William Shakespeare
King Henry IV, Part 2

Dramatis Personae

RUMOUR, the Presenter

KING HENRY THE FOURTH

HENRY, PRINCE OF WALES, afterwards HENRY

PRINCE JOHN OF LANCASTER

PRINCE HUMPHREY OF GLOUCESTER

THOMAS, DUKE OF CLARENCE

Sons of Henry IV

EARL OF NORTHUMBERLAND

SCROOP, ARCHBISHOP OF YORK

LORD MOWBRAY

LORD HASTINGS

LORD BARDOLPH

SIR JOHN COLVILLE

TRAVERS and MORTON, retainers of Northumberland

Opposites against King Henry IV

EARL OF WARWICK

EARL OF WESTMORELAND

EARL OF SURREY

EARL OF KENT

GOWER

HARCOURT

BLUNT

Of the King's party

LORD CHIEF JUSTICE

SERVANT, to Lord Chief Justice

SIR JOHN FALSTAFF

EDWARD POINS

BARDOLPH

PISTOL

PETO

Irregular humourists

PAGE, to Falstaff

ROBERT SHALLOW and SILENCE, country Justices

DAVY, servant to Shallow

FANG and SNARE, Sheriff's officers

RALPH MOULDY

SIMON SHADOW

THOMAS WART

FRANCIS FEEBLE

PETER BULLCALF

Country soldiers

FRANCIS, a drawer

LADY NORTHUMBERLAND

LADY PERCY, Percy's widow

HOSTESS QUICKLY, of the Boar's Head, Eastcheap

DOLL TEARSHEET

LORDS, Attendants, Porter, Drawers, Beadles, Grooms, Servants, Speaker of the Epilogue

SCENE: England

INDUCTION

INDUCTION

Warkworth. Before NORTHUMBERLAND'S 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 emnity,
    Under the smile of safety, wounds the world;
    And who but Rumour, who but only I,
    Make fearful musters and prepar'd 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 wav'ring 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 rebels' blood. But what mean I
    To speak so true at first? My office is
    To noise abroad that Harry Monmouth fell
    Under the wrath of noble Hotspur's sword,
    And that the King before the Douglas' rage
    Stoop'd his anointed head as low as death.
    This have I rumour'd through the peasant towns
    Between that royal field of Shrewsbury
    And this worm-eaten hold of ragged stone,
    Where Hotspur's father, old Northumberland,
    Lies crafty-sick. The posts come tiring on,
    And not a man of them brings other news
    Than they have learnt of me. From Rumour's tongues
    They bring smooth comforts false, worse than true wrongs.

Exit

ACT I. SCENE I. Warkworth. Before NORTHUMBERLAND'S Castle

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 will 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 followed, and so fairly won,
    Came not till now to dignify the times,
    Since Cxsar's fortunes!
  NORTHUMBERLAND. How is this deriv'd?
    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 rend'red me these news for true.

Enter TRAVERS

  NORTHUMBERLAND. Here comes my servant Travers, whom I sent
    On Tuesday last to listen after news.
  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 hors'd,
    Out-rode me. After him came spurring hard
    A gentleman, almost forspent with speed,
    That stopp'd by me to breathe his bloodied horse.
    He ask'd the way to Chester; and of him
    I did demand what news from Shrewsbury.
    He told me that rebellion had bad luck,
    And that young Harry Percy's spur was cold.
    With that he gave his able horse the head
    And, bending forward, struck his armed heels
    Against the panting sides of his poor jade
    Up to the rowel-head; and starting so,
    He seem'd in running to devour the way,
    Staying no longer question.
  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 stol'n
    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 dread 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 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,
    Rememb'red 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,
    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 steeled;
    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 th' 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-weak'ned 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,
    Weak'ned with grief, being now enrag'd with grief,
    Are thrice themselves. Hence, therefore, thou nice crutch!
    A scaly gauntlet now with joints of steel
    Must glove this hand; and hence, thou sickly coif!
    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 th' enrag'd Northumberland!
    Let heaven kiss earth! Now let not Nature's hand
    Keep the wild flood confin'd! Let order die!
    And let this world no longer be a stage
    To feed contention in a ling'ring 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!
  LORD BARDOLPH. This strained passion doth you wrong, my lord.
  MORTON. Sweet Earl, divorce not wisdom from your honour.
    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 th' event of war, my noble lord,
    And summ'd the account of chance before you said
    'Let us make head.' It was your pre-surmise
    That in the dole of blows your son might drop.
    You knew he walk'd o'er perils on an edge,
    More likely to fall in than to get o'er;
    You were advis'd his flesh was capable
    Of wounds and scars, and that his forward spirit
    Would lift him where most trade of danger rang'd;
    Yet did you say 'Go forth'; and none of this,
    Though strongly apprehended, could restrain
    The stiff-borne action. What hath then befall'n,
    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 out life 'twas ten to one;
    And yet we ventur'd, for the gain propos'd
    Chok'd the respect of likely peril fear'd;
    And since we are o'erset, venture again.
    Come, we will put forth, body and goods.
  MORTON. 'Tis more than time. And, my most noble lord,
    I hear for certain, and dare speak the truth:
    The gentle Archbishop of York is up
    With well-appointed pow'rs. 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.
    Suppos'd sincere and holy in his thoughts,
    He's follow'd both with body and with mind;
    And doth enlarge his rising with the blood
    Of fair King Richard, scrap'd from Pomfret stones;
    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 wip'd it from my mind.
    Go in with me; and counsel every man
    The aptest way for safety and revenge.
    Get posts and letters, and make friends with speed —
    Never so few, and never yet more need. Exeunt

SCENE II. London. A street

Enter SIR JOHN FALSTAFF, with his PAGE bearing his sword and buckler

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 moe 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 intends 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 overwhelm'd 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 mann'd 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 fledge. I will sooner have a beard grow in the palm of my hand than he shall get one off 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 Dommelton 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 damn'd, like the Glutton; pray God his tongue be hotter! A whoreson Achitophel! A rascal-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 look'd '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 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 mann'd, hors'd, and wiv'd.

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. CHIEF JUSTICE. What's he that goes there? SERVANT. Falstaff, an't please your lordship. CHIEF JUSTICE. He that was in question for the robb'ry? 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. 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. CHIEF JUSTICE. I am sure he is, to the hearing of anything 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 your soldiership aside; and give me leave to tell you you 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 get'st any leave of me, hang me; if thou tak'st leave, thou wert better be hang'd. You hunt counter. Hence! Avaunt! SERVANT. Sir, my lord would speak with you. 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 most humbly beseech your lordship to have a reverend care of your health. CHIEF JUSTICE. Sir John, I sent for you before your expedition to Shrewsbury. FALSTAFF. An't please your lordship, I hear his Majesty is return'd with some discomfort from Wales. 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 fall'n into this same whoreson apoplexy. CHIEF JUSTICE. Well God mend him! I pray you let me speak with you. FALSTAFF. This apoplexy, as I take it, is a kind of lethargy, an't please your lordship, a kind of sleeping in the blood, a whoreson tingling. CHIEF JUSTICE. What tell you me of it? Be it as it is. FALSTAFF. It hath it 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. CHIEF JUSTICE. I think you are fall'n 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. 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 I should be your patient to follow your prescriptions, the wise may make some dram of a scruple, or indeed a scruple itself. 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 advis'd by my learned counsel in the laws of this land-service, I did not come. CHIEF JUSTICE. Well, the truth is, Sir John, you live in great infamy. FALSTAFF. He that buckles himself in my belt cannot live in less. 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. 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. CHIEF JUSTICE. Well, I am loath to gall a new-heal'd wound. Your day's service at Shrewsbury hath a little gilded over your night's exploit on Gadshill. You may thank th' unquiet time for your quiet o'erposting that action. FALSTAFF. My 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 smell a fox. 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. CHIEF JUSTICE. There is not a white hair in your face but should have his effect of gravity. FALSTAFF. His effect of gravy, gravy, 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 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 costermongers' times that true valour is turn'd berod; pregnancy is made a tapster, and 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, must confess, are wags too. 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 hallooing 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 check'd him for it; and the young lion repents – marry, not in ashes and sackcloth, but in new silk and old sack. 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. CHIEF JUSTICE. Well, the King hath sever'd you. 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 anything 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. 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? 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 perceiv'd the first white hair of 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 anything. I will turn diseases to commodity.

Exit

SCENE III. York. The ARCHBISHOP'S palace

Enter the ARCHBISHOP, THOMAS MOWBRAY the EARL MARSHAL, LORD HASTINGS, and LORD BARDOLPH

  ARCHBISHOP. 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 amis;
    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-fac'd as this,
    Conjecture, expectation, and surmise
    Of aids incertain, should not be admitted.
  ARCHBISHOP. 'Tis very true, Lord Bardolph; for indeed
    It was young Hotspur's case at Shrewsbury.
  LORD BARDOLPH. It was, my lord; who lin'd himself with hope,
    Eating the air and promise of supply,
    Flatt'ring 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, leapt 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 th' 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 we must rate the cost of the erection;
    Which if we find outweighs ability,
    What do we then but draw anew the model
    In fewer offices, or at least desist
    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 so 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. 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 at his 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 against the French
    I have no certain notice.
  ARCHBISHOP. 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 provok'st 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 liv'd, 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 th' admired heels of Bolingbroke,
    Criest now 'O earth, yield us that king again,
    And take thou this!' O thoughts of men accurs'd!
    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

ACT II. SCENE I. London. A street

Enter HOSTESS with two officers, FANG and SNARE

  HOSTESS. Master Fang, have you ent'red the action?
  FANG. It is ent'red.
  HOSTESS. Where's your yeoman? Is't a lusty yeoman? Will 'a
stand
    to't?
  FANG. Sirrah, where's Snare?
  HOSTESS. O Lord, ay! good Master Snare.
  SNARE. Here, here.
  FANG. Snare, we must arrest Sir John Falstaff.
  HOSTESS. Yea, good Master Snare; I have ent'red him and all.
  SNARE. It may chance cost some of our lives, for he will stab.
  HOSTESS. Alas the day! take heed of him; he stabb'd me in mine
own
    house, and that most beastly. In good faith, 'a 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.
  HOSTESS. No, nor I neither; I'll be at your elbow.
  FANG. An I but fist him once; an 'a come but within my vice!
  HOSTESS. 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 you, since my exion is
    ent'red, 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 fubb'd off, and fubb'd off, and fubb'd 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.
  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
villian's
    head. Throw the quean in the channel.
  HOSTESS. 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!
  HOSTESS. Good people, bring a rescue or two. Thou wot, wot
thou!
    thou wot, wot ta? Do, do, thou rogue! do, thou hemp-seed!
  PAGE. Away, you scullion! you rampallian! you fustilarian!
    I'll tickle your catastrophe.

Enter the LORD CHIEF JUSTICE and his men

  CHIEF JUSTICE. What is the matter? Keep the peace here, ho!
  HOSTESS. Good my lord, be good to me. I beseech you, stand to
me.
  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 thou upon him?
  HOSTESS. O My most worshipful lord, an't please your Grace, I
am a
    poor widow of Eastcheap, and he is arrested at my suit.
  CHIEF JUSTICE. For what sum?
  HOSTESS. 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 a nights like a mare.
  FALSTAFF. I think I am as like to ride the mare, if I have any
    vantage of ground to get up.
  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?
  HOSTESS. 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 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 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 the 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 her 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.
  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, practis'd upon
the
    easy yielding spirit of this woman, and made her serve your
uses
    both in purse and in person.
  HOSTESS. Yea, in truth, my lord.
  CHIEF JUSTICE. Pray thee, peace. Pay her the debt you owe her,
and
    unpay the villainy you have done with 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
    curtsy and say nothing, he is virtuous. No, my lord, my
humble
    duty rememb'red, 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.
  CHIEF JUSTICE. You speak as having power to do wrong; but
answer in
    th' effect of your reputation, and satisfy the poor woman.
  FALSTAFF. Come hither, hostess.

Enter GOWER

  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. [Gives a letter]
  FALSTAFF. As I am a gentleman!
  HOSTESS. Faith, you said so before.
  FALSTAFF. As I am a gentleman! Come, no more words of it.
  HOSTESS. 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-hangers and these fly-bitten tapestries. Let it be ten
pound,
    if thou canst. Come, and '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.
  HOSTESS. 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.
  HOSTESS. 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.
  HOSTESS. Will you have Doll Tearsheet meet you at supper?
  FALSTAFF. No more words; let's have her.

Exeunt HOSTESS, BARDOLPH, and OFFICERS

  CHIEF JUSTICE. I have heard better news.
  FALSTAFF. What's the news, my lord?
  CHIEF JUSTICE. Where lay the King to-night?
  GOWER. At Basingstoke, my lord.
  FALSTAFF. I hope, my lord, all's well. What is the news, my
lord?
  CHIEF JUSTICE. Come all his forces back?
  GOWER. No; fifteen hundred foot, five hundred horse,
    Are march'd up to my Lord of Lancaster,
    Against Northumberland and the Archbishop.
  FALSTAFF. Comes the King back from Wales, my noble lord?
  CHIEF JUSTICE. You shall have letters of me presently.
    Come, go along with me, good Master Gower.
  FALSTAFF. My 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.
  CHIEF JUSTICE. Sir John, you loiter here too long, being you

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