Enter the King, Lord John of Lancaster, and the Earl
of Westmoreland, with others.

KING
So shaken as we are, so wan with care,
Find we a time for frighted peace to pant
And breathe short-winded accents of new broils
To be commenced in strands afar remote.
No more the thirsty entrance of this soil
Shall daub her lips with her own children’s blood.
No more shall trenching war channel her fields,
Nor bruise her flow’rets with the armèd hoofs
Of hostile paces. Those opposèd eyes,
Which, like the meteors of a troubled heaven,
All of one nature, of one substance bred,
Did lately meet in the intestine shock
And furious close of civil butchery,
Shall now, in mutual well-beseeming ranks,
March all one way and be no more opposed
Against acquaintance, kindred, and allies.
The edge of war, like an ill-sheathèd knife,
No more shall cut his master. Therefore, friends,
As far as to the sepulcher of Christ—
Whose soldier now, under whose blessèd cross
We are impressèd and engaged to fight—

---

Forthwith a power of English shall we levy,
Whose arms were molded in their mothers’ womb
To chase these pagans in those holy fields
Over whose acres walked those blessèd feet
Which fourteen hundred years ago were nailed
For our advantage on the bitter cross.
But this our purpose now is twelve month old,
And bootless ’tis to tell you we will go.
Therefor we meet not now. Then let me hear
Of you, my gentle cousin Westmoreland,
What yesternight our council did decree
In forwarding this dear expedience.
WESTMORELAND
My liege, this haste was hot in question,
And many limits of the charge set down
But yesternight, when all athwart there came
A post from Wales loaden with heavy news,
Whose worst was that the noble Mortimer,
Leading the men of Herefordshire to fight
Against the irregular and wild Glendower,
Was by the rude hands of that Welshman taken,
A thousand of his people butcherèd,
Upon whose dead corpse there was such misuse,
Such beastly shameless transformation
By those Welshwomen done, as may not be
Without much shame retold or spoken of.
KING
It seems then that the tidings of this broil
Brake off our business for the Holy Land.
WESTMORELAND
This matched with other did, my gracious lord.
For more uneven and unwelcome news
Came from the north, and thus it did import:
On Holy-rood Day the gallant Hotspur there,
Young Harry Percy, and brave Archibald,
That ever valiant and approvèd Scot,

---

At Holmedon met, where they did spend
A sad and bloody hour—
As by discharge of their artillery
And shape of likelihood the news was told,
For he that brought them, in the very heat
And pride of their contention did take horse,
Uncertain of the issue any way.
KING
Here is a dear, a true-industrious friend,
Sir Walter Blunt, new lighted from his horse,
Stained with the variation of each soil
Betwixt that Holmedon and this seat of ours,
And he hath brought us smooth and welcome news.
The Earl of Douglas is discomfited;
Ten thousand bold Scots, two-and-twenty knights,
Balked in their own blood, did Sir Walter see
On Holmedon’s plains. Of prisoners Hotspur took
Mordake, Earl of Fife and eldest son
To beaten Douglas, and the Earl of Atholl,
Of Murray, Angus, and Menteith.
And is not this an honorable spoil?
A gallant prize? Ha, cousin, is it not?
WESTMORELAND
In faith, it is a conquest for a prince to boast of.
KING
Yea, there thou mak’st me sad, and mak’st me sin
In envy that my Lord Northumberland
Should be the father to so blest a son,
A son who is the theme of Honor’s tongue,
Amongst a grove the very straightest plant,
Who is sweet Fortune’s minion and her pride;
Whilst I, by looking on the praise of him,
See riot and dishonor stain the brow
Of my young Harry. O, that it could be proved
That some night-tripping fairy had exchanged
In cradle-clothes our children where they lay,

---

And called mine “Percy,” his “Plantagenet”!
Then would I have his Harry, and he mine.
But let him from my thoughts. What think you, coz,
Of this young Percy’s pride? The prisoners
Which he in this adventure hath surprised
To his own use he keeps, and sends me word
I shall have none but Mordake, Earl of Fife.
WESTMORELAND
This is his uncle’s teaching. This is Worcester,
Malevolent to you in all aspects,
Which makes him prune himself, and bristle up
The crest of youth against your dignity.
KING
But I have sent for him to answer this.
And for this cause awhile we must neglect
Our holy purpose to Jerusalem.
Cousin, on Wednesday next our council we
Will hold at Windsor. So inform the lords.
But come yourself with speed to us again,
For more is to be said and to be done
Than out of anger can be utterèd.
WESTMORELAND I will, my liege.
They exit.

Enter Prince of Wales, and Sir John Falstaff.

FALSTAFF Now, Hal, what time of day is it, lad?
PRINCE Thou art so fat-witted with drinking of old
sack, and unbuttoning thee after supper, and
sleeping upon benches after noon, that thou hast
forgotten to demand that truly which thou wouldst
truly know. What a devil hast thou to do with
the time of the day? Unless hours were cups of
sack, and minutes capons, and clocks the tongues

---

of bawds, and dials the signs of leaping-houses,
and the blessed sun himself a fair hot wench in
flame-colored taffeta, I see no reason why thou
shouldst be so superfluous to demand the time
of the day.
FALSTAFF Indeed, you come near me now, Hal, for we
that take purses go by the moon and the seven
stars, and not by Phoebus, he, that wand’ring
knight so fair. And I prithee, sweet wag, when thou
art king, as God save thy Grace—Majesty, I should
say, for grace thou wilt have none—
PRINCE What, none?
FALSTAFF No, by my troth, not so much as will serve to
be prologue to an egg and butter.
PRINCE Well, how then? Come, roundly, roundly.
FALSTAFF Marry then, sweet wag, when thou art king,
let not us that are squires of the night’s body be
called thieves of the day’s beauty. Let us be Diana’s
foresters, gentlemen of the shade, minions of the
moon, and let men say we be men of good government,
being governed, as the sea is, by our noble
and chaste mistress the moon, under whose countenance
we steal.
PRINCE Thou sayest well, and it holds well too, for the
fortune of us that are the moon’s men doth ebb and
flow like the sea, being governed, as the sea is, by
the moon. As for proof now: a purse of gold most
resolutely snatched on Monday night and most
dissolutely spent on Tuesday morning, got with
swearing “Lay by” and spent with crying “Bring
in”; now in as low an ebb as the foot of the ladder,
and by and by in as high a flow as the ridge of the
gallows.
FALSTAFF By the Lord, thou sayst true, lad. And is not
my hostess of the tavern a most sweet wench?

---

PRINCE As the honey of Hybla, my old lad of the castle.
And is not a buff jerkin a most sweet robe of
durance?
FALSTAFF How now, how now, mad wag? What, in thy
quips and thy quiddities? What a plague have I to
do with a buff jerkin?
PRINCE Why, what a pox have I to do with my hostess
of the tavern?
FALSTAFF Well, thou hast called her to a reckoning
many a time and oft.
PRINCE Did I ever call for thee to pay thy part?
FALSTAFF No, I’ll give thee thy due. Thou hast paid all
there.
PRINCE Yea, and elsewhere, so far as my coin would
stretch, and where it would not, I have used my
credit.
FALSTAFF Yea, and so used it that were it not here
apparent that thou art heir apparent—But I prithee,
sweet wag, shall there be gallows standing in
England when thou art king? And resolution thus
fubbed as it is with the rusty curb of old father Antic
the law? Do not thou, when thou art king, hang a
thief.
PRINCE No, thou shalt.
FALSTAFF Shall I? O rare! By the Lord, I’ll be a brave
judge.
PRINCE Thou judgest false already. I mean thou shalt
have the hanging of the thieves, and so become a
rare hangman.
FALSTAFF Well, Hal, well, and in some sort it jumps
with my humor as well as waiting in the court, I
can tell you.
PRINCE For obtaining of suits?
FALSTAFF Yea, for obtaining of suits, whereof the hangman
hath no lean wardrobe. ’Sblood, I am as
melancholy as a gib cat or a lugged bear.

---

PRINCE Or an old lion, or a lover’s lute.
FALSTAFF Yea, or the drone of a Lincolnshire bagpipe.
PRINCE What sayest thou to a hare, or the melancholy
of Moorditch?
FALSTAFF Thou hast the most unsavory similes , and
art indeed the most comparative, rascaliest, sweet
young prince. But, Hal, I prithee trouble me no
more with vanity. I would to God thou and I knew
where a commodity of good names were to be
bought. An old lord of the council rated me the
other day in the street about you, sir, but I marked
him not, and yet he talked very wisely, but I
regarded him not, and yet he talked wisely, and in
the street, too.
PRINCE Thou didst well, for wisdom cries out in the
streets and no man regards it.
FALSTAFF O, thou hast damnable iteration, and art
indeed able to corrupt a saint. Thou hast done
much harm upon me, Hal, God forgive thee for it.
Before I knew thee, Hal, I knew nothing, and now
am I, if a man should speak truly, little better than
one of the wicked. I must give over this life, and I
will give it over. By the Lord, an I do not, I am a
villain. I’ll be damned for never a king’s son in
Christendom.
PRINCE Where shall we take a purse tomorrow, Jack?
FALSTAFF Zounds, where thou wilt, lad. I’ll make one.
An I do not, call me villain and baffle me.
PRINCE I see a good amendment of life in thee, from
praying to purse-taking.
FALSTAFF Why, Hal, ’tis my vocation, Hal. ’Tis no sin
for a man to labor in his vocation.

Enter Poins.

Poins!—Now shall we know if Gadshill have set a
match. O, if men were to be saved by merit, what

---

hole in hell were hot enough for him? This is the
most omnipotent villain that ever cried “Stand!” to
a true man.
PRINCE Good morrow, Ned.
POINS Good morrow, sweet Hal.—What says Monsieur
Remorse? What says Sir John Sack-and-Sugar?
Jack, how agrees the devil and thee about
thy soul that thou soldest him on Good Friday last
for a cup of Madeira and a cold capon’s leg?
PRINCE Sir John stands to his word. The devil shall
have his bargain, for he was never yet a breaker of
proverbs. He will give the devil his due.
POINS , to Falstaff Then art thou damned for keeping
thy word with the devil.
PRINCE Else he had been damned for cozening the
devil.
POINS But, my lads, my lads, tomorrow morning, by
four o’clock early at Gad’s Hill, there are pilgrims
going to Canterbury with rich offerings, and traders
riding to London with fat purses. I have vizards for
you all. You have horses for yourselves. Gadshill lies
tonight in Rochester. I have bespoke supper tomorrow
night in Eastcheap. We may do it as secure as
sleep. If you will go, I will stuff your purses full of
crowns. If you will not, tarry at home and be
hanged.
FALSTAFF Hear you, Yedward, if I tarry at home and
go not, I’ll hang you for going.
POINS You will, chops?
FALSTAFF Hal, wilt thou make one?
PRINCE Who, I rob? I a thief? Not I, by my faith.
FALSTAFF There’s neither honesty, manhood, nor
good fellowship in thee, nor thou cam’st not of
the blood royal, if thou darest not stand for ten
shillings.
PRINCE Well then, once in my days I’ll be a madcap.
FALSTAFF Why, that’s well said.

---

PRINCE Well, come what will, I’ll tarry at home.
FALSTAFF By the Lord, I’ll be a traitor then when thou
art king.
PRINCE I care not.
POINS Sir John, I prithee leave the Prince and me
alone. I will lay him down such reasons for this
adventure that he shall go.
FALSTAFF Well, God give thee the spirit of persuasion,
and him the ears of profiting, that what thou
speakest may move, and what he hears may be
believed, that the true prince may, for recreation
sake, prove a false thief, for the poor abuses of the
time want countenance. Farewell. You shall find me
in Eastcheap.
PRINCE Farewell, thou latter spring. Farewell, Allhallown
summer. Falstaff exits.
POINS Now, my good sweet honey lord, ride with us
tomorrow. I have a jest to execute that I cannot
manage alone. Falstaff, Peto , Bardolph, and Gadshill
shall rob those men that we have already
waylaid. Yourself and I will not be there. And when
they have the booty, if you and I do not rob them,
cut this head off from my shoulders.
PRINCE How shall we part with them in setting forth?
POINS Why, we will set forth before or after them, and
appoint them a place of meeting, wherein it is at our
pleasure to fail; and then will they adventure upon
the exploit themselves, which they shall have no
sooner achieved but we’ll set upon them.
PRINCE Yea, but ’tis like that they will know us by our
horses, by our habits, and by every other appointment
to be ourselves.
POINS Tut, our horses they shall not see; I’ll tie them
in the wood. Our vizards we will change after we
leave them. And, sirrah, I have cases of buckram
for the nonce, to immask our noted outward
garments.

---

PRINCE Yea, but I doubt they will be too hard for us.
POINS Well, for two of them, I know them to be as
true-bred cowards as ever turned back; and for the
third, if he fight longer than he sees reason, I’ll
forswear arms. The virtue of this jest will be the
incomprehensible lies that this same fat rogue will
tell us when we meet at supper: how thirty at least
he fought with, what wards, what blows, what
extremities he endured; and in the reproof of this
lives the jest.
PRINCE Well, I’ll go with thee. Provide us all things
necessary and meet me tomorrow night in Eastcheap.
There I’ll sup. Farewell.
POINS Farewell, my lord. Poins exits.
PRINCE
I know you all, and will awhile uphold
The unyoked humor of your idleness.
Yet herein will I imitate the sun,
Who doth permit the base contagious clouds
To smother up his beauty from the world,
That, when he please again to be himself,
Being wanted, he may be more wondered at
By breaking through the foul and ugly mists
Of vapors that did seem to strangle him.
If all the year were playing holidays,
To sport would be as tedious as to work,
But when they seldom come, they wished-for come,
And nothing pleaseth but rare accidents.
So when this loose behavior I throw off
And pay the debt I never promisèd,
By how much better than my word I am,
By so much shall I falsify men’s hopes;
And, like bright metal on a sullen ground,
My reformation, glitt’ring o’er my fault,
Shall show more goodly and attract more eyes
Than that which hath no foil to set it off.

---

I’ll so offend to make offense a skill,
Redeeming time when men think least I will.
He exits.

Enter the King, Northumberland, Worcester, Hotspur,
and Sir Walter Blunt, with others.

KING , to Northumberland, Worcester, and Hotspur
My blood hath been too cold and temperate,
Unapt to stir at these indignities,
And you have found me, for accordingly
You tread upon my patience. But be sure
I will from henceforth rather be myself,
Mighty and to be feared, than my condition,
Which hath been smooth as oil, soft as young down,
And therefore lost that title of respect
Which the proud soul ne’er pays but to the proud.
WORCESTER
Our house, my sovereign liege, little deserves
The scourge of greatness to be used on it,
And that same greatness too which our own hands
Have holp to make so portly.
NORTHUMBERLAND My lord—
KING
Worcester, get thee gone, for I do see
Danger and disobedience in thine eye.
O sir, your presence is too bold and peremptory,
And majesty might never yet endure
The moody frontier of a servant brow.
You have good leave to leave us. When we need
Your use and counsel, we shall send for you.
Worcester exits.
You were about to speak.
NORTHUMBERLAND Yea, my good lord.

---

Those prisoners in your Highness’ name demanded,
Which Harry Percy here at Holmedon took,
Were, as he says, not with such strength denied
As is delivered to your Majesty.
Either envy, therefore, or misprision
Is guilty of this fault, and not my son.
HOTSPUR
My liege, I did deny no prisoners.
But I remember, when the fight was done,
When I was dry with rage and extreme toil,
Breathless and faint, leaning upon my sword,
Came there a certain lord, neat and trimly dressed,
Fresh as a bridegroom, and his chin new reaped
Showed like a stubble land at harvest home.
He was perfumèd like a milliner,
And ’twixt his finger and his thumb he held
A pouncet box, which ever and anon
He gave his nose and took ’t away again,
Who therewith angry, when it next came there,
Took it in snuff; and still he smiled and talked.
And as the soldiers bore dead bodies by,
He called them untaught knaves, unmannerly,
To bring a slovenly unhandsome corse
Betwixt the wind and his nobility.
With many holiday and lady terms
He questioned me, amongst the rest demanded
My prisoners in your Majesty’s behalf.
I then, all smarting with my wounds being cold,
To be so pestered with a popinjay,
Out of my grief and my impatience
Answered neglectingly I know not what—
He should, or he should not; for he made me mad
To see him shine so brisk and smell so sweet
And talk so like a waiting-gentlewoman
Of guns, and drums, and wounds—God save the
mark!—

---

And telling me the sovereignest thing on Earth
Was parmacety for an inward bruise,
And that it was great pity, so it was,
This villainous saltpeter should be digged
Out of the bowels of the harmless Earth,
Which many a good tall fellow had destroyed
So cowardly, and but for these vile guns
He would himself have been a soldier.
This bald unjointed chat of his, my lord,
I answered indirectly, as I said,
And I beseech you, let not his report
Come current for an accusation
Betwixt my love and your high Majesty.
BLUNT
The circumstance considered, good my lord,
Whate’er Lord Harry Percy then had said
To such a person and in such a place,
At such a time, with all the rest retold,
May reasonably die and never rise
To do him wrong or any way impeach
What then he said, so he unsay it now.
KING
Why, yet he doth deny his prisoners,
But with proviso and exception
That we at our own charge shall ransom straight
His brother-in-law, the foolish Mortimer,
Who, on my soul, hath willfully betrayed
The lives of those that he did lead to fight
Against that great magician, damned Glendower,
Whose daughter, as we hear, that Earl of March
Hath lately married. Shall our coffers then
Be emptied to redeem a traitor home?
Shall we buy treason and indent with fears
When they have lost and forfeited themselves?
No, on the barren mountains let him starve,
For I shall never hold that man my friend

---

Whose tongue shall ask me for one penny cost
To ransom home revolted Mortimer.
HOTSPUR Revolted Mortimer!
He never did fall off, my sovereign liege,
But by the chance of war. To prove that true
Needs no more but one tongue for all those wounds,
Those mouthèd wounds, which valiantly he took
When on the gentle Severn’s sedgy bank
In single opposition hand to hand
He did confound the best part of an hour
In changing hardiment with great Glendower.
Three times they breathed, and three times did they
drink,
Upon agreement, of swift Severn’s flood,
Who then, affrighted with their bloody looks,
Ran fearfully among the trembling reeds
And hid his crisp head in the hollow bank,
Blood-stainèd with these valiant combatants.
Never did bare and rotten policy
Color her working with such deadly wounds,
Nor never could the noble Mortimer
Receive so many, and all willingly.
Then let not him be slandered with revolt.
KING
Thou dost belie him, Percy; thou dost belie him.
He never did encounter with Glendower.
I tell thee, he durst as well have met the devil alone
As Owen Glendower for an enemy.
Art thou not ashamed? But, sirrah, henceforth
Let me not hear you speak of Mortimer.
Send me your prisoners with the speediest means,
Or you shall hear in such a kind from me
As will displease you.—My lord Northumberland,
We license your departure with your son.—
Send us your prisoners, or you will hear of it.
King exits with Blunt and others.

---

HOTSPUR
An if the devil come and roar for them,
I will not send them. I will after straight
And tell him so, for I will ease my heart,
Albeit I make a hazard of my head.
NORTHUMBERLAND
What, drunk with choler? Stay and pause awhile.
Here comes your uncle.

Enter Worcester.

HOTSPUR Speak of Mortimer?
Zounds, I will speak of him, and let my soul
Want mercy if I do not join with him.
Yea, on his part I’ll empty all these veins
And shed my dear blood drop by drop in the dust,
But I will lift the downtrod Mortimer
As high in the air as this unthankful king,
As this ingrate and cankered Bolingbroke.
NORTHUMBERLAND
Brother, the King hath made your nephew mad.
WORCESTER
Who struck this heat up after I was gone?
HOTSPUR
He will forsooth have all my prisoners,
And when I urged the ransom once again
Of my wife’s brother, then his cheek looked pale,
And on my face he turned an eye of death,
Trembling even at the name of Mortimer.
WORCESTER
I cannot blame him. Was not he proclaimed
By Richard, that dead is, the next of blood?
NORTHUMBERLAND
He was; I heard the proclamation.
And then it was when the unhappy king—
Whose wrongs in us God pardon!—did set forth
Upon his Irish expedition;

---

From whence he, intercepted, did return
To be deposed and shortly murderèd.
WORCESTER
And for whose death we in the world’s wide mouth
Live scandalized and foully spoken of.
HOTSPUR
But soft, I pray you. Did King Richard then
Proclaim my brother Edmund Mortimer
Heir to the crown?
NORTHUMBERLAND He did; myself did hear it.
HOTSPUR
Nay then, I cannot blame his cousin king
That wished him on the barren mountains starve.
But shall it be that you that set the crown
Upon the head of this forgetful man
And for his sake wear the detested blot
Of murderous subornation—shall it be
That you a world of curses undergo,
Being the agents or base second means,
The cords, the ladder, or the hangman rather?
O, pardon me that I descend so low
To show the line and the predicament
Wherein you range under this subtle king.
Shall it for shame be spoken in these days,
Or fill up chronicles in time to come,
That men of your nobility and power
Did gage them both in an unjust behalf
(As both of you, God pardon it, have done)
To put down Richard, that sweet lovely rose,
And plant this thorn, this canker, Bolingbroke?
And shall it in more shame be further spoken
That you are fooled, discarded, and shook off
By him for whom these shames you underwent?
No, yet time serves wherein you may redeem
Your banished honors and restore yourselves
Into the good thoughts of the world again,

---

Revenge the jeering and disdained contempt
Of this proud king, who studies day and night
To answer all the debt he owes to you
Even with the bloody payment of your deaths.
Therefore I say—
WORCESTER Peace, cousin, say no more.
And now I will unclasp a secret book,
And to your quick-conceiving discontents
I’ll read you matter deep and dangerous,
As full of peril and adventurous spirit
As to o’erwalk a current roaring loud
On the unsteadfast footing of a spear.
HOTSPUR
If he fall in, good night, or sink or swim!
Send danger from the east unto the west,
So honor cross it from the north to south,
And let them grapple. O, the blood more stirs
To rouse a lion than to start a hare!
NORTHUMBERLAND , to Worcester
Imagination of some great exploit
Drives him beyond the bounds of patience.
HOTSPUR
By heaven, methinks it were an easy leap
To pluck bright honor from the pale-faced moon,
Or dive into the bottom of the deep,
Where fathom line could never touch the ground,
And pluck up drownèd honor by the locks,
So he that doth redeem her thence might wear
Without corrival all her dignities.
But out upon this half-faced fellowship!
WORCESTER
He apprehends a world of figures here,
But not the form of what he should attend.—
Good cousin, give me audience for a while.
HOTSPUR
I cry you mercy.

---

WORCESTER Those same noble Scots
That are your prisoners—
HOTSPUR I’ll keep them all.
By God, he shall not have a Scot of them.
No, if a Scot would save his soul, he shall not.
I’ll keep them, by this hand!
WORCESTER You start away
And lend no ear unto my purposes:
Those prisoners you shall keep—
HOTSPUR Nay, I will. That’s flat!
He said he would not ransom Mortimer,
Forbade my tongue to speak of Mortimer.
But I will find him when he lies asleep,
And in his ear I’ll hollo “Mortimer.”
Nay, I’ll have a starling shall be taught to speak
Nothing but “Mortimer,” and give it him
To keep his anger still in motion.
WORCESTER Hear you, cousin, a word.
HOTSPUR
All studies here I solemnly defy,
Save how to gall and pinch this Bolingbroke.
And that same sword-and-buckler Prince of Wales—
But that I think his father loves him not
And would be glad he met with some mischance—
I would have him poisoned with a pot of ale.
WORCESTER
Farewell, kinsman. I’ll talk to you
When you are better tempered to attend.
NORTHUMBERLAND , to Hotspur
Why, what a wasp-stung and impatient fool
Art thou to break into this woman’s mood,
Tying thine ear to no tongue but thine own!
HOTSPUR
Why, look you, I am whipped and scourged with
rods,
Nettled and stung with pismires, when I hear

---

Of this vile politician, Bolingbroke.
In Richard’s time—what do you call the place?
A plague upon it! It is in Gloucestershire.
’Twas where the madcap duke his uncle kept,
His uncle York, where I first bowed my knee
Unto this king of smiles, this Bolingbroke.
’Sblood, when you and he came back from
Ravenspurgh.
NORTHUMBERLAND At Berkeley Castle.
HOTSPUR You say true.
Why, what a candy deal of courtesy
This fawning greyhound then did proffer me:
“Look when his infant fortune came to age,”
And “gentle Harry Percy,” and “kind cousin.”
O, the devil take such cozeners!—God forgive me!
Good uncle, tell your tale. I have done.
WORCESTER
Nay, if you have not, to it again.
We will stay your leisure.
HOTSPUR I have done, i’ faith.
WORCESTER
Then once more to your Scottish prisoners:
Deliver them up without their ransom straight,
And make the Douglas’ son your only mean
For powers in Scotland, which, for divers reasons
Which I shall send you written, be assured
Will easily be granted.—You, my lord,
Your son in Scotland being thus employed,
Shall secretly into the bosom creep
Of that same noble prelate well beloved,
The Archbishop.
HOTSPUR Of York, is it not?
WORCESTER True, who bears hard
His brother’s death at Bristol, the Lord Scroop.
I speak not this in estimation,

---

As what I think might be, but what I know
Is ruminated, plotted, and set down,
And only stays but to behold the face
Of that occasion that shall bring it on.
HOTSPUR
I smell it. Upon my life it will do well.
NORTHUMBERLAND
Before the game is afoot thou still let’st slip.
HOTSPUR
Why, it cannot choose but be a noble plot.
And then the power of Scotland and of York
To join with Mortimer, ha?
WORCESTER And so they shall.
HOTSPUR
In faith, it is exceedingly well aimed.
WORCESTER
And ’tis no little reason bids us speed
To save our heads by raising of a head,
For bear ourselves as even as we can,
The King will always think him in our debt,
And think we think ourselves unsatisfied,
Till he hath found a time to pay us home.
And see already how he doth begin
To make us strangers to his looks of love.
HOTSPUR
He does, he does. We’ll be revenged on him.
WORCESTER
Cousin, farewell. No further go in this
Than I by letters shall direct your course.
When time is ripe, which will be suddenly,
I’ll steal to Glendower and Lord Mortimer,
Where you and Douglas and our powers at once,
As I will fashion it, shall happily meet
To bear our fortunes in our own strong arms,
Which now we hold at much uncertainty.

---

NORTHUMBERLAND
Farewell, good brother. We shall thrive, I trust.
HOTSPUR
Uncle, adieu. O, let the hours be short
Till fields and blows and groans applaud our sport.
They exit.

Enter a Carrier with a lantern in his hand.

FIRST CARRIER Heigh-ho! An it be not four by the day,
I’ll be hanged. Charles’s Wain is over the new
chimney, and yet our horse not packed.—What,
ostler!
OSTLER , within Anon, anon.
FIRST CARRIER I prithee, Tom, beat Cut’s saddle. Put a
few flocks in the point. Poor jade is wrung in the
withers out of all cess.

Enter another Carrier, with a lantern.

SECOND CARRIER Peas and beans are as dank here as a
dog, and that is the next way to give poor jades the
bots. This house is turned upside down since Robin
ostler died.
FIRST CARRIER Poor fellow never joyed since the price
of oats rose. It was the death of him.
SECOND CARRIER I think this be the most villainous
house in all London road for fleas. I am stung like a
tench.
FIRST CARRIER Like a tench? By the Mass, there is
ne’er a king christen could be better bit than I have
been since the first cock.
SECOND CARRIER Why, they will allow us ne’er a jordan,

---

and then we leak in your chimney, and your
chamber-lye breeds fleas like a loach.
FIRST CARRIER What, ostler, come away and be
hanged. Come away.
SECOND CARRIER I have a gammon of bacon and two
races of ginger to be delivered as far as Charing
Cross.
FIRST CARRIER God’s body, the turkeys in my pannier
are quite starved.—What, ostler! A plague on thee!
Hast thou never an eye in thy head? Canst not hear?
An ’twere not as good deed as drink to break the
pate on thee, I am a very villain. Come, and be
hanged. Hast no faith in thee?

Enter Gadshill.

GADSHILL Good morrow, carriers. What’s o’clock?
FIRST CARRIER I think it be two o’clock.
GADSHILL I prithee, lend me thy lantern to see my
gelding in the stable.
FIRST CARRIER Nay, by God, soft. I know a trick worth
two of that, i’ faith.
GADSHILL , to Second Carrier I pray thee, lend me
thine.
SECOND CARRIER Ay, when, canst tell? “Lend me thy
lantern,” quoth he. Marry, I’ll see thee hanged
first.
GADSHILL Sirrah carrier, what time do you mean to
come to London?
SECOND CARRIER Time enough to go to bed with a
candle, I warrant thee. Come, neighbor Mugs,
we’ll call up the gentlemen. They will along with
company, for they have great charge.
Carriers exit.
GADSHILL What ho, chamberlain!

Enter Chamberlain.

---

CHAMBERLAIN At hand, quoth pickpurse.
GADSHILL That’s even as fair as “at hand, quoth the
Chamberlain,” for thou variest no more from
picking of purses than giving direction doth from
laboring: thou layest the plot how.
CHAMBERLAIN Good morrow, Master Gadshill. It holds
current that I told you yesternight: there’s a franklin
in the Wild of Kent hath brought three hundred
marks with him in gold. I heard him tell it to one of
his company last night at supper—a kind of auditor,
one that hath abundance of charge too, God knows
what. They are up already and call for eggs and
butter. They will away presently.
GADSHILL Sirrah, if they meet not with Saint Nicholas’
clerks, I’ll give thee this neck.
CHAMBERLAIN No, I’ll none of it. I pray thee, keep that
for the hangman, for I know thou worshipest Saint
Nicholas as truly as a man of falsehood may.
GADSHILL What talkest thou to me of the hangman? If
I hang, I’ll make a fat pair of gallows, for if I hang,
old Sir John hangs with me, and thou knowest he is
no starveling. Tut, there are other Troyans that
thou dream’st not of, the which for sport sake are
content to do the profession some grace, that
would, if matters should be looked into, for their
own credit sake make all whole. I am joined with no
foot-land-rakers, no long-staff sixpenny strikers,
none of these mad mustachio purple-hued malt-worms,
but with nobility and tranquillity, burgomasters
and great oneyers, such as can hold in, such
as will strike sooner than speak, and speak sooner
than drink, and drink sooner than pray, and yet,
zounds, I lie, for they pray continually to their saint
the commonwealth, or rather not pray to her but
prey on her, for they ride up and down on her and
make her their boots.

---

CHAMBERLAIN What, the commonwealth their boots?
Will she hold out water in foul way?
GADSHILL She will, she will. Justice hath liquored her.
We steal as in a castle, cocksure. We have the
receipt of fern seed; we walk invisible.
CHAMBERLAIN Nay, by my faith, I think you are more
beholding to the night than to fern seed for your
walking invisible.
GADSHILL Give me thy hand. Thou shalt have a share in
our purchase, as I am a true man.
CHAMBERLAIN Nay, rather let me have it as you are a
false thief.
GADSHILL Go to. Homo is a common name to all men.
Bid the ostler bring my gelding out of the stable.
Farewell, you muddy knave.
They exit.

Enter Prince, Poins, Bardolph , and Peto.

POINS Come, shelter, shelter! I have removed Falstaff’s
horse, and he frets like a gummed velvet.
PRINCE Stand close. Poins , Bardolph, and Peto exit.

Enter Falstaff.

FALSTAFF Poins! Poins, and be hanged! Poins!
PRINCE Peace, you fat-kidneyed rascal. What a brawling
dost thou keep!
FALSTAFF Where’s Poins, Hal?
PRINCE He is walked up to the top of the hill. I’ll go
seek him. Prince exits.
FALSTAFF I am accursed to rob in that thief’s company.
The rascal hath removed my horse and tied him I
know not where. If I travel but four foot by the
square further afoot, I shall break my wind. Well, I

---

doubt not but to die a fair death for all this, if I
’scape hanging for killing that rogue. I have forsworn
his company hourly any time this two-and-twenty
years, and yet I am bewitched with the
rogue’s company. If the rascal have not given me
medicines to make me love him, I’ll be hanged. It
could not be else: I have drunk medicines.—Poins!
Hal! A plague upon you both.—Bardolph! Peto!—
I’ll starve ere I’ll rob a foot further. An ’twere not as
good a deed as drink to turn true man and to leave
these rogues, I am the veriest varlet that ever
chewed with a tooth. Eight yards of uneven ground
is threescore and ten miles afoot with me, and the
stony-hearted villains know it well enough. A plague
upon it when thieves cannot be true one to another!
( They whistle, within . ) Whew! A plague upon you
all!

Enter the Prince, Poins, Peto, and Bardolph.

Give me my horse, you rogues. Give me my horse
and be hanged!
PRINCE Peace, you fat guts! Lie down, lay thine ear
close to the ground, and list if thou canst hear the
tread of travelers.
FALSTAFF Have you any levers to lift me up again being
down? ’Sblood, I’ll not bear my own flesh so
far afoot again for all the coin in thy father’s Exchequer.
What a plague mean you to colt me
thus?
PRINCE Thou liest. Thou art not colted; thou art
uncolted.
FALSTAFF I prithee, good Prince Hal, help me to my
horse, good king’s son.
PRINCE Out, you rogue! Shall I be your ostler?
FALSTAFF Hang thyself in thine own heir-apparent
garters! If I be ta’en, I’ll peach for this. An I have

---

not ballads made on you all and sung to filthy
tunes, let a cup of sack be my poison—when a jest
is so forward, and afoot too! I hate it.

Enter Gadshill.

GADSHILL Stand.
FALSTAFF So I do, against my will.
POINS O, ’tis our setter. I know his voice.
BARDOLPH What news?
GADSHILL Case you, case you. On with your vizards.
There’s money of the King’s coming down the hill.
’Tis going to the King’s Exchequer.
FALSTAFF You lie, you rogue. ’Tis going to the King’s
Tavern.
GADSHILL There’s enough to make us all.
FALSTAFF To be hanged.
PRINCE Sirs, you four shall front them in the narrow
lane. Ned Poins and I will walk lower. If they ’scape
from your encounter, then they light on us.
PETO How many be there of them?
GADSHILL Some eight or ten.
FALSTAFF Zounds, will they not rob us?
PRINCE What, a coward, Sir John Paunch?
FALSTAFF Indeed, I am not John of Gaunt, your grandfather,
but yet no coward, Hal.
PRINCE Well, we leave that to the proof.
POINS Sirrah Jack, thy horse stands behind the hedge.
When thou need’st him, there thou shalt find him.
Farewell and stand fast.
FALSTAFF Now cannot I strike him, if I should be
hanged.
PRINCE , aside to Poins Ned, where are our disguises?
POINS , aside to Prince Here, hard by. Stand close.
The Prince and Poins exit.
FALSTAFF Now, my masters, happy man be his dole,
say I. Every man to his business.
They step aside.

---

Enter the Travelers.

FIRST TRAVELER Come, neighbor, the boy shall lead
our horses down the hill. We’ll walk afoot awhile
and ease our legs.
THIEVES , advancing Stand!
TRAVELERS Jesus bless us!
FALSTAFF Strike! Down with them! Cut the villains’
throats! Ah, whoreson caterpillars, bacon-fed
knaves, they hate us youth. Down with them!
Fleece them!
TRAVELERS O, we are undone, both we and ours
forever!
FALSTAFF Hang, you gorbellied knaves! Are you undone?
No, you fat chuffs. I would your store were
here. On, bacons, on! What, you knaves, young men
must live. You are grandjurors, are you? We’ll jure
you, faith.
Here they rob them and bind them. They all exit.

Enter the Prince and Poins, disguised .

PRINCE The thieves have bound the true men. Now
could thou and I rob the thieves and go merrily to
London, it would be argument for a week, laughter
for a month, and a good jest forever.
POINS Stand close, I hear them coming.
They step aside.

Enter the Thieves again.

FALSTAFF Come, my masters, let us share, and then to
horse before day. An the Prince and Poins be not
two arrant cowards, there’s no equity stirring.
There’s no more valor in that Poins than in a wild
duck.
As they are sharing, the Prince
and Poins set upon them.

---

PRINCE Your money!
POINS Villains!
They all run away, and Falstaff, after a blow or two,
runs away too, leaving the booty behind them.
PRINCE
Got with much ease. Now merrily to horse.
The thieves are all scattered, and possessed with
fear
So strongly that they dare not meet each other.
Each takes his fellow for an officer.
Away, good Ned. Falstaff sweats to death,
And lards the lean earth as he walks along.
Were ’t not for laughing, I should pity him.
POINS How the fat rogue roared!
They exit.

Enter Hotspur alone, reading a letter.

HOTSPUR But, for mine own part, my lord, I could be
well contented to be there, in respect of the love I
bear your house. He could be contented; why is he
not, then? In respect of the love he bears our
house—he shows in this he loves his own barn
better than he loves our house. Let me see some
more. The purpose you undertake is dangerous.
Why, that’s certain. ’Tis dangerous to take a cold,
to sleep, to drink; but I tell you, my Lord Fool, out
of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
The purpose you undertake is dangerous, the friends
you have named uncertain, the time itself unsorted,
and your whole plot too light for the counterpoise
of so great an opposition. Say you so, say you so?
I say unto you again, you are a shallow, cowardly
hind, and you lie. What a lack-brain is this! By

---

the Lord, our plot is a good plot as ever was laid,
our friends true and constant—a good plot,
good friends, and full of expectation; an excellent
plot, very good friends. What a frosty-spirited
rogue is this! Why, my Lord of York commends
the plot and the general course of the action.
Zounds, an I were now by this rascal, I could brain
him with his lady’s fan. Is there not my father, my
uncle, and myself, Lord Edmund Mortimer, my
Lord of York, and Owen Glendower? Is there not
besides the Douglas? Have I not all their letters to
meet me in arms by the ninth of the next month,
and are they not some of them set forward already?
What a pagan rascal is this—an infidel! Ha, you
shall see now, in very sincerity of fear and cold
heart, will he to the King and lay open all our
proceedings. O, I could divide myself and go to
buffets for moving such a dish of skim milk with so
honorable an action! Hang him, let him tell the
King. We are prepared. I will set forward tonight.

Enter his Lady.

How now, Kate? I must leave you within these two
hours.
LADY PERCY
O my good lord, why are you thus alone?
For what offense have I this fortnight been
A banished woman from my Harry’s bed?
Tell me, sweet lord, what is ’t that takes from thee
Thy stomach, pleasure, and thy golden sleep?
Why dost thou bend thine eyes upon the earth
And start so often when thou sit’st alone?
Why hast thou lost the fresh blood in thy cheeks
And given my treasures and my rights of thee
To thick-eyed musing and curst melancholy?
In thy faint slumbers I by thee have watched,

---

And heard thee murmur tales of iron wars,
Speak terms of manage to thy bounding steed,
Cry “Courage! To the field!” And thou hast talked
Of sallies and retires, of trenches, tents,
Of palisadoes, frontiers, parapets,
Of basilisks, of cannon, culverin,
Of prisoners’ ransom, and of soldiers slain,
And all the currents of a heady fight.
Thy spirit within thee hath been so at war,
And thus hath so bestirred thee in thy sleep,
That beads of sweat have stood upon thy brow
Like bubbles in a late-disturbèd stream,
And in thy face strange motions have appeared,
Such as we see when men restrain their breath
On some great sudden hest. O, what portents are
these?
Some heavy business hath my lord in hand,
And I must know it, else he loves me not.
HOTSPUR
What, ho!

Enter a Servant.

Is Gilliams with the packet gone?
SERVANT He is, my lord, an hour ago.
HOTSPUR
Hath Butler brought those horses from the sheriff?
SERVANT
One horse, my lord, he brought even now.
HOTSPUR
What horse? A roan, a crop-ear, is it not?
SERVANT
It is, my lord.
HOTSPUR That roan shall be my throne.
Well, I will back him straight. O, Esperance!
Bid Butler lead him forth into the park.
Servant exits.

---

LADY PERCY But hear you, my lord.
HOTSPUR What say’st thou, my lady?
LADY PERCY What is it carries you away?
HOTSPUR Why, my horse, my love, my horse.
LADY PERCY Out, you mad-headed ape!
A weasel hath not such a deal of spleen
As you are tossed with. In faith,
I’ll know your business, Harry, that I will.
I fear my brother Mortimer doth stir
About his title, and hath sent for you
To line his enterprise; but if you go—
HOTSPUR
So far afoot, I shall be weary, love.
LADY PERCY
Come, come, you paraquito, answer me
Directly unto this question that I ask.
In faith, I’ll break thy little finger, Harry,
An if thou wilt not tell me all things true.
HOTSPUR Away!
Away, you trifler. Love, I love thee not.
I care not for thee, Kate. This is no world
To play with mammets and to tilt with lips.
We must have bloody noses and cracked crowns,
And pass them current too.—Gods me, my horse!—
What say’st thou, Kate? What wouldst thou have
with me?
LADY PERCY
Do you not love me? Do you not indeed?
Well, do not then, for since you love me not,
I will not love myself. Do you not love me?
Nay, tell me if you speak in jest or no.
HOTSPUR Come, wilt thou see me ride?
And when I am a-horseback I will swear
I love thee infinitely. But hark you, Kate,
I must not have you henceforth question me
Whither I go, nor reason whereabout.

---

Whither I must, I must; and to conclude
This evening must I leave you, gentle Kate.
I know you wise, but yet no farther wise
Than Harry Percy’s wife; constant you are,
But yet a woman; and for secrecy
No lady closer, for I well believe
Thou wilt not utter what thou dost not know,
And so far will I trust thee, gentle Kate.
LADY PERCY How? So far?
HOTSPUR
Not an inch further. But hark you, Kate,
Whither I go, thither shall you go too.
Today will I set forth, tomorrow you.
Will this content you, Kate?
LADY PERCY It must, of force.
They exit.

Enter Prince and Poins.

PRINCE Ned, prithee, come out of that fat room and
lend me thy hand to laugh a little.
POINS Where hast been, Hal?
PRINCE With three or four loggerheads amongst three
or fourscore hogsheads. I have sounded the very
bass string of humility. Sirrah, I am sworn brother
to a leash of drawers, and can call them all by their
Christian names, as Tom, Dick, and Francis. They
take it already upon their salvation that though I be
but Prince of Wales, yet I am the king of courtesy,
and tell me flatly I am no proud jack, like Falstaff,
but a Corinthian, a lad of mettle, a good boy—by
the Lord, so they call me—and when I am king of
England, I shall command all the good lads in
Eastcheap. They call drinking deep “dyeing scarlet,”

---

and when you breathe in your watering, they
cry “Hem!” and bid you “Play it off!” To conclude, I
am so good a proficient in one quarter of an hour
that I can drink with any tinker in his own language
during my life. I tell thee, Ned, thou hast lost much
honor that thou wert not with me in this action; but,
sweet Ned—to sweeten which name of Ned, I give
thee this pennyworth of sugar, clapped even now
into my hand by an underskinker, one that never
spake other English in his life than “Eight shillings
and sixpence,” and “You are welcome,” with this
shrill addition, “Anon, anon, sir.—Score a pint of
bastard in the Half-moon,” or so. But, Ned, to
drive away the time till Falstaff come, I prithee, do
thou stand in some by-room while I question my
puny drawer to what end he gave me the sugar, and
do thou never leave calling “Francis,” that his tale
to me may be nothing but “Anon.” Step aside, and
I’ll show thee a precedent . Poins exits.
POINS , within Francis!
PRINCE Thou art perfect.
POINS , within Francis!

Enter Francis , the Drawer.

FRANCIS Anon, anon, sir.—Look down into the Pomgarnet,
Ralph.
PRINCE Come hither, Francis.
FRANCIS My lord?
PRINCE How long hast thou to serve, Francis?
FRANCIS Forsooth, five years, and as much as to—
POINS , within Francis!
FRANCIS Anon, anon, sir.
PRINCE Five year! By ’r Lady, a long lease for the
clinking of pewter! But, Francis, darest thou be
so valiant as to play the coward with thy indenture,
and show it a fair pair of heels, and run
from it?

---

FRANCIS O Lord, sir, I’ll be sworn upon all the books
in England, I could find in my heart—
POINS , within Francis!
FRANCIS Anon, sir.
PRINCE How old art thou, Francis?
FRANCIS Let me see. About Michaelmas next, I shall
be—
POINS , within Francis!
FRANCIS Anon, sir.—Pray, stay a little, my lord.
PRINCE Nay, but hark you, Francis, for the sugar thou
gavest me—’twas a pennyworth, was ’t not?
FRANCIS O Lord, I would it had been two!
PRINCE I will give thee for it a thousand pound. Ask
me when thou wilt, and thou shalt have it.
POINS , within Francis!
FRANCIS Anon, anon.
PRINCE Anon, Francis? No, Francis. But tomorrow,
Francis; or, Francis, o’ Thursday; or indeed, Francis,
when thou wilt. But, Francis—
FRANCIS My lord?
PRINCE Wilt thou rob this leathern-jerkin, crystal-button,
not-pated, agate-ring, puke-stocking, caddis-garter,
smooth-tongue, Spanish-pouch—
FRANCIS O Lord, sir, who do you mean?
PRINCE Why then, your brown bastard is your only
drink, for look you, Francis, your white canvas
doublet will sully. In Barbary, sir, it cannot come to
so much.
FRANCIS What, sir?
POINS , within Francis!
PRINCE Away, you rogue! Dost thou not hear them
call?
Here they both call him. The Drawer stands amazed,
not knowing which way to go.

Enter Vintner.

---

VINTNER What, stand’st thou still and hear’st such a
calling? Look to the guests within. Francis exits.
My lord, old Sir John with half a dozen more are at
the door. Shall I let them in?
PRINCE Let them alone awhile, and then open the
door. Vintner exits. Poins!

Enter Poins.

POINS Anon, anon, sir.
PRINCE Sirrah, Falstaff and the rest of the thieves are
at the door. Shall we be merry?
POINS As merry as crickets, my lad. But hark you,
what cunning match have you made with this jest
of the drawer. Come, what’s the issue?
PRINCE I am now of all humors that have showed
themselves humors since the old days of Goodman
Adam to the pupil age of this present twelve
o’clock at midnight.

Enter Francis, in haste.

What’s o’clock, Francis?
FRANCIS Anon, anon, sir. Francis exits.
PRINCE That ever this fellow should have fewer words
than a parrot, and yet the son of a woman! His
industry is upstairs and downstairs, his eloquence
the parcel of a reckoning. I am not yet of Percy’s
mind, the Hotspur of the north, he that kills me
some six or seven dozen of Scots at a breakfast,
washes his hands, and says to his wife “Fie upon
this quiet life! I want work.” “O my sweet Harry,”
says she, “how many hast thou killed today?”
“Give my roan horse a drench,” says he, and answers
“Some fourteen,” an hour after. “A trifle, a
trifle.” I prithee, call in Falstaff. I’ll play Percy,
and that damned brawn shall play Dame Mortimer
his wife. “Rivo!” says the drunkard. Call in
Ribs, call in Tallow.

---

Enter Falstaff, Gadshill , Peto, Bardolph;
and Francis, with wine.

POINS Welcome, Jack. Where hast thou been?
FALSTAFF A plague of all cowards, I say, and a vengeance
too! Marry and amen!—Give me a cup of
sack, boy.—Ere I lead this life long, I’ll sew netherstocks
and mend them, and foot them too. A plague
of all cowards!—Give me a cup of sack, rogue!—Is
there no virtue extant? He drinketh.
PRINCE Didst thou never see Titan kiss a dish of
butter—pitiful-hearted Titan!—that melted at the
sweet tale of the sun’s? If thou didst, then behold
that compound.
FALSTAFF , to Francis You rogue, here’s lime in this
sack too.—There is nothing but roguery to be
found in villainous man, yet a coward is worse than
a cup of sack with lime in it. A villainous coward! Go
thy ways, old Jack. Die when thou wilt. If manhood,
good manhood, be not forgot upon the face of the
Earth, then am I a shotten herring. There lives not
three good men unhanged in England, and one of
them is fat and grows old, God help the while. A bad
world, I say. I would I were a weaver. I could sing
psalms, or anything. A plague of all cowards, I say
still.
PRINCE How now, woolsack, what mutter you?
FALSTAFF A king’s son! If I do not beat thee out of thy
kingdom with a dagger of lath, and drive all thy
subjects afore thee like a flock of wild geese, I’ll
never wear hair on my face more. You, Prince of
Wales!
PRINCE Why, you whoreson round man, what’s the
matter?
FALSTAFF Are not you a coward? Answer me to that—
and Poins there?

---

POINS Zounds, you fat paunch, an you call me coward,
by the Lord, I’ll stab thee.
FALSTAFF I call thee coward? I’ll see thee damned ere
I call thee coward, but I would give a thousand
pound I could run as fast as thou canst. You are
straight enough in the shoulders you care not who
sees your back. Call you that backing of your
friends? A plague upon such backing! Give me them
that will face me.—Give me a cup of sack.—I am a
rogue if I drunk today.
PRINCE O villain, thy lips are scarce wiped since thou
drunk’st last.
FALSTAFF All is one for that. ( He drinketh. ) A plague of
all cowards, still say I.
PRINCE What’s the matter?
FALSTAFF What’s the matter? There be four of us here
have ta’en a thousand pound this day morning.
PRINCE Where is it, Jack, where is it?
FALSTAFF Where is it? Taken from us it is. A hundred
upon poor four of us.
PRINCE What, a hundred, man?
FALSTAFF I am a rogue if I were not at half-sword
with a dozen of them two hours together. I have
’scaped by miracle. I am eight times thrust through
the doublet, four through the hose, my buckler
cut through and through, my sword hacked like
a handsaw. Ecce signum! I never dealt better since
I was a man. All would not do. A plague of
all cowards! Let them speak. Pointing to Gadshill,
Bardolph, and Peto. If they speak more or
less than truth, they are villains, and the sons of
darkness.
PRINCE Speak, sirs, how was it?
BARDOLPH We four set upon some dozen.
FALSTAFF Sixteen at least, my lord.
BARDOLPH And bound them.

---

PETO No, no, they were not bound.
FALSTAFF You rogue, they were bound, every man of
them, or I am a Jew else, an Ebrew Jew.
BARDOLPH As we were sharing, some six or seven
fresh men set upon us.
FALSTAFF And unbound the rest, and then come in the
other.
PRINCE What, fought you with them all?
FALSTAFF All? I know not what you call all, but if I
fought not with fifty of them I am a bunch of
radish. If there were not two- or three-and-fifty
upon poor old Jack, then am I no two-legged
creature.
PRINCE Pray God you have not murdered some of
them.
FALSTAFF Nay, that’s past praying for. I have peppered
two of them. Two I am sure I have paid, two rogues
in buckram suits. I tell thee what, Hal, if I tell thee a
lie, spit in my face, call me horse. Thou knowest my
old ward. Here I lay, and thus I bore my point. Four
rogues in buckram let drive at me.
PRINCE What, four? Thou said’st but two even now.
FALSTAFF Four, Hal, I told thee four.
POINS Ay, ay, he said four.
FALSTAFF These four came all afront, and mainly
thrust at me. I made me no more ado, but took all
their seven points in my target, thus.
PRINCE Seven? Why there were but four even now.
FALSTAFF In buckram?
POINS Ay, four in buckram suits.
FALSTAFF Seven by these hilts, or I am a villain else.
PRINCE , to Poins Prithee, let him alone. We shall have
more anon.
FALSTAFF Dost thou hear me, Hal?
PRINCE Ay, and mark thee too, Jack.

---

FALSTAFF Do so, for it is worth the listening to. These
nine in buckram that I told thee of—
PRINCE So, two more already.
FALSTAFF Their points being broken—
POINS Down fell their hose.
FALSTAFF Began to give me ground, but I followed me
close, came in foot and hand, and, with a thought,
seven of the eleven I paid.
PRINCE O monstrous! Eleven buckram men grown out
of two!
FALSTAFF But as the devil would have it, three misbegotten
knaves in Kendal green came at my back,
and let drive at me, for it was so dark, Hal, that thou
couldst not see thy hand.
PRINCE These lies are like their father that begets
them, gross as a mountain, open, palpable. Why,
thou claybrained guts, thou knotty-pated fool, thou
whoreson, obscene, greasy tallow-catch—
FALSTAFF What, art thou mad? Art thou mad? Is not
the truth the truth?
PRINCE Why, how couldst thou know these men in
Kendal green when it was so dark thou couldst not
see thy hand? Come, tell us your reason. What sayest
thou to this?
POINS Come, your reason, Jack, your reason.
FALSTAFF What, upon compulsion? Zounds, an I were
at the strappado or all the racks in the world, I
would not tell you on compulsion. Give you a
reason on compulsion? If reasons were as plentiful
as blackberries, I would give no man a reason upon
compulsion, I.
PRINCE I’ll be no longer guilty of this sin. This sanguine
coward, this bed-presser, this horse-backbreaker,
this huge hill of flesh—
FALSTAFF ’Sblood, you starveling, you elfskin, you
dried neat’s tongue, you bull’s pizzle, you stockfish!

---

O, for breath to utter what is like thee! You tailor’s
yard, you sheath, you bowcase, you vile standing
tuck—
PRINCE Well, breathe awhile, and then to it again, and
when thou hast tired thyself in base comparisons,
hear me speak but this.
POINS Mark, Jack.
PRINCE We two saw you four set on four, and bound
them and were masters of their wealth. Mark now
how a plain tale shall put you down. Then did we
two set on you four and, with a word, outfaced you
from your prize, and have it, yea, and can show it
you here in the house. And, Falstaff, you carried
your guts away as nimbly, with as quick dexterity,
and roared for mercy, and still run 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?
FALSTAFF By the Lord, I knew you as well as he that
made you. Why, hear you, 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 now 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, by the Lord, lads, I am glad you have the
money.—Hostess, clap to the doors.—Watch tonight,
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?

---

PRINCE Content, and the argument shall be thy running
away.
FALSTAFF Ah, no more of that, Hal, an thou lovest me.

Enter Hostess.

HOSTESS O Jesu, my lord the Prince—
PRINCE How now, my lady the hostess, what sayst thou
to me?
HOSTESS Marry, my lord, there is a nobleman of the
court at door would speak with you. He says he
comes from your father.
PRINCE Give him as much as will make him a royal
man and send him back again to my mother.
FALSTAFF What manner of man is he?
HOSTESS An old man.
FALSTAFF What doth Gravity out of his bed at midnight?
Shall I give him his answer?
PRINCE Prithee do, Jack.
FALSTAFF Faith, and I’ll send him packing. He exits.
PRINCE Now, sirs. To Gadshill. 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!
BARDOLPH Faith, I ran when I saw others run.
PRINCE Faith, 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.
BARDOLPH 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 year before: I
blushed to hear his monstrous devices.
PRINCE O villain, thou stolest a cup of sack eighteen

---

years ago, and wert taken with the manner, and ever
since thou hast blushed extempore. Thou hadst fire
and sword on thy side, and yet thou ran’st away.
What instinct hadst thou for it?
BARDOLPH My lord, do you see these meteors? Do you
behold these exhalations?
PRINCE I do.
BARDOLPH What think you they portend?
PRINCE Hot livers and cold purses.
BARDOLPH Choler, my lord, if rightly taken.
PRINCE No. If rightly taken, halter.

Enter Falstaff.

Here comes lean Jack. Here comes bare-bone.—
How now, my sweet creature of bombast? How long
is ’t ago, Jack, since thou sawest thine own knee?
FALSTAFF 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 Amamon 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 Owen Glendower.
FALSTAFF Owen, Owen, the same, and his son-in-law
Mortimer, and old Northumberland, and that
sprightly Scot of Scots, Douglas, that runs a-horseback
up a hill perpendicular—
PRINCE He that rides at high speed, and with his pistol
kills a sparrow flying.
FALSTAFF You have hit it.
PRINCE So did he never the sparrow.

---

FALSTAFF Well, that rascal hath good mettle in him. He
will not run.
PRINCE Why, what a rascal art thou then to praise him
so for running?
FALSTAFF A-horseback, you cuckoo, but afoot he will
not budge a foot.
PRINCE Yes, Jack, upon instinct.
FALSTAFF I grant you, upon instinct. Well, he is there
too, and one Mordake, and a thousand blue-caps
more. Worcester is stolen away tonight. Thy father’s
beard is turned white with the news. You may buy
land now as cheap as stinking mackerel.
PRINCE Why then, it is like if there come a hot June,
and this civil buffeting hold, we shall buy maidenheads
as they buy hobnails, by the hundreds.
FALSTAFF By the Mass, thou sayest true. It is like we
shall have good trading that way. But tell me, Hal,
art not thou horrible 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?
PRINCE Not a whit, i’ faith. I lack some of thy instinct.
FALSTAFF Well, thou wilt be horribly chid tomorrow
when thou comest to thy father. If thou love me,
practice an answer.
PRINCE Do thou stand for my father and examine me
upon the particulars of my life.
FALSTAFF Shall I? Content. He sits down. This chair
shall be my state, this dagger my scepter, and this
cushion my crown.
PRINCE Thy state is taken for a joined stool, thy golden
scepter for a leaden dagger, and thy precious rich
crown for a pitiful bald crown.
FALSTAFF 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 my 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.
PRINCE , bowing Well, here is my leg.
FALSTAFF And here is my speech. As King. Stand
aside, nobility.
HOSTESS O Jesu, this is excellent sport, i’ faith!
FALSTAFF , as King
Weep not, sweet queen, for trickling tears are vain.
HOSTESS O the Father, how he holds his countenance!
FALSTAFF , as King
For God’s sake, lords, convey my tristful queen,
For tears do stop the floodgates of her eyes.
HOSTESS O Jesu, he doth it as like one of these harlotry
players as ever I see.
FALSTAFF Peace, good pint-pot. Peace, good tickle-brain.—
As King. 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 on, the faster it grows, so 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 lies 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 hast
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.
PRINCE What manner of man, an it like your Majesty?
FALSTAFF , as King A goodly 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 deceiveth 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?
PRINCE Dost thou speak like a king? Do thou stand for
me, and I’ll play my father.
FALSTAFF , rising 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.
PRINCE , sitting down Well, here I am set.
FALSTAFF And here I stand.—Judge, my masters.
PRINCE , as King Now, Harry, whence come you?
FALSTAFF , as Prince My noble lord, from Eastcheap.
PRINCE , as King The complaints I hear of thee are
grievous.
FALSTAFF , as Prince ’Sblood, my lord, they are false.
—Nay, I’ll tickle you for a young prince, i’ faith.
PRINCE , as King 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 an old fat man. A tun of man
is thy companion. Why dost thou converse with that
trunk of humors, that bolting-hutch of beastliness,

---

that swollen parcel of dropsies, that huge bombard
of sack, that stuffed cloakbag of guts, that roasted
Manningtree ox with the pudding in his belly, that
reverend Vice, that gray iniquity, that 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?
FALSTAFF , as Prince I would your Grace would take
me with you. Whom means your Grace?
PRINCE , as King That villainous abominable misleader
of youth, Falstaff, that old white-bearded Satan.
FALSTAFF , as Prince My lord, the man I know.
PRINCE , as King I know thou dost.
FALSTAFF , as Prince 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, God 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 not him thy
Harry’s company. Banish plump Jack, and banish
all the world.
PRINCE I do, I will.
A loud knocking, and Bardolph, Hostess, and
Francis exit.

---

Enter Bardolph running.

BARDOLPH O my lord, my lord, the Sheriff with a most
monstrous watch is at the door.
FALSTAFF Out, you rogue.—Play out the play. I have
much to say in the behalf of that Falstaff.

Enter the Hostess.

HOSTESS O Jesu, my lord, my lord—
PRINCE Heigh, heigh, the devil rides upon a fiddlestick.
What’s the matter?
HOSTESS The Sheriff and all the watch are at the door.
They are come to search the house. Shall I let them
in?
FALSTAFF Dost thou hear, Hal? Never call a true piece
of gold a counterfeit. Thou art essentially made
without seeming so.
PRINCE And thou a natural coward without instinct.
FALSTAFF I deny your major. If you will deny the
Sheriff, so; if not, let him enter. If I 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.
PRINCE , standing Go hide thee behind the arras. The
rest walk up above.—Now, my masters, for a true
face and good conscience.
FALSTAFF Both which I have had, but their date is out;
and therefore I’ll hide me. He hides.
PRINCE Call in the Sheriff.
All but the Prince and Peto exit.

Enter Sheriff and the Carrier.

PRINCE
Now, Master Sheriff, what is your will with me?
SHERIFF
First pardon me, my lord. A hue and cry
Hath followed certain men unto this house.

---

PRINCE What men?
SHERIFF
One of them is well known, my gracious lord.
A gross fat man.
CARRIER As fat as butter.
PRINCE
The man I do assure you is not here,
For I myself at this time have employed him.
And, sheriff, I will engage my word to thee
That I will by tomorrow dinner time
Send him to answer thee or any man
For anything he shall be charged withal.
And so let me entreat you leave the house.
SHERIFF
I will, my lord. There are two gentlemen
Have in this robbery lost three hundred marks.
PRINCE
It may be so. If he have robbed these men,
He shall be answerable; and so farewell.
SHERIFF Good night, my noble lord.
PRINCE
I think it is good morrow, is it not?
SHERIFF
Indeed, my lord, I think it be two o’clock.
He exits with the Carrier.
PRINCE This oily rascal is known as well as Paul’s. Go
call him forth.
PETO Falstaff!—Fast asleep behind the arras, and
snorting like a horse.
PRINCE Hark, how hard he fetches breath. Search his
pockets. ( He searcheth his pocket, and findeth certain
papers. ) What hast thou found?
PETO Nothing but papers, my lord.
PRINCE Let’s see what they be. Read them.
PETO reads
Item, a capon,…2s. 2d.

---

107

Henry IV, Part I

ACT 2. SC. 4

Item, sauce,…4d.
Item, sack, two gallons,…5s. 8d.
Item, anchovies and sack after supper,…2s. 6d.
Item, bread,…ob.
PRINCE 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 honorable. 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, Peto.
PETO Good morrow, good my lord.
They exit.

Enter Hotspur, Worcester, Lord Mortimer, and Owen
Glendower.

MORTIMER
These promises are fair, the parties sure,
And our induction full of prosperous hope.
HOTSPUR
Lord Mortimer and cousin Glendower,
Will you sit down? And uncle Worcester—
A plague upon it, I have forgot the map.
GLENDOWER
No, here it is. 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.
HOTSPUR And you in hell,
As oft as he hears Owen Glendower spoke of.
GLENDOWER
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
Shaked like a coward.
HOTSPUR Why, so it would have done

---

At the same season if your mother’s cat
Had but kittened, though yourself had never been
born.
GLENDOWER
I say the Earth did shake when I was born.
HOTSPUR
And I say the Earth was not of my mind,
If you suppose as fearing you it shook.
GLENDOWER
The heavens were all on fire; the Earth did tremble.
HOTSPUR
O, then the Earth shook to see the heavens on fire,
And not in fear of your nativity.
Diseasèd nature oftentimes breaks forth
In strange eruptions; oft the teeming Earth
Is with a kind of colic pinched and vexed
By the imprisoning of unruly wind
Within her womb, which, for enlargement striving,
Shakes the old beldam Earth and topples down
Steeples and moss-grown towers. At your birth
Our grandam Earth, having this distemp’rature,
In passion shook.
GLENDOWER Cousin, of many men
I do not bear these crossings. Give me leave
To tell you once again that at my birth
The front of heaven was full of fiery shapes,
The goats ran from the mountains, and the herds
Were strangely clamorous to the frighted fields.
These signs have marked me extraordinary,
And all the courses of my life do show
I am not in the roll of common men.
Where is he living, clipped 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.

---

HOTSPUR
I think there’s no man speaks better Welsh.
I’ll to dinner.
MORTIMER
Peace, cousin Percy. You will make him mad.
GLENDOWER
I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
HOTSPUR
Why, so can I, or so can any man,
But will they come when you do call for them?
GLENDOWER
Why, I can teach you, cousin, to command the
devil.
HOTSPUR
And I can teach thee, coz, to shame the devil
By telling truth. Tell truth and shame the devil.
If thou have power to raise him, bring him hither,
And I’ll be sworn I have power to shame him
hence.
O, while you live, tell truth and shame the devil!
MORTIMER
Come, come, no more of this unprofitable chat.
GLENDOWER
Three times hath Henry Bolingbroke made head
Against my power; thrice from the banks of Wye
And sandy-bottomed Severn have I sent him
Bootless home and weather-beaten back.
HOTSPUR
Home without boots, and in foul weather too!
How ’scapes he agues, in the devil’s name?
GLENDOWER
Come, here is the map. Shall we divide our right
According to our threefold order ta’en?
MORTIMER
The Archdeacon hath divided it
Into three limits very equally:

---

England, from Trent and Severn hitherto,
By south and east is to my part assigned;
All westward, Wales beyond the Severn shore,
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,
Which being sealèd interchangeably—
A business that this night may execute—
Tomorrow, cousin Percy, you and I
And my good Lord of Worcester will set forth
To meet your father and the Scottish power,
As is appointed us, at Shrewsbury.
My father Glendower is not ready yet,
Nor shall we need his help these fourteen days.
To Glendower. Within that space you may have
drawn together
Your tenants, friends, and neighboring gentlemen.
GLENDOWER
A shorter time shall send me to you, lords,
And in my conduct shall your ladies come,
From whom you now must steal and take no leave,
For there will be a world of water shed
Upon the parting of your wives and you.
HOTSPUR , looking at the map
Methinks my moiety, north from Burton here,
In quantity equals not one of yours.
See how this river comes me cranking in
And cuts me from the best of all my land
A huge half-moon, a monstrous cantle out.
I’ll have the current in this place dammed up,
And here the smug and silver Trent shall run
In a new channel, fair and evenly.
It shall not wind with such a deep indent
To rob me of so rich a bottom here.

---

GLENDOWER
Not wind? It shall, it must. You see it doth.
MORTIMER , to Hotspur
Yea, but mark how he bears his course, and runs
me up
With like advantage on the other side,
Gelding the opposèd continent as much
As on the other side it takes from you.
WORCESTER
Yea, but a little charge will trench him here
And on this north side win this cape of land,
And then he runs straight and even.
HOTSPUR
I’ll have it so. A little charge will do it.
GLENDOWER I’ll not have it altered.
HOTSPUR Will not you?
GLENDOWER No, nor you shall not.
HOTSPUR Who shall say me nay?
GLENDOWER Why, that will I.
HOTSPUR
Let me not understand you, then; speak it in Welsh.
GLENDOWER
I can speak English, lord, as well as you,
For I was trained up in the English court,
Where being but young I framèd to the harp
Many an English ditty lovely well
And gave the tongue a helpful ornament—
A virtue that was never seen in you.
HOTSPUR
Marry, and I am glad of it with all my heart.
I had rather be a kitten and cry “mew”
Than one of these same meter balladmongers.
I had rather hear a brazen can’stick turned,
Or a dry wheel grate on the axletree,
And that would set my teeth nothing an edge,
Nothing so much as mincing poetry.
’Tis like the forced gait of a shuffling nag.

---

GLENDOWER Come, you shall have Trent turned.
HOTSPUR
I do not care. I’ll give thrice so much land
To any well-deserving friend;
But in the way of bargain, mark you me,
I’ll cavil on the ninth part of a hair.
Are the indentures drawn? Shall we be gone?
GLENDOWER
The moon shines fair. You may away by night.
I’ll haste the writer, and withal
Break with your wives of your departure hence.
I am afraid my daughter will run mad,
So much she doteth on her Mortimer. He exits.
MORTIMER
Fie, cousin Percy, how you cross my father!
HOTSPUR
I cannot choose. Sometime he angers me
With telling me of the moldwarp and the ant,
Of the dreamer Merlin and his prophecies,
And of a dragon and a finless fish,
A clip-winged griffin and a moulten raven,
A couching lion and a ramping cat,
And such a deal of skimble-skamble stuff
As puts me from my faith. I tell you what—
He held me last night at least nine hours
In reckoning up the several devils’ names
That were his lackeys. I cried “Hum,” and “Well, go
to,”
But marked him not a word. O, he is as tedious
As a tired horse, a railing wife,
Worse than a smoky house. I had rather live
With cheese and garlic in a windmill, far,
Than feed on cates and have him talk to me
In any summer house in Christendom.
MORTIMER
In faith, he is a worthy gentleman,

---

Exceedingly well read and profited
In strange concealments, valiant as a lion,
And wondrous affable, and as bountiful
As mines of India. Shall I tell you, cousin?
He holds your temper in a high respect
And curbs himself even of his natural scope
When you come cross his humor. Faith, he does.
I warrant you that man is not alive
Might so have tempted him as you have done
Without the taste of danger and reproof.
But do not use it oft, let me entreat you.
WORCESTER , to Hotspur
In faith, my lord, you are too willful-blame,
And, since your coming hither, have done enough
To put him quite besides his patience.
You must needs learn, lord, to amend this fault.
Though sometimes it show greatness, courage,
blood—
And that’s the dearest grace it renders you—
Yet oftentimes it doth present harsh rage,
Defect of manners, want of government,
Pride, haughtiness, opinion, and disdain,
The least of which, haunting a nobleman,
Loseth men’s hearts and leaves behind a stain
Upon the beauty of all parts besides,
Beguiling them of commendation.
HOTSPUR
Well, I am schooled. Good manners be your speed!
Here come our wives, and let us take our leave.

Enter Glendower with the Ladies.

MORTIMER
This is the deadly spite that angers me:
My wife can speak no English, I no Welsh.
GLENDOWER
My daughter weeps; she’ll not part with you.
She’ll be a soldier too, she’ll to the wars.

---

MORTIMER
Good father, tell her that she and my aunt Percy
Shall follow in your conduct speedily.
Glendower speaks to her in Welsh,
and she answers him in the same.
GLENDOWER
She is desperate here, a peevish self-willed harlotry,
One that no persuasion can do good upon.
The Lady speaks in Welsh.
MORTIMER
I understand thy looks. That pretty Welsh
Which thou pourest down from these swelling
heavens
I am too perfect in, and but for shame
In such a parley should I answer thee.
The Lady speaks again in Welsh. They kiss.
I understand thy kisses, and thou mine,
And that’s a feeling disputation;
But I will never be a truant, love,
Till I have learned thy language; for thy tongue
Makes Welsh as sweet as ditties highly penned,
Sung by a fair queen in a summer’s bower,
With ravishing division, to her lute.
GLENDOWER
Nay, if you melt, then will she run mad.
The Lady speaks again in Welsh.
MORTIMER
O, I am ignorance itself in this!
GLENDOWER
She bids you on the wanton rushes lay you down
And rest your gentle head upon her lap,
And she will sing the song that pleaseth you,
And on your eyelids crown the god of sleep,
Charming your blood with pleasing heaviness,
Making such difference ’twixt wake and sleep
As is the difference betwixt day and night

---

The hour before the heavenly harnessed team
Begins his golden progress in the east.
MORTIMER
With all my heart I’ll sit and hear her sing.
By that time will our book, I think, be drawn.
GLENDOWER
Do so, and those musicians that shall play to you
Hang in the air a thousand leagues from hence,
And straight they shall be here. Sit and attend.
HOTSPUR
Come, Kate, thou art perfect in lying down.
Come, quick, quick, that I may lay my head in thy
lap.
LADY PERCY Go, you giddy goose.
The music plays.
HOTSPUR
Now I perceive the devil understands Welsh,
And ’tis no marvel he is so humorous.
By ’r Lady, he is a good musician.
LADY PERCY Then should you be nothing but musical,
for you are altogether governed by humors. Lie
still, you thief, and hear the lady sing in Welsh.
HOTSPUR I had rather hear Lady, my brach, howl in
Irish.
LADY PERCY Wouldst thou have thy head broken?
HOTSPUR No.
LADY PERCY Then be still.
HOTSPUR Neither; ’tis a woman’s fault.
LADY PERCY Now God help thee!
HOTSPUR To the Welsh lady’s bed.
LADY PERCY What’s that?
HOTSPUR Peace, she sings.
Here the Lady sings a Welsh song.
HOTSPUR Come, Kate, I’ll have your song too.
LADY PERCY Not mine, in good sooth.
HOTSPUR Not yours, in good sooth! Heart, you swear

---

like a comfit-maker’s wife! “Not you, in good
sooth,” and “as true as I live,” and “as God shall
mend me,” and “as sure as day”—
And givest such sarcenet surety for thy oaths
As if thou never walk’st further than Finsbury.
Swear me, Kate, like a lady as thou art,
A good mouth-filling oath, and leave “in sooth,”
And such protest of pepper-gingerbread
To velvet-guards and Sunday citizens.
Come, sing.
LADY PERCY I will not sing.
HOTSPUR ’Tis the next way to turn tailor, or be redbreast
teacher. An the indentures be drawn, I’ll
away within these two hours, and so come in when
you will. He exits.
GLENDOWER
Come, come, Lord Mortimer, you are as slow
As hot Lord Percy is on fire to go.
By this our book is drawn. We’ll but seal,
And then to horse immediately.
MORTIMER With all my heart.
They exit.

Enter the King, Prince of Wales, and others.

KING
Lords, give us leave; the Prince of Wales and I
Must have some private conference, but be near at
hand,
For we shall presently have need of you.
Lords exit.
I know not whether God will have it so
For some displeasing service I have done,
That, in His secret doom, out of my blood

---

He’ll breed revengement and a scourge for me.
But thou dost in thy passages of life
Make me believe that thou art only marked
For the hot vengeance and the rod of heaven
To punish my mistreadings. Tell me else,
Could such inordinate and low desires,
Such poor, such bare, such lewd, such mean
attempts,
Such barren pleasures, rude society
As thou art matched withal, and grafted to,
Accompany the greatness of thy blood,
And hold their level with thy princely heart?
PRINCE
So please your Majesty, I would I could
Quit all offenses with as clear excuse
As well as I am doubtless I can purge
Myself of many I am charged withal.
Yet such extenuation let me beg
As, in reproof of many tales devised,
Which oft the ear of greatness needs must hear,
By smiling pickthanks and base newsmongers,
I may for some things true, wherein my youth
Hath faulty wandered and irregular,
Find pardon on my true submission.
KING
God pardon thee. Yet let me wonder, Harry,
At thy affections, which do hold a wing
Quite from the flight of all thy ancestors.
Thy place in council thou hast rudely lost,
Which by thy younger brother is supplied,
And art almost an alien to the hearts
Of all the court and princes of my blood.
The hope and expectation of thy time
Is ruined, and the soul of every man
Prophetically do forethink thy fall.
Had I so lavish of my presence been,

---

So common-hackneyed in the eyes of men,
So stale and cheap to vulgar company,
Opinion, that did help me to the crown,
Had still kept loyal to possession
And left me in reputeless banishment,
A fellow of no mark nor likelihood.
By being seldom seen, I could not stir
But like a comet I was wondered at,
That men would tell their children “This is he.”
Others would say “Where? Which is Bolingbroke?”
And then I stole all courtesy from heaven,
And dressed myself in such humility
That I did pluck allegiance from men’s hearts,
Loud shouts and salutations from their mouths,
Even in the presence of the crownèd king.
Thus did I keep my person fresh and new,
My presence, like a robe pontifical,
Ne’er seen but wondered at, and so my state,
Seldom but sumptuous, showed like a feast
And won by rareness such solemnity.
The skipping king, he ambled up and down
With shallow jesters and rash bavin wits,
Soon kindled and soon burnt; carded his state,
Mingled his royalty with cap’ring fools,
Had his great name profanèd with their scorns,
And gave his countenance, against his name,
To laugh at gibing boys and stand the push
Of every beardless vain comparative;
Grew a companion to the common streets,
Enfeoffed himself to popularity,
That, being daily swallowed by men’s eyes,
They surfeited with honey and began
To loathe the taste of sweetness, whereof a little
More than a little is by much too much.
So, when he had occasion to be seen,

---

He was but as the cuckoo is in June,
Heard, not regarded; seen, but with such eyes
As, sick and blunted with community,
Afford no extraordinary gaze
Such as is bent on sunlike majesty
When it shines seldom in admiring eyes,
But rather drowsed and hung their eyelids down,
Slept in his face, and rendered such aspect
As cloudy men use to their adversaries,
Being with his presence glutted, gorged, and full.
And in that very line, Harry, standest thou,
For thou hast lost thy princely privilege
With vile participation. Not an eye
But is aweary of thy common sight,
Save mine, which hath desired to see thee more,
Which now doth that I would not have it do,
Make blind itself with foolish tenderness.
PRINCE
I shall hereafter, my thrice gracious lord,
Be more myself.
KING For all the world
As thou art to this hour was Richard then
When I from France set foot at Ravenspurgh,
And even as I was then is Percy now.
Now, by my scepter, and my soul to boot,
He hath more worthy interest to the state
Than thou, the shadow of succession.
For of no right, nor color like to right,
He doth fill fields with harness in the realm,
Turns head against the lion’s armèd jaws,
And, being no more in debt to years than thou,
Leads ancient lords and reverend bishops on
To bloody battles and to bruising arms.
What never-dying honor hath he got
Against renownèd Douglas, whose high deeds,
Whose hot incursions and great name in arms,

---

Holds from all soldiers chief majority
And military title capital
Through all the kingdoms that acknowledge Christ.
Thrice hath this Hotspur, Mars in swaddling
clothes,
This infant warrior, in his enterprises
Discomfited great Douglas, ta’en him once,
Enlargèd him, and made a friend of him,
To fill the mouth of deep defiance up
And shake the peace and safety of our throne.
And what say you to this? Percy, Northumberland,
The Archbishop’s Grace of York, Douglas,
Mortimer,
Capitulate against us and are up.
But wherefore do I tell these news to thee?
Why, Harry, do I tell thee of my foes,
Which art my nearest and dearest enemy?
Thou that art like enough, through vassal fear,
Base inclination, and the start of spleen,
To fight against me under Percy’s pay,
To dog his heels, and curtsy at his frowns,
To show how much thou art degenerate.
PRINCE
Do not think so. You shall not find it so.
And God forgive them that so much have swayed
Your Majesty’s good thoughts away from me.
I will redeem all this on Percy’s head,
And, in the closing of some glorious day,
Be bold to tell you that I am your son,
When I will wear a garment all of blood
And stain my favors in a bloody mask,
Which, washed away, shall scour my shame with it.
And that shall be the day, whene’er it lights,
That this same child of honor and renown,
This gallant Hotspur, this all-praisèd knight,
And your unthought-of Harry chance to meet.

---

For every honor sitting on his helm,
Would they were multitudes, and on my head
My shames redoubled! For the time will come
That I shall make this northern youth exchange
His glorious deeds for my indignities.
Percy is but my factor, good my lord,
To engross up glorious deeds on my behalf.
And I will call him to so strict account
That he shall render every glory up,
Yea, even the slightest worship of his time,
Or I will tear the reckoning from his heart.
This in the name of God I promise here,
The which if He be pleased I shall perform,
I do beseech your Majesty may salve
The long-grown wounds of my intemperance.
If not, the end of life cancels all bands,
And I will die a hundred thousand deaths
Ere break the smallest parcel of this vow.
KING
A hundred thousand rebels die in this.
Thou shalt have charge and sovereign trust herein.

Enter Blunt.

How now, good Blunt? Thy looks are full of speed.
BLUNT
So hath the business that I come to speak of.
Lord Mortimer of Scotland hath sent word
That Douglas and the English rebels met
The eleventh of this month at Shrewsbury.
A mighty and a fearful head they are,
If promises be kept on every hand,
As ever offered foul play in a state.
KING
The Earl of Westmoreland set forth today,
With him my son, Lord John of Lancaster,
For this advertisement is five days old.—

---

On Wednesday next, Harry, you shall set forward.
On Thursday we ourselves will march. Our meeting
Is Bridgenorth. And, Harry, you shall march
Through Gloucestershire; by which account,
Our business valuèd, some twelve days hence
Our general forces at Bridgenorth shall meet.
Our hands are full of business. Let’s away.
Advantage feeds him fat while men delay.
They exit.