Are thrice themselves: hence therefore, thou nice* crutch; A scaly gauntlet now, with joints of steel,

Must glove this hand: and hence, thou sickly quoif,t

Thou art a guard too wanton for the head,

Which princes, flesh'd with conquest, aim to hit.
Now bind my brows with iron; and approach
The ragged'st hour that time and spite dare bring,
To frown upon the enraged Northumberland!
Let heaven kiss earth! Now let not nature's hand
Keep the wild flood confined! let order die !
And let this world no longer be a stage,
To feed contention in a lingering act;
But let one spirit of the first-born Cain
Reign in all bosoms, that, each heart being set
On bloody courses, the rude scene may end,

And darkness be the burier of the dead!

Tra. This strained passion doth you wrong, my lord.

Bard. Sweet earl, divorce not wisdom from your honour. Mor. The lives of all your loving complices

Lean on your health; the which, if you give o'er

To stormy passion, must perforce decay.

You cast the event of war, my noble lord,

And summ'd the account of chance, before you said,

Let us make head. It was your presurmise,

That in the dolet of blows your son might drop:
You knew, he walk'd o'er perils, on an edge,
More likely to fall in, than to get o'er:

You were advised, his flesh was capable

Of wounds, and scars; and that his forward spirits
Would lift him where most trade of danger ranged;
Yet did you say,-Go forth; and none of this,
Though strongly apprehended, could restrain
The stiff-borne action: What hath then befallen,
Or what hath this bold enterprise brought forth,
More than that being which was like

be?

Bard. 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 fear'd;
And, since we are o'erset, venture again.
Come, we will all put forth; body, and goods.

Mor. 'Tis more than time: And, my most noble lord,
I hear for certain, and do speak the truth,-

The gentle archbishop of York is up,
With well-appointed powers; § he is a man,
Who with a double surety binds his followers.
My lord your son had only but the corps,
But shadows, and the shows of men, to fight:
For that same word, rebellion, did divide
The action of their bodies from their souls;

* Trifling.

† Cap.

Distribution.

Forces.

And they did fight with queasiness,* constrain'd,
As men drink potions; that their weapons only
Seem'd on our side, but, for their spirits and souls,
This word, rebellion, it had froze them up,
As fish are in a pond: But now the bishop
Turns insurrection to religion:

Supposed sincere and holy in his thoughts,
He's follow'd 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 lesst do flock to follow him.

North. I knew of this before; but, to speak truth,
This present grief hath 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.

SCENE II.-London. A Street.

[Exeunt.

Enter SIR JOHN Falstaff, with his PAGE, bearing his Sword and Buckler.

Fal. 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.

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

*Against their stomachs. Gibe.

+ High and low.

+ Owned. A root supposed to have the shape of a man, A little figure cut in an agate.

almost out of mine, I can assure him. What said master Dumbleton about the satin for my short cloak, and slops ?

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

Fal. Let him be damned like a glutton! may his tongue be hotter!-A whoreson Achitophel! a rascally yea-forsooth knave! to bear a gentleman in hand,* and then stand upon security! -The whoreson smooth-pates do now wear nothing but high shoes, and bunches of keys at their girdles; and if a man is thorough 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 look'd 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 into Smithfield, to buy your worship a horse. Fal. I bought him in Paul's, and he'll buy me a horse in Smithfield an I could get me but a wife in the stews, I were manned, horsed, and wived.‡

Enter the LORD CHIEF JUSTICE and an ATTENDANT.

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

Fal. Wait close, I will not see him.

Ch. Just. What's he that goes there?

Atten. Falstaff, an't please your lordship.

Ch. Just. He that was in question for the robbery?

Atten. 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.

Ch. Just. What, to York? Call him back again.
Atten. Sir John Falstaff!

Fal. Boy, tell him, I am deaf.

Page. You must speak louder, my master is deaf.

Ch. Just. I am sure, he is, to the hearing of anything good.Go, pluck him by the elbow; I must speak with him. Atten. Sir John,

Fal. What! a young knave, and beg! 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. Atten. You mistake me, Sir.

Fal. 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.

Keep him in expectation.

+ In their debt.

Alluding to an old proverb: Who goes to Westminster for a wife, to St. Paul's for a man, and to Smithfield for a horse, may meet with a whore, a knave, and a jade.

Atten. 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.

Fal. I give thee leave to tell me so! I lay aside that which grows to me! If thou get'st any leave of me, hang me; if thou takest leave, thou wert better be hang'd: You hunt-counter,* hence! avaunt!

Atten. Sir, my lord would speak with you.

Ch. Just. Sir John Falstaff, a word with you.

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

Ch. Just. Sir John, I sent for you before your expedition to Shrewsbury.

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

Ch. Just. I talk not of his majesty:-You would not come when I sent for you.

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

Ch. Just. Well, heaven mend him! I pray let me speak with

you.

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

Ch. Just. What tell you me of it? be it as it is.

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

Ch. Just. think, you are fallen into the disease; for you hear not what I say to you.

Fal. 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.

Ch. Just. To punish you by the heels, would amend the attention of your ears; and I care not, if I do become your physician. Fal. 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.

Ch. Just. I sent for you, when there were matters against you for your life, to come speak with me.

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

Ch. Just. Well, the truth is, Sir John, you live in great infamy. Fal. He that buckles him in my belt, cannot live in less.

* A catchpole.

Ch. Just. Your means are very slender, and your waste is great. Fal. I would it were otherwise; I would my means were greater, and my waist slenderer.

Ch. Just. You have misled the youthful prince.

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

Ch. Just. 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 Gads-hill: you may thank the unquiet time for your quiet o'er-posting that action.

Fal. My lord?

Ch. Just. But since all is well, keep it so: wake not a sleeping wolf.

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

Ch. Just. What! you are as a candle, the better part burnt out.

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

Ch. Just. There is not a white hair on your face, but should have his effect of gravity.

Fal. His effect of gravy, gravy, gravy.

Ch. Just. You follow the young prince up and down, like his ill angel.

Fal. Not so, my lord; your ill angelt is light; but, I hope, he that looks upon me, will take me without weighing: and yet, in some respects, I grant, I cannot go, I cannot tell: Virtue is of so little regard in these costermonger times, that true valour is turned bear-herd: Pregnancy § is made a tapster, and hath his quick wit wasted in giving reckonings: all the other gifts appertinent to man, as the malice of this age shapes them, are not worth a gooseberry. You, that are old, consider not the capacities of us that are young: you 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.

Ch. Just. 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 ?T and every part about you blasted with antiquity? and will you yet call yourself young? Fie, fie, fie, Sir John!

Fal. 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 hollaing, 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 o' the ear that the prince gave you,-he gave it like a rude prince, and you took it like a sensible ford. I have checked him for it; and the young lion repents:

* A large candle for a feast.

Pass current.

§ Readiness.

+ The coin called an angel. Vanguard. Small.