Could out of thee extract one spark of evil,
That might annoy my finger? 'tis so strange,
That, though the truth of it stands off as gross
As black from white,' my eye will scarcely see it.
Treason and murther, ever kept together,
As two yoke-devils sworn to either's purpose,
Working so grossly in a natural cause,
That admiration did not whoop at them:
But thou, 'gainst all proportion, didst bring in
Wonder, to wait on treason and on murther:
And whatsoever cunning fiend it was

That wrought upon thee so preposterously,
Gave thee no instance why thou shouldst do treason,
Unless to dub thee with the name of traitor.
If that same demon, that hath gull'd thee thus,
Should with his lion gait walk the whole world,
He might return to vasty Tartar back,
And tell the legions, I can never win
A soul so easy as that Englishman's.
O, how hast thou with jealousy infected

The sweetness of affiance! Show men dutiful?
Why, so didst thou: Seem they grave and learned
Why, so didst thou: Come they of noble family?
Why, so didst thou: Seem they religious?
Why, so didst thou: Or are they spare in diet;
Free from gross passion, or of mirth or anger;
Constant in spirit, not swerving with the blood;
Garnish'd and deck'd in modest complement;
Not working with the eye, without the ear,
And, but in purged judgment, trusting neither?-
Such, and so finely bolted,2 didst thou seem:
And thus thy fall hath left a kind of blot,
To mark the full-fraught man and best indued,
With some suspicion. I will weep for thee;
For this revolt of thine, methinks, is like
Another fall of man.-Their faults are open.
Arrest them to the answer of the law;
And God acquit them of their practices!

Exe. I arrest thee of high treason, by the name of Richard earl of Cambridge.

I arrest thee of high treason, by the name of Henry lord Scroop of Masham.

(1)

i. e. though it is as

Though the truth of it stands off as gross

As black from white;

clearly true as that black and white are manifestly different

when put close together. (2) Finely bolted.

Bolted here means sifted; i, e. refined.

Q

I arrest thee of high treason, by the name of Thomas Grey, knight of Northumberland.

Scroop. Our purposes God justly hath discover'd;
And I repent my fault more than my death;
Which I beseech your highness to forgive,

Although my body pay the price of it.

Cam. For me, the gold of France did not seduce
Although I did admit it as a motive,
The sooner to effect what I intended:
But God be thanked for prevention;
Which I in sufferance heartily will rejoice,
Beseeching God, and you, to pardon me.

Grey. Never did faithful subject more rejoice
At the discovery of most dangerous treason,
Than I do at this hour joy o'er myself,
Prevented from a damned enterprise:
My fault, but not my body, pardon, sovereign.
K. Hen. God quit you in his mercy!
You have conspir'd against our royal person,
Join'd with an enemy proclaim'd, and from his coffers
Receiv'd the golden earnest of our death;

Hear your sentence.

Wherein you would have sold your king to slaughter,
His princes and his peers to servitude,
His subjects to oppression and contempt,
And his whole kingdom unto desolation.
Touching our person, seek we no revenge;
But we our kingdom's safety must so tender,
Whose ruin you have sought, that to her laws
We do deliver you. Get you therefore hence,
Poor miserable wretches, to your death:
The taste whereof, God, of his mercy, give you
Patience to endure, and true repentance
Of all your dear offences.1 Bear them hence.

[Exeunt Conspirators, guarded.

Now, lords, for France; the enterprise whereof
Shall be to you, as us, like glorious.
We doubt not of a fair and lucky war;
Since God so graciously hath brought to light
This dangerous treason, lurking in our way,
To hinder our beginnings;-we doubt not now,
But every rub is smoothed on our way.
Then, forth, dear countrymen; let us deliver
Our puissance into the hand of God,

Putting it straight in expedition.

(1) Dear offences; i. e. offences which cost you so dear.
(2) Like glorious; i. e. equally glorious.

Cheerly to sea; the signs of war advance :

No king of England, if not king of France.

[Exeunt.

SCENE III.-London. Mrs. Quickly's House in Eastcheap. Enter PISTOL, MRS. QUICKLY, NYM, BARDOLPH, and Boy.

Quick. Prithee, honey-sweet husband, let me bring thee to Staines.

Pist. No; for my manly heart doth yearn.

Bardolph, be blithe;-Nym, rouse thy vaunting veins;
Boy, bristle thy courage up; for Falstaff he is dead,
And we must yearn therefore.

Bard. Would I were with him, wheresome'er he is.

Quick. Nay, sure, he's not in hell; he's in Arthur's bosom, if ever man went to Arthur's bosom. 'A made a finer end, and went away, an it had been any christom child;1 'a parted even just between twelve and one, e'en at the turning o' the tide 2 for after I saw him fumble with the sheets, and play with flowers, and smile upon his fingers' ends, I knew there was but one way; for his nose was as sharp as a pen, and 'a babbled of green fields. How now, sir John? quoth I: what, man! be of good cheer. So 'a cried out-God, God, God! three or four times: now I, to comfort him, bid him 'a should not think of God; I hoped there was no need to trouble himself with any such thoughts yet: So, 'a bade me lay more clothes on his feet: I put my hand into the bed, and felt them, and they were as cold as any stone; then I felt to his knees, and all was as cold as any stone.

Nym. They say, he cried out of sack.
Quick. Ay, that 'a did.

Bard. And of women.

Quick Nay, that 'a did not.

Boy. Yes, that 'a did; and said they were devils incarnate. Nym. Shall we shog? the king will be gone from Southampton.

Pist. Come, let's away.-My love, give me thy lips.

Look to my chattels, and my moveables :

Let senses rule; the word is, "Pitch and pay;'

Trust none:

For oaths are straws, men's faiths are wafer-cakes,
And hold-fast is the only dog, my duck;

Therefore, caveto be thy counsellor.

(1) Any christom child. Children were called chrisoms for a month after their birth, during which they wore the chrisom-cloth put on them at their baptism. (2) At the turning o' the tide. In Shakspeare's time there was an opinion that persons almost always died at the ebb of the tide. This superstition, and similar ones, still lingers amongst our old nurses.

Go, clear thy crystals-Yoke fellows in arms,
Let us to France! like horse-leeches, my boys;
To suck, to suck, the very blood to suck!

Boy. And that is but unwholesome food, they say.
Pist. Touch her soft mouth, and march.
Bard. Farewell, hostess.

[Kissing her.

Nym. I cannot kiss, that is the humour of it; but, adieu. Pist. Let housewifery appear; keep close, I thee command. Quick. Farewell; adieu.

[Exeunt.

SCENE IV.-France. A Room in the French King's Palace. Enter the French King attended; the DAUPHIN, the DUKE OF BURGUNDY, the CONSTABLE and others.

Fr. King. Thus come the English with full power upon us ; And more than carefully2 it us concerns,

To answer royally in our defences.

Therefore the dukes of Berry, and of Bretagne,
Of Brabant, and of Orleans, shall make forth,

And you, prince dauphin,—with all swift despatch,
To line and new repair our towns of war,

With men of courage, and with means defendant:
For England his approaches makes as fierce
As waters to the sucking of a gulf.

It fits us, then, to be as provident

As fear may teach us, out of late examples
Left by the fatal and neglected English
Upon our fields.

Dau.

My most redoubted father,

It is most meet we arm us 'gainst the foe:

For peace itself should not so dull a kingdom,

(Though war nor no known quarrel were in question,)

But that defences, musters, preparations,

Should be maintain'd, assembled, and collected,

As were a war in expectation.

Therefore, I say, 'tis meet we all go forth,

To view the sick and feeble parts of France;

And let us do it with no show of fear;

No, with no more, than if we heard that England
Were busied with a Whitsun morris-dance:

For, my good liege, she is so idly king'd,

Her sceptre so fantastically borne

By a vain, giddy, shallow, humorous youth,
That fear attends her not.

(1) Clear thy crystals, i. e. dry your eyes.

(2) More than carefully, i. e. with more than usual care.

Con.

O peace, prince dauphin!

You are too much mistaken in this king:
Question, your grace, the late ambassadors,-
With what great state he heard their embassy,
How well supplied with noble counsellors,
How modest in exception,' and withal
How terrible in constant resolution,-
And you shall find, his vanities fore-spent
Were but the outside of the Roman Brutus,
Covering discretion with a coat of folly;
As gardeners do with ordure hide those roots
That shall first spring and be most delicate.

Dau. Well, 'tis not so, my lord high constable,
But though we think it so, it is no matter:
In cases of defence, 'tis best to weigh
The enemy more mighty than he seems:
So the proportions of defence are fill'd;
Which, of a weak and niggardly projection,
Doth like a miser spoil his coat with scanting
A little cloth.

2

Fr. King. Think we king Harry strong;
And, princes, look you strongly arm to meet him.
The kindred of him hath been flesh'd upon us;
And he is bred out of that bloody strain,
That haunted us in our familiar paths:
Witness our too much memorable shame,
When Cressy battle fatally was struck,
And all our princes captiv'd, by the hand

Of that black name, Edward black prince of Wales;
Whiles that his mountain sire,-on mountain standing,
Up in the air, crown'd with the golden sun,-

Saw his heroical seed, and smil'd to see him
Mangle the work of nature; this is a stem
Of that victorious stock; and let us fear
The native mightiness and fate of him.

Enter a Messenger.

Mess. Ambassadors from Harry king of England

Do crave admittance to your majesty.

F. King. We'll give them present audience. Go, and bring

them.

[Exeunt Mess. and certain Lords.

You see, this chase is hotly follow'd, friends.

Dau. Turn head, and stop pursuit: for coward dogs

(1) How modest in exception. This means, how diffident he was in making objections.

(2) Niggardly projection, i. e. a poor and miserable preparation.