Fal. You lie, ye rogue; 'tis going to the King's tavern. Gads. There's enough to make us all.

Fal. To be hang'd.

Prince. Sirs, you four shall front them in the narrow lane; Ned Pointz and I will walk lower: if they 'scape from your encounter, then they light on us.

Peto. How many be there of them?

Gads. Some eight or ten.

Fal. Zwounds, will they not rob us?

Prince. What, a coward, Sir John Paunch?

Fal. Indeed, I am not John of Gaunt, your grandfather; but yet no coward, Hal.

Prince. Well, we leave that to the proof.

Pointz. Sirrah Jack, thy horse stands behind the hedge: when thou need'st him, there thou shalt find him. Farewell, and stand fast.

Fal. Now cannot I strike him, if I should be hang'd.
Prince. [Aside to POINTZ.]
Pointz. [Aside to P. HEN.]

Ned, where are our disguises? Here, hard by: stand close. [Exeunt P. HENRY and POINTZ.

Fal. Now, my masters, happy man be his dole,9 say I: every man to his business.

Enter Travellers.

I Trav. Come, neighbour :

The boy shall lead our horses down the hill;

We'll walk a-foot awhile, and ease our legs.

Fal., Gads., &c. Stand!

2 Trav. Jesu bless us !

9 A common phrase of the time meaning much the same as our "Success to you!' Dole is deal, lot, or portion: hence, " may happiness be his lot."

See The Winter's Tale, page 48, note 26.

Fal. Strike; down with them; cut the villains' throats. Ah, whoreson caterpillars ! bacon-fed knaves! they hate us youth down with them; fleece them.

I Trav. O, we're undone, both we and ours for ever!

Fal. Hang ye, gorbellied knaves, are ye undone? No, ye fat chuffs; 10 I would your store were here! On, bacons, on! What, ye knaves! young men must live. You are grand-jurors, are ye? we'll jure ye, i'faith.

[Exeunt FAL., GADS., &c., driving the Travellers out.

Re-enter Prince HENRY and POINTZ, in buckram suits.

Prince. The thieves have bound the true men. Now, could thou and I rob the thieves, and go merrily to London, it would be argument for a week, laughter for a month, and a good jest for ever.

Pointz. Stand close: I hear them coming. [They retire.

Re-enter FALSTAFF, GADSHILL, BARDOLPH, and PETO.

Fal. Come, my masters, let us share, and then to horse before day. An the Prince and Pointz be not two arrant cowards, there's no equity stirring: there's no more valour in that Pointz than in a wild-duck.

[As they are sharing, the Prince and POINTZ set upon them.

Prince. Your money!

10 A chuff, according to Richardson, is a "burly, swollen man; swollen either with gluttony and guzzling, or with ill tempers." So in Massinger's Duke of Milan: "To see these chuffs, who every day may spend a soldier's entertainment for a year, yet make a third meal of a bunch of raisins.”– Gorbellied is another word of about the same meaning,-pot-bellied. — Falstaff, "a huge hill of flesh," reviling his victims for their corpulence, is an exquisite stroke of humour. Still better, perhaps, his exclaiming "they hate us youth," the old sinner! - and "young men must live."

Pointz. Villains!

[FALSTAFF, after a blow or two, and the others run away, leaving the booty behind them. Prince. Got with much ease. Now merrily to horse : The thieves are scatter'd, and possess'd with fear So strongly that they dare not meet each other; Each takes his fellow for an officer.

Away, good Ned. Fat Falstaff sweats to death,
And lards the lean earth as he walks along :
Were't not for laughing, I should pity him.
Pointz. How the rogue roar'd!

[Exeunt.

SCENE III.- Warkworth. A Room in the Castle.

Enter HOTSPUR, reading a letter.1

Hot. - But, for mine own part, my lord, I could be well contented to be there, in respect of the love I bear your House. -He could be contented; why is he not, then? In respect of the love he bears our House !- he shows in this, he loves his own barn better than he loves our house. Let me see some more. The purpose you undertake is dangerous; Why, that's certain: 'tis dangerous to take a cold, to sleep, to drink; but I tell you, my lord fool, out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety. The purpose you undertake is dangerous; the friends you have named uncertain; the time itself unsorted; and your whole plot too light for the

1 This letter was from George Dunbar, Earl of March, in Scotland. Marches is an old word for borders; and Earls of March were so called from their having charge of the borders, whether those between England and Scotland, or those between England and Wales. In the days of border warfare, the charge was an important one.

counterpoise of so great an opposition.-Say you so, say you so? I say unto you again, you are a shallow, cowardly hind, and you lie. What a lack-brain is this! By the Lord, our plot is a good plot as ever was laid; our friends true and constant: a good plot, good friends, and full of expectation; an excellent plot, very good friends. What a frosty-spirited rogue is this! Why, my Lord of York commends the plot and the general course of the action. Zwounds! an I were now by this rascal, I could brain him 2 with his lady's fan. Is there not my father, my uncle, and myself? Lord Edmund Mortimer, my Lord of York, and Owen Glendower? is there not, besides, the Douglas? have I not all their letters to meet me in arms by the ninth of the next month? and are they not some of them set forward already? What a pagan rascal is this an infidel! Ha! you shall see now, in very sincerity of fear and cold heart, will he to the King, and lay open all our proceedings. O, I could divide myself, and go to buffets,3 for moving such a dish of skimm'd milk with so honourable an action! Hang him! let him tell the King: we are prepared. I will set forward to-night.

Enter Lady PERCY.

How now, Kate !4 I must leave you within these two hours. Lady. O, my good lord, why are you thus alone?

For what offence have I this fortnight been

A banish'd woman from my Harry's bed?

Tell me, sweet lord, what is't that takes from thee

2 Knock his brains out. See The Tempest, page 107, note II.

3 Cut myself into two parts, and set the parts to cuffing each other.

4 The Poet seems to have had a special liking for the name of Kate. The name of Hotspur's wife was Elizabeth. Holinshed, however, calls her Elinor.

Thy stomach, pleasure, and thy golden sleep?
Why dost thou bend thine eyes upon the earth,
And start so often when thou sitt'st alone?
Why hast thou lost the fresh blood in thy cheeks;
And given my treasures and my rights of thee
To thick-eyed musing and curst melancholy?
In thy faint slumbers I by thee have watch'd,
And heard thee murmur tales of iron wars;
Speak terms of manage to thy bounding steed;
Cry, Courage to the field! And thou hast talk'd
Of sallies and retires, of trenches, tents,
Of palisadoes, frontiers, parapets,

Of basilisks,5 of cannon, culverin,

Of prisoners ransom'd, and of soldiers slain,
And all the 'currents 6 of a heady fight.
Thy spirit within thee hath been so at war,
And thou hast so bestirr'd thee in thy sleep,
That beads of sweat have stood upon thy brow,
Like bubbles in a late-disturbed stream;

And in thy face strange motions have appear'd,
Such as we see when men restrain their breath

On some great sudden hest. O, what portents are these?
Some heavy business hath my lord in hand,

And I must know it, else he loves me not.

Hot. What, ho!

5 Retires are retreats.

Enter a Servant.

Is Gilliams with the packet gone?

- Frontiers formerly meant not only the bounds of different territories, but also the forts built along or near those limits.— Basilisks are a species of ordnance; so called from their supposed resemblance to the serpent of that name.

6 'Currents, that is, occurrents, is an old form for occurrences.