Fal. Hostess, I forgive thee : 25 go, make ready breakfast; love thy husband, look to thy servants, cherish thy guests thou shalt find me tractable to any honest reason; thou see'st I am pacified.-Still? Nay, pr'ythee, be gone. [Exit Hostess.]-Now, Hal, to the news at Court: for the robbery, lad, how is that answered?

Prince. O, my sweet beef, I must still be good angel to thee: the money is paid back again.

Fal. O, I do not like that paying back; 'tis a double labour. 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 unwash'd hands too.26

Bard. Do, my lord.

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

Fal. I would it had been of Horse. Where shall 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, My brother John; this to my Lord of Westmoreland. — [Exit BARDOLPH.

Go, Pointz, to horse, to horse; for thou and I
Have thirty miles to ride ere dinner-time.
Meet me to-morrow, Jack, i' the Temple-hall

[Exit POINTZ.

25 A characteristic stroke of humorous impudence; Falstaff making believe that he is the one sinned against, and not the sinner.

26 Doing a thing with unwashed hands appears to be much the same as doing it without gloves; that is, thoroughly or unscrupulously.

At two o'clock in th' afternoon :

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 they or we must lower lie.

Fal. Rare words! brave world!

come:

[Exit.

Hostess, my breakfast;

[Exit.

O, I could wish this tavern were my drum ! 27

ACT IV.

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,
As1 not a soldier of this season's stamp
Should go so general-current through the world.
By God, I cannot flatter; I defy2

The tongues of soothers; but a braver place
In my heart's love hath no man than yourself:

27 Sir John prefers the leading of his gastric apparatus in the tavern to that of the military ensign, or of the drum, which was wont to be decorated with the colours of the regiment or battalion: so, as Mr. Joseph Crosby observes, "when he has heard the Prince giving orders to get ready for marching, he gives his orders to the Hostess to get ready for breakfast."

1 As and that were used indiscriminately.

2 Defy, again, for refuse or abjure. See page 79, note 22.— Soothers is flatterers; a frequent usage.

Nay, task me to my word; approve me,3 lord.
Doug. Thou art the king of honour:
No man so potent breathes upon the ground
But I will beard him.

Mess. These letters come from your father.

Hot. Letters from him! why comes he not himself?
Mess. He cannot come, my lord; he's grievous sick.
Hot. Zwounds! how has he the leisure to be sick
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.
Wor. I pr'ythee, 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.4

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 ; '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

8 "Approve me" is make trial of me, or put me to the proof.

4 This way of using fear was not uncommon. See King Richard the Third, page 51, note 21.

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❜d5
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: —
And yet, in faith, 'tis not; his present want

Seems more than we shall find it. Were it good
To set the éxact wealth of all our states

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 6
The very bottom and the soul of hope,

8

Faith, and so we should;

Where now remains a sweet reversion;

And we may boldly spend upon the hope.
Of what is to come in:

A comfort of retirement 9 lives in this.

Hot. A rendezvous, a home to fly unto,

If that the Devil and mischance look big

་་

5 Possess'd is informed. Often so. See Twelfth Night, page 65, note 25.

6 To see, to learn, to discover are among the old senses of to read. To

'read the bottom" is to try the uttermost; to exhaust.

7 List in the sense of edge or border, was quite common. A metaphor from the list of cloth.

8 Where and whereas were used interchangeably in the Poet's time.

9 Retirement is used with the same meaning as reversion, just before; something to fall back upon.

Nay, task me to my word; approve me,3 lord.
Doug. Thou art the king of honour:
No man so potent breathes upon the ground
But I will beard him.

Mess. These letters come from your father.

Hot. Letters from him! why comes he not himself?
Mess. He cannot come, my lord; he's grievous sick.
Hot. Zwounds! how has he the leisure to be sick
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.
Wor. I pr'ythee, 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.4

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 ;

'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

"

8 "Approve me is make trial of me, or put me to the proof.

4 This way of using fear was not uncommon. See King Richard the Third, page 51, note 21.