This gallant Hotspur, this all-praised knight,
And your unthought-of Harry, chance to meet.
For every honour sitting on his helm,
'Would they were multitudes, and on my head
My shames redoubled! for the time will come,
That I shall make this northern youth exchange
His glorious deeds for my indignities.
Percy is but my factor, good my lord,
To engross up glorious deeds on my behalf;
And I will call him to so strict account,
That he shall render every glory up,

Yea, even the slightest worship of his time,
Or I will tear the reckoning from his heart.
This, in the name of God, I promise here:
The which, if he be pleas'd, I shall perform,
I do beseech your majesty, may salve
The long-grown wounds of my intemperance:
If not, the end of life cancels all bands;
And I will die a hundred thousand deaths,
Ere break the smallest parcel of this vow.

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.
Blunt. So hath the business that I come to speak of.
Lord Mortimer of Scotland hath sent word,
That Douglas and the English rebels met,
The eleventh of this month, at Shrewsbury:

A mighty and a fearful head they are,
(If promises be kept on every hand,)

As ever offer'd foul play in a state.

K. Hen. The earl of Westmoreland set forth to-day;
With him my son, lord John of Lancaster;
For this advertisement is five days old:-

On Wednesday next, Harry, you shall set forward;
On Thursday we ourselves will march:
Our meeting is Bridgnorth? and, Harry, you
Shall march through Glostershire; by which account,
Our business valued, some twelve days hence
Our general forces at Bridgnorth shall meet.
Our hands are full of business: let's away;
Advantage feeds him fat, while men delay. [Exeunt.

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.
meets the PRINCE, playing on his truncheon like a fife.
Fal. How now, lad! is the wind in that door, i'
faith? must we all march?

Bard. Yea, two and two, Newgate-fashion.
Host. My lord, I pray you, hear me.

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.
P. Hen. What sayest thou, Jack?

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?
Fal. What beast? why an otter.

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.-
Enter a Messenger, with letters.

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.
The quality and hair of our attempt
Brooks no division: it will be thought
By some, that know not why he is away,
That wisdom, loyalty, and mere dislike

Of our proceedings, kept the earl from hence:
And think, how such an apprehension
May turn the tide of fearful faction,
And breed a kind of question in our cause;
For, well you know, we of the offering side
Must keep aloof from strict arbitrement,
And stop all sight-holes, every loop from whence
The eye of reason may pry in upon us:
This absence of your father's, draws a curtain,
That shows the ignorant a kind of fear
Before not dreamt of.

Hot.

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.
Hot. Sick now! droop now! this sickness doth
infect

The very life-blood of our enterprise;
'Tis catching hither, even to our camp.-
He writes me here, that inward sickness,-
And that his friends by deputation could not
So soon be drawn; nor did he think it meet
To lay so dangerous and dear a trust
On any soul remov'd, but on his own.
Yet doth he give us bold advertisement,

That with our small conjunction we should on,
To see how fortune is dispos'd to us;
For, as he writes, there is no quailing now,
Because the king is certainly possess'd
Of all our purposes. What say you to it?

:-

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,
All plum'd like estridges, (that with the wind
Bated, like eagles having lately bath'd ;)
Glittering in golden coats, like images;
As full of spirit as the month of May,
And gorgeous as the sun at midsummer;
Wanton as youthful goats, wild as young bulls.
I saw young Harry, with his beaver on,
His cuisses on his thighs, gallantly arm'd,-
Rise from the ground like feather'd Mercury,
And vaulted with such ease into his seat,
As if an angel dropp'd down from the clouds,
To turn and wind a fiery Pegasus,

And witch the world with noble horsemanship.
Hot. No more, no more: worse than the sun in
March,
Let them come;

This praise doth nourish agues.
They come like sacrifices in their trim,
And to the fire-ey'd maid of smoky war,
All hot and bleeding, will we offer them:
The mailed Mars shall on his altar sit,
Up to the ears in blood. I am on fire,
To hear this rich reprisal is so nigh,

And yet not ours.-Come, let me taste my horse,

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?
Fal. Lay out, lay out.

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.
Enter HOTSPUR, Worcester, Douglas, and VERNON.
Hot. We'll fight with him to-night.
Wor.

It may not be.
Doug. You give him, then, advantage.
Ver.
Not a whit.
Hot. Why say you so? looks he not for supply?
Ver. So do we.

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:
You speak it out of fear, and cold heart.
Ver. Do me no slander, Douglas: by my life,
(And I dare well maintain it with my life,)
If well-respected honour bid me on,

I hold as little counsel with weak fear,
As you, my lord, or any Scot that lives:-
Let it be seen to-morrow in the battle,
Which of us fears.
Doug.
Ver.

Yea, or to-night.

Hot. To-night, say I. Ver.

Content.

Come, come, it may not be.

I wonder much,

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
God

You were of our determination!

Some of us love you well; and even those some
Envy your great deservings, and good name,
Because you are not of our quality,
But stand against us like an enemy.

Blunt. And God defend but still I should stand
So long as out of limit and true rule,
You stand against anointed majesty!
But, to my charge.--The king hath sent to know
The nature of your griefs; and whereupon
You conjure from the breast of civil peace
Such bold hostility, teaching his duteous land
Audacious cruelty. If that the king
Have any way your good deserts forgot,—
Which he confesseth to be manifold,-

So,

He bids you name your griefs; and with all speed,
You shall have your desires with interest,
And pardon absolute for yourself, and these,
Herein misled by your suggestion.

Hot. The king is kind; and well we know, the king

Knows at what time to promise, when to pay.
My father, and my uncle, and myself,
Did give him that same royalty he wears;
And when he was not six-and-twenty strong,
Sick in the world's regard, wretched and low,
A poor unminded outlaw sneaking home,
My father gave him welcome to the shore;
And when he heard him swear, and vow to God,
He came but to be duke of Lancaster,
To sue his livery and beg his peace,
With tears of innocency and terms of zeal,-
My father, in kind heart and pity mov'd,
Swore him assistance, and perform'd it too.
Now, when the lords and barons of the realm
Perceiv'd Northumberland did lean to him,
The more and less came in with cap and knee;
Met him in boroughs, cities, villages,
Attended him on bridges, stood in lanes,
Laid gifts before him, proffer'd him their oaths,
Gave him their heirs as pages; follow'd him,
Even at the heels, in golden multitudes.
He presently, as greatness knows itself,
Steps me a little higher than his vow

Made to my father, while his blood was poor,
Upon the naked shore at Ravenspurg;
And now, forsooth, takes on him to reform
Some certain edicts, and some strait decrees,

[ACT IV.

That lie too heavy on the commonwealth;
Cries out upon abuses, seems to weep
Over his country's wrongs; and by this face,
This seeming brow of justice, did he win
The hearts of all that he did angle for:
Proceeded farther; cut me off the heads
Of all the favourites, that the absent king
In deputation left behind him here,
When he was personal in the Irish war.
Blunt. Tut! I came not to hear this.
Hot.
Then, to the point.

In short time after, he depos'd the king;
Soon after that, depriv'd him of his life;
And, in the neck of that, task'd the whole state:
To make that worse, suffer'd his kinsman March
(Who is, if every owner were well plac'd,
There without ransom to lie forfeited;
Indeed his king) to be engag'd in Wales,
Disgrac'd me in my happy victories;
Sought to entrap me by intelligence;
Rated my uncle from the council-board;
In rage dismiss'd my father from the court;
Broke oath on oath, committed wrong on wrong;
And, in conclusion, drove us to seek out
This head of safety; and withal to pry
Into his title, the which we find

Too indirect for long continuance.

Blunt. Shall I return this answer to the king?
Hot. Not so, Sir Walter: we 'll withdraw a while.
Go to the king; and let there be impawn'd
Some surety for a safe return again,
And in the morning early shall my uncle
Bring him our purposes: and so farewell.
Blunt. I would you would accept of grace and love.
Hot. And, may be, so we shall.
Blunt.

'Pray God you do! [Exeunt.

Arch.

Percy,