Plays and Poems

100

name.

It is the Prince of Wales that threatens thee, Bears not alive so stout a gentleman.
Who never promiseth but he means to pay.

If thou wert sensible of courtesy,
They siyht: DOUGLAS flics. I should not make so dear a show of zeal:
Cheerly, my lord : how fares your grace ? But let my favours hide thy mangled face,
Sir Nicholas Gawsey hath for succour sent, And, even in thy behalf, I'll thank myself
And so hath Clifton : I'll to Clifton straight For doing these fair rites of tenderness.
K. Hen, Stay, and breathe awhile.

Adieu! and take thy praise with thee to heaven, Thou hast redeem'd thy lost opinion,

Thy ignomy sleep with thee in the grave,
And show'd thou mak'st some tender of my life, But not remember'd in thy epitaph!
In this fair rescue thou hast brought to me.

He spies FALSTAFF on the ground.
Prince. O God! they did me too much injury What! old acquaintance! could not all this flesh
That ever said I hearken'd for your death. Keep in a little life? Poor Jack, farewell!
If it were so, I might have let alone

I could have better spar'd a better man. The insulting hand of Douglas over you ; 0! I should have a heavy mi-s of thee Which would have been as speedy in your end If I were much in love with vanity. As all the poisonous potions in the world, Death hath not struck so fat a deer to-day, And sav'd the treacherous labour of your son. Though many dearer, in this bloody fray. K. Hen. Make up to Clifton : i'll to Sir Embowell’d will I see thee by and by: Nicholas Gawsey.

Exit. Till then in blood by noble Percy lie. Erit. Enter HOTSPUR.

Fal. Rising. Embowelled ! if thou embowel

me to-day, I'll give you leave to powder me and Hot. If I mistake not, thou art Harry Mon. eat me too to-morrow. 'Sblood ! 'twas time to mouth.

counterfeit, or that hot termagant Scot had Prince. Thou speak'st as if I would deny my paid me scot and lot too. Counterfeit? I lie, I

am no counterfeit: to die is to be a counterfeit; Hot. My name is Harry Percy.

for he is but the counterfeit of a man, who hath Prince.

Why, then I see not the life of a man ; but to counterfeit dring, A very valiant rebel of that name.

when a man thereby liveth, is to be no counterI am the Prince of Wales; and think not, Percy, feit, but the true and perfect image of life indeed. To share with me in glory any more :

The better part of valour is discretion ; in the Two stars keep not their motion in one sphere ; which better part I have saved my life. 'Zounds! Nor can one England brook a double reign, I am afraid of this gunpowder Percy though he Of Harry Percy and the Prince of Wales. be dead. How if he should counterfeit too and

Hot. Nor shall it, Harry; for the hour is come rise? By my faith I am afraid he would prove To end the one of us; and would to God the better counterfeit. Therefore I'll make him Thy name in arms were now as great as mine l 70 sure ; yea, and I'll swear I killed him. Why Prince. I'll make it greater ere I part from may not he rise as well as I ? Nothing confutes thee;

me but eyes, and nobody sees me: therefore, And all the budding honours on thy crest sirrah,

Stabbing him. I'll crop, to make a garland for my head. with a new wound in your thigh come you along Hot. I can no longer brook thy vanities.

with me.

He takes HOTSPUR on his back. 132 They fight

Re-enter the Prince and JOHN OF LANCASTER. Enter FALSTAFF.

Prince. Come, brother John; full bravely hast Pal. Well said, Hall to it, Hal! Nay, you thou flesh'd shall find no boy's play here, I can tell you. Thy maiden sword.

Lanc. But, soft! whom have we here! Re-enter DOUGLAS; he fights with FALSTAFF, who

falls down as if he were deud, and exit Douglas. Did you not tell me this fat man was dead ? HOTSPUR is wounded, and falls.

Prince. I did; I saw him dead,

Breathless and bleeding on the ground. Ilot. O Harry! thou hast robb'd me of my Art thou alive? or is it fantasy youth.

That plays upon our eyesight? I prithee, speak; I better brook the loss of brittle life

We will not trust our eyes without our ears : Than those proud titles thou hast won of me; Thou art not what thou seem'st. They wound my thoughts worse than thy sword Pal. No, that's certain ; I am not a double my flesh :

man : but if I be not Jack Falstaff, then am I a But thonght's the slave of life, and life time's Jack. There is Percy: Throwing down the body.

If your father will do me any honour, so; if not, And time, that takes survey of all the world, let him kill the next Percy himself. I look to be Must have a stop. 01 I could prophesy, either earl or duke, I can assure you. But that the earthy and cold hand of death Prince. Why, Percy I killed myself, and saw Lies on my tongue. No, Percy, thou art dust, thee dead. And food for

Dies. Fal. Didst thou ? Lord, Lord ! how this world Prince. For worms, brave Percy. Fare thee is given to lying. I grant you I was down and well, great heart I

out of breath, and so was he ; but we rose both Ill-weav'd ambition, how much art thou shrunk! at an instant, and fought a long hour by Shrews. When that this body did contain a spirit, bury clock. If I may be believed, so; if not, A kingdom for it was too small a bound; Ho let them that should reward valour bear the sin But now two paces of the vilest earth

upon their own heads. I'll take it upon my death, Is room enough: this earth, that bears thee dead, 'I gave him this wound in the thigh : if the man

fool ;

160

were alive and would deny it, 'zounds! I would K. Hon. Bear Worcester to the death and make him eat a piece of my sword.

Vernon too: Lanc. This is the strangest tale thate'er I heard. Other offenders we will pause upon. Prince. This is the strangest fellow, brother Exeunt WORCESTER and VERNON, guarded. John.

How goes the field ? Come, bring your luggage nobly on your back : Prince. The noble Scot, Lord Douglas, when For my part, if a lie may do thee grace,

he saw I'll gild it with the happiest terms I have. The fortune of the day quite turu'd from him,

A retreat is sounded. The noble Percy slain, and all his men
The trumpet sounds retreat ; the day is ours. Upon the foot of fear, fled with the rest;
Come, brother, let us to the highest of the field, And falling from a hill he was so bruis'a
To see what friends are living, who are dead. That the pursuers took him. At my tent
Eceunt the PRINCE and JOHN OF The Douglas is, and I beseech your grace

LANCASTER. I may dispose of him.
Pal. I'll follow, as they say, for reward. He K. Hen.

With all my heart. that rewards me, God reward him! If I do grow Prince. Then, brother John of Lancaster, to great, I'll grow less; for I'll purge, and leave you sack, and live cleanly, as a nobleman should do. This honourable bounty shall belong.

Exit. Go to the Douglas, and deliver him

Up to his pleasure, ransomless, and free :
SCENE V.- Another Part of the Field. His valour shown upon our crests to-day
The trumpets sound. Enter King HENRY, the Hath tanght us how to cherish such high deeds,

Even in the bosom of our adversaries.
PRINCE, JOHN OF LANCASTER, WESTMORE-
LAND, and Others, with WORCESTER and which I shall give away immediately.

Lanc. I thank your grace for this high courtesy, VERNON, prisoners.

K'. Hen. Then this remains, that we divide K. Hen. Thus ever did rebellion find rebuke. our power. Ill-spirited Worcester! did we not send grace, You, son John, and my cousin Westmoreland Pardon, and terms of love to all of you ?

Towards York shall bend you, with your dearest And would'st thou turn our offers contrary ? Misuse the tenour of thy kinsman's trust ? To meet Northumberland and the prelate Scroop, Three knights upon our party slain to-day, Who, as we hear, are busily in arms : A noble earl and many a creature else

Myself and you, son Harry, will towards Wales, Had been alive this hour,

To fight with Glendower and the Earl of March. If like a Christian thou hadst truly borne Rebellion in this land shall lose his sway, Betwixt our armies true intelligence. 10 Meeting the check of such another day:

Hor. What I have done my safety urg'd me to; And since this business so fair is done, And I embrace this fortune patiently,

Let us not leave till all our own be won. Since not to be avoided it falls on me.

Exeunt.

speed,

THE SECOND PART OF KING HENRY

THE FOURTH.

DRAMATIS PERSONE.

RUMOUR, the Presenter.
KING HENRY THE FOURTH.
HENRY, Prince of Wales, afterwards'

King Henry the Fifth,
THOMAS, Duke of Clarence,
JOHN OF LANCASTER,
HUMPHREY OF GLOUCESTER,
EARL OF WARWICK,

EARL OF WESTMORELAND,
EARL OF SURREY,

GOWER,

HARCOURT,

BLUNT,

Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench.

A Servant of the Chief Justice.
EARL OF NORTHUMBERLAND,
SCROOP, Archbishop of York,
LORD MOWBRAY,

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

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

his Sons.

of the King's party.

INDUCTION.

Opposites to the
King.

Warkworth. Before NORTHUMBERLAND'S

Castle.

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

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

LORD HASTINGS,
LORD BARDOLPH,
SIR JOHN COlevile,
TRAVERS and MORTON, Retainers of Northum
berland.

} Oppo

Opposites to the
King.

FALSTAFF, BARDOLPH, PISTOL, and a Page,
POINS and PETO.

SHALLOW and SILENCE, Country Justices.
DAVY, Servant to Shallow.

MOULDY, SHADOW, WART, FEEBLE, and BULL

CALF, Recruits.

FANG and SNARE, Sheriff's Officers.

LADY NORTHUMBERLAND.

LADY PERCY.

MISTRESS QUICKLY, Hostess of a tavern in East

cheap.
DOLL TEARSHEET.

Hath beaten down young Hotspur and his troops,
Quenching the flame of bold rebellion
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 sworil,
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, oll 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
10 They bring smooth comforts false, worse than true
Exit. *

wrongs.

ACT I.

SCENE I.-Warkworth. Before NORTHUMBER
LAND'S Castle.

Enter Lord BARDOLPH.

L. Bard. Who keeps the gate here? ho!
The Porter opens the gate.
Where is the earl!
Port. What shall I say you are?
L. Bard.
Tell thou the earl
That the Lord Bardolph doth attend him here.

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

With joyful tidings; and, being better hors'd,
Out-rode me. After him came spurring hard
A gentleman, almost forspent with speed,
That stopp'd by me to breathe his bloodied horse.
He ask'd the way to Chester; and of him
I did demand what news from Shrewsbury.
He told me that rebellion had ill luck,
And that young Harry Percy's spur was cold.
With that he gave his able horse the head,
And bending forward struck his armed heels
Against the panting sides of his poor jade
Up to the rowel-head, and starting so,
He seem'd in running to devour the way,
Staying no longer question.

North.

Ha! Again:
Said he young Harry Percy's spur was cold?
Of Hotspur, Coldspur? that rebellion
Had met ill luck?

North. Why should that gentleman that rode by Travers

L. Bard.

My lord, I'll tell you what:
If 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.

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.

Why, he is dead. See what a ready tongue suspicion hath!

On Tuesday last to listen after news.

L. Bard. 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
More than he haply may retail from me.

Hath by instinct knowledge from others' eyes
That what he fear'd is chanced. Yet speak,
Morton :

Enter TRAVERS.

North. Now, Traver, what good tidings come with you?

Tra. My lord, Sir John Umfrevile turn'd me back

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 car 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.

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
dead.

I see a strange confession in thine ere:
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 sin 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.

L. Bard. I cannot think, my lord, your son is

dead.

100

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

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