50

It is the Prince of Wales that threatens thee,
Who never promiseth but he means to pay.
They fight: DOUGLAS flies.
Cheerly, my lord: how fares your grace?
Sir Nicholas Gawsey hath for succour sent,
And so hath Clifton: I'll to Clifton straight.
K. Hen. Stay, and breathe awhile.
Thou hast redeem'd thy lost opinion,
And show'd thou mak'st some tender of my life,
In this fair rescue thou hast brought to me.
Prince. O God! they did me too much injury
That ever said I hearken'd for your death.
If it were so, I might have let alone
The insulting hand of Douglas over you;
Which would have been as speedy in your end
As all the poisonous potions in the world,
And sav'd the treacherous labour of your son.
K. Hen. Make up to Clifton: I'll to Sir
Nicholas Gawsey.
Exit.

A very valiant rebel of that name.
I am the Prince of Wales; and think not, Percy,
To share with me in glory any more:
Two stars keep not their motion in one sphere;
Nor can one England brook a double reign,
Of Harry Percy and the Prince of Wales.

Hot. Nor shall it, Harry; for the hour is come
To end the one of us; and would to God
Thy name in arms were now as great as mine! 70
Prince. I'll make it greater ere I part from
thee;

And all the budding honours on thy crest
I'll crop, to make a garland for my head.
Hot. I can no longer brook thy vanities.

Enter FALSTAFF.

They fight.

Fal. Well said, Hal! to it, Hal! Nay, you shall find no boy's play here, I can tell you. Re-enter DOUGLAS; he fights with FALSTAFF, who falls down as if he were dead, and exit DOUGLAS. HOTSPUR is wounded, and falls.

Fal. Rising. 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 valour 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? By my faith 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.
He takes HOTSPUR on his back. 132

Re-enter the PRINCE and JOHN OF LANCASTER,
Prince. Come, brother John; full bravely hast
thou flesh'd

Thy maiden sword.
Lanc.

But, soft! whom have we here?
Did you not tell me this fat man was dead?
Prince. I did; I saw him dead,
Breathless and bleeding on the ground.

Hot. O Harry! thou hast robb'd me of my Art thou alive? or is it fantasy
youth.

I better brook the loss of brittle life
Than those proud titles thou hast won of me;
They wound my thoughts worse than thy sword
my flesh :

80

That plays upon our eyesight? I prithee, speak;
We will not trust our eyes without our ears:
Thou art not what thou seem'st.

141

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 down the body. If your father will do me any honour, so; if not, let him kill the next Percy himself. either earl or duke, I can assure you. Prince. Why, Percy I killed myself, and saw thee dead.

I look to be

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 Shrews. bury clock. If I may be believed, so; if not, 90 let them that should reward valour 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

Ill-weav'd ambition, how much art thou shrunk!
When that this body did contain a spirit,
A kingdom for it was too small a bound;
But now two paces of the vilest earth

Is room enough: this earth, that bears thee dead,

Lords and Attendants; Officers, Soldiers, Messenger, Porter, Drawers, Beadles, Grooms, etc.

INDUCTION.

A Dancer Speaker of the Epilogue.
SCENE.-England.

Enter RUMOUR, painted full of tongues.
Open your ears; for which of you will stop
The vent of hearing when loud Rumour speaks?
I, from the orient to the drooping west,
Making the wind my post-horse, still unfold
The acts commenced on this ball of earth:
Upon my tongues continual slanders ride,
The which in every language I pronounce,
Stuffing the ears of men with false reports.
I speak of peace, while covert enmity
Under the smile of safety wounds the world:
And who but Rumour, who but only I,
Make fearful musters and prepar'd defence,
Whiles the big year, swoln with some other grief,
Is thought with child by the stern tyrant war,
And no such matter? Rumour is a pipe
Blown by surmises, jealousies, conjectures,
And of so easy and so plain a stop

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

30

Even with the rebels' blood. But what mean I
To speak so true at first? my office is
To noise abroad that Harry Monmouth fell
Under the wrath of noble Hotspur's sword,
And that the king before the Douglas' rage
Stoop'd his anointed head as low as death.
This have I rumour'd through the peasant towns
Between that royal field of Shrewsbury
And this worm-eaten hold of ragged stone,
Where Hotspur's father, old Northumberland,
Lies crafty-sick. The posts come tiring on,
And not a man of them brings other news
Than they have learn'd of me: from Rumour's tongues

15 They bring smooth comforts false, worse than true
wrongs.
Exit. 40

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

20

My well-known body to anatomize

Among my household? Why is Rumour here?
I run before King Harry's victory;

Who in a bloody field by Shrewsbury

398

L. Burd. My lord, I over-rode him on the way; He that but fears the thing he would not know And he is furnish'd with no certainties

rang'd:

From whence with life he never more sprung up. Would lift him where most trade of danger
In few, his death, whose spirit lent 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, 120
So did our men, heavy in Hotspur's loss,
Lend to this weight such lightness with their fear
That arrows fled not swifter 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 turn'd their backs; and in his flight,
Stumbling in fear, was took. The sum of all 131
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, 141
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 150
The ragged'st hour that time and spite dare bring
To frown upon the enrag'd Northumberland!
Let heaven 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!

160

Tra. This strained passion doth you wrong, my lord.

L. Bard. Sweet earl, divorce not wisdom from your honour.

Yet did you say 'Go forth'; and none of this,
Though strongly apprehended, could restrain
The stiff-borne action: what hath then befallen,
Or what hath this bold enterprise brought forth,
More than that being which was like to be? 179

L. Bard. We all that are engaged to this loss
Knew that we ventur'd on such dangerous seas
That if we wrought our 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 corpse,
But 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,

190

This word, rebellion, it had froze them up,
As fish are in a pond. But now the bishop 20
Turns insurrection to religion:
Suppos'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 less do flock to follow him.
North. I knew of this before; but, to speak
truth,

210

This present grief had wip'd it from my mind.
Go in 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, nor never yet more need. Exeunt,

SCENE II. London. A Street.

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

Ful. 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.

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, 170
More likely to fall in than to get o'er;
You were advis'd his flesh was capable

Fal. Men of all sorts take a pride to gird 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 judgment. Thou whoreson mandrake, thou art fitter to be worn in my cap

Of wounds and scars, and that his forward spirit than to wait at my heels. I was never manned