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From the best temper'd courage in his troops:
For from his metal was his party steel'd;
Which once in him abated, all the rest
Turn'd on themselves, like dull and heavy
And as the thing that's heavy in itself, [lead.
Upon enforcement, flies with greatest speed;
So did our men, heavy in Hotspur's loss,
Lend to this weight such lightness with their
fear,

That arrows fled not swifter toward their aim,
Than did our soldiers, aiming at their safety,
Fly from the field: Then was that noble Wor-

cester

Too soon ta'en prisoner: and that furious Scot, The bloody Douglas, whose well-labouring sword [king, Had three times slain the appearance of the 'Gan vail his stomach, and did grace the shame [flight, Of those that turn'd their backs; and, in his Stumbling in fear, was took. The sum of all Is, that the king hath won; and hath sent out A speedy power to encounter you, my lord, Under the conduct of young Lancaster, And Westmoreland: this is the news at full. North. For this I shall have time enough to

mourn.

In poison there is physic; and these news,
Having been well, that would have made me
sick,
[well:
Being sick, have in some measure made me
And as the wretch, whose fever-weaken'd
joints,

Like strengthless hinges, buckle under life,
Impatient of his fit, breaks like a fire
Out of his keeper's arms; even so my limbs,
Weaken'd with grief, being now enrag'd with
grief,

Are thrice themselves: hence therefore, thou nicet crutch;

A scaly gauntlet now, with joints of steel, Must glove this hand and hence, thou sickly quoif,+

Thou art a guard too wanton for the head, Which princes, flesh'd with conquest, aim to hit.

Now bind my brows with iron; and approach The ragged'st hour that time and spite dare bring,

To frown upon the enrag'd Northumberland! Let heaven kiss earth! Now let not nature's hand

Keep the wild flood confin'd! let order die!
And let this world no longer be a stage,
To feed contention in a lingering act;
But let one spirit of the first-born Cain
Reign in all bosoms, that, each heart being set
On bloody courses, the rude scene may end,
And darkness be the burier of the dead!

Tra. This strained passion doth you wrong, my lord.

Bard. Sweet earl, divorce not wisdom from your honour.

Mor. The lives of all your loving complices Lean on your health; the which, if you give To stormy passion, must perforce decay. [o'er You cast the event of war, my noble lord, And summ'd the account of chance, before you said,-

Let us make head. It was your presurmise, That in the doles of blows your son might drop:

You knew, he walk'd o'er perils, on an edge,
More likely to fall in, than to get o'er:
You were advis'd, his flesh was capable

* Let fall. + Trifling. + Cap.

Distribution.

Of wounds, and scars; and that his forward spirits [rang'd; Would lift him where most trade of danger Yet did you say,-Go forth; and none of this, Though strongly apprehended, could restrain The stiff-borne action: What hath then befallen,

Or what hath this bold enterprize brought forth, More than that being which was like to be?

Bard. We all, that are engaged to this loss,
Knew that we ventur'd on such dangerous seas,
That, if we wrought out life, 'twas ten to one:
And yet we ventur'd, for the gain propos'd
Chok'd the respect of likely peril fear'd;
And, since we are o'erset, venture again.
Come, we will all put forth; body, and goods.
Mor. "Tis more than time: And, my most
noble lord,

I hear for certain, and do speak the truth,-
The gentle archbishop of York is up,
With well-appointed powers; he is a man,
Who with a double surety binds his followers.
My lord your son had only but the corps,
But shadows, and the shows of men, to fight:
For that same word, rebellion, did divide
The action of their bodies from their souls;
And they did fight with queasiness,

strain'd,

con

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knew for.

I do

Fal. Men of all sorts take a pride to gird|| at me: The brain of this foolish-compounded clay, man, is not able to vent any thing that tends to laughter, more than I invent, or is inbut the cause that wit is in other men. vented on me: I am not only witty in myself, here walk before thee, like a sow, that hath overwhelmed all her litter but one. If the prince put thee into my service for any other reason than to set me off, why then I have no judgement. Thou whoreson mandrake,¶ thou

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:

art fitter to be worn in my cap, than to wait at my heels. I was never manned with an agate* till now but I will set you neither in gold nor silver, but in vile apparel, and send you back again to your master, for a jewel; the juvenal, the prince your master, whose chin is not yet fledged. I will sooner have a beard grow in the palm of my hand, than he shall get one on his cheek; and yet he will not stick to say, his face is a face-royal: God may finish it when he will, it is not a hair amiss yet: he may keep it still as a face-royal, for a barber shall never earn sixpence out of it; and yet he will be crowing, as if he had writ man ever since his father was a bachelor. He may keep his own grace, but he is almost out of mine, I can assure him. What said master Dumbleton about the satin for my short cloak, and slops? Page. He said, Sir, you should procure him better assurance than Bardolph: he would not take his bond and yours; he liked not the security.

Ful. Let him be damned like a glutton! may his tongue be hotter!-A whoreson Achitophel! a rascally yea-forsooth knave! to bear a gentleman in hand, and then stand upon security! -The whoreson smooth-pates do now wear nothing but high shoes, and bunches of keys at their girdles; and if a man is thorought with them in honest taking up, then they must stand upon-security. I had as lief they would put ratsbane in my mouth, as offer to stop it with security. I looked he should have sent me two and twenty yards of satin, as I am a true knight, and he sends me security. Well, he may sleep in security; for he hath the horn of abundance, and the lightness of his wife shines through it and yet cannot he see, though he have his own lantern to light him.- Where's Bardolph?

Page. He's gone into Smithfield, to buy your worship a horse.

Fal. I bought him in Paul's, and he'll buy me a horse in Smithfield: an I could get me but a wife in the stews, I were manned, horsed, and wived.t

Enter the LORD CHIEF JUSTICE, and an AT

TENDANT.

Page. Sir, here comes the nobleman that committed the prince for stricking him about Bardolph.

Fal. Wait close, I will not see him, Ch. Just. What's he that goes there? Atten. Falstaff, an't please your lordship. Ch. Just. He that was in question for the robbery?

Atten. He, my lord: but he hath since done good service at Shrewsbury; and, as I hear, is now going with some charge to the lord John of Lancaster.

Ch. Just. What, to York? Call him back again.

Atten. Sir John Falstaff!

Fal. Boy, tell him, I am deaf.
Page. You must speak louder, my master is

deaf.

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Fal. What! a young knave, and beg! Is there not wars? is there not employment? Doth

A little figure cut in an agate. + In their debt. Alluding to an old proverb: Who goes to Westminster for a wife, to St. Paul's for a man, and to Smithfield for a horse, may meet with a whore, a knave, and a jade.

not the king lack subjects? do not the rebels need soldiers? Though it be a shame to be on any side but one, it is worse shame to beg than to be on the worst side, were it worse than the name of rebellion can tell how to make it.

Atten. You mistake me, Sir.

Ful. Why, Sir, did I say you were an honest man? setting my knighthood and my soldiership aside, I had lied in my throat if I had said so.

Atten. I pray you, Sir, then set your knighthood and your soldiership aside; and give me leave to tell you, you lie in your throat, if you say I am any other than an honest man.

Ful. I give thee leave to tell me so! I lay aside that which grows to me! If thou get'st any leave of me, hang me: if thou takest leave, thou wert better be hanged: You hunt-counter,+ hence! avaunt!

Atten. Sir, my lord would speak with you. Ch. Just. Sir John Falstaff, a word with you.

Fal. My good lord!-God give your lordship good time of day. I am glad to see your lordship abroad: I heard say, your lordship was sick: I hope, your lordship goes abroad by advice. Your lordship, though not clean past your youth, hath yet some smack of age in you, some relish of the saltness of time; and I most humbly beseech your lordship, to have a reverend care of your health.

Ch. Just. Sir John, I sent for you before your expedition to Shrewsbury.

Ful. An't please your lordship, I hear, his majesty is returned with some discomfort from Wales.

Ch. Just. I talk not of his majesty:-You would not come when I sent for you.

Fal. And I hear moreover, his highness is fallen into this same whoreson apoplexy. Ch. Just. Well, heaven mend him! I pray, let me speak with you.

Fal. This apoplexy is, as I take it, a kind of lethargy, an't please your lordship; a kind of sleeping in the blood, a whoreson tingling. Ch. Just. What tell you me of it? be it as it is.

Fal. It hath its original from much grief; from study, and perturbation of the brain: Í have read the cause of his effects in Galen; it is a kind of deafness.

Ch. Just. I think, you are fallen into the disease; for you hear not what I say to you.

Fal. Very well, my lord, very well: rather, an't please you, it is the disease of not listening, the malady of not marking, that I am troubled withal.

Ch. Just. To punish you by the heels, would amend the attention of your ears; and I care not, if I do become your physician.

Fal. I am as poor as Job, my lord; but not so patient: your lordship may minister the potion of imprisonment to me, in respect of poverty; but how I should be your patient to follow your prescriptions, the wise may make some dram of a scruple, or, indeed, a scruple itself.

Ch. Just. I sent for you, when there were matters against you for your life, to come speak with me.

Ful. As I was then advised by my learned counsel in the laws of this land-service, I did

not come.

Ch. Just. Well, the truth is, Sir John, you live in great infamy.

A catch-pole, or bum-bailiff.

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Ch. Just. Your means are very slender, and your waste is great.

and Prince Harry: I hear, you are going with lord John of Lancaster, against the archbishop, and the earl of Northumberland.

Fal. Yea; I thank your pretty sweet wit for Fal. I would it were otherwise; I would my it. But look you pray, all you that kiss my means were greater, and my waist slenderer.lady peace at home, that our armies join not in Ch. Just. You have misled the youthful prince.

Fal. The young prince hath misled me: I am the fellow with the great belly, and he my dog. Ch. Just. Well, I am loath to gall a newhealed wound; your day's service at Shrewsbury hath a little gilded over your night's exploit on Gads-hill: you may thank the unquiet time for your quiet o'er-posting that action. Fal. My lord?

Ch. Just. But since all is well, keep it so: wake not a sleeping wolf.

Fal. To wake a wolf, is as bad as to smell a fox.

Ch. Just. What! you are as a candle, the better part burnt out.

Fal. A wassel* candle, my lord; all tallow: if I did say of wax, my growth would approve the truth.

Ch. Just. There is not a white hair on your face, but should have his effect of gravity.

Fal. His effect of gravy, gravy, gravy. Ch. Just. You follow the young prince up and down, like his ill angel.

Fal. Not so, my lord; your ill angelt is light; but, I hope, he that looks upon me, will take me without weighing: and yet, in some respects, I grant, I cannot go, I cannot tell : Virtue is of so little regard in these costermonger times, that true valour is turned bearherd: Pregnancy is made a tapster, and hath his quick wit wasted in giving reckonings: all the other gifts appertinent to man, as the malice of this age shapes them, are not worth a gooseberry. You, that are old, consider not the capacities of us that are young: you measure the heat of our livers with the bitterness of your galls: and we that are in the vaward of our youth, I must confess, are wags too.

Ch. Just. Do you set down your name in the scroll of youth, that are written down old with all the characters of age? Have you not a moist eye? a dry hand? a yellow cheek? a white beard? a decreasing leg? an increasing belly? Is not your voice broken? your wind short? your chin double? your wit single?¶ and every part about you blasted with antiquity?** and will you yet call yourself young? Fie, fie, fie, Sir John!

Fal. My lord, I was born about three of the clock in the afternoon, with a white head, and something a round belly. For my voice,-I have lost it with hollaing, and singing of anthems. To approve my youth further, I will not: the truth is, I am only old in judgement and understanding; and he that will caper with me for a thousand marks, let him lend me the money, and have at him. For the box o'the ear that the prince gave you,-he gave it like a rude prince, and you took it like a sensible lord. I have checked him for it; and the young lion repents: marry, not in ashes, and sackcloth; but in new silk, and old sack.

Ch. Just. Well, heaven send the prince a better companion!

Fal. Heaven send the companion a better prince! I cannot rid my hands of him. Ch. Just. Well, the king hath severed you The coin called an angel Readiness. ** Old age.

A large candle for a feast. ↑ Pass current.

Forepart.

Small.

a hot day! for, by the Lord, I take but two shirts out with me, and I mean not to sweat extraordinarily: if it be a hot day, an I bran dish any thing but my bottle, I would I might never spit white again. There is not a dangerous action can peep out his head, but I am thrust upon it: Well, I cannot last ever: But it was always yet the trick of our English nation, if they have a good thing, to make it too common. If you will needs say, I am an old man, you should give me rest. I would to God, my name were not so terrible to the enemy as it is. I were better to be eaten to death with rust, than to be scoured to nothing with perpetual motion.

Ch. Just. Well, be honest, be honest; And God bless your expedition!

Fal. Will your lordship lend me a thousand pound, to furnish me forth?

Ch. Just. Not a penny, not a penny; you are too impatient to bear crosses. Fare you well: Commend me to my cousin Westmoreland. [Exeunt CHIEF JUSTICE and ATTENDANT.

Fal. If I do, fillip me with a three-man beetle.-A man can no more separate age and covetousness, than he can part young limbs and lechery: but the gout galls the one, and the pox pinches the other; and so both the degrees prevent my curses.—Boy !——— Page. Sir?

Fal. What money is in my purse?
Page. Seven groats and twopence.

Fal. I can get no remedy against this consumption of the purse: borrowing only lingers and lingers it out, but the disease is incurable. -Go bear this letter to my lord of Lancaster; this to the prince; this to the earl of Westmoreland; and this to old mistress Ursula, whom I have weekly sworn to marry since I perceived the first white hair on my chin: About it; you know where to find me. [Exit PAGE.] A pox of this gout! or, a gout of this pox! for the one, or the other, plays the rogue with my great toe. It is no matter, if I do halt; I have the wars for my colour, and my pension shall seem the more reasonable: A good wit will make use of any thing; I will turn diseases to commodity. [Exit.

SCENE III.-York.-A Room in the Archbishop's Palace.

Enter the ARCHBISHOP OF YORK, the Lords HAST-
INGS, MOWBRAY, and BÁRDOLPH.
Arch. Thus have you heard our cause, and

known our means;

And, my most noble friends, I pray you all, And first, lord marshal, what say you to it? Speak plainly your opinions of our hopes:

Mowb. I well allow the occasion of our arms;

But gladly would be better satisfied, [selves How, in our means, we should advance our To look with forehead bold and big enough Upon the power and puissance of the king.

Hast. Our present musters grow upon the file And our supplies live largely in the hope To five and twenty thousand men of choice; with an incensed fire of injuries. Of great Northumberland, whose bosom burns

A large wooden hammer so heavy as to require thre men to wield it. + Anticipate. + Profit.

Bard. The question then, lord Hastings, standeth thus:

Whether our present five and twenty thousand May hold up head without Northumberland. Hast. With him, we may.

Bard. Ay, marry, there's the point: But if without him we be thought too feeble, My judgement is, we should not step too far Till we had his assistance by the hand: For, in a theme so bloody-fac'd as this, Conjecture, expectation, and surmise Of aids uncertain, should not be admitted. Arch. Tis very true, lord Bardolph; for, indeed,

It was young Hotspur's case at Shrewsbury. Bard. It was, my lord; who lin'd himself with hope,

Eating the air on promise of supply,
Flattering himself with project of a power
Much smaller than the smallest of his thoughts:
And So, with great imagination,
Proper to madmen, led his powers to death,
And, winking, leap'd into destruction.

Hast. But, by your leave, it never yet did hurt,

To lay down likelihoods, and forms of hope. Burd. Yes, in this present quality of war;Indeed the instant action, (a cause on foot,) Lives so in hope, as in an early spring [fruit, We see the appearing buds; which, to prove Hope gives not so much warrant, as despair, That frosts will bite them. When we mean to build,

[work,

We first survey the plot, then draw the model;
And when we see the figure of the house,
Then must we rate the cost of the erection :
Which if we find outweighs ability,
What do we then, but draw anew the model
In fewer offices; or, at least, desist
To build at all? Much more, in this great
(Which is, almost, to pluck a kingdom down,
And set another up,) should we survey
The plot of situation, and the model;
Consent upon a sure foundation;
Question surveyors; know our own estate,
How able such a work to undergo,
To weigh against his opposite; or else,
We fortify in paper, and in figures,
Using the names of men, instead of men:
Like one, that draws the model of a house
Beyond his power to build it; who, half

through,

Gives o'er, and leaves his part created cost
A naked subject to the weeping clouds,
And waste for churlish winter's tyranny.
Hast. Grant, that our hopes (yet likely for
fair birth,)

[sess'd

Should be still-born, and that we now pos-
The utmost man of expectation;
I think, we are a body strong enough,
Even as we are, to equal with the king.
Bard. What! is the king but five and twenty
thousand?

Hast. To us, no more; nay, not so much,

lord Bardolph.

For his divisions, as the times do brawl,
Are in three heads: one power against the
French,

And one against Glendower; perforce, a third
Must take up us: So is the unfirm king
In three divided; and his coffers sound
With hollow poverty and emptiness.
Arch. That he should draw his several
strengths together,

And come against us in full puissance,

Need not be dreaded.

* Agree.

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And publish the occasion of our arms.
The commonwealth is sick of their own choice,
Their over-greedy love hath surfeited :-
A habitation giddy and unsure

Hath he, that buildeth on the vulgar heart.
O thou fond many!* with what loud applause
Didst thou beat heaven with blessing Boling.

broke,

[be? Before he was what thou would'st have him And being now trimm'd in thine own desires, Thou, beastly feeder, art so full of him, That thou provok'st thyself to cast him up. So, so, thou common dog, didst thou disgorge Thy glutton bosom of the royal Richard; And now thou would'st eat thy dead vomit up, And howl'st to find it. What trust is in these times?

They that, when Richard liv'd, would have him die,

Are now become enamour'd on his grave: Thou, that threw'st dust upon his goodly head, When through proud London he came sighing After the admired heels of Bolingbroke, [on Cry'st now, O earth, yield us that king again, And take thou this! O thoughts of men accurst! Past, and to come, seem best; things present, worst.

Mowb. Shall we go draw our numbers, and

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staff.

Host. Yea, good master Snare; I have entered him and all.

Snare. It may chance cost some of us our lives, for he will stab.

Host. Alas the day! take heed of him; he stabbed me in mine own house, and that most beastly in good faith, a' cares not what mischief he doth, if his weapon be out: he will foing like any devil; he will spare neither man, woman, nor child.

Fang. If I can close with him, I care not for his thrust.

Host. No, nor I neither: I'll be at your elbow.

Fang. An I but fist him once; an a' come but within my vice ;

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Fal. What is the gross sum that I owe thee?

Host. I am undone by his going; I warrant | to enforce a poor widow to so rough a course you, he's an infinitive thing upon my score:-to come by her own? Good master Fang, hold him sure;-good master Snare, let him not 'scape. He comes connuantly to Pie-corner, (saving your manhoods,) to buy a saddle; and he's indited to dinner to the lubbar's head in Lumbert-street, to master Smooth's the silkman: I pray ye, since my exion is entered, and my case so openly known to the world, let him be brought in to his answer. A hundred mark is a long loan for a poor lone woman to bear; and I have borne, and borne, and borne; and have been fubbed off, and fubbed off, and fubbed off, from this day to that day, that it is a shame to be thought on. There is no honesty in such dealing; unless a woman should be made an ass, and a beast, to bear every knave's wrong.— Enter Sir JOHN FALSTAFF, PAGE, and BAR

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Host. Throw me in the channel? I'll throw thee in the channel. Wilt thou? wilt thou? thou bastardly rogue!-Murder, murder! O thou honey-suckle villain! wilt thou kill God's officers, and the king's? O thou honey-seedt rogue! thou art a honey-seed; a man-queller,

and a woman-queller.

Fal. Keep them off, Bardolph.
Fang. A rescue! a rescue!

Host. Good people, bring a rescue or two.Thou wo't, wo't thou? thou wo't, wo't thou? do, do, thou rogue! do, thou hemp-seed!

Fal. Away, you scullion! you rampallian! you fustilarian! I'll tickle your catastrophe.

Enter the Lord CHIEF JUSTICE, attended. Ch. Just. What's the matter? keep the peace here, ho!

Host. Good my lord, be good to me! I beseech you, stand to me!

Ch. Just. How now, Sir John? what, are you
brawling here?

Doth this become your place, your time, and
business?
[York.
You should have been well on your way to
Stand from him, fellow; Wherefore hang'st

thou on him?

Host. O my most worshipful lord, an't please your grace, I am a poor widow of Eastcheap, and he is arrested at my suit.

Ch. Just. For what sum?

Host. It is more than for some, my lord: it is for all, all I have: he hath eaten me out of house and home; he hath put all my substance into that fat belly of his:-but I will have some of it out again, or I'll ride thee o'nights, like the mare.

Fal. I think, I am as like to ride the mare, if I have any vantage of ground to get up.

Ch. Just. How comes this, Sir John? Fie! what man of good temper would endure this tempest of exclamation? Are you not ashamed,

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Host. Marry, if thou wert an honest man, thyself, and the money too. Thou didst swear to me upon a parcel-gilt goblet, sitting in my Dolphin-chamber, at the round table, by a seacoal fire, upon Wednesday in Whitsun-week, when the prince broke thy head for liking his father to a singing-man of Windsor; thou didst swear to me then, as I was washing thy wound, to marry me, and make me my lady thy wife. Canst thou deny it? Did not goodwife Keech, the butcher's wife, come in then, and call me gossip Quickly? coming in to borrow a mess of vinegar; telling us, she had a good dish of prawns; whereby thou didst desire to eat some; whereby I told thee, they were ill for a green wound? And didst thou not, when she was gone down stairs, desire me to be no more so familiarity with such poor people; saying, that ere long they should call me madam? And didst thou not kiss me, and bid me fetch thee thirty shillings? I put thee now to thy bookoath; deny it, if thou canst.

Fal. My lord, this is a poor mad soul; and she says, up and down the town, that her eldest son is like you: she hath been in good case, and, the truth is, poverty hath distracted her. But for these foolish officers, I beseech you, I may have redress against them.

Ch. Just. Sir John, Sir John, I am well acquainted with your manner of wrenching the true cause the false way. It is not a confident brow, nor the throng of words that come with such more than impudent sauciness from you, have, as it appears to me, practised upon the can thrust me from a level consideration; you easy-yielding spirit of this woman, and made her serve your uses both in purse and persou. Host. Yea, in troth, my lord.

Ch. Just. Pr'ythee, peace:-Pay her the debt you owe her, and unpay the villany you have done with her; the one you may do with sterling money, and the other with current repent

ance.

Fal. My lord, I will not undergo this sneapt without reply. You call honourable boldness, impudent sauciness: if a man will make court'sy, and say nothing, he is virtuous: No, my lord, my humble duty remembered, I will not be your suitor; I say to you, I do desire deliverance from these officers, being upon hasty employment in the king's affairs.

Ch. Just. You speak as having power to do wrong: but answer in the effect of your reputation, and satisfy the poor woman.

Fal. Come hither, hostess. [Taking her aside.

Enter GOWER.

Ch. Just. Now, master Gower; What news?
Gow. The king, my lord, and Harry prince'
of Wales

Are near at hand: the rest the paper tells.
Ful. As I am a gentleman;-
Host. Nay, you said so before.
Fal. As I am a gentleman;-Come, no
more words of it.

Host. By this heavenly ground I tread on, I must be fain to pawn both my plate, and the tapestry of my dining-chambers.

Ful. Glasses, glasses, is the only drinking:

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