bespoke supper to-morrow night in Eastcheap: we may do it as secure as sleep. If you will go, I will stuff your purses full of crowns; if you will not, tarry at home and be hanged.

Fal. Hear ye, Yedward; if I tarry at home and go not, I'll hang you for going.

Poins. You will, chops?

Fal. Hal, wilt thou make one?

Prince. Who, I rob? I a thief? not I, by my faith.

120

Fal. There's neither honesty, manhood, nor good fellowship in thee, nor thou camest not of the blood royal, if thou darest not stand for ten shillings.

Prince. Well then, once in my days I'll be a madcap.
Fal. Why, that's well said.

Prince. Well, come what will, I'll tarry at home.

Fal. By the Lord, I'll be a traitor then, when thou art king.

Prince. I care not.

130

Poins. Sir John, I prithee, leave the prince and me alone: I will lay him down such reasons for this adventure that he shall

go.

Fal. Well, God give thee the spirit of persuasion and him the ears of profiting, that what thou speakest may move and what he hears may be believed, that the true prince may, for recreation sake, prove a false thief; for the poor abuses of the time want countenance. Farewell you shall find me in Eastcheap.

140

Prince. Farewell, thou latter spring! farewell, All-hallown summer! [Exit Falstaff.

Poins. Now, my good sweet honey lord, ride with us tomorrow: I have a jest to execute that I cannot manage alone. Falstaff, Bardolph, Peto and Gadshill shall rob those men that we have already waylaid; yourself and I will not be there; and when they have the booty, if you and I do not rob them, cut this head off from my shoulders.

Prince. How shall we part with them in setting forth?

148

Poins. Why, we will set forth before or after them, and appoint them a place of meeting, wherein it is at our pleasure to fail, and then will they adventure upon the exploit themselves; which they shall have no sooner achieved, but we'll set upon them.

Prince. Yea, but 'tis like that they will know us by our horses, by our habits and by every other appointment, to be ourselves.

Poins. Tut! our horses they shall not see; I'll tie them in the wood; our vizards we will change after we leave them : and, sirrah, I have cases of buckram for the nonce, to immask our noted outward garments. 161

Prince. Yea, but I doubt they will be too hard for us. Poins. Well, for two of them, I know them to be as truebred cowards as ever turned back; and for the third, if he fight longer than he sees reason, I'll forswear arms. The virtue of this jest will be, the incomprehensible lies that this same fat rogue will tell us when we meet at supper: how thirty, at least, he fought with; what wards, what blows, what extremities he endured; and in the reproof of this lies the jest.

170

Prince. Well, I'll go with thee: provide us all things necessary and meet me to-morrow night in Eastcheap; there I'll sup. Farewell.

Poins. Farewell, my lord.

Prince. I know you all, and will a while uphold The unyoked humour of your idleness :

Yet herein will I imitate the sun,

Who doth permit the base contagious clouds
To smother up his beauty from the world,
That, when he please again to be himself,
Being wanted, he may be more wonder'd at,
By breaking through the foul and ugly mists
Of vapours that did seem to strangle him.
If all the year were playing holidays,
To sport would be as tedious as to work;
But when they seldom come, they wish'd for come,

[Exit.

180

And nothing pleaseth but rare accidents.
So, when this loose behaviour I throw off
And pay the debt I never promised,
By how much better than my word I am,
By so much shall I falsify men's hopes;
And like bright metal on a sullen ground,
My reformation, glittering o'er my fault,
Shall show more goodly and attract more eyes
Than that which hath no foil to set it off.
I'll so offend, to make offence a skill;
Redeeming time when men think least I will.

SCENE III. London. The palace.

190

[Exit.

Enter the KING, NORTHUMBERland, Worcester, HOTSPUR, SIR WALTER BLUNT, with others. King. My blood hath been too cold and temperate, Unapt to stir at these indignities,

And you have found me; for accordingly
You tread upon my patience: but be sure

I will from henceforth rather be myself,

Mighty and to be fear'd, than my condition;

Which hath been smooth as oil, soft as young down,
And therefore lost that title of respect

Which the proud soul ne'er pays but to the proud.

Wor. Our house, my sovereign liege, little deserves

The scourge of greatness to be used on it;

And that same greatness too which our own hands
Have holp to make so portly.

North. My lord,—

King. Worcester, get thee gone; for I do see
Danger and disobedience in thine eye:

O, sir, your presence is too bold and peremptory,
And majesty might never yet endure

The moody frontier of a servant brow.

You have good leave to leave us : when we need

II

20

Your use and counsel, we shall send for you. [Exit Wor. You were about to speak.

[To North.

North.

Yea, my good lord.

Those prisoners in your highness' name demanded,
Which Harry Percy here at Holmedon took,
Were, as he says, not with such strength denied
As is deliver'd to your majesty:

Either envy, therefore, or misprision

Is guilty of this fault and not my son.

Hot. My liege, I did deny no prisoners.
But I remember, when the fight was done,
When I was dry with rage and extreme toil,
Breathless and faint, leaning upon my sword,
Came there a certain lord, neat, and trimly dress'd,
Fresh as a bridegroom; and his chin new reap'd
Show'd like a stubble-land at harvest-home;
He was perfumed like a milliner ;

And 'twixt his finger and his thumb he held
A pouncet-box, which ever and anon

He gave his nose and took 't away again;
Who therewith angry, when it next came there,
Took it in snuff; and still he smiled and talk'd,
And as the soldiers bore dead bodies by,
He call'd them untaught knaves, unmannerly,
To bring a slovenly unhandsome corse
Betwixt the wind and his nobility.

With many holiday and lady terms

He question'd me; amongst the rest, demanded
My prisoners in your majesty's behalf.

I then, all smarting with my wounds being cold,
To be so pester'd with a popinjay,

30

40

50

Out of my grief and my impatience,

Answer'd neglectingly I know not what,

To see him shine so brisk, and smell so sweet,

He should, or he should not; for he made me mad

And talk so like a waiting-gentlewoman

Of guns and drums and wounds,-God save the mark!

And telling me the sovereign'st thing on earth

Was parmaceti for an inward bruise;

And that it was great pity, so it was,

And nothing pleaseth but rare accidents.
So, when this loose behaviour I throw off
And pay the debt I never promised,
By how much better than my word I am,
By so much shall I falsify men's hopes;
And like bright metal on a sullen ground,
My reformation, glittering o'er my fault,
Shall show more goodly and attract more eyes
Than that which hath no foil to set it off.
I'll so offend, to make offence a skill;
Redeeming time when men think least I will.

SCENE III. London. The palace.

190

[Exit.

Enter the KING, NORTHUMBERLAND, WORCESTER,
HOTSPUR, SIR WALTER BLUNT, with others.

King. My blood hath been too cold and temperate,
Unapt to stir at these indignities,

And you have found me; for accordingly
You tread upon my patience: but be sure

I will from henceforth rather be myself,

Mighty and to be fear'd, than my condition ;
Which hath been smooth as oil, soft as young down,
And therefore lost that title of respect

Which the proud soul ne'er pays but to the proud.

Wor. Our house, my sovereign liege, little deserves

The scourge of greatness to be used on it;

And that same greatness too which our own hands
Have holp to make so portly.

North. My lord,—

King. Worcester, get thee gone; for I do see Danger and disobedience in thine eye:

O, sir, your presence is too bold and peremptory,

And majesty might never yet endure

The moody frontier of a servant brow.

You have good leave to leave us : when we need

II

20

Your use and counsel, we shall send for you. [Exit Wor. You were about to speak.

[To North.