For, by my faith, it very well becomes you: 50 61 Princes. We hope no other from your majesty. King. You all look strangely on me : and you most; You are, I think, assured I love you not. Ch. Just. I am assured, if I be measured rightly, Your majesty hath no just cause to hate me. How might a prince of my great hopes forget The immediate heir of England! Was this easy? May this be wash'd in Lethe, and forgotten? Ch. Just. I then did use the person of your father; The image of his power lay then in me: 81 And did commit you. If the deed were ill, son; Nay, more, to spurn at your most royal image And mock your workings in a second body. 90 Question your royal thoughts, make the case yours; Be now the father and propose a son, Behold yourself so by a son disdain'd; 101 King. You are right, justice, and you weigh this well; herefore still bear the balance and the sword: and I do wish your honors may increase, And I will stoop and humble my intents 120 130 That the great body of our state may go 140 Enter FALSTAFF, SHALLOW, SILENCE, DAVY, BARDOLPH, and the Page. Shal. Nay, you shall see my orchard, where, in an arbor, we will eat a last year's pippin of my own graffing, with a dish of caraways, and so forth: come, cousin Silence: and then to bed. Fal. 'Fore God, you have here a goodly dwelling and a rich. Shal. Barren, barren, barren; beggars all, beggars all, Sir John: marry, good air. Spread, Davy; spread, Davy: well said, Davy. 10 Fal. Sil. [Singing. An we shall be merry, now comes in the sweet o' the night. Ful. Health and long life to you, Master Silence. Sil. Fill the cup, and let it come ; [Singing. I'll pledge you a mile to the bottom. Shal. Honest Bardolph, welcome: if thou wantest any thing, and wilt not call, beshrew thy heart. Welcome, my little tiny thief [to the Page], and welcome indeed too. I'll drink to Master Bardolph, and to all the cavaleros about London. Davy. I hope to see London once ere I die. Bard. An I might see you there, Davy,Shal. By the mass, you'll crack a quart together, ha! will you not, Master Bardolph ? Bard. Yea, sir, in a pottle-pot. Puff in thy teeth, most recreant coward base! 101 Pist. A foutre for the world and worldling base! I speak of Africa and golden joys. Fal. O base Assyrian knight, what is thy news? Let King Cophetua know the truth thereof. Sil. And Robin Hood, Scarlet, and John. Pist. [Singing Shall dunghill curs confront th Helicons? And shall good news be baffled ? Pist. Why then, lament therefore. Shal. Give me pardon, sir: if, sir, vo come with news from the court, I take || there's but two ways, either to utter them, to conceal them. I am, sir, under the king, some authority. Pist. Under which king, Besonian? speal or die. Shal. Under King Harry. Harry the Fourth ? or Fifth Shal. Harry the Fourth. Pist. Pist. What! I do bring good news. Fal. Carry Master Silence to bed. Master Shallow, my Lord Shallow,-be what thou wit; I am fortune's steward-get on thy boots: we'll ride all night. O sweet Pistol ! Away, Bardolph! [Exit Bard.] Come, Pistol, utter more to me; and withai devise something to do thyself good. Boot, boot, Master Shallow: I know the young king is sick for me. Let us take any man's horses; the laws of England are at my commandment. Blessed are they that have been my friends; and woe to my lord chief-justice! Pist. Let vultures vile seize on his lungs also! 'Where is the life that late I led?' say they : Why, here it is; welcome these pleasant days! [Exeunt. SCENE IV. London. A street. Enter Beadles, dragging in HOSTESS QUICKLY and DOLL TEARSHEET. Host. No, thou arrant knave; I would to God that I might die, that I might have thee hanged: thou hast drawn my shoulder out of joint. First Bead. The constables have delivered her over to me; and she shall have whippingcheer enough, I warrant her: there hath been a man or two lately killed about her. Dol. Nut-hook, nut-hook, you lie. Come on; I'll tell thee what, thou damned tripevisaged rascal, an the child I now go with do misarry, thou wert better thou hadst struck thy mother, thou paper-faced villain. Host. O the Lord, that Sir John were come! be would make this a bloody day to somebody. But I pray God the fruit of her womb misarry! First Bead. If it do, you shall have a dozen of cushions again; you have but eleven now. Come, I charge you both go with me; for the an is dead that you and Pistol beat amongst oa. Dol. I'll tell you what, you thin man in a enser, I will have you as soundly swinged for is,-you blue-bottle rogue, you filthy famshed correctioner, if you be not swinged, I'll orswear half-kirtles. First Bead. Come, come, you she knighterrant, come. SCENE V. A public place near Westminster Abbey. Enter two Grooms, strewing rushes. First Groom. More rushes, more rushes. Sec. Groom. The trumpets have sounded twice. First Groom. "Twill be two o'clock ere they come from the coronation: dispatch, dispatch. [Exeunt. Enter FALSTAFF, SHALLOW, PISTOL, BARDOLPH, and Page. Fal. Stand here by me, Master Robert Shallow; I will make the king do you grace: I will leer upon him as a' comes by; and do but mark the countenance that he will give me. Pist. God bless thy lungs, good knight. 9 Fal. Come here, Pistol; stand behind me. O, if I had had time to have made new liveries, I would have bestowed the thousand pound I borrowed of you. But 'tis no matter; this poor show doth better: this doth infer the zeal had to see him. Shal. It doth so. Fal. It shows my earnestness of affection,— Shal. It doth so. thy prayers; How ill white hairs become a fool and jester ! ceive, 'That I have turn'd away my former self; 60 70 So will I those that kept me company. Shal. Yea, marry, Sir John; which I beseech you to let me have home with me. 80 Fal. That can hardly be, Master Shallow. Do not you grieve at this; I shall be sent for in private to him: look you, he must seem thus to the world: fear not your advancements; I will be the man yet that shall make you great. Shal. I cannot well perceive how, unless you should give me your doublet and stuff me out with straw. I beseech you, good Sir John, let me have five hundred of my thousand. Fal. Sir, I will be as good as my word: this that you heard was but a color. 91 Shal. A color that I fear you will die in, Sir John. Fal. Fear no colors: go with me to dinner: come, Lieutenant Pistol; come, Bardolph: I shall be sent for soon at night. Re-enter PRINCE JOHN, the LORD CHIEFJUSTICE; Officers with them. Ch. Just. Go, carry Sir John Falstaff to the Fleet: We bear our civil swords and native fire EPILOGUE. Spoken by a Dancer. First my fear; then my courtesy; last my speech. My fear is, your displeasure; my courtesy, my duty; and my speech, to beg your pardons. If you look for a good speech now, you undo me: for what I have to say is of mine own making; and what indeed I should say will, I doubt, prove mine own marring. But to the purpose, and so to the venture. Be it known to you, as it is very well, I was lately here in the end of a displeasing play, to pray your patience for it and to promise you a bet ter. I meant indeed to pay you with this: which, if like an ill venture it come unluckily home, I break, and you, my gentle creditors, lose. Here I promised you I would be and here I commit my body to your mercies: hate me some and I will pay you some and, as most debtors do, promise you infinitely. If my tongue cannot entreat you to acquit me, will you command me to use my legs? and yet that were but light payment, to dance out of your debt. But a good conscience will make any possible satisfaction, and so woul I. All the gentlewomen here have forgives me: if the gentlemen will not, then the gentle men do not agree with the gentlewomen, which was never seen before in such an assembly. One word more, I beseech you. If yon be not too much cloyed with fat meat, our humble author will continue the story, with Sir John in it, and make you merry with fair Katharine of France where, for any thing I know, Fastaff shall die of a sweat, unless already a' be killed with your hard opinions; for Oldcaste died a martyr, and this is not the man. tongue is weary; when my legs are too, I wa bid you good night: and so kneel down before you; but, indeed, to pray for the queen. My KING HENRY V. WRITTEN ABOUT 1599.) INTRODUCTION. This play is not mentioned by Meres, and the reference in the chorus of Act V. to Essex in Ireland, and in the Prologue to "this wooden O," i.e. the Globe Theatre, built in 1599, make it probable that 1550 was the date of its production. A pirated imperfect quarto appeared in the following year. In this play Shakespeare bade farewell in trumpet tones to the history of England. It was a fitting climax to the great series of works which told of the sorrow and the glory of his country, embodyg as it did the purest patriotism of the days of Elizabeth. And as the noblest glories of England represented in this play, so it presents Shakespeare's ideal of active, practical, heroic manhood. Hamlet exhibits the dangers and weakness of the contemplative nature, and Prospero, its cala and its conquest, Henry exhibits the utmost greatness which the active nature can attain. He s not an astute politician like his father; having put every thing upon a sound substantial basis he ced not strain anxious eyes of foresight to discern and provide for contingencies arising out of coubtful deeds; for all that naturally comes within its range he has an unerring eye. A devotion to great objects outside of self fills him with a force of glorious enthusiasm. Hence his religious rit and his humility or modesty-he feels that the strength he wields comes not from any clever sposition of forces due to his own prudence, but streams into him and through him from his ple, his country, his cause, his God. He can be terrible to traitors, and his sternness is without Touch of personal revenge. In the midst of danger he can feel so free from petty heart-eating cares to enjoy a piece of honest, soldierly mirth. His wooing is as plain, frank, and true as are his acts piety. He unites around himself in loyal service, the jarring nationalities of his father's timenglishmen, Scotchicen, Welshmen, Irishmen, all are at Henry's side at Agincourt. Having preented his ideal of English kinghood, Shakespeare could turn aside from history. In this play no aracter except Henry greatly interested Shakespeare, unless it be the Welsh Fluellen, whom he res (as Scott loved the Baron of Bradwardine) for his real simplicity underlying his apparatus of xarning, and his touching faith in the theory of warfare. The Constable of France. RAMBURES and GRANDPRE, French Lords. MONTJOY, a French Herald. Ambassadors to the King of England. ISABEL, Queen of France. KATHARINE, daughter to Charles and Isabel Hostess of a tavern in Eastcheap, formerly Lords, Ladies, Officers, Soldiers, Citizens, Mes- SCENE: England; afterwards France. |