# The Complete Works of William Shakespeare

## Part 47

Book page: https://www.cyberlibrary.org/en/books/the-complete-works-of-william-shakespeare-100/index.md

LAERTES. I am satisfied in nature, Whose motive in this case should stir me most To my revenge. But in my terms of honour I stand aloof, and will no reconcilement Till by some elder masters of known honour I have a voice and precedent of peace To keep my name ungor’d. But till that time I do receive your offer’d love like love, And will not wrong it.

HAMLET. I embrace it freely, And will this brother’s wager frankly play.— Give us the foils; come on.

LAERTES. Come, one for me.

HAMLET. I’ll be your foil, Laertes; in mine ignorance Your skill shall like a star i’ th’ darkest night, Stick fiery off indeed.

LAERTES. You mock me, sir.

HAMLET. No, by this hand.

KING. Give them the foils, young Osric. Cousin Hamlet, You know the wager?

HAMLET. Very well, my lord. Your Grace has laid the odds o’ the weaker side.

KING. I do not fear it. I have seen you both; But since he is better’d, we have therefore odds.

LAERTES. This is too heavy. Let me see another.

HAMLET. This likes me well. These foils have all a length?

[_They prepare to play._]

OSRIC. Ay, my good lord.

KING. Set me the stoups of wine upon that table. If Hamlet give the first or second hit, Or quit in answer of the third exchange, Let all the battlements their ordnance fire; The King shall drink to Hamlet’s better breath, And in the cup an union shall he throw Richer than that which four successive kings In Denmark’s crown have worn. Give me the cups; And let the kettle to the trumpet speak, The trumpet to the cannoneer without, The cannons to the heavens, the heavens to earth, ‘Now the King drinks to Hamlet.’ Come, begin. And you, the judges, bear a wary eye.

HAMLET. Come on, sir.

LAERTES. Come, my lord.

[_They play._]

HAMLET. One.

LAERTES. No.

HAMLET. Judgement.

OSRIC. A hit, a very palpable hit.

LAERTES. Well; again.

KING. Stay, give me drink. Hamlet, this pearl is thine; Here’s to thy health.

[_Trumpets sound, and cannon shot off within._]

Give him the cup.

HAMLET. I’ll play this bout first; set it by awhile.

[_They play._]

Come. Another hit; what say you?

LAERTES. A touch, a touch, I do confess.

KING. Our son shall win.

QUEEN. He’s fat, and scant of breath. Here, Hamlet, take my napkin, rub thy brows. The Queen carouses to thy fortune, Hamlet.

HAMLET. Good madam.

KING. Gertrude, do not drink.

QUEEN. I will, my lord; I pray you pardon me.

KING. [_Aside._] It is the poison’d cup; it is too late.

HAMLET. I dare not drink yet, madam. By and by.

QUEEN. Come, let me wipe thy face.

LAERTES. My lord, I’ll hit him now.

KING. I do not think’t.

LAERTES. [_Aside._] And yet ’tis almost ’gainst my conscience.

HAMLET. Come for the third, Laertes. You do but dally. I pray you pass with your best violence. I am afeard you make a wanton of me.

LAERTES. Say you so? Come on.

[_They play._]

OSRIC. Nothing neither way.

LAERTES. Have at you now.

[_Laertes wounds Hamlet; then, in scuffling, they change rapiers, and Hamlet wounds Laertes._]

KING. Part them; they are incens’d.

HAMLET. Nay, come again!

[_The Queen falls._]

OSRIC. Look to the Queen there, ho!

HORATIO. They bleed on both sides. How is it, my lord?

OSRIC. How is’t, Laertes?

LAERTES. Why, as a woodcock to my own springe, Osric. I am justly kill’d with mine own treachery.

HAMLET. How does the Queen?

KING. She swoons to see them bleed.

QUEEN. No, no, the drink, the drink! O my dear Hamlet! The drink, the drink! I am poison’d.

[_Dies._]

HAMLET. O villany! Ho! Let the door be lock’d: Treachery! Seek it out.

[_Laertes falls._]

LAERTES. It is here, Hamlet. Hamlet, thou art slain. No medicine in the world can do thee good. In thee there is not half an hour of life; The treacherous instrument is in thy hand, Unbated and envenom’d. The foul practice Hath turn’d itself on me. Lo, here I lie, Never to rise again. Thy mother’s poison’d. I can no more. The King, the King’s to blame.

HAMLET. The point envenom’d too! Then, venom, to thy work.

[_Stabs the King._]

OSRIC and LORDS. Treason! treason!

KING. O yet defend me, friends. I am but hurt.

HAMLET. Here, thou incestuous, murderous, damned Dane, Drink off this potion. Is thy union here? Follow my mother.

[_King dies._]

LAERTES. He is justly serv’d. It is a poison temper’d by himself. Exchange forgiveness with me, noble Hamlet. Mine and my father’s death come not upon thee, Nor thine on me.

[_Dies._]

HAMLET. Heaven make thee free of it! I follow thee. I am dead, Horatio. Wretched Queen, adieu. You that look pale and tremble at this chance, That are but mutes or audience to this act, Had I but time,—as this fell sergeant, death, Is strict in his arrest,—O, I could tell you,— But let it be. Horatio, I am dead, Thou liv’st; report me and my cause aright To the unsatisfied.

HORATIO. Never believe it. I am more an antique Roman than a Dane. Here’s yet some liquor left.

HAMLET. As th’art a man, Give me the cup. Let go; by Heaven, I’ll have’t. O good Horatio, what a wounded name, Things standing thus unknown, shall live behind me. If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart, Absent thee from felicity awhile, And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain, To tell my story.

[_March afar off, and shot within._]

What warlike noise is this?

OSRIC. Young Fortinbras, with conquest come from Poland, To the ambassadors of England gives This warlike volley.

HAMLET. O, I die, Horatio. The potent poison quite o’er-crows my spirit: I cannot live to hear the news from England, But I do prophesy th’election lights On Fortinbras. He has my dying voice. So tell him, with the occurrents more and less, Which have solicited. The rest is silence.

[_Dies._]

HORATIO. Now cracks a noble heart. Good night, sweet prince, And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest. Why does the drum come hither?

[_March within._]

Enter Fortinbras, the English Ambassadors and others.

FORTINBRAS. Where is this sight?

HORATIO. What is it you would see? If aught of woe or wonder, cease your search.

FORTINBRAS. This quarry cries on havoc. O proud death, What feast is toward in thine eternal cell, That thou so many princes at a shot So bloodily hast struck?

FIRST AMBASSADOR. The sight is dismal; And our affairs from England come too late. The ears are senseless that should give us hearing, To tell him his commandment is fulfill’d, That Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead. Where should we have our thanks?

HORATIO. Not from his mouth, Had it th’ability of life to thank you. He never gave commandment for their death. But since, so jump upon this bloody question, You from the Polack wars, and you from England Are here arriv’d, give order that these bodies High on a stage be placed to the view, And let me speak to th’ yet unknowing world How these things came about. So shall you hear Of carnal, bloody and unnatural acts, Of accidental judgements, casual slaughters, Of deaths put on by cunning and forc’d cause, And, in this upshot, purposes mistook Fall’n on the inventors’ heads. All this can I Truly deliver.

FORTINBRAS. Let us haste to hear it, And call the noblest to the audience. For me, with sorrow I embrace my fortune. I have some rights of memory in this kingdom, Which now to claim my vantage doth invite me.

HORATIO. Of that I shall have also cause to speak, And from his mouth whose voice will draw on more. But let this same be presently perform’d, Even while men’s minds are wild, lest more mischance On plots and errors happen.

FORTINBRAS. Let four captains Bear Hamlet like a soldier to the stage, For he was likely, had he been put on, To have prov’d most royally; and for his passage, The soldiers’ music and the rites of war Speak loudly for him. Take up the bodies. Such a sight as this Becomes the field, but here shows much amiss. Go, bid the soldiers shoot.

[_A dead march._]

[_Exeunt, bearing off the bodies, after which a peal of ordnance is shot off._]

THE FIRST PART OF KING HENRY THE FOURTH

Contents

ACT I Scene I. London. A Room in the Palace. Scene II. The same. An Apartment of Prince Henry’s. Scene III. The Same. A Room in the Palace.

ACT II Scene I. Rochester. An Inn-Yard. Scene II. The Road by Gads-hill. Scene III. Warkworth. A Room in the Castle. Scene IV. Eastcheap. A Room in the Boar’s Head Tavern.

ACT III Scene I. Bangor. A Room in the Archdeacon’s House. Scene II. London. A Room in the Palace. Scene III. Eastcheap. A Room in the Boar’s Head Tavern.

ACT IV Scene I. The Rebel Camp near Shrewsbury. Scene II. A public Road near Coventry. Scene III. The Rebel Camp near Shrewsbury. Scene IV. York. A Room in the Archbishop’s Palace.

ACT V Scene I. The King’s Camp near Shrewsbury. Scene II. The Rebel Camp. Scene III. Plain between the Camps. Scene IV. Another Part of the Field. Scene V. Another Part of the Field.

Dramatis Personæ

KING HENRY the Fourth. HENRY, PRINCE of Wales, son to the King. Prince John of LANCASTER, son to the King. Earl of WESTMORELAND. Sir Walter BLUNT. Thomas Percy, Earl of WORCESTER. Henry Percy, Earl of NORTHUMBERLAND. Henry Percy, surnamed HOTSPUR, his son. Edmund MORTIMER, Earl of March. Scroop, ARCHBISHOP of York. SIR MICHAEL, a friend to the archbishop of York. Archibald, Earl of DOUGLAS. Owen GLENDOWER. Sir Richard VERNON. Sir John FALSTAFF. POINS. GADSHILL. PETO. BARDOLPH. LADY PERCY, Wife to Hotspur. Lady Mortimer, Daughter to Glendower. Mrs. Quickly, Hostess in Eastcheap. Lords, Officers, Sheriff, Vintner, Chamberlain, Drawers, Carriers, Ostler, Messengers, Servant, Travellers and Attendants.

SCENE. England and Wales.

ACT I

SCENE I. London. A Room in the Palace.

Enter the King, Lord John of Lancaster, 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 armed hoofs Of hostile paces: those opposed 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-sheathed knife, No more shall cut his master. Therefore, friends, As far as to the sepulchre of Christ— Whose soldier now, under whose blessed cross We are impressed 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 blessed 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; Therefore 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 butchered, 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 approved 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 and 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 Athol, Of Murray, Angus, and Menteith. And is not this an honourable 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 honour’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 dishonour 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 uttered.

WESTMORELAND. I will, my liege.

[_Exeunt._]

SCENE II. The same. An Apartment of Prince Henry’s.

Enter Prince Henry 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-coloured 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 Phœbus, 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 say’st 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 humour, 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 Moor-ditch?

FALSTAFF. Thou hast the most unsavoury similes, and art indeed the most comparative, rascalliest, 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 labour 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. 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 visards 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 ye, 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, All-hallown summer!

[_Exit Falstaff._]

POINS. Now, my good sweet honey lord, ride with us tomorrow. I have a jest to execute that I cannot manage alone. Falstaff, Bardolph, Peto, 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. But 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 visards 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.

[_Exit._]