Fal. A wassel candle, my lord: all tallow: if I did say of wax, my growth would approve the truth. Ch. Just. There is not a white hair on your face, but should have his effect of gravity.

Fal. His effect of gravy, gravy, gravy. Ch. Just. You follow the young prince up and down, like his ill angel.

Fal. 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 coster-monger times, that true valor 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 measure the heat of our liver in the bitterness of your galls; and we that are in the vaward' of our youth, I must confess, are wags too.

Ch. Just. 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? Fye, fye, fye, sir John!

Fal. 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 hollaing, and singing of anthems. To approve my youth further, I will not: the truth is, I am only old in judgment 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 o'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 sack-cloth; but in new silk, and old sack.

Ch. Just. Well, heaven send the prince a better companion!

Fal. Heaven send the companion a better prince! I cannot rid my hands of him.

Ch. Just. 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.

Fal. 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, be the Lord, I take but two shirts out with me, and I mean not to sweat extraordinarily: if it be a hot day, an I brandish any thing but my 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 always yet the trick of our English nation, if they have a good thing, to make it too common. If you 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 rust, than to be scoured to nothing with perpetual motion.

Ch. Just. Well, be honest, be honest; And God bless your expedition!

Fal. Will your lordship lend me a thousand pound, to furnish me forth?

A large candle for a feast. 1 The coin called an angel. 2 Pass current. Readiness. • Forepart.

Ch. Just. 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 Attendant. Fal. If I do, fillip me with a three-man beetle."— A man can no more separate age and covetousness, than he 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?

Fal. What money is in my purse?
Page. Seven groats and two-pence.

Fal. I can get no remedy against this consump tion 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 on 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. It is no matter if I do halt; I have the wars for my color, and my pension shall seem the more reasonable: A good wit will make use of any thing; I will turn diseases to commodity." [Exit. SCENE III.-York. A Room in the Arch

bishop's Palace.

And, my most noble friends, I pray you all,
Speak plainly your opinions of our hopes;-
And first, lord marshal, what say you to it?

Mowb. I well allow the occasion of our arms;
But gladly would be better satisfied,
How, in our means, we should advance ourselves
To look with forehead bold and big enough
Upon the power and puissance of the king.

Hast. Our present musters grow upon the file To five-and-twenty thousand men of choice; And our supplies live largely in the hope Of great Northumberland, whose bosom burns With an incensed fire of injuries.

L. Bard. The question then, lord Hastings, standeth thus:

Whether our present five-and-twenty thousand
May hold up head without Northumberland.
Hast. With him, we may.
L. Bard.
Ay, marry, there's the point:
But if without him we be thought too feeble,
My judgment is we should not step too far
Till we had his assistance by the hand:
For, in a theme so bloody-faced as this,
Conjecture, expectation, and surmise
Of aids uncertain, should not be admitted.

Arch. 'Tis very true, lord Bardolph; for, indeed,
It was young Hotspur's case at Shrewsbury.
L. Bard. It was, my lord; who lined himself
with hope,

Eating the air on promise of supply,
Flattering himself with project of a power
Much smaller than the smallest of his thoughts:
And so with great imagination,
Proper to madmen, led his powers to death,
And, winking, leap'd into destruction.

Hast. But, by your leave, it never yet did hurt To lay down likelihoods, and forms of hope.

A large wooden hammer, so heavy as to require three men to wield it. • Anticipate. Profit.

L. Bard. Yes, in this present quality of war;-
Indeed the instant action (a cause on foot)
Lives so in hope, as in an early spring
We see the appearing buds; which, to prove fruit,
Hope gives not so much warrant, as despair,
That frosts will bite them. When we mean to build,
We first survey the plot, then draw the model,
And when we see the figure of the house,
Then must we rate the cost of the erection;
Which if we find outweighs ability,

What do we then, but draw anew the model
In fewer offices; or, at least, desist

To build at all? Much more, in this great work,
(Which is, almost to pluck a kingdom down,
And set another up,) should we survey
The plot of situation, and the model;
Consent upon a sure foundation;
Question surveyors; know our own estate,
How able such a work to undergo,
To weigh against his opposite; or else,
We fortify in paper, and in figures,
Using the names of men, instead of men:
Like one, that draws the model of a house
Beyond his power to build it; who, half through,
Gives o'er, and leaves his part-created cost
A naked subject to the weeping clouds,
And waste for churlish winter's tyranny.

Hast. Grant, that our hopes (yet likely of fair birth)

Should be still-born, and that we now possess'd
The utmost man of expectation;

I think, we are a body strong enough,
Even as we are, to equal with the king.

L. Bard. What! is the king but five-and-twenty thousand?

Hast. To us, no more; nay, not so much, lord
Bardolph.

For his divisions, as the times do brawl,
Are in three heads: one power against the French,
And one against Glendower; perforce a third
Must take up us: So is the unfirm king
In three divided; and his coffers sound
With hollow poverty and emptiness.

And publish the occasion of our arms.
The commonwealth is sick of their own choice,
Their over-greedy love hath surfeited:—
An habitation giddy and unsure

Hath he, that buildeth on the vulgar heart.
O thou fond many with what loud applause
Didst thou beat heaven with blessing Bolingbroke,
Before he was what thou wouldst have him be?
And being now trimm'd' in thine own desires,
Thou, beastly feeder, art so full of him,
That thou provok'st thyself to cast him up.
So, so,
thou common dog, didst thou disgorge
Thy glutton bosom of the royal Richard;
And now thou would'st eat thy dead vomit up,
And howl'st to find it. What trust is in these times!
They that, when Richard liv'd, would have him die,
Are now become enamor'd on his grave;
Thou, that threw'st dust upon his goodly head,
When through proud London he came sighing on
After the admired heels of Bolingbroke,
Cry'st now, O earth, yield us that king again,
And take thou this! O thoughts of men accurst!
Past, and to come, seem best; things present, worst.
Mowb. Shall we go draw our numbers, and set

on?

Hast. We are time's subjects, and time bids begone. [Exeunt.

SCENE I-London. A Street.

Enter Hostess; FANG, and his Boy, with her; and SNARE following.

Host. Master Fang, have you entered the action? Fang. It is entered.

Host. Where is your yeoman? Is it a lusty yeoman? will a' stand to't?

Fang. Sirrah, where's Snare?

Host. O lord, ay; good master Snare.
Snare. Here, here.

Fang. Snare, we must arrest sir John Falstaff. Host. Yea, good master Snare; I have entered him and all.

Snare. It may chance cost some of us our lives, for he will stab.

Host. Alas the day! take heed of him; he stabbed me in mine own house, and that most beastly; in good faith, a' cares not what mischief he doth, if his weapon be out: he will foin' like any devil; he will spare neither man, woman, nor child.

Fang. If I can close with him, I care not for his thrust.

Host. No, nor I neither: I'll be at your elbow. • Agree.

• Follower.

1 Thrust.

Fang. An I but fist him once; an a' come but within my vice.'

Host. I am undone by his going; I warrant you, he's an infinite thing upon my score:-Good master Fang, hold him sure;-good master Snare, let him not escape. He comes continually to Piecorner, (saving your manhoods,) to buy a saddle; and he's indited to dinner to the Lubbar's Head in Lumbert-street, to master Smooth's the silkman: I pray ye, since my exion is entered, and my case so openly known to the world, let him be brought in to his answer. A hundred mark is a long loan for a poor lone woman to bear: and I have borne, and borne, and borne; and have been fubbed off, and fubbed off, and fubbed off, from this day to that day, that it is a shame to be thought on. There is no honesty in such dealing; unless a woman should be made an ass, and a beast, to bear every knave's wrong.—

Enter Sir JOHN FALSTAFF, Page, and BARDOLPH. Yonder he comes; and that arrant malmsey-nose knave, Bardolph, with him. Do your offices, do • Grasp.

Foolish multitude.

* Dressed.

your offices, master Fang, and master Snare; do me, do me, do me your offices.

Fal. How now? whose mare's dead? what's the matter?

Fang. Sir John, I arrest you at the suit of mistress Quickly.

Fal. Away, varlets!-Draw, Bardolph; cut me off the villain's head; throw the quean in the channel. Host. Throw me in the channel? I'll throw thee in the channel. Wilt thou? wilt thou? thou bastardly rogue!-Murder, murder! O thou honeysuckle villain! wilt thou kill God's officers, and the king's? O thou honey-seed rogue! thou art a honey-seed; a man-queller, and a woman-queller. Fal. Keep them off, Bardolph. Fang. A rescue! a rescue!

Host. Good people, bring a rescue or two.Thou wo't, wo't thou? thou wo't, wo't thou? do, do, thou rogue! do, thou hemp-seed!

But for these

| truth is, poverty hath distracted her. foolish officers, I beseech you, I may have redress against them.

Ch. Just. Sir John, sir John, I am well acquainted with your manner of wrenching the true cause the false way. It is not a confident brow, nor the throng of words that come with such more than impudent sauciness from you, can thrust me from a level consideration; you have, as it appears to me, practised upon the easy-yielding spirit of this woman, and made her serve your uses both in purse and person.

Host. Yea, in troth, my lord.

Ch. Just. Pr'ythee, peace:-Pay her the debt you owe her, and unpay the villany you have done with her; the one you may do with sterling money, and the other with current repentance.

Fal. My lord, I will not undergo this sneap without reply. You call honorable boldness, im

Enter the Lord Chief Justice, attended. Ch. Just. What's the matter? keep the peace here, ho!

Host. Good my lord, be good to me! I beseech you! Ch. Just. How now, sir John? what, are you brawling here?

Doth this become your place, your time, and business?

You should have been well on your way to York.Stand from him, fellow; Wherefore hang'st thou on him?

Host. O my most worshipful lord, an't please your grace, I am a poor widow of Eastcheap, and he is arrested at my suit.

Ch. Just. For what sum?

Host. It is more than for some, my lord; it is for all, all I have: he hath eaten me out of house and home: he hath put all my substance into that fat belly of his:-but I will have some of it out again, or I'll ride thee o'nights, like the mare. Fal. I think, I am as like to ride the mare, have any vantage of ground to get up.

if I

Ch. Just. How comes this, sir John! Fye! what man of good temper would endure this tempest of exclamation? Are you not ashamed to enforce a poor widow to so rough a course to come by her own? Fal. What is the gross sum that I owe thee? Host. Marry, if thou wert an honest man, thyself, and the money too. Thou didst swear to me upon a parcel-gilt' goblet, sitting in my Dolphinchamber, at the round table, by a sea-coal fire, upon Wednesday in Whitsun-week, when the prince broke thy head for liking his father to a singingman of Windsor: thou didst swear to me then, as I was washing thy wound, to marry me, and make me my lady thy wife. Canst thou deny it? Did not goodwife Keech, the butcher's wife, come in then, and call me gossip Quickly? coming in to borrow a mess of vinegar; telling us, she had a good dish of prawns; whereby thou didst desire to eat some; whereby I told thee, they were ill for a green wound? And didst thou not, when she was gone down stairs, desire me to be no more so familiarity with such poor people; saying, that ere long they should call me madam? And didst thou not kiss me, and bid me fetch thee thirty shillings? I put thee now to thy book-oath; deny it, if thou canst.

Fal. My lord, this is a poor mad soul; and she says, up and down the town, that her eldest son is like you: she hath been in good case, and, the 1 Party gilt.

Homicidal.

• Homicide.

say nothing, he is virtuous: No, my lord, my humble duty remembered, I will not be your suitor; I say to you, I do desire deliverance from these officers, being upon hasty employment in the king's

affairs.

Ch. Just. Now, master Gower; What news? Gow. The king, my lord, and Harry prince of Wales

Are near at hand: the rest the paper tells.

Fal. As I am a gentleman;-
Host. Nay, you said so before.

Fal. As I am a gentleman;-Come, no more words of it.

Host. By this heavenly ground I tread on, I must be fain to pawn both my plate, and the tapestry of my dining-chambers.

Fal. Glasses, glasses, is the only drinking: and for thy walls,-a pretty slight drollery, or the story of the prodigal, or the German hunting in waterwork, is worth a thousand of these bed-hangings, and these fly-bitten tapestries. Let it be ten pound, if thou canst. Come, an it were not for thy humors, there is not a better wench in England.Go, wash thy face, and draw' thy action: Come, thou must not be in this humor with me; dost not know me? Come, come, I know thou wast set on to this.

Host. Pray thee, sir John, let it be but twenty nobles; i'faith I am loath to pawn my plate, in good earnest, la.

Fal. Let it alone; I'll make other shift; you'll be a fool still.

Host. Well, you shall have it, though I pawn my gown. I hope you'll come to supper: you'll pay me all together?

Fal. Will I live?-Go, with her, with her; [To BARDOLPH.] hook on, hook on.

Host. Will you have Doll Tear-sheet meet you at supper?

Fal. No more words; let's have her.
[Exeunt Hostess, BARDOLPH, Officers,
and Page.

Ch. Just. I have heard better news.
Fal. What's the news, my good lord?
Ch. Just. Where lay the king last night?
Suitably to your character.

Snub, check

1 Withdraw.

king; for they never prick their finger, but they say, There is some of the king's blood spilt: How comes that? says he, that takes upon him not to conceive: the answer is as ready as a borrower's cap; I am the king's poor cousin, sir.

P. Hen. Nay, they will be kin to us, or they will fetch it from Japhet. But the letter:

Poins. Sir John Falstaff, knight, to the son of the king nearest his father, Harry prince of Wales, greeting-Why, this is a certificate.

P. Hen. Peace!

Poins. I will imitate the honorable Roman in brevity:-he sure means brevity in breath; shortwinded. I commend me to thee, I commend thee, and I leave thee. Be not too familiar with Poins; for he misuses thy favors so much, that he swears, thou art to marry his sister Nell. Repent at idle times as thou mayst, and so farewell.

Thine, by yea and no, (which is as much as to say, as thou usest him,) Jack Falstaff, with my familiars; John, with my brothers and sisters; and Sir John, with all Europe.

My lord, I will steep this letter in sack, and make him eat it.

P. Hen. That's to make him eat twenty of his words. But do you use me thus, Ned? must I marry your sister?

Poins. May the wench have no worse fortune! but I never said so.

P. Hen. Well, thus we play the fools with the time; and the spirits of the wise sit in the clouds and mock us-Is your master here in London? Bard. Yes, my lord.

P. Hen. Where sups he? doth the old boar feed in the old frank?*

Bard. At the old place, my lord; in Eastcheap. P. Hen. What company?

Page. Ephesians, my lord; of the old church. P. Hen. Sup any women with him?

Page. None, my lord, but old mistress Quickly, and mistress Doll Tear-sheet.

P. Hen. What pagan may that be? Page. A proper gentlewoman, sir, and a kinswoman of my master's.

P. Hen. Even such kin, as the parish heifers are to the town bull.-Shall we steal upon him, Ned, at supper?

Poins. I am your shadow, my lord; I'll follow

Page. And for mine, sir;-I will govern it. P. Hen. Fare ye well; go. [Exeunt BARDOLPH and Page.]-This Doll Tear-sheet should be some road.

Poins. I warrant you, as common as the way between Saint Alban's and London.

P. Hen. How might we see Falstaff bestow himself to-night in his true colors, and not ourselves be seen?

Poins. Put on two leather jerkins, and aprons, and wait upon him at his table as drawers.

P. Hen. From a god to a bull? a heavy descension! it was Jove's case. From a prince to a pren• Sty.

4

North. I pray thee, loving wife, and gentle daughter,

Give even way unto my rough affairs:
Put not you on the visage of the times,
And be, like them, to Percy troublesome.

Lady N. I have given over, I will speak no more: Do what you will; your wisdom be your guide. North. Alas, sweet wife, my honor is at pawn; And, but my going, nothing can redeem it.

Lady P. O, yet, for God's sake, go not to these

wars!

The time was, father, that you broke your word,
When you were more endear'd to it than now;
When your own Percy, when my heart's dear Harry,
Threw many a northward look to see his father
Bring up his powers; but he did long in vain.
Who then persuaded you to stay at home?
There were two honors lost; yours, and your
son's.

For yours,-may heavenly glory brighten it!.
For his-it stuck upon him, as the sun
In the grey vault of heaven: and by his light,
Did all the chivalry of England move
To do brave acts; he was, indeed, the glass
Wherein the noble youth did dress themselves.
He had no legs, that practised not his gait:
And speaking thick, which nature made his blemish,
Became the accents of the valiant:
For those that could speak low, and tardily,
Would turn their own perfection to abuse,
To seem like him: So that, in speech, in gait,
In diet, in affections of delight,
In military rules, humors of blood,

He was the mark and glass, copy and book,
That fashion'd others. And him,-0 wondrous
him!

O miracle of men!-him did you leave,
(Second to none, unseconded by you,)
To look upon the hideous god of war
In disadvantage; to abide a field,
Where nothing but the sound of Hotspur's name
Did seem defensible :-so you left him:
Never, O never, do his ghost the wrong,
To hold your honor more precise and nice
With others, than with him; let them alone;
The marshal, and the archbishop, are strong:
Had my sweet Harry had but half their numbers,
To-day might I, hanging on Hotspur's neck,
Have talk'd of Monmouth's grave.
North.

Beshrew your heart,
Fair daughter! you do draw my spirits from me,
With new lamenting ancient oversights.
But I must go, and meet with danger there;
Or it will seek me in another place,
And find me worse provided.
Lady N.

O, fly to Scotland, Till that the nobles, and the armed commons, Have of their puissance made a little taste.

Lady P. If they get ground and vantage of the
king,

Then join you with them, like a rib of steel,
To make strength stronger; but for all our loves,
First let them try themselves; so did your son;
He was so suffer'd; so came I a widow;
And never shall have length of life enough,
To rain upon remembrance with mine eyes,