Re-enter FALStaff.

Falstaff, you carried your guts away as nimbly, with as quick dexterity, and roared for mercy, and still ran and roared, as ever I heard bull-calf. What a slave art thou to hack thy sword as thou hast done; and then say, it was in fight! What trick, what device, what starting-hole, canst thou now find out, to hide thee from this open and apparent shame?

Poins. Come, let's hear, Jack; What trick hast thou now?

Fal. By the Lord, I knew ye as well as he that made ye. Why, hear ye, my masters: Was it for me to kill the heir apparent? Should I turn upon the true prince? Why, thou knowest I am as valiant as Hercules: but beware instinct; the lion will not touch the true prince. Instinct is a great matter; I was a coward on instinct. I shall think the better of myself, and thee, during my life; I for a valiant lion, and thou for a true prince. But, lads, I am glad you have the money. -Hostess, clap to the doors; watch to-night, pray tomorrow. Gallants, lads, boys, hearts of gold, all the titles of good fellowship come to you! What, shall we be merry? shall we have a play extempore?

P. Hen. Content;--and the argument shall be, thy running away.

Fal. Ah! no more of that, Hal, an thou lovest me.

Fal. What doth gravity out of his bed at midnight? Shall I give him his answer? P. Hen. Prithee, do, Jack.

Fal. 'Faith, and I'll send him packing. [Exit. P. Hen. Now, sirs; by'r lady, you fought fair;so did you, Peto;-so did you, Bardolph: you are lions too, you ran away upon instinct, you will not touch the true prince; no,-fie!

Bard. 'Faith, I ran when I saw others run. P. Hen. Tell me now in earnest, how came Falstaff's sword so hacked?

Peto. Why, he hacked it with his dagger; and said, he would swear truth out of England, but he would make you believe it was done in fight; and persuaded us to do the like.

Bard. Yea, and to tickle our noses with speargrass, to make them bleed; and then to beslubber our garments with it, and swear it was the blood of true men. I did that I did not this seven years before, I blushed to hear his monstrous devices.

P. Hen. O villain, thou stolest a cup of sack eighteen years ago, and wert taken with the manner, and ever since thou hast blushed exteinpore: Thou hadst fire and sword on thy side, and yet thou rann'st away; What instinct hadst thou for it?

Bard. My lord, do you see these meteors? do you behold these exhalations?

Here comes lean Jack, here cones bare-bone. How now, my sweet creature of bombast? How long is 't ago, Jack, since thou sawest thine own knee?

Fal. My own knee? when I was about thy years Hal, I was not an eagle's talon in the waist; I could have crept into any alderman's thumb-ring; A plague of sighing and grief! it blows a man up like a bladder. There's villainous news abroad: here was Sir John Bracy from your father; you must to the court in the morning. That same mad fellow of the North, Percy; and he of Wales, that gave Amaimon the bastinado, and made Lucifer cuckold, and swore the devil his true liegeman upon the cross of a Welsh hook,- What, a plague, call you him?

Poins. O, Glendower.

Fal. Owen, Owen; the same;-and his son-inlaw, Mortimer; and old Northumberland; and the sprightly Scot of Scots, Douglas, that runs a horseback up a hill perpendicular.

P. Hen. He that rides at high speed, and with his pistol kills a sparrow flying. Fal. You have hit it.

'P. Hen. So did he never the sparrow.

Fal. Well, that rascal hath good mettle in him. he will not run.

P. Hen. Why, what a rascal art thou, then, to praise him so for running!

Fal. A horseback, ye cuckoo! but, afoot he will not budge a foot.

P. Hen. Yes, Jack, upon instinct.

Fal. I grant ye, upon instinct. Well, he is there too, and one Mordake, and a thousand bluecaps more: Worcester is stolen away by night; thy father's beard is turned white with the news; you may buy land now as cheap as stinking mackerel.

P. Hen. Then 't is like, if there come a hot June, and this civil buffeting hold, we shall buy maidenheads as they buy hob-nails, by the hundreds.

Fal. By the mass, lad, thou sayest true; it is like we shall have good trading that way.-But, tell me, Hal, art thou not horribly afeard, thou being heir apparent? Could the world pick thee out three such enemies again, as that fiend Douglas, that spirit Percy, and that devil Glendower? Art thou not horribly afraid? doth not thy blood thrill at it?

P. Hen. Not a whit, i' faith; I lack some of thy instinct.

Fal. Well, thou wilt be horribly chid to-morrow, when thou comest to thy father: if thou do love me, practise an answer.

P. Hen. Do thou stand for my father, and examine me upon the particulars of my life.

Fal. Shall I? content :-This chair shall be my state, this dagger my sceptre, and this cushion my

crown.

P. Hen. Thy state is taken for a joint-stool, thy golden sceptre for a leaden dagger, and thy precious rich crown for a pitiful bald crown!

Fal. Well, an the fire of grace be not quite out of thee, now shalt thou be moved. Give me a cup of sack, to make mine eyes look red, that it may be thought I have wept; for I must speak in passion, and I will do it in King Cambyses' vein. P. Hen. Well, here is my leg.

Fal. And here is my speech:-Stand aside, nobility.

Host. This is excellent sport, i' faith.

Fal. Weep not, sweet queen, for trickling tears are vain.

Host. O the father, how he holds his countenance!

Fal. For God's sake, lords, convey my tristful queen,

For tears do stop the flood-gates of her eyes. Host. O rare! he doth it as like one of these harlotry players as ever I see.

:

Fal. Peace, good pint-pot; peace, good ticklebrain.-Harry, I do not only marvel where thou spendest thy time, but also how thou art accompanied for though the camomile, the more it is trodden the faster it grows, yet youth, the more it is wasted the sooner it wears. That thou art my son, I have partly thy mother's word, partly my own opinion; but chiefly, a villainous trick of thine eye, and a foolish hanging of thy nether lip, that doth warrant me. If then thou be son to me, here lieth the point;-Why, being son to me, art thou so pointed at? Shall the blessed sun of heaven prove a micher, and eat blackberries? a question not to be asked. Shall the son of England prove a thief, and take purses? a question to be asked. There is a thing, Harry, which thou has often heard of, and it is known to many in our land by the name of pitch this pitch, as ancient writers do report, doth defile; so doth the company thou keepest: for, Harry, now I do not speak to thee in drink, but in tears; not in pleasure, but in passion; not in words only, but in woes also:-And yet there is a virtuous man, whom I have often noted in thy company, but I know not his name.

P. Hen. What manner of man, an it like your majesty?

Ful. A good portly man, i' faith, and a corpulent; of a cheerful look, a pleasing eye, and a most noble carriage; and, as I think, his age some fifty, or, by'r lady, inclining to threescore; and now I remember me, his name is Falstaff; if that man should be lewdly given, he deceives me; for, Harry, I see virtue in his looks. If then the tree may be known by the fruit, as the fruit by the tree, then, peremptorily I speak it, there is virtue in that Falstaff: him keep with, the rest banish. And tell me now, thou naughty varlet, tell me, where hast thou been this month?

P. Hen. Dost thou speak like a king? Do thou stand for me, and I'll play my father.

Fal. Depose me? if thou dost it half so gravely, so majestically, both in word and matter, hang me up by the heels for a rabbit-sucker, or a poulter's hare

P. Hen. Well, here I am set.

Fal. And here I stand;-judge, my masters.
P. Hen. Now, Harry, whence come you?
Fal. My noble lord, from Eastcheap.

P. Hen. The complaints I hear of thee are grievous.

Fal. 'Sblood, my lord, they are false:-nay, I'll tickle ye for a young prince, i' faith.

P. Ilen. Swearest thou, ungracious boy? henceforth ne'er look on me. Thou art violently carried away from grace: there is a devil haunts thee, in the likeness of a fat old man: a tun of a man is thy companion. Why dost thou converse with that trunk of humours, that bolting hutch of beastliness, that swoln parcel of dropsies, that huge bombard of sack, that stuffed cloak-bag of guts, that roasted Manningtree ox with the pudding in his belly, that reverend vice, that grey iniquity, *hat father ruffian, that vanity in years? Wherein

is he good, but to taste sack and drink it? wherein neat and cleanly, but to carve a capon and eat it? wherein cunning, but in craft? wherein crafty, but in villainy? wherein villainous, but in all things? wherein worthy, but in nothing?

Fal. I would your grace would take me with you. Whom means your grace?

P. Hen. That villainous abominable misleader of youth, Falstaff, that old white-bearded Satan. Ful My lord, the man I know.

P. Hen. I know thou dost.

al. But to say I know more harm in him than in myself, were to say more than I know. That he is old (the more the pity), his white hairs do witness it: but that he is (saving your reverence) a whoremaster, that I utterly deny. If sack and sugar be a fault, Heaven help the wicked! If to be old and merry be a sin, then many an old host that I know is damned: if to be fat be to be hated, then Pharaoh's lean kine are to be loved. No, my good lord; banish Peto, banish Bardolph, banish Poins: but for sweet Jack Falstaff, kind Jack Falstaff, true Jack Falstaff, valiant Jack Falstaff, and therefore more valiant, being, as he is, old Jack Falstaff, banish not him thy Harry's company; banish plump Jack, and banish all the

world.

P. Hen. I do, I will.

[A knocking heard, [Exeunt Hostess, FRANCIS, and BARDOLPH

Re-enter BARDOLPH, running. Bard. O, my lord, my lord; the sheriff, with a most monstrous watch, is at the door. Fal. Out, you rogue! play out the play: I have much to say in the behalf of that Falstaff. Re-enter Hostess, hastily.

Host. O, my lord, my lord!Fal. Heigh, heigh! the devil rides upon a fiddlestick: What's the matter?

Host. The sheriff and all the watch are at the door: they are come to search the house; Shall I let them in?

Fal. Dost thou hear, Hal? never call a true piece of gold a counterfeit; thou art essentially mad, without seeming so.

P. Hen. And thou a natural coward, without instinct.

Fal. I deny your major: if you will deny the sheriff, so; if not, let him enter: if 1 become not a cart as well as another man, a plague on my bringing up! I hope I shall as soon be strangled with a halter as another.

P. Hen. Go, hide thee behind the arras;-the rest walk up above. Now, my masters, for a true face and good conscience.

Ful. Both which I have had: but their date is out, and therefore I'll hide me.

P. Hen.

[Exeunt all but the PRINCE and POINS. Call in the sheriff.

That I will, by to-morrow dinner time,
Send him to answer thee, or any man,
For anything he shall be charg'd withal.
And so let me entreat you leave the house.
Sher. I will, my lord: There are two gentlemen
Have in this robbery lost three hundred marks.
P. Hen. It may be so : if he have robb'd these men
He shall be answerable; and, so, farewell.

Sher. Good night, my noble lord.

P. Hen. I think it is good morrow; Is it not? Sher. Indeed, my lord, I think it be two o'clock. [Exeunt Sheriff and Carrier. P. Hen. This oily rascal is known as well as Paul's.

Sit, cousin Percy; sit, good cousin Hotspur;
For by that name as oft as Lancaster
Doth speak of you,

His cheek looks pale, and, with a rising sigh,
He wisheth you in heaven.

Hot. And you in hell, as often as he hears Owen Glendower spoke of.

Glend. I cannot blame him: at my nativity,
The front of heaven was full of fiery shapes,
Of burning cressets; and, at my birth,
The frame and huge foundation of the earth
Shak'd like a coward.

Hot. Why, so it would have done at the same season, if your mother's cat had but kittened, though yourself had ne'er been born.

Glend. I say, the earth did shake when I was born.

Hot. And I say, the earth was not of my mind, If you suppose as fearing you it shook.

Glend. The heavens were all on fire, the earth did tremble.

Poins. Nothing but papers, my lord.

P. Hen. Let's see what they be: read them.
Poins. Item, A capon, 2s. 2d.
Item, Sauce, 4d.

Item, Sack, two gallons, 5s. 8d.
Item, Anchovies and sack after supper, 2s. 6d.
Item, Bread, a halfpenny.

P. Hen. O monstrous! but one halfpennyworth of bread to this intolerable deal of sack!-What there is else, keep close; we'll read it at more advantage: there let him sleep till day. I'll to the court in the morning: we must all to the wars, and thy place shall be honourable. I'll procure this fat rogue a charge of foot; and, I know, his death will be a march of twelve-score. The money shall be paid back again with advantage. Be with me betimes in the morning; and so good morrow, Poins.

Poins. Good morrow, good my lord.

III.

[Exeunt.

Were strangely clamorous to the frighted fields.
These signs have mark'd me extraordinary;
I am not in the roll of common men.
And all the courses of my life do show
Where is the living, clipp'd in with the sea
That chides the banks of England, Scotland.
Wales,-

Which calls me pupil, or hath read to me?
And bring him out, that is but woman's son,
Can trace me in the tedious ways of art,
And hold me pace in deep experiments.

Hot. I think there's no man speaks better
Welsh:

Bootless home, and weather-beaten back.

Hot. Home without boots, and in foul weather too?

How 'scapes he agues, in the devil's name?
Glend. Come, here's the map: Shall we divide
our right,
According to our three-fold order ta'en?

Mort. The archdeacon hath divided it
Into three limits, very equally:
England, from Trent and Severn hitherto,
By south and east, is to my part assign'd:
All westward, Wales beyond the Severn snore,
And all the fertile land within that bound,
To Owen Glendower:--and, dear coz, to you
The remnant northward, lying off from Trent
And our indentures tripartite are drawn: