Page images
PDF
EPUB

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 ears in blood. I am on fire,
To hear this rich reprisal is so nigh,
And yet not ours :-Come, let me take 19
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.

my

horse,

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;

day.

My father and Glendower being both away,
The powers of us may serve so great
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.

19 The quartos of 1598 and 1599 read taste.

[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 bottle 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. .my lieutenant Peto meet me at the town's end. Bard. I will, captain: farewell.

Bid

[Exit. Fal. If I be not ashamed of my soldiers, I am a souced gurnet1. 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 caliver2, worse than a struck fowl, or a hurt wild-duck. I pressed me none but such toasts and butter3, 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 painted cloth, where the glutton's dogs

1 The gurnet, or gurnard, was a fish of the piper kind. It was probably deemed a vulgar dish when soused or pickled, hence soused gurnet was a common term of reproach.

2 A gun.

3 Londoners, and all within the sound of Bow bell, are in reproach called cockneys, and eaters of buttered toasts.'-Moryson's Itin. 1617. So in Beaumont and Fletcher's Wit without Money:

[ocr errors]

They love young toasts and butter, Bow bell suckers.'

licked his sores and such as, indeed, were never soldiers; but discarded unjust serving-men, younger sons to younger brothers, revolted tapsters, and ostlers trade-fallen; the cankers of a calm world, and a long peace; ten times more dishonourable ragged than an old faced ancient: and such have I, to fill up the rooms of them that have bought out their services, that you would think, that I had a hundred and fifty tattered 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 bodies. No eye hath seen such scare-crows. I'll not march through Coventry with them, that's flat: -Nay, and the villains march wide betwixt the legs, as if they had gives 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 napkins, 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

4 An old faced ancient' is an old patched standard. To face a garment was to line or trim it. Thus in the present play : To face the garment of rebellion

With some fine colour.'

:

In the Puritan, a Comedy, 1607, we have full of holes like a shot ancient.' Dishonourable for dishonourably, is in Shakspeare's manner, who often uses adjectives adverbially.

[blocks in formation]

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 all 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 learned 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,
Fits a dull fighter, and a keen guest.

[Exeunt.

SCENE III. The Rebel Camp near Shrewsbury.

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.

[ocr errors]

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.

You do not counsel well; You speak it out of fear, and cold heart.

Ver. Do me no slander, Douglas: by my life
(And I dare well maintain it with my life),
If well-respected honour bid me on,
I hold as little counsel with weak fear,
As you, my lord, or any Scot that lives1 :-
Let it be seen to-morrow in the battle,

[blocks in formation]

I wonder much, being men of such great leading,

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 dull,
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.

1 The old copies read that this day lives;' but the words, as Mason observes, weaken the sense and destroy the measure.

2 Leading is experience in the conduct of armies. The old copies have such leading as you are;' but the superfluous words serve only to destroy the metre.

« PreviousContinue »