Scene 2.

[tent,

447

Though then, God knows, I had no such in- shortly: I was once of Clement's-inn; where,
I think, they will talk of mad Shallow yet.
Sil. You were called lusty Shallow then,
But that necessity so bowed the state,
That I and greatness were compelled to kiss :-
"The time shall come," thus did he follow it, cousin.
The time will come, that foul sin, gathering
head,

"

Shall break into corruption :"-so went on,
Foretelling this same time's condition,
And the division of our amity.

War. There is a history in all men's lives,
Figuring the nature of the times deceas'd;
The which observ'd, a man may prophesy,
With a near aim, of the main chance of things
As yet not come to life; which in their seeds
And weak beginnings lie intreasured. [time:
Such things become the hatch and brood of
And, by the necessary form of this,

King Richard might create a perfect guess,
That great Northumberland, then false to him,
Would, of that seed, grow to a greater false-

ness,

Which should not find a ground to root upon,
Unless on you.

K. Hen. Are these things, then, necessities?
Then let us meet them like necessities;
And that same word even now cries out on us:
They say, the Bishop and Northumberland
Are fifty thousand strong.

It cannot be, my lord;
War.
Rumour doth double, like the voice and echo,
The numbers of the fear'd.-Please it your
To go to bed. Upon my soul, my lord, [grace,
The powers that you already have sent forth,
Shall bring this prize in very easily.
To comfort you the more, I have receiv'd
A certain instance that Glendower is dead.
Your majesty hath been this fortnight ill;
And these unseason'd hours, perforce, must
[add
Unto your sickness.
I will take your counsel:
K. Hen.
And were these inward wars once out of hand,
We would, dear lords, unto the Holy Land.
[Exeunt.

SCENE II.--Court before Justice Shallow's
House in Gloucestershire.

Enter Shallow and Silence, meeting; Mouldy,
Shadow, Wart, Feeble, Bull-calf, and
Servants, behind.

Shal. Come on, come on, come on, sir; give
me your hand, sir, give me your hand, sir: an
And how doth my
early stirrer, by the rood.
good cousin Silence?

Sil. Good morrow, good cousin Shallow.

Shal. By the mass, I was called anything;
and I would have done anything indeed too,
There was I, and little John
and roundly too
Doit of Staffordshire, and black George Bare,
and Francis Pickbone, and Will Squele a
bucklers in all the inns of court again: and, I
Cotswold man ; you had not four such swinge-
may say to you, we knew where the bona-robas
mandment. Then was Jack Falstaff, now sir
were, and had the best of them all at com-
John, a boy, and page to Thomas Mowbray,
duke of Norfolk.

Sil. This sir John, cousin, that comes
hither anon about soldiers?

Shal. The same sir John, the very same. gate, when he was a crack not thus high: and I saw him break Skogan's head at the court son Stockfish, a fruiterer, behind Gray's-inn. the very same day did I fight with one Samphow many of mine old acquaintances are O, the mad days that I have spent! and to see Sil. We shall all follow, cousin. Shal. Certain, 'tis certain; very sure, very dead! sure: death, as the Psalmist saith, is certain to all; all shall die. -How a good yoke of Sil. Truly, cousin, I was not there. bullocks at Stamford fair? Shal. Death is certain.-Is old Double of Sil. Dead, sir. your town living yet?

Shal. Dead-See, see !-he drew a good bow;-and dead!-he shot a fine shoot :John of Gaunt loved him well, and betted much money on his head. Dead! he would have clapped in the clout at twelve score: and carried you a forehand shaft a fourteen and fourteen and a half, that it would have done a ewes now? man's heart good to see.-How a score of

Sil. Thereafter as they be a score of good ewes may be worth ten pounds.

Shal. And is old Double dead!

Enter Bardolph, and one with him. Sil. Here come two of Sir John Falstaff's Bard. Good morrow, honest gentlemen. men, as I think. beseech you, which is justice Shallow ?

I

Shal. I am Robert Shallow, sir; a poor esquire of this county, and one of the king's justices of the peace: what is your good pleasure with me?

Bard. My captain, sir, commends him to Shal. And how doth my cousin, your bed-you; my captain, Sir John Falstaff,-a_tall leader. I knew him fellow? and your fairest daughter, and mine, gentleman, by heaven, and a most gallant Shal. He greets me well, sir. How doth the good my god-daughter Ellen? a good backsword man. doth? knight? may I ask how my lady his wife

Sil. Alas, a black ouzel, cousin Shallow ! Shal. By yea and nay, sir, I dare say, my cousin William is become a good scholar: he is at Oxford, still, is he not?

Sil. Indeed, sir, to my cost.

Bard. Sir, pardon; a soldier is better acShal. He must, then, to the inns of court/commodated than with a wife.

Bard. Pardon me, sir; I have heard the word. Phrase, call you it? By this good day, I know not the phrase; but I will maintain the word with my sword to be a soldier-like word, and a word of exceeding good command, by heaven. Accommodated; that is, when a man is, as they say, accommodated; him; for we have a number of shadows to fill or, when a man is,-being,-whereby,-he up the muster-book. may be thought to be accommodated; which is an excellent thing.

take such order, that thy friends shall ring for thee.-Is here all ?

Shal. Here is two more called than your number; you must have but four here, sir :and so, I pray you, go in with me to dinner.

Fal. Come, I will go drink with you, but I cannot tarry dinner. I am glad to see you, by my troth, master Shallow.

Shal. O, sir John, do you remember since we lay all night in the windmill in Saint George's fields?

Fal. No more of that, good master Shallow, no more of that.

Shal. Ha, it was a merry night. And is Jane Nightwork alive?

Fal. She lives, master Shallow.

Shal. She never could away with me,

Fal. Never, never; she would always say, she could not abide master Shallow.

Fal. Old, old, master Shallow.

Shal. Nay, she must be old; she cannot choose but be old; certain she's old; and had Robin Night-work by old Night-work, before I came to Clement's-inn.

Sil. That's fifty-five year ago.

Bard. [To Fal.] Sir, a word with you.-
[Aside to him.] I have three pound to free
Mouldy and Bull-calf.

Fal. [Aside to Bard.] Go to; well.
Shal. Come, sir John, which four will you
Fal. Do you choose for me.
[have?
Shal. Marry, then,- Mouldy, Bull-calf,
Feeble, and Shadow.

Fal. Mouldy, and Bull-calf; for you, Mouldy, stay at home till you are past service: -and for your part, Bull-calf, grow till you come unto it :-I will none of you.

Shal. Sir John, sir John, do not yourself wrong: they are your likeliest men, and I would have you served with the best.

Fal. Will you tell me, master Shallow, how to choose a man? Care I for the limb, the thews, the stature, bulk, and big assemblance of a man? Give me the spirit, master Shallow.

Shal. By the mass, I could anger her to the-Here's Wart ;-you see what a ragged heart. She was then a bona-roba. Doth she appearance it is he shall charge you, and hold her own well? discharge you, with the motion of a pewterer's hammer; come off, and on, swifter than he that gibbets on the brewer's bucket. And this same half-faced fellow, Shadow-give me this man: he presents no mark to the enemy; the foeman may with as great aim level at the edge of a penknife. And, for a retreat, how Shal. Ha, cousin Silence, that thou hadst swiftly will this Feeble, the woman's tailor, seen that that this knight and I have seen! -run off! O, give me the spare men, and spare Ha, sir John, said I well? [master Shallow. me the great ones.-Put me a caliver into Fal. We have heard the chimes at midnight, Wart's hand, Bardolph. [thus. Shal. That we have, that we have, that we Bard. Hold, Wart, traverse; thus, thus, have; in faith, sir John, we have our watch- Fal. Come, manage me your caliver. So: word was, 'Hem, boys!"-Come, let's to-very well :-go to:-very good :-exceeding dinner; come, let's to dinner.-O the days that good.-O, give me always a little, lean, old, we have seen !-Come, come. chapped, bald shot. Well said, i' faith, Wart; thou'rt a good scab hold, there's a tester for thee.

[Exeunt Falstaff, Shallow, and Silence. Bull. Good master corporate Bardolph, stand my friend, and here is four Harry ten Shal. He is not his craft's master, he doth shillings in French crowns for you. In very not do it right. I remember at Mile-end truth, sir, I had as lief be hanged, sir, as go: Green, (when I lay at Clement's-inn,) I was and yet, for mine own part, sir, I do not care; but rather, because I am unwilling, and, for mine own part, have a desire to stay with my friends; else, sir, I did not care, for mine own part, so much. Bard. Go to; stand aside.

Moul. And, good master corporal captain, for my old dame's sake, stand my friend: she has nobody to do anything about her, when I am gone; and she is old, and cannot help herself you shall have forty, sir.

Bard. Go to; stand aside.

Fee. By my troth, 1 care not; a man can die but once; we owe God a death: I'll ne'er bear a base mind: -an't be my destiny, so; an't be not, so: no man's too good to serve his prince; and let it go which way it will, he that dies this year is quit for the next.

Bard. Well said; thou art a good fellow.
Fee. 'Faith, I'll bear no base mind.
Re-enter Falstaff, Shallow, and Silence.
Fal. Come, sir, which men shall I have?
Shal. Four, of which you please.

then Sir Dagonet in Arthur's show,-there was a little quiver fellow, and he would manage you his piece thus; and he would about, and about, and come you in, and come you in. "Rah, tah, tah," would he say; Bounce," would he say; and away again would he go, and again would he come:-I shall never see such a fellow.

Fal. These fellows will do well, master Shallow.-Farewell, master Silence: I will not use many words with you.-Fare you well, gentlemen both I thank you I must a dozen mile to-night. - Bardolph, give the soldiers coats.

Shal. Sir John, heaven bless you, and prosper your affairs, and send us peace! As you return, visit my house; let our old acquaintance be renewed: peradventure, I will with you to the court.

Fal. I would you would, master Shallow. Shal. Go to; I have spoke at a word. Fare you well.

Enter a Messenger.

Hast.
Now, what news?
Mess. West of this forest, scarcely off a mile,
In goodly form comes on the enemy; [number
And, by the ground they hide, I judge their
Upon, or near, the rate of thirty thousand.
Mowb. The just proportion that we gave
them out.

Let us sway on, and face them in the field.
Enter Westmoreland.

Arch. What well-appointed leader fronts
us here?

Mowb. I think it is my lord of Westmoreland. West. Health and fair greeting from our general,

Fal. Fare you well, gentle gentlemen.-To Scotland; and concludes in hearty prayers, [Exeunt Shallow and Silence.] On, Bardolph; That your attempts may overlive the hazard lead the men away. [Exeunt Bardolph, Re-And fearful meeting of their opposite. cruits, &c.] As I return, I will fetch off these Mowb. Thus do the hopes we have in him justices: do see the bottom of justice And dash themselves to pieces. [touch ground, Shallow. Lord, lord, how subject we old men are to this vice of lying! This same starved justice hath done nothing but prate to me of the wildness of his youth, and the feats he hath done about Turnbull-street; and every third word a lie, duer paid to the hearer than the Turk's tribute. I do remember him at Clement's-inn, like a man made after supper of a cheese-paring: when he was naked, he was, for all the world, like a forked radish, with a head fantastically carved upon it with a knife: he was so forlorn, that his dimensions to any thick sight were invisible: he was the very genius of famine; yet lecherous as a monkey, and the whores called him-mandrake. He came ever in the rear-ward of the fashion; and The prince, lord John and duke of Lancaster. sung those tunes to the overscutched huswives Arch. Say on, my lord of Westmoreland, that he heard the carmen whistle, and sware- What doth concern your coming. [in peace, they were his fancies, or his good-nights. And West. Then, my lord, now is this Vice's dagger become a squire; and Unto your grace do I in chief address talks as familiarly of John of Gaunt, as if he The substance of my speech. If that rebellion had been sworn brother to him; and I'll be Came like itself, in base and abject routs, sworn he never saw him but once in the Tilt-Led on by bloody youth, guarded with rags, yard; and then he burst his head, for crowding And countenanc'd by boys, and beggary, among the marshal's men. I saw it, and told I say, if damn'd commotion so appear'd, John of Gaunt he beat his own name; for you In his true, native, and most proper shape, might have truss'd him, and all his apparel, into You, reverend father, and these noble lords, an eel-skin; the case of a treble hautboy was Had not been here, to dress the ugly form a mansion for him, a court: and now hath he Of base and bloody insurrection [bishop,land and beeves. Well, I will be acquainted With your fair honours. You, lord archwith him, if I return; and it shall go hard, but Whose see is by a civil peace maintain'd; I will make him a philosopher's two stones to Whose beard the silver hand of peace hath me: if the young dace be a bait for the old touch'd; [tutor'd; pike, I see no reason, in the law of nature, but Whose learning and good letters peace hath I may snap at him. Let time shape, and there Whose white investments figure innocence, [Exit. The dove and very blessed spirit of peace,— Wherefore do you so ill translate yourself, Out of the speech of peace, that bears such

an end.

ACT IV.

SCENE I.-A Forest in Yorkshire.
Enter the Archbishop of York, Mowbray,
Hastings, and others.

Arch. What is this forest call'd?
Hast. 'Tis Gaultree forest, an't shall please
your grace.
[coverers forth,
Arch. Here stand, my lords; and send dis-
To know the numbers of our enemies.
Hast. We have sent forth already.
Arch.

'Tis well done.
My friends and brethren in these great affairs,
I must acquaint you, that I have receiv'd
New-dated letters from Northumberland;
Their cold intent, tenor, and substance, thus:-
Here doth he wish his person, with such
powers

As might hold sortance with his quality,
The which he could not levy; whereupon
He is retir'd, to ripe his growing fortunes,

-

Briefly to this end :-we are all diseas'd;
And, with our surfeiting, and wanton hours,
Have brought ourselves into a burning fever,
And we must bleed for it: of which disease
Our late king, Richard, being infected, died.
But, my most noble lord of Westmoreland,
I take not on me here as a physician;
Nor do I, as an enemy to peace,
Troop in the throngs of military men;
But, rather, show a while like fearful war,
To diet rank minds, sick of happiness,
And purge th' obstructions, which begin to stop
Our very veins of life. Hear me more plainly.

Scene I.

I have equal balance justly weigh'd
What wrongs our arms may do, what wrongs
we suffer,

And find our griefs heavier than our offences.
We see which way the stream of time doth run,
And are enforc'd from our most quiet sphere
By the rough torrent of occasion;
And have the summary of all our griefs,
When time shall serve, to show in articles;
Which, long ere this, we offer'd to the king,
And might by no suit gain our audience:
When we are wrong'd, and would unfold our
griefs,

We are denied access unto his person,
Even by those men that most have done us
wrong.

The dangers of the days but newly gone,
(Whose memory is written on the earth
With yet appearing blood,) and the examples
Of every minute's instance, (present now,)
Have put us in these ill-beseeming arms;
Not to break peace, or any branch of it,
But to establish here a peace indeed,
.Concurring both in name and quality.

West. Whenever yet was your appeal denied?
Wherein have you been galled by the king?
What peer hath been suborn'd to grate on you?
That you should seal this lawless bloody book
Of forg'd rebellion with a seal divine,
And consecrate commotion's bitter edge?

Arch. My brother general, the common-
To brother born a household cruelty, [wealth,
I make my quarrel in particular.

West. There is no need of any such redress;
Or if there were, it not belongs to you.
Mowb. Why not to him,in part, and to us all,
That feel the bruises of the days before;
And suffer the condition of these times
To lay a heavy and unequal hand
Upon our honours?

O, my good lord Mowbray,
West.
Construe the times to their necessities,
And you shall say indeed, it is the time,
And not the king, that doth you injuries.
Yet, for your part, it not appears to me,
Either from the king, or in the present time,
That you should have an inch of any ground
To build a grief on? were you not restor'd
To all the duke of Norfolk's signiories,
Your noble and right well-remembered father's?
Mowb. What thing, in honour, had my
father lost,

That need to be reviv'd and breath'd in me?
The king, that lov'd him, as the state stood
then,

Was, force perforce, compelled to banish him:
And then that Harry Bolingbroke and he,-
Being mounted, and both roused in their seats,
Their neighing coursers daring of the spur,
Their armed staves in charge, their beavers
down,

Then, then, when there was nothing could have
stay'd

My father from the breast of Bolingbroke,
O, when the king did throw his warder down,
Then threw he down himself, and all their lives,
His own life hung upon the staff he threw ;
That by indictment and by dint of sword,
Have since miscarried under Bolingbroke.

West. You speak, lord Mowbray, now you
know not what.

The earl of Hereford was reputed then
Who knows on whom fortune would then
In England the most valiant gentleman :
have smil'd?

He ne'er had borne it out of Coventry :
But if your father had been victor there,
For all the country, in a general voice, [love
Cried hate upon him; and all their prayers and
Were set on Hereford, whom they doted on,
And bless'd, and grac'd, indeed, more than
the king.

But this is mere digression from my purpose.-
Here come I from our princely general,
To know your griefs; to tell you from his grace,
That he will give you audience; and wherein
It shall appear that your demands are just,
You shall enjoy them,-everything set off,
Mowb. But he hath forc'd us to compel
That might so much as think you enemies.
this offer;

West. Mowbray, you overween, to take it so.
And it proceeds from policy, not love.
This offer comes from mercy, not from fear:
For, lo! within a ken our army lies;
Upon mine honour, all too confident
Our battle is more full of names than yours,
To give admittanc to a thought of fear.
Our men more perfect in the use of arms,
Our armour all as strong, our cause the best ;
Then reason wills, our hearts should be as good:
Say you not, then, our offer is compell'd.

Mowb. Well, by my will, we shall admit no
parley.

West. That argues but the shame of your A rotten case abides no handling.

[offence:

[sion,

Hast. Hath the prince John a full commis-
In every ample virtue of his father,
To hear, and absolutely to determine
Of what conditions we shall stand upon?
West. That is intended in the general's

Arch. Then take, my lord of Westmoreland,
I muse you make so slight a question [name:

this schedule,

Each several article herein redress'd,
For this contains our general grievances.
All members of our cause, both here and hence,
That are insinew'd to this action,
Acquitted by a true substantial form,
And present execution of our wills
To us and to our purposes consign'd;
We come within our awful banks again,
Their eyes of fire sparkling through sights of And knit our powers to the arm of peace.
And the loud trumpet blowing them to-

gether,

[steel,

West. This will I show the general. Please you, lords,