NYM. I am not Barbason; you cannot conjure me. I have an humour to knock you indifferently well. If you grow foul with me, Pistol, I will scour you with my rapier, as I may, in fair terms: if you would walk off, I would prick your guts a little, in good terms, as I may ; and that's the humour of it.

PIST. O braggart vile and damned furious wight! The grave doth gape, and doting death is near; Therefore exhale.

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[They both draw. BARD. Hear me, hear me what I say he that strikes the first stroke, I'll run him up to the hilts, as I am a soldier.

[Draws. PIST. An oath of mickle might; and fury shall abate. Give me thy fist, thy fore-foot to me give:

Thy spirits are most tall.

NYM. I will cut thy throat, one time or other, in fair terms that is the humour of it.

PIST. 'Couple a gorge!'

That is the word. I thee defy again.

O hound of Crete, think'st thou my spouse to get?

No; to the spital go,

And from the powdering-tub of infamy
Fetch forth the lazar kite of Cressid's kind,
Doll Tearsheet she by name, and her espouse:
I have, and I will hold, the quondam Quickly
For the only she; and—pauca, there's enough.
Go to.
Enter the Boy.

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Boy. Mine host Pistol, you must come to my master, and you, hostess: he is very sick, and would to bed. Good Bardolph, put thy face between his sheets, and do the office of a warming-pan. Faith, he's very ill.

BARD. Away, you rogue!

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HOST. By my troth, he'll yield the crow a pudding one of these days. The king has killed his heart. Good husband, come home presently.

[Exeunt Hostess and Boy. BARD. Come, shall I make you two friends? We must to France together: why the devil should we keep knives to cut one another's throats?

I PIST. Let floods o'erswell, and fiends for food howl on! NYM. You'll pay me the eight shillings I won of you at betting?

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PIST. Base is the slave that pays.

NYM. That now I will have that's the humour of it. PIST. As manhood shall compound: push home. [They both draw. BARD. By this sword, he that makes the first thrust, I'll kill him; by this sword, I will. [Draws.

PIST. Sword is an oath, and oaths must have their course. BARD. Corporal Nym, an thou wilt be friends, be friends an thou wilt not, why, then, be enemies with me too. Prithee, put up.

:

ΙΟΙ

NYM. I shall have my eight shillings I won of you at betting?

PIST. A noble shalt thou have, and present pay; And liquor likewise will I give to thee,

And friendship shall combine, and brotherhood:

I'll live by Nym, and Nym shall live by me;
Is not this just? for I shall sutler be

Unto the camp, and profits will accrue.
Give me thy hand.

NYM. I shall have my noble?

PIST. In cash most justly paid.

NYM. Well, then, that's the humour of it.

Re-enter Hostess.

ΠΟ

HOST. As ever you came of women, come in quickly to Sir John. Ah, poor heart! he is so shaked of a burning quotidian tertian, that it is most lamentable to behold. Sweet men, come to him.

NYM. The king hath run bad humours on the knight; that's the even of it.

PIST. Nym, thou hast spoke the right; His heart is fracted and corroborate.

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NYM. The king is a good king: but it must be as it may; he passes some humours and careers.

PIST. Let us condole the knight; for, lambkins, we will live. [Exeunt.

SCENE II.

Southampton.

A Council Chamber. Enter EXETER, BEDFORD, and WESTMORELAND.

BED. 'Fore God, his grace is bold, to trust these traitors. EXE. They shall be apprehended by and by.

WEST. How smooth and even they do bear themselves!

As if allegiance in their bosom sat,
Crowned with faith and constant loyalty.

BED. The king hath note of all that they intend,
By interception which they dream not of.

EXE. Nay, but the man that was his bedfellow,
Whom he hath dull'd and cloy'd with gracious favours,
That he should, for a foreign purse, so sell
His sovereign's life to death and treachery!

Trumpets sound. Enter KING HENRY, SCROOP,
CAMBRIDGE, GREY, Lords, and Attendants.

K. HEN. Now sits the wind fair, and we will aboard.
My Lord of Cambridge, and ny kind Lord of Masham,
And you, my gentle knight, give me your thoughts:
Think you not that the powers we bear with us
Will cut their passage through the force of France,
Doing the execution and the act

For which we have in head assembled them?

ΙΟ

SCROOP. No doubt, my liege, if each man do his best. K. HEN. I doubt not that; since we are well persuaded

We carry not a heart with us from hence

That grows not in a fair consent with ours;
Nor leave not one behind that doth not wish

Success and conquest to attend on us.

CAM. Never was monarch better fear'd and loved Than is your Majesty; there's not, I think, a subject That sits in heart-grief and uneasiness

Under the sweet shade of your government.

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GREY. True: those that were your father's enemies Have steep'd their galls in honey, and do serve you 30 With hearts create of duty and of zeal.

K. HEN. We therefore have great cause of thankfulness; And shall forget the office of our hand,

Sooner than quittance of desert and merit

According to the weight and worthiness.

SCROOP. So service shall with steeled sinews toil; And labour shall refresh itself with hope,

To do your grace incessant services.

K. HEN. We judge no less. Uncle of Exeter,
Enlarge the man committed yesterday,

That rail'd against our person: we consider
It was excess of wine that set him on;
And on his more advice we pardon him.

C

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SCROOP. That's mercy, but too much security:
Let him be punish'd, sovereign, lest example
Breed, by his sufferance, more of such a kind.
K. HEN. O, let us yet be merciful.

CAM. So may your highness, and yet punish too.
GREY. Sir,

You show great mercy, if you give him life,

After the taste of much correction.

K. HEN. Alas, your too much love and care of me
Are heavy orisons 'gainst this poor wretch!
If little faults, proceeding on distemper,

Shall not be wink'd at, how shall we stretch our eye
When capital crimes, chew'd, swallow'd, and digested,
Appear before us? We'll yet enlarge that man,

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Though Cambridge, Scroop, and Grey, in their dear care And tender preservation of our person,

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Would have him punish'd. And now to our French causes : Who are the late commissioners?

CAM. I one, my lord:

Your highness bade me ask for it to-day.
SCROOP. So did you me, my liege.

GREY. And me, my royal sovereign.

K. HEN. Then, Richard Earl of Cambridge, there is

yours;

There yours, Lord Scroop of Masham; and, sir knight,
Grey of Northumberland, this same is yours:
Read them; and know, I know your worthiness.
My Lord of Westmoreland, and uncle Exeter.

We will aboard to-night. Why, how now, gentlemen!
What see you in those papers, that you lose
So much complexion? Look ye, how they change!
Their cheeks are paper. Why, what read you there,
That hath so cowarded and chased your blood
Out of appearance?

CAM.

I do confess my fault;

And do submit me to your highness' mercy.

K. HEN. The mercy that was quick in us but late,
By your own counsel is suppress'd and kill'd:
You must not dare, for shame, to talk of mercy;
For your own reasons turn into your bosoms,
As dogs upon their masters, worrying you.

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80

See you, my princes and my noble peers,

These English monsters! My Lord of Cambridge here,
You know how apt our love was to accord

To furnish him with all appertinents
Belonging to his honour; and this man
Hath, for a few light crowns, lightly conspired,
And sworn unto the practices of France,
To kill us here in Hampton: to the which
This knight, no less for bounty bound to us
Than Cambridge is, hath likewise sworn. But, O,
What shall I say to thee, Lord Scroop? thou cruel,
Ingrateful, savage and inhuman creature!
Thou that didst bear the key of all my counsels,
That knew'st the very bottom of my soul,
That almost mightst have coin'd me into gold,
Wouldst thou have practised on me for thy use,
May it be possible, that foreign hire

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 and white, my eye will scarcely see it.
Treason and murder 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 murder:
And whatsoever cunning fiend it was
That wrought upon thee so preposterously
Hath got the voice in hell for excellence:
All other devils that suggest by treasons
Do botch and bungle up damnation

With patches, colours, and with forms being fetch'd
From glistering semblances of piety;

But he that temper'd thee bade thee stand up,

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

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IIO

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