Who is to bear me, like a thunderbolt, Meet, and ne'er part, till one drop down a corse,- · O, that Glendower were come' ACT V. PRINCE HENRY'S MODEST CHALLlenge. Tell your nephew, The prince of Wales doth join with all the world And so, I hear, he doth account me too: FALSTAFF'S CATECHISM. Well, 'tis no matter: Honour pricks me on. Yea, but how if honour prick me off when I come on? how then? Can honour set to a leg? No. Or an arm? No. Or take away the grief of a wound? No. Honour hath no skill in surgery then? No. What is honour? A word. What is in that word? Honour. What is that honour? Air. A trim reckoning!Who hath it? He that died o' Wednesday. Doth he feel it? No. Doth he hear it? No. Is it insensible then? Yea, to the dead. But will it not live with the living? No. Why? Detraction will not suffer it:therefore I'll none of it. Honour is a mere escutcheon, and so ends my catechism. *Painted heraldry in funerals. LIFE DEMANDS ACTION. O gentlemen, the time of life is short; To spend that shortness basely were too long. Stil ending at the arrival of an hour. PRINCE HENRY'S PATHETIC SPEECH ON THE Brave Percy, fare thee well. Ill weav'd ambition, how much art thou shrunk! A kingdom for it was too small a bound; Is room enough:-This earth, that bears thee dead, If thou wert sensible of courtesy, I should not make so dear a show of zeal: KING HENRY IV. PART II. INDUCTION. RUMOUR. I, FROM the orient to the drooping west, Scarf, with which he covers Percy's face. And who but Rumour, who but only I, That the blunt monster with uncounted heads, ACT I. CONTENTION. Contention, like a horse Full of high feeding, madly hath broke loose, POST MESSENGER. After him, came, spurring hard, A gentleman almost forespent* with speed, MESSENGER WITH ILL NEWS, This man's brow, like to a title-leaf, Foretells the nature of a tragic volume: So looks the strand, whereon the imperious flood Hath left a witness'd usurpation.† Thou tremblest; and the whiteness in thy cheek Is apter than thy tongue to tell thy errand. Even such a man, so faint, so spiritless, * Exhausted. † An attestation of its ravage. |