[Flourish. Enter BOLINGBROKE and YORK, with Lords and Attendants.]
BOLINGBROKE.
Kind uncle York, the latest news we hear
Is that the rebels have consum’d with fire
Our town of Cicester in Gloucestershire;
But whether they be ta’en or slain we hear not.
[Enter NORTHUMBERLAND.]
Welcome, my lord. What is the news?
NORTHUMBERLAND.
First, to thy sacred state wish I all happiness.
The next news is: I have to London sent
The heads of Salisbury, Spencer, Blunt, and Kent.
The manner of their taking may appear
At large discoursed in this paper here.
BOLINGBROKE.
We thank thee, gentle Percy, for thy pains;
And to thy worth will add right worthy gains.
[Enter FITZWATER.]
FITZWATER.
My lord, I have from Oxford sent to London
The heads of Brocas and Sir Bennet Seely,
Two of the dangerous consorted traitors
That sought at Oxford thy dire overthrow.
BOLINGBROKE.
Thy pains, Fitzwater, shall not be forgot;
Right noble is thy merit, well I wot.
[Enter HENRY PERCY, With the BISHOP OF CARLISLE.]
PERCY.
The grand conspirator, Abbot of Westminster,
With clog of conscience and sour melancholy,
Hath yielded up his body to the grave;
But here is Carlisle living, to abide
Thy kingly doom, and sentence of his pride.
BOLINGBROKE.
Carlisle, this is your doom:
Choose out some secret place, some reverend room,
More than thou hast, and with it joy thy life;
So as thou livest in peace, die free from strife;
For though mine enemy thou hast ever been,
High sparks of honour in thee have I seen.
[Enter EXTON, with attendants, hearing a coffin.]
EXTON.
Great king, within this coffin I present
Thy buried fear: herein all breathless lies
The mightiest of thy greatest enemies,
Richard of Bordeaux, by me hither brought.
BOLINGBROKE.
Exton, I thank thee not; for thou hast wrought
A deed of slander with thy fatal hand
Upon my head and all this famous land.
EXTON.
From your own mouth, my lord, did I this deed.
BOLINGBROKE.
They love not poison that do poison need,
Nor do I thee: though I did wish him dead,
I hate the murderer, love him murdered.
The guilt of conscience take thou for thy labour,
But neither my good word nor princely favour:
With Cain go wander thorough shade of night,
And never show thy head by day nor light.
Lords, I protest my soul is full of woe,
That blood should sprinkle me to make me grow:
Come, mourn with me for what I do lament,
And put on sullen black incontinent.
I’ll make a voyage to the Holy Land,
To wash this blood off from my guilty hand.
March sadly after; grace my mournings here,
In weeping after this untimely bier.
[Exeunt]
THE END
[Enter Prince Henry and Pointz; Bardolph and Peto at some distance.]
POINTZ. Come, shelter, shelter: I have remov’d Falstaff’s horse, and he frets like a gumm’d velvet.
PRINCE.
Stand close.
[They retire.]
[Enter Falstaff.]
FAL.
Pointz! Pointz, and be hang’d! Pointz!
PRINCE.
[Coming forward.]
Peace, ye fat-kidney’d rascal! what a brawling dost thou keep!
FAL.
Where’s Pointz, Hal?
PRINCE.
He is walk’d up to the top of the hill: I’ll go seek him.
[Retires.]
FAL. I am accursed to rob in that thief’s company: the rascal hath removed my horse, and tied him I know not where. If I travel but four foot by the squire further a-foot, I shall break my wind. Well, I doubt not but to die a fair death for all this, if I ‘scape hanging for killing that rogue. I have forsworn his company hourly any time this two-and-twenty year, and yet I am bewitch’d with the rogue’s company. If the rascal have not given me medicines to make me love him, I’ll be hang’d; it could not be else: I have drunk medicines.— Pointz!—Hal!—a plague upon you both!—Bardolph!—Peto!—I’ll starve, ere I’ll rob a foot further. An ‘twere not as good a deed as drink, to turn true man, and to leave these rogues, I am the veriest varlet that ever chewed with a tooth. Eight yards of uneven ground is threescore and ten miles a-foot with me; and the stony-hearted villains know it well enough: a plague upon’t, when thieves cannot be true one to another! [They whistle.] Whew!—A plague upon you all! Give me my horse, you rogues; give me my horse, and be hang’d!
PRINCE. [Coming forward.] Peace! lie down; lay thine ear close to the ground, and list if thou canst hear the tread of travellers.
FAL. Have you any levers to lift me up again, being down? ‘Sblood, I’ll not bear mine own flesh so far a-foot again for all the coin in thy father’s exchequer. What a plague mean ye to colt me thus?
PRINCE.
Thou liest; thou art not colted, thou art uncolted.
FAL. I pr’ythee, good Prince Hal, help me to my horse, good king’s son.
PRINCE.
Out, ye rogue! shall I be your ostler?
FAL. Go, hang thyself in thine own heir-apparent garters! If I be ta’en, I’ll peach for this. An I have not ballads made on you all, and sung to filthy tunes, let a cup of sack be my poison. When a jest is so forward, and a-foot too, I hate it.
[Enter Gadshill.]
GADS.
Stand!
FAL.
So I do, against my will.
POINTZ.
O, ‘tis our setter: I know his voice.
[Comes forward with Bardolph and Peto.]
BARD.
What news?
GADS. Case ye, case ye; on with your visards: there’s money of the King’s coming down the hill; ‘tis going to the King’s exchequer.
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.] Ned, where are our disguises?
POINTZ. [aside to PRINCE HENRY.] Here, hard by: stand close.
[Exeunt Prince and Pointz.]
FAL. Now, my masters, happy man be his dole, say I: every man to his business.
[Enter Travellers.]
FIRST TRAVELLER.
Come, neighbour:
The boy shall lead our horses down the hill;
We’ll walk a-foot awhile and ease our legs.
FALS, GADS., &C.
Stand!
SECOND TRAVELLER.
Jesu bless us!
FAL. Strike; down with them; cut the villains’ throats. Ah, whoreson caterpillars! bacon-fed knaves! they hate us youth: down with them; fleece them.
FIRST TRAVELLER.
O, we’re undone, both we and ours for ever!
FAL. Hang ye, gorbellied knaves, are ye undone? No, ye fat chuffs; 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 Fals., 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 Poins set upon them.]
PRINCE.
Your money!
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.]
[The trumpets sound. Enter King Henry, Prince Henry,
Lancaster, Westmoreland, and others, with Worcester and
Vernon prisoners.]
KING.
Thus ever did rebellion find rebuke.—
Ill-spirited Worcester! did not we send grace,
Pardon, and terms of love to all of you?
And wouldst thou turn our offers contrary?
Misuse the tenour of thy kinsman’s trust?
Three knights upon our party slain to-day,
A noble earl, and many a creature else,
Had been alive this hour,
If, like a Christian, thou hadst truly borne
Betwixt our armies true intelligence.
WOR.
What I have done my safety urged me to;
And I embrace this fortune patiently,
Since not to be avoided it fails on me.
KING.
Bear Worcester to the death, and Vernon too:
Other offenders we will pause upon.—
[Exeunt Worcester and Vernon, guarded.]
How goes the field?
PRINCE.
The noble Scot, Lord Douglas, when he saw
The fortune of the day quite turn’d from him,
The noble Percy slain, and all his men
Upon the foot of fear, fled with the rest;
And, falling from a hill, he was so bruised
That the pursuers took him. At my tent
The Douglas is: and I beseech your Grace
I may dispose of him.
KING.
With all my heart.
PRINCE.
Then, brother John of Lancaster, to you
This honourable bounty shall belong:
Go to the Douglas, and deliver him
Up to his pleasure, ransomless and free:
His valour, shown upon our crests to-day,
Hath taught us how to cherish such high deeds
Even in the bosom of our adversaries.
KING.
Then this remains, that we divide our power.—
You, son John, and my cousin Westmoreland,
Towards York shall bend you with your dearest speed,
To meet Northumberland and the prelate Scroop,
Who, as we hear, are busily in arms:
Myself,—and you, son Harry,—will towards Wales,
To fight with Glendower and the Earl of March.
Rebellion in this land shall lose his sway,
Meeting the check of such another day;
And since this business so fair is done,
Let us not leave till all our own be won.
[Exeunt.]
THE END
[Enter Falstaff, with his Page bearing his sword and buckler.]
FALSTAFF.
Sirrah, you giant, what says the doctor to my water?
PAGE. He said, sir, the water itself was a good healthy water; but, for the party that owed it, he might have moe diseases than he knew for.
FALSTAFF. Men of all sorts take a pride to gird at me: the brain of this foolish-compounded clay, man, is not able to invent any thing that tends to laughter, more than I invent or is invented on me: I am not only witty in myself, but the cause that wit is in other men. I do 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 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 inset 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, ‘tis not a hair amiss yet: he may keep it still at a face-royal, for a barber shall never earn sixpence out of it; and yet he’ll be crowing as if he had writ man ever since his father was a bachelor. He may keep his own grace, but he’s almost out of mine, I can assure him. What said Master Dombledon about the satin for my short cloak and my slops?
PAGE. He said, sir, you should procure him better assurance than Bardolph: he would not take his band and yours; he liked not the security.
FALSTAFF. Let him be damned, like the glutton! pray God 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 through 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 ‘a 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 lanthorn to light him. Where’s Bardolph?
PAGE.
He’s gone into Smithfield to buy your worship a horse.
FALSTAFF. 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.
[Enter the Lord Chief-Justice and Servant.]
PAGE. Sir, here comes the nobleman that committed the Prince for striking him about Bardolph.
FALSTAFF.
Wait close; I will not see him.
CHIEF JUSTICE.
What’s he that goes there?
SERVANT.
Falstaff, an ‘t please your lordship.
CHIEF JUSTICE.
He that was in question for the robbery?
SERVANT.
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.
CHIEF JUSTICE.
What, to York? Call him back again.
SERVANT.
Sir John Falstaff!
FALSTAFF.
Boy, tell him I am deaf.
PAGE.
You must speak louder; my master is deaf.
CHIEF JUSTICE.
I am sure he is, to the hearing of anything good.
Go, pluck him by the elbow; I must speak with him.
SERVANT.
Sir John!
FALSTAFF. What! a young knave, and begging! Is there not wars? is there not employment? doth 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.
SERVANT.
You mistake me, sir.
FALSTAFF. 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.
SERVANT. 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.
FALSTAFF.
I give thee leave to tell me so! I lay aside that which grows to me!
If thou gettest any leave of me, hang me; if thou takest leave,
thou wert better be hanged. You hunt counter: hence! avaunt!
SERVANT.
Sir, my lord would speak with you.
CHIEF JUSTICE.
Sir John Falstaff, a word with you.
FALSTAFF. 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.
CHIEF JUSTICE.
Sir John, I sent for you before your expedition to Shrewsbury.
FALSTAFF. An ‘t please your lordship, I hear his majesty is returned with some discomfort from Wales.
CHIEF JUSTICE. I talk not of his majesty: you would not come when I sent for you.
FALSTAFF. And I hear, moreover, his highness is fall’n into this same whoreson apoplexy.
CHIEF JUSTICE.
Well God mend him! I pray you, let me speak with you.
FALSTAFF. 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.
CHIEF JUSTICE.
What tell you me of it? be it as it is.
FALSTAFF. It hath it original from much grief, from study and perturbation of the brain: I have read the cause of his effects in Galen: it is a kind of deafness.
CHIEF JUSTICE. I think you are fallen into the disease, for you hear not what I say to you.
FALSTAFF.
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.
CHIEF JUSTICE. To punish you by the heels would amend the attention of your ears; and I care not if I do become your physician.
FALSTAFF. 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.
CHIEF JUSTICE. I sent for you, when there were matters against you for your life, to come speak with me.
FALSTAFF. As I was then advised by my learned counsel in the laws of this land-service, I did not come.
CHIEF JUSTICE.
Well, the truth is, Sir John, you live in great infamy.
FALSTAFF.
He that buckles himself in my belt cannot live in less.
CHIEF JUSTICE.
Your means are very slender, and your waste is great.
FALSTAFF. I would it were otherwise; I would my means were greater, and my waist slenderer.
CHIEF JUSTICE.
You have misled the youthful prince.
FALSTAFF. The young prince hath misled me: I am the fellow with the great belly, and he my dog.
CHIEF JUSTICE. Well, I am loath to gall a new-healed wound: your day’s service at Shrewsbury hath a little gilded over your night’s exploit on Gad’s-hill: you may thank the unquiet time for your quiet o’er-posting that action.
FALSTAFF.
My lord?
CHIEF JUSTICE.
But since all is well, keep it so: wake not a sleeping wolf.
FALSTAFF.
To wake a wolf is as bad as smell a fox.
CHIEF JUSTICE.
What! you are as a candle, the better part burnt out.
FALSTAFF. A wassail candle, my lord, all tallow: if I did say of wax, my growth would approve the truth.
CHIEF JUSTICE. There is not a white hair in your face but should have his effect of gravity.
FALSTAFF.
His effect of gravy, gravy, gravy.
CHIEF JUSTICE.
You follow the young prince up and down, like his ill angel.
FALSTAFF. Not so, my lord; your ill angel 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 bear-herd; 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 do 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.
CHIEF JUSTICE. 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!
FALSTAFF. 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 halloing 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 of 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.
CHIEF JUSTICE.
Well, God send the prince a better companion!
FALSTAFF.
God send the companion a better prince! I cannot rid my hands of him.
CHIEF JUSTICE.
Well, the king hath severed you and Prince Harry:
I hear you are going with Lord John of Lancaster against the
Archbishop and the Earl of Northumberland.
FALSTAFF. Yea; I thank your pretty sweet wit for it. But look you pray, all you that kiss my lady Peace at home, that our armies join not in 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, and I brandish any thing but a 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 alway yet the trick of our English nation, if they have a good thing, to make it too common. If ye 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 a rust than to be scoured to nothing with perpetual motion.
CHIEF JUSTICE.
Well, be honest, be honest; and God bless your expedition!
FALSTAFF.
Will your lordship lend me a thousand pound to furnish me forth?
CHIEF JUSTICE.
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 Servant.]
FALSTAFF. If I do, fillip me with a three-man beetle. A man can no more separate age and covetousness than ‘a 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?
FALSTAFF.
What money is in my purse?
PAGE.
Seven groats and two pence.
FALSTAFF. 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 of 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. ‘Tis 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.]
[Enter Falstaff, Shallow, Silence, Davy, Bardolph, and the Page.]
SHALLOW. Nay, you shall see my orchard, where, in an arbour, we will eat a last year’s pippin of mine own graffing, with a dish of caraways, and so forth: come, cousin Silence: and then to bed.
FALSTAFF.
‘Fore God, you have here a goodly dwelling and a rich.
SHALLOW. Barren, barren, barren; beggars all, beggars all, Sir John: marry, good air. Spread, Davy; spread, Davy: well said, Davy.
FALSTAFF. This Davy serves you for good uses; he is your servingman and your husband.
SHALLOW. A good varlet, a good varlet, a very good varlet, Sir John: by the mass, I have drunk too much sack at supper: a good varlet. Now sit down, now sit down: come, cousin.
SILENCE.
Ah, sirrah! quoth-a, we shall
Do nothing but eat, and make good cheer,
[Singing.]
And praise God for the merry year;
When flesh is cheap and females dear,
And lusty lads roam here and there
So merrily,
And ever among so merrily.
FALSTAFF. There’s a merry heart! Good Master Silence, I’ll give you a health for that anon.
SHALLOW.
Give Master Bardolph some wine, Davy.
DAVY.
Sweet sir, sit; I’ll be with you anon; most sweet sir, sit.
Master page, good master page, sit. Proface!
What you want in meat, we’ll have in drink:
but you must bear; the heart ‘s all.
[Exit.]
SHALLOW. Be merry, Master Bardolph; and, my little soldier there, be merry.
SILENCE.
Be merry, be merry, my wife has all;
[Singing.]
For women are shrews, both short and tall;
‘Tis merry in hall when beards wag all;
And welcome merry Shrove-tide.
Be merry, be merry.
FALSTAFF.
I did not think Master Silence had been a man of this mettle.
SILENCE.
Who, I? I have been merry twice and once ere now.
[Re-enter Davy.]
DAVY.
There ‘s a dish of leather-coats for you. [To Bardolph.]
SHALLOW.
Davy!
DAVY.
Your worship! I’ll be with you straight [To BARDOLPH.].
A cup of wine, sir?
SILENCE.
A cup of wine that ‘s brisk and fine,
[Singing.]
And drink unto the leman mine;
And a merry heart lives long-a.
FALSTAFF.
Well said, Master Silence.
SILENCE.
An we shall be merry, now comes in the sweet o’ the night.
FALSTAFF.
Health and long life to you, Master Silence!
SILENCE.
Fill the cup, and let it come,
[Singing.]
I’ll pledge you a mile to the bottom.
SHALLOW. Honest Bardolph, welcome: if thou wantest anything and wilt not call, beshrew thy heart. Welcome, my little tiny thief [to the Page], and welcome indeed too. I’ll drink to Master Bardolph, and to all the cavaleros about London.
DAVY.
I hope to see London once ere I die.
BARDOLPH.
An I might see you there, Davy,—
SHALLOW.
By the mass, you’ll crack a quart together, ha! will you not,
Master Bardolph?
BARDOLPH.
Yea, sir, in a pottle-pot.
SHALLOW. By God’s liggens, I thank thee: the knave will stick by thee, I can assure thee that. A’ will not out; he is true bred.
BARDOLPH.
And I’ll stick by him, sir.
SHALLOW.
Why, there spoke a king. Lack nothing: be merry.
[Knocking within.]
Look who ‘s at door there, ho! who knocks?
[Exit Davy.]
FALSTAFF.
Why, now you have done me right.
[To Silence, seeing him take off a bumper.]
SILENCE.
Do me right,
[Singing.]
And dub me knight:
Samingo.
Is’t not so?
FALSTAFF.
‘Tis so.
SILENCE.
Is’t so? Why then, say an old man can do somewhat.
[Re-enter Davy.]
DAVY. An’t please your worship, there ‘s one Pistol come from the court with news.
FALSTAFF.
From the court? Let him come in.
[Enter Pistol.]
How now, Pistol!
PISTOL.
Sir John, God save you!
FALSTAFF.
What wind blew you hither, Pistol?
PISTOL. Not the ill wind which blows no man to good. Sweet knight, thou art now one of the greatest men in this realm.
SILENCE.
By’r lady, I think a’ be, but goodman Puff of Barson.
PISTOL.
Puff!
Puff in thy teeth, most recreant coward base!
Sir John, I am thy Pistol and thy friend,
And helter-skelter have I rode to thee,
And tidings do I bring and lucky joys
And golden times and happy news of price.
FALSTAFF.
I pray thee now, deliver them like a man of this world.
PISTOL.
A foutre for the world and worldlings base!
I speak of Africa and golden joys.
FALSTAFF.
O base Assyrian knight, what is thy news?
Let King Cophetua know the truth thereof.
SILENCE.
And Robin Hood, Scarlet, and John. [Singing.]
PISTOL.
Shall dunghill curs confront the Helicons?
And shall good news be baffled?
Then, Pistol, lay thy head in Furies’ lap.
SHALLOW.
Honest gentleman, I know not your breeding.
PISTOL.
Why then, lament therefore.
SHALLOW.
Give me pardon, sir: if, sir, you come with news from the
court, I take it there ‘s but two ways, either to utter them, or
conceal them.
I am, sir, under the king, in some authority.
PISTOL.
Under which king, Besonian? speak, or die.
SHALLOW.
Under King Harry.
PISTOL.
Harry the Fourth? or Fifth?
SHALLOW.
Harry the Fourth.
PISTOL.
A foutre for thine office!
Sir John, thy tender lambkin now is king;
Harry the Fifth’s the man. I speak the truth.
When Pistol lies, do this; and fig me, like
The bragging Spaniard.
FALSTAFF.
What, is the old king dead?
PISTOL.
As nail in door: the things I speak are just.
FALSTAFF. Away, Bardolph! saddle my horse. Master Robert Shallow, choose what office thou wilt in the land, ‘tis thine. Pistol, I will double-charge thee with dignities.
BARDOLPH.
O joyful day!
I would not take a knighthood for my fortune.
PISTOL.
What! I do bring good news.
FALSTAFF. Carry Master Silence to bed. Master Shallow, my Lord Shallow,— be what thou wilt; I am fortune’s steward—get on thy boots: we’ll ride all night. O sweet Pistol! Away, Bardolph!
[Exit Bardolph.]
Come, Pistol, utter more to me; and withal devise something to do thyself good. Boot, boot, Master Shallow: I know the young king is sick for me. Let us take any man’s horses; the laws of England are at my commandment. Blessed are they that have been my friends; and woe to my lord chief-justice!
PISTOL.
Let vultures vile seize on his lungs also!
“Where is the life that late I led?” say they:
Why, here it is; welcome these pleasant days!
[Exeunt.]
Spoken by a Dancer.
First my fear; then my courtesy; last my speech. My fear is, your displeasure; my courtesy, my duty; and my speech, to beg your pardons. If you look for a good speech now, you undo me: for what I have to say is of mine own making; and what indeed I should say will, I doubt, prove mine own marring. But to the urpose, and so to the venture. Be it known to you, as it is very well, I was lately here in the end of a displeasing play, to pray your patience for it and to promise you a better. I meant indeed to pay you with this; which, if like an ill venture it come unluckily home, I break, and you, my gentle creditors, lose. Here I promised you I would be and here I commit my body to your mercies: bate me some and I will pay you some and, as most debtors do, promise you infinitely.
If my tongue cannot entreat you to acquit me, will you command me to use my legs? and yet that were but light payment, to dance out of your debt. But a good conscience will make any possible satisfaction, and so would I. All the gentlewomen here have forgiven me: if the gentlemen will not, then the gentlemen do not agree with the gentlewomen, which was never seen before in such an assembly.
One word more, I beseech you. If you be not too much cloy’d with fat meat, our humble author will continue the story, with Sir John in it, and make you merry with fair Katharine of France: where, for any thing I know, Falstaff shall die of a sweat, unless already a’ be killed with your hard opinions; for Oldcastle died a martyr, and this is not the man. My tongue is weary; when my legs are too, I will bid you good night: and so kneel down before you; but, indeed, to pray for the queen.
THE END
[Enter Gower and Williams.]
WILLIAMS.
I warrant it is to knight you, Captain.
[Enter Fluellen.]
FLUELLEN. God’s will and his pleasure, captain, I beseech you now, come apace to the King. There is more good toward you peradventure than is in your knowledge to dream of.
WILLIAMS.
Sir, know you this glove?
FLUELLEN.
Know the glove! I know the glove is a glove.
WILLIAMS.
I know this; and thus I challenge it.
[Strikes him.]
FLUELLEN. ‘Sblood! an arrant traitor as any is in the universal world, or in France, or in England!
GOWER.
How now, sir! you villain!
WILLIAMS.
Do you think I’ll be forsworn?
FLUELLEN. Stand away, Captain Gower. I will give treason his payment into plows, I warrant you.
WILLIAMS.
I am no traitor.
FLUELLEN. That’s a lie in thy throat. I charge you in his Majesty’s name, apprehend him; he’s a friend of the Duke Alencon’s.
[Enter Warwick and Gloucester.]
WARWICK.
How now, how now! what’s the matter?
FLUELLEN. My lord of Warwick, here is—praised be God for it!—a most contagious treason come to light, look you, as you shall desire in a summer’s day. Here is his Majesty.
[Enter King Henry and Exeter.]
KING HENRY.
How now! what’s the matter?
FLUELLEN.
My liege, here is a villain and a traitor, that, look your Grace,
has struck the glove which your Majesty is take out of the helmet of Alencon.
WILLIAMS. My liege, this was my glove; here is the fellow of it; and he that I gave it to in change promis’d to wear it in his cap. I promis’d to strike him, if he did. I met this man with my glove in his cap, and I have been as good as my word.
FLUELLEN. Your Majesty hear now, saving your Majesty’s manhood, what an arrant, rascally, beggarly, lousy knave it is. I hope your Majesty is pear me testimony and witness, and will avouchment, that this is the glove of Alencon that your Majesty is give me; in your conscience, now?
KING HENRY.
Give me thy glove, soldier. Look, here is the fellow of it.
‘Twas I, indeed, thou promisedst to strike;
And thou hast given me most bitter terms.
FLUELLEN. An it please your Majesty, let his neck answer for it, if there is any martial law in the world.
KING HENRY.
How canst thou make me satisfaction?
WILLIAMS. All offences, my lord, come from the heart. Never came any from mine that might offend your Majesty.
KING HENRY.
It was ourself thou didst abuse.
WILLIAMS. Your Majesty came not like yourself. You appear’d to me but as a common man; witness the night, your garments, your lowliness; and what your Highness suffer’d under that shape, I beseech you take it for your own fault and not mine; for had you been as I took you for, I made no offence; therefore, I beseech your Highness, pardon me.
KING HENRY.
Here, uncle Exeter, fill this glove with crowns,
And give it to this fellow. Keep it, fellow;
And wear it for an honour in thy cap
Till I do challenge it. Give him his crowns;
And, captain, you must needs be friends with him.
FLUELLEN. By this day and this light, the fellow has mettle enough in his belly. Hold, there is twelve pence for you; and I pray you to serve God, and keep you out of prawls, and prabbles, and quarrels, and dissensions, and, I warrant you, it is the better for you.
WILLIAMS.
I will none of your money.
FLUELLEN. It is with a good will; I can tell you, it will serve you to mend your shoes. Come, wherefore should you be so pashful? Your shoes is not so good. ‘Tis a good silling, I warrant you, or I will change it.
[Enter [an English] Herald.]
KING HENRY.
Now, herald, are the dead numb’red?
HERALD.
Here is the number of the slaught’red French.
KING HENRY.
What prisoners of good sort are taken, uncle?
EXETER.
Charles Duke of Orleans, nephew to the King;
John Duke of Bourbon, and Lord Bouciqualt:
Of other lords and barons, knights and squires,
Full fifteen hundred, besides common men.
KING HENRY.
This note doth tell me of ten thousand French
That in the field lie slain; of princes, in this number,
And nobles bearing banners, there lie dead
One hundred twenty-six; added to these,
Of knights, esquires, and gallant gentlemen,
Eight thousand and four hundred; of the which,
Five hundred were but yesterday dubb’d knights;
So that, in these ten thousand they have lost,
There are but sixteen hundred mercenaries;
The rest are princes, barons, lords, knights, squires,
And gentlemen of blood and quality.
The names of those their nobles that lie dead:
Charles Delabreth, High Constable of France;
Jacques of Chatillon, Admiral of France;
The master of the crossbows, Lord Rambures;
Great Master of France, the brave Sir Guichard Dauphin,
John Duke of Alencon, Anthony Duke of Brabant,
The brother to the Duke of Burgundy,
And Edward Duke of Bar; of lusty earls,
Grandpre and Roussi, Fauconberg and Foix,
Beaumont and Marle, Vaudemont and Lestrale.
Here was a royal fellowship of death!
Where is the number of our English dead?
[Herald shows him another paper.]
Edward the Duke of York, the Earl of Suffolk,
Sir Richard Ketly, Davy Gam, esquire;
None else of name; and of all other men
But five and twenty.—O God, thy arm was here;
And not to us, but to thy arm alone,
Ascribe we all! When, without stratagem,
But in plain shock and even play of battle,
Was ever known so great and little loss
On one part and on the other? Take it, God,
For it is none but thine!
EXETER.
‘Tis wonderful!
KING HENRY.
Come, go we in procession to the village;
And be it death proclaimed through our host
To boast of this or take that praise from God
Which is His only.
FLUELLEN. Is it not lawful, an please your Majesty, to tell how many is kill’d?
KING HENRY.
Yes, Captain; but with this acknowledgment,
That God fought for us.
FLUELLEN.
Yes, my conscience, He did us great good.
KING HENRY.
Do we all holy rites.
Let there be sung Non nobis and Te Deum,
The dead with charity enclos’d in clay,
And then to Calais; and to England then,
Where ne’er from France arriv’d more happy men.
[Exeunt.]
[Enter Chorus.]
CHORUS.
Thus far, with rough and all-unable pen,
Our bending author hath pursu’d the story,
In little room confining mighty men,
Mangling by starts the full course of their glory.
Small time, but in that small most greatly lived
This star of England. Fortune made his sword,
By which the world’s best garden he achieved,
And of it left his son imperial lord.
Henry the Sixth, in infant bands crown’d King
Of France and England, did this king succeed;
Whose state so many had the managing,
That they lost France and made his England bleed:
Which oft our stage hath shown; and, for their sake,
In your fair minds let this acceptance take.
[Exit.]
THE END
Richard II. is a play little known compared with Richard III. which last is a play that every unfledged candidate for theatrical fame chuses to strut and fret his hour upon the stage in; yet we confess that we prefer the nature and feeling of the one to the noise and bustle of the other; at least, as we are so often forced to see it acted. In Richard II. the weakness of the king leaves us leisure to take a greater interest in the misfortunes of the man. After the first act, in which the arbitrariness of his behaviour only proves his want of resolution, we see him staggering under the unlooked-for blows of fortune, bewailing his loss of kingly power, not preventing it, sinking under the aspiring genius of Bolingbroke, his authority trampled on, his hopes failing him, and his pride crushed and broken down under insults and injuries, which his own misconduct had provoked, but which he has not courage or manliness to resent. The change of tone and behaviour in the two competitors for the throne according to their change of fortune, from the capricious sentence of banishment passed by Richard upon Bolingbroke, the suppliant offers and modest pretensions of the latter on his return, to the high and haughty tone with which he accepts Richard's resignation of the crown after the loss of all his power, the use which he makes of the deposed king to grace his triumphal progress through the streets of London, and the final intimation of his wish for his death, which immediately finds a servile executioner, is marked throughout with complete effect and without the slightest appearance of effort. The steps by which Bolingbroke mounts the throne are those by which Richard sinks into the grave. We feel neither respect nor love for the deposed monarch; for he is as wanting in energy as in principle: but we pity him, for he pities himself. His heart is by no means hardened against himself, but bleeds afresh at every new stroke of mischance, and his sensibility, absorbed in his own person, and unused to misfortune, is not only tenderly alive to its own sufferings, but without the fortitude to bear them. He is, however, human in his distresses; for to feel pain, and sorrow, weakness, disappointment, remorse and anguish, is the lot of humanity, and we sympathize with him accordingly. The sufferings of the man make us forget that he ever was a king.
The right assumed by sovereign power to trifle at its will with the happiness of others as a matter of course, or to remit its exercise as a matter of favour, is strikingly shewn in the sentence of banishment so unjustly pronounced on Bolingbroke and Mowbray, and in what Bolingbroke says when four years of his banishment are taken off, with as little reason.
"How long a time lies in one little word!
Four lagging winters and four wanton springs
End in a word: such is the breath of kings."
A more affecting image of the loneliness of a state of exile can hardly be given than by what Bolingbroke afterwards observes of his having "sighed his English breath in foreign clouds;" or than that conveyed in Mowbray's complaint at being banished for life.
"The language I have learned these forty years.
My native English, now I must forego;
And now my tongue's use is to me no more
Than an unstringed viol or a harp,
Or like a cunning instrument cas'd up,
Or being open, put into his hands
That knows no touch to tune the harmony.
I am too old to fawn upon a nurse,
Too far in years to be a pupil now."—
How very beautiful is all this, and at the same time how very English too!
Richard II. may be considered as the first of that series of English historical plays, in which "is hung armour of the invincible knights of old," in which their hearts seem to strike against their coats of mail, where their blood tingles for the fight, and words are but the harbingers of blows. Of this state of accomplished barbarism the appeal of Bolingbroke and Mowbray is an admirable specimen. Another of these "keen encounters of their wits," which serve to whet the talkers' swords, is where Aumerle answers in the presence of Bolingbroke to the charge which Bagot brings against him of being an accessory in Gloster's death.
"Fitzwater. If that thy valour stand on sympathies,
There is my gage, Aumerle, in gage to thine;
By that fair sun that shows me where thou stand'st
I heard thee say, and vauntingly thou spak'st it,
That thou wert cause of noble Gloster's death.
If thou deny'st it twenty times thou liest,
And I will turn thy falsehood to thy heart
Where it was forged, with my rapier's point.
Aumerle. Thou dar'st not, coward, live to see the day.
Fitzwater. Now, by my soul, I would it were this hour.
Aumerle. Fitzwater, thou art damn'd to hell for this.
Percy. Aumerle, thou liest; his honour is as true,
In this appeal, as thou art all unjust;
And that thou art so, there I throw my gage
To prove it on thee, to th' extremest point
Of mortal breathing. Seize it, if thou dar'st.
Aumerle. And if I do not, may my hands rot off,
And never brandish more revengeful steel
Over the glittering helmet of my foe.
Who sets me else? By heav'n, I'll throw at all.
I have a thousand spirits in my breast,
To answer twenty thousand such as you.
Surry. My lord Fitzwater, I remember well
The very time Aumerle and you did talk.
Fitzwater. My lord, 'tis true: you were in presence then:
And you can witness with me, this is true.
Surry. As false, by heav'n, as heav'n itself is true.
Fitzwater. Surry, thou liest.
Surry. Dishonourable boy,
That lie shall lye so heavy on my sword,
That it shall render vengeance and revenge,
Till thou the lie-giver and that lie rest
In earth as quiet as thy father's skull.
In proof whereof, there is mine honour's pawn:
Engage it to the trial, if thou dar'st.
Fitzwater. How fondly dost thou spur a forward horse:
If I dare eat or drink or breathe or live,
I dare meet Surry in a wilderness,
And spit upon him, whilst I say he lies,
And lies, and lies: there is my bond of faith,
To tie thee to thy strong correction.
As I do hope to thrive in this new world,
Aumerle is guilty of my true appeal."
The truth is, that there is neither truth nor honour in all these noble persons: they answer words with words, as they do blows with blows, in mere self defence: nor have they any principle whatever but that of courage in maintaining any wrong they dare commit, or any falsehood which they find it useful to assert. How different were these noble knights and "barons bold" from their more refined descendants in the present day, who instead of deciding questions of right by brute force, refer every thing to convenience, fashion, and good breeding! In point of any abstract love of truth or justice, they are just the same now that they were then.
The characters of old John of Gaunt and of his brother York, uncles to the King, the one stern and foreboding, the other honest, good-natured, doing all for the best, and therefore doing nothing, are well kept up. The speech of the former, in praise of England, is one of the most eloquent that ever was penned. We should perhaps hardly be disposed to feed the pampered egotism of our countrymen by quoting this description, were it not that the conclusion of it (which looks prophetic) may qualify any improper degree of exultation.
"This royal throne of kings, this sceptered isle,
This earth of Majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-Paradise,
This fortress built by nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war;
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall
(Or as a moat defensive to a house)
Against the envy of less happy lands:
This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings,
Fear'd for their breed and famous for their birth,
Renown'd for their deeds, as far from home,
For Christian service and true chivalry,
As is the sepulchre in stubborn Jewry
Of the world's ransom, blessed Mary's son;
This land of such dear souls, this dear dear land,
Dear for her reputation through the world,
Is now leas'd out (I die pronouncing it)
Like to a tenement or pelting farm.
England bound in with the triumphant sea,
Whose rocky shore beats back the envious surge
Of wat'ry Neptune, is bound in with shame,
With inky-blots and rotten parchment bonds.
That England, that was wont to conquer others,
Hath made a shameful conquest of itself."
The character of Bolingbroke, afterwards Henry IV. is drawn with a masterly hand:—patient for occasion, and then steadily availing himself of it, seeing his advantage afar off, but only seizing on it when he has it within his reach, humble, crafty, bold, and aspiring, encroaching by regular but slow degrees, building power on opinion, and cementing opinion by power. His disposition is first unfolded by Richard himself, who however is too self-willed and secure to make a proper use of his knowledge.
"Ourself and Bushy, Bagot here and Green,
Observed his courtship of the common people:
How he did seem to dive into their hearts,
With humble and familiar courtesy,
What reverence he did throw away on slaves;
Wooing poor craftsmen with the craft of smiles,
And patient under-bearing of his fortune,
As 'twere to banish their affections with him.
Off goes his bonnet to an oyster-wench;
A brace of draymen bid God speed him well,
And had the tribute of his supple knee,
With thanks my countrymen, my loving friends;
As were our England in reversion his,
And he our subjects' next degree in hope."
Afterwards, he gives his own character to Percy, in these words:
"I thank thee, gentle Percy, and be sure
I count myself in nothing else so happy,
As in a soul rememb'ring my good friends;
And as my fortune ripens with thy love,
It shall be still thy true love's recompense."
We know how he afterwards kept his promise. His bold assertion of his own rights, his pretended submission to the king, and the ascendancy which he tacitly assumes over him without openly claiming it, as soon as he has him in his power, are characteristic traits of this ambitious and politic usurper. But the part of Richard himself gives the chief interest to the play. His folly, his vices, his misfortunes, his reluctance to part with the crown, his fear to keep it, his weak and womanish regrets, his starting tears, his fits of hectic passion, his smothered majesty, pass in succession before us, and make a picture as natural as it is affecting. Among the most striking touches of pathos are his wish "O that I were a mockery king of snow to melt away before the sun of Bolingbroke," and the incident of the poor groom who comes to visit him in prison, and tells him how "it yearned his heart that Bolingbroke upon his coronation day rode on Roan Barbary." We shall have occasion to return hereafter to the character of Richard II. in speaking of Henry VI. There is only one passage more, the description of his entrance into London with Bolingbroke, which we should like to quote here, if it had not been so used and worn out, so thumbed and got by rote, so praised and painted; but its beauty surmounts all these considerations.
"Duchess. My lord, you told me you would tell the rest,
When weeping made you break the story off
Of our two cousins coming into London.
York. Where did I leave?
Duchess. At that sad stop, my lord,