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 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 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

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 retain 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 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.

North.

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

Bard.

My lord, I'll tell you what

If my young lord your son has not the day,

Upon mine honour, for a silken point2

I'll give my barony: never talk of it.

[Drew Priam's curtain in the dead of night,
And would have told him, half his Troy was burn'd:
But Priani 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 car 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.

I

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.
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 departed 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 outbreath'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

North. Why should the gentleman, that rode by Turn'd on themselves, like dull and heavy lead.

Travers,

Give then such instances of loss?

Bard.

Who, he?
He was some hildings fellow, that had stol'n
The horse he rode on; and, upon my life,
Speke 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.4-
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,

(1) Exhausted. (2) Lace tagged.
(3) Hilderling, base, cowardly.
(4) An attestation of its ravage.

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 in 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 nice1
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
said,

Let us make head. It was your presurmise,
That in the dole' 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 advis'd, his flesh was capable
Of wounds, and scars; and that his forward spirits
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 enterprise 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,

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;
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:

Suppos'd 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, scrap'd from Pomfret stones;

(1) Trifling. (2) Cap. (3) Distribution.
(4) Forces. (5) Against their stomachs.
(6) Greater. (7) Owned. (8) Gibe.

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 less, do flock to follow him.
North. I knew of this before; but, to speak truff
This present grief had wip'd 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. [Exeunt.
SCENE II.-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 o'erwhelmed 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 agate1° 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 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 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 & horse in Smithfield: an I could get me but a wife

(9) A root supposed to have the shape of a man.
(10) A little figure cut in an agate.
(11) In their debt.

in the stews, I were manned, horsed, and wived.'|

· Enter the Lord Chief Justice, and an attendant.
Page. Sir, here comes the nobleman that com-
mitted 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. 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 become your physician.

Ch. Just. He that was in question for the robbery? Fal. I am as poor as Job, my lord; but not so Atten. He, my lord: but he hath since done patient: your lordship may minister the potion of good service at Shrewsbury; and, as I hear, is imprisonment to me, in respect of poverty; but now going with some charge to the lord John of how I should be your patient to follow your pre scriptions, the wise may make some dram of a

Lancaster.

Ch. Just. What, to York? Call him back again. scruple, or, indeed, a scruple itself.
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 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.

Alten. 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 gett'st any leave of me, hang me; if thou takest leave, thou wert better be hanged: You hunt-counter, hence!

avaunt!

2

Atten. Sir, my lord would speak with you.

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 coun sel 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.

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'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.

I

Fal. A wassel' candle, my lord; all tallow: if 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.

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 Fal. Not so, my lord; your ill angel is light; lordship, to have a reverend care of your health. but, I hope, he that looks upon me, will take me Ch. Just. Sir John, I sent for you before your without weighing: and yet, in some respects, I expedition to Shrewsbury. grant, I cannot go, I cannot tell: Virtue is of so Fal. An't please your lordship, I hear, his ma- little regard in these coster-monger times, that true esty is returned with some discomfort from Wales. valour is turned bear-herd: Pregnancy is made a Ch. Just. I talk not of his majesty:-You would tapster, and hath his quick wit wasted in giving not come when I sent for you. reckonings: all the other gifts appertinent to man,

Fal. And I hear moreover, his highness is fallen as the malice of this age shapes them, are not into this same whoreson apoplexy.

worth a gooseberry. You, that are old, consider Ch. Just. Well, heaven mend him! I pray, let not the capacities of us that are young: you me speak with you. measure the heat of our livers with the bitterness of Fal. This apoplexy is, as I take it, a kind of your galls: and we that are in the vaward" of our lethargy, an't please your lordship; a kind of sleep-youth, I must confess, are wags too. ing in the blood, a whoreson tingling. Ch. Just. Do you set down your name in the

Ch. Just. What tell you me of it? be it as it is. scroll of youth, that are written down old with all Fal. It hath its original from much grief; from the characters of age? Have you not a moist eye? study, and perturbation of the brain: I have read a dry hand? a yellow cheek? a white beard? & the cause of his effects in Galen; it is a kind of decreasing leg? an increasing belly? Is not your deafness. voice broken? your wind short? your chin double?

(1) 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.

(2) A catch-pole or bum-bailiff.
(3) A large candle for a feast.
(4) The coin called an angel.
(6) Readiness.

(5) Pass current. (7) Forepart.

your wit single?1 and every part about you blasted wit will make use of any thing; I will turn dis with antiquity?2 and will you yet call yourself eases to commodity. young? Fie, fie, fie, sir John!

[Exit.

SCENE III.-York. A room in the archbishop's palace. Enter the archbishop of York, the lords Hastings, Mowbray, and Bardolph.

Arch. Thus have you heard our cause, and known

our means;

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, my most noble friends, I pray you all, and he that will caper with me for a thousand Speak plainly your opinions of our hopes:marks, let him lend me the money, and have at And first, lord marshal, what say you to it? him. For the box o'the ear that the prince gave Mowb. I well allow the occasion of our arms : you, he gave it like a rude prince, and you took But gladly would be better satisfied,

it like a sensible lord. I have check'd him for it; How, in our means, we should advance ourselves and the young lion repents: marry, not in ashes, To look with forehead bold and big enough and sackcloth; but in new silk, and old sack. Upon the power and puissance of the king. 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.

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, stand-
eth thus ;-

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

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! Ay, marry, there's the point : for, by the Lord, I take but two shirts out with me, But, if without him we be thought too feeble, and I mean not to sweat extraordinarily: if it be My judgment is, we should not step too far a hot day, an I brandish any thing but my bottle, Till we had his assistance by the hand: I would I might never spit white again. There is For, in a theme so bloody-fac'd as this, not a dangerous action can peep out his head, but Conjecture, expectation, and surmise I am thrust upon it: Well, I cannot last ever: Of aids uncertain, should not be admitted. But it was always yet the trick of our English naArch. 'Tis very true, lord Bardolph; for, indeed, tion, if they have a good thing, to make it too com- It was young Hotspur's case at Shrewsbury. mon. 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!

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.

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
Much smaller than the smallest of his thoughts:
And so, with great imagination,
Proper to madmen, led his powers to death,
And, winking, leap'd into destruction.

Hast. But, by your leave it never yet did hurt,
To lay down likelihoods, and forms of hope.

Bard. Yes, in this present quality of war ;Indeed the instant action (a cause on foot,) [Exeunt Chief Justice and Attendant. Lives so in hope, as in an early spring Fal. If I do, fillip me with a three-man beetle.3- We see the appearing buds; which, to prove fruit, A man can no more separate age and covetous-Hope gives not so much warrant, as despair, ness, than he can part young limbs and lechery: That frosts will bite them. When we mean to build, but the gout galls the one, and the pox pinches the We first survey the plot, then draw the model; other; and so both the degrees prevent my And when we see the figure of the house, curses.-Boy!

Page. Sir?

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

Fal. What money is in my purse? Page. Seven groats and two-pence. Fal. I can get no remedy against this consump- To build at all? Much more, in this great work tion of the purse: borrowing only lingers and (Which is, almost, to pluck a kingdom down, lingers it out, but the disease is incurable.-Go, And set another up,) should we survey bear this letter to my lord of Lancaster; this to The plot of situation, and the model; the prince; this to the earl of Westmoreland; and Consent upon a sure foundation; this to old mistress Ursula, whom I have weekly Question surveyors; know our own estate. sworn to marry since I perceived the first white How able such a work to undergo, hair on my chin: About it; you know where to To weigh against his opposite; or else, find me. [Exit Page.] A pox of this gout! or, a We fortify in paper, and in figures, gout of this pox! for the one, or the other, plays Using the names of men, instead of men: the rogue with my great toe. It is no matter, if I Like one, that draws the model of a house do halt; I have the wars for my colour, and my Beyond his power to build it; who, half through, pensions shall seem the more reasonable: A good Gives o'er, and leaves his part-created cost A naked subject to the weeping clouds, And waste for churlish winter's tyranny.

(2) Old age.

(1) Small. (3) A large wooden hammer so heavy as to require three men to wield it.