KING HENRY IV.

Appears, Act III. sc. 1. Act IV. sc. 4.

HENRY PRINCE OF WALES, afterwards King
Henry V., son to King Henry IV.
Appars, Act II. sc. 2; sc. 4. Act IV. sc. 4. Act V. sc. 2; sc. 5.
THOMAS, Duke of Clarence, son to King Henry IV.
Appears, Act IV. sc. 4. Act V. sc. 2.

PRINCE JOHN of Lancaster, afterwards created (2
Henry V.) Duke of Bedford, son to King Henry IV.
Appears, Act IV. sc. 2; sc. 3; sc. 4. Act V. sc. 2; sc. 5.
PRINCE HUMPHREY of Gloster, afterwards created
Henry V.) Duke of Gloster, son to King Henry IV.
Appears, Act IV. sc. 4. Act V. sc. 2.
EARL OF WARWICK, of the King's party.
Appears, Act III. sc. 1. Act IV. sc. 4. Act V. sc. 2.
EARL OF WESTMORELAND, of the King's party.
Appears, Act IV. sc. 1; sc. 2; sc. 3; se. 4. Act V. sc. 2.
GOWER, of the King's party.
Appears, Act II. sc. 1.

HARCOURT, of the King's party.
Appears, Act IV. sc. 4.

LORD CHIEF JUSTICE of the King's Bench. Appears, Act I. sc. 2. Act II. sc. 1. Act V. sc. 2; sc. 5. A Gentleman attending on the Chief Justice. Appears, Act I. sc. 2.

EARL OF NORTHUMBERLAND, enemy to the King
Appears, Act 1. sc. 1. Act II. sc. 3.

SCROOP, Archbishop of York, LORD MOWERAY, and
LORD HASTINGS, enemies to the King.
Appear, Act I. sc. 3. Act IV. sc. 1; sc. 2.
LORD BARDOLPH, enemy to the King.
Appears, Act I. sc. 1; sc. 3.

SIR JOHN COLEVILE, enemy to the King.
Appears, Act IV. sc. 3.

TRAVERS and MORTON, domestics of Northumberland.

Appear, Act I. sc. 1.

Appears, Act I. sc. 2.

Page.

Act V. sc. 3; sc. 5.

Act II. sc. 1; sc. 2; sc. 4. Act V. sc. 1;
sc. 3; sc. 5.

POINS, an attendant on Prince Henry.
Appears, Act II. sc. 2; sc. 4.

PETO, an attendant on Prince Henry.
Appears, Act II. sc. 4.

SHALLOW, a country justice.
Appears, Act III. sc. 2. Act V. sc. 1; sc. 3; sc. 5.
SILENCE, a country justice.

Appears, Act III. sc. 2. Act V. sc. 3.
DAVY, servant to Shallow.
Appears, Act V. sc. 1; sc. 3.

MOULDY, SHADOW, WART, FEEBLE, BULLCALY,

Warkworth.

Before Northumberland's Castle.

Enter Rumour, painted full of tongues. Rum. 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. 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 prepar'd defence, Whilst the big year, swoln with some other griefs, 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

I

That the blunt monster with uncounted heads, The still-discorrlant 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 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 the 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 coriforts false, worse than true
[Exit.

wrongs.

SCENE I.-The same.

The Porter before the Gate; Enter LORD BARDOLPH.

L. Bard. Who keeps the gate here, ho?-Where is the earl?

Port. What shall I say you are?

L. Bard. Tell thou the ear!, That the lord Bardolph doth attend him here.

Port. His lordship is walk'd fortn into the orchard. Please it your honour, knock but at the gate, And he himself will answer.

L. Bard.

Enter NORTHUMBERLAND.

Here comes the earl.

North. What news, lord Bardolpn? every minute

now

Should be the father of some stratagem:a
The times are wild; contention, like a horse
Full of high feeding, madly hath broke loose,
And bears down all before him.

L. Bard.

Noble earl, I bring you certain news from Shrewsbury. North. Good, an heaven will!

L. Bard.

L. Bard. The king is almost wounded to the death; And, in the fortune of my lord your son, Prince Harry slain outright; and both the Blunts Kill'd by the hand of Douglas: young prince John, And Westmoreland, and Stafford, fled the field; And Harry Monmouth's brawn, the hulk sir John, Is prisoner to your son: O, such a day, So fought, so follow'd, and so fairly won, Came not, till now, to dignify the times, Since Cæsar's fortunes!

Enter TRAVERS.

North. Now, Travers, what good tidings come with you?

Trav. 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 ill 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.

a Stratagem-some military movement, according to the Greek derivation of the word;-some enterprise;-some decisive act on one part or the other, resulting from the wild times of conteutoo.

Forspent. For, as a prefix to a verb, is used to give it tensity.

North. How doth my son, and brother? Thou tremblest; and the wniteness 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 burn't: 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 mine car indeed,
Thou hast a sigh to blow away this praise,
Ending with-brother, son, and all are dead.
Mor. Douglas is living, and your brother, yet:
But, for my lord your son,-

North.

Why, he is dead. See what a ready tongue suspicion hath! He that but fears the thing he would not know, Hath, by instinet, knowledge from others' eyes, That what he fear'd is chanced. Yet speak, Morton; Tell thou thy earl his divination lies; And I will take it as a sweet disgrace, And make thee rich for doing me such wrong.

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

North. Yet, for all this, say not that Percy's dead. I see a strange confession in thine eye: Thou shak'st thy head; and hold'st it fear, or sin, To speak a truth. If he be slain, say so: The tongue offends not that reports his death: And he doth sin that doth belie the dead; Not he, which says the dead is not alive. Yet the first bringer of unwelcome news Hath but a losing office; and his tongue Sounds ever after as a sullen bell, Remember'd knolling a departing friend.a

Hilding-an expression of contempt for a cowardly, spiritless person.

b Title-leaf. Poems of lament were distinguished by a black title-page.

Fear-danger: matter or occasion of fear.

Departing friend. Malone thought that departing was here used for departed. But the ancient custom was for the bell to ring for the departing soul-not for the soul tha: had fled. Hence it was called the passing belt.

I.. Bard. I cannot think, my lord, your son is dead.
Mor. I am sorry I should force you to believe
That which I would to heaven I had not seen :
But these mine eyes saw him in bloody state,
Rendering faint quittance, wearied and out-breath'd,
To Henry Monmouth; whose swift wrath beat down
The never-daunted Percy to the earth,

From whence with life he never more sprung up.
In few, his death (whose spirit lent a fire
Even to the dullest peasant in his camp)
Being bruited once, took fire and heat away
From the best-temper'd courage in his troops:
For from his metal was his party steel'd;
Which once in him abated, all the rest
Turn'd on themselves, like dull and heavy lead.
And as the thing that 's heavy in itself,
Upon enforcement, flies with greatest speed;
So did our men, heavy in Hotspur's loss,
Lend to this weight such lightness with their fear,
That arrows fled not swifter toward their aim,
Than did our soldiers, aiming at their safety,
Fly from the field: Then was that noble Worcester
Too soon ta en prisoner: and that furious Scot,
The bloody Douglas, whose well-labouring sword
Had three times slain the appearance of the king,
Gan vail his stomach, and did grace the sname
Of those that turn'd their backs; and, in his flight,
Stumbling in fear, was took. The sum of all
Is that the king hath won; and hath sent out
A speedy power to encounter you, my lord,
Under the conduct of young Lancaster,
And Westmoreland: this is the news at full.
North. For this I shall have time enough to mourn.
In poison there is physic; and these news,
Having been well that would have made me sick,
Being sick, have in some measure made me well:
And as the wretch, whose fever-weaken'd joints,
Like strengthless hinges, buckle under life,
Impatient of his fit, breaks like a fire

Out of his keeper's arms; even so my limbs,
Weaken'd with grief, being now enrag'd with grief,b
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 enrag'd Northumberland!
Let heaven kiss earth! Now let not Nature's hand
Keep the wild flood confin'd!, let order die!
And let the world no longer be a stage
To feed contention in a lingering act;
But let one spirit of the first-born Cain
Reign in all bosoms, that, each heart being set
On bloody courses, the rude scene may end,
And darkness be the burier of the dead!

[Tra. This strained passion doth you wrong, my lord.]

L. Bard. Sweet earl, divorce not wisdom from your honour.

Mor. The lives of all your loving complices
Lean on your health; the which, if you give o'er
To stormy passion, must perforce decay.
Yon 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,

* Burkle. This word, which here means to bend, is used preely in the same signification in the present day, when applied a horse, whose "weaken'd joints, like strengthless hinges,"

are said to buckle.

Grief. In this line the first "grief" is put for bodily pain; 1cord for mental sorrow. •Nice-weak.

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 befallen,
Or what hath this bold enterprise brought forth,
More than that being which was like to be?

L. Bard. We all, that are engaged to this loss, Knew that we ventur'd on such dangerous seas, That if we wrought out life 't was ten to one : And yet we ventur'd, for the gain propos'd Chok'd the respect of likely peril fear'd; And, since we are o'erset, venture again. Come, we will all put forth; body, and goods. Mor. T is more than time: And, my most noble

lord,

I hear for certain, and do speak the truth,—
The gentle archbishop of York is up,
With well-appointed powers; he is a man,
Who with a double surety binds his followers.
My lord your son had only but the corps,
But shadows and the shows of men, to fight;
For that same word, rebellion, did divide
The action of their bodies from their souls;
And they did fight with queasiness, constrain'd,
As men drink potions; that their weapons only
Seem'd on our side, but, for their spirits and souls,
This word, rebellion, it had froze them up,
As fish are in a pond: But now the bishop
Turns insurrection to religion:

Suppos'd sincere and holy in his thoughts,
He's follow'd both with body and with mind;
And doth enlarge his rising with the blood

Of fair king Richard, scrap'd from Pomfret stones:
Derives froin heaven his quarrel, and his cause;
Tells them, he doth bestride a bleeding land,
Gasping for life under great Bolingbroke;
And more and less" do flock to follow him.

North. I knew of this before; but, to speak 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, nor never yet more need.

SCENE II.-London. A Street.

[Exeunt.

Enter SIR JOHN FALSTAFF, with his Page bearing his sword and buckler.

Fal. Sirrah, you giant, what says the doctor to my water?

Page. He said, sir, the water itself was a good healthy water but, for the party that owed it, he might have more diseases than he knew for.

Fal. Men of all sorts take a pride to gird b 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 o'erwhelmed all her litter but one. If the prince put thee into my service for any other reason than to set ine cft, 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 set you neither in gold nor silver, but in vile apparel, and send you back again to your a More and less-greater and less-great and small. b Gird. To gird is to smite, and thence metaphorically to jeer, to scoff at.

master, for a jewel; the juvenal, the prince, your master, whose chin is not yet fledged. I will sooner ave a beard grow in the palm of my hand, than he shall get one on his cheek; yet he will not stick to say, his face is a face-royal: Heaven may finish it when he will, it is not a hair amiss yet: he may keep it still as a face-royal, for a barber shall never earn sixpence out of it; and yet he will be crowing, as if he had writ man ever since his father was a bachelor. He may keep his own grace, but he is almost out of mine, I can assure him. What said master Dombledon about the satin for my short cloak and slops?

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

Fal. Let him be damned like the glutton! may his tongue be hotter!-A whoreson Achitophel! a rascally yea-forsooth knave! to bear a gentleman in 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 he should have sent me two-and-twenty yards of satin, as I am true knight, and he sends me security. Well, he may sleep in security; for he hath the horn of abundance, and the lightness of his wife shines through it: and yet cannot he see, though he have his own lantern to light him. Where 's Bardolph ?

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

Fal. I bought him in Paul's, and he 'll buy me a horse in Smithfield: if I could get me a wife in the stews, I were manned, horsed, and wived.

Enter the LORD CHIEF JUSTICE and an Attendant. Page. Sir, here comes the nobleman that committed the prince for striking him about Bardolph. Fal. Wait close, I will not see him. Ch. Just. What 's he that goes there? Atten. Falstaff, an 't please your lordship. Ch. Just. He that was in question for the robbery?

Atten. He, my lord: but he hath since done good service at Shrewsbury; and, as I hear, is now going with some charge to the lord John of Lancaster.

Ch. Just. What, to York? Call him back again. Atten. Sir John Falstaff!

Fal. Boy, tell him I am deaf.

Page. You must speak louder, my master is deaf. Ch. Just. I am sure he is, to the hearing of anything good. Go, pluck him by the elbow; I must speak with him.

me, hang me; if thou takest leave, thou wert Letter hanged: You hunt counter; hence! avaunt! Atten. Sir, my lord would speak with you. Ch. Just. Sir John Falstaff, a word with you. Fal. My good lord!-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.

:

Ch. Just. Sir John, I sent for you before your expedition to Shrewsbury.

Fal. If it please your lordship, I hear his majesty is returned with some discomfort from Wales.

Ch. Just. I talk not of his majesty :-You would not come when I sent for you.

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

Ch. Just. Well, heaven mend him! I pray, let me speak with you.

Fal. This apoplexy is, as I take it, a kind of lethargy; a sleeping of the blood, a whoreson tingling. Ch. Just. What tell you me of it? be it as it is.

Fal. It hath its original from much grief; from study, and perturbation of the brain; I have read the cause of his effects in Galen; it is a kind of deafness. Ch. Just. I think you are fallen into the disease; fo you hear not what I say to you.

Fal. Very well, my lord, very well: rather, an 't please you, it is the disease of not listening, the malady of not marking, that I am troubled withal.

Ch. Just. To punish you by the heels would amend the attention of your ears; and I care not if I be your physician.

Fal. 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.

Ch. Just. I sent for you, when there were matters against you for your life, to come speak with me. in the laws of this land-service, I did not come. Fal. As I was then advised by my learned counsel

Ch. Just. Well, the truth is, Sir John, you live in great infamy.

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

Ch. Just. Your means are very slender, and your waste great.

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

Ch. Just. You have misled the youthful prince. Fal. The young prince hath misled me: I am the fellow with the great belly, and he my dog.

wound; your day's service at Shrewsbury hath a little Ch. Just. Well, I am loth to gall a new-healed gilded over your night's exploit on Gadshill: you may thank the unquiet time for your quiet o'erposting that

action.

Fal. My lord?

Ch. Just. But since all is well, keep it so wake not a sleeping wolf.

Fal. To wake a wolf is as bad as to smell a fox. Ch. Just. What! you are as a candle, the better part burnt out.

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

a Hunt counter. Falstaff either tells the attendant "you hun

counter"-you hunt the wrong way; or calls him a "hunt counter," which also might imply that the attendant was s

bailiff's follower.

Fal. His effect of gravy, gravy, gravy.

Ch. Just. You follow the young prince up and down, like his evil angel.

Fal. Not so, my lord; your ill angel is light; but, I hope, he that looks upon me will take me without weighing and yet, in some respects, I grant, I cannot go, I cannot tell: Virtue is of so little regard in these costermonger's times, that true valour is turned bearherd: Pregnancy is made a tapster, and hath his quick wit wasted in giving reckonings: all the other gifts appertinent to man, as the malice of this age shapes them, are not worth a gooseberry. You, that are old, consider not the capacities of us that are young: you measure the 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.

:

Ch. Just. 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! Fal My lord, I was born [about three of the clock in the afternoon, with a white head, and something a d belly. For my voice, I have lost it with hollang, and singing of anthems. To approve my youth farther, I will not: the truth is, I am only old in judg Bent 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 t like a sensible lord. I have checked him for it; and the young lion repents: marry, not in ashes and sackcloth, but in new silk and old sack.

Ch. Just. Well, heaven send the prince a better companion!

Fal. Heaven send the companion a better prince! I cannot rid my hands of him.

[Exeunt CHIEF JUSTICE and Attendant. Fal. If I do, fillip me with a three-man beetle. A man can no more separate age and covetousness, than he 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?

?

Fal. What money is in my purse
Page. Seven groats and two-pence.

Fal. 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. It is 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. A Room in the Archbishop's

Palace.

Enter the ARCHBISHOP of YORK, the LORD HAS-
TINGS, MOWBRAY, and LORD BARDOLPH.
Arch. Thus have you heard our cause, and know 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?

Mowb. 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.

umberland.

Fal. Yes; I thank your pretty sweet wit for it. But look you pray, all you that kiss my lady peace at home, tat our armies join not in a hot day! for, if I take but two shirts out with me, and I mean not to sweat extraordinarily,-if it be a hot day, if I brandish anything at my bottle, I would I might never spit white again. There is not a dangerous action can peep out his head, at I am thrust upon it: Well, I cannot last ever: But it was always yet the trick of our English nation, If they have a good thing to make it too common. If You will needs say I am an old man, you should give the rest. I would to God my name were not so terrible the enemy as it is. I were better to be eaten to death with rust, than to be scoured to nothing with perpetual motion]

Ch. Just. Well, be honest, be honest; And Heaven t'ess your expedition!

Fal. Will your lordship lend me a thousand pound,

fornish me forth?

Ch. Just. Not a penny, not a penny; you are too

*An allusion to the coin called an angel.

• Cateranger's times-times of petty traffic, when qualities are rated by money's worth.

Witle. The Chief Justice has lost something of his aracteristic gravity, and has become infected by him who was ey witty himself, but the cause of wit in others; and he

poses the single wit to the double chin; and also sug ss the real character of wn. All wit is to a certain extent

L. Bard. The question then, Lord Hastings, standeth thus; Whether our present five-and-twenty thousand May hold up head without Northumberland. Hast. With him, we may.

L. Bard.

Ay, 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.

Arch. T is very true, lord Bardolph; for, indeed,
It was young Hotspur's case at Shrewsbury.
L. Bard. It was, my lord; who lin'd himself with
hope,

Eating the air on promise of supply,
Flattering himself with project of a power
Much smaller than the smallest of his thoughts:
And So, with great imagination,
Proper to madmen, led his powers to death,
And, winking, leap'd into destruction.

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

L. Bard. 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