Host. There's neither faith, truth, nor woman. hood in me else.

not think thou hadst been an ignis fatuus, or a speaks most vilely of you, like a foul-mouthed ball of wildfire, there's no purchase in money. O, man as he is; and said he would cudgel you. thou art a perpetual triumph, an everlasting P. Hen. What! he did not? 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 Fal. There's no more faith in thee than in a sack that thou hast drunk me, would have bought stewed prune; nor no more truth in thee, than me lights as good cheap, at the dearest chand-in a drawn fox; and for womanhood, maid ler's in Europe. I have maintain'd that Sala- Marian may be the deputy's wife of the ward to mander of yours with fire, any time this two and thee. Go, you thing, go. thirty years; Heaven 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 in
quired 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 inquired, 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? I defy thee: I was never called so in mine own house before.

Fal. Go to, I know you well enough. Host. No, Sir John; you do not know me, Sir 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.

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 the ring was copper. Fal. How! the prince is a Jack, a sneak-cup; and, if he were here, I would cudgel him like a dog, if he would say so.

Enter Prince Henry and Poins, marching. Falstaff 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 thon, 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.

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 should'st 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 1, 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 fill'd 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 pocket were enriched with any other injuries sugar-candy to make thee long-winded; if thy 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 con fess 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 7 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

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, hel double labour.

Do so, and 'tis well-Yet all goes well, yet all our joints are whole. Doug. As heart can think: there is not such Enter a Messenger, with Letters. a word What letters hast thou there ?-I can but thank you.

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,

This praise doth nourish agues. Let them come;
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 cars in blood. I am on fire,
To hear this rich reprisal is so nigh,

And yet not ours:-Come, let me take my horse,
Who is to bear me, like a thunderbolt,
Against the bosom of the prince of Wales:
Harry to Harry shall, hot horse to horse,
Meet, and ne'er part, till one drop down a corse.
O, that Glendower were come !
Ver.

There is more news:
I learn'd in Worcester, as I rode along,
He cannot draw his power this fourteen days.
Doug. That's the worst tidings that I hear of
yet.

Wor. Ay, by my faith, that bears a frosty sound.
Hot. What may the king's whole battle reach
unto?

Ver. To thirty thousand.

Hot.

Forty let it be;
My father and Glendower being both away,
The powers of us may serve so great a day."
Come, let us make a muster speedily:
Doomsday is near; die all, die merrily.
Doug. Talk not of dying; I am out of fear
Of death, or death's hand, for this one half year.
[Exeunt.
SCENE II. A Publick 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-Colfield to-night.
Bard. Will you give me money, captain?
Fal. Lay out, lay out.

Bard. This boule 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.

Bard. I will, captain: farewell.

such scare-crows. I'll not march through Co-
ventry with them, that's flat :-Nay, and the vil
lains 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 nap-
kins, 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 Saint 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 to-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 learn'd 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,

[Erit. Fits a dull fighter, and a keen guest. [Exeunt. Ful. If I be not ashamed of my soldiers, I am SCENE III. The Rebel Camp near Shrews

bury.

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.

a souced 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: inquire 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
You do not counsel well;
painted cloth, where the glutton's dogs licked You speak it out of fear, and cold heart.
his sores; and such as, indeed, were never sol- Ver. Do me no slander, Douglas: by my life,
diers; but discarded unjust serving-men, younger (And I dare well maintain it with my life,)
sons to younger brothers, revolted tapsters, and If well-respected honour bid me on,
ostlers trade-fallen: the cankers of a calm world, I hold as little counsel with weak fear,
and a long peace; ten times more dishonourable As you, my lord, or any Scot that lives:
ragged than an old faced ancient: and such Let it be seen to-morrow in the battle,
have I, to fill up the rooms of them that have Which of us fears.
bought out their services, that you would think,
that I had a hundred and fifty tatter'd 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 bodics. No eye hath seen]

Doug.
Ver.

Yea, or to-night.
Hot. To-night, say I.

Ver.

Content.

Come, come, it may not be I wonder much, being men of such great lead. ing,

That you foresee not what impediments
Drag back our expedition: Certain horse
Of my cousin Vernon's are not yet come up:
Your uncle Worcester's horse came but to-day;
And now their pride and mettle is asleep,
Their courage with hard labour tame and dall,
That not a horse is half the half of himself.
Hot. So are the horses of the enemy
In general, journey-bated, and brought low;
The better part of ours is full of rest.
Wor. The number of the king exceedeth ours:
For God's sake, cousin, stay till all come in.
[The trumpet sounds a parley.
Enter Sir Walter Blunt.

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 Marco
(Who is, if every owner were well plac'd,
Indeed his king,) to be engag'd in Wales,
There without ransome to lie forfeited:
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

Blunt. I come with gracious offers from the Too indirect for long continuance.
king,

If you vouchsafe me hearing, and respect.
Hot. Welcome, Sir Walter Blunt; and 'woold
to God,

You were of our determination!

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

Blunt. Shall I retura this answer to the king
Hot. Not so, Sir Walter; We'll withdraw
awhile.

Go to the king; and let there be impawn'd
Some surety for a safe return again,
And in the morning early shall mine uncle
Bring him our purposes: and so farewell.
Blunt. I would you would accept of grace
and love.

Blunt. And God defend, but still I should Hot. And, may be, so we shall.

stand so,

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,-

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,
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 further; 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.-

Blunt.

'Pray heaven, you do! Exeun.

Gent. My good lord,
I guess their tenor.
Arch.
Like enough, you do
To-morrow, good Sir Michael, is a day,
Wherein the fortune of ten thousand men
Must "ide the touch: For, sir, at Shrewsbury,
As I am truly given to understand,

The king, with mighty and quick raised power,
Meets with Lord Harry: and I fear, Sir Mi
chael,-

What with the sickness of Northumberland,
(Whose power was in the first proportion,)"
And what with Owen Glendower's absence,
thence,

(Who with them was a rated sinew too,"
And comes not in, o'er-ruled by prophecies,)-
I fear, the power of Percy is too weak
To wage an instant trial with the king.
Gent. Why, good my lord, you need not fear;
there's Douglas,

And Lord Mortimer.
Arch.
No, Mortimer's not there.
Gent. But there is Mordake, Vernon, Lord
Harry Percy,

And there's my lord of Worcester; and a head
Of gallant warriors, noble gentlemen.

Arch. And so there is: but yet the king hath

drawn

The special head of all the land together:-
The prince of Wales, Lord John of Lancaster,
The noble Westmoreland, and warlike Blunt;'
And many more cor-rivals, and dear men
Of estimation and command in arms.

Gent. Doubt not, my lord, they shall be wel
oppos'd.

Arch. I hope no less, yet needful 'tis to fear;
And, to prevent the worst, Sir Michael, speed:
For, if Lord Percy thrive not, ere the king
Dismiss his power, he means to visit us,-
For he hath heard of our confederacy,-
And 'tis but wisdom to make strong against

him;