Shall daub her lips with her own children's blood; Shall now, in mutual, well-beseeming ranks, (Whose soldier now, under whose blessed cross Whose arms were moulded in their mothers' womb, But this our purpose is a twelve-month old, And bootless 'tis to tell you--we will go; Therefore we meet not now :-Then let me hear West. My liege, this haste was hot in question, Whose worst was,—that the noble Mortimer, Upon whose dead corps there was such misuse, K. Hen. It seems then, that the tidings of this broil Brake off our business for the Holy land. West. This, match'd with other, did, my gracious lord; For more uneven and unwelcome news Came from the north, and thus it did import. Where they did spend a sad and bloody hour; And shape of likelihood, the news was told; K. Hen. Here is a dear and true-industrious friend, Sir Walter Blunt, new lighted from his horse, Stain'd with the variation of each soil Betwixt that Holmedon and this scat of ours; And he hath brought us smooth and welcome news. Ten thousand bold Scots, two-and-twenty knights, On Holmedon's plains: Of prisoners, Hotspur took Mordake the earl of Fife, and eldest son To beaten Douglas; and the earls of Athol, Of Murray, Angus, and Menteith. And is not this an honourable spoil? It is a conquest for a prince to boast of. K. Hen. Yea, there thou mak'st me sad, and mak'st me sin In envy, that my lord Northumberland Should be the father of so blest a son: A son, who is the theme of honour's tongue; But let him from my thoughts:-What think you, coz', To his own use he keeps; and sends me word, I shall have none but Mordake earl of Fife. West. This is his uncle's teaching, this is Worcester, Malevolent to you in all aspects; Which makes him prune himself, and bristle up K. Hen. But I have sent for him to answer this; And, for this cause, awhile we must neglect Cousin, on Wednesday next our council we [Exeunt. SCENE II.-The same. Another Room in the Palace. Enter HENRY Prince of Wales, and FALSTAFF. Fal. Now, Hal, what time of day is it, lad? P. Hen. Thou art so fat-witted, with drinking of old sack, and unbuttoning thee after supper, and sleeping upon benches after noon, that thou hast forgotten to demand that truly, which thou would'st truly know. What a devil hast thou to do with the time of the day? unless hours were cups of sack, and minutes capons, and clocks the tongues of bawds, and dials the signs of leaping-houses, and the blessed sun himself a fair hot wench in flame-colour'd taffata; I see no reason, why thou should'st be so superfluous to demand the time of the day. and Fal. Indeed, you come near me, now, Hal: for we, that take purses, go by the moon and seven stars; not by Phoebus,-he, that wandering knight so fair. And I pray thee, sweet wag, when thou art king,-as, God save thy grace, (majesty, I should say; for grace thou wilt have none,) P. Hen. What! none? Fal. No, by my troth; not so much as will serve to be prologue to an egg and butter. P. Hen. Well, how then? come, roundly, roundly. Fal. Marry, then, sweet wag, when thou art king, let not us, that are squires of the night's body, be called thieves of the day's beauty; let us be-Diana's foresters, gentlemen of the shade, minions of the moon : And let men say, we be men of good government; being governed as the sea is, by our noble and chaste mistress the moon, under whose countenance we—steal. P. Hen. Thou say'st well; and it holds well too: for the fortune of us, that are the moon's men, doth ebb and flow like the sea; being governed as the sea is, by the moon. As, for proof, now: A purse of gold most resolutely snatched on Monday night, and most dissolutely spent on Tuesday morning; got with swearing— lay by; and spent with crying-bring in: now, in as low an ebb as the foot of the ladder; and, by and by, in as high a flow as the ridge of the gallows. Fal. By the Lord, thou say'st true, lad. And is not my hostess of the tavern a most sweet wench? P. Hen. As the honey of Hybla, my old lad of the castle. And is not a buff jerkin a most sweet robe of durance? Fal. How now, how now, mad wag? what, in thy quips, and thy quiddities? what a plague have I to do with a buff jerkin? P. Hen. Why, what a pox have I to do with my hostess of the tavern? Fal. Well, thou hast called her to a reckoning, many a time and oft. P. Hen. Did I ever call for thee to pay thy part? |