This gallant Hotspur, this all-praised knight, Yea, even the slightest worship of his time, K. Hen. A hundred thousand rebels die in this! Thou shalt have charge, and sovereign trust herein. Enter SIR WALTER BLUNT. How now, good Blunt! thy looks are full of speed. A mighty and a fearful head they are, As ever offer'd foul play in a state. K. Hen. The earl of Westmoreland set forth to-day; On Wednesday next, Harry, you shall set forward; SCENE III.-Eastcheap. A Room in the Boar's Head Tavern. Enter FALSTAFF and Bardolph. Fal. Bardolph, am I not fallen away vilely since this last action? do I not bate? do I not dwindle? Why, my skin hangs about me like an old lady's loose gown; I am wither'd like an old apple-John. Well, I'll repent, and that suddenly, while I am in some liking; I shall be out of heart shortly, and then I shall have no strength to repent. An I have not forgotten what the inside of a church is made of, I am a pepper-corn, a brewer's horse: the inside of a church! Company, villanous company, hath been the spoil of me. Bard. Sir John, you are so fretful, you cannot live long. Fal. Why, there is it:-come, sing me a bawdy song; make me merry. I was as virtuously given as a gentleman need to be; virtuous enough; swore little; diced not above seven times a week; went to a bawdy-house not above once in a quarter-of an hour; paid money that I borrowed-three or four times; lived well, and in good compass: and now I live out of all order, out of all compass. Bard. Why, you are so fat, Sir John, that you must needs be out of all compass,-out of all reasonable compass, Sir John. Fal. Do thou amend thy face, and I'll amend my life: thou art our admiral, thou bearest the lantern in the poop,-but 'tis in the nose of thee: thou art the Knight of the Burning Lamp. Bard. Why, Sir John, my face does you no harm. Fal. No, I'll be sworn; I make as good use of it as many a man doth of a death's head, or a memento mori: I never see thy face, but I think upon hellfire, and Dives that lived in purple; for there he is in his robes, burning, burning. If thou wert any way given to virtue, I would swear by thy face; my oath should be, "By this fire, that's God's angel:" but thou art altogether given over; and wert indeed, but for the light in thy face, the son of utter darkness. When thou ran'st up Gads-hill in the night to catch my horse, if I did not think thou hadst been an ignis fatuus, or a ball of wild-fire, there's no purchase in money. O, thou art a perpetual triumph, an everlasting bonfire-light! Thou hast saved me a thousand marks in links and torches, walking with thee in the night betwixt tavern and tavern: but the sack that thou hast drunk me, would have bought me lights as good cheap, at the dearest chandler's in Europe. I have maintained that salamander of yours with fire any time this two and thirty years; God reward me for it! Bard. 'Sblood, I would my face were in your belly! Fal. God-a-mercy! so should I be sure to be heart-burned. Enter Hostess. How now, dame Partlet the hen! have you enquired yet who picked my pocket? Host. Why, Sir John, what do you think, Sir John? Do you think I keep thieves in my house? I have searched, I have enquired, so has my husband, man by man, boy by boy, servant by servant: the tithe of a hair was never lost in my house before. Fal. You lie, hostess: Bardolph was shaved, and lost many a hair; and I'll be sworn, my pocket was picked. Go to, you are a woman, go. Host. Who, I? No; I defy thee: God's light! I was never called so in my own house before. Fal. Go to; I know you well enough. Host. No, Sir John; you do not know John: I know you, Sir John: you owe me money, Sir John; and now you pick a quarrel to beguile me of it; I bought you a dozen of shirts to your back. me, Sir Fal. Dowlas, filthy dowlas: I have given them away to bakers' wives, and they have made bolters of them. Host. Now, as I am a true woman, holland of eight shillings an ell. You owe money here besides, Sir John, for your diet, and by-drinkings, and money lent you, four-and-twenty pound. Fal. He had his part of it; let him pay. Host. He? alas! he is poor; he hath nothing. Fal. How! poor? look upon his face; what call you rich? let them coin his nose, let them coin his cheeks: I'll not pay a denier. What, will you make a younker of me? shall I not take mine ease in mine inn, but I shall have my pocket picked? I have lost a seal-ring of my grandfather's, worth forty mark, Host. O Jesu! I have heard the prince tell him, I know not how oft, that that ring was copper. Fal. How! the prince is a Jack, a sneak-cup: 'Sblood, an he were here, I would cudgel him like a dog, if he would say so. FALSTAFF Enter PRINCE HENRY and POINS, marching. Bard. Yea, two and two, Newgate-fashion. P. Hen. What sayest thou, mistress Quickly? How does thy husband? I love him well; he is an honest man. Host. Good my lord, hear me. Fal. Pr'ythee, let her alone, and list to me. Fal. The other night I fell asleep here, behind the arras, and had my pocket picked: this house is turned bawdy-house; they pick pockets. P. Hen. What didst thou lose, Jack? Fal. Wilt thou believe me, Hal? three or four bonds of forty pound a-piece, and a seal-ring of my grandfather's. P. Hen. A trifle, some eight-penny matter. Host. So I told him, my lord; and I said I heard your grace say so: and, my lord, he speaks most vilely of you, like a foul-mouthed man as he is; and said, he would cudgel you. P. Hen. What! he did not? Host. There's neither faith, truth, nor womanhood in me else. Fal. There's no more faith in thee than in a stewed prune; nor no more truth in thee, than in a drawn fox; and for womanhood, maid Marian may be the deputy's wife of the ward to thee. Go, you thing, go. Host. Say, what thing? what thing? Fal. What thing? why, a thing to thank God on. Host. I am no thing to thank God on, I would thou shouldst know it; I am an honest man's wife: and, setting thy knighthood aside, thou art a knave to call me so. Fal. Setting thy womanhood aside, thou art a beast to say otherwise. Host. Say, what beast, thou knave thou? P. Hen. An otter, Sir John! why an otter? Fal. Why? she's neither fish nor flesh; a man knows not where to have her. Host. Thou art an unjust man in saying so: thou or any man knows where to have me, thou knave thou! P. Hen. Thou sayest true, hostess; and he slanders thee most grossly. Host. So he doth you, my lord; and said this other day, you ought him a thousand pound. P. Hen. Sirrah! do I owe you a thousand pound? Fal. A thousand pound, Hal! a million: thy love is worth a million; thou owest me thy love. Host. Nay, my lord, he called you Jack, and said he would cudgel you. Fal. Did I, Bardolph? Bard. Indeed, Sir John, you said so. Fal. Yea,-if he said my ring was copper. P. Hen. I say, 'tis copper: darest thou be as good as thy word now? Fal. Why, Hal, thou knowest, as thou art but man, I dare: but as thou art prince, I fear thee, as I fear the roaring of the lion's whelp. P. Hen. And why not, as the lion? Fal. The king himself is to be feared as the lion: dost thou think, I'll fear thee as I fear thy father? nay, an I do, I pray God, my girdle break. P. Hen. O, if it should, how would thy guts fall about thy knees! But, sirrah, there's no room for faith, truth, nor honesty, in this bosom of thine,it is all filled up with guts and midriff. Charge an honest woman with picking thy pocket! Why, thou whoreson, impudent, embossed rascal, if there were any thing in thy pocket but tavern reckonings, memorandums of bawdy-houses, and one poor penny-worth of sugar-candy to make thee longwinded, if thy pocket were enriched with any other injuries but these, I am a villain: and yet you will stand to it; you will not pocket up wrong. Art thou not ashamed? Fal. Dost thou hear, Hal? thou knowest in the state of innocency, Adam fell; and what should poor Jack Falstaff do, in the days of villany? Thou seest, I have more flesh than another man; and therefore more frailty. You confess, then, you picked my pocket? P. Hen. It appears so by the story. Fal. Hostess, I forgive thee: go, make ready breakfast; love thy husband, look to thy servants, cherish thy guests: thou shalt find me tractable to any honest reason: thou seest, I am pacified.— Still?-Nay, pr'ythee, be gone. [Exit Hostess.] Now, Hal, to the news at court: for the robbery, lad, how is that answered? P. Hen. O, my sweet beef, I must still be good angel to thee:-the money is paid back again. Fal. O, I do not like that paying back; 'tis a double labour. P. Hen. I am good friends with my father, and may do any thing. Fal. Rob me the exchequer the first thing thou dost, and do it with unwashed hands too. P. Hen. Go bear this letter to lord John of LanTo my brother John; this to my lord of Westmoreland.[Exit BARDOLph. Go, Poins, to horse, to horse; for thou and I Have thirty miles to ride yet ere dinner time.[Exit POINS. Jack, meet me to-morrow in the Temple-hall At two o'clock in the afternoon: There shalt thou know thy charge; and there receive Money, and order for their furniture. The land is burning; Percy stands on high; And either they, or we, must lower lie. Fal. Rare words! brave world!-Hostess, my breakfast; come: [Exit. O, I could wish this tavern were my drum! [Exit. ACT IV. SCENE I.—The Rebel Camp near SHREWSBURY. Enter HOTSPUR, WORCESTER, and DOUGLAS. Hot. Well said, my noble Scot: if speaking truth In this fine age were not thought flattery, Such attribution should the Douglas have, As not a soldier of this season's stamp Should go so general current through the world. By heaven, I cannot flatter; I defy The tongues of soothers; but a braver place In my heart's love hath no man than yourself: Nay, task me to my word; approve me, lord. Doug. Thou art the king of honour: No man so potent breathes upon the ground, But I will beard him. Hot. Do so, and 'tis well.- What letters hast thou there?-[To DOUGLAS.] can but thank you. Mess. These letters come from your father. Hot. Letters from him! why comes he not himself? If that the devil and mischance look big Upon the maidenhead of our affairs. Wor. But yet, I would your father had been here. Of our proceedings, kept the earl from hence: Hot. You strain too far. II, rather, of his absence make this use:It lends a lustre, and more great opinion, A larger dare to our great enterprise, Than if the earl were here; for men must think, If we, without his help, can make a head To push against the kingdom, with his help, We shall o'erturn it topsy-turvy down.— Yet all goes well; yet all our joints are whole. Doug. As heart can think: there is not such a word Mess. He cannot come, my lord; he's grievous sick. Hot. 'Zounds! how has he the leisure to be sick, In such a justling time? Who leads his power? Under whose government come they along? Mess. His letters bear his mind, not I, my lord. Wor. I pr'ythee, tell me, doth he keep his bed? Mess. He did, my lord, four days ere I set forth; And at the time of my departure thence, He was much fear'd by his physicians. Wor. I would the state of time had first been Ere he by sickness had been visited: [whole, His health was never better worth than now. The very life-blood of our enterprise; That with our small conjunction we should on, :- Wor. Your father's sickness is a maim to us. Hot. A perilous gash, a very limb lopp'd off :And yet, in faith, 'tis not; his present want Seems more than we shall find it :-were it good, To set the exact wealth of all our states All at one cast? to set so rich a main On the nice hazard of one doubtful hour? It were not good; for therein should we read The very bottom and the soul of hope, The very list, the very utmost bound Of all our fortunes. Spoke of in Scotland as this term of fear. Enter SIR RICHARD VERNON. Hot. My cousin Vernon! welcome, by my soul. Ver. Pray God my news be worth a welcome, lord. The earl of Westmoreland, seven thousand strong, Is marching hitherwards; with him, prince John. Hot. No harm: what more? Ver. And farther, I have learn'd, The king himself in person is set forth, Or hitherwards intended speedily, With strong and mighty preparation. Hot. He shall be welcome too. The nimble-footed mad-cap prince of Wales, And his comrades, that daff'd the world aside, And bid it pass? Ver. Where is his son, All furnish'd, all in arms, And witch the world with noble horsemanship. This praise doth nourish agues. And yet not ours.-Come, let me taste my horse, SCENE II.-A public Road near COVENTRY. Enter FALSTAFF and BARDOLPH. Fal. Bardolph, get thee before to Coventry; fill me a bottle of sack: our soldiers shall march through; we'll to Sutton-Cophill to-night. Bard. Will you give me money, captain? Bard. This bottle makes an angel. Fal. An if it do, take it for thy labour; and if it make twenty, take them all; I'll answer the coinage. Bid my lieutenant Peto meet me at the town's end. [Exil. Bard. I will, captain: farewell. Fal. If I be not ashamed of my soldiers, I am a soused gurnet. I have misused the king's press damnably. I have got, in exchange of a hundred and fifty soldiers, three hundred and odd pounds. I press me none but good householders, yeomen's sons; enquire me out contracted bachelors, such as had been asked twice on the bans; such a commodity of warm slaves, as had as lief hear the devil as a drum; such as fear the report of a caliver, worse than a struck fowl, or a hurt wild-duck. I pressed me none but such toasts and butter, with hearts in their bellies no bigger than pins' heads, and they have bought out their services; and now my whole charge consists of ancients, corporals, lieutenants, gentlemen of companies, slaves as ragged as Lazarus in the painted cloth, where the glutton's dogs licked his sores; and such as, indeed, were never soldiers, but discarded unjust serving men, younger sons to younger brothers, revolted tapsters, and ostlers trade-fallen; the cankers of a calm world and a long peace; ten times more dishonourable ragged than an old faced ancient: and such have I, to fill up the rooms of them that have bought out their services, that you would think that I had a hundred and fifty tattered prodigals, lately come from swine-keeping, from eating draff and husks. A mad fellow met me on the way, and told me I had unloaded all the gibbets, and pressed the dead bodies. No eye hath seen such scarecrows. I'll not march through Coventry with them, that's flat:-nay, and the villains march wide betwixt the legs, as if they had gyves on; for, indeed, I had the most of them out of prison. There's but a shirt and a half in all my company; and the half shirt is two napkins tacked together, and thrown over the shoulders like a herald's coat without sleeves; and the shirt, to say the truth, stolen from my host at St Albans, or the red-nose inn-keeper of Daintry. But that's all one; they'll find linen enough on every hedge. Enter PRINCE HENRY and WESTMORELAND. P. Hen. How now, blown Jack! how now, quilt! Fal. What, Hal! How now, mad wag! what a devil dost thou in Warwickshire?-My good lord of Westmoreland, I cry you mercy: I thought your honour had already been at Shrewsbury. West. 'Faith, Sir John, 'tis more than time that I were there, and you too; but my powers are there already. The king, I can tell you, looks for us all: we must away all night. Fal. Tut, never fear me: I am as vigilant as a cat to steal cream. P. Hen. I think, to steal cream, indeed; for thy theft hath already made thee butter. But tell me, Jack, whose fellows are these that come after? Fal. Mine, Hal, mine. P. Hen. I did never see such pitiful rascals. Fal. Tut, tut! good enough to toss; food for powder, food for powder; they'll fill a pit as well as better: tush, man, mortal men, mortal men. West. Ay, but, Sir John, methinks they are exceeding poor and bare,-too beggarly. Fal. 'Faith, for their poverty, I know not where they had that; and for their bareness, I am sure, they never learned that of me. P. Hen. No, I'll be sworn; unless you call three fingers on the ribs, bare. But, sirrah, make haste: Percy is already in the field. Fal. What, is the king encamped? West. He is, Sir John: I fear we shall stay too long. Fal. Well, To the latter end of a fray, and the beginning of a feast, Fits a dull fighter, and a keen guest. [Exeunt. SCENE III.-The Rebel Camp near SHREWSBury. It may not be. Hot. His is certain, ours is doubtful. Wor. Good cousin, be advis'd; stir not to-night. Ver. Do not, my lord. Doug. You do not counsel well: I hold as little counsel with weak fear, Yea, or to-night. Hot. To-night, say I. Ver. Content. Come, come, it may not be. I wonder much, FIRST PART OF KING HENRY IV. Being men of such great leading as you are, Hot. So are the horses of the enemy Wor. The number of the king exceedeth ours: Enter SIR WALTER BLUNT. Blunt. I come with gracious offers from the king, If you vouchsafe me hearing and respect. Hot. Welcome, Sir Walter Blunt; and would to You were of our determination! Some of us love you well; and even those some Blunt. And God defend but still I should stand So, He bids you name your griefs; and with all speed, Hot. The king is kind; and well we know, the king Knows at what time to promise, when to pay. Made to my father, while his blood was poor, [ACT IV. That lie too heavy on the commonwealth; In short time after, he depos'd the king; Too indirect for long continuance. Blunt. Shall I return this answer to the king? 'Pray God you do! [Exeunt. SCENE IV.-YORK. A Room in the ARCHBISHOP'S Enter the ARCHBISHOP OF YORK and SIR MICHAEL. Arch. Hie, good Sir Michael; bear this sealed brief With winged haste to the lord marshal; I guess their tenor. Arch. Like enough, you do. I fear the power of Percy is too weak To wage an instant trial with the king. Sir M. Why, my good lord, you need not fear; Sir M. But there is Mordake, Vernon, lord Harry Percy, |