I

Prince. I am good friends with my father, and may do any thing.

Fal. Rob me the exchequer the first thing thou doest, and do it with unwashed hands too.

Bard. Do, my lord.

Prince. I have procured thee, Jack, a charge of

foot.

Fal. I would it had been of horse.

Where shall 220 I find one that can steal well? O for a fine thief, of the age of two and twenty or thereabouts! I am heinously unprovided. Well, God be thanked for these rebels, they offend none but the virtuous: I laud them, I praise them.

Prince. Bardolph!
Bard. My lord?

Prince. Go bear this letter to Lord John of

Lancaster, to my brother John; this to my
Lord of Westmoreland. [Exit Bardolph.] 230
Go, Peto, to horse, to horse; for thou and I
have thirty miles to ride yet ere dinner time.
[Exit Peto.] Jack, meet me to-morrow in
the Temple hall at two o'clock in the after-

noon.

There shalt thou know thy charge, and there receive

Money and order for their furniture.

The land is burning; Percy stands on high;
And either we or they must lower lie.

[Exit.

216. "with unwashed hands." There is probably a sly suggestion also of the sense: "don't "wash your hands of it afterwards and leave us to pay the penalty!"-C. H. H.

I

Fal. Rare words! brave world! Hostess, my breakfast, come!

O, I could wish this tavern were my drum!

240

I

ACT FOURTH

SCENE I

The rebel camp near Shrewsbury.

Enter Hotspur, Worcester, and Douglas.
Hot. Well said, my noble Scot: if speaking truth
In this fine age were not thought flattery,
Such attribution should the Douglas have,
As not a soldier of this season's stamp
Should go so general current through the world.
By God, I cannot flatter; I do defy
The tongues of soothers; but a braver place
In my heart's love hath no man than yourself:
Nay, task me to my word; approve me, lord.
Doug. Thou art the king of honor:

No man so potent breathes upon the ground
But I will beard him.

Hot.

Do so, and 'tis well.

Enter a Messenger with letters.

10

What letters hast thou here?-I can but thank

you.

Mess. These letters come from your father.

Hot. Letters from him! why comes he not himself? Mess. He cannot come, my lord; he is grievous sick. Hot. 'Zounds! how has he the leisure to be sick

I

In such a justling time? Who leads his power? Under whose government come they along? Mess. His letters bear his mind, not I, my lord. 20 Wor. I prithee, tell me, doth he keep his bed? Mess. He did, my lord, four days ere I set forth; And at the time of my departure thence

He was much fear'd by his physicians.

Wor. I would the state of time had first been whole, Ere he by sickness had been visited:

His health was never better worth than now. Hot. Sick now! droop now! this sickness doth infect The very life-blood of our enterprise;

30

"Tis catching hither, even to our camp.
He writes me here, that inward sickness-
And that his friends by deputation could not
So soon be drawn, nor did he think it meet
To lay so dangerous and dear a trust
On any soul removed but on his own.
Yet doth he give us bold advertisement,
That with our small conjunction we should on,
To see how fortune is disposed to us;
For, as he writes, there is no quailing now,
Because the king is certainly possess'd

Of all our purposes. What say you to it?

Wor. Your father's sickness is a maim to us.
Hot. A perilous gash, a very limb lopp'd off:

40

And yet, in faith, it is not; his present want
Seems more than we shall find it: were it good
To set the exact wealth of all our states

31. "that inward sickness-"; Rowe first suggested the dash in place of the comma of the early editions; the sentence is suddenly broken off.-I. G.

44. "his present want"; our present want of him.-C. H. H.

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All at one cast? to set so rich a main

On the nice hazard of one doubtful hour?
It were not good; for therein should we read
The very bottom and the soul of hope,
The very list, the very utmost bound

Of all our fortunes.

Doug.

Faith, and so we should;

Where now remains a sweet reversion:
We may boldly spend upon the hope of what
Is to come in:

A comfort of retirement lives in this.
Hot. A rendezvous, a home to fly unto,

50

If that the devil and mischance look big Upon the maidenhead of our affairs. Wor. But yet I would your father had been here. 60 The quality and hair of our attempt Brooks no division: it will be thought

49. “read,” etc.; discern, written in unmistakable characters (the end of our fortunes).-C. H. H.

50. "the soul of hope"; the very substance of our hope, all that we have to hope for. The line combines the notions of reaching the limit of hope, and exhausting its substance; an ambiguity favored by the double meaning of "bottom," base and substance, staple, and probably carried on by a deliberate pun in "soul (sole)."-C. H. H.

53. "Where" was often used in the Poet's time for whereas. It occurs thus in Holinshed continually.-H. N. H.

56. "comfort of retirement"; that is, a support to which we may have recourse.-H. N. H.

59. "maidenhead"; that is, the youth, or immaturity, the maidenhood.-H. N. H.

61. "Hair" was anciently used metaphorically for complexion, or character. Thus in Beaumont and Fletcher's Nice Valour: “A lady of my hair cannot want pitying." And in the old comedy of The Family of Love: “They say I am of the right haire, and indeed they may stand to't." So in the interlude of Tom Tyler and his Wife: "But I bridled a colt of a contrary haire." And in an old manuscript play entitled Sir Thomas Moore: "A fellow of your haire is very fitt to be a secretaries follower.”—H. N. H.