# The Complete Works of William Shakespeare ## Part 51 Book page: https://www.cyberlibrary.org/en/books/the-complete-works-of-william-shakespeare-100/index.md 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 sceptre, and my soul to boot, He hath more worthy interest to the state Than thou, the shadow of succession. For of no right, nor colour like to right, He doth fill fields with harness in the realm, Turns head against the lion’s armed 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 honour hath he got Against renowned 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 swathing clothes, This infant warrior, in his enterprises Discomfited great Douglas, ta’en him once, Enlarged 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 sway’d 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 favours in a bloody mask, Which, wash’d away, shall scour my shame with it. And that shall be the day, whene’er it lights, That this same child of honour and renown, This gallant Hotspur, this all-praised knight, And your unthought-of Harry chance to meet. For every honour 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 Sir Walter 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 offer’d 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 you, Harry, shall set forward, On Thursday we ourselves will march. Our meeting is Bridgenorth. And, Harry, you Shall march through Gloustershire; by which account, Our business valued, 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. [_Exeunt._] SCENE III. Eastcheap. A Room in the Boar’s Head Tavern. Enter Falstaff and Bardolph. FALSTAFF. Bardolph, am I not fallen away vilely since this last action? Do I not bate? Do I not dwindle? Why, my skin hangs about me like an old lady’s loose gown. I am withered like an old apple-john. Well, I’ll repent, and that suddenly, while I am in some liking. I shall be out of heart shortly, and then I shall have no strength to repent. An I have not forgotten what the inside of a church is made of, I am a peppercorn, a brewer’s horse. The inside of a church! Company, villainous company, hath been the spoil of me. BARDOLPH. Sir John, you are so fretful, you cannot live long. FALSTAFF. Why, there is it. Come, sing me a song, make me merry. I was as virtuously given as a gentleman need to be, virtuous enough; swore little; diced not above seven times—a week; went to a bawdy house not above once in a quarter—in an hour; paid money that I borrowed—three or four times; lived well and in good compass; and now I live out of all order, out of all compass. BARDOLPH. Why, you are so fat, Sir John, that you must needs be out of all compass, out of all reasonable compass, Sir John. FALSTAFF. Do thou amend thy face, and I’ll amend my life. Thou art our admiral, thou bearest the lantern in the poop, but ’tis in the nose of thee. Thou art the Knight of the Burning Lamp. BARDOLPH. Why, Sir John, my face does you no harm. FALSTAFF. No, I’ll be sworn, I make as good use of it as many a man doth of a death’s-head or a _memento mori_. I never see thy face but I think upon hell-fire, and Dives that lived in purple, for there he is in his robes, burning, burning. If thou wert any way given to virtue, I would swear by thy face. My oath should be, “By this fire, that’s God’s angel.” But thou art altogether given over; and wert indeed, but for the light in thy face, the son of utter darkness. When thou ran’st up Gad’s Hill in the night to catch my horse, if I did not think thou hadst been an _ignis fatuus_ or a ball of wildfire, there’s no purchase in money. O, thou art a perpetual triumph, an everlasting bonfire-light! Thou hast saved me a thousand marks in links and torches, walking with thee in the night betwixt tavern and tavern: but the sack that thou hast drunk me would have bought me lights as good cheap at the dearest chandler’s in Europe. I have maintained that salamander of yours with fire any time this two-and-thirty years, God reward me for it! BARDOLPH. ’Sblood, I would my face were in your belly! FALSTAFF. God-a-mercy! so should I be sure to be heartburnt. Enter the Hostess. How now, Dame Partlet the hen, have you enquired yet who picked my pocket? HOSTESS. Why, Sir John, what do you think, Sir John, do you think I keep thieves in my house? I have searched, I have enquired, so has my husband, man by man, boy by boy, servant by servant. The tithe of a hair was never lost in my house before. FALSTAFF. Ye lie, hostess. Bardolph was shaved and lost many a hair, and I’ll be sworn my pocket was picked. Go to, you are a woman, go. HOSTESS. Who, I? No; I defy thee: God’s light, I was never called so in mine own house before. FALSTAFF. Go to, I know you well enough. HOSTESS. No, Sir John, you do not know me, Sir John. I know you, Sir John, you owe me money, Sir John, and now you pick a quarrel to beguile me of it. I bought you a dozen of shirts to your back. FALSTAFF. Dowlas, filthy dowlas. I have given them away to bakers’ wives; and they have made bolters of them. HOSTESS. Now, as I am a true woman, holland of eight shillings an ell. You owe money here besides, Sir John, for your diet and by-drinkings, and money lent you, four-and-twenty pound. FALSTAFF. He had his part of it, let him pay. HOSTESS. He? Alas, he is poor, he hath nothing. FALSTAFF. How? Poor? Look upon his face. What call you rich? Let them coin his nose, let them coin his cheeks. I’ll not pay a denier. What, will you make a younker of me? Shall I not take mine ease in mine inn but I shall have my pocket picked? I have lost a seal-ring of my grandfather’s worth forty mark. HOSTESS. O Jesu, I have heard the Prince tell him, I know not how oft, that that ring was copper. FALSTAFF. How? The Prince is a Jack, a sneak-up. ’Sblood, an he were here, I would cudgel him like a dog if he would say so. Enter Prince Henry with Peto, marching. Falstaff meets him, playing on his truncheon like a fife. How now, lad? Is the wind in that door, i’faith? Must we all march? BARDOLPH. Yea, two and two, Newgate fashion. HOSTESS. My lord, I pray you, hear me. PRINCE. What say’st thou, Mistress Quickly? How doth thy husband? I love him well; he is an honest man. HOSTESS. Good my lord, hear me. FALSTAFF. Prithee, let her alone, and list to me. PRINCE. What say’st thou, Jack? FALSTAFF. The other night I fell asleep here, behind the arras, and had my pocket picked. This house is turned bawdy-house; they pick pockets. PRINCE. What didst thou lose, Jack? FALSTAFF. Wilt thou believe me, Hal, three or four bonds of forty pound apiece and a seal-ring of my grandfather’s. PRINCE. A trifle, some eightpenny matter. HOSTESS. So I told him, my lord, and I said I heard your Grace say so. And, my lord, he speaks most vilely of you, like a foul-mouthed man as he is, and said he would cudgel you. PRINCE. What! he did not? HOSTESS. There’s neither faith, truth, nor womanhood in me else. FALSTAFF. There’s no more faith in thee than in a stewed prune, nor no more truth in thee than in a drawn fox; and, for woman-hood, Maid Marian may be the deputy’s wife of the ward to thee. Go, you thing, go. HOSTESS. Say, what thing, what thing? FALSTAFF. What thing? Why, a thing to thank God on. HOSTESS. I am no thing to thank God on, I would thou shouldst know it! I am an honest man’s wife, and, setting thy knighthood aside, thou art a knave to call me so. FALSTAFF. Setting thy womanhood aside, thou art a beast to say otherwise. HOSTESS. Say, what beast, thou knave, thou? FALSTAFF. What beast? Why, an otter. PRINCE. An otter, Sir John? Why an otter? FALSTAFF. Why, she’s neither fish nor flesh; a man knows not where to have her. HOSTESS. Thou art an unjust man in saying so, thou or any man knows where to have me, thou knave, thou. PRINCE. Thou say’st true, hostess, and he slanders thee most grossly. HOSTESS. So he doth you, my lord, and said this other day you ought him a thousand pound. PRINCE. Sirrah, do I owe you a thousand pound? FALSTAFF. A thousand pound, Hal? A million. Thy love is worth a million; thou owest me thy love. HOSTESS. Nay, my lord, he call’d you Jack, and said he would cudgel you. FALSTAFF. Did I, Bardolph? BARDOLPH. Indeed, Sir John, you said so. FALSTAFF. Yea, if he said my ring was copper. PRINCE. I say ’tis copper. Darest thou be as good as thy word now? FALSTAFF. Why, Hal, thou knowest, as thou art but man, I dare, but as thou art prince, I fear thee as I fear the roaring of the lion’s whelp. PRINCE. And why not as the lion? FALSTAFF. The King himself is to be feared as the lion. Dost thou think I’ll fear thee as I fear thy father? Nay, an I do, I pray God my girdle break. PRINCE. O, if it should, how would thy guts fall about thy knees! But, sirrah, there’s no room for faith, truth, nor honesty in this bosom of thine; it is all filled up with midriff. Charge an honest woman with picking thy pocket! Why, thou whoreson, impudent, embossed rascal, if there were anything in thy pocket but tavern reckonings, memorandums of bawdy houses, and one poor pennyworth of sugar-candy to make thee long-winded, if thy pocket were enriched with any other injuries but these, I am a villain. And yet you will stand to it, you will not pocket up wrong. Art thou not ashamed! FALSTAFF. Dost thou hear, Hal? Thou knowest in the state of innocency Adam fell, and what should poor Jack Falstaff do in the days of villainy? Thou seest I have more flesh than another man and therefore more frailty. You confess, then, you picked my pocket? PRINCE. It appears so by the story. FALSTAFF. Hostess, I forgive thee. Go make ready breakfast, love thy husband, look to thy servants, cherish thy guests. Thou shalt find me tractable to any honest reason. Thou seest I am pacified still. Nay, prithee, be gone. [_Exit Hostess._] Now, Hal, to the news at court. For the robbery, lad, how is that answered? PRINCE. O, my sweet beef, I must still be good angel to thee. The money is paid back again. FALSTAFF. O, I do not like that paying back, ’tis a double labour. PRINCE. I am good friends with my father, and may do anything. FALSTAFF. Rob me the exchequer the first thing thou dost, and do it with unwashed hands too. BARDOLPH. Do, my lord. PRINCE. I have procured thee, Jack, a charge of foot. FALSTAFF. I would it had been of horse. Where shall I find one that can steal well? O, for a fine thief, of the age of two-and-twenty or thereabouts! I am heinously unprovided. Well, God be thanked for these rebels; they offend none but the virtuous. I laud them, I praise them. PRINCE. Bardolph! BARDOLPH. My lord? PRINCE. Go bear this letter to Lord John of Lancaster, To my brother John; this to my Lord of Westmoreland. [_Exit Bardolph._] Go, Peto, to horse, to horse, for thou and I Have thirty miles to ride yet ere dinner-time. [_Exit Peto._] Jack, meet me tomorrow in the Temple hall At two o’clock in the afternoon; There shalt thou know thy charge, and there receive Money and order for their furniture. The land is burning, Percy stands on high, And either we or they must lower lie. [_Exit._] FALSTAFF. Rare words! Brave world!—Hostess, my breakfast, come.— O, I could wish this tavern were my drum. [_Exit._] ACT IV SCENE I. The Rebel Camp near Shrewsbury. Enter Hotspur, Worcester and Douglas. HOTSPUR. Well said, my noble Scot. If speaking truth In this fine age were not thought flattery, Such attribution should the Douglas have As not a soldier of this season’s stamp Should go so general current through the world. By God, I cannot flatter, I do defy The tongues of soothers, but a braver place In my heart’s love hath no man than yourself. Nay, task me to my word; approve me, lord. DOUGLAS. Thou art the king of honour. No man so potent breathes upon the ground But I will beard him. HOTSPUR. Do so, and ’tis well. Enter a Messenger with letters. What letters hast thou there? I can but thank you. MESSENGER. These letters come from your father. HOTSPUR. Letters from him! Why comes he not himself? MESSENGER. He cannot come, my lord, he is grievous sick. HOTSPUR. Zounds, how has he the leisure to be sick In such a justling time? Who leads his power? Under whose government come they along? MESSENGER. His letters bear his mind, not I, my lord. WORCESTER. I prithee, tell me, doth he keep his bed? MESSENGER. He did, my lord, four days ere I set forth, And at the time of my departure thence He was much fear’d by his physicians. WORCESTER. I would the state of time had first been whole Ere he by sickness had been visited. His health was never better worth than now. HOTSPUR. Sick now? Droop now? This sickness doth infect The very life-blood of our enterprise; ’Tis catching hither, even to our camp. He writes me here, that inward sickness— And that his friends by deputation could not So soon be drawn, nor did he think it meet To lay so dangerous and dear a trust On any soul removed but on his own. Yet doth he give us bold advertisement That with our small conjunction we should on, To see how fortune is disposed to us; For, as he writes, there is no quailing now, Because the King is certainly possess’d Of all our purposes. What say you to it? WORCESTER. Your father’s sickness is a maim to us. HOTSPUR. A perilous gash, a very limb lopp’d off— And yet, in faith, it is not! His present want Seems more than we shall find it. Were it good To set the exact wealth of all our states All at one cast? To set so rich a main On the nice hazard of one doubtful hour? It were not good, for therein should we read The very bottom and the soul of hope, The very list, the very utmost bound Of all our fortunes. DOUGLAS. Faith, and so we should, where now remains A sweet reversion. We may boldly spend Upon the hope of what is to come in. A comfort of retirement lives in this. HOTSPUR. A rendezvous, a home to fly unto, If that the devil and mischance look big Upon the maidenhead of our affairs. WORCESTER. But yet I would your father had been here. The quality and hair of our attempt Brooks no division. It will be thought By some that know not why he is away, That wisdom, loyalty, and mere dislike Of our proceedings, kept the Earl from hence. And think how such an apprehension May turn the tide of fearful faction, And breed a kind of question in our cause. For well you know we of the off’ring side Must keep aloof from strict arbitrement, And stop all sight-holes, every loop from whence The eye of reason may pry in upon us. This absence of your father’s draws a curtain That shows the ignorant a kind of fear Before not dreamt of. HOTSPUR. You strain too far. I rather of his absence make this use: It lends a lustre and more great opinion, A larger dare to our great enterprise, Than if the Earl were here; for men must think If we without his help can make a head To push against the kingdom, with his help We shall o’erturn it topsy-turvy down. Yet all goes well, yet all our joints are whole. DOUGLAS. As heart can think. There is not such a word Spoke in Scotland as this term of fear. Enter Sir Richard Vernon. HOTSPUR. My cousin Vernon! Welcome, by my soul. VERNON. Pray God my news be worth a welcome, lord. The Earl of Westmoreland, seven thousand strong, Is marching hitherwards, with him Prince John. HOTSPUR. No harm, what more? VERNON. And further, I have learn’d The King himself in person is set forth, Or hitherwards intended speedily, With strong and mighty preparation. HOTSPUR. He shall be welcome too. Where is his son, The nimble-footed madcap Prince of Wales, And his comrades, that daffed the world aside And bid it pass? VERNON. All furnish’d, all in arms; All plumed like estridges that with the wind Bated like eagles having lately bathed, Glittering in golden coats, like images, As full of spirit as the month of May, And gorgeous as the sun at midsummer; Wanton as youthful goats, wild as young bulls. I saw young Harry with his beaver on, His cuisses on his thighs, gallantly arm’d, Rise from the ground like feather’d Mercury, And vaulted with such ease into his seat As if an angel dropp’d down from the clouds, To turn and wind a fiery Pegasus, And witch the world with noble horsemanship. HOTSPUR. No more, no more! Worse than the sun in March, This praise doth nourish agues. Let them come! They come like sacrifices in their trim, And to the fire-eyed maid of smoky war All hot and bleeding will we offer them. The mailed Mars shall on his altar sit Up to the ears in blood. I am on fire To hear this rich reprisal is so nigh, And yet not ours. Come, let me taste my horse, Who is to bear me like a thunderbolt Against the bosom of the Prince of Wales. Harry to Harry shall, hot horse to horse, Meet and ne’er part till one drop down a corse. O, that Glendower were come! VERNON. There is more news. I learn’d in Worcester, as I rode along, He cannot draw his power this fourteen days. DOUGLAS. That’s the worst tidings that I hear of yet. WORCESTER. Ay, by my faith, that bears a frosty sound. HOTSPUR. What may the King’s whole battle reach unto? VERNON. To thirty thousand. HOTSPUR. Forty let it be. My father and Glendower being both away, The powers of us may serve so great a day. Come, let us take a muster speedily. Doomsday is near; die all, die merrily. DOUGLAS. Talk not of dying. I am out of fear Of death or death’s hand for this one half year. [_Exeunt._] SCENE II. A public Road near Coventry. Enter Falstaff and Bardolph. FALSTAFF. Bardolph, get thee before to Coventry; fill me a bottle of sack. Our soldiers shall march through; we’ll to Sutton Co’fil’ tonight. BARDOLPH. Will you give me money, captain? FALSTAFF. Lay out, lay out. BARDOLPH. This bottle makes an angel. FALSTAFF. An if it do, take it for thy labour. An if it make twenty, take them all, I’ll answer the coinage. Bid my lieutenant Peto meet me at town’s end. BARDOLPH. I will, captain: farewell. [_Exit._] FALSTAFF. If I be not ashamed of my soldiers, I am a soused gurnet. I have misused the King’s press damnably. I have got, in exchange of a hundred and fifty soldiers, three hundred and odd pounds. I press me none but good householders, yeomen’s sons, inquire me out contracted bachelors, such as had been asked twice on the banns, such a commodity of warm slaves as had as lief hear the devil as a drum, such as fear the report of a caliver worse than a struck fowl or a hurt wild duck. I pressed me none but such toasts-and-butter, with hearts in their bellies no bigger than pins’ heads, and they have bought out their services; and now my whole charge consists of ancients, corporals, lieutenants, gentlemen of companies—slaves as ragged as Lazarus in the painted cloth, where the glutton’s dogs licked his sores; and such as indeed were never soldiers, but discarded unjust servingmen, younger sons to younger brothers, revolted tapsters, and ostlers trade-fallen; the cankers of a calm world and a long peace, ten times more dishonourable-ragged than an old fazed ancient; and such have I to fill up the rooms of them that have bought out their services, that you would think that I had a hundred and fifty tattered prodigals lately come from swine-keeping, from eating draff and husks. A mad fellow met me on the way, and told me I had unloaded all the gibbets and pressed the dead bodies. No eye hath seen such scarecrows. I’ll not march through Coventry with them, that’s flat. Nay, and the villains march wide betwixt the legs as if they had gyves on, for indeed I had the most of them out of prison. There’s not a shirt and a half in all my company, and the half shirt is two napkins tacked together and thrown over the shoulders like a herald’s coat without sleeves; and the shirt, to say the truth, stolen from my host at Saint Albans, or the red-nose innkeeper of Daventry. But that’s all one; they’ll find linen enough on every hedge. Enter Prince Henry and the Lord of Westmoreland. PRINCE. How now, blown Jack? How now, quilt? FALSTAFF. What, Hal! How now, mad wag? What a devil dost thou in Warwickshire? My good Lord of Westmoreland, I cry you mercy. I thought your honour had already been at Shrewsbury. WESTMORELAND. Faith, Sir John, ’tis more than time that I were there, and you too, but my powers are there already. The King, I can tell you, looks for us all. We must away all night. FALSTAFF. Tut, never fear me. I am as vigilant as a cat to steal cream. PRINCE. I think, to steal cream indeed, for thy theft hath already made thee butter. But tell me, Jack, whose fellows are these that come after? FALSTAFF. Mine, Hal, mine. PRINCE. I did never see such pitiful rascals. FALSTAFF. Tut, tut, good enough to toss; food for powder, food for powder, they’ll fill a pit as well as better. Tush, man, mortal men, mortal men. WESTMORELAND. Ay, but, Sir John, methinks they are exceeding poor and bare, too beggarly. FALSTAFF. Faith, for their poverty, I know not where they had that; and for their bareness, I am sure they never learned that of me. PRINCE. No, I’ll be sworn, unless you call three fingers on the ribs bare. But, sirrah, make haste. Percy is already in the field. [_Exit._] FALSTAFF. What, is the King encamped? WESTMORELAND. He is, Sir John. I fear we shall stay too long. [_Exit._] FALSTAFF. Well, To the latter end of a fray and the beginning of a feast Fits a dull fighter and a keen guest. [_Exit._] SCENE III. The Rebel Camp near Shrewsbury. Enter Hotspur, Worcester, Douglas and Vernon. HOTSPUR. We’ll fight with him tonight. WORCESTER. It may not be. DOUGLAS. You give him then advantage. VERNON. Not a whit. HOTSPUR. Why say you so? Looks he not for supply? VERNON. So do we. HOTSPUR. His is certain, ours is doubtful.