SCENE I.-The Rebel Camp near Shrewsbury. The tongues of soothers: but a braver place Enter a Messenger with letters. What letters hast thou there? I can but thank you. Mess. These letters come from your father,Hot. Letters from him! why comes he not himself? Mess. He cannot come, my lord: he's grievous sick. Hot. 'Zounds! how has he the leisure to be sick In such a justling time? Who leads his power; Under whose government come they along? Mess. His letters bear his mind, not I, my lord. Wor. I pr'y thee tell me, doth he keep his bed? Mess. He did, my lord, four days ere I set forth; And at the time of my departure thence He was much feared by his physicians. Wor. I would the state of time had first been whole, Ere he by sickness had been visited: His health was never better worth than now. Hot. Sick now; droop now! This sickness doth infect The very life-blood of our enterprise : Wor. Your father's sickness is a maim to us. Doug. 'Faith, and so we should; Where now remains a sweet reversion : We may boldly spend upon the hope of what Is to come in. A comfort of retirement lives in this. Hot. A rendezvous, a home to fly unto, If that the devil and mischance look big Upon the maidenhead of our affairs. Wor. But yet I would your father had been here. The quality and hair of our attempt Brooks no division. It will be thought By some, that know not why he is away, That wisdom, loyalty, and mere dislike Of our proceedings, kept the earl from hence. I rather of his absence make this use:- Spoke of in Scotland as this term of fear. Enter SIR RICHARD VERNON. Hot. My cousin Vernon! welcome by my soul. Ver. Pray God my news be worth a welcome, lord. The Earl of Westmorland, seven thousand strong, Is marching hitherwards : with him Prince John. Hot. No harm. What more? Ver. And further, I have learned Hot. He shall be welcome too. Where is his son, Ver. All furnished, all in arms: All plumed like estridges that wing the wind; And witch the world with noble horsemanship. Hot. No more, no more: worse than the sun in March This praise doth nourish agues. Let them come: I learned in Worcester, as I rode along, Wor. Ay, by my faith that bears a frosty sound. Hot. What may the King's whole battle reach unto? Ver. To thirty thousand. Hot. Forty let it be: My father and Glendower being both away, Doug. Talk not of dying: I am out of fear Of death or death's hand, for this one half year. [Exeunt. SCENE II-A public Road near Coventry. Enter FALSTAFF and BARDOLPH. Fal. Bardolph, get thee before to Coventry : fill me a bottle of sack. Our soldiers shall march through we'll to Sutton-Colfield to-night. Bard. Will you give me money, captain? Bard. This bottle makes an angel. Fal. An if it do, take it for thy labour; and if it make twenty, take them all: I'll answer the coinage. Bid my lieutenant Peto meet me at the town's end. Bard. I will, captain: farewell. [Exit. Fal. If I be not ashamed of my soldiers, I am a soused gurnet. I have misused the King's press damnably. I have got, in exchange of a hundredand-fifty soldiers, three hundred and odd pounds. I press me none but good householders; yeomen's sons inquire me out contracted bachelors, such as had been asked twice on the bans; such a commodity of warm slaves as had as lief hear the devil as a drum: such as fear the report of a caliver worse than a struck fowl, or a hurt wild-duck. I pressed me none but such toasts-and-butter, with hearts in their bellies no bigger than pins'-heads; and they have bought out their services: and now my whole charge consists of ancients, corporals, lieutenants, gentlemen of companies, slaves as ragged as Lazarus in the painted cloth, where the glutton's dogs licked his sores: and such as, indeed, were never soldiers, but discarded unjust serving-men, younger sons to younger brothers, revolted tapsters, and ostlers trade-fallen; the cankers of a calm world and a long peace; ten times more dishonourable ragged than an oldfaced ancient. And such have I, to fill up the rooms of them that have bought out their services, that you would think that I had a hundredand-fifty tattered prodigals, lately come from swine-keeping, from eating draff and husks. A mad fellow met me on the way, and told me I had unloaded all the gibbets and pressed the dead bodies. No eye hath seen such scarecrows. I'll not march through Coventry with them; that's flat. Nay, and the villains march wide betwixt the legs, as if they had gyves on: for, indeed, I had the most of them out of prison. There's but a shirt and a half in all my company; and the half-shirt is two napkins tacked together, and thrown over the shoulders like a herald's coat without sleeves: and the shirt, to say the truth, stolen from my host at Saint Alban's, or the red-nose innkeeper of Da'entry. But that's all one: they 'll find linen enough on every hedge. Enter PRINCE HENRY and WESTMORLAND. P. Hen. How now, blown Jack; how now quilt? Fal. What, Hal! How now, mad wag: what a devil dost thou in Warwickshire?-My good lord of Westmorland, I cry you mercy: I thought your honour had already been at Shrewsbury. West. 'Faith, Sir John, 't is more than time that I were there, and you too: but my powers are there already. The King, I can tell you, looks for us all: we must away all night. Fal. Tut, never fear me: I am as vigilant as a cat to steal cream. P. Hen. I think to steal cream, indeed; for thy theft hath already made thee butter. But tell me, Jack, whose fellows are these that come after? Being men of such great leading as you are, Wor. The number of the King exceedeth ours: For God's sake, cousin, stay till all come in. [The trumpet sounds a parley. Enter SIR WALTER BLUNT. Blunt. I come with gracious offers from the If you vouchsafe me hearing and respect. You were of our determination. Some of us love you well: and even those some Envy your great deservings and good name, Because you are not of our quality, But stand against us like an enemy. Blunt. And God defend but still I should So long as, out of limit and true rule, But to my charge:-The King hath sent to know He bids you name your griefs; and with all speed Hot. The King is kind; and well we know, the King Knows at what time to promise, when to pay. And now, Over his country's wrongs: and by this face, This seeming brow of justice, did he win The hearts of all that he did angle for. Proceeded further: cut me off the heads Of all the favourites that the absent King In deputation left behind him here, When he was personal in the Irish war. Blunt. Tut; I came not to hear this. Hot. Then to the point: In short time after he deposed the King; Soon after that deprived him of his life; And, in the neck of that, tasked the whole state: To make that worse, suffered his kinsman March (Who is, if every owner were well placed, Indeed his king) to be engaged in Wales, There without ransom to lie forfeited: Disgraced me in my happy victories : Sought to entrap me by intelligence; Rated my uncle from the council-board; In rage dismissed my father from the court; Broke oath on oath, committed wrong on wrong; And, in conclusion, drove us to seek out This head of safety: and withal, to pry Into his title; the which we find Too indirect for long continuance. Blunt. Shall I return this answer to the King? Hot. Not so, Sir Walter: we'll withdraw awhile. Go to the King: and let there be impawned Hot. And 't may be, so we shall. [Exeunt. SCENE IV.-York. A Room in the ARCHBISHOP'S House. Enter the ARCHBISHOP OF YORK and a Gentleman. Arch. Hie, good Sir Michael: bear this sealed brief With wingéd haste to the lord mareschal : The King, with mighty and quick-raised power, The special head of all the land together: Gent. Doubt not, my lord, they shall be well opposed. Arch. I hope no less; yet needful 't is to fear. And to prevent the worst, Sir Michael, speed. For if Lord Percy thrive not, ere the King Dismiss his power he means to visit us; For he hath heard of our confederacy, And 'tis but wisdom to make strong against him: Therefore make haste. I must go write again Arch. And so there is: but yet the King To other friends: and so farewell, Sir Michael. hath drawn [Exeunt severally. ACT V. SCENE I. The KING's Camp near Shrewsbury. Enter KING HENRY, PRINCE HENRY, PRINCE JOHN OF LANCASTER, SIR WALTER BLUNT, and SIR JOHN FALSTAFF. K. Hen. How bloodily the sun begins to peer Above yon busky hill! The day looks pale At his distemperature. Trumpet. Enter WORCESTER and VERNON. How now, my lord of Worcester? 'tis not well Of broached mischief to the unborn times? For mine own part I could be well content With quiet hours: for I do protest it, then? Fal. Rebellion lay in his way, and he found it. P. Hen. Peace, chewet, peace. Wor. It pleased your majesty to turn your looks Of favour from myself and all our house: And yet I must remember you, my lord, We were the first and dearest of your friends. For you my staff of office did I break In Richard's time, and posted day and night To meet you on the way and kiss your hand, When yet you were in place and in account Nothing so strong and fortunate as I It was myself, my brother, and his son, That brought you home, and boldly did outdare The dangers of the time. You swore to us (And you did swear that oath at Doncaster) That you did nothing purpose 'gainst the state, Nor claim no further than your new-fallen right, The seat of Gaunt, dukedom of Lancaster: To this we swore our aid. But in short space It rained down fortune showering on your head, And such a flood of greatness fell on you,What with our help, what with the absent King, What with the injuries of a wanton time, The seeming sufferances that you had borne, And the contrarious winds that held the King So long in his unlucky Irish wars That all in England did repute him dead,— And, from this swarm of fair advantages, |