Thy ignomy sleep with thee in the grave,
But not remember'd in thy epitaph!-

[He sees Falstaff on the ground.
What! old acquaintance! could not all this flesh
Keep in a little life? Poor Jack, farewell:
I could have better spar'd a better man.
O! I should have a heavy miss of thee,
If I were much in love with vanity.
Death hath not struck so fat a deer to-day,
Though many dearer, in this bloody fray.—
Embowell'd will I see thee by and by;
Till then, in blood by noble Percy lie.

Falstaff.

[Exit. [Rising Embowelled! if thou embowel me to-day, I'll give you leave to powder me, and eat me, too, to-morrow. 'Sblood! 'twas time to counterfeit, or that hot termagant Scot had paid me scot and lot too. Counterfeit? I lie; I am no counterfeit: to die, is to be a counterfeit; for he is but the counterfeit of a man, who hath not the life of a man; but to counterfeit dying, when a man thereby liveth, is to be no counterfeit, but the true and perfect image of life indeed. The better part of valour is discretion, in the which better part, I have saved my life. 'Zounds! I am afraid of this gunpowder Percy, though he be dead. How, if he should counterfeit too, and rise? By my faith, I am afraid he would prove the better counterfeit. Therefore I'll make him sure; yea, and I'll swear I killed him. Why may not he rise, as well as I? Nothing confutes me but eyes, and nobody sees me: therefore, sirrah, with a new wound in your thigh come you along with me.

[He takes Hotspur on his back.

Re-enter Prince Henry and Prince John.
Prince Henry.

Come, brother John; full bravely hast thou

flesh'd

No, that's certain: I am not a double man; but if I be not Jack Falstaff, then am I a Jack. There is Percy: if your father will do me any honour, so; if not, let him kill the next Percy himself. I look to be either earl or duke, I can assure you.

Prince Henry.

Prince Henry.

This is the strangest fellow, brother John. -Come, bring your luggage nobly on your back; For my part, if a lie may do thee grace, I'll gild it with the happiest terms I have. [A Retreat is sounded. The trumpet sounds retreat; the day is ours. Come, brother, let us to the highest of the field,

To see what friends are living, who are dead. [Exeunt Prince Henry and Prince John. Falstaff.

I'll follow, as they say, for reward. He that rewards me, God reward him! If I do grow great, I'll grow less; for I'll purge, and leave sack, and live cleanly, as a nobleman should do. Exit, bearing off the body.

SCENE V. Another Part of the Field.

The Trumpets sound. Enter King Henry, Prince Henry, Prince John, Westmoreland, and others, with Worcester, and lernon, pri

soners.

King Henry,

Thus ever did rebellion find rebuke. —

Ill-spirited Worcester, did we not send grace,
Pardon, and terms of love to all of you?
And would'st thou turn our offers contrary?
Misuse the tenor 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. Worcester.

What I have done, my safety urg'd me to, And I embrace this fortune patiently, Since not to be avoided it falls on me.

King Henry.

Falstaff.

Didst thou?-Lord, lord. how this world is given to lying! I grant you I was down and out of breath, and so was he; but we rose both at an instant, and fought a long hour by Shrewsbury clock. If I may be believed, so; if not, let them that should reward valour bear the sin upon their own heads. I'll take it upon my death, I gave him this wound in the thigh: if the man were alive, and would deny it, 'zounds! I would make him eat a piece of my sword.

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."

Tell thou thy earl his divination lies,
And I will take it as a sweet disgrace,
And make thee rich for doing me such wrong.
Morton.

You are too great to be by me gainsaid: Your spirit is too true; your fears too certain. Northumberland.

Yet, for all this, say not that Percy's dead.I see a strange confession in thine eye: Thou shak'st thy head; and hold'st it fear, or To speak a truth. If he be slain, say so: [sin, The tongue offends not, that reports his death; And he doth sin that doth belie the dead, Not he which says the dead is not alive. Yet the first bringer of unwelcome news Hath but a losing office; and his tongue Sounds ever after as a sullen bell, Remember'd knolling a departing friend. Bardolph.

I cannot think, my lord, your son is dead.

Morton.

I am sorry I should force you to believe That which I would to heaven I had not seen; But these mine eyes saw him in bloody state, Rendering faint quittance, wearied and outbreath'd, [down To Harry Monmouth; whose swift wrath beat The never-daunted Percy to the earth, From whence with life he never more sprung In few, his death, whose spirit lent a fire [up. Even to the dullest peasant in his camp, Being bruited once, took fire and heat away 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 lead. And as the thing that's heavy in itself, Upon enforcement flies with greatest speed, So did our men, heavy in Hotspur's loss, [fear, Lend to this weight such lightness with their 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

The lives of all your loving complices Lean on your health; the which, if you give o'er To stormy passion, must perforce decay. 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 dole 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 Of wounds and scars, and that his forward spirit Would lift him where most trade of danger rang'd;

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?

Bardolph.

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.

Morton.

"Tis more than time: and, my most noble lord,
I hear for certain, and dare 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, constrain'd
As men drink potions, that their weapons only
Seem'd on our side; but, for their spirits and
souls,

This word, rebellion, it had froze them up,
As fish are in a pond. But now the bishop
Turns insurrection to religion:
Suppos'd sincere and holy in his thoughts,

H H

He's

He's follow'd both with body and with mind,
And doth enlarge his rising with the blood
Of fair king Richard, scrap'd from Pomfret

stones;

Derives from heaven his quarrel, and his cause;
Tells them, he doth bestride a bleeding land,
Gasping for life under great Bolingbroke,
And more, and less, do flock to follow him.
Northumberland.

I knew of this before; but, to speak truth,
This present grief hath wip'd it from my mind.
Go in with me; and counsel every man
The aptest way for safety, and revenge. [speed:
Get posts and letters, and make friends with
Never so few, nor never yet more need.

[Exeunt.

SCENE 11. London. A Street. Enter Sir John 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 more 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 judgment. 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 in-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 batchelor. 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 my 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.

Falstaff.

Let him be damned like the 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 thorough with them in honest taking up, then must they 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. 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 an Attendant. 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?
Attendant.

Falstaff, an't please your lordship.
Chief Justice.

He that was in question for the robbery?
Attendant.

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.

Sir, my lord would speak with you.