Bard. My lord, I'll tell you what;—

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 tragic 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 woe-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 wouldst 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,-

North. 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 chanced. 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 certair
North. Yet, for all this, say not that Percy's dead.
I see a strange confession in thine eye:

* Lace.

+ An attestation of its ravage.

VOL. II.

2 H

1

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.
And as the thing that's heavy in itself,
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 Worcester
Too soon ta'en prisoner: and that furious Scot,
The bloody Douglas, whose well-labouring sword
Had three times slain the appearance of the king,
'Gan vail his stomach, and did grace the shame
Of those that turn'd their backs; and, in his flight,
Stumbling in fear, was took. The sum of all
Is, that the king hath won; and hath sent out
A speedy power to encounter you, my lord,
Under the conduct of young Lancaster,

And Westmoreland: this is the news at full.

North. For this I shall have time enough to mourn.

In poison there is physic; 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, buckles 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 enraged with grief,

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 to 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 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 thorought 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.