2 KING HENRY IV


	DRAMATIS PERSONAE


RUMOUR	the Presenter.

KING HENRY	the Fourth. (KING HENRY IV:)


PRINCE HENRY			|
OF WALES		(PRINCE HENRY:)	|
	afterwards KING HENRY V.	|
			|
THOMAS, DUKE OF			|  sons of King Henry.
CLARENCE		(CLARENCE:)	|
			|
PRINCE HUMPHREY			|
OF GLOUCESTER		(GLOUCESTER:)	|


EARL OF WARWICK	(WARWICK:)

EARL OF
WESTMORELAND	(WESTMORELAND:)

EARL OF SURREY:

GOWER:

HARCOURT:

BLUNT:

	Lord Chief-Justice of the King's Bench:
	(Lord Chief-Justice:)

	A Servant of the Chief-Justice.

EARL OF
NORTHUMBERLAND	(NORTHUMBERLAND:)

SCROOP,
ARCHBISHOP OF YORK	(ARCHBISHOP OF YORK:)

LORD MOWBRAY	(MOWBRAY:)

LORD HASTINGS	(HASTINGS:)

LORD BARDOLPH:

SIR JOHN COLEVILE	(COLEVILE:)


TRAVERS	|
	|  retainers of Northumberland.
MORTON	|


SIR JOHN FALSTAFF	(FALSTAFF:)

	His Page. (Page:)

BARDOLPH:

PISTOL:

POINS:

PETO:


SHALLOW	|
	|  country justices.
SILENCE	|


DAVY	servant to Shallow.


MOULDY	|
	|
SHADOW	|
	|
WART	|  recruits.
	|
FEEBLE	|
	|
BULLCALF	|


FANG	|
	|  sheriff's officers.
SNARE	|


LADY
NORTHUMBERLAND:

LADY PERCY:

MISTRESS QUICKLY	hostess of a tavern in Eastcheap.

DOLL TEARSHEET:

	Lords and Attendants; Porter, Drawers,
	Beadles, Grooms, &c.
	(First Messenger:)
	(Porter:)
	(First Drawer:)
	(Second Drawer:)
	(First Beadle:)
	(First Groom:)
	(Second Groom:)

	A Dancer, speaker of the epilogue.


SCENE	England.




	2 KING HENRY IV

	INDUCTION


	[Warkworth. Before the castle]

	[Enter RUMOUR, painted full of tongues]

RUMOUR	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 which 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 prepared defence,
	Whiles the big year, swoln 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?
	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 rebel's 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]




	2 KING HENRY IV


ACT I



SCENE I	The same.


	[Enter LORD BARDOLPH]

LORD BARDOLPH	Who keeps the gate here, ho?

	[The Porter opens the gate]

		       Where is the earl?

Porter	What shall I say you are?

LORD BARDOLPH	Tell thou the earl
	That the Lord Bardolph doth attend him here.

Porter	His lordship is walk'd forth into the orchard;
	Please it your honour, knock but at the gate,
	And he himself wilt answer.

	[Enter NORTHUMBERLAND]

LORD BARDOLPH	Here comes the earl.

	[Exit Porter]

NORTHUMBERLAND	What news, Lord Bardolph? every minute 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.

LORD BARDOLPH	Noble earl,
	I bring you certain news from Shrewsbury.

NORTHUMBERLAND	Good, an God will!

LORD BARDOLPH	                  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 Caesar's fortunes!

NORTHUMBERLAND	How is this derived?
	Saw you the field? came you from Shrewsbury?

LORD BARDOLPH	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.

NORTHUMBERLAND	Here comes my servant Travers, whom I sent
	On Tuesday last to listen after news.

	[Enter TRAVERS]

LORD BARDOLPH	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.

NORTHUMBERLAND	Now, Travers, what good tidings comes with you?

TRAVERS	My lord, Sir John Umfrevile turn'd me back
	With joyful tidings; and, being better horsed,
	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.

NORTHUMBERLAND	Ha! Again:
	Said he young Harry Percy's spur was cold?
	Of Hotspur Coldspur? that rebellion
	Had met ill luck?

LORD BARDOLPH	                  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.

NORTHUMBERLAND	Why should that gentleman that rode by Travers
	Give then such instances of loss?

LORD BARDOLPH	Who, he?
	He was some hilding fellow that had stolen
	The horse he rode on, and, upon my life,
	Spoke at a venture. Look, here comes more news.

	[Enter MORTON]

NORTHUMBERLAND	Yea, this man's brow, like to a title-leaf,
	Foretells the nature of a tragic volume:
	So looks the strand whereon the imperious flood
	Hath left a witness'd usurpation.
	Say, Morton, didst thou come from Shrewsbury?

MORTON	I ran from Shrewsbury, my noble lord;
	Where hateful death put on his ugliest mask
	To fright our party.

NORTHUMBERLAND	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 burnt;
	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 my ear indeed,
	Thou hast a sigh to blow away this praise,
	Ending with 'Brother, son, and all are dead.'

MORTON	Douglas is living, and your brother, yet;
	But, for my lord your son--

NORTHUMBERLAND	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 an earl his divination lies,
	And I will take it as a sweet disgrace
	And make thee rich for doing me such wrong.

MORTON	You are too great to be by me gainsaid:
	Your spirit is too true, your fears too certain.

NORTHUMBERLAND	Yet, for all this, say not that Percy's dead.
	I see a strange confession in thine eye:
	Thou shakest 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 tolling a departing friend.

LORD BARDOLPH	I cannot think, my lord, your son is dead.

MORTON	I am sorry I should force you to believe
	That which I would to God I had not seen;
	But these mine eyes saw him in bloody state,
	Rendering faint quittance, wearied and out-breathed,
	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 the 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.

NORTHUMBERLAND	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 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!
	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!

TRAVERS	This strained passion doth you wrong, my lord.

LORD BARDOLPH	Sweet earl, divorce not wisdom from your honour.

MORTON	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 advised his flesh was capable
	Of wounds and scars and that his forward spirit
	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?

LORD BARDOLPH	We all that are engaged to this loss
	Knew that we ventured on such dangerous seas
	That if we wrought our 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.

MORTON	'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 corpse,
	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:
	Supposed sincere and holy in his thoughts,
	He's followed 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 less do flock to follow him.

NORTHUMBERLAND	I knew of this before; but, to speak truth,
	This present grief had 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.

	[Exeunt]




	2 KING HENRY IV


ACT I



SCENE II	London. A street.


	[Enter FALSTAFF, with his Page bearing his sword
	and buckler]

FALSTAFF	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.

FALSTAFF	Men of all sorts take a pride to gird at me: the
	brain of this foolish-compounded clay, man, is not
	able to invent 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 inset 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, 'tis
	not a hair amiss yet: he may keep it still at a
	face-royal, for a barber shall never earn sixpence
	out of it; and yet he'll be crowing as if he had
	writ man ever since his father was a bachelor. He
	may keep his own grace, but he's almost out of mine,
	I can assure him. What said Master Dombledon about
	the satin for my short cloak and my slops?

Page	He said, sir, you should procure him better
	assurance than Bardolph: he would not take his
	band and yours; he liked not the security.

FALSTAFF	Let him be damned, like the glutton! pray God 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
	through 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 a' 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 lanthorn to light him.
	Where's Bardolph?

Page	He's gone into Smithfield to buy your worship a horse.

FALSTAFF	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 Servant]

Page	Sir, here comes the nobleman that committed the
	Prince for striking him about Bardolph.

FALSTAFF	Wait, close; I will not see him.

Lord Chief-Justice	What's he that goes there?

Servant	Falstaff, an't please your lordship.

Lord Chief-Justice	He that was in question for the robbery?

Servant	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.

Lord Chief-Justice	What, to York? Call him back again.

Servant	Sir John Falstaff!

FALSTAFF	Boy, tell him I am deaf.

Page	You must speak louder; my master is deaf.

Lord Chief-Justice	I am sure he is, to the hearing of any thing good.
	Go, pluck him by the elbow; I must speak with him.

Servant	Sir John!

FALSTAFF	What! a young knave, and begging! 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.

Servant	You mistake me, sir.

FALSTAFF	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.

Servant	I pray you, sir, then set your knighthood and our
	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.

FALSTAFF	I give thee leave to tell me so! I lay aside that
	which grows to me! if thou gettest any leave of me,
	hang me; if thou takest leave, thou wert better be
	hanged. You hunt counter: hence! avaunt!

Servant	Sir, my lord would speak with you.

Lord Chief-Justice	Sir John Falstaff, a word with you.

FALSTAFF	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 must
	humbly beseech your lordship to have a reverent care
	of your health.

Lord Chief-Justice	Sir John, I sent for you before your expedition to
	Shrewsbury.

FALSTAFF	An't please your lordship, I hear his majesty is
	returned with some discomfort from Wales.

Lord Chief-Justice	I talk not of his majesty: you would not come when
	I sent for you.

FALSTAFF	And I hear, moreover, his highness is fallen into
	this same whoreson apoplexy.

Lord Chief-Justice	Well, God mend him! I pray you, let me speak with
	you.

FALSTAFF	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.

Lord Chief-Justice	What tell you me of it? be it as it is.

FALSTAFF	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.

Lord Chief-Justice	I think you are fallen into the disease; for you
	hear not what I say to you.

FALSTAFF	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.

Lord Chief-Justice	To punish you by the heels would amend the
	attention of your ears; and I care not if I do
	become your physician.

FALSTAFF	I am as poor as Job, my lord, but not so patient:
	your lordship may minister the potion of
	imprisonment to me in respect of poverty; but how
	should I be your patient to follow your
	prescriptions, the wise may make some dram of a
	scruple, or indeed a scruple itself.

Lord Chief-Justice	I sent for you, when there were matters against you
	for your life, to come speak with me.

FALSTAFF	As I was then advised by my learned counsel in the
	laws of this land-service, I did not come.

Lord Chief-Justice	Well, the truth is, Sir John, you live in great infamy.

FALSTAFF	He that buckles him in my belt cannot live in less.

Lord Chief-Justice	Your means are very slender, and your waste is great.

FALSTAFF	I would it were otherwise; I would my means were
	greater, and my waist slenderer.

Lord Chief-Justice	You have misled the youthful prince.

FALSTAFF	The young prince hath misled me: I am the fellow
	with the great belly, and he my dog.

Lord Chief-Justice	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 Gad's-hill: you may
	thank the unquiet time for your quiet o'er-posting
	that action.

FALSTAFF	My lord?

Lord Chief-Justice	But since all is well, keep it so: wake not a
	sleeping wolf.

FALSTAFF	To wake a wolf is as bad as to smell a fox.

Lord Chief-Justice	What! you are as a candle, the better part burnt
	out.

FALSTAFF	A wassail candle, my lord, all tallow: if I did say
	of wax, my growth would approve the truth.

Lord Chief-Justice	There is not a white hair on your face but should
	have his effect of gravity.

FALSTAFF	His effect of gravy, gravy, gravy.

Lord Chief-Justice	You follow the young prince up and down, like his
	ill angel.

FALSTAFF	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
	costermonger 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 do 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.

Lord Chief-Justice	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 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!

FALSTAFF	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 halloing
	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 of the ear that
	the prince gave you, he gave it like a rude prince,
	and you took it like a sensible lord. I have
	chequed him for it, and the young lion repents;
	marry, not in ashes and sackcloth, but in new silk
	and old sack.

Lord Chief-Justice	Well, God send the prince a better companion!

FALSTAFF	God send the companion a better prince! I cannot
	rid my hands of him.

Lord Chief-Justice	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.

FALSTAFF	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,
	and I brandish any thing but a 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 alway yet the trick of our English nation, if
	they have a good thing, to make it too common. If
	ye 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 a rust than to be scoured to
	nothing with perpetual motion.

Lord Chief-Justice	Well, be honest, be honest; and God bless your
	expedition!

FALSTAFF	Will your lordship lend me a thousand pound to
	furnish me forth?

Lord Chief-Justice	Not a penny, not a penny; you are too impatient to
	bear crosses. Fare you well: commend me to my
	cousin Westmoreland.

	[Exeunt Chief-Justice and Servant]

FALSTAFF	If I do, fillip me with a three-man beetle. A man
	can no more separate age and covetousness than a'
	can part young limbs and lechery: but the gout
	galls the one, and the pox pinches the other; and
	so both the degrees prevent my curses. Boy!

Page	Sir?

FALSTAFF	What money is in my purse?

Page	Seven groats and two pence.

FALSTAFF	I can get no remedy against this consumption of the
	purse: borrowing only lingers and lingers it out,
	but the disease is incurable. Go bear this letter
	to my Lord of Lancaster; this to the prince; this
	to the Earl of Westmoreland; and this to old
	Mistress Ursula, whom I have weekly sworn to marry
	since I perceived the first white hair on my chin.
	About it: you know where to find me.

	[Exit Page]

	A pox of this gout! or, a gout of this pox! for
	the one or the other plays the rogue with my great
	toe. 'Tis no matter if I do halt; I have the wars
	for my colour, and my pension shall seem the more
	reasonable. A good wit will make use of any thing:
	I will turn diseases to commodity.

	[Exit]




	2 KING HENRY IV


ACT I



SCENE III	York. The Archbishop's palace.


	[Enter the ARCHBISHOP OF YORK, the Lords HASTINGS,
	MOWBRAY, and BARDOLPH]

ARCHBISHOP OF YORK	Thus have you heard our cause and known our means;
	And, my most noble friends, I pray you all,
	Speak plainly your opinions of our hopes:
	And first, lord marshal, what say you to it?

MOWBRAY	I well allow the occasion of our arms;
	But gladly would be better satisfied
	How in our means we should advance ourselves
	To look with forehead bold and big enough
	Upon the power and puissance of the king.

HASTINGS	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.

LORD BARDOLPH	The question then, Lord Hastings, standeth thus;
	Whether our present five and twenty thousand
	May hold up head without Northumberland?

HASTINGS	With him, we may.

LORD BARDOLPH	                  Yea, marry, there's the point:
	But if without him we be thought too feeble,
	My judgment is, we should not step too far
	Till we had his assistance by the hand;
	For in a theme so bloody-faced as this
	Conjecture, expectation, and surmise
	Of aids incertain should not be admitted.

ARCHBISHOP OF YORK	'Tis very true, Lord Bardolph; for indeed
	It was young Hotspur's case at Shrewsbury.

LORD BARDOLPH	It was, my lord; who lined himself with hope,
	Eating the air on promise of supply,
	Flattering himself in 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.

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

LORD BARDOLPH	Yes, if this present quality of war,
	Indeed the instant action: a cause on foot
	Lives so in hope as in an early spring
	We see the appearing buds; which to prove fruit,
	Hope gives not so much warrant as despair
	That frosts will bite them. When we mean to build,
	We first survey the plot, then draw the model;
	And when we see the figure of the house,
	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 last desist
	To build at all? Much more, in this great work,
	Which is almost to pluck a kingdom down
	And set another up, should we survey
	The plot of situation and the model,
	Consent upon a sure foundation,
	Question surveyors, know our own estate,
	How able such a work to undergo,
	To weigh against his opposite; or else
	We fortify in paper and in figures,
	Using the names of men instead of men:
	Like one that draws the model of a house
	Beyond his power to build it; who, half through,
	Gives o'er and leaves his part-created cost
	A naked subject to the weeping clouds
	And waste for churlish winter's tyranny.

HASTINGS	Grant that our hopes, yet likely of fair birth,
	Should be still-born, and that we now possess'd
	The utmost man of expectation,
	I think we are a body strong enough,
	Even as we are, to equal with the king.

LORD BARDOLPH	What, is the king but five and twenty thousand?

HASTINGS	To us no more; nay, not so much, Lord Bardolph.
	For his divisions, as the times do brawl,
	Are in three heads: one power against the French,
	And one against Glendower; perforce a third
	Must take up us: so is the unfirm king
	In three divided; and his coffers sound
	With hollow poverty and emptiness.

ARCHBISHOP OF YORK	That he should draw his several strengths together
	And come against us in full puissance,
	Need not be dreaded.

HASTINGS	If he should do so,
	He leaves his back unarm'd, the French and Welsh
	Baying him at the heels: never fear that.

LORD BARDOLPH	Who is it like should lead his forces hither?

HASTINGS	The Duke of Lancaster and Westmoreland;
	Against the Welsh, himself and Harry Monmouth:
	But who is substituted 'gainst the French,
	I have no certain notice.

ARCHBISHOP OF YORK	Let us on,
	And publish the occasion of our arms.
	The commonwealth is sick of their own choice;
	Their over-greedy love hath surfeited:
	An habitation giddy and unsure
	Hath he that buildeth on the vulgar heart.
	O thou fond many, with what loud applause
	Didst thou beat heaven with blessing Bolingbroke,
	Before he was what thou wouldst have him be!
	And being now trimm'd in thine own desires,
	Thou, beastly feeder, art so full of him,
	That thou provokest thyself to cast him up.
	So, so, thou common dog, didst thou disgorge
	Thy glutton bosom of the royal Richard;
	And now thou wouldst eat thy dead vomit up,
	And howl'st to find it. What trust is in
	these times?
	They that, when Richard lived, would have him die,
	Are now become enamour'd on his grave:
	Thou, that threw'st dust upon his goodly head
	When through proud London he came sighing on
	After the admired heels of Bolingbroke,
	Criest now 'O earth, yield us that king again,
	And take thou this!' O thoughts of men accursed!
	Past and to come seems best; things present worst.

MOWBRAY	Shall we go draw our numbers and set on?

HASTINGS	We are time's subjects, and time bids be gone.

	[Exeunt]




	2 KING HENRY IV


ACT II



SCENE I	London. A street.


	[Enter MISTRESS QUICKLY, FANG and his Boy with her,
	and SNARE following.

MISTRESS QUICKLY	Master Fang, have you entered the action?

FANG	It is entered.

MISTRESS QUICKLY	Where's your yeoman? Is't a lusty yeoman? will a'
	stand to 't?

FANG	Sirrah, where's Snare?

MISTRESS QUICKLY	O Lord, ay! good Master Snare.

SNARE	Here, here.

FANG	Snare, we must arrest Sir John Falstaff.

MISTRESS QUICKLY	Yea, good Master Snare; I have entered him and all.

SNARE	It may chance cost some of us our lives, for he will stab.

MISTRESS QUICKLY	Alas the day! take heed of him; he stabbed me in
	mine own house, and that most beastly: in good
	faith, he cares not what mischief he does. 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.

MISTRESS QUICKLY	No, nor I neither: I'll be at your elbow.

FANG	An I but fist him once; an a' come but within my vice,--

MISTRESS QUICKLY	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. A' comes continuantly to Pie-corner--saving
	your manhoods--to buy a saddle; and he is indited to
	dinner to the Lubber's-head in Lumbert street, to
	Master Smooth's the silkman: 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 one 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. Yonder he
	comes; and that errant 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.

	[Enter FALSTAFF, Page, and BARDOLPH]

FALSTAFF	How now! whose mare's dead? what's the matter?

FANG	Sir John, I arrest you at the suit of Mistress Quickly.

FALSTAFF	Away, varlets! Draw, Bardolph: cut me off the
	villain's head: throw the quean in the channel.

MISTRESS QUICKLY	Throw me in the channel! I'll throw thee in the
	channel. Wilt thou? wilt thou? thou bastardly
	rogue! Murder, murder! Ah, thou honeysuckle
	villain! wilt thou kill God's officers and the
	king's? Ah, thou honey-seed rogue! thou art a
	honey-seed, a man-queller, and a woman-queller.

FALSTAFF	Keep them off, Bardolph.

FANG	A rescue! a rescue!

MISTRESS QUICKLY	Good people, bring a rescue or two. Thou wo't, wo't
	thou? Thou wo't, wo't ta? do, do, thou rogue! do,
	thou hemp-seed!

FALSTAFF	Away, you scullion! you rampallion! You
	fustilarian! I'll tickle your catastrophe.

	[Enter the Lord Chief-Justice, and his men]

Lord Chief-Justice	What is the matter? keep the peace here, ho!

MISTRESS QUICKLY	Good my lord, be good to me. I beseech you, stand to me.

Lord Chief-Justice	How now, Sir John! what are you brawling 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 upon him?

MISTRESS QUICKLY	O most worshipful lord, an't please your grace, I am
	a poor widow of Eastcheap, and he is arrested at my suit.

Lord Chief-Justice	For what sum?

MISTRESS QUICKLY	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
	will ride thee o' nights like the mare.

FALSTAFF	I think I am as like to ride the mare, if I have
	any vantage of ground to get up.

Lord Chief-Justice	How comes this, Sir John? Fie! what man of good
	temper would endure this tempest of exclamation?
	Are you not ashamed to enforce a poor widow to so
	rough a course to come by her own?

FALSTAFF	What is the gross sum that I owe thee?

MISTRESS QUICKLY	Marry, if thou wert an honest man, thyself and the
	money too. Thou didst swear to me upon a
	parcel-gilt goblet, sitting in my Dolphin-chamber,
	at the round table, by a sea-coal fire, upon
	Wednesday in Wheeson week, when the prince broke
	thy head for liking his father to a singing-man of
	Windsor, thou didst swear to me then, as I was
	washing thy wound, to marry me and make me my lady
	thy wife. Canst thou deny it? Did not goodwife
	Keech, the butcher's wife, come in then and call me
	gossip Quickly? coming in to borrow a mess of
	vinegar; telling us she had a good dish of prawns;
	whereby thou didst desire to eat some; whereby I
	told thee they were ill for a green wound? And
	didst thou not, when she was gone down stairs,
	desire me to be no more so familiarity with such
	poor people; saying that ere long they should call
	me madam? And didst thou not kiss me and bid me
	fetch thee thirty shillings? I put thee now to thy
	book-oath: deny it, if thou canst.

FALSTAFF	My lord, this is a poor mad soul; and she says up
	and down the town that the eldest son is like you:
	she hath been in good case, and the truth is,
	poverty hath distracted her. But for these foolish
	officers, I beseech you I may have redress against them.

Lord Chief-Justice	Sir John, Sir John, I am well acquainted with your
	manner of wrenching the true cause the false way. It
	is not a confident brow, nor the throng of words
	that come with such more than impudent sauciness
	from you, can thrust me from a level consideration:
	you have, as it appears to me, practised upon the
	easy-yielding spirit of this woman, and made her
	serve your uses both in purse and in person.

MISTRESS QUICKLY	Yea, in truth, my lord.

Lord Chief-Justice	Pray thee, peace. Pay her the debt you owe her, and
	unpay the villany you have done her: the one you
	may do with sterling money, and the other with
	current repentance.

FALSTAFF	My lord, I will not undergo this sneap without
	reply. You call honourable boldness impudent
	sauciness: if a man will make courtesy and say
	nothing, he is virtuous: no, my lord, my humble
	duty remembered, I will not be your suitor. I say
	to you, I do desire deliverance from these officers,
	being upon hasty employment in the king's affairs.

Lord Chief-Justice	You speak as having power to do wrong: but answer
	in the effect of your reputation, and satisfy this
	poor woman.

FALSTAFF	Come hither, hostess.

	[Enter GOWER]

Lord Chief-Justice	Now, Master Gower, what news?

GOWER	The king, my lord, and Harry Prince of Wales
	Are near at hand: the rest the paper tells.

FALSTAFF	As I am a gentleman.

MISTRESS QUICKLY	Faith, you said so before.

FALSTAFF	As I am a gentleman. Come, no more words of it.

MISTRESS QUICKLY	By this heavenly ground I tread on, I must be fain
	to pawn both my plate and the tapestry of my
	dining-chambers.

FALSTAFF	Glasses, glasses is the only drinking: and for thy
	walls, a pretty slight drollery, or the story of
	the Prodigal, or the German hunting in water-work,
	is worth a thousand of these bed-hangings and these
	fly-bitten tapestries. Let it be ten pound, if thou
	canst. Come, an 'twere not for thy humours, there's
	not a better wench in England. Go, wash thy face,
	and draw the action. Come, thou must not be in
	this humour with me; dost not know me? come, come, I
	know thou wast set on to this.

MISTRESS QUICKLY	Pray thee, Sir John, let it be but twenty nobles: i'
	faith, I am loath to pawn my plate, so God save me,
	la!

FALSTAFF	Let it alone; I'll make other shift: you'll be a
	fool still.

MISTRESS QUICKLY	Well, you shall have it, though I pawn my gown. I
	hope you'll come to supper. You'll pay me all together?

FALSTAFF	Will I live?

	[To BARDOLPH]

	Go, with her, with her; hook on, hook on.

MISTRESS QUICKLY	Will you have Doll Tearsheet meet you at supper?

FALSTAFF	No more words; let's have her.

	[Exeunt MISTRESS QUICKLY, BARDOLPH, Officers and Boy]

Lord Chief-Justice	I have heard better news.

FALSTAFF	What's the news, my lord?

Lord Chief-Justice	Where lay the king last night?

GOWER	At Basingstoke, my lord.

FALSTAFF	I hope, my lord, all's well: what is the news, my lord?

Lord Chief-Justice	Come all his forces back?

GOWER	No; fifteen hundred foot, five hundred horse,
	Are marched up to my lord of Lancaster,
	Against Northumberland and the Archbishop.

FALSTAFF	Comes the king back from Wales, my noble lord?

Lord Chief-Justice	You shall have letters of me presently:
	Come, go along with me, good Master Gower.

FALSTAFF	My lord!

Lord Chief-Justice	What's the matter?

FALSTAFF	Master Gower, shall I entreat you with me to dinner?

GOWER	I must wait upon my good lord here; I thank you,
	good Sir John.

Lord Chief-Justice	Sir John, you loiter here too long, being you are to
	take soldiers up in counties as you go.

FALSTAFF	Will you sup with me, Master Gower?

Lord Chief-Justice	What foolish master taught you these manners, Sir John?

FALSTAFF	Master Gower, if they become me not, he was a fool
	that taught them me. This is the right fencing
	grace, my lord; tap for tap, and so part fair.

Lord Chief-Justice	Now the Lord lighten thee! thou art a great fool.

	[Exeunt]




	2 KING HENRY IV


ACT II



SCENE II	London. Another street.


	[Enter PRINCE HENRY and POINS]

PRINCE HENRY	Before God, I am exceeding weary.

POINS	Is't come to that? I had thought weariness durst not
	have attached one of so high blood.

PRINCE HENRY	Faith, it does me; though it discolours the
	complexion of my greatness to acknowledge it. Doth
	it not show vilely in me to desire small beer?

POINS	Why, a prince should not be so loosely studied as
	to remember so weak a composition.

PRINCE HENRY	Belike then my appetite was not princely got; for,
	by my troth, I do now remember the poor creature,
	small beer. But, indeed, these humble
	considerations make me out of love with my
	greatness. What a disgrace is it to me to remember
	thy name! or to know thy face to-morrow! or to
	take note how many pair of silk stockings thou
	hast, viz. these, and those that were thy
	peach-coloured ones! or to bear the inventory of thy
	shirts, as, one for superfluity, and another for
	use! But that the tennis-court-keeper knows better
	than I; for it is a low ebb of linen with thee when
	thou keepest not racket there; as thou hast not done
	a great while, because the rest of thy low
	countries have made a shift to eat up thy holland:
	and God knows, whether those that bawl out the ruins
	of thy linen shall inherit his kingdom: but the
	midwives say the children are not in the fault;
	whereupon the world increases, and kindreds are
	mightily strengthened.

POINS	How ill it follows, after you have laboured so hard,
	you should talk so idly! Tell me, how many good
	young princes would do so, their fathers being so
	sick as yours at this time is?

PRINCE HENRY	Shall I tell thee one thing, Poins?

POINS	Yes, faith; and let it be an excellent good thing.

PRINCE HENRY	It shall serve among wits of no higher breeding than thine.

POINS	Go to; I stand the push of your one thing that you
	will tell.

PRINCE HENRY	Marry, I tell thee, it is not meet that I should be
	sad, now my father is sick: albeit I could tell
	thee, as to one it pleases me, for fault of a
	better, to call my friend, I could be sad, and sad
	indeed too.

POINS	Very hardly upon such a subject.

PRINCE HENRY	By this hand thou thinkest me as far in the devil's
	book as thou and Falstaff for obduracy and
	persistency: let the end try the man. But I tell
	thee, my heart bleeds inwardly that my father is so
	sick: and keeping such vile company as thou art
	hath in reason taken from me all ostentation of sorrow.

POINS	The reason?

PRINCE HENRY	What wouldst thou think of me, if I should weep?

POINS	I would think thee a most princely hypocrite.

PRINCE HENRY	It would be every man's thought; and thou art a
	blessed fellow to think as every man thinks: never
	a man's thought in the world keeps the road-way
	better than thine: every man would think me an
	hypocrite indeed. And what accites your most
	worshipful thought to think so?

POINS	Why, because you have been so lewd and so much
	engraffed to Falstaff.

PRINCE HENRY	And to thee.

POINS	By this light, I am well spoke on; I can hear it
	with my own ears: the worst that they can say of
	me is that I am a second brother and that I am a
	proper fellow of my hands; and those two things, I
	confess, I cannot help. By the mass, here comes Bardolph.

	[Enter BARDOLPH and Page]

PRINCE HENRY	And the boy that I gave Falstaff: a' had him from
	me Christian; and look, if the fat villain have not
	transformed him ape.

BARDOLPH	God save your grace!

PRINCE HENRY	And yours, most noble Bardolph!

BARDOLPH	Come, you virtuous ass, you bashful fool, must you
	be blushing? wherefore blush you now? What a
	maidenly man-at-arms are you become! Is't such a
	matter to get a pottle-pot's maidenhead?

Page	A' calls me e'en now, my lord, through a red
	lattice, and I could discern no part of his face
	from the window: at last I spied his eyes, and
	methought he had made two holes in the ale-wife's
	new petticoat and so peeped through.

PRINCE HENRY	Has not the boy profited?

BARDOLPH	Away, you whoreson upright rabbit, away!

Page	Away, you rascally Althaea's dream, away!

PRINCE HENRY	Instruct us, boy; what dream, boy?

Page	Marry, my lord, Althaea dreamed she was delivered
	of a fire-brand; and therefore I call him her dream.

PRINCE HENRY	A crown's worth of good interpretation: there 'tis,
	boy.

POINS	O, that this good blossom could be kept from
	cankers! Well, there is sixpence to preserve thee.

BARDOLPH	An you do not make him hanged among you, the
	gallows shall have wrong.

PRINCE HENRY	And how doth thy master, Bardolph?

BARDOLPH	Well, my lord. He heard of your grace's coming to
	town: there's a letter for you.

POINS	Delivered with good respect. And how doth the
	martlemas, your master?

BARDOLPH	In bodily health, sir.

POINS	Marry, the immortal part needs a physician; but
	that moves not him: though that be sick, it dies
	not.

PRINCE HENRY	I do allow this wen to be as familiar with me as my
	dog; and he holds his place; for look you how be writes.

POINS	[Reads]  'John Falstaff, knight,'--every man must
	know that, as oft as he has occasion to name
	himself: even like those that are kin to the king;
	for they never prick their finger but they say,
	'There's some of the king's blood spilt.' 'How
	comes that?' says he, that takes upon him not to
	conceive. The answer is as ready as a borrower's
	cap, 'I am the king's poor cousin, sir.'

PRINCE HENRY	Nay, they will be kin to us, or they will fetch it
	from Japhet. But to the letter.

POINS	[Reads]  'Sir John Falstaff, knight, to the son of
	the king, nearest his father, Harry Prince of
	Wales, greeting.' Why, this is a certificate.

PRINCE HENRY	Peace!

POINS	[Reads]  'I will imitate the honourable Romans in
	brevity:' he sure means brevity in breath,
	short-winded. 'I commend me to thee, I commend
	thee, and I leave thee. Be not too familiar with
	Poins; for he misuses thy favours so much, that he
	swears thou art to marry his sister Nell. Repent
	at idle times as thou mayest; and so, farewell.
	Thine, by yea and no, which is as much as to
	say, as thou usest him, JACK FALSTAFF with my
	familiars, JOHN with my brothers and sisters,
	and SIR JOHN with all Europe.'
	My lord, I'll steep this letter in sack and make him eat it.

PRINCE HENRY	That's to make him eat twenty of his words. But do
	you use me thus, Ned? must I marry your sister?

POINS	God send the wench no worse fortune! But I never said so.

PRINCE HENRY	Well, thus we play the fools with the time, and the
	spirits of the wise sit in the clouds and mock us.
	Is your master here in London?

BARDOLPH	Yea, my lord.

PRINCE HENRY	Where sups he? doth the old boar feed in the old frank?

BARDOLPH	At the old place, my lord, in Eastcheap.

PRINCE HENRY	What company?

Page	Ephesians, my lord, of the old church.

PRINCE HENRY	Sup any women with him?

Page	None, my lord, but old Mistress Quickly and
	Mistress Doll Tearsheet.

PRINCE HENRY	What pagan may that be?

Page	A proper gentlewoman, sir, and a kinswoman of my master's.

PRINCE HENRY	Even such kin as the parish heifers are to the town
	bull. Shall we steal upon them, Ned, at supper?

POINS	I am your shadow, my lord; I'll follow you.

PRINCE HENRY	Sirrah, you boy, and Bardolph, no word to your
	master that I am yet come to town: there's for
	your silence.

BARDOLPH	I have no tongue, sir.

Page	And for mine, sir, I will govern it.

PRINCE HENRY	Fare you well; go.

	[Exeunt BARDOLPH and Page]

	This Doll Tearsheet should be some road.

POINS	I warrant you, as common as the way between Saint
	Alban's and London.

PRINCE HENRY	How might we see Falstaff bestow himself to-night
	in his true colours, and not ourselves be seen?

POINS	Put on two leathern jerkins and aprons, and wait
	upon him at his table as drawers.

PRINCE HENRY	From a God to a bull? a heavy decension! it was
	Jove's case. From a prince to a prentice? a low
	transformation! that shall be mine; for in every
	thing the purpose must weigh with the folly.
	Follow me, Ned.

	[Exeunt]




	2 KING HENRY IV


ACT II



SCENE III	Warkworth. Before the castle.


	[Enter NORTHUMBERLAND, LADY NORTHUMBERLAND, and LADY PERCY]

NORTHUMBERLAND	I pray thee, loving wife, and gentle daughter,
	Give even way unto my rough affairs:
	Put not you on the visage of the times
	And be like them to Percy troublesome.

LADY
NORTHUMBERLAND	I have given over, I will speak no more:
	Do what you will; your wisdom be your guide.

NORTHUMBERLAND	Alas, sweet wife, my honour is at pawn;
	And, but my going, nothing can redeem it.

LADY PERCY	O yet, for God's sake, go not to these wars!
	The time was, father, that you broke your word,
	When you were more endeared to it than now;
	When your own Percy, when my heart's dear Harry,
	Threw many a northward look to see his father
	Bring up his powers; but he did long in vain.
	Who then persuaded you to stay at home?
	There were two honours lost, yours and your son's.
	For yours, the God of heaven brighten it!
	For his, it stuck upon him as the sun
	In the grey vault of heaven, and by his light
	Did all the chivalry of England move
	To do brave acts: he was indeed the glass
	Wherein the noble youth did dress themselves:
	He had no legs that practised not his gait;
	And speaking thick, which nature made his blemish,
	Became the accents of the valiant;
	For those that could speak low and tardily
	Would turn their own perfection to abuse,
	To seem like him: so that in speech, in gait,
	In diet, in affections of delight,
	In military rules, humours of blood,
	He was the mark and glass, copy and book,
	That fashion'd others. And him, O wondrous him!
	O miracle of men! him did you leave,
	Second to none, unseconded by you,
	To look upon the hideous god of war
	In disadvantage; to abide a field
	Where nothing but the sound of Hotspur's name
	Did seem defensible: so you left him.
	Never, O never, do his ghost the wrong
	To hold your honour more precise and nice
	With others than with him! let them alone:
	The marshal and the archbishop are strong:
	Had my sweet Harry had but half their numbers,
	To-day might I, hanging on Hotspur's neck,
	Have talk'd of Monmouth's grave.

NORTHUMBERLAND	Beshrew your heart,
	Fair daughter, you do draw my spirits from me
	With new lamenting ancient oversights.
	But I must go and meet with danger there,
	Or it will seek me in another place
	And find me worse provided.

LADY
NORTHUMBERLAND	O, fly to Scotland,
	Till that the nobles and the armed commons
	Have of their puissance made a little taste.

LADY PERCY	If they get ground and vantage of the king,
	Then join you with them, like a rib of steel,
	To make strength stronger; but, for all our loves,
	First let them try themselves. So did your son;
	He was so suffer'd: so came I a widow;
	And never shall have length of life enough
	To rain upon remembrance with mine eyes,
	That it may grow and sprout as high as heaven,
	For recordation to my noble husband.

NORTHUMBERLAND	Come, come, go in with me. 'Tis with my mind
	As with the tide swell'd up unto his height,
	That makes a still-stand, running neither way:
	Fain would I go to meet the archbishop,
	But many thousand reasons hold me back.
	I will resolve for Scotland: there am I,
	Till time and vantage crave my company.

	[Exeunt]




	2 KING HENRY IV


ACT II



SCENE IV	London. The Boar's-head Tavern in Eastcheap.


	[Enter two Drawers]

First Drawer	What the devil hast thou brought there? apple-johns?
	thou knowest Sir John cannot endure an apple-john.

Second Drawer	Mass, thou sayest true. The prince once set a dish
	of apple-johns before him, and told him there were
	five more Sir Johns, and, putting off his hat, said
	'I will now take my leave of these six dry, round,
	old, withered knights.' It angered him to the
	heart: but he hath forgot that.

First Drawer	Why, then, cover, and set them down: and see if
	thou canst find out Sneak's noise; Mistress
	Tearsheet would fain hear some music. Dispatch: the
	room where they supped is too hot; they'll come in straight.

Second Drawer	Sirrah, here will be the prince and Master Poins
	anon; and they will put on two of our jerkins and
	aprons; and Sir John must not know of it: Bardolph
	hath brought word.

First Drawer	By the mass, here will be old Utis: it will be an
	excellent stratagem.

Second Drawer	I'll see if I can find out Sneak.

	[Exit]

	[Enter MISTRESS QUICKLY and DOLL TEARSHEET]

MISTRESS QUICKLY	I' faith, sweetheart, methinks now you are in an
	excellent good temperality: your pulsidge beats as
	extraordinarily as heart would desire; and your
	colour, I warrant you, is as red as any rose, in good
	truth, la! But, i' faith, you have drunk too much
	canaries; and that's a marvellous searching wine,
	and it perfumes the blood ere one can say 'What's
	this?' How do you now?

DOLL TEARSHEET	Better than I was: hem!

MISTRESS QUICKLY	Why, that's well said; a good heart's worth gold.
	Lo, here comes Sir John.

	[Enter FALSTAFF]

FALSTAFF	[Singing]  'When Arthur first in court,'
	--Empty the jordan.

	[Exit First Drawer]

	[Singing]

	--'And was a worthy king.' How now, Mistress Doll!

MISTRESS QUICKLY	Sick of a calm; yea, good faith.

FALSTAFF	So is all her sect; an they be once in a calm, they are sick.

DOLL TEARSHEET	You muddy rascal, is that all the comfort you give me?

FALSTAFF	You make fat rascals, Mistress Doll.

DOLL TEARSHEET	I make them! gluttony and diseases make them; I
	make them not.

FALSTAFF	If the cook help to make the gluttony, you help to
	make the diseases, Doll: we catch of you, Doll, we
	catch of you; grant that, my poor virtue grant that.

DOLL TEARSHEET	Yea, joy, our chains and our jewels.

FALSTAFF	'Your broaches, pearls, and ouches:' for to serve
	bravely is to come halting off, you know: to come
	off the breach with his pike bent bravely, and to
	surgery bravely; to venture upon the charged
	chambers bravely,--

DOLL TEARSHEET	Hang yourself, you muddy conger, hang yourself!

MISTRESS QUICKLY	By my troth, this is the old fashion; you two never
	meet but you fall to some discord: you are both,
	i' good truth, as rheumatic as two dry toasts; you
	cannot one bear with another's confirmities. What
	the good-year! one must bear, and that must be
	you: you are the weaker vessel, as they say, the
	emptier vessel.

DOLL TEARSHEET	Can a weak empty vessel bear such a huge full
	hogshead? there's a whole merchant's venture of
	Bourdeaux stuff in him; you have not seen a hulk
	better stuffed in the hold. Come, I'll be friends
	with thee, Jack: thou art going to the wars; and
	whether I shall ever see thee again or no, there is
	nobody cares.

	[Re-enter First Drawer]

First Drawer	Sir, Ancient Pistol's below, and would speak with
	you.

DOLL TEARSHEET	Hang him, swaggering rascal! let him not come
	hither: it is the foul-mouthed'st rogue in England.

MISTRESS QUICKLY	If he swagger, let him not come here: no, by my
	faith; I must live among my neighbours: I'll no
	swaggerers: I am in good name and fame with the
	very best: shut the door; there comes no swaggerers
	here: I have not lived all this while, to have
	swaggering now: shut the door, I pray you.

FALSTAFF	Dost thou hear, hostess?

MISTRESS QUICKLY	Pray ye, pacify yourself, Sir John: there comes no
	swaggerers here.

FALSTAFF	Dost thou hear? it is mine ancient.

MISTRESS QUICKLY	Tilly-fally, Sir John, ne'er tell me: your ancient
	swaggerer comes not in my doors. I was before Master
	Tisick, the debuty, t'other day; and, as he said to
	me, 'twas no longer ago than Wednesday last, 'I'
	good faith, neighbour Quickly,' says he; Master
	Dumbe, our minister, was by then; 'neighbour
	Quickly,' says he, 'receive those that are civil;
	for,' said he, 'you are in an ill name:' now a'
	said so, I can tell whereupon; 'for,' says he, 'you
	are an honest woman, and well thought on; therefore
	take heed what guests you receive: receive,' says
	he, 'no swaggering companions.' There comes none
	here: you would bless you to hear what he said:
	no, I'll no swaggerers.

FALSTAFF	He's no swaggerer, hostess; a tame cheater, i'
	faith; you may stroke him as gently as a puppy
	greyhound: he'll not swagger with a Barbary hen, if
	her feathers turn back in any show of resistance.
	Call him up, drawer.

	[Exit First Drawer]

MISTRESS QUICKLY	Cheater, call you him? I will bar no honest man my
	house, nor no cheater: but I do not love
	swaggering, by my troth; I am the worse, when one
	says swagger: feel, masters, how I shake; look you,
	I warrant you.

DOLL TEARSHEET	So you do, hostess.

MISTRESS QUICKLY	Do I? yea, in very truth, do I, an 'twere an aspen
	leaf: I cannot abide swaggerers.

	[Enter PISTOL, BARDOLPH, and Page]

PISTOL	God save you, Sir John!

FALSTAFF	Welcome, Ancient Pistol. Here, Pistol, I charge
	you with a cup of sack: do you discharge upon mine hostess.

PISTOL	I will discharge upon her, Sir John, with two bullets.

FALSTAFF	She is Pistol-proof, sir; you shall hardly offend
	her.

MISTRESS QUICKLY	Come, I'll drink no proofs nor no bullets: I'll
	drink no more than will do me good, for no man's
	pleasure, I.

PISTOL	Then to you, Mistress Dorothy; I will charge you.

DOLL TEARSHEET	Charge me! I scorn you, scurvy companion. What!
	you poor, base, rascally, cheating, lack-linen
	mate! Away, you mouldy rogue, away! I am meat for
	your master.

PISTOL	I know you, Mistress Dorothy.

DOLL TEARSHEET	Away, you cut-purse rascal! you filthy bung, away!
	by this wine, I'll thrust my knife in your mouldy
	chaps, an you play the saucy cuttle with me. Away,
	you bottle-ale rascal! you basket-hilt stale
	juggler, you! Since when, I pray you, sir? God's
	light, with two points on your shoulder? much!

PISTOL	God let me not live, but I will murder your ruff for this.

FALSTAFF	No more, Pistol; I would not have you go off here:
	discharge yourself of our company, Pistol.

MISTRESS QUICKLY	No, Good Captain Pistol; not here, sweet captain.

DOLL TEARSHEET	Captain! thou abominable damned cheater, art thou
	not ashamed to be called captain? An captains were
	of my mind, they would truncheon you out, for
	taking their names upon you before you have earned
	them. You a captain! you slave, for what? for
	tearing a poor whore's ruff in a bawdy-house? He a
	captain! hang him, rogue! he lives upon mouldy
	stewed prunes and dried cakes. A captain! God's
	light, these villains will make the word as odious
	as the word 'occupy;' which was an excellent good
	word before it was ill sorted: therefore captains
	had need look to 't.

BARDOLPH	Pray thee, go down, good ancient.

FALSTAFF	Hark thee hither, Mistress Doll.

PISTOL	Not I	I tell thee what, Corporal Bardolph, I could
	tear her: I'll be revenged of her.

Page	Pray thee, go down.

PISTOL	I'll see her damned first; to Pluto's damned lake,
	by this hand, to the infernal deep, with Erebus and
	tortures vile also. Hold hook and line, say I.
	Down, down, dogs! down, faitors! Have we not
	Hiren here?

MISTRESS QUICKLY	Good Captain Peesel, be quiet; 'tis very late, i'
	faith: I beseek you now, aggravate your choler.

PISTOL	These be good humours, indeed! Shall pack-horses
	And hollow pamper'd jades of Asia,
	Which cannot go but thirty mile a-day,
	Compare with Caesars, and with Cannibals,
	And Trojan Greeks? nay, rather damn them with
	King Cerberus; and let the welkin roar.
	Shall we fall foul for toys?

MISTRESS QUICKLY	By my troth, captain, these are very bitter words.

BARDOLPH	Be gone, good ancient: this will grow to abrawl anon.

PISTOL	Die men like dogs! give crowns like pins! Have we
	not Heren here?

MISTRESS QUICKLY	O' my word, captain, there's none such here. What
	the good-year! do you think I would deny her? For
	God's sake, be quiet.

PISTOL	Then feed, and be fat, my fair Calipolis.
	Come, give's some sack.
	'Si fortune me tormente, sperato me contento.'
	Fear we broadsides? no, let the fiend give fire:
	Give me some sack: and, sweetheart, lie thou there.

	[Laying down his sword]

	Come we to full points here; and are etceteras nothing?

FALSTAFF	Pistol, I would be quiet.

PISTOL	Sweet knight, I kiss thy neaf: what! we have seen
	the seven stars.

DOLL TEARSHEET	For God's sake, thrust him down stairs: I cannot
	endure such a fustian rascal.

PISTOL	Thrust him down stairs! know we not Galloway nags?

FALSTAFF	Quoit him down, Bardolph, like a shove-groat
	shilling: nay, an a' do nothing but speak nothing,
	a' shall be nothing here.

BARDOLPH	Come, get you down stairs.

PISTOL	What! shall we have incision? shall we imbrue?

	[Snatching up his sword]

	Then death rock me asleep, abridge my doleful days!
	Why, then, let grievous, ghastly, gaping wounds
	Untwine the Sisters Three! Come, Atropos, I say!

MISTRESS QUICKLY	Here's goodly stuff toward!

FALSTAFF	Give me my rapier, boy.

DOLL TEARSHEET	I pray thee, Jack, I pray thee, do not draw.

FALSTAFF	Get you down stairs.

	[Drawing, and driving PISTOL out]

MISTRESS QUICKLY	Here's a goodly tumult! I'll forswear keeping
	house, afore I'll be in these tirrits and frights.
	So; murder, I warrant now. Alas, alas! put up
	your naked weapons, put up your naked weapons.

	[Exeunt PISTOL and BARDOLPH]

DOLL TEARSHEET	I pray thee, Jack, be quiet; the rascal's gone.
	Ah, you whoreson little valiant villain, you!

MISTRESS QUICKLY	He you not hurt i' the groin? methought a' made a
	shrewd thrust at your belly.

	[Re-enter BARDOLPH]

FALSTAFF	Have you turned him out o' doors?

BARDOLPH	Yea, sir. The rascal's drunk: you have hurt him,
	sir, i' the shoulder.

FALSTAFF	A rascal! to brave me!

DOLL TEARSHEET	Ah, you sweet little rogue, you! alas, poor ape,
	how thou sweatest! come, let me wipe thy face;
	come on, you whoreson chops: ah, rogue! i'faith, I
	love thee: thou art as valorous as Hector of Troy,
	worth five of Agamemnon, and ten times better than
	the Nine Worthies: ah, villain!

FALSTAFF	A rascally slave! I will toss the rogue in a blanket.

DOLL TEARSHEET	Do, an thou darest for thy heart: an thou dost,
	I'll canvass thee between a pair of sheets.

	[Enter Music]

Page	The music is come, sir.

FALSTAFF	Let them play. Play, sirs. Sit on my knee, Doll.
	A rascal bragging slave! the rogue fled from me
	like quicksilver.

DOLL TEARSHEET	I' faith, and thou followedst him like a church.
	Thou whoreson little tidy Bartholomew boar-pig,
	when wilt thou leave fighting o' days and foining
	o' nights, and begin to patch up thine old body for heaven?

	[Enter, behind, PRINCE HENRY and POINS, disguised]

FALSTAFF	Peace, good Doll! do not speak like a death's-head;
	do not bid me remember mine end.

DOLL TEARSHEET	Sirrah, what humour's the prince of?

FALSTAFF	A good shallow young fellow: a' would have made a
	good pantler, a' would ha' chipp'd bread well.

DOLL TEARSHEET	They say Poins has a good wit.

FALSTAFF	He a good wit? hang him, baboon! his wit's as thick
	as Tewksbury mustard; there's no more conceit in him
	than is in a mallet.

DOLL TEARSHEET	Why does the prince love him so, then?

FALSTAFF	Because their legs are both of a bigness, and a'
	plays at quoits well, and eats conger and fennel,
	and drinks off candles' ends for flap-dragons, and
	rides the wild-mare with the boys, and jumps upon
	joined-stools, and swears with a good grace, and
	wears his boots very smooth, like unto the sign of
	the leg, and breeds no bate with telling of discreet
	stories; and such other gambol faculties a' has,
	that show a weak mind and an able body, for the
	which the prince admits him: for the prince himself
	is such another; the weight of a hair will turn the
	scales between their avoirdupois.

PRINCE HENRY	Would not this nave of a wheel have his ears cut off?

POINS	Let's beat him before his whore.

PRINCE HENRY	Look, whether the withered elder hath not his poll
	clawed like a parrot.

POINS	Is it not strange that desire should so many years
	outlive performance?

FALSTAFF	Kiss me, Doll.

PRINCE HENRY	Saturn and Venus this year in conjunction! what
	says the almanac to that?

POINS	And look, whether the fiery Trigon, his man, be not
	lisping to his master's old tables, his note-book,
	his counsel-keeper.

FALSTAFF	Thou dost give me flattering busses.

DOLL TEARSHEET	By my troth, I kiss thee with a most constant heart.

FALSTAFF	I am old, I am old.

DOLL TEARSHEET	I love thee better than I love e'er a scurvy young
	boy of them all.

FALSTAFF	What stuff wilt have a kirtle of? I shall receive
	money o' Thursday: shalt have a cap to-morrow. A
	merry song, come: it grows late; we'll to bed.
	Thou'lt forget me when I am gone.

DOLL TEARSHEET	By my troth, thou'lt set me a-weeping, an thou
	sayest so: prove that ever I dress myself handsome
	till thy return: well, harken at the end.

FALSTAFF	Some sack, Francis.


PRINCE HENRY	|
	|  Anon, anon, sir.
POINS	|


	[Coming forward]

FALSTAFF	Ha! a bastard son of the king's? And art not thou
	Poins his brother?

PRINCE HENRY	Why, thou globe of sinful continents! what a life
	dost thou lead!

FALSTAFF	A better than thou: I am a gentleman; thou art a drawer.

PRINCE HENRY	Very true, sir; and I come to draw you out by the ears.

MISTRESS QUICKLY	O, the Lord preserve thy good grace! by my troth,
	welcome to London. Now, the Lord bless that sweet
	face of thine! O, Jesu, are you come from Wales?

FALSTAFF	Thou whoreson mad compound of majesty, by this light
	fl