Warkworth. Before Northumberland's Castle. Enter RUMOUR, painted full of tongues. Rum. Open your ears; For which of you will stop The vent of hearing, when loud Rumour speaks? 1. from the orient to the drooping west, Making the wind my post-horse, still unfold The acts commenced on this ball of earth: [pon my tongues coutinual slanders ride; The which in every language I pronounce, Safing the ears of men with false reports. ea of peace, while covert enmity,

ader the smile of safety, wounds the world:
And who but Rumour, who but only I,
Make tearful musters, and prepar'd defence;
Wst the big year, swol'n with some other grief,
ls thenght with child by the stern tyrant war,
And no such matter; Rumour is a pipe
Dawn by surmises, jealousies, conjectures;
And of so easy and so plain a stop,

That the blunt monster with uncounted heads,
The still-discordant wavering multitude,
Can play upon it. But what need I thus
Me-known body to anatomize

Among my household? Why is Rumour here?
True before king Harry's victory;
Who, in a bloody field by Shrewsbury,

Hath beaten down young Hotspur, and his troops,
Quenching the flame of bold rebellion

Even with the rebels' blood. Ent what mean I
Topeak so true at first? my office is
Tisc abroad, that Harry Monmouth fell
Under the wrath of noble Hotspur's sword;
And that the king before the Douglas' rage
cp'd his anointed head as low as death.
This have I rumour'd through the peasant towns
Between that royal field of Shrewsbury
is this worm-eaten hold of ragged stone,
Where Hotspur's father, old Northumberland,
Les cratty-sick: the posts come tiring on,
Andot a man of them brings other news

Than they have learn'd of ine: From Rumour's

tongues

Tay bring smooth comforts false, worse than true

wrongs.

ACT I.

SCENE L-The same.

(Exit.

The Porter before the Gate. Enter Lord BARDOLPH.

Bard Who keeps the gate here, ho?

is the earl?

Port. What shall I say you are? Bard.

Teil then the earl,

That the lord Bardolph doth attend him here.
Port. His lordship is walk'd forth into the or-

chard;

Please it your honour, knock but at the gate, And he himself will answer.

Bard.

As good as heart can wish :The king is almost wounded to the death; And, in the fortune of my lord your son, Prince Harry slain outright; and both the Blunts Kill'd by the hand of Douglas: young prince John, And Westmoreland, and Stafford, fled the field; And Harry Monmouth's brawn, the hulk sir John, Is prisoner to your son: O, such a day, So fought, so follow'd, and so fairly won, Came not, till now, to dignify the times, Since Cæsar's fortunes!

North.
How is this deriv'd?
Saw you the field? came you from Shrewsbury?
Bard. I spake with one, my lord, that came from
thence,

A gentleman well bred, and of good name,
That freely render'd me these news for true.
North. Here comes my servant, Travers, whom
On Tuesday last to listen after news. [I sent

Bard. My lord, I over-rode him on the way;
And he is furnish'd with no certainties,
More than he haply may retail from me.

My lord, I'll tell you what;my young lord your son have not the day, Upon mine honour, for a silken point I'll give my barony: never talk of it.

North. Why should the gentleman, that rode by Give then such instances of loss? [Travers, Who, he?

Bard.

He was some hilding fellow, that had stol'n
The horse he rode on: and, upon my life,
Spoke at a venture. Look, here comes more news.
Enter MORTON.

North. Yea, this man's brow, like to a title-leaf,
Foretells the nature of a tragic volume:
So looks the strond, whereon the imperious flood
Hath left a witness'd usurpation.—
Say, Morton, didst thou come from Shrewsbury?
Mor. I ran from Shrewsbury, my noble lord?
Where hateful death put on his ugliest mask,
To fright our party.
North. How doth my son, and brother?
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,
So dull, so dead in look, so woe-begone,
Drew Priam's curtain in the dead of night,
And would have told him, half his Troy was burn'd :
But Priam found the fire, ere he his tongue,
And I my Percy's death, ere thou report'st it.
This thou would'st say,-Your son did thus, and
thus;

Your brother, thus; so fought the noble Douglas;
Stopping my greedy ear with their bold deeds:
But in the end, to stop mine ear indeed,
Thou hast a sigh to blow away this praise,
Ending with -brother, son, and all are dead.

Mor. Douglas is living, and your brother, yet:
But, for my lord your son,-

North Why, he is dead. See, what a ready tongue suspicion hath! He, that but fears the thing he would not know, Hath, by instinct, knowledge from others' eyes. That what he fear'd is chanced. Yet speak, Morton: Tell thou thy earl, his divination lies, And I will take it as a sweet disgrace, And make thee rich for doing me such wrong.

Mor. You are too great to be by me gainsaid: Your spirit is too true, your fears too certain. North. Yet, for all this, say not, that Percy's I see a strange confession in thine eye: dead. Thou shak'st thy head; and hold'st it fear, or sin, To speak a truth. If he be slain, say so; The tongue offends not, that reports his death: And he doth sm, that doth belie the dead; Not he, which says the dead is not alive. Yet the first bringer of unwelcome news Hath but a losing office; and his tongue Sounds ever after as a sullen bell, Remember'd knolling a departing friend.

Bard I cannot think, my lord, your son is dead.
Mor. I am sorry, I should force you to believe
That, which I would to heaven I had not seen:
But these mine eyes saw him in bloody state,
Rend ring Gunt quittance, we tried and out breath'd,
To Harry Monmouth, whose swift wrath beat down
The never daunted Percy to the earth,

From whence with hfe he never more sprung up.
In few, his death (whose spirit leut a fire
Even to the dullest peasant in his camp.

Being bruited once, took fire and heat away
From the best temper'd courage in his troops:
For from his metal was his party steel'd;
Which once in him abated, all the rest
Turn'd on themselves, like dull and heavy lead.
And as the thing, that's heavy in itself,
Upon enforcement, flies with greatest speed;
So did our men, heavy in Hotspur's loss,
Lend to this weight such lightness with their fear,
That arrows fled not switter toward their aim,
Than did our soldiers, aiming at their safety,
Fly from the field: Then was that noble Worcester
Too soon ta'en prisoner: and that furious Scot,
The bloody Douglas, whose well-labouring sword
Had three times slain the appearance of the king,
'Gan vail his stomach, and did grace the shame
Of those that turu'd their backs; and, in his flight,
Stumbling in fear, was took. The sum of all
Is, that the king hath won; and hath sent out
A speedy power, to encounter you, my lord,
Under the conduct of young Lancaster,
And Westmoreland: this is the news at full.
North. For this I shall have time enough to

mourn.

In poison there is physic; and these news,
Having been well, that would have made me sick,
Being sick, have in some measure made me well:
And as the wretch, whose fever-weaken'd joints,
Like strengthless hinges, buckle under life,
Impatient of his fit, breaks like a fire
Out of his keeper's arms; even so my
limbs,
Weaken'd with grief, being now enrag'd with grief,
Are thrice themselves: hence, therefore, thou nice
crutch;

A scaly gauntlet now, with joints of steel,
Must glove this hand and hence, thou sickly quoif;
Thou art a guard too wanton for the head,
Which princes, flesh'd with conquest, aim to hit.
Now bind my brows with iron; and approach
The ragged'st hour that time and spite dare bring,
To frown upon the enrag'd Northumberland!
Let heav'n kiss earth! Now let not nature's hand
Keep the wild flood confin'd! let order die!
And let this world no longer be a stage,
To feed contention in a lingering act;
But let one spirit of the first-born Cain
Reign in all bosoms, that, each heart being set
On bloody courses, the rude scene may end,
And darkness be the burier of the dead!

Tra. This strained passion doth you wrong, my lord. [honour, Bard. Sweet earl, divorce not wisdom from your Mor. The lives of all your loving complices Lean on your health; the which, if you give o'er To stormy passion, must perforce decay. You cast the event of war, my noble lord, And summ'd the account of chance, before you said.

Let us make head. It was your presurmise,
That in the dole of blows your son might drop:
You knew, he walk'd o'er perils, on an edge,
More likely to fall in, than to get o'er:
You were advis'd, his flesh was capable
Of wounds and scars; and that his forward spirit
Would lift him where most trade of danger rang'd;
Yet did you say,-Go forth; and none of this,
Though strongly apprehended, could restrain
The still-borne action: What hath then befallen,
Or what hath this bold enterprize brought forth,
More than that being, which was like to be?

Bard. We all, that are engaged to this loss,
Knew, that we ventur'd on such dangerous seas,
That, if we wrought out life, 'twas ten to one;
And yet we ventur'd, for the gain propos'd
Chok'd the respect of likely peril fear'd;
And, since we are o'erset, venture again.
Come, we will all put forth; body, and goods.
Mor. Tis more than time: And, my most noble
lord.

I hear for certain, and do speak the truth,

The gentle archbishop of York is up,
With well-appointed powers; he is a man,
Who with a double surety binds his followers.
My lord your son had only but the corps,
Bet shadows, and the shows of men, to fight;
For that same word, rebellion, did divide
The action of their bodies from their souls;
And they did fight with queasiness, constrain'd,
As men drink potions; that their weapons only
Seem'd on our side, but, for their spirits and souls,
This word, rebellion, it had froze them up,
As fish are in a pond: But now the bishop
Turns insurrection to religion :

Sappos d sincere and holy in his thoughts,
He's follow'd both with body and with mind;
And doth enlarge his rising with the blood

Of fair king Richard, scrap'd from Pomfret stones:
Derives from heaven his quarrel, and his cause;
Tells them, he doth bestride a bleeding land,
Gasping for life under great Bolingbroke;
And more, and ess, do flock to follow him.

North. I knew of this before; but, to speak truth,
This present grief had wip'd it from my mind.
Go is with me; and counsel every man
The aptest way for safety, and revenge:

Get posts, and letters, and make friends with speed; Never so few, and never yet more need.

SCENE II.-London. A Street.

Exeunt.

Eater Sir JOHN FALSTAFF, with his Page, bearing his sword and buckler.

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 Eight have more diseases than he knew for.

Fal. Men of all sorts take a pride to gird at me: The brain of this foolish-compounded clay, man, is table to vent 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 t to set me off, why then I have no judgment. Thon whoreson mandrake, thou art fitter to be worn nay cap, than to wait at my heels. I was never maced with an agate till now: but I will set you wither in gold nor silver, but in vile apparel, and end you back again to your master, for a jewel; the javenal, 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 eek; and yet he will not stick to say, his face is a Lare-royal: God may finish it when he will, it is not atar amiss yet: he may keep it still as a face rayal for a barber shall never earn sixpence out of and yet he will be crowing, as if he had writ 3 ever since his father was a bachelor. He may p his own grace, but he is almost out of mine, Can assure him.-What said master Dumbleton Post the satin for my short cloak, and slops? Page. He said, sir, you should procure him better trance than Bardolph: he would not take his d and yours; he liked not the security. Fai. Let him be damned like the glutton! may his time be hotter!-A whoreson Achitophel! a rasrea-forsooth knave! to bear a gentleman in and, and then stand upon security!-The whoreson Paxta-pates do now wear nothing but high shoes, dbaches of keys at their girdles; and if a man is thigh with them in honest taking up, then they t stand upon-security. I had as lief they would ratsbane in my mouth, as offer to stop it with ty. 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, he hath the horn of abundance, and the lightness of his wife shines through it: and yet cannot he

1

Enter the Lord Chief Justice, and an Attendant.

Page. Sir, here comes the nobleman that com mitted 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 Lancaster. Ch. Just. What, to York? Call him back again. Atten. Sir John Falstaff!

me, sir.

Atten. You mistake 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 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'tplease you, it is the disease of not listening, the malady of not marking, that I am troubled with.

Ch. Just. To puuish you by the heels, would

Conjecture, expectation, and surmise
Vaids uncertain, should not be admitted.
Arch. Tis very true, lord Bardolph; for, indeed,
It was young Hotspur's case at Shrewsbury.
Bard. It was, my lord; who lim'd himself with
Eating the air on promise of supply,
[hope,
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.
Bard. Yes, in the present quality of war;-
Indeed the instant action, (a cause on foot,)
Loves 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 trust 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
Is 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,

[birth,)

Using the names of men, instead of men:
Lake one that draws the model of a house
Beyond his power to build it; who, half through,
Gaves 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
Should be still-born, and that we now possess'd
The utmost man of expectation;
Ikak, we are a body strong enough,
Esea as we are, to equal with the king.
Bard. What is the king but five and twenty
thousand?
[Bardolph.
Hist. To us no more; nay, not so much, lord
Far
ar his divisions, as the times do brawl,
Are in three heads: one power against the French,
And cae against Glendower; perforce, a third
Mast take up us: So is the infirm king

[together,

la three divided; and his coffers sound
With nollow poverty and emptiness.
Arck. That he should draw his several strengths
And come against us in full puissance,
Need not be dreaded.

Hast.

If he should do so,

He leaves his back unarm'd, the French and Welsh
Bez him at his heels: never fear that. [hither?
Bard. Who, is it like, should lead his forces
Hast. The duke of Lancaster, and Westmoreland:
Aainst the Welsh, himself, and Harry Monmouth:
Bat who is substituted 'gaiust the French,
I have no certain notice.

Arch

Let us on:
Ad publish the occasion of our arms.
The Curmonwealth is sick of their own choice,
The over-greedy love hath surfeited:-
As habitation giddy and unsure

Hatu he, that bideth on the vulgar heart.

O the fond many! with what loud applause

D. ist thou beat heaven with blessing Bolingbroke, the ore be was what thou wouldst have him be? ad being now trimmed in thine own desires, Tom, beastly feeder, art so full of him, That thou provok'st thyself to cast him up. >, so, tou common dog, didst thon disgorge The latton bosom of the royal Richard; All cos thou wouldst 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 enamour'd on his grave:
Thou, that threw'st dust on his goodly head,
When through proud London he came sighing on
After the admir'd 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 be
gone.
[Exeunt

ACT II.

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. [for he will stab.

Snare. It may chance cost some of us our lives, 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 weapons 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. 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 scape. He comes continually to Pie-corner, (saving your manhoods,) to buy a saddle; and he's indited to dinner to the lubber's head in Lombardstreet, 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 your offices, master Fang, and master Snare: do me, do me, do mne your offices.

Fal. How now? whose mare's dead? what's the matter? [tress Quickly. Fang. Sir John, I arrest you at the suit of misFal. Away, varlets!-Draw, Bardolph; cut me off the villain's head; throw the quean in the channel. Host. Throw me in the channel? Ill throw thee in the channel. Wilt thou? wilt thon? thou bastardly rogue!-Murder, murder! O thou honey suckle villain! wilt thou kill God's officers, and the king's? O thou honey-seed rogue! thou art a honeyseed; 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!

Fal. Away, you scullion! you rampallian! you fustilarian! Ill tickle your catastrophe.