Scene 3
=======
[Enter th' Archbishop of York, Thomas Mowbray (Earl
Marshal), the Lord Hastings, and Lord Bardolph.]


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

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
'Tis very true, Lord Bardolph, for indeed
It was young Hotspur's cause at Shrewsbury.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ARCHBISHOP  Let us on,
And publish the occasion of our arms.
The commonwealth is sick of their own choice.
Their over-greedy love hath surfeited.
An habitation giddy and unsure
Hath he that buildeth on the vulgar heart.
O thou fond many, with what loud applause
Didst thou beat heaven with blessing Bolingbroke
Before he was what thou wouldst have him be.
And being now trimmed in thine own desires,
Thou, beastly feeder, art so full of him
That thou provok'st thyself to cast him up.
So, so, thou common dog, didst thou disgorge
Thy glutton bosom of the royal Richard,
And now thou wouldst eat thy dead vomit up
And howl'st to find it. What trust is in these
times?
They that, when Richard lived, would have him die
Are now become enamored on his grave.
Thou, that threw'st dust upon his goodly head
When through proud London he came sighing on
After th' 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 begone.
[They exit.]


ACT 2
=====

Scene 1
=======
[Enter Hostess Quickly of the tavern with two Officers,
Fang and Snare, who lags behind.]


HOSTESS  Master Fang, have you entered the action?

FANG  It is entered.

HOSTESS  Where's your yeoman? Is 't a lusty yeoman?
Will he stand to 't?

FANG, [calling]  Sirrah! Where's Snare?

HOSTESS  O Lord, ay, good Master Snare.

SNARE, [catching up to them]  Here, here.

FANG  Snare, we must arrest Sir John Falstaff.

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

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

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

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

HOSTESS  No, nor I neither. I'll be at your elbow.

FANG  An I but fist him once, an he come but within my
view--

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

[Enter Sir John Falstaff and Bardolph, and the Page.]


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.	[They draw.]

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

FALSTAFF  Keep them off, Bardolph.

OFFICERS  A rescue, a rescue!

HOSTESS  Good people, bring a rescue or two.--Thou
wot, wot thou? Thou wot, wot ta? Do, do, thou
rogue. Do, thou hempseed.

PAGE  Away, you scullion, you rampallian, you fustilarian!
I'll tickle your catastrophe.

[Enter Lord Chief Justice and his Men.]


CHIEF JUSTICE
What is the matter? Keep the peace here, ho!

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

CHIEF JUSTICE
How now, Sir John? What, are you brawling here?
Doth this become your place, your time, and
business?
You should have been well on your way to York.--
Stand from him, fellow. Wherefore hang'st thou
upon him?

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

CHIEF JUSTICE  For what sum?

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

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

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?

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

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

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

HOSTESS  Yea, in truth, my lord.

CHIEF JUSTICE  Pray thee, peace.--Pay her the debt you
owe her, and unpay the villainy you have done with
her. The one you may do with sterling money, and
the other with current repentance.

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

CHIEF JUSTICE  You speak as having power to do wrong;
but answer in th' effect of your reputation, and
satisfy the poor woman.

FALSTAFF  Come hither, hostess.
[He speaks aside to the Hostess.]

[Enter a Messenger, Master Gower.]


CHIEF JUSTICE  Now, Master Gower, what news?

GOWER
The King, my lord, and Harry Prince of Wales
Are near at hand. The rest the paper tells.
[He gives the Chief Justice a paper to read.]

FALSTAFF, [to the Hostess]  As I am a gentleman!

HOSTESS  Faith, you said so before.

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

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

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

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

FALSTAFF  Let it alone. I'll make other shift. You'll be a
fool still.

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

FALSTAFF  Will I live? [Aside to Bardolph.] Go with her,
with her. Hook on, hook on.

HOSTESS  Will you have Doll Tearsheet meet you at
supper?

FALSTAFF  No more words. Let's have her.
[Hostess, Fang, Snare, Bardolph, Page,
and others exit.]

CHIEF JUSTICE, [to Gower]  I have heard better news.

FALSTAFF, [to Chief Justice]  What's the news, my good
lord?

CHIEF JUSTICE, [to Gower]  Where lay the King
tonight?

GOWER  At Basingstoke, my lord.

FALSTAFF, [to Chief Justice]  I hope, my lord, all's
well. What is the news, my lord?

CHIEF JUSTICE, [to Gower]  Come all his forces back?

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

FALSTAFF, [to Chief Justice]
Comes the King back from Wales, my noble lord?

CHIEF JUSTICE, [to Gower]
You shall have letters of me presently.
Come. Go along with me, good Master Gower.

FALSTAFF  My 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.

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?

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.

CHIEF JUSTICE  Now the Lord lighten thee. Thou art a
great fool.
[They separate and exit.]

Scene 2
=======
[Enter the Prince and Poins.]


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

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

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

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

PRINCE  Shall I tell thee one thing, Poins?

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

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

POINS  Very hardly, upon such a subject.

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

POINS  I would think thee a most princely hypocrite.

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

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

PRINCE  And to thee.

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

[Enter Bardolph and Page.]


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

BARDOLPH  God save your Grace.

PRINCE  And yours, most noble Bardolph.

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

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

PRINCE  Has not the boy profited?

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

PAGE  Away, you rascally Althea's dream, away!

PRINCE  Instruct us, boy. What dream, boy?

PAGE  Marry, my lord, Althea dreamt she was delivered
of a firebrand, and therefore I call him her dream.

PRINCE  A crown's worth of good interpretation. There
'tis, boy.	[He gives the Page money.]

POINS  O, that this good blossom could be kept from
cankers! Well, there is sixpence to preserve thee.
[He gives the Page money.]

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

PRINCE  And how doth thy master, Bardolph?

BARDOLPH  Well, my good lord. He heard of your
Grace's coming to town. There's a letter for you.
[He gives the Prince a paper.]

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

BARDOLPH  In bodily health, sir.

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

PRINCE  I do allow this wen to be as familiar with me as
my dog, and he holds his place, for look you how he
writes.	[He shows the letter to Poins.]

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

PRINCE  Nay, they will be kin to us, or they will fetch it
from Japheth. But to the letter: [Reads.] Sir John
Falstaff, knight, to the son of the King nearest his
father, Harry Prince of Wales, greeting.

POINS  Why, this is a certificate.

PRINCE  Peace!
[Reads.] I will imitate the honorable Romans in
brevity.

POINS  He sure means brevity in breath, short-winded.

PRINCE [reads]  I commend me to thee, I commend thee,
and I leave thee. Be not too familiar with Poins, for he
misuses thy favors so much that he swears thou art to
marry his sister Nell. Repent at idle times as thou
mayst, and so farewell.
	Thine by yea and no, which is as much as
to say, as thou usest him,
Jack Falstaff with my familiars,
John with my brothers and sisters, and
Sir John with all Europe.

POINS  My lord, I'll steep this letter in sack and make
him eat it.

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

BARDOLPH  Yea, my lord.

PRINCE  Where sups he? Doth the old boar feed in the
old frank?

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

PRINCE  What company?

PAGE  Ephesians, my lord, of the old church.

PRINCE  Sup any women with him?

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

PRINCE  What pagan may that be?

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

PRINCE  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  Sirrah--you, boy--and Bardolph, no word to
your master that I am yet come to town. There's for
your silence.	[He gives money.]

BARDOLPH  I have no tongue, sir.

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

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

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

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

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

PRINCE  From a god to a bull: a heavy descension. It
was Jove's case. From a prince to a 'prentice: a low
transformation that shall be mine, for in everything
the purpose must weigh with the folly. Follow me,
Ned.
[They exit.]

Scene 3
=======
[Enter Northumberland, his wife, and the wife to
Harry Percy.]


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 honor is at pawn,
And, but my going, nothing can redeem it.

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

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

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

Scene 4
=======
[Enter Francis and another Drawer.]


FRANCIS  What the devil hast thou brought there--
applejohns? Thou knowest Sir John cannot endure
an applejohn.

SECOND DRAWER  Mass, thou sayst true. The Prince
once set a dish of applejohns before him and told
him there were five more Sir Johns and, putting off
his hat, said "I will now take my leave of these six
dry, round, old, withered knights." It angered him
to the heart. But he hath forgot that.

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

[Enter Will.]


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

SECOND DRAWER  By the Mass, here will be old utis. It
will be an excellent stratagem.

FRANCIS  I'll see if I can find out Sneak.
[He exits with the Second Drawer.]

[Enter Hostess and Doll Tearsheet.]


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

DOLL  Better than I was. Hem.

HOSTESS  Why, that's well said. A good heart's worth
gold. Lo, here comes Sir John.

[Enter Sir John Falstaff.]


FALSTAFF, [singing]
When Arthur first in court--
[To Will.] Empty the jordan.	[Will exits.]
And was a worthy king--
How now, Mistress Doll?

HOSTESS  Sick of a calm, yea, good faith.

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

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

FALSTAFF  You make fat rascals, Mistress Doll.

DOLL  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  Yea, joy, our chains and our jewels.

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

DOLL  Hang yourself, you muddy conger, hang yourself!

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

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

[Enter Drawer.]


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

DOLL  Hang him, swaggering rascal! Let him not come
hither. It is the foul-mouthed'st rogue in England.

HOSTESS  If he swagger, let him not come here. No, by
my faith, I must live among my neighbors. I'll no
swaggerers. I am in good name and fame with the
very best. Shut the door. There comes no swaggerers
here. I have not lived all this while to have
swaggering now. Shut the door, I pray you.

FALSTAFF  Dost thou hear, hostess?

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

FALSTAFF  Dost thou hear? It is mine ancient.

HOSTESS  Tilly-vally, Sir John, ne'er tell me. And your
ancient swaggerer comes not in my doors. I was
before Master Tisick the debuty t' other day, and, as
he said to me--'twas no longer ago than Wednesday
last, i' good faith--"Neighbor Quickly," says
he--Master Dumb, our minister, was by then--
"Neighbor Quickly," says he, "receive those that
are civil, for," said he, "you are in an ill name."
Now he said so, I can tell whereupon. "For," says
he, "you are an honest woman, and well thought
on. Therefore take heed what guests you receive.
Receive," says he, "no swaggering companions."
There comes none here. You would bless you to
hear what he said. No, I'll no swaggerers.

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

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

DOLL  So you do, hostess.

HOSTESS  Do I? Yea, in very truth, do I, an 'twere an
aspen leaf. I cannot abide swaggerers.

[Enter Ancient Pistol, Bardolph, and Page.]


PISTOL  God save you, Sir John.

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 not hardly
offend her.

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

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

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

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

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

HOSTESS  No, good Captain Pistol, not here, sweet
captain!

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

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

FALSTAFF  Hark thee hither, Mistress Doll.

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

PAGE  Pray thee go down.

PISTOL  I'll see her damned first to Pluto's damned
lake, by this hand, to th' infernal deep with Erebus
and tortures vile also. Hold hook and line, say I.
Down, down, dogs! Down, Fates! Have we not
Hiren here?	[He draws his sword.]

HOSTESS  Good Captain Peesell, be quiet. 'Tis very late,
i' faith. I beseek you now, aggravate your choler.

PISTOL  These be good humors indeed. Shall pack-horses
and hollow pampered jades of Asia, which
cannot go but thirty mile a day, compare with
Caesars and with cannibals and Troyant Greeks?
Nay, rather damn them with King Cerberus, and let
the welkin roar. Shall we fall foul for toys?

HOSTESS  By my troth, captain, these are very bitter
words.

BARDOLPH  Begone, good ancient. This will grow to a
brawl anon.

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

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

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

FALSTAFF  Pistol, I would be quiet.

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

DOLL  For God's sake, thrust him downstairs. I cannot
endure such a fustian rascal.

PISTOL  "Thrust him downstairs"? Know we not Galloway
nags?

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

BARDOLPH  Come, get you downstairs.

PISTOL, [taking up his sword]  What, shall we have
incision? Shall we imbrue? Then death rock me
asleep, abridge my doleful days. Why then, let
grievous, ghastly, gaping wounds untwind the Sisters
Three. Come, Atropos, I say.

HOSTESS  Here's goodly stuff toward!

FALSTAFF  Give me my rapier, boy.

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

FALSTAFF, [to Pistol]  Get you downstairs.	[They fight.]

HOSTESS  Here's a goodly tumult. I'll forswear keeping
house afore I'll be in these tirrits and frights. So,
murder, I warrant now. Alas, alas, put up your
naked weapons, put up your naked weapons.
[Bardolph and Pistol exit.]

DOLL  I pray thee, Jack, be quiet. The rascal's gone. Ah,
you whoreson little valiant villain, you.

HOSTESS, [to Falstaff]  Are you not hurt i' th' groin?
Methought he made a shrewd thrust at your belly.

[Enter Bardolph.]


FALSTAFF  Have you turned him out o' doors?

BARDOLPH  Yea, sir. The rascal's drunk. You have hurt
him, sir, i' th' shoulder.

FALSTAFF  A rascal to brave me!

DOLL  Ah, you sweet little rogue, you. Alas, poor ape,
how thou sweat'st! Come, let me wipe thy face.
Come on, you whoreson chops. Ah, rogue, i' faith, I
love thee. Thou art as valorous as Hector of Troy,
worth five of Agamemnon, and ten times better
than the Nine Worthies. Ah, villain!

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

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

[Enter Musicians and Francis.]


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

[Enter behind them Prince and Poins disguised.]


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

DOLL  Sirrah, what humor's the Prince of?

FALSTAFF  A good shallow young fellow, he would have
made a good pantler; he would 'a chipped bread
well.

DOLL  They say Poins has a good wit.

FALSTAFF  He a good wit? Hang him, baboon. His wit's
as thick as Tewkesbury mustard. There's no more
conceit in him than is in a mallet.

DOLL  Why does the Prince love him so then?

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

PRINCE, [aside to Poins]  Would not this nave of a wheel
have his ears cut off?

POINS  Let's beat him before his whore.

PRINCE  Look whe'er the withered elder hath not his
poll clawed like a parrot.

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

FALSTAFF  Kiss me, Doll.

PRINCE, [aside to Poins]  Saturn and Venus this year in
conjunction! What says th' almanac to that?

POINS  And look whether the fiery trigon, his man, be
not lisping to his master's old tables, his notebook,
his counsel keeper.

FALSTAFF, [to Doll]  Thou dost give me flattering busses.

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

FALSTAFF  I am old, I am old.

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

FALSTAFF  What stuff wilt thou have a kirtle of? I shall
receive money o' Thursday; thou shalt have a cap
tomorrow. A merry song! Come, it grows late. We'll
to bed. Thou 'lt forget me when I am gone.

DOLL  By my troth, thou 'lt set me a-weeping an thou
sayst so. Prove that ever I dress myself handsome till
thy return. Well, harken a' th' end.

FALSTAFF  Some sack, Francis.

PRINCE, POINS, [coming forward]  Anon, anon, sir.

FALSTAFF  Ha? A bastard son of the King's?--And art
not thou Poins his brother?

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

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

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

DOLL  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, [to Falstaff]  You whoreson candle-mine, you,
how vilely did you speak of me even now before
this honest, virtuous, civil gentlewoman!

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

FALSTAFF, [to Prince]  Didst thou hear me?

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

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

PRINCE  Not to dispraise me and call me pantler and
bread-chipper and I know not what?

FALSTAFF  No abuse, Hal.

POINS  No abuse?

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

PRINCE  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 blinds him too.

PRINCE  For the women?

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

HOSTESS  No, I warrant you.

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

HOSTESS  All vitlars do so. What's a joint of mutton or
two in a whole Lent?

PRINCE, [to Doll]  You, gentlewoman.

DOLL  What says your Grace?

FALSTAFF  His grace says that which his flesh rebels
against.
[Peto knocks at door.]

HOSTESS  Who knocks so loud at door? Look to th' door
there, Francis.	[Francis exits.]

[Enter Peto.]


PRINCE  Peto, how now, what news?

PETO
The King your father is at Westminster,
And there are twenty weak and wearied posts
Come from the north, and as I came along
I met and overtook a dozen captains,
Bareheaded, sweating, knocking at the taverns
And asking everyone for Sir John Falstaff.

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

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

[(Knocking. Bardolph exits.)] More knocking at the
door? [(Bardolph returns.)] How now, what's the
matter?

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

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

DOLL  I cannot speak. If my heart be not ready to
burst--well, sweet Jack, have a care of thyself.

FALSTAFF  Farewell, farewell.
[He exits with Bardolph, Page, and Musicians.]

HOSTESS  Well, fare thee well. I have known thee these
twenty-nine years, come peasecod time, but an
honester and truer-hearted man--well, fare thee
well.

BARDOLPH, [within]  Mistress Tearsheet!

HOSTESS  What's the matter?

BARDOLPH, [within]  Bid Mistress Tearsheet come to my
master.

HOSTESS  O, run, Doll, run, run, good Doll. Come.--
She comes blubbered.--Yea! Will you come, Doll?
[They exit.]


ACT 3
=====

Scene 1
=======
[Enter the King in his nightgown with a Page.]


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

[Enter Warwick, Surrey and Sir John Blunt.]


WARWICK
Many good morrows to your Majesty.

KING  Is it good morrow, lords?

WARWICK  'Tis one o'clock, and past.

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

WARWICK  We have, my liege.

KING
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 distempered,
Which to his former strength may be restored
With good advice and little medicine.
My Lord Northumberland will soon be cooled.

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

WARWICK
There is a history in all men's lives
Figuring the natures of the times deceased,
The which observed, a man may prophesy,
With a near aim, of the main chance of things
As yet not come to life, who in their seeds
And weak beginning lie 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  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.
Rumor doth double, like the voice and echo,
The numbers of the feared. Please it your Grace
To go to bed. Upon my soul, my lord,
The powers that you already have sent forth
Shall bring this prize in very easily.
To comfort you the more, I have received
A certain instance that Glendower is dead.
Your Majesty hath been this fortnight ill,
And these unseasoned hours perforce must add
Unto your sickness.

KING  I will take your counsel.
And were these inward wars once out of hand,
We would, dear lords, unto the Holy Land.
[They exit.]

Scene 2
=======
[Enter Justice Shallow and Justice Silence.]


SHALLOW  Come on, come on, come on. Give me your
hand, sir, give me your hand, sir. An early stirrer, by
the rood. And how doth my good cousin Silence?

SILENCE  Good morrow, good cousin Shallow.

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

SILENCE  Alas, a black ousel, cousin Shallow.

SHALLOW  By yea and no, sir. I dare say my cousin
William is become a good scholar. He is at Oxford
still, is he not?

SILENCE  Indeed, sir, to my cost.

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

SILENCE  You were called "Lusty Shallow" then,
cousin.

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

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

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

SILENCE  We shall all follow, cousin.

SHALLOW  Certain, 'tis certain, very sure, very sure.
Death, as the Psalmist saith, is certain to all. All
shall die. How a good yoke of bullocks at Stamford
Fair?

SILENCE  By my troth, cousin, I was not there.

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

SILENCE  Dead, sir.

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

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

SHALLOW  And is old Dooble dead?

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

[Enter Bardolph and one with him.]


SHALLOW  Good morrow, honest gentlemen.

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

[Enter Falstaff.]


SHALLOW  It is very just. Look, here comes good Sir
John.--Give me your good hand, give me your
Worship's good hand. By my troth, you like well and
bear your years very well. Welcome, good Sir John.

FALSTAFF  I am glad to see you well, good Master
Robert Shallow.--Master Sure-card, 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?
[They sit at a table.]

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,
so, so, so. So, so. Yea, marry, sir.--Rafe Mouldy!--
Let them appear as I call, let them do so, let them
do so.

[Enter Mouldy, followed by Shadow, Wart, Feeble,
and Bullcalf.]

Let me see, where is Mouldy?

MOULDY, [coming forward]  Here, an it please you.

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.
[Shallow marks the scroll.]

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

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 th' 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, [coming forward]  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, [coming forward]  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, [coming forward]  Here, sir.

SHALLOW  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'd ha' pricked you.--Wilt thou make as many
holes in an enemy's battle as thou hast done in a
woman's petticoat?

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

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 the next?

SHALLOW  Peter Bullcalf o' th' green.

FALSTAFF  Yea, marry, let's see Bullcalf.

BULLCALF, [coming forward]  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 will have away thy cold, and I will take such
order that thy 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 th' 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 watchword was "Hem,
boys." Come, let's to dinner, come, let's to dinner.
Jesus, the days that we have seen! Come, come.
[Shallow, Silence, and Falstaff rise and exit.]

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

BARDOLPH  Go to. Stand aside.

MOULDY  And, good Master Corporal Captain, for my
old dame's sake, stand my friend. She has nobody to
do anything about her when I am gone, and she is
old and cannot help herself. You shall have forty,
sir.	[He gives money.]

BARDOLPH  Go to. Stand aside.

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

BARDOLPH  Well said. Th' art a good fellow.

FEEBLE  Faith, I'll bear no base mind.

[Enter Falstaff and the Justices.]


FALSTAFF  Come, sir, which men shall I have?

SHALLOW  Four of which you please.

BARDOLPH, [aside to Falstaff]  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.	[Mouldy and Bullcalf exit.]

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

BARDOLPH, [giving Wart a musket]  Hold, Wart. Traverse.
Thas, thas, thas.

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

SHALLOW  He is not his craft's master. He doth not do it
right. I remember at Mile End Green, when I lay at
Clement's Inn--I was then Sir Dagonet in Arthur's
show--there was a little quiver fellow, and he
would manage you his piece thus. [Shallow performs
with the musket.] And he would about and
about, and come you in, and come you in. "Rah,
tah, tah," would he say. "Bounce," would he say,
and away again would he go, and again would he
come. I shall ne'er see such a fellow.

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

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

FALSTAFF  Fore God, would you would, Master
Shallow.

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

FALSTAFF  Fare you well, gentle gentlemen.
[Shallow and Silence exit.]
On, Bardolph. Lead the men away.
[All but Falstaff exit.]
As I return, I will fetch off these justices. I do see
the bottom of Justice Shallow. Lord, Lord, how
subject we old men are to this vice of lying. This
same starved justice hath done nothing but prate to
me of the wildness of his youth and the feats he hath
done about Turnbull Street, and every third word a
lie, duer paid to the hearer than the Turk's tribute. I
do remember him at Clement's Inn, like a man
made after supper of a cheese paring. When he was
naked, he was, for all the world, like a forked radish
with a head fantastically carved upon it with a
knife. He was so forlorn that his dimensions to
any thick sight were invincible. He was the very
genius of famine, yet lecherous as a monkey,
and the whores called him "mandrake." He came
ever in the rearward of the fashion, and sung
those tunes to the overscutched huswives that he
heard the carmen whistle, and swore they were his
fancies or his good-nights. And now is this Vice's
dagger become a squire, and talks as familiarly
of John o' Gaunt as if he had been sworn brother
to him, and I'll be sworn he ne'er saw him but
once in the tilt-yard, and then he burst his head
for crowding among the Marshal's men. I saw it
and told John o' Gaunt he beat his own name, for
you might have thrust him and all his apparel into
an eel-skin; the case of a treble hautboy was a
mansion for him, a court. And now has he land and
beefs. Well, I'll be acquainted with him if I return,
and 't shall go hard but I'll make him a philosopher's
two stones to me. If the young dace be a
bait for the old pike, I see no reason in the law of
nature but I may snap at him. Let time shape, and
there an end.
[He exits.]


ACT 4
=====

Scene 1
=======
[Enter the Archbishop of York, Mowbray, Lord
Bardolph, Hastings, and their officers within the Forest
of Gaultree.]


ARCHBISHOP  What is this forest called?

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

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

HASTINGS
We have sent forth already.

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

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

[Enter 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.

[Enter Westmoreland.]


ARCHBISHOP
What well-appointed leader fronts us here?

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
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 rage,
And countenanced by boys and beggary--
I say, if damned commotion so appeared
In his true, native, and most proper shape,
You, reverend father, and these noble lords
Had not been here to dress the ugly form
Of base and bloody insurrection
With your fair honors. You, Lord Archbishop,
Whose see is by a civil peace maintained,
Whose beard the silver hand of peace hath touched,
Whose learning and good letters peace hath tutored,
Whose white investments figure innocence,
The dove and very blessed spirit of peace,
Wherefore do you so ill translate yourself
Out of the speech of peace, that bears such grace,
Into the harsh and boist'rous tongue of war,
Turning your books to graves, your ink to blood,
Your pens to lances, and your tongue divine
To a loud trumpet and a point of war?

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

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

ARCHBISHOP
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 honors?

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

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

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

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 honor, all too confident
To give admittance to a thought of fear.
Our battle is more full of names than yours,
Our men more perfect in the use of arms,
Our armor all as strong, our cause the best.
Then reason will our hearts should be as good.
Say you not then our offer is compelled.

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

WESTMORELAND
That argues but the shame of your offense.
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, [giving Westmoreland a paper]
Then take, my Lord of Westmoreland, this schedule,
For this contains our general grievances.
Each several article herein redressed,
All members of our cause, both here and hence
That are insinewed to this action,
Acquitted by a true substantial form
And present execution of our wills
To us and to our purposes confined,
We come within our awful banks again
And knit our powers to the arm of peace.

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  My lord, we will do so.
[Westmoreland exits.]

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 winnowed with so rough a wind
That even our corn shall seem as light as chaff,
And good from bad find no partition.

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

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  '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 returned my Lord of Westmoreland.

[Enter Westmoreland.]


WESTMORELAND, [to the Archbishop]
The Prince is here at hand. Pleaseth your Lordship
To meet his Grace just distance 'tween our armies.

[Enter Prince John and his army.]


MOWBRAY, [to the Archbishop]
Your Grace of York, in God's name then set
forward.

ARCHBISHOP
Before, and greet his Grace.--My lord, we come.
[All move forward.]

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

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

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 his quarrel up
Whiles England shall have generation.

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

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

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

ARCHBISHOP
I take your princely word for these redresses.

JOHN OF LANCASTER
I give it you, and will maintain my word,
And thereupon I drink unto your Grace.
[The Leaders of both armies begin to drink together.]

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

ARCHBISHOP, [toasting Westmoreland]
To you, my noble Lord of Westmoreland.

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

ARCHBISHOP
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
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
tomorrow."

ARCHBISHOP
Believe me, I am passing light in spirit.

MOWBRAY
So much the worse if your own rule be true.
[Shout within.]

JOHN OF LANCASTER
The word of peace is rendered. Hark how they
shout.

MOWBRAY
This had been cheerful after victory.

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

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

ARCHBISHOP  Go, good Lord
Hastings,
And ere they be dismissed, let them march by.
[Hastings exits.]

JOHN OF LANCASTER
I trust, lords, we shall lie tonight together.

[Enter Westmoreland.]

Now, cousin, wherefore stands our army still?

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

JOHN OF LANCASTER  They know their duties.

[Enter Hastings.]


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

WESTMORELAND
Good tidings, my Lord Hastings, for the which
I do arrest thee, traitor, of high treason.--
And you, Lord Archbishop, and you, Lord Mowbray,
Of capital treason I attach you both.

MOWBRAY
Is this proceeding just and honorable?

WESTMORELAND  Is your assembly so?

ARCHBISHOP
Will you thus break your faith?

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

Scene 2
=======
[Alarum. Excursions. Enter Falstaff and Colevile.]


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
you yield, sir, or shall I sweat for you? If I do sweat,
they are the drops of thy lovers and they weep for
thy death. Therefore rouse up fear and trembling,
and do observance to my mercy.

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
indifferency, I were simply the most active fellow in
Europe. My womb, my womb, my womb undoes
me. Here comes our general.

[Enter John, Westmoreland, and the rest.]


JOHN OF LANCASTER
The heat is past. Follow no further now.
Call in the powers, good cousin Westmoreland.
[Westmoreland exits. Retreat is sounded.]
Now, Falstaff, where have you been all this while?
When everything is ended, then you come.
These tardy tricks of yours will, on my life,
One time or other break some gallows' back.

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

JOHN OF LANCASTER  It was more of his courtesy than
your deserving.

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

JOHN OF LANCASTER  Thine's too heavy to mount.

FALSTAFF  Let it shine, then.

JOHN OF 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.

JOHN OF LANCASTER  Is thy name Colevile?

COLEVILE  It is, my lord.

JOHN OF 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.

[Enter Westmoreland.]


JOHN OF LANCASTER  Now, have you left pursuit?

WESTMORELAND
Retreat is made and execution stayed.

JOHN OF LANCASTER
Send Colevile with his confederates
To York, to present execution.--
Blunt, lead him hence, and see you guard him sure.
[Blunt exits with Colevile.]
And now dispatch we toward the court, my lords.
I hear the King my father is sore sick.
Our news shall go before us to his Majesty,
[To Westmoreland.] Which, cousin, you shall bear
to comfort him,
And we with sober speed will follow you.

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

JOHN OF LANCASTER
Fare you well, Falstaff. I, in my condition,
Shall better speak of you than you deserve.
[All but Falstaff exit.]

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

[Enter Bardolph.]

How now, Bardolph?

BARDOLPH  The army is discharged all and gone.

FALSTAFF  Let them go. I'll through Gloucestershire,
and there will I visit Master Robert Shallow,
Esquire. I have him already temp'ring between my
finger and my thumb, and shortly will I seal with
him. Come away.
[They exit.]

Scene 3
=======
[Enter the King in a chair, Warwick, Thomas Duke of
Clarence, Humphrey Duke of Gloucester, and
Attendants.]


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

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

KING
Humphrey, my son of Gloucester, where is the
Prince your brother?

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

KING
And how accompanied?

HUMPHREY OF GLOUCESTER  I do not know, my lord.

KING
Is not his brother Thomas of Clarence with him?

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

THOMAS OF CLARENCE, [coming forward]  What would
my lord and father?

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

THOMAS OF CLARENCE
I shall observe him with all care and love.

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

THOMAS OF CLARENCE
He is not there today; he dines in London.

KING
And how accompanied? Canst thou tell that?

THOMAS OF CLARENCE
With Poins and other his continual followers.

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

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

KING
'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 unsheathed,
But peace puts forth her olive everywhere.
The manner how this action hath been borne
Here at more leisure may your Highness read
With every course in his particular.
[He gives the King a paper.]

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

[Enter Harcourt.]

Look, here's more news.

HARCOURT
From enemies heavens keep your Majesty,
And when they stand against you, may they fall
As those that I am come to tell you of.
The Earl Northumberland and the Lord Bardolph,
With a great power of English and of Scots,
Are by the shrieve of Yorkshire overthrown.
The manner and true order of the fight
This packet, please it you, contains at large.
[He gives the King papers.]

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

HUMPHREY OF GLOUCESTER
Comfort, your Majesty.

THOMAS OF CLARENCE  O, my royal father!

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.

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

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

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

WARWICK
Speak lower, princes, for the King recovers.

HUMPHREY OF GLOUCESTER
This apoplexy will certain be his end.

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

WARWICK, [to an Attendant]
Call for the music in the other room.

KING
Set me the crown upon my pillow here.
[The crown is placed on the bed.]

THOMAS OF CLARENCE, [aside to the others]
His eye is hollow, and he changes much.

WARWICK
Less noise, less noise.

[Enter Prince Harry.]


PRINCE  Who saw the Duke of Clarence?

THOMAS OF CLARENCE, [weeping]
I am here, brother, full of heaviness.

PRINCE
How now, rain within doors, and none abroad?
How doth the King?

HUMPHREY OF GLOUCESTER  Exceeding ill.

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

HUMPHREY OF GLOUCESTER
He altered much upon the hearing it.

PRINCE  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.

THOMAS OF CLARENCE
Let us withdraw into the other room.

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

PRINCE
No, I will sit and watch here by the King.
[All but Prince and King exit.]
Why doth the crown lie there upon his pillow,
Being so troublesome a bedfellow?
O polished perturbation, golden care,
That keep'st the ports of slumber open wide
To many a watchful night! Sleep with it now;
Yet not so sound and half so deeply sweet
As he whose brow with homely biggen bound
Snores out the watch of night. O majesty,
When thou dost pinch thy bearer, thou dost sit
Like a rich armor worn in heat of day,
That scald'st with safety. By his gates of breath
There lies a downy feather which stirs not;
Did he suspire, that light and weightless down
Perforce must move. My gracious lord, my father,
This sleep is sound indeed. This is a sleep
That from this golden rigol hath divorced
So many English kings. Thy due from me
Is tears and heavy sorrows of the blood,
Which nature, love, and filial tenderness
Shall, O dear father, pay thee plenteously.
My due from thee is this imperial crown,
Which, as immediate from thy place and blood,
Derives itself to me. [He puts on the crown.] Lo,
where it sits,
Which God shall guard. And, put the world's whole
strength
Into one giant arm, it shall not force
This lineal honor from me. This from thee
Will I to mine leave, as 'tis left to me.
[He exits with the crown.]

KING, [rising up in his bed]  Warwick! Gloucester!
Clarence!

[Enter Warwick, Gloucester, Clarence, and others.]


THOMAS OF CLARENCE  Doth the King call?

WARWICK
What would your Majesty? How fares your Grace?

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

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

KING
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.

HUMPHREY OF GLOUCESTER
He came not through the chamber where we
stayed.

KING
Where is the crown? Who took it from my pillow?

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

KING
The Prince hath ta'en it hence. Go seek him out.
Is he so hasty that he doth suppose my sleep my
death?
Find him, my Lord of Warwick. Chide him hither.
[Warwick exits.]
This part of his conjoins with my disease
And helps to end me. See, sons, what things you
are,
How quickly nature falls into revolt
When gold becomes her object!
For this the foolish overcareful fathers
Have broke their sleep with thoughts,
Their brains with care, their bones with industry.
For this they have engrossed and piled up
The cankered heaps of strange-achieved gold.
For this they have been thoughtful to invest
Their sons with arts and martial exercises--
When, like the bee, tolling from every flower
The virtuous sweets,
Our thighs packed with wax, our mouths with
honey,
We bring it to the hive and, like the bees,
Are murdered for our pains. This bitter taste
Yields his engrossments to the ending father.

[Enter Warwick.]

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

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

KING
But wherefore did he take away the crown?

[Enter Prince Harry with the crown.]

Lo where he comes.--Come hither to me, Harry.--
Depart the chamber. Leave us here alone.
[Gloucester, Clarence, Warwick, and others exit.]

PRINCE
I never thought to hear you speak again.

KING
Thy wish was father, Harry, to that thought.
I stay too long by thee; I weary thee.
Dost thou so hunger for mine empty chair
That thou wilt needs invest thee with my honors
Before thy hour be ripe? O foolish youth,
Thou seek'st the greatness that will overwhelm
thee.
Stay but a little, for my cloud of dignity
Is held from falling with so weak a wind
That it will quickly drop. My day is dim.
Thou hast stol'n that which after some few hours
Were thine without offense, and at my death
Thou hast sealed up my expectation.
Thy life did manifest thou loved'st me not,
And thou wilt have me die assured of it.
Thou hid'st a thousand daggers in thy thoughts,
Whom thou hast whetted on thy stony heart
To stab at half an hour of my life.
What, canst thou not forbear me half an hour?
Then get thee gone, and dig my grave thyself,
And bid the merry bells ring to thine ear
That thou art 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 crowned. Up, vanity,
Down, royal state, all you sage councillors,
hence,
And to the English court assemble now,
From every region, apes of idleness.
Now, neighbor confines, purge you of your scum.
Have you a ruffian that will swear, drink, dance,
Revel the night, rob, murder, and commit
The oldest sins the newest kind of ways?
Be happy, he will trouble you no more.
England shall double gild his treble guilt.
England shall give him office, honor, might,
For the fifth Harry from curbed license plucks
The muzzle of restraint, and the wild dog
Shall flesh his tooth on every innocent.
O my poor kingdom, sick with civil blows!
When that my care could not withhold thy riots,
What wilt thou do when riot is thy care?
O, thou wilt be a wilderness again,
Peopled with wolves, thy old inhabitants.

PRINCE, [placing the crown on the pillow]
O pardon me, my liege! But for my tears,
The moist impediments unto my speech,
I had forestalled this dear and deep rebuke
Ere you with grief had spoke and I had heard
The course of it so far. There is your crown,
And He that wears the crown immortally
Long guard it yours. [He kneels.] If I affect it
more
Than as your honor and as your renown,
Let me no more from this obedience rise,
Which my most inward true and duteous spirit
Teacheth this prostrate and exterior bending.
God witness with me, when I here came in
And found no course of breath within your Majesty,
How cold it struck my heart! If I do feign,
O, let me in my present wildness die
And never live to show th' incredulous world
The noble change that I have 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 med'cine potable;
But thou, most fine, most honored, most renowned,
Hast eat thy bearer up." Thus, my most royal liege,
Accusing it, I put it on my head
To try with it, as with an enemy
That had before my face murdered my father,
The quarrel of a true inheritor.
But if it did infect my blood with joy
Or swell my thoughts to any strain of pride,
If any rebel or vain spirit of mine
Did with the least affection of a welcome
Give entertainment to the might of it,
Let God forever keep it from my head
And make me as the poorest vassal is
That doth with awe and terror kneel to it.

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

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

[Enter John of Lancaster and others.]


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

JOHN OF LANCASTER
Health, peace, and happiness to my royal father.

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

PRINCE  My Lord of Warwick.

[Enter Warwick.]


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

WARWICK
'Tis called Jerusalem, my noble lord.

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


ACT 5
=====

Scene 1
=======
[Enter Shallow, Falstaff, Page, and Bardolph.]


SHALLOW  By cock and pie, sir, you shall not away
tonight.--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 hade land 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 plow irons.	[He gives Shallow a paper.]

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

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

SHALLOW  He shall answer it. Some pigeons, Davy, a
couple of short-legged hens, a joint of mutton, and
any pretty little tiny kickshaws, tell William cook.
[Shallow and Davy walk aside.]

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

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

DAVY  No worse than they are back-bitten, sir, for they
have marvelous foul linen.

SHALLOW  Well-conceited, Davy. About thy business,
Davy.

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

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

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

SHALLOW  Go to, I say, he shall have no wrong. Look
about, Davy. [Davy exits.] Where are you, Sir John?
Come, come, come, off with your boots.--Give me
your hand, Master Bardolph.

BARDOLPH  I am glad to see your Worship.

SHALLOW  I thank thee with all my heart, kind Master
Bardolph, [(to Page)] and welcome, my tall
fellow.--Come, Sir John.

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

SHALLOW, [within]  Sir John.

FALSTAFF  I come, Master Shallow, I come, Master
Shallow.
[He exits.]

Scene 2
=======
[Enter Warwick and Lord Chief Justice.]


WARWICK
How now, my Lord Chief Justice, whither away?

CHIEF JUSTICE  How doth the King?

WARWICK
Exceeding well. His cares are now all ended.

CHIEF JUSTICE
I hope, not dead.

WARWICK  He's walked the way of nature,
And to our purposes he lives no more.

CHIEF JUSTICE
I would his Majesty had called me with him.
The service that I truly did his life
Hath left me open to all injuries.

WARWICK
Indeed, I think the young king loves you not.

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

[Enter John, Thomas, and Humphrey.]


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

CHIEF JUSTICE
O God, I fear all will be overturned.

JOHN OF LANCASTER
Good morrow, cousin Warwick, good morrow.

HUMPHREY OF GLOUCESTER, THOMAS OF CLARENCE  Good morrow, cousin.

JOHN OF LANCASTER
We meet like men that had forgot to speak.

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

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

CHIEF JUSTICE
Peace be with us, lest we be heavier.

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

JOHN OF LANCASTER, [to the Chief Justice]
Though no man be assured what grace to find,
You stand in coldest expectation.
I am the sorrier; would 'twere otherwise.

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

CHIEF JUSTICE
Sweet princes, what I did I did in honor,
Led by th' impartial conduct of my soul;
And never shall you see that I will beg
A ragged and forestalled remission.
If truth and upright innocency fail me,
I'll to the king my master that is dead
And tell him who hath sent me after him.

[Enter the Prince, as Henry V, and Blunt.]


WARWICK  Here comes the Prince.

CHIEF JUSTICE
Good morrow, and God save your Majesty.

PRINCE
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.

BROTHERS
We hope no otherwise from your Majesty.

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

CHIEF JUSTICE
I am assured, if I be measured rightly,
Your Majesty hath no just cause to hate me.

PRINCE
No? How might a prince of my great hopes forget
So great indignities you laid upon me?
What, rate, rebuke, and roughly send to prison
Th' immediate heir of England? Was this easy?
May this be washed in Lethe and forgotten?

CHIEF JUSTICE
I then did use the person of your father;
The image of his power lay then in me.
And in th' administration of his law,
Whiles I was busy for the commonwealth,
Your Highness 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 disdained,
And then imagine me taking your part
And in your power soft silencing your son.
After this cold considerance, sentence me,
And, as you are a king, speak in your state
What I have done that misbecame my place,
My person, or my liege's sovereignty.

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

Scene 3
=======
[Enter Sir John Falstaff, Shallow, Silence, Davy,
Bardolph, and Page.]


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

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 servingman 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 he, we shall
[Sings.] 	Do nothing but eat and make good cheer,
	And praise God for the merry year,
	When flesh is cheap and females dear,
	And lusty lads roam here and there
		So merrily,
	And ever among so merrily.

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, [to the guests]  Sweet sir, sit. I'll be with you
anon. Most sweet sir, sit. Master page, good master
page, sit. Proface. What you want in meat, we'll
have in drink, but you must bear. The heart's all.
[He exits.]

SHALLOW  Be merry, Master Bardolph.--And, my little
soldier there, be merry.

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

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.

[Enter Davy.]


DAVY, [to the guests]  There's a dish of leather-coats for
you.

SHALLOW  Davy!

DAVY  Your Worship, I'll be with you straight.--A cup
of wine, sir.

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

FALSTAFF  Well said, Master Silence.

SILENCE  And we shall be merry; now comes in the
sweet o' th' night.

FALSTAFF  Health and long life to you, Master Silence.

SILENCE [sings]
	Fill the cup, and let it come,
	I'll pledge you a mile to th' bottom.

SHALLOW  Honest Bardolph, welcome. If thou want'st
anything and wilt not call, beshrew thy heart.--
Welcome, my little tiny thief, and welcome indeed
too. I'll drink to Master Bardolph, and to all the
cabileros about London.

DAVY  I hope to see London once ere I die.

BARDOLPH  An I might see you there, Davy!

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. He will not
out, he. 'Tis true bred!

BARDOLPH  And I'll stick by him, sir.

SHALLOW  Why, there spoke a king. Lack nothing, be
merry. [(One knocks at door.)] Look who's at door
there, ho. Who knocks?	[Davy exits.]

FALSTAFF  Why, now you have done me right.

SILENCE [sings]
	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.

[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 he be, but Goodman Puff of
Barson.

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

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 [sings]
	And Robin Hood, Scarlet, and John.

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

SHALLOW  Honest gentleman, I know not your
breeding.

PISTOL  Why then, lament therefor.

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.	[Pistol makes a fig.]

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

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

Scene 4
=======
[Enter Hostess Quickly, Doll Tearsheet, and Beadles.]


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

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

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

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

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

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

BEADLE  Come, come, you she-knight-errant, come.

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

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

HOSTESS  Ay, come, you starved bloodhound.

DOLL  Goodman Death, Goodman Bones!

HOSTESS  Thou atomy, thou!

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

BEADLE  Very well.
[They exit.]

Scene 5
=======
[Enter two Grooms.]


FIRST GROOM  More rushes, more rushes.

SECOND GROOM  The trumpets have sounded twice.

FIRST GROOM  'Twill be two o'clock ere they come
from the coronation. Dispatch, dispatch.
[Grooms exit.]

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


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

PISTOL  God bless thy lungs, good knight!

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. The trumpets sound.]

PISTOL
There roared the sea, and trumpet-clangor sounds.

[Enter the King and his train.]


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
My Lord Chief Justice, speak to that vain man.

CHIEF JUSTICE, [to Falstaff]
Have you your wits? Know you what 'tis you
speak?

FALSTAFF, [to the King]
My king, my Jove, I speak to thee, my heart!

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

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 color.

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

FALSTAFF  Fear no colors. Go with me to dinner.--
Come, lieutenant Pistol.--Come, Bardolph.--I
shall be sent for soon at night.

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


CHIEF JUSTICE
Go, carry Sir John Falstaff to the Fleet.
Take all his company along with him.

FALSTAFF  My lord, my lord --

CHIEF JUSTICE
I cannot now speak. I will hear you soon.--
Take them away.

PISTOL  Si fortuna me tormenta, spero me contenta.
[All but John of Lancaster and
Chief Justice exit.]

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

CHIEF JUSTICE  And so they are.

JOHN OF LANCASTER
The King hath called his parliament, my lord.

CHIEF JUSTICE  He hath.

JOHN OF LANCASTER
I will lay odds that, ere this year expire,
We bear our civil swords and native fire
As far as France. I heard a bird so sing,
Whose music, to my thinking, pleased the King.
Come, will you hence?
[They exit.]


EPILOGUE
========

   First my fear, then my curtsy, last my speech. My
fear is your displeasure, my curtsy 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. And so I kneel
down before you, but, indeed, to pray for the
Queen.
   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 Katherine of France, where, for
anything I know, Falstaff shall die of a sweat, unless
already he 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.