gunpowder Percy, though he be dead: How, if he should counterfeit too, and rise? I am afraid, he would prove the better counterfeit. Therefore I'll make him sure: yea, and I'll swear I killed him. Why may not he rise, as well as I? Nothing confutes me but eyes, and nobody sees me. Therefore, sirrah, (stabbing him) with a new wound in your thigh, come you along with me.

(Takes Hotspur on his back.) Re-enter Prince HENRY and Prince JOHN. P. Hen. Come, brother John, full bravely hast thou flesh'd Thy maiden sword. P. John.

But, soft! whom have we here?
Did you not tell me, this fat man was dead?
P. Hen. I did; I saw him dead, breathless and
Upon the ground.
[bleeding,

Art thou alive? or is it phantasy
That plays upon our eye-sight? I pr'ythee, speak;
We will not trust our eyes, without our ears:—
Thou art not what thou seem'st.

Fal. Didst thou?-Lord! Lord! how this world is given to lying!-I grant you, I was down, and out of breath; and so was he; but we rose both at an instant, and fought a long hour by Shrewsbury clock. If I may be believed, so; if not, let them, that should reward valour, bear the sin upon their own heads. I'll take it upon my death, I gave him this wound in the thigh if the man were alive, and would deny it, I would make him eat a piece of my sword. [heard. P.John. This is the strangest tale that e'er I P. Hen. This is the strangest fellow, brother John.

I'll grow less; for I'll purge, and leave sack, and
live cleanly, as a nobleman should do.
[Exit, bearing off the body.
SCENE V. Another Part of the Field.
The trumpets sound. Enter King HENRY, Prince
HENRY, Prince JOHN, WESTMORELAND, and
others, with WORCESTER, and VERNON, prisoners.
K. Hen. Thus ever did rebellion find rebuke.-
Ill-spirited Worcester! did we not send grace,
Pardon, and terms of love to all of you?
And would'st thou turn our offers contrary?
Misuse the tenor of thy kinsman's trust?
Three knights upon our party slain to-day,
A noble earl, and many a creature else,
Had been alive this hour,

If, like a christian, thou hadst truly borne
Betwixt our armies true intelligence.

Wor. What I have done, my safety urg'd me to;
And I embrace this fortune patiently,
Since not to be avoided it falls on me.

[too: K.Hen. Bear Worcester to the death, and Vernon Other offenders we will pause upon.

Come, bring your luggage nobly on your back: For my part, if a lie may do thee grace, I'll gild it with the happiest terms I have. (A retreat is sounded.) The trumpet sounds retreat, the day is ours. Come, brother, let's to the highest of the field, To see what friends are living, who are dead. [Exeunt Prince Henry and Prince John. Fal, I'll follow, as they say, for reward. He that rewards me, God reward him! If I do grow great,

[Exeunt Worcester and Vernon, guarded. How goes the field? [saw P. Hen. The noble Scot, lord Douglas, when he The fortune of the day quite turn'd from him, The noble Percy slain, and all his men Upon the foot of fear,-fled with the rest; And, falling from a hill, he was so bruis'd, That the pursuers took him. At my tent The Douglas is; and I beseech your grace, I may dispose of him. K. Hen.

With all my heart.

P. Hen. Then, brother John of Lancaster, to you This honourable bounty shall belong : Go to the Douglas, and deliver him Up to his pleasure, ransomeless, and free: His valour, shown upon our crests to-day, Hath taught us how to cherish such high deeds, Even in the bosom of our adversaries. [power.K. Hen. Then this remains,-that we divide our You, son John, and my cousin Westmoreland, Towards York shall bend you, with your dearest speed,

To meet Northumberland, and the prelate Scroop,
Who, as we hear, are busily in arms:
Myself, and you, son Harry,-will towards Wales,
To fight with Glendower, and the earl of March.
Rebellion in this land shall lose his sway,
Meeting the check of such another day;
And since this business so fair is done,
Let us not leave till all our own be won. [Exeunt.

INDUCTION.

Warkworth. Before Northumberland's Castle.
Enter RUMOUR, painted full of tongues.
Rum. Open your ears; For which of you will

stop

The vent of hearing, when loud Rumour speaks?
I, from the orient to the drooping west,
Making the wind my post-horse, still unfold
The acts commenced on this ball of earth:
Upon my tongues continual slanders ride;
The whieh in every language I pronounce,
Stuffing the ears of men with false reports.
I speak of peace, while covert enmity,
Under the smile of safety, wounds the world:
And who but Rumour, who but only I,
Make fearful musters, and prepar'd defence;
Whilst the big year, swol'n with some other grief,
Is thought with child by the stern tyrant war,
And no such matter; Rumour is a pipe
Blown by surmises, jealousies, conjectures;
And of so easy and so plain a stop,
That the blunt monster with uncounted heads,
The still-discordant wavering multitude,
Can play upon it. But what need I thus
My well-known body to anatomize
Among my household? Why is Rumour here?

TRAVERS and MORTON, Domestics of Northumberland.

Act V. Scene S

FALSTAFF, BARDOLPH, PISTOL, and Page.
POINS and PETO, Attendants on Prince Henry.
SHALLOW and SILENCE, Country Justices.
DAVY, Servant to Shallow.

MOULDY, SHADOW, WART, FEEBLE, and BULLCALF,

Recruits.

FANG and SNARE, Sheriff's Officers.

Rumour.

A Porter.

A Dancer, Speaker of the Epilogue.

LADY NORTHUMBERLAND.

LADY PERCY.
Hostess QUICKLY.

DOLL TEAR-SHEET.

Lords and other Attendants; Officers, Soldiers, Messenger, Drawers, Beadles, Grooms, &c.

I run before king Harry's victory;
Who, in a bloody field by Shrewsbury,
Hath beaten down young Hotspur, and his troops,
Quenching the flame of bold rebellion
Even with the rebels' blood. But what mean I
To speak so true at first? my office is
To noise abroad,-that Harry Monmouth fell
Under the wrath of noble Hotspur's sword;
And that the king before the Douglas' rage
Stoop'd his anointed head as low as death.
This have I rumour'd through the peasant towns
Between that royal field of Shrewsbury
And this worm-eaten hold of ragged stone,
Where Hotspur's father, old Northumberland,
Lies crafty-sick: the posts come tiring on,
And not a man of them brings other news
Than they have learn'd of me; From Rumour's
tongues
They bring smooth comforts false, worse than true
wrongs.
[Exit.
ACT I.
SCENE I.-The same.

The Porter before the Gate. Enter Lord BARDOLPH.
Bard. Who keeps the gate here, ho?-Where
is the earl?
Port, What shall I say you are?

nute now

Should be the father of some stratagem:
The times are wild; contention, like a horse
Full of high feeding, madly hath broke loose,
And bears down all before him.

Bard. Noble earl, I bring you certain news from Shrewsbury, North. Good, an heaven will! Bard. As good as heart can wish:The king is almost wounded to the death; And, in the fortune of my lord your son, Prince Harry slain outright; and both the Blunts Kill'd by the hand of Douglas: young prince John, And Westmoreland, and Stafford, fled the field; And Harry Monmouth's brawn, the hulk sir John, Is prisoner to your son: O, such a day, So fought, so follow'd, and so fairly won, Came not, till now, to diguify 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 came 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
On Tuesday last to listen after news. [I sent

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 Umfrevile turn'd me back With joyful tidings; and, being better hors'd, Out-rode me. After him, came, spurring hard, A gentleman almost forespent 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.

North.

Ha!-Again. Said he, young Harry Percy's spur was cold? Of Hotspur, coldspur? that rebellion Had met ill luck!

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 Give then such instances of loss? [Travers, Who, he?

Bard. 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 would'st say,-Your son did thus, and
thas;

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 certain.

North. Yet, for all this, say not, that Percy's I see a strange confession in thine eye: [dead. 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. That, which I would to heaven I had not seen: Mor. I am sorry, I should force you to believe 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, 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, thou 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 heav'n 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
[honour.

lord.

Bard. Sweet earl, divorce not wisdom from your 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 dole of blows your sou 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 advis'd, his flesh was capable
Of wounds and scars; and that his forward spirit
Would lift him, where most trade of danger rang'd;
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 enterprize brought forth,
More than that being, which was like to be?

Bard. We all, that are engaged to this loss, Knew, that we ventur'd on such dangerous seas, That, if we wrought out life, 'twas ten to one: And yet we ventur'd, for the gain propos'd Chok'd 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,

SCENE HI.-London. A Street.

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 any thing, 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 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 the 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 looked 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!

[deaf.

Fal. Boy, tell him I am deaf. Page. You must speak louder, my master is 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 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 hanged: 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. 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 beels, 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 punishment 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:

|

you may thank the unquiet time for your quiet o'erposting that action. Fal. My lord?

[not a sleeping wolf. Ch. Just. But since all is well, keep it so: wake 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. 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. [waste is great. Ch. Just. Your means are very slender, and your 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

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 angel 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 coster-monger 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 helly? 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? Fy, fy, fy, 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. I 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 lord 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 action can peep out his head, but I am thrust upon it: Well, cannot last ever: But it was always yet the trick of our English nation, if they have a good thing, to make it too common. If you will needs say, I am an old man, you should give me rest. I would to God, my name were not so terrible to the enemy as it is. I were better to be eaten to death with rust, than to be scoured to nothing with perpetual motion.

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

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