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Bard. Away, you rogue!

Host. By my troth, he'll yield the crow a pudding one of these days: the king has killed his heart. Good husband, come home presently.

[Exeunt Hostess and Boy. Bard. Come, shall I make you two friends? We must to France together: why, the devil, should we keep knives to cut one another's throats?

'Pist. Let floods o'erswell, and fiends for food howl on!

Nym. You'll pay me the eight shillings I won of you at betting?

Pist. Base is the slave that pays.

Nym. That now I will have: that's the humour of it.

Pist. As manhood shall compound: push home. [They draw. Bard. By this sword, he that makes the first thrust, I'll kill him; by this sword, I will.

Pist. Sword is an oath, and oaths must have their

course.

Bard. Corporal Nym, an thou wilt be friends, be friends: an thou wilt not, why, then, be enemies with me too. Pr'ythee, put up.

Nym. I shall have my eight shillings, I won of you at betting?

Pist. A noble shalt thou have, and present pay; And liquor likewise will I give to thee,

And friendship shall combine, and brotherhood:
I'll live by Nym, and Nym shall live by me;-
Is not this just?-for I shall sutler be
Unto the camp, and profits will accrue.
Give me thy hand.

Nym. I shall have my noble?
Pist. In cash most justly paid.

Nym. Well then, that's the humour of it.

Re-enter Hostess.

Host. As ever you came of women, come in quickly to Sir John. Ah, poor heart! he is so shaked of a burning quotidian tertian, that it is most lamentable to behold. Sweet men, come to him. Nym. The king hath run bad humours on the knight, that's the even of it.

Pist. Nym, thou hast spoke the right; His heart is fracted, and corroborate.

Nym. The king is a good king: but it must be as it may; he passes some humours, and careers. Pist. Let us condole the knight; for, lambkins we will live. [Exeunt.

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As if allegiance in their bosoms sat,
Crowned with faith, and constant loyalty.
Bed. The king hath note of all that they intend,
By interception which they dream not of.

Exe. Nay, but the man that was his bedfellow, Whom he hath dull'd and cloy'd with gracious favours,

That he should, for a foreign purse, so sell
His sovereign's life to death and treachery!

Trumpets sound. Enter KING HENRY, SCROOP, CAMBRIDGE, GREY, Lords, and Attendants.

K. Hen. Now sits the wind fair, and we will aboard.

My lord of Cambridge,—and my kind lord of Masham,

And you, my gentle knight,-give me your thoughts: Think you not, that the powers we bear with us Will cut their passage through the force of France, Doing the execution, and the act,

For which we have in head assembled them?

Scroop. No doubt, my liege, if each man do his

best.

K. Hen. I doubt not that; since we are well persuaded,

We carry not a heart with us from hence,
That grows not in a fair consent with ours;
Nor leave not one behind, that doth not wish
Success and conquest to attend on us.

Cam. Never was monarch better fear'd, and lov'd, Than is your majesty: there's not, I think, a subject, That sits in heart-grief and uneasiness

Under the sweet shade of your government.

Grey. True: those that were your father's enemies, Have steep'd their galls in honey, and do serve you With hearts create of duty and of zeal.

K. Hen. We therefore have great cause of thank. fulness;

And shall forget the office of our hand,
Sooner than quittance of desert and merit,
According to the weight and worthiness.

Scroop. So service shall with steclèd sinews toil,
And labour shall refresh itself with hope,'
To do your grace incessant services.

K. Hen. We judge no less.-Uncle of Exeter,
Enlarge the man committed yesterday,
That rail'd against our person: we consider
It was excess of wine that set him on;
And, on his more advice, we pardon him.

Scroop. That's mercy, but too much security:
Let him be punish'd, sovereign; lest example
Breed, by his sufferance, more of such a kind.
K. Hen. O, let us yet be merciful.

Cam. So may your highness, and yet punish too.
Grey. Sir, you show great mercy, if you give him

life,

After the taste of much correction.

K. Hen. Alas, your too much love and care of me Are heavy orisons 'gainst this wretch! poor If little faults, proceeding on distemper, Shall not be wink'd at, how shall we stretch our eye When capital crimes, chew'd, swallow'd, and digested, Appear before us?-We'll yet enlarge that man, Though Cambridge, Scroop, and Grey, in their dear

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That hath so cowarded and chas'd your blood Out of appearance?

my

Cam.
I do confess fault;
And do submit me to your highness' mercy.
Grey. Scroop. To which we all appeal.

K. Hen. The mercy that was quick in us but late,
By your own counsel is suppress'd and kill'd:
You must not dare, for shame, to talk of mercy;
For your own reasons turn into your bosoms,
As dogs upon their masters, worrying you.-
See you, my princes, and my noble peers,
These English monsters! My lord of Cambridge
here,-

You know how apt our love was to accord
To furnish him with all appertinents
Belonging to his honour; and this man
Hath, for a few light crowns, lightly conspir'd,
And sworn unto the practices of France,
To kill us here in Hampton: to the which,
This knight, no less for bounty bound to us
Than Cambridge is, hath likewise sworn.--But O!
What shall I say to thee, lord Scroop? thou cruel,
Ingrateful, savage, and inhuman creature!
Thou that didst bear the key of all my counsels,
That knew'st the very bottom of my soul,
That almost mightst have coin'd me into gold,-
Wouldst thou have practis'd on me for thy use,—
May it be possible, that foreign hire

Could out of thee extract one spark of evil,
That might annoy my finger? 'tis so strange,
That, though the truth of it stands off as gross
As black from white, my eye will scarcely see it.
Treason and murder ever kept together,
As two yoke-devils sworn to either's purpose,
Working so grossly in a natural cause,
That admiration did not whoop at them:
But thou, 'gainst all proportion, didst bring in
Wonder to wait on treason and on murder:
And whatsoever cunning fiend it was,
That wrought upon thee so preposterously,
Hath got the voice in hell for excellence:
And other devils, that suggest by treasons,
Do botch and bungle up damnation

With patches, colours, and with forms, being fetch'd
From glistering semblances of piety;

But he that temper'd thee bade thee stand up,
Gave thee no instance why thou shouldst do treason,
Unless to dub thee with the name of traitor.
If that same demon, that hath gull'd thee thus,
Should with his lion gait walk the whole world,
He might return to vasty Tartar back,
And tell the legions,-"I can never win

A soul so easy as that Englishman's."
O, how hast thou with jealousy infected
The sweetness of affiance! Show men dutiful?
Why, so didst thou: seem they grave and learned?
Why, so didst thou: come they of noble family?
Why, so didst thou: seem they religious?
Why, so didst thou: or are they spare in diet;
Free from gross passion, or of mirth or anger;
Constant in spirit, not swerving with the blood;
Garnish'd and deck'd in modest complement;
Not working with the eye without the ear,
And but in purged judgment trusting neither?
Such, and so finely bolted, didst thou seem:
And thus thy fall hath left a kind of blot,
To mark the full-fraught man, and best indu'd,
With some suspicion. I will weep for thee;
For this revolt of thine, methinks, is like
Another fall of man.-Their faults are open:
Arrest them to the answer of the law;-
And God acquit them of their practices!

Exe. I arrest thee of high treason, by the name of Richard earl of Cambridge.

I arrest thee of high treason, by the name of Henry lord Scroop of Masham.

I arrest thee of high treason, by the name of Thomas Grey, knight, of Northumberland.

Scroop. Our purposes God justly hath discover'd; And I repent my fault more than my death; Which I beseech your highness to forgive, Although my body pay the price of it.

Cam. For me, the gold of France did not seduce; Although I did admit it as a motive, The sooner to effect what I intended: But God be thanked for prevention; Which I in sufferance heartily will rejoice, Beseeching God and you to pardon me.

Grey. Never did faithful subject more rejoice
At the discovery of most dangerous treason,
Than I do at this hour joy o'er myself;
Prevented from a damnèd enterprise:

My fault, but not my body, pardon, sovereign.
K. Hen. God quit you in his mercy! Hear your

sentence.

You have conspir'd against our royal person,
Join'd with an enemy proclaim'd, and from his coffers
Receiv'd the golden earnest of.our death;
Wherein you would have sold your king to slaughter,
His princes and his peers to servitude,
His subjects to oppression and contempt,
And his whole kingdom into desolation.
Touching our person, seek we no revenge;
But we our kingdom's safety must so tender,
Whose ruin you have sought, that to her laws
We do deliver you. Get you therefore hence,
Poor miserable wretches, to your death:
The taste whereof, God, of his mercy, give you
Patience to endure, and true repentance
Of all your dear offences!--Bear them hence.
[Exeunt Conspirators, guarded.
Now, lords, for France; the enterprise whereof
Shall be to you, as us, like glorious.
We doubt not of a fair and lucky war:
Since God so graciously hath brought to light
This dangerous treason, lurking in our way
To hinder our beginnings, we doubt not now
But every rub is smoothed on our way.
Then, forth, dear countrymen: let us deliver
Our puissance into the hand of God,
Putting it straight in expedition.

Cheerly to sea; the signs of war advance: No king of England, if not king of France.

[Exeunt.

SCENE III.-LONDON. The Boar's Head Tavern in Eastcheap.

Enter PISTOL, Hostess, NYM, BARDOLPH, and Boy. Host. Pr'ythee, honey-sweet husband, let me bring thee to Staines.

Pist. No; for my manly heart doth yearn.Bardolph, be blithe; Nym, rouse thy vaunting veins; Boy, bristle thy courage up; for Falstaff he is dead, And we must yearn therefore.

Bard. 'Would I were with him, wheresome'er he is, either in heaven or in hell!

Host. Nay, sure, he's not in hell: he's in Arthur's bosom, if ever man went to Arthur's bosom. 'A made a finer end, and went away, an it had been any christom child; 'a parted even just between twelve and one, even at the turning o' the tide: for after I saw him fumble with the sheets, and play with flowers, and smile upon his fingers' ends, I knew there was but one way; for his nose was as sharp as a pen, and 'a babbled of green fields. "How now, Sir John!" quoth I: "what, man! be of good cheer." So 'a cried out-"God, God, God!" three or four times. Now I, to comfort him, bid him, 'a should not think of God; I hoped, there was no need to trouble himself with any such thoughts yet. So, 'a bade me lay more clothes on his feet: I put my hand into the bed, and felt them, and they were as cold as any stone; then I felt to his knees, and so upward, and upward, and all was as cold as any stone.

Nym. They say, he cried out of sack.

Host. Ay, that 'a did.

Bard. And of women.

Host. Nay, that 'a did not.

Boy. Yes, that 'a did; and said, they were devils incarnate.

Host. 'A could never abide carnation; 'twas a colour he never liked.

Boy. 'A said once, the devil would have him about

women.

Host. 'A did in some sort, indeed, handle women; but then he was rheumatic, and talked of the whore of Babylon.

Boy. Do you not remember, 'a saw a flea stick upon Bardolph's nose, and 'a said it was a black soul burning in hell?

Bard. Well, the fuel is gone that maintained that fire: that's all the riches I got in his service.

Nym. Shall we shog? the king will be gone from Southampton.

Pist. Come, let's away.-My love, give me thy lips. Look to my chattels, and my movables:

Let senses rule; the word is, "Pitch and pay;"
Trust none;

For oaths are straws, men's faiths are wafer-cakes,
And hold-fast is the only dog, my duck:
Therefore, caveto be thy counsellor.

Go, clear thy crystals.-Yoke-fellows in arms,
Let us to France; like horse-leeches, my boys,
To suck, to suck, the very blood to suck!

Boy. And that is but unwholesome food, they say.
Pist. Touch her soft mouth, and march.
Bard. [Kissing her.] Farewell, hostess.

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And more than carefully it us concerns,

To answer royally in our defences.
Therefore the dukes of Berry, and of Bretagne,
Of Brabant, and of Orleans, shall make forth,-
And you, prince Dauphin,-with all swift despatch,
To line and new repair our towns of war,
With men of courage, and with means defendant;
For England his approaches makes as fierce,
As waters to the sucking of a gulf.
It fits us, then, to be as provident
As fear may teach us, out of late examples
Left by the fatal and neglected English
Upon our fields.

Dau.

My most redoubted father,

It is most meet we arm us 'gainst the foe; For peace itself should not so dull a kingdom, (Though war, nor no known quarrel, were in ques

tion,)

But that defences, musters, preparations,
Should be maintain'd, assembled, and collected,
As were a war in expectation.

Therefore, I say, 'tis meet we all go forth,

To view the sick and feeble parts of France:

And let us do it with no show of fear;

No, with no more, than if we heard that England
Were busied with a Whitsun morris dance:

For, my good liege, she is so idly king'd,
Her sceptre so fantastically borne

By a vain, giddy, shallow, humorous youth,
That fear attends her not.

Con.

O peace, prince Dauphin! You are too much mistaken in this king: Question your grace the late embassadors,— With what great state he heard their embassy, How well supplied with noble counsellors, How modest in exception, and, withal, How terrible in constant resolution,— And you shall find, his vanities forespent Were but the outside of the Roman Brutus, Covering discretion with a coat of folly; As gardeners do with ordure hide those roots That shall first spring, and be most delicate.

Dau. Well, 'tis not so, my lord high constable; But though we think it so, it is no matter; In cases of defence, 'tis best to weigh The enemy more mighty than he seems: So the proportions of defence are fill'd; Which, of a weak and niggardly projection, Doth, like a miser, spoil his coat with scanting A little cloth.

Fr. King. Think we king Harry strong; And, princes, look you strongly arm to meet him. The kindred of him hath been flesh'd upon us; And he is bred out of that bloody strain, That haunted ús in our familiar paths: Witness our too much memorable shame,

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