North

Is prisoner to your son: O, such a day,
So fought, so follow'd, and so fairly won,
Came not, till now, to dignify the times,
Since Cæsar's fortunes!

North.

How is this deriv'd?
Saw you the field? came you from Shrewsbury?
Bard. I spake with one, my lord, that caine
from thence;

A gentleman well bred, and of good name,
That freely render'd me these news for true.
North. Here comes my servant, Travers, whom
I sent

On Tuesday last to listen after news.

Bard. My lord, I over-rode him on the way;
And he is furnish'd with no certainties,
More than he haply may retail from me.
Enter Travers.

North. Now, Travers, what good tidings come
with you?

Tra. My lord, Sir John Umfreville turn'd me
back

With joyful tidings; and being better hors'd,
Outrode me. After him, came, spurring hard,
A gentleman almost forspent with speed,
That stopp'd by me to breathe his bloodied
horse:

He ask'd the way to Chester; and of him
I did demand, what news from Shrewsbury.
He told me, that rebellion had bad luck,
And that young Harry Percy's spur was cold;
With that, he gave his able horse the head,
And, bending forward, struck his armed heels
Against the panting sides of his poor jade
Up to the rowel-head; and, starting so,
He seem'd in running to devour the way,
Staying no longer question.

Why, he is dead.

See, what a ready tongue suspicion hath!
He, that but fears the thing he would not know
Hath, by instinct, knowledge from others' eyes,
That what he fear'd is chanc'd. Yet speak,
Morton ;

Tell thou thy earl, his divination lies;
And I will take it as a sweet disgrace,
And make thee rich for doing me such wrong.
Mor. You are too great to be by me gainsaid:
Your spirit is too true, your fears too certain.
North. Yet, for all this, say not that Percy's
dead.

I see a strange confession in thine eye:
Thou shak'st thy head, and hold'st it fear, or sin,
To speak a truth. If he be slain, say so:
The tongue offends not, that reports his death:
And he doth sin, that doth belie the dead;
Not he, which says the dead is not alive.
Yet the first bringer of unwelcome news,
Hath but a losing office; and his tongue
Sounds ever after as a sullen bell,
Remember'd knolling a departing friend.
Bard. I cannot think, my lord, your son is
dead.

Mor. I am sorry, I should force you to believe
That, which I would to heaven I had not seen:
But these mine eyes saw him in bloody state,
Rend'ring faint quittance, wearied and out-
breath'd,

To Harry Monmouth: whose swift wrath beat
down

The never daunted Percy to the earth,
From whence with life he never more sprung up.
In few, his death, (whose spirit lent a fire
Even to the dullest peasant in his camp,)-
Being bruited once, took fire and heat away
From the best temper'd courage in his troops:
For from his metal was his party steel'd;
Which once in him abated, all the rest
Turn'd on themselves, like dull and heavy lead.
what;-And as the thing that's heavy in itself,

North
Ha-Again.
Said he, young Harry Percy's spur was cold?
Of Botspur, coldspur ? that rebellion
Had met ill luck ?
Bard.
My lord, I'll tell you
If my young lord your son have not the day,
Upon mine honour, for a silken point
I'll give my barony: never talk of it.
North. Why should the gentleman, that rode
by Travers,

Give then such instances of loss?
- Bard.
Who, he?
He was some hilding fellow, that had stol'n
The horse he rode on; and, upon my life,
Spoke at a venture. Look, here comes more

news.

Enter Morton.

North. Yea, this man's brow, like to a title-leaf,
Foretells the nature of a tragick volume:
So looks the strond, whereon the imperious flood
Hath left a witness'd usurpation,-
Say, Morton, didst thou come from Shrewsbury?
Mor. I ran from Shrewsbury, my noble lord;
Where hateful death put on his ugliest mask,
To fright our party.

North. How doth my son, and brother?
Thou tremblest; and the whiteness in thy cheek
Is apter than thy tongue to tell thy errand.
Even such a man, so faint, so spiritless,
So dull, so dead in look, so wo-begone,
Drew Priam's curtain in the dead of night,
And would have told him, half his Troy was
burn'd:

But Priam found the fire, ere he his tongue,
And I my Percy's death, ere thou report'st it.
This thou would'st say,-Your son did thus, and
thus:

Your brother, thus; so fought the noble Douglas;
Stopping my greedy ear with their bold deeds:
But in the end, to stop mine ear indeed,
Thou hast a sigh to blow away this praise,
Ending with-brother, son, and all, are dead.
Mor. Douglas is living, and your brother yet:
But, for my lord your son-

Upon enforcement flies with greatest speed;
So did our men, heavy in Hotspur's loss,
Lend to this weight such lightness with their
fear,

That arrows fled not swifter toward their aim,
Than did our soldiers, aiming at their safety,
Fly from the field: Then was that noble Wor-

cester

In poison there is physick; and these news Having been well, that would have made me sick,

Being sick, have in some measure made me
well:

And as the wretch, whose fever-weaken'd joints,
Like strengthless hinges, buckle under life,
Impatient of his fit, breaks like a fire
Out of his keeper's arms; even so my limbs,
Weaken'd with grief, being now enrag'd with
grief,

Are thrice themselves: hence therefore, thon
nice crutch;

A scaly gauntlet now, with joints of steel,
Must glove this hand: and hence, thou sickly

quoif;

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 enrag'd Northumberland!
Let heaven kiss earth! Now let not nature's
hand

Keep the wild flood confin'd! 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

Get posts, and letters, and make friends with Ch. Just. What, to York? Call him back speed;

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

Ch. Just. I am sure he is, to the hearing of
any thing 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. Atten. I pray you, sir, then set your knight hood 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 hanged; You hunt counter, hence avaunt!

Ch. Just. Your means are very slencer, 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 bath a little gilded over your night's exploit on Gad'shill: you may thank the unquiet time for your quiet o'erposting 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.

Atten. Sir, my lord would speak with you. Ch. Just. Sir John Falstaff, a word with you. Fal. Not so, my lord; your ill angel is light; Fal. My good lord!-God give your lordship but, I hope, he that looks upon me, will take me good time of day. I am glad to see your lord without weighing: and yet, in some respects, I ship abroad: I heard say, your lordship was grant, I cannot go, I cannot tell: Virtue is of sick: I hope, your lordship goes abroad by ad- so little regard in these coster-monger times, vice. Your lordship, though not clean past your that true valour is turned bear-herd: Pregnancy youth, hath yet some smack of age in you, some is made a tapster, and hath his quick wit wasted relish of the saltness of time; and I most humbly in giving reckonings: all the other gifts apperbeseech 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. I 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 mprisonment 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

tinent 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? 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 lord. 1 have checked him for it; and the young lion repents; marry, not in ashes, and sackcloth: but in new silk and old sack.

Ch. Just. Well, heaven send the prince a better companion!

Fal. Heaven send the companion a better prince! I cannot rid my hands of him. Ch. Just. Well, the king hath severed you and Prince Harry: I hear, you are going with lon! John of Lancaster, against the archbishop, and the earl of Northumberland.

Fal. Yea; I thank your pretty sweet wit for it. But look you pray, all you that kiss my lady peace at home, that our armies join not in a hot day! for, by the Lord, I take but two shirts out with me, and I mean not to sweat extraordinarily: if it be a hot day, an I brandish any thing but my bottle, I would I might never spit white again. There is not a dangerous a

tion can peep out his head, but I am thrust upon | Much smaller than the smallest of his thoughts: it: Well, I cannot last, ever: But it was always And so, with great imagination, yet the trick of our English nation, if they have Proper to madmen, led his powers to death, a good thing, to make it too common If you And, winking, leap'd into destruction. will needs say, I am an old man, you should give Hast. But, by your leave, it never yet did hurt, me rest. I would to God, my naine were not so To lay down likelihoods, and forms of hope. terrible to the enemy as it is. I were better to Bard. Yes, in this present quality of war;be eaten to death with rust, than to be scoured Indeed the instant action, (a cause on foot,) to nothing with perpetual motion. Lives so in hope, as in an early spring We see the appearing buds; which to prove fruit,

Ch. Just. Well, be honest, be honest: And God bless your expedition!

Fal. Will your lordship lend me a thousand pound to furnish me forth?

Ch. Just. Not a penny, not a penny; you are too impatient to bear crosses. Fare you well: Commend me to my cousin Westmoreland.

[Exeunt Chief Justice and Attendant.
Fal. If I'do, fillip me with a three-man beetle.
-A man can no more separate age and cove-
tousness, than he can part young limbs and
lechery: but the gout galls the one, and the
pox pinches the other; and so both the degrees
prevent my curses.-Boy!
Page. Sir?

Fal. What money is in my purse?
Page. Seven groats and two-pence.

Hope gives not so much warrant as despair, That Trost will bite them. When we mean to build,

We first survey the plot, then draw the model, And when we see the figure of the house, Then must we rate the cost of the erection.: Which if we find outweighs ability, What do we then, but draw anew the model In fewer offices; or, at least, desist To build at all? Much more, in this great work, (Which is, almost, to pluck a kingdom down, And set another up,) should we survey The plot of situation, and the model; Consent upon a sure foundation; Question surveyors; know our own estate, Fal. I can get no remedy against this con- How able such a work to undergo, sumption of the purse: borrowing only lingers To weigh against his opposite; or else, and lingers it out, but the disease is incurable. We fortify in paper, and in figures, Go bear this letter to my lord of Lancaster; this Using the names of men instead of men: to the prince; this to the earl of Westmore-Like one, that draws the model of a house land; and this to old mistress Ursula, whom I have weekly sworn to marry since I perceived the first white hair on my chin: About it; you know where to find me. [Exit Page.] A pox of this gout! or, a gout of this pox! for the one, or the other, plays the rogue with my great toe. It is no matter, if I do halt; I have the wars for my colour, and my pension shall seem the more reasonable: A good wit will make use of any thing; I will turn diseases to commodity.

SCENE III. York.

[Exit.

Beyond his power to build it; who, half through,
Gives o'er, and leaves his part-created cost
A naked subject to the weeping clouds,
And waste for churlish winter's tyranny.
Hast. Grant that our hopes (yet likely of fair
birth,)

Should be still-born, and that we now possess'd
The utmost man of expectation;

I think, we are a body strong enough,
Even as we are, to equal with the king.
Bard. What is the king but five and twenty
thousand?

A Room in the Archbishop's Palace.
Enter the Archbishop of York, the Lords Hast-For his divisions, as the times do brawl,

Hast. To us, no more; nay, not so much, Lord
Bardolph.

ings, Mowbray, and Bardolph.

Arch. Thus have you heard our cause, and

known our means;

And, my most noble friends, I pray you all,
Speak plainly your opinions of our hopes:-
And first, lord marshal, what say you to it?
Mowb. 1 well allow the occasion of our arms;
But gladly would be better satisfied,

How, in our means, we should advance our-
selves

To look with forehead bold and big enough
Upon the power and puissance of the king.
Hast. Our present musters grow upon the file
To five and twenty thousand men of choice;
And our supplies live largely in the hope
Of great Northumberland, whose bosom burns
With an incensed fire of injuries.

Bard. The question, then, Lord Hastings,
standeth thus:-

Whether our present five and twenty thousand
May hold up head without Northumberland.
Hast. With him, we may.

Bard.
Ay, marry, there's the point:
But if without him we be thought too feeble,
My judgment is, we should not step too far
Till we had his assistance by the hand:
For, in a theme so bloody-fac'd as this,
Conjecture, expectation, and surmise
Of aids uncertain, should not be admitted.
Arch. 'Tis very true, Lord Bardolph; for, in-
deed,

It was young Hotspur's case at Shrewsbury.
Bard. It was, my lord; who lin'd himself with
hope,

Eating the air on promise of supply,
Flattering himself with project of a power

Are in three heads: one power against the

French,

And one against Glendower; perforce, a third
Must take up us: So is the unfirm king
In three divided; and his coffers sound
With hollow poverty and emptiness.
Arch. That he should draw his several strength
together,

And come against us in full puissance,
Need not be dreaded.

Thy glutton bosom of the royal Richard;
And now thou wouldest eat thy dead vomit up,
And howl'st to find it. What trust is in these
times!

They that, when Richard liv'd, would have him
die,

Are now become enamour'd on his grave:
Thou, that threw'st dust upon his goodly head,
When through proud London he came sighing

on

After the admired heels of Bolingbroke,
Cry'st now, O earth, yield us that king again,
And take thou this! O thoughts of men accurst!
Past and to come, seem best; things present

worst.

Mowb. Shall we go draw our numbers and
set on?

Hast. We are time's subjects, and time bids
be gone.
[Exeunt.

ACT II.

SCENE 1. London. A Street. Enter Hostess; Fang, and his Boy, with her; and Snare following.

Host. Master Fang, have you enter'd the action ?

Fang. It is entered."

thee in the channel. Wilt thou wilt thou?
thou bastardly rogue!-murder, murder! O
thou honeysuckle villain! wilt thou kill God's
officers, and the king's? O thou honey-seed
rogue! thou art a honey-seed; a man-queller,
and a woman-queller.

Fal. Keep them off, Bardolph.
Fang. A rescue! a rescue!

Host. Good people, bring a rescue or two.-
Thou wo't, wo't thou? thou wo't, wo't thou 7
do, do, thou rogue! do, thou hemp-seed!
Fal. Away, you scullion! you rampallian!
you fustilarian! I'll tickle your catastrophe.

Enter the Lord Chief Justice, attended.

Ch. Just. What's the matter? keep the peace here, ho!

Host. Good my lord, be good to me! I beseech you, stand to me!

Ch. Just. How now, Sir John 7 what, are you brawling here?'

Doth this become your place, your time, and
business 7

You should have been well on your way to
York.-

Stand from him, fellow; wherefore hang'st thou
on him?

Host. O my most worshipful lord, an't please your grace, I am a poor widow of Eastcheap,

Host. Where is your yeoman? Is it a lusty and he is arrested at my suit. veoman? Will a' stand to't?

Fang. Sirrah, where's Snare?

Host. O lord, ay: good master Snare.
Snare. Here, here.

Fang. Snare, we must arrest Sir John Falstaff. Host. Yea, good master Snare; I have entered him and all.

Snare. It may chance cost some of us our lives, for he will stab.

Host. Alas the day! take heed of him; he stabbed me in mine own house, and that most beastly in good faith, a' cares not what mischief he doth, if his weapon be ont he will foin like any devil; he will spare neither man, woman, nor child.

Ch. Just. For what sum ?

Host. It is more than for some, my lord: it is for all, all I have: he hath eaten me out of house and home; he hath put all my substance into that fat belly of his-but I will have some of it out again, or I'll ride thee o'nights like the

mare.

Fal. I think I am as like to ride the mare, if I have any vantage of ground to get up. Ch. Just. How comes this, Sir John? Fie! what man of good temper would endure this tempest of exclamation? Are you not ashamed to enforce a poor widow to so rough a course to come by her own?

Fal. What is the gross sum that I owe thee? Fang. If I can close with him, I care not for Host. Marry, if thou wert an honest man, thyhis thrust. self and the money too. Thou didst swear to Host. No, nor I neither: I'll be at your elbow.me upon a parcel-gilt goblet, sitting in my DolFang. An I but fist him once; an a' come but phin-Chamber, at the round table, by a sea-coal within my vice ;fire, upon Wednesday in Whitsun-week, when Host. I am undone by his going; I warrant the prince broke thy head for liking his father you, he's an infinitive thing upon my score:-to a singing-man of Windsor; thou didst swear Good master Fang, hold him sure ;-good master to me then, as I was washing thy wound, to Snare, let him not 'scape. He comes continually marry me, and make me my lady thy wife. to Pie-corner, (saving your manhoods,) to buy a Canst thou deny it? Did not good wife Keech, saddle; and he's indited to dinner to the lubbar's the butcher's wife, come in then, and call me head in Lumbert-street, to master Smooth's the gossip Quickly? coming in to borrow a mess silkman: I pray ye, since my exion is entered, of vinegar; telling us, she had a good dish of and my case so openly known to the world, let him be brought in to his answer, A hundred mark is a long loan for a poor lone woman to bear and I have borne, and borne, and borne; and have been fubbed off, and fubbed off, and fubbed off, from this day to that day, that it is a shame to be thought on. There is no honesty in such dealing; unless a woman should be made an ass, and a beast, to bear every knave's wrong.

prawns; whereby thou didst desire to eat some; whereby I told thee, they were ill for a green wound? And didst thou not, when she was gone down stairs, desire me to be no more so famili arity with such poor people; saying that ers long they should call me madam? And didst thou not kiss me, and bid me fetch thee thirty shillings? I put thee now to thy book-oath; deny it, if thou canst.

Fal. My lord, this is a poor mad sonl; and she says, up and down the town, that her eldest son Enter Sir John Falstaff, Page, and Bardolph. is like you: she hath been in good case, and, the Yonder he comes; and that arrant malmsey-truth is, poverty hath distracted her. But for nose knave Bardolph, with him. Do your offi- these foolish officers, I beseech you, I may have ces, do your offices, master Fang, and master redress against them. Snare; do me, do me, do me your offices. Ch. Just. Sir John, Sir John, I am well acFal. How now ? whose mare's dead ? what's quainted with your manner of wrenching the the matter? true cause the false way. It is not a confident Fang. Sir John, I arrest you at the suit of brow, nor the throng of words that come with Mistress Quickly. such more than impudent sauciness from you, Fal. Away, varlets !-Draw, Bardolph; cut can thrust me from a level consideration: you me off the villain's head; throw the quean in have, as it appears to me, practised upon the the channel. easy-yielding spirit of this woman, and made Host. Throw me in the channel? I'll throw her serve your uses both in purse and person.