And not the king himself. I have two boys,
Seek Percy and thyself about the field;
But, seeing thou fall'st on me so luckily,
I will assay thee: so defend thyself.

Doug. I fear, thou art another counterfeit; And yet, in faith. thou bear'st thee like a king: But mine, I am sure thou art, whoe'er thou be, And thus I win thee.

[They fight; the KING being in danger, enter PRINCE HENRY.

P. Hen. Hold up thy head, vile Scot, or thou art like

Never to hold it up again! the spirits
Of Shirley, Stafford, Blunt, are in my arms:
It is the Prince of Wales that threatens thee:
Who never promiseth, but he means to pay.

[They fight, DOUGLAS flies.
Cheerly, my lord; how fares your grace?-
Sir Nicholas Gawsey hath for succour sent,
And so hath Clifton; I'll to Clifton straight.
K. Hen. Stay, and breathe awhile;
Thou hast redeem'd thy lost opinion:
And show'd, thou mak'st some tender of my life,
In this fair rescue thou hast brought to me.

P. Hen. O heaven! they did me too much injury That ever said I hearken'd for your death. If it were so, I might have let alone The insulting hand of Douglas over you; Which would have been as speedy in your end, As all the poisonous potions in the world, And sav'd the treacherous labour of your son. K. Hen. Make up to Clifton, I'll to Sir Nicholas Gawsey. [Exit KING HENRY.

Enter HOTSpur.

Hot. If I mistake not, thou art Harry Monmouth. P. Hen. Thou speak'st as if I would deny my

name.

Hot. My name is Harry Percy.

P. Hen.

Why, then I see

A very valiant rebel of the name.

I am the Prince of Wales; and think not, Percy,
To share with me in glory any more:

Two stars keep not their motion in one sphere;
Nor can one England brook a double reign
Of Harry Percy and the Prince of Wales.

Hot. Nor shall it, Harry, for the hour is come
To end the one of us: and would to God

Thy name in arms were now as great as mine!
P. Hen. I'll make it greater ere I part from
thee;

And all the budding honours on thy crest
I'll crop, to make a garland for my head.
Hot. I can no longer brook thy vanities.

Enter FALSTAFF.

[They fight.

Fal. Well said, Hal! To it, Hal!-Nay, you shall find no boy's play here, I can tell you.

Enter DOUGLAS; he fights with FALSTAFF, who falls down as if he were dead, and exit DOUGLAS. HOTSPUR is wounded, and falls.

Hot. O, Harry, thou hast robb'd me of my youth! I better brook the loss of brittle life, Than those proud titles thou hast won of me: They wound my thoughts worse than thy sword my flesh.

But thought's the slave of life, and life time's fool; And time, that takes survey of all the world,

Must have a stop. O, I could prophesyth

But that the earthy and cold hand of

Lies on my tongue. No, Percy, thou art dust,
And food for-

[Dies.

P. Hen. For worms, brave Percy! Fare thee well, great heart!

Ill-weav'd ambition, how much art thou shrunk!
When that this body did contain a spirit,

A kingdom for it was too small a bound:

But now, two paces of the vilest earth

ls room enough. This earth, that bears thee dead, Bears not alive so stout a gentleman.

If thou wert sensible of courtesy,

I should not make so dear a show of zeal:
But let my favours hide thy mangled face;
And, even in thy behalf, I'll thank myself
For doing these fair rites of tenderness.
Adieu, and take thy praise with thee to heaven!

Thy ignomy sleep with thee in the grave,
But not remember'd in thy epitaph!

[He sees FALSTAFF on the ground.
What, old acquaintance !-Could not all this flesh
Keep in a little life? Poor Jack, farewell!
I could have better spar'd a better man.
O, I should have a heavy miss of thee,
If I were much in love with vanity.
Death hath not struck so fat a deer to-day,
Though many dearer, in this bloody fray.
Embowell'd will I see thee by and by;
Till then, in blood by noble Percy lie.

[Exit.

Fal. [Rising slowly.] Embowell'd!-If thou embowel me to-day, I'll give you leave to powder me, and eat me too, to-morrow. 'Sblood, 'twas time to counterfeit, or that hot termagant Scot had paid me Scot and lot too. Counterfeit! I lie-I am no counterfeit. To die is to be a counterfeit; for he is but the counterfeit of a man, who hath not the life of a man: but to counterfeit dying, when a man thereby liveth, is to be no counterfeit, but the true and perfect image of life indeed. The better part of valour is discretion; in the which better part I have saved my life. Zounds, I am afraid of this gunpowder Percy, though he be dead. How if he should counterfeit too, and rise? I am afraid he would prove the better counterfeit: therefore I'll make him sure,

yea, and I'll swear I killed him. Why may not he rise as well as I? Nothing confutes me but eyes, and nobody sees me. Therefore, sirrah, [stabbing him],

with a new wound in your thigh, come you along with me. [Takes HOTSPUR on his back.

Upon the ground.

Art thou alive? Or is it phantasy

That plays upon our eyesight? I pr'ythee speak;
We will not trust our eyes without our ears:
Thou art not what thou seem'st.

Fal. No, that's certain; I am not a double man: but if I be not Jack Falstaff, then am I a jack. There is Percy [throwing the body down]: if your father will do me any honour, so; if not, let him kill the next Percy himself. I look to be either earl or duke, I can assure you.

P. Hen. Why, Percy I killed myself, and saw thee dead.

Fal. Didst thou? Lord, lord, how this world is given to lying! I grant you I was down, and out of breath, and so was he; but we rose both at an instant, and fought a long hour by Shrewsbury clock. If I may be believed, so; if not, let them that should reward valour bear the sin upon their own heads. I'd take it upon my death I gave him this wound in the thigh; if the man were alive, and would deny it, I would make him eat a piece of my sword.

P. John. This is the strangest tale that e'er I heard.

P. Hen. This is the strangest fellow, brother John. Come, bring your luggage nobly on your back: For my part, if a lie may do thee grace, I'll gild it with the happiest terms I have.

[A retreat is sounded. The trumpet sounds retreat-the day is ours. Come, brother, let's to the highest of the field, To see what friends are living, who are dead.

[Exeunt PRINCE HENRY and PRINCE JOHN. Fal. I'll follow, as they say, for reward. He that rewards me, God reward him! If I do grow great, I'll grow less; for l'll purge, and leave sack, and live cleanly, as a nobleman should do.

[Exit bearing off the body.

SCENE V.-Another part of the Field.

The trumpets sound. Enter KING HENRY, PRINCE HENRY, PRINCE JOHN, WESTMORELAND, and others, with WORCESTER and VERNON prisoners.

K. Hen. Thus ever did rebellion find rebuke.
Ill-spirited Worcester! did we not send grace,
Pardon, and terms of love to all of you ?
And wouldst thou turn our offers contrary?

Misuse the tenor of thy kinsman's trust?
Three knights upon our party slain to-day,
A noble earl, and many a creature else,
Had been alive this hour,

If, like a Christian, thou hadst truly borne
Betwixt our armies true intelligence.

Wor. What I have, done my safety urg'd me to;
And I embrace this fortune patiently,
Since, not to be avoided, it falls on me.

K. Hen. Bear Worcester to the death, and Vernon too;

Other offenders we will pause upon.

[Eveunt WORCESTER and VERNON, guarded. How goes the field?

P. Hen. The noble Scot, Lord Douglas, when he

With all my heart.

K. Hen. P. Hen. Then, brother John of Lancaster, to you, This honourable bounty shall belong:

Go to the Douglas, and deliver him`

Up to his pleasure, ransomless and free;

His valour, shown upon our crests to-day,

Hath taught us how to cherish such high deeds,
Even in the bosom of our adversaries.

K. Hen. Then this remains, that we divide our power;

You, son John, and my cousin Westmoreland, Towards York shall bend you, with your dearest speed,

To meet Northumberland and the prelate Scroop;
Who, as we hear, are busily in arms:

Myself and you, son Harry, will toward Wales,
To fight with Glendower and the Earl of March.
Rebellion in this land shall lose its sway,
Meeting the check of such another day;
And, since this business so fair is done,
Let us not leave till all our own be won.

[Exeunt.

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 prepar'd defence;
Whilst 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 anatomise

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 of 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

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

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 passions, 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 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 ?

Bard. We all, that are engaged to this loss,
Knew that we ventur'd on such dangerous seas,
That, if we wrought our 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 all put forth, body and goods.

Mor. '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 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, scap'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.

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 speech, Never so few, and never yet more need.

SCENE II.-London. A Street.

[Eneunt.

Enter Sir JOHN FASTAFF, 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 of itself was good, healthy water: but for the party that owed it, he might have more diseases than he knew for.

Ful. Men of all sorts take a pride to gird at me; the brain of this foolish compounded clay, man, is not able to vent 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 set you neither in gold nor silver, but in vile apparel, and send you back again to your master, for a jewel: the juvenal, the prince your master, whose chin is not yet fledged. I will sooner have a beard grow in the palm of my hand, than he shall get one on his cheek; and yet he will not stick to say, his face is a face-royal: God may finish it when he will, it is not a hair amiss yet: he may keep it still as a face-royal, for a barber shall never earn sixpence out of it; and yet he will be crowing, as if he had writ man ever since his father was a bachelor.

He

may keep his own grace, but he is almost out of mine, I can assure him. What said Master Dumbleton about the satin for my short cloak and slops?

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

Fal. Let him be damned like the glutton! may his tongue be hotter !-A whoreson Achitophel! A ras cally yea-forsooth knave! to bear a gentleman in hand, and then stand upon security!-The whoreson smoothpates do now wear nothing but high shoes, and bunches of keys at their girdles; and if a man is thorough with them in honest taking up, then they must stand upon -security. I had as lief they would put ratsbane in my mouth, as offer to stop it with security. I looked he should have sent me two and twenty yards of satin, as I am a true knight, and he sends me security. Well, he may sleep in security; for he hath the horn of abundance, and the lightness of his wife shines through it; and yet cannot he see, though he have his own lantern to light him.-Where's Bardolph ? Page. He's gone into Smithfield to buy your wor ship a horse.

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

Enter the LORD CHIEF JUSTICE, and an Attendant.

Page. Sir, here comes the nobleman that committed the prince for striking him about Bardolph. Ful. 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 any thing good.-Go pluck him on the elbow; I must speak with him.

Atten. Sir John

Fal. What, a young knave, and beg! Is there not wars is there not employment? doth not the king lack subjects? do not the rebels need soldiers? Though it be a shame to be on any side but one, it is worse shame to beg than be on the worst side, were it worse than the name of rebellion can tell how to make it.

Atten. You mistake me, sir.

Fal. Why, sir, did I say you were an honest man? Setting my knighthood and my soldiership aside, I had lied in my throat if I had said so.

Atten. I pray you, sir, then set your knighthood and your soldiership aside; and give me leave to tell you, you lie in your throat, if you say I am any other than an honest man.

Fal. I give thee leave to tell me so! I lay aside that which grows to me. If thou gett'st any leave of me, hang me; if thou takest leave, thou wert better be hanged; you hunt counter, hence, avaunt!

Atten. Sir, my lord would speak with you. Ch. Jus. Sir John Falstaff, a word with you. Fal. My good lord.-God give your lordship good time of day. I am glad to see your lordship abroad; I heard say your lordship was sick: I hope your lordship goes abroad by advice. Your lordship, though not clean past your youth, hath yet some smack of age in you, some relish of the salt 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. An't please your lordship, I hear, his majesty is returned with some discomfort from Wales. Ch. Jus. 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 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, an't please your lordship; a kind of sleeping in the blood, a whoreson tingling.

Ch. Jus. 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 its effects in Galen; it is a kind of deafness.

Ch. Jus. I think you are fallen into the disease; for you hear not what I say to you.

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

Ch. Jus. To punish you by the heels would mend the attention of your ears; and I care not if I do become your physician.

Fal. I am as poor as Job, my lord; but not so patient: your lordship may minister the potion of imprisonment to me, in respect to 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. Jus. I sent for you, when there were matters against you for your life, to come speak with me.

Ful. As I was then advised by my learned counsel in the laws of this land-service, I did not come. Ch. Jus. Well, the truth is, Sir John, you live in great infamy.

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

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

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

Ch. Jus. 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.

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

Fal. My lord?

Ch. Jus. 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. Jus. 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.

Ch. Jus. There is not a white hair on your face, but should have his effect of gravity.

Fal. His effect of gravy, gravy, gravy. Ch. Jus. You follow the young prince up and down, like his ill-angel.

Fal. Not so, my lord; your ill-angel is light: but, I hope, he that looks upon me, will take me without weighing; and yet, in some respects, I grant, I cannot go, I cannot tell; virtue is of so little regard in these coster-monger times, that true valour is turned bear-herd: pregnancy is made a tapster, and hath his quick wit wasted in giving reckonings: all the other gifts appertinent to man, as the malice of this age shapes them, are not worth a gooseberry. 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.

You

Ch. Jus. 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 somewhat of a round belly. For my voice,-I have lost it with hollaing, 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 o'the ear that the prince gave you,-he gave it like a rude prince, and you took it like a sensible lord. I have checked him for it; and the young lion repents: marry, not in ashes, and sackcloth; but in new silk, and old sack. Ch Jus. Well, heaven send the prince a better companion.

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

Ch. Jus. 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 Northumverland.

Fal. Yea, I thank your pretty sweet wit for it.But look you, pray, all you that kiss my lady peace at home, that our armies join not in a hot day; for, by the Lord, I take but two shirts out with me, and I mean not to sweat extraordinarily: if it be a hot day, an I brandish any thing but my bottle, I would Í might never spit white again. There is not a dangerous action can peep out his head but I am thrust upon it. Well, I cannot last ever: but it was always yet the trick of our English nation, if they have a good thing, to make it too common. If you 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 rust, than to be scoured to nothing with perpetual motion.

Ch. Jus. Well, be honest, be honest; and God bless your expedition!

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

Ch. Jus. 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 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 twopence.

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 chiu. 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 any thing; I will turn diseases to commodity.

[Exit.

SCENE III.--York. A room in the Archbishop's Palace.

Enter the Archbishop of YORK, the Lords HASTINGS MOWBRAY and BARDOLPH.

Arch. 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 ?

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.

Hast. 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.

Eard. 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.
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-faced as this,
Conjecture, expectation, and surmise
Of aids uncertain, should not be admitted.
Arch. 'Tis very true, Lord Bardolph, for, indeed,
It was young Hotspur's case at Shrewsbury.
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 power to death,
And, winking, leap'd into destruction.

Hast. But, by your leave, it never yet did hurt,