Bears not alive so stout a gentleman. I should not make so dear a show of zeal :- [He sees FALSTAFF on the ground. If I were much in love with vanity. Death hath not struck so fat a deer to-day, [Exit. Fal. [Rising slowly.] 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 valor 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? 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, [Stabbing him.] with a new wound in your thigh, come you along with me. [Takes HOTSPUR on his back. Re-enter PRINCE HENRY and PRINCE JOHN. P. Hen. Come, brother John, full bravely hast thou flesh'd Thy maiden sword. P. John. But, soft! whom have we here? Did you not tell me, this fat man was dead? P. Hen. I did; I saw him dead, breathless and bleeding Upon the ground. Art thou alive? or is it phantasy That plays upon our eyesight? I pr'ythee, speak; We will not trust our eyes, without our ears:Thou art not what thou seem'st. Fal. 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: [Throwing the body down.] if your father will do me any honor, so; if not, let him kill the next Percy himself. I look to be either earl, or duke, I can assure you. P. Hen. Why, Percy I killed myself, and saw thee dead. Fal. 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 valor, 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 Scarf, with which he covers Percy's face. Salt. would deny it, I would make him eat a piece of my sword. P.John. This is the strangest tale that e'er I heard. Come, bring your luggage nobly on your back: [A Retreat is sounded. The trumpet sounds retreat, the day is ours. Come, brother, let's to the highest of the field, To see what friends are living, who are dead. [Exeunt PRINCE HENRY and PRINCE JOHN. Fal. 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 VERNON, Prisoners. K. Hen. Thus ever did rebellion find rebuke.Ill-spirited Worcester! did we not send grace, Pardon, and terms of love to all of you? And wouldst 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. Wor. What I have done, my safety urged me to, And I embrace this fortune patiently, Since not to be avoided it falls on me. K. Hen. Bear Worcester to the death, and Vernon too: Other offenders we will pause upon.— [Exeunt WORCESTER and VERNON, guarded. How goes the field? P. Hen. The noble Scot, lord Douglas, when he saw The fortune of the day quite turn'd from him, The noble Percy slain, and all his men Upon the foot of fear,-fled with the rest; And, falling from a hill, he was so bruis'd, That the pursuers took him. At my tent The Douglas is; and I beseech your grace, I may dispose of him. K. Hen. With all my heart. P. Hen. Then, brother John of Lancaster, to you, This honorable bounty shall belong: Go to the Douglas, and deliver him Up to his pleasure, ransomless and free: His valor shown upon our crests to-day, Hath taught us how to cherish such high deeds, Even in the bosom of our adversaries. K. Hen. Then this remains, that we divide our power.You, son John, and my cousin Westmoreland, Towards York shall bend you, with your dearest speed, To meet Northumberland, and the prelate Scroop, Warkworth. Before Northumberland's Castle. Enter RUMOR, painted full of Tongues. Rum. Open your ears; For which of you will stop The vent of hearing, when loud Rumor speaks? That the blunt monster with uncounted heads, Can play upon it. But what need I thus L. Bard. Who keeps the gate here, ho?-Where Port. What shall I say you are? Please it your honor, knock but at the gate, Enter NORTHUMBERLAND. L. Bard. nute now Should be the father of some stratagem:1 L. Bard. Noble earl; I bring you certain news from Shrewsbury. Ha! Again. Said he, young Harry Percy's spur was cold? L. Bard. My lord, I'll tell you what;- North. Why should the gentleman, that rode by Give then such instances of loss? L. Bard. Who, he? North. Yea, this man's brow, like to a title-leaf, So looks the strond, whereon the imperious flood Say, Morton, didst thou come from Shrewsbury? How doth my son and brother? L. Bard. Your brother, thus; so fought the noble Douglas; North. L. Bard. My lord, I over-rode him on the way; Hath, by instinct, knowledge from others' eyes, And he is furnish'd with no certainties, More than he haply may retail from me. Enter TRAVERS. North. Now, Travers, what good tidings come with you? Tra. My lord, sir John Umfrevile turn'd me back 1 Important or dreadful event. That what he fear'd is chanced. Yet speak, Morton: North. Yet, for all this, say not that Percy's dead. L. Bard. I cannot think, my lord, your son is dead. Rend'ring faint quittance,' wearied and outbreath'd, | Yet did you say,-Go forth; and none of this, To Harry Monmouth: whose swift wrath beat down Out of his keepers' arms; even so my limbs, A scaly gauntlet now, with joints of steel, Tra. This strained passion doth you wrong, my L. Bard. Sweet earl, divorce not wisdom from Mor. The lives of all your loving complices And summ'd the account of chance, before you Though strongly apprehended, could restrain L. Bard. We all, that are engaged to this loss, lord, I hear for certain and do speak the truth,- North. I knew of this before; but, to speak truth, Enter Sir JOHN FALSTAFF, with his Page bearing Fal. 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. Fal. Men of all sorts take a pride to gird3 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 judg ment. 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 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 bachelor. 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 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. 6 Fal. Let him be damned like a 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 they must 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. Fal. 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. Fal. Wait close, I will not see him. Ch. Just. What's he that goes there? Atten. Falstaff, an't please your lordship. Ch. Just. He that was in question for the robbery? Atten. 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 Lan caster. how to make it. Atten. You mistake me, sir. Fal. Why, sir, did I say you were an honest man? setting my knighthood and my soldiership aside, I had lied in my throat if I had said so. Atten. I pray you, sir, then set your knighthood and your soldiership aside; and give me leave to tell you, you lie in your throat, if you say I am any other than an honest man. Fal. I give thee leave to tell me so! I lay aside In their debt. Alluding to an old proverb: Who goes to Westminster for a wife, to St. Paul's for a man, and to Smithfield for a horse, may meet with a whore, a knave, and a jade. that which grows to me! If thou get'st any leave of me, hang me; if thou takest leave, thou wert better be hanged: You hunt-counter, hence! avaunt! Atten. Sir, my lord would speak with you. Ch. Just. Sir John Falstaff, a word with you. Fal. My good lord!-God give your lordship good time of day. I am glad to see your lordship abroad: I heard say, your lordship was sick: I hope, your lordship goes abroad by advice. Your lordship, though not clean past your youth, hath yet some smack of age in you, some relish of the saltness of time; and I most humbly beseech your lordship, to have a reverend care of your health. Ch. Just. Sir John, I sent for you before your expedition to Shrewsbury. Fal. An't please your lordship, I hear his majesty is returned with some discomfort from Wales. Ch. Just. I talk not of his majesty :-You would not come when I sent for you. Fal. And I hear moreover, his highness is fallen into this same whoreson apoplexy. Ch. Just. Well, heaven mend him! I pray, let me speak with you. Fal. This apoplexy is, as I take it, a kind of lethargy, an't please your lordship; a kind of sleeping in the blood, a whoreson tingling. Ch. Just. What tell you me of it? be it as it is. Fal. It hath its original from much grief; from study, and perturbation of the brain: I have read the cause of his effects in Galen; it is a kind of deafness. Ch. Just. I think, you are fallen into the disease; for you hear not what I say to you. Fal. Very well, my lord, very well: rather, an't please you, it is the disease of not listening, the malady of not marking, that I am troubled withal. Ch. Just. To punish you by the heels, would amend the attention of your ears; and I care not, if I do become your physician. Fal. I am as poor as Job, my lord; but not so patient: your lordship may minister the potion of imprisonment to me, in respect of poverty; but how I should be your patient to follow your prescriptions, the wise may make some dram of a scruple, or indeed a scruple itself. Ch. Just. I sent for you, when there were matters against you for your life, to come speak with me. Fal. As I was then advised by my learned counsel in the laws of this land-service, I did not come. Ch. Just. Well, the truth is, sir John, you live in great infamy. Fal. He that buckles him in my belt, cannot live in less. Ch. Just. Your means are very slender, and your waste is great. Fal. I would it were otherwise; I would my means were greater, and my waist slenderer. Ch. Just. You have misled the youthful prince. Fal. The young prince hath misled me: I am the fellow with the great belly, and he my dog. Ch. Just. Well, I am loath to gall a new-healed wound: your day's service at Shrewsbury hath a little gilded over your night's exploit on Gadshill: you may thank the unquiet time for your quiet o'erposting that action. Fal. My lord? Ch. Just. But since all is well, keep it so: wake not a sleeping wolf. fox. Fal. To wake a wolf is as bad as to smell a Ch. Just. What! you are as a candle, the better part burn out. A catch-pole or bailiff. |