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 dignify the times, Since Cæsar's fortunes! On Tuesday last to listen after news. Bard. My lord, I over-rode him on the way; 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, 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. So dull, so dead in look, so woe-begone, 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. Mort. 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. Mort. 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 siek, Being sick, have in some measure made me well: L And as the wretch, whose fever weaken'd joints, Out of his keeper's arms; even so my limbs, A scaly gauntlet now, with joints of steel, Tells them, he doth bestride a bleeding land, Must glove this hand: and hence, thou sickly quoif;|| Never so few, and never yet more need. Thou art a guard too wanton for the head, Tra. This strained passion doth you wrong, my lord. Mort. The lives of all your loving complices Of wounds and scars; and that his forward spirit Bard. We all, that are engaged to this loss, I hear for certain, and do speak the truth,—— Turns insurrection to religion: [Exeunt. SCENE IL-London. A Street. Enter Sir John ler. 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 judgement. 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 band, and then stand upon security !-The whoreson smoothpates 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. C. Just. What's he that goes there? Atten. Falstaff, an't please your lordship. C. 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. C. Just. What, to York? Call him back again. Fal. Boy, tell him, I am deaf. Page. You must speak louder, my master is deaf. C. Just. I am sure, he is, to the bearing 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 gett'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. 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. C. 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. C. 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. C. 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. C. 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. C. 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 im prisonment to me, in respect of poverty; but how I should be your patient to follow your prescriptions, the wise may make some drachm of a scruple, or, indeed, a scruple itself. C. 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 come. C. Just. Well the truth is, sir John, you live in great infamy. Fal. He that buckles him in my belt, cannot live in less. C. 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. C. 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. thank C.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 the unquiet time for your quiet o'er-posting that ac tion. Fal. My lord? C. 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. C. 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. C. Just. There is not a white hair on your face, but should have his effect of gravity. Fal. His effect of gravy, gravy, gravy. C. 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 beat 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. C. Just. Do you set down your name in the scroll of youth, that are written down old with all the char acters 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 holla ing, and singing of anthems. To approve my youth further, I will not: the truth is, I am only old in judge ment and understanding; and be 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; the young lion repents: marry, not in ashes, and sackcloth; but in new silk, and old sack, and T. Just. Well, heaven send the prince a better companion! Fal. Heaven send the companion a better prince! I cannot rid my hands of him. C. Just. Well, the king hath severed you and prince Harry: I bear, 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, I cannot last ever: But it was always yet the trick of our English nation, if they have a good thing, Í am to make it too common. If you will needs say, 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. C. Just. Well, be honest, be honest; And God bless your expedition! Fal. Will your lordship lend me a thousand pound, to furnish me forth? C. Just. Not a penny, not a penny; you are too im- Fal. What money is in my purse? Fal. I can get no remedy against this consumption [Exit. SCENE III-York. A Room in the Archbishop's Arch. Thus have you heard our cause, and known our means; Ánd, my most noble friends, I pray you all, Mow. I well allow the occasion of our arms; With an incensed fire of injuries. Bard. The question then, lord Hastings, standeth -Whether our present five and twenty thousand Arch. 'Tis very true, lord Bardolph; for, indeed, Hast. But, by your leave, it never yet did hurt, To build at all? Much more, in this great work, Hast. Grant, that our hopes (yet likely of fair birth,) 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 thou sand? Hast. To us, no more; nay, not so much, lord Bar. dolph. For his divisions, as the times do brawl, Are in three heads: one power against the French, Arch. That he should draw his several strengths to And come against us in full puissance, And publish the occasion of our arms. The commonwealth is sick of their own choice, Hath he, that buildeth on the vulgar heart. O thou fond many! with what loud applause ACT II. SCENE I.-London. A Street. Enter Hostess; Fang, and his Boy, with her; and Snare following. Hostess. MASTER Fang, have you entered the action? Fang. It is entered. Host. Where is your yeoman? Is it a lusty yeoman? 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 out: he will foin like any devil; he will spare neither man, woman, nor child. Fang. If I can close with him, I care not for his thrust. Host. No, nor I neither: I'll be at your elbow. Fang. An I but fist him once; an a' come but within my vice ; Host. I am undone by his going; I warrant you, he's an infinitive thing upon my score:-Good master Fang, hold him sure ;-good master Snare, let him not 'scape. He comes continuantly to Pie-corner, (sav ing your manhoods.) to buy a saddle; and he's indit ed to dinner to the lubbar's head in Lumbert-street, to master Smooth's the silk man: I pray ye, since my exion is entered, 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. Enter Sir John Falstaff, Page, and Bardolph. Yonder he comes; and that arrant malmsey-nose knave, Bardolph, with him. Do your offices, do your offices, master Fang, and master Snare; do me, do me, do me your offices. Fal. How now? whose mare's dead? what's the matter? Fang. Sir John, I arrest you at the suit of mistress Quickly. Fal. Away, varlets!-Draw, Bardolph; cut me off the villain's head; throw the quean in the channel. Host. Throw me in the channel? I'll throw thee in the channel. Wilt thou? wilt thou? thou bastardly rogue!-Murder, murder! O thou honey-suckle vil lain! wilt thou kill God's officers, and the king's? 0 thou honey-seed rogue! thou art a honey-seed; ainanqueller, and a woman-queller. Fal. Keep them off, Bardolph. Host. Good people, bring a rescue or two.-Thou wo't, wo't thou? thou wo't, wo't thou? 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. C. Just. What's the matter? keep the peace here, ho! Host. Good my lord, be good to me! I beseech you, stand to me! C. Just. How now, sir John? what, are you brawl ing here? Doth this become your place, your time, and business? 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, and he is ar rested at my suit. C. 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 C. Just. How comes this, sir John? Fye! what man of good temper would endure this tempest of exclam widow tion? Are you not ashamed, to enforce a poor to so rough a course to come by her own? Fal. What is the gross sum that I owe thee? Host. Marry, if thou wert an honest man, thyself, and the money too. Thou did'st swear to me upon a parcel-gilt goblet, sitting in my Dolphin-chamber, st the round table, by a sea-coal fire, upon Wednesday in Whitsun-week, when the prince broke thy head for liking his father to a singing-man of Windsor; then didst swear to me then, as I was washing thy wound, |