PR il imWMMIMWIWWilBMrtMWMMBBiaaaMtl ■,^'. .' ''-''if j„.,^ . ^ ._. ^ r-T«if iiii i ic r iiii i ni M wi M i Mm i m ii ■ ■■■■■ w i mnff i i niiiiiiUM WW iin I D C HEATH €j, CQv ■ nBSMBSBmMemttmaaaaamtm mu \i Hnm t aiiemwiuimttu iH*fS Class LJXaii Book_zl-2 Copyright ]\'°. CDElflRIGHT DEPOSIT. THE ARDEN SHAKESPEARE General Editor, C. H. Herfokd, Liit.D., University of Manchester THE SECOND PART OF HENRY THE FOURTH EDITED BY L. WINSTANLEY LECTURER IN UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF WALES ABERYSTWYTH b. C. HEATH & CO., PUBLISHERS BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO THE AEDEN SHAKESPEARE A MrDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM. Edited by Edmund K. Chambers, B.A., Oxford. AS YOU LIKE IT. Edited by J. C. Smith, M.A., Edinburgh. CORIOLANUS. Edited by Edmund K. Chambers, B. A., Oxford. CYIVIBELINE. Edited by A. J. "Wyatt, M.A., Cambridge. HAMLET. Edited by Edmund K. Chambers, B.A., Oxford. HENEY IV — FIRST PART. Edited by E. W, Moorman, B.A., Yorkshire Collega, HENRY V. Edited by G. C. Moore Smith, M.A., Cambridge. HENRY VIII. Edited by D. Nichol Smith,M.A., Edinburgh. JULIUS C^SAR. Edited by Arthur D. Innes, M.A., Oxford. KING JOHN. Edited by G. C. Moore Smith, M.A., Cambridge.) KING LEAR. Edited by D. Nichol Smith, M.A., Edinburgh. MACBETH. Edited by Edmund K. Chambers, B.A., Oxford. - MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. Edited by J. C. Smith, M.A., Edinburgh. KICHARD 11. Edited by C. H. Herford, Litt.D., Cambridge. RICHARD IIL Edited by George Macdonald, M.A., Oxford. EOMEO AND JULIET. Edited by Robert A. Law, Ph.D., Harvard. THE MERCHANT OP VENICE. Edited by H. L. Withers, B.A., Oxford. THE TEMPEST. Edited by E. S. Boas, M.A., Oxford. THE WINTER'S TALE. Edited by H. B. Charlton, M.A., Manchester. TWELFTH NIGHT. Edited by Arthur D. Innes, M.A., Oxford. The remaining volumes are in preparation. CoPYEiQHT, 1918, BT D. C. Heath & COe lc8 APR -8 1918 .A492872 GENERAL PREFACE k^ In this edition of Shakespeare an attempt is made ]^ to present the greater plays of the dramatist in their literary aspect, and not merely as material for the study of philology or grammar. Criticism purely verbal and ^ textual has only been included to such an extent as - may serve to help the student in the appreciation of ^ the essential poetry. Questions of date and literary history have been fully dealt with in the Introductions, but the larger space has been devoted to the interpre- tative rather than the matter-of-fact order of scholar- ship. Esthetic judgments are never final, but the Editors have attempted to suggest points of view from which the analysis of dramatic motive and dramatic character may be profitably undertaken. In the Notes likewise, while it is hoped that all unfamiliar expressions and allusions have been adequately explained, yet it has been thought even more important to consider the dramatic value of each scene, and the part which it plays in relation to the whole. These general princi- ples are common to the whole series; in detail each Editor is alone responsible for the play or plays that have been intrusted to him. Every volume of the series has been provided with a Glossary, an Essay upon Metre, and an Index ; and Appendices have been added upon points of special interest which could not conveniently be treated in the Introduction or the Notes, The text is based by the several Editors on that of the Globe edition. CONTENTS Page Introduction v Dramatis Person^e xxx The Second Part of King Henry the Fourth 1 Notes 125 Glossary 168 Index of Words 175 General Index 177 INTRODUCTION 1. LITERARY HISTORY OF THE PLAY Shakespeare's historical plays consist of two isolated plays, King John and Henry VIII, — one early and one late, — and also a complete and connected series covering more than a century of time, commencing with the reign of Richard II and ending with the accession of Henry VII, after the battle of Bosworth Field. The chronological order is, of com^se, not the order of composition. Shakespeare seems to have begun by writing in collaboration with Marlowe the three parts of Henry VI; he then proceeded to Richard III, and only afterward to the reigns which preceded these — Richard II, Henry IV, and Henry V. There were good reasons for leaving the latter reigns until the end, for they presented to the dramatist quite special difficulties. The reigns of Richard II and Richard III were in themselves dramatic ; they each contained many striking incidents and moved up to an important climax. The reign of Henry IV, on the other hand, was occupied mainly with disconnected rebellions and plots, and less promising material could hardly have been presented to the dramatist. Shakespeare solved this difficulty with felicitous boldness — by inventing the whole series of scenes connected with Falstaff, which have in reality nothing to do with the history, and which were recognized even on the title pages of the published plays as separate themes. The very weakness of the subject thus proved to be its strength upon the stage, as it brought about the introduction of the scenes which are Shakespeare's masterpiece in comedy. The two parts of Henry IV are continuous in subject matter. The First Part includes the period from the end of Richard II to the battle of Shrewsbury, 1403. The Second Part treats of the remaining ten years of Henry IV's reign, ending with his illness and death and the coronation of Henry V. In the First Part Shakespeare has selected the best of the historical material afforded by the reign and has made the most of it, the character of Hotspur vi INTRODUCTION in particular being really impressive and interesting, though, in order to give it full dramatic value, Shakespeare has had to do considerable violence to chronology and make Hotspur appear much younger than he really was. Yet, even in the First Part, the humor of Falstaff predominates, and in the Second Part the his- tory loses its grip altogether and sinks entirely into the background. The First Part was licensed for publication on February 25, 1598; the Second Part was licensed on August 23, 1600, by Wise and Aspley of the "Parrot" in St. Paul's Churchyard, the full title of the play being The Second Parte of the history of Kinge Henry the iiijth, with the humours of Sir John Falstaff, wrytten by Master Shakespere. This is the earliest mention of Shakespeare's name in the Stationers' Registers. In the same year the same firm published also Much Ado about Nothing. The Second Part, as originally printed, was not complete, and seems to have followed an abbreviated acting version ; most copies omit Act iii, sc. 1. The First Folio (1623) gives the full version. 2. SOURCES OF THE PLOT Shakespeare's main sources for the historical portions of the play are to be found in Holinshed's Chronicle and an old play entitled The Famous Victories of Henry V. The play really covers the ten years from July, 1403, to April, 1413, and is mainly concerned with Archbishop Scrope's rebellion in May and June, 1405. Shakespeare has, however, with consider- able art, disguised the passage of time so that the play seems to move continuously. Eight years must elapse between Act iv, sc. 2, in which the Archbishop is ordered to execution, and Act iv, sc. 4, in which the king is shown at the point of death. Eight years is a very long time to elapse between the different scenes of the same act; but Shakespeare purposely leaves his notes of time so vague that the reader does not observe the discrepancy. The interval is filled up with the humor of Falstaff in scene 3, which must belong historically to the same date as scene 2, since Falstaff is represented as accepting the surrender of one of the rebels — Sir John Colevile. This Falstaff scene is connected with the next (Act v, sc. 1) with apparently little passage of time. Falstaff's last words in Act iv, sc. 3 are: "I'll through Gloucestershire; and there will I visit Master Robert Shallow, esquire : I have him already tempering between my finger and my thumb." In Act v, sc. 1, this visit is described and the impression is very naturally created that INTRODUCTION vii the two are separated by only a few days; certainly no reader would suspect an eight years' interval. A somewhat similar plan, we may remark, seems to have been followed by Shakespeare in several of his tragedies (e.g. Macbeth). Indeed, Shakespeare very often seems to employ a double time- system, the real time being quite different from the apparent time. In The Winter s Tale Shakespeare is compelled by the exigencies of his plot to call attention to the long period of time which has elapsed ; but elsewhere he effectively disguises anything of the kind. The only definite notes of time which Shakespeare makes in the Second Part are inaccurate. Thus in Act iii, sc. 1, Henry calls to mind that Northumberland had "eight years since" been his trustiest friend ; that was, of course, in 1399. Thus, if we accept the time note, we should date the scene 1407; but, in reality, it occurs during Archbishop Scrope's rebellion, in the historical year 1405. In the same scene, also, we are told that "Glendower is dead," though, as a matter of fact, he survived Henry IV and only made official submission to his successor. Holinshed is inaccurate in this matter; but even he says that the death occurred in 1408 or 1409. Again, in the scene of the king's death, we are told that a great power of "English and of Scots" has been overthrown by the Sheriff of Yorkshire ; but this happened in 1408, or five years earlier. The play entitled The Famous Victories of Henry F is a very simple and rough Chronicle Play which gave Shakespeare hardly more than a few hints. Two of the characters — Ned and Sir John Oldcastle — appear as Poins and Falstaff, but are entirely re-created by Shakespeare. The highway robbery and the attack on the travelers in the First Part are suggested by this play. In the Second Part the resemblances are fess strong; they are found only in the death scene of Henry IV, where the Prince takes away the crown and afterward restores it, and in the repudiation of Fal- staff (i.e. the Oldcastle of the play). This portion may be quoted for comparison with Shakespeare : Ned. Gogs wounds, the king comes. Let all stand aside. Enter the King with the Archbishop and the Lord of Oxford Jock. How do you do, my Lord ? Ned. How now, Harry ? Tut, my Lord, put away these dumpes, You are a king, and all the realme is yours. Vlll INTRODUCTION What, man, do you not remember the old sayings, You know I must be Lord Chief e Justice of England ? Trust me, my lord, me thinks you are very much changed. And 'tis but with a little sorrowing, to make folks believe The death of your father greeves you, and 'tis nothing so. Hen. V. I prithee Ned, mend thy manners. And be more modester in thy tearmes. For my unfeined griefe is not to be ruled by thy flattering And dissembling talke ; thou saest I am changed. So I am indeed, and so must thou be, and that quickly, Or else I must cause thee to be changed. Jock. Gogs wounds, how like you this ? Sounds 'tis not so sweete as Musicke. Tom. I trust we have not offended your grace no way. Hen. V. Oh Tom, your former life greeves me, And makes me to abandon and abolish your company for ever. And therefore not upon pain of death to approch my presence By ten miles space ; then if I heare wel of you, . It may be I wil do somewhat for you. Otherwise looke for no more favour at my hands. Than at any other man's. And therefore be gone. We have no other matter to talke on. The old play moves rapidly, and immediately after this scene the king opens with the Archbishop of Canterbury a discussion concern- ing his rights to the crown of France. Shakespeare found some suggestions for Falstaff's boy in the Vintner's Boy of The Famous Victories; but he found not even a hint for Nym, Bardolph, and Pistol, for Dame Quickly and Doll Tearsheet, or for Justice Shallow and his companions. In fact, the more closely we compare the Second Part with its only known sources in Holinshed and The Famous Victories, the more clearly we perceive the originality of Shakespeare's work. It is noticeable that the Henry IV plays form part of a group which was famous even in Shakespeare's own day as giving more graphic pictures of contemporary manners than any of his other dramas. Henry IV, Parts I and II, Henry F, The Merry Wives of Windsor, and the Induction to The Taming of the Shrew deal frankly and almost undisguisedly with contemporary manners and local scenes and customs both in London and near Shakespeare's own native Stratford. The fact was that, just about the end of the century, a type of "local" play came greatly into vogue. Schelling^ says: "By a ^ Elizabethan Drama. INTRODUCTION ix natural reaction plain English plays demanded plain English places; and Manchester, Wakefield, Windsor, and Bristol, with numerous other English towns, figure as the scenes of the domestic play. The word 'London' enters into the title of many plays. . . . The ' City ' was celebrated on the stage almost ward for ward and street for street, in plays such as A Chaste Maid in Cheapside, The Cripple of Fenchurch Street, The Boss of Billingsgate, The Lovers of Leedgate, etc." Shakespeare, with his usual sensitiveness to literary moods, seems to have gladly availed himself of the opportunity to describe the humors of Cheapside and of his own native countryside. There is no attempt whatever to give historical verisimilitude to the comedy scenes of Henry IV; they do not describe the manners of two centuries back, but emphatically those of Shakespeare's own day. 3. THE CHARACTERS The character of Prince Hal is developed more fully and pleasingly in the First Part than in the Second ; in the earlier play Shakespeare shows him in the Falstaff scenes in his brightest and most amusing moods, and his rivalry with Hotspur is managed with consummate art, so that the interest — at first concentrated mainly on the brilliant Percy — is by degrees transferred to his royal rival, mainly because the latter is less self-conscious, more simple and manly, and, fundamentally, more patriotic. In the Second Part the character of the Prince is shown in a some- what less attractive light. He no longer possesses the light- hearted gayety of the early play and has not yet attained to the grave and tranquil responsibility of Henry V ; he is in the transition stage between the two and is therefore restless, half-hearted, and dissatisfied. In The Famous Victories the change of character in the Prince is represented as coming about most suddenly and naively : one moment he is the acme of wildness, the next, the serious illness of his father makes him repent and, almost imme- diately, his temperament changes. Shakespeare, of course, represents the alteration much more subtly ; even in the First Part the Prince gradually becomes more serious and takes a more prominent part in the affairs of the realm. In the Second Part we see him weighed down by an ever increasing sense of care and responsibility. His father's illness deeply dis- tresses him, partly because it makes him regret their misunder- standings, partly because he knows that soon he must assume the X INTRODUCTION crown. He regards the possibility of his accession with apprehen- sion and reluctance, though when it does come he meets it as he meets all other crises — with calm courage. In the Second Part we see the Prince much more seldom than in the First, and his pranks are mainly attempts to hide regret. The first words he utters in the Second Part (Act ii, sc. 2) are : "Before God, I am exceeding weary." Poins rallies him on his melancholy state and asks him, half ironically, if he does not regret his father's illness. The Prince, unable to keep up the jesting tone, admits that he does : "It is not meet that I should be sad, now my father is sick : albeit I could tell to thee, as to one it pleases me, for fault of a better, to call my friend, I could be sad and sad indeed too." Poins does not believe him and the Prince, in real anger, retorts that he is not "as far in the devil's book as thou and Fal- stafiF," and avows in all sincerity, "my heart bleeds inwardly that my father is so sick." It is obvious that he is more than half ashamed of his company. Throughout the Second Part we see that the Prince and Falstaff are drifting away from each other; they meet in only a single scene (the one with Doll Tearsheet) and that scene exhibits the most unpleasant side of Falstaff 's character — the sensuality of an old man. He shows to far better advantage in his relations with Justice Shallow, but the Prince is not at hand to see him then. Again, when Falstaff takes prisoner Sir John Colevile of the Dale, — a really amusing exploit, — it is Prince John of Lancaster with whom he has to deal and not Prince Hal.^ Falstaff anticipates his next meeting with his "sweet wag" and plans how he will make him laugh "without inter Valiums " over the humor of Justice Shallow; but he never gets the opportunity, for he sees Hal only once more and that is in the open street when he is repudiated forever. The character of Henry really owes very little to Shakespeare's sources. Holinshed says of him that a great change took place in his character on his accession, and describes him as follows : "This king was of a meane stature, well proportioned and formallie com- pact ; quicke and livelie and of a stout courage. In his latter days he showed himself so gentle, that he got more love amongst the nobles and people of this realme, than he had purchased malice and evill will in the beginning." It is generally considered that Henry V is Shakespeare's portrait of an ideal king, — not, perhaps, of an ideal man (the creator of Hamlet can hardly have thought him that), but, at any rate, by 1 Act iv, sc. 3. INTRODUCTION xi far the most satisfactory among his English monarchs. He Is a man who has no great imaginative power, is not particularly sensitive, but is full of good will and fellowship. Is manly and sincere, and, above all, extraordinarily resolute and brave in crises. Henry's power of rising to emergencies is the most striking trait in his character ; just as it is the fate of the unhappy Richard II to fail In all crises, so it is the prerogative of Henry V in every danger to show himself at his best. Richard II Is far more imagina- tive and poetic than Henry could ever be, and Is, in many ways, more Interesting; but, as a king, he is a disastrous failure, while Henry has all the qualities — courage, knowledge of men, strength and steadfastness of will — which go to make the really successful monarch. It has often been remarked that Henry V possesses many of the characteristics of the Tudors, being like them in his courage and resolution, in his knowledge of human nature, and also in his frank and democratic attitude toward his subjects. But It Is possible to go farther. The character of Henry V may well have been intended as a compliment to Elizabeth by representing what she and everyone else would recognize as a kind of Ideal portrait of her father as she had known him In her youth. There Is nothing improbable in the conception, for we know that Shakespeare's dramas were regularly performed at court, a considerable pro- portion of his success being due to these special performances; and there is a generally accepted tradition that the Falstaff plays in particular were especially pleasing to the queen. It must be remembered that the early popularity of Henry VIII had been very great, that his services to the realm were intensely admired, and that, during the reign of his daughter, it was the custom to concentrate attention rather on his excellences than on his defects. Many compliments were paid to him on his success as a conqueror of France. Thus Nashe in Jack Wilton, dating his story, says: "About that time the terror of the world and fever quartan of the French, Henrle the eight (the only true subject of Chronicles), advanced his standard against Turney and Turwin." It should also be observed that Henry VIII was just such a contrast to Henry VII as Shakespeare's Henry V was to his father. The situations really are. In many respects, similar, and Shakespeare, in his play, has brought out all the similarities. Henry VII had, like Henry IV, a disputed title ; for fifteen years all kinds of revolt and sedition disturbed his reign ; there was a revolt In the north and a rising in the west. Henry VII, like Shakespeare's Henry IV, xii INTRODUCTION was a model of statecraft, patience, and labor ; he was exceedingly politic ; he ran the great risk of his life in his invasion of England ; but, after that, he left nothing to chance. "He was never betrayed by any passions or enthusiasm. He was untrammelled by scruples, unimpeded by principles, he pursued with constant fidelity the task of his life, to secure the throne for himself and his children, to pacify his country, and to repair the waste of the civil wars." ^ We have only to put this picture side by side with Shakespeare's portrait of Henry IV to see how closely the two agree. Nor are the resemblances any the less striking in the case of the sons. Henry VII also formed in the general mind a sort of background and contrast to the far more brilliant qualities of his successor. Henry VIII in his youth had many attractive qualities and was dearly loved by his people. No king had ever ascended the throne more richly endowed with physical and mental gifts, and England regarded him with a somewhat extravagant loyalty ; he was, more- over, on terms of the utmost good-fellowship with his subjects. " All his life," says Pollard, " he moved familiarly and almost un- guarded in the midst of his subjects." In dying, Henry VII had exhorted his son to defend the Church and to make war upon the infidel ; this is almost identical, as Shakespeare paints it, with the mission bequeathed to Henry V. Again, in his youth Henry VIII, like Prince Hal, had been too much inclined to pleasures, and his councillors occasionally com- plained that he cared only for amusement. Henry VIII had an intense antipathy to everything French. Even before he came to the throne he had been reported to be the enemy of France, and everyone speculated as to whether he would not be able to rival the exploits of his ancestor, Henry V. Like all the Tudors; Henry VIII possessed great courage. He had also the power of greatly inspiriting his armies. In July, 1513, when he joined his army in France, he proved himself a most gifted leader and possessed of a quite special bonhomie. " Henry rode round the camp at three in the morning, cheering his men with the remark, 'Well, comrades, now that we have suffered in the beginning, fortune promises us better things.' " ^ Again, like Shakespeare's Henry V, Henry VIII in his French campaign sternly repressed all acts of looting and impiety. Near Ardes some German mercenaries pillaged a church and Henry promptly had three of them hanged. We also notice in Henry V how much stress Shakespeare lays on the capture of the noble 1 Pollard. 2 Pollard. INTRODUCTION xiii prisoners after Agincourt, the Duke of Orleans being mentioned first and foremost ; so after the battle of Spurs some of the chief nobles of France were captured — Louis d'Orleans, Chevalier Bayard, and others. Henry VIII was generally acknowledged to be in his youth frank, honorable, and high-spirited : "Few could have thought that, under so careless and splendid an exterior — the very ideal of bluflF, open-hearted good-humour and frankness — there lay a watchful and secret eye, that marked what was going on without appearing to mark it, kept its own counsel till it was time to strike, and then struck as suddenly and remorselessly as a beast of prey. . . . He combined in his royal person the parts of despot and demagogue, and both he clothed in Tudor grace and majesty. ... He led his people in the way they wished to go . . . even his bitterest foes could scarce forbear to admire the dauntless front he presented to every peril. Material pride was the highest motive to which he appealed." ^ This portrait is certainly far more like that of Shake- speare's Henry V than any details concerning the historical Henry V which can be found either in Holinshed or in The Famous Victories. It is also very interesting to note what details Shakespeare uses from The Famous Victories and what details he omits. Thus, he omits the incident of the Prince striking the judge and appearing before his father in a dress designed in mockery. He retains the incident of the French king taunting Henry V with his skill in ten- nis, in which game it is well known that Henry VIII was proficient. It would, of course, be too much to say that Shakespeare intended an exact resemblance; but all the parallel circumstances are ex- plained and brought out; all the similar traits of character are thrown into relief, and the result would doubtless be a flattering image of Henry VIII as he appeared to his subjects in his youth. There is nothing derogatory to Shakespeare in the supposition. Doubtless he shared the quite common and sincere belief of the men of his time that the Tudors were a strong dynasty who had saved England from untold distresses and made her great as never before. Spenser, as we know, shared this belief and expressed it most fully and unmistakably in the Faerie Queene. A direct compliment to the Tudors is, of course, introduced in Henry V, where Catherine, their ancestress, is brought into the play. An additional Tudor likeness in Henry V is to be seen in his hardness of heart: notwithstanding all his bonhomie and his careless, good-humored frankness, there is no one whom he really 1 Pollard. xiv INTKODUCTION I loves. Is it his father ? Scarcely ! Is it the Princess Catherine ? No ! for he makes it very obvious even to her that he woos her for her dower! Is it Falstaff? No! Falstaff loves him; but we have no evidence at all that the Prince reciprocates this affection in any way. Henry never gives his whole heart to any human being, and this is the real reason why we love him so much less than Shakespeare's other heroes, — less than Hamlet or Antony or Othello ; but it also makes him much more like Henry VIII. The real centre of the Second Part of Henry IV is to be found in the character of Falstaff. This has little foundation in The Famous Victories. For a discussion of the origin of this famous character, see Introduction to 1 Henry IV, pages i-viii. We might here point out that the early identification of Falstaff with Oldcastle explains a dijEculty that has exercised the minds of a large number of critics, i.e. the severity of Henry V's repudiation of Falstaff and the latter's conmiitment to prison. Many writers have lamented Henry's undue severity and, especially, what they consider the cruelty of the imprisonment. The king first promises Falstaff : "For competence of life I will allow you, That lack of means enforce you not to evil : And, as we hear you do reform yourselves, We will, according to your strengths and qualities, Give you advancement." (v. 4. 70-74.) Henry puts the matter in the hands of the Chief Justice and then, almost immediately afterwards, though in the brief interim Fal- staff has had no opportunity to afford any kind of provocation, we find the old man haled off to prison : "Go, carry Sir John Falstaff to the Fleet." (v. 4. 97.) This conduct, as it stands, is certainly both cruel and indefensible, and Henry cannot really be excused — in spite of many efforts to do so — by anything which occurs in the present form of the play. The true explanation surely lies in the fact that these cir- cumstances belong to the historical Oldcastle. In the first draft of the play the audience would, of course, be well aware of his identity. They knew that he was not only a boon companion, but also that much more serious thing — a heretic ; they knew that the king, on his accession, was compelled for the most serious polit- ical reasons to repudiate Lollardry — for reasons as serious as those which had led Elizabeth's government to persecute the Puritans. Th«y knew that, when Henry declared that Falstaff should be reasoned with, he was not thinking of persuading him to give INTRODUCTION xv up "sack and sugar," but to recant. They were well aware that, far from being unduly severe, the king was, in effect, straining his royal authority to the utmost to save his old friend; and they were also aware that, when Oldcastle was ordered off to prison, the incident was simply in accord with historical fact. As the drama stands, Henry V plays, in relation to Falstaff, the part of a really odious prig, something like Tennyson's Arthur in The Idylls of the King. So long as it pleases him to jest and be amused, he delights his whole heart with Falstaff's incomparable wit ; then, finding it necessary to take life more seriously, he repu- diates his old companion with cruel severity and, at the same time, makes himself ridiculous by telling Falstaff, whose faults are hardly more than those of the homme sensuel moyen, that he must not come within ten miles of the royal person, thus suggesting that Henry was exceedingly weak-willed and dared not trust himself near such a fascinating companion, lest he might at any moment be misled back to "sack and sugar." It is an action more worthy of a weak- fibred schoolboy than of Shakespeare's hero king, — the slayer of Hotspur and the conqueror of France. But, if we substitute the name of Oldcastle for that of Falstaff (as we ought in order to understand the scene), the explanation is obvious at once. Oldcastle was not banished because his conversa- tion was too fascinating, but because the charge of favoring Lol- lardry might have brought down the dynasty. Oldcastle was not imprisoned because he had spoken daringly to the king in a royal procession, but on the only too serious charge of heresy. Henry was not harshly repudiating a boon companion; he was doing his best to save his old friend from infuriated ecclesiastics. As has been pointed out, the character of Falstaff still bears many traces of its true origin. The popular legend which had gathered around Oldcastle represented him as a man of irregular life, stout in his person, a soldier and a gentleman who had fallen into evil ways, and whose friendship corrupted his prince. From these suggestions Shakespeare has drawn one of the most matchless comic characters to be found in all literature. It has been pointed out ^ how, running through the whole character, there is the thread of the perverted Puritan, " the man whose memory and perhaps uneasy conscience is always recalling to him the religious phraseology and topics of his youth. All through Falstaff's conception of his own character is found the assumption that he was once a profoundly respectable and religious character, who has been spoiled by bad 1 Canon Ainger, Sir John Falstaff. xvi INTRODUCTION company." He, more than any other character in Shakespeare, is fond of quoting Scriptural phrases: "Let him be damned, like the glutton ! Pray God his tongue be hotter ! " (i. 2. 39-40.) When the Chief Justice tells him that his voice is broken with old age, he declares : "For my voice, I have lost it with halloing and sing- ing of anthems." (i. 2. 212-213.) This singing of anthems was, of course, as characteristic of the Puritans in Shakespeare's time as it was in the days of Cromwell. It is noticeable, however, that the Biblical allusions are much more numerous in the First Part than in the Second; e.g. : "As ragged as Lazarus in the painted cloth when the glutton's dogs licked his sores." ^ "Dost thou hear, Hal? thou knowest in the state of innocency Adam fell; and what should poor Jack Falstaff do in the days of villany ? thou seest I have more flesh than another man, and there- fore more frailty." ^ "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." ^ By the time he had reached the Second Part, however, Shake- speare was drawing more purely from the figm-e in his mind's eye and thinking less of his renegade Puritan. Much of the humor of the scenes with Poins and Prince Hal in the First Part consists in Falstaff's continual assumption that before he knew the Prince he knew nothing, and in his ingenious misapplication of scriptural phraseology. But this element grad- ually decreases ; there is no assumption of pristine virtue in the scenes with Justice Shallow, where Falstaff humors the Justice by confessing to a wild youth, and, in the famous soliloquy on the virtues of sack, the virtue is the most anti-Puritan glorification of "sherris," the epicure complete and perfect, justifying his appe- tites under the pretence of medical utility. There can, however, be little doubt that Shakespeare originally intended the character of Falstaff as a satire upon the Puritans. It is noticeable that practically all Shakespeare's satires upon the Puritans — the character of Malvolio in Twelfth Night, of Angelo in Measure for Measure, and possibly of Don John in Much Ado about Nothing — occur in plays written about this time, which was just the period of the great Puritan assault upon the theatre, when the City Fathers almost succeeded in suppressing the drama. » 1 Hmry IV, iv. 2. 27-28. 2 Ihid., iii, 3. 185-189. 3 Ibid., iii. 3. 35-37. INTRODUCTION xvii In 1596, the City Fathers commenced a bitter compaign against the players. The Puritan Lord Cobham entered upon his oflSce as Lord Chamberlain and, in the same year, we find Nashe complain- ing : "The players are piteously persecuted by the Lord Mayor and aldermen, and however in their old Lord's (the late Lord Hunsdon's) time they thought their state settled, 'tis now so uncertain they cannot build upon it." ^ On July 28, 1597, the Privy Council, at the Lord Mayor's suggestion, ordered all playhouses within a radius of three miles to be pulled down. This order was not carried out; but the struggle continued for several years longer. In July, 1598, the vestry of St. Saviour's parish, Southwark, tried to suppress the playhouses on the Bankside, though without success. In 1600, the Lord Mayor and his colleagues were once more petitioning the Privy Council against the players. Very severe restrictions were, as a matter of fact, decreed, though they remained largely a dead letter; but 1601 must have been a most anxious year for the players, who saw their profession legally pro- scribed and must have felt their whole position insecure. If we turn now to the dates of Shakespeare's anti-Puritan come- dies, we find them generally accepted as follows : Twelfth Night, 1600 or 1601, Measure for Measure, 1603 or 1604, and the First Part of Henry IV, probably written in 1596-1597. The date of production of 1 Henry IV on the stage may have been the very same year that Lord Cobham was appointed Lord Chancellor, and, when he protested against the character of Oldcastle as an annoy- ance to himself, it is exceedingly probable that he had just cause, that it was indeed so intended, and that the connection with him would be seen and laughed at by the audience. When we consider the fierceness and acrimony with which the controversy of Puritans versus players was usually conducted, we can only wonder at Shakespeare's mildness. In not one of his Puritan characters have we the same ferocity of attack as in Ben Jonson's Zeal-of-the-Land-Busy, or Tribulation Wholesome, or Ananias. In Shakespeare the satire is less malevolent, less circumscribed, and much more universal ; none the less he well portrays the characteris- tic faults to which the Puritan temper was liable. In Angelowe have the gravest of all their faults — undue severity, asceticism, and self-righteousness passing into lust, cruelty, and loathsome hypocrisy; in Malvolio we have their self-sufficiency and self- righteousness leading to egregious vanity; while in Falstaff's character there is the insinuation that the moral pretentiousness of * Sir Sidney Lee, Life of Shakespeare. xviii INTRODUCTION the Puritan only prepares the way for a much greater epicureanism and sensuality than that of the ordinary man. For the character of Falstaff Shakespeare may also have received hints from one of his contemporaries, Chettle. In Dekker's tract, A Knight's Conjuring, Chettle figures among the poets in Elysium : "In comes Chettle sweating and blowing by reason of his fat- ness; to welcome whom, because he was of olde acquaintance, all rose up and fell presently on their knees to drink a health to all the lovers of Helicon." This picture of a fat man, received with mock reverence and taken as a sort of Bacchic divinity, agrees very well with the character of Falstaff; and it has further been pointed out that Falstaff 's personal appearance is repeatedly described in a way that suggests a living original.^ We find also that there are other traits which tally : thus, Chettle certainly had a great contemporary reputation for wit ; most of his plays have perished, but Meres in his Palladis Tamia describes him as "one of our best for comedy." Again, a reference to Henslowe's diary shows that no one required more systematic financial relief; Chettle was very often in debt and not infrequently in prison for debt. Such a character — fat, witty, the best of boon companions, notoriously impecunious — may well have supplied hints for Falstaff. We know that Elizabethan dramatists did often, as in Ben Jonson's Poetaster, place each other upon the stage; and contem- porary portraits and topical allusions gave life to many a drama. But when we add together all the hints that Shakespeare may have got from the traditional character of Oldcastle and all that he may have got from Chettle, the fact remains that no one but himself could have created Falstaff from the combination. The character of Falstaff is one of the richest and most complex in Shakespeare, and we cannot but believe that a great part of its extraordinary fascination may be traced to the fact that the author seems to have made the fat knight his chief mouthpiece for one side of his own character. Just as we feel that in Hamlet Shakespeare has ex- pressed much of his own philosophy, so in Falstaff he seems to have expressed his own most vivid sense of humor and his overflowing good-natured fun. There is no character in Shakespeare who possesses so much humor as Falstaff ; he abounds with it on every possible occasion and the slightest hint is sufl&cient to set him off. He sees the comic side of everything — the Prince's slender figure, 1 A. W. Ward. INTRODUCTION xix Bardolph's fiery face, the name of Bullcalf. No incident is too trivial to serve him as matter for fun ; and it is a main part of his extraordinary fascination that we feel it would be impossible ever to be fatigued or bored in his company. He is as witty as Benedick or Mercutio, but he notices many kinds of things which they would have thought beneath them ; nor is his humor only on the surface, or of the cut-and-thrust rapier style. Falstaff is also a most shrewd and penetrating student of human nature. He is as much interested in mankind as Hamlet himself; he analyzes human beings as skilfully and sees to the heart of them as profoundly. But whereas Hamlet is an idealist and is always contrasting men, ironically and tragically, with his own superb vision of what human nature ought to be, Falstaff, in his studies, has no such sad purpose. There is for him no eternal and tragic contrast between the thing as it is and the thing as it might have been ; on the contrary, it is just this opposition which for him makes the essence of the fun. He studies men, partly for the delight of his own humorous analysis, partly because he wants to make his profit out of their failings, but chiefly, it would seem, for the sake of storing up material to make the Prince laugh "without intervallums." He always says the last word on a character and can sum up a man in a single tell- ing phrase, as when he says of the boastful coward. Pistol, "he'll not swagger with a Barbary hen, if her feathers turn back in any show of resistance" ; or when he remarks of Prince John, "a man cannot make him laugh" ; or when he notes what he calls the "sem- blable coherence" in the household of Justice Shallow, how his men " by observing of him, do bear themselves like foolish justices."^ He understands to the full the fantastic vanity which makes Shallow desire to have been thought a rake in his youth. It is this profound, shrewd analysis which gives so much depth to the humor of Falstaff. Moreover, his interest in character is universal. He is proud of understanding princes; he has been friendly with John of Gaunt and still recalls with pleasure how they jested together; he is immensely proud of being on terms of equal intimacy with Prince Hal ; yet he sees all the comedy of such ruffians as Pistol and Bardolph and of such clumsy yokels as Bull- calf and Feeble. It is with a similar impartial breadth of observa- tion that Hamlet analyzes the king and Osric, Polonius, the players, and the gravediggers. Yet, again, Falstaff shows his wonderful candor in the frankness with which he regards himself. His own fatness amuses him quite 1 V. 1. 74-76. XX INTRODUCTION as much as it can possibly amuse his friends : "I am not only witty in myself; but the cause that wit is in other men. I do here walk before thee like a sow that hath overwhelmed all her litter but one."^ He fully enjoys the ridiculous contrast between himself and his tiny page, and declares : " If the prince put thee into my service for any other reason than to set me off, why then I have no judgement . . . thou art fitter to be worn in my cap than to wait at my heels ... I will inset you . . . and send you back again to your master, for a jewel." 2 Falstaff knows his own faults thoroughly and does not attempt to hide them, which would be absurd, nor to defend them, which would be hypocritical ; he is clever enough to know that the only thing that can be done with such failings is to confess them frankly and turn them into ridicule: "I can get no remedy against this consumption of the purse : borrowing only lingers and lingers it out, but the disease is incurable." ^ He does not deny that he is a drunkard ; but he defends sherris sack with reasons he knows to be magnificently absurd. Topers have been known to use similar arguments in all seriousness ; but Falstaff is ridiculing their excuses and his own. In this respect, we see again the contrast between Falstaff and Hamlet, who knows all his own faults so well and re- grets them so deeply. If this power of keen, clear-sighted analysis, both of himself and of others, adds depth to the character of Falstaff, so again depth is added by his education and his knowledge. Shakespeare's original — Oldcastle — was, of course, a man of culture and attainments, and the poet was justified in representing Falstaff as being the same. We have seen that he is fond of scriptural allusions, brought in with exquisitely managed misappropriate- ness. He is also fond of classical allusions : he commences a letter to the Prince by saying, "I will imitate the honourable Romans in brevity"; and, when he has overcome Sir John Cole-« vile, he declares : "he saw me and yielded; that I may justly say with the hook-nosed fellow of Rome, ' I came, saw and overcame.' " Here again he forms the comic contrast to the tragic seriousness of Hamlet, who also was fond of alluding to Caesar — but in how different a spirit ! "Imperial Caesar, dead and turn'd to clay, Might stop a hole to keep the wind away." * » i. 2. 11-14. 2 i. 2. 14-22. 3 i. 2. 4-6. i Hamlet, X. 1. 238-239. INTRODUCTION xxi Falstaff's summary of the eflFect of "sherris" on the human body reveals his acquaintance with the anatomy and physiology of the time; and his analysis of honor is a satire on the principles of casuistry.^ He ridicules the subtleties of schoolmen and Jesuits; you can prove anything to be anything by his methods and he knows you can. Falstaff's well-stored mind often enables him to escape from the most difficult position by a happy thought; thus, when all his other shifts are exposed, he suddenly recollects that "the lion will not touch the true prince" and that therefore he was "a coward on instinct." Of course he sees the absurdity of this strange natural history; but that, again, is part of the joke.^ Another characteristic of Falstaff's humor is its good temper. In most wit there is the spice of malice. The courtly Benedick and Beatrice "talk daggers" and often wound each other; but Falstaff's wit is as wholly devoid of malice as Rosalind's ; he might say with her that "it would not hurt a fly." With his unrivalled keenness of analysis he must have possessed equally unrivalled powers of wound- ing people; but he never uses them; and it is not policy which keeps him from malice, but sheer good temper. In precisely the same way as he sees and pardons his own faults because of their humorous aspects, he sees and pardons the faults of others. It is perhaps the main reason why we are so indulgent to him — because he himself is indulgent to everyone else. There is not in him the remotest likeness to those Pharisees who " Compound for sins they are inclined to By damning those they have no mind to.". When he is chuckling over the inventions of Justice Shallow, he says, "Lord ! Lord ! How subject we old men are to this vice of lying." It is true that he teases Bardolph concerning his fiery face and the boy for his minuteness ; but then, as he does not mind laughter at his own personal appearance, he cannot quite see why anyone else should object. It should be noticed how often Falstaff's superiority in the play is due to the fact that he can face the truth about himself while no one else is able to do so. For instance, when he calls Doll Tearsheet "this light flesh and corrupt blood," she breaks out into instant anger, although she knows the accusation is true. Nor does Falstaff reveal any malice against those who rebuke him, such as the Chief Justice and Prince John. By his imperturbable good 1 1 Henry IV, v. 1. 131-144. » 1 Henry IV, ii. 4. 300-301. xxii INTRODUCTION humor he almost wins over the Chief Justice ; and although Prince John is too young and too crude to be fascinated, Falstaff only pities him for his defective sense of humor, which is, as he justly perceives, one of the greatest of human misfortunes. It is also noticeable that Falstaff does no real damage to anyone ; cruelty is no part of his nature and his worst depredations win pardon because, like those of Robin Hood, they are effected upon people who really deserve them. Falstaff sponges on the hostess, tricks her out of money, and persuades her to pawn her plate; but is it really possible to sympathize very deeply with the good, compla- cent woman who is hostess to Doll Tearsheet ? Falstaff inveigles Justice Shallow out of a thousand pounds; but is it possible to feel much sympathy for a person so full of mean miserliness? Does he not deserve to lose his money for stopping William's wages in order to pay for the sack lost at Hinckley Fair, and for countless other mean things we know he must have done? There is poetic justice in the thought that, after years and years of such cheese- paring, it is all snatched from him in one fell swoop by Falstaff. It must be observed, too, that Falstaff is no coward. In a long and able essay an eighteenth-century critic, Maurice Morgann, has argued the point and has shown that Falstaff lacks the chief char- acteristic of the coward — genuine fright. On the contrary, under the most difficult circumstances he invariably retains his presence of mind. He does not wish to be killed by Douglas, so he hides ; but he is quite calm enough to jest about the matter. He has led his vassals where they are so "well-peppered" that there are hardly any of them left alive. It is noticeable, also, that he really has a reputation for courage, for he certainly is in demand as a soldier: "There is not a dangerous action can peep out his head but I am thrust upon it : well, I cannot last ever : but it was alway yet the trick of our English nation, if they have a good thing, to make it too common. If ye will needs say I am an old man, you should give me rest. I would to God my name were not so terrible to the enemy as it is." ^ This is a humorous exaggeration, of course, but it has its element of truth; and it is noteworthy that Sir John Colevile yields to the great reputation of Falstaff as he certainly would not yield to that of an unknown person. There is no hint that Sir John Colevile is meant to be a coward of the Pistol type ; he seems to be a genuinely valiant gentleman. Prince John calls him "a famous rebel," and yet he says : "I think you are Sir John 1 i. 2. 238-245. INTRODUCTION xxiii Falstaff and in that thought yield me." ^ A man of valor would not yield at the mere reputation of Falstaff, were the latter really a coward. Throughout the two plays Falstaff acts on the assumption that everyone will accept him as a man of reasonable courage, and practically everyone does. Even his boon companions cannot presume too far, for, when Pistol becomes really impertinent, Falstaff soon puts an end to it. "Give me my rapier, boy," he demands of the page, and Pistol is immediately expelled down- stairs. Doll tells Falstaff that he is as valorous as Hector of Troy and worth five of Agamemnon; and one thing is certain that, as soon as he chooses to exert himself, he is the acknowledged master. But we cannot help thinking that most critics are inclined to take Falstaff's vices more seriously than his creator intended. It is the scene of Henry V's public repudiation which has done so much damage to Falstaff's character in the eyes of posterity ; but in Shakespeare's original, as has been said, the repudiation was largely for heresy, which really alters the whole moral aspect of the matter. In the original version the fun lay in representing a leading Puritan as an arch-epicure, in making Oldcastle satirize every single one of the Puritan doctrines in his own person and be the exact opposite of everything a Puritan was supposed to be; and if we remember that his descendant was, at that very moment, engaged in Puritani- cally trying to suppress the theatre, the fun becomes uproarious. Grouped around Falstaff are his amusing lieutenants. Here Shakespeare shows a temporary concession to the "comedy of humours " which had just become popular about this time (1598- 1600), and of which Ben Jonson was the chief exponent. Pistol, Bardolph, the Hostess, Doll Tearsheet, Justice Shallow, and Silence are all examples of these "humours." Pistol, particularly, is a full-blown specimen ; he is what Falstaff is not, — a real coward, — and, though his swagger and bluster can deceive for a time, he can be "put down" by anyone who takes the trouble, — by Falstaff, by Fluellen, even by Doll Tearsheet, who soon gets the better of him in a scolding match. In his swagger and his arrogance and his pitiable surrenders. Pistol resembles the coward of all ages and times ; but he is marked of the sixteenth century by his peculiar playhouse rant. He is Shakespeare's humorous study of the effect of Elizabethan tragedy upon the "groundlings." His conversation is made up of tags of plays imperfectly remembered. Even in his quarrels with Doll, he quotes the most deeply serious of tragedies, and involves Pluto and Erebus. Incidentally, we may observe, 1 iv. 3. 18-19. xxiv INTRODUCTION Pistol exhibits Shakespeare's laughter at his own early preferences. There certainly was a time when the dramatist had an intense admiration for Marlowe; but there was a side of Marlowe which irresistibly appealed to Shakespeare's sense of humor, and it is in Pistol that we have proof of this ; the famous and absurd scene in which Tamburlaine compels a "yoke of kings" to draw his chariot is parodied in : " Shall pack-horses And hollow pamper' d jades of Asia, Which cannot go but thirty mile a-day, Compare with Caesars, and with Cannibals, And Trojan Greeks ? " (ii. 4, 177-181.) He addresses the Hostess as if she were a romantic heroine ! " Then feed and be fat, my fair Calipolis," ^ has all the stage love of elaborate courtesies and furious rages. "Sweet knight, I kiss thy neif," he says to Falstaff, and, a moment later, is drawing his dagger and threatening murder. Another weakness of the Elizabethan stage which Shakespeare exposes through Pistol is the bombast which made many writers seem almost unable to employ simple words. " What ! shall we have incision ? shall we imbrue ? " ^ There is also the satire on the abuse of alliteration, another trait of the extravagant Elizabethan play: "abridge my doleful days! Why, then, let grievous, ghastly, gaping wounds Untwine the Sisters Three." (ii. 4. 11-13.) Mrs. Quickly and Doll Tearsheet are perhaps even more masterly as character studies because less extreme. Mrs. Quickly has, how- ever, the marks of a character of "humours" ; she is strongly dis- tinguished by certain tricks both of thought and of speech; her forte is her curious habit of repetition and her fantastic habit of employing words in wrong senses. She is the precursor of Mrs. Malaprop and all the other amusing misappliers of language; she forms a sort of feminine counterpart to Dogberry, whom also Shakespeare created about the same time. But Mrs. Quickly is more than this : she is a finished study of the London hostess of the less particular type. She is sufficiently well-to-do to possess hang- ings of genuine arras, and silver plate, for we can hardly take Falstaff's word for it that her plate — which had been pawned for him and which he was therefore naturally anxious to disparage — 1 ii. 4. 193. 2 ii. 4. 210. INTRODUCTION xxv was only "parcel-gilt." She is keenly alive to the triumph it would be to possess Falstaff's hand and to be "my lady thy wife." She is immensely complimented when he tells her that she must hold herself aloof and no longer be on familiar terms with her poor neighbors, who shall, ere long, call her "madam." But Mrs. Quickly is complacent enough to receive Doll Tearsheet and to treat her as an intimate friend. There is a certain diflSculty over the curious doubling of the character which occurs in The Merry Wives of Windsor, Is the Mrs. Quickly of that play to be considered as the same person or is she not ? On the one hand, there is the fact that she is installed in Windsor and not in Eastcheap ; and also her position is different. Sir Hugh Evans says that she dwells in the house of Doctor Caiws and is "in the manner of his nurse or his dry nurse, or his cook, or his laundry, his washer, and his wringer."^ On the other hand, she has the same tricks of speech ; she indulges in long desultory conversations over all the details of life; she perverts language in exactly the same way: "but, I detest, as honest a maid as ever broke bread" ; or "she is given too much to allicholy and musing"; or "you have brought her into such a canaries as 'tis wonderful." Like the Mrs. Quickly of Henry IV, she has, also, a most accom- modating morality and is quite ready to help Falstaff in his in- trigues with Mrs. Ford. She has also the same innate conviction that she is an honest woman. In Henry IV she makes a great outcry to the Lord Chief Justice when Falstaff accuses her, and in The Merry Wives she advises Falstaff not to let the true nature of the message to Mrs. Ford be known to the tiny page : "for 'tis not good that children should know any wickedness." In both plays, indeed, she is the perfect type of the accommodating woman who likes to think herself respectable. In The Merry Wives she has certainly the better reputation, for it is difficult to think of the Mrs. Quickly of Henry IV being accepted as the trusted confidant of Anne Page. The conclusion is that both Mrs. Quickly and Fal- staff apparently are meant to be the same personages throughout, but that, writing The Merry Wives in haste, Shakespeare neglected to make the characters thoroughly consistent. If there are dis- crepancies in the character of Mrs. Quickly, they are, after all, nothing as compared with the many discrepancies in the character of Falstaff, who, matchless in Henry IV, becomes himself a butt in The Merry Wives. 1 Merry Wives, i. 2, 3-5. xxvi INTEODUCTION '•' If there is any chronology in such matters. The Merry Wives may be placed in some period of Falstaff 's life anterior to Henry IV, or, at least, anterior to the closing scenes of that play ; for, whatever else is wrong with FalstaflF, he is certainly not suffering from the "fracted and corroborate" heart which we know, on the authority of Pistol, afflicted him after his repudiation by Henry V. It is noteworthy that Mrs. Quickly's progress in life is a melan- choly one. Having failed in achieving the hand of Falstaff, she marries Pistol — a great declension — and the last we hear of her is in the words of her husband : "News have I, that my Nell is dead i' the spital Of malady of France, And there my rendezvous is quite cut off." ^ With all his tolerance for human frailty, with all his immense kindness of heart, Shakespeare shows unmistakably the end of complaisance. Another admirable study is the character of Doll Tearsheet. She too is treated indulgently; there is nothing of the vast ironic bitterness which depicts Mrs. Overdone in Measure for Measure. Doll has her dignity, such as it is, and will not permit Pistol to insult her or even Falstaff to treat her too lightly. Like all the rest who associate with him, — Prince John alone excepted, — she feels the fascination of Falstaff; when he has to go away to the wars she weeps, with absolute sincerity, real tears; Pistol also pronounces the final epithet upon her when he tells us that she has paid the usual penalty of her trade. The scenes with Justice Shallow take us into a new and very de- lightful atmosphere, dealing with Shakespeare's own neighborhood. A very early tradition identifies Justice Shallow with Sir Thomas Lucy of Charlecote Manor, the largest landowner in the neighbor- hood of Stratford. According to Shakespeare's earliest biographer, Rowe (1709), the poet was compelled to leave Stratford because he got into difficulties with Sir Thomas Lucy over a poaching affray. Howe's account runs as follows : "He had, by a misfortune common enough to young fellows, fallen into ill company; and, amongst them, some that made a frequent practice of deer-stealing, engaged him with them more than once in robbing a park that belonged to Sir Thomas Lucy of Charle- cote near Stratford. For this he was prosecuted by that gentleman, as he thought, somewhat too severely ; and, in order to revenge that 1 Henry F, v. 1. 85-87. INTRODUCTION xxvii ill-usage, he made a ballad upon him, and though this, probably the first essay of his poetry, be lost, yet it is said to have been so very bitter that it redoubled the prosecution against him to that degree that he was obliged to leave his business and family in Warwickshire for some time and shelter himself in London." , There is also the independent testimony of Archdeacon Richard Davies, vicar of Sapperton, Gloucestershire, in the late seventeenth century, to the effect that Shakespeare stole venison and rabbits, particularly from Sir Thomas Lucy, who had him whipped and im- prisoned and finally compelled him to fly from Stratford. Arch- deacon Davies adds that Shakespeare's revenge was so great that he caricatured Lucy as "Justice Clodpate." There can be little doubt that this story has a real foundation of fact, for there are several allusions which make practically certain the identity of Justice Shallow with Lucy. In The Merry Wives Justice Shallow is represented as having come from Gloucestershire to Windsor to make a Star-Chamber matter of a poaching raid on his estate. The historic Sir Thomas Lucy was well known for his Parliamentary activities in connection with game, and in one year (1584) he was intrusted with a bill for "The Preservation of Grain and Game." But the identification is made certain by two passages, — one in the opening scene of The Merry Wives, where Shakespeare makes Sir Hugh Evans mock at Lucy's coat-of-arms : "The dozen white louses do become an old coat well" ; and the other the passage in the present text where Justice Shallow is described as "the old pike," Shakespeare thus making a pun on the generally accepted meaning of the name "Lucy." There can be little doubt that the deer-stealing episode, whatever its exact nature may have been, is recollected in Justice Shallow's quarrel with Falstaff : "Knight! you have beaten my men, killed my deer and broken down my lodge," to which Falstaff replies with the characteristically impudent, "But not kissed your keeper's daughter." Falstaff, with his inimitable effrontery, presents some of the veni- son to the page, who thanks Shallow for it, provoking the latter to remark: "It was ill-killed." Sir Thomas Lucy was certainly a Justice of the Peace and was very active indeed in that capacity. The humor of the situation is very greatly increased when we learn that he was also considered a Puritan, and had been very active in hunting down recusants. Thus Shakespeare's portrait of him would be another of the Puritan satires in which the plays of this period abound. xxviii INTRODUCTION Objections have been raised to this interpretation on two grounds, one that the Charlecote deer park was of later date than the six- teenth century, and the other that Justice Shallow is by no means an exact portrait of Lucy, since the latter had a wife and family, while Justice Shallow is depicted as a bachelor, is not a knight, and has no title. ^ It may, however, be pointed out in answer that Lucy was certainly a game-preserver and that, if he did not own what was technically termed a deer park, he certainly owned a warren where deer might well be kept. Again, it is quite true that Shakespeare does not represent him as a knight ; but it would have been most impolitic to present a portrait too absolutely exact, so that Lucy could indeed have made a "Star-Chamber" matter of it. Shakespeare had already got himself into trouble over the first part of Henry IV, and a detailed portrait of Lucy might well have got him into trouble over the second part also ; such prosecutions were really quite common. The por- trait was sufficient for everyone to know who was intended; but it was not sufficiently detailed to impel Lucy to take action. The portrait is not a bitter one, because it accuses Lucy of no real crimes ; but it is a masterly piece of mischief -making. When we remember that Lucy was a Puritan, we see still more force in his boasting to FalstaflP of his youthful riots. Posing outwardly as the immaculate country gentleman, he had "gone the pace" in youth, and, in his heart, cherished it as his proudest memory, though even then — according to Falstaff 's standards — he had only succeeded in making himself supremely absurd. 1 Mrs. Stopes' Shakespeare's Warwickshire Contemporaries. THE SECOND PART OF HENRY THE FOURTH DRAMATIS PERSONS Rumour The Presenter King Henry the Fourth Henry, Prince of Wales Afterwards King Henry V Thomas, Duke of Clarence J- His sons Prince John of Lancaster Prince Humphrey of Gloucester _ Earl of Warwick Earl of Westmoreland Earl of Surrey GOWER Harcourt Blunt Lord Chief-Justice of the King's Bench A Servant of the Chief-Justice Earl of Northumberland Scroop Archbishop of York Lord Mowbray Lord Hastings v Lord Bardolph Sir John Colevile Travers and Morton .... Retainers of Northumberland Sir John Falstaff His Page Bardolph Pistol POINS Peto ShallowI Country Justices Silence J Davy Servant to Shallow Mouldy, Shadow, Wart, Feeble and Bullcalf. . Recruits Fang and Snare Sheriff's oflficers Lady Northumberland Lady Percy Mistress Quickly .... Hostess of a tavern in Eastcheap Doll Tearsheet Lords and Attendants ; Porter, Drawers, Beadles, Grooms, etc. A Dancer, speaker of the Epilogue SCENE — England The Second Part of King Henry the Fourth INDUCTION Warkwortk. Before the castle Enter Rumour, painted full of tongues Rum. Open your ears ; for which of you will stop The vent of hearing when loud Rumour speaks? I, from the orient to the drooping west, Making the wind my post-horse, still unfold The acts commenced on this ball of earth : Upon my tongues continual slanders ride, The which in every language I pronounce. Stuffing the ears of men with false reports. I speak of peace, while covert enmity Under the smile of safety wounds the world : lo And who but Rumour, who but only I, Make fearful musters and prepared defence. Whiles the big year, swoln with some other grief. Is thought with child by the stern tyrant war, And no such matter ? Rumour is a pipe Blown by surmises, jealousies, conjectures. And of so easy and so plain a stop That the blunt monster with uncounted heads. The still-discordant wavering multitude. Can play upon it. But what need I thus 20 My well-known body to anatomize 1 ^ KING HENRY THE FOURTH [Act One Among my household ? Why is Rumour here ? I run before King Harry's victory ; Who in a bloody field by Shrewsbury Hath beaten down young Hotspur and his troops, Quenching the flame of bold rebellion Even with the rebels' blood. But what mean I To speak so true at first ? my office is To noise about that Harry Monmouth fell 30 Under the wrath of noble Hotspur's sword, And that the king before the Douglas' rage Stoop'd his anointed head as low as death. This have I rumour'd through the peasant towns Between that royal field of Shrewsbury And this worm-eaten hold of ragged stone. Where Hotspur's father, old Northumberland, Lies crafty-sick : the posts come tiring on, And not a man of them brings other news Than they have learn'd of me: from Rumour's tongues 40 They bring smooth comforts false, worse than true wrongs. [Exit. ACT I Scene I — The same Enter Lord Bardolph L. Bard. Who keeps the gate here, ho ? The Porter opens the gate Where is the earl ? Port, What shall I say you are ? Scene One] KING HENRY THE FOURTH 3 L. Bard. Tell thou the earl That the Lord Bardolph doth attend him here. Port. His lordship is walk'd forth into the orchard : Please it your honour, knock but at the gate. And he himself will answer. Enter Northumberland L. Bard. Here comes the earl. [Exit Porter. North. What news, Lord Bardolph? every minute now Should be the father of some stratagem : The times are wild ; contention, like a horse Full of high feeding, madly hath broke loose lo And bears down all before him. L. Bard. Noble earl, I bring you certain news from Shrewsbury. North. Good, an God will ! L. Bard. As good as heart can wish : The king is almost wounded to the death ; And, in the fortune of my lord your son. Prince Harry slain outright ; and both the Blunts Kill'd by the hand of Douglas; young Prince John And Westmoreland and Stafford fled the field ; And Harry Monmouth's brawn, the hulk Sir John, Is prisoner to your son : O, such a day, 20 So fought, so foUow'd and so fairly won. Came not till now to dignify the times. Since Caesar's fortunes ! 4 KING HENRY THE FOURTH [Act One North. How is this derived ? Saw you the field ? came you from Shrewsbury ? L. Bard. I spake with one, my lord, that came from thence, A gentleman well bred and of good name, That freely rendered me these news for true. North. Here comes my servant Travers, whom I sent On Tuesday last to listen after news. Enter Travers 30 L. Bard. My lord, I over-rode him on the way ; And he is furnished with no certainties More than he haply may retail from me. North. Now, Travers, what good tidings comes with you ? Tra. My lord, Sir John Umfrevile turn'd me back With joyful tidings ; and, being better horsed. Out-rode me. After him came spurring hard A gentleman, almost forspent with speed. That stopp'd by me to breathe his bloodied horse. He ask'd the way to Chester ; and of him 40 1 did demand what news from Shrewsbury : He told me that rebellion had bad luck And that young Harry Percy's spur was cold. With that, he gave his able horse the head. And bending forward struck his armed heels Against the panting sides of his poor jade Up to the rowel-head, and starting so He seem'd in running to devour the way, Staying no longer question. Scene One] KING HENRY THE FOURTH 5 North. Ha ! Again : Said he young Harry Percy's spur was cold ? Of Hotspur Coldspur ? that rebelhon 50 Had met ill luck ? L. Bard. My lord, I '11 tell you what; If my young lord your son have not the day. Upon mine honour, for a silken point I '11 give my barony : never talk of it. North. Why should that gentleman that rode by Travers Give then such instances of loss ? L.Bard. Who, he? He was some hilding fellow that had stolen The horse he rode on, and, upon my life. Spoke at a venture. Look, here comes more news. Enter Morton North. Yea, this man's brow, like to a title-leaf, eo Foretells the nature of a tragic volume : So looks the strand whereon the imperious flood Hath left a witness'd usurpation. Say, Morton, didst thou come from Shrewsbury ? Mor. I ran from Shrewsbury, my noble lord; Where hateful death put on his ugliest mask To fright our party. North. How doth my son and brother ? Thou tremblest ; and the whiteness in thy cheek Is apter than thy tongue to tell thy errand. Even such a man, so faint, so spiritless, 70 So dull, so dead in look, so woe-begone. Drew Priam's curtain in the dead of night. And would have told him half his Troy was burnt ; 6 KING HENRY THE Ji'OUIlTH [Act One But Priam found the fire ere he his tongue. And I my Percy's death ere thou report'st it. This thou wouldst say, "Your son did thus and thus; Your brother thus : so fought the noble Douglas " : Stopping my greedy ear with their bold deeds : But in the end, to stop my ear indeed, 80 Thou hast a sigh to blow away this praise. Ending with "Brother, son, and all are dead." Mor. Douglas is living, and your brother, yet; But, for my lord your son, — North. Why, he is dead. See what a ready tongue suspicion hath ! He that but fears the thing he would not know Hath by instinct knowledge from others' eyes That what he fear'd is chanced. Yet speak, Morton ; Tell thou an earl his divination lies^ And I will take it as a sweet disgrace 90 And make thee rich for doing me such wrong. Mor. You are too great to be by me gainsaid : Your spirit is too true, your fears too certain. North. Yet, for all this, say not that Percy's dead. I see a strange confession in thine eye : Thou shakest thy head and hold'st it fear or sin To speak a truth. If he be slain, say so ; The tongue offends not that reports his death : And he doth sin that doth belie the dead, Not he which says the dead is not alive. 100 Yet the first bringer of unwelcome news Scene One] KING HENRY THE FOURTH 7 Hath but a losing office, and his tongue Sounds ever after as a sullen bell, Remember'd tolling a departing friend. L, Bard. I cannot think, my lord, your son is dead. Mor. I am sorry I should force you to believe That which I would to God I had not seen ; But these mine eyes saw him in bloody state. Rendering faint quittance, wearied and out- breathed. To Harry Monmouth; whose swift wrath beat down The never-daunted Percy to the earth, no From whence with life he never more sprung up. In few, his death, whose spirit lent a fire Even to the dullest peasant in his camp. Being bruited once, took fire and heat away From the best-temper'd courage in his troops ; For from his metal was his party steel'd ; Which once in him abated, all the rest Turn'd on themselves, like dull and heavy lead : And as the thing that's heavy in itself. Upon enforcement flies with greatest speed, 120 So did our men, heavy in Hotspur's loss. Lend to this weight such lightness with their fear That arrows fled not swifter toward their aim Than did our soldiers, aiming at their safety. Fly from the field. Then was that noble Worces- ter Too soon ta'en prisoner ; and that furious Scot, The bloody Douglas, whose well-labouring sword 8 KING HENRY THE FOURTH [Act One Had three times slain the appearance of the king, 'Gan vail his stomach and did grace the shame 130 Of those that turned their backs, and in his flight, Stumbling in fear, was took. The sum of all Is that the king hath won, and hath sent out A speedy power to encounter you, my lord Under the conduct of young Lancaster And Westmoreland. This is the news at full. North. For this I shall have time enough to mourn. In poison there is physic ; and these news. Having been well, that would have made me sick, Being sick, have in some measure made me well : 140 And as the wretch, whose fever- weaken'd joints. Like strengthless hinges, buckle under life. Impatient of his fit, breaks like a fire Out of his keeper's arms, even so my limbs, Weaken'd with grief, being now enraged with grief. Are thrice themselves. Hence, therefore, thou nice crutch ! A scaly gauntlet now with joints of steel Must glove this hand : and hence, thou sickly quoif ! Thou art a guard too wanton for the head Which princes, flesh'd with conquest, aim to hit. 150 Now bind my brows with iron ; and approach The ragged'st hour that time and spite dare bring To frown upon the enraged Northumberland ! Let heaven kiss earth ! now let not Nature's hand Keep the wild flood confined ! let order die ! Scene One] KING HENRY THE FOURTH 9 And let this world no longer be a stage To feed contention in a lingering act ; But let one spirit of the first-born Cain Reign in all bosoms, that, each heart being set On bloody courses, the rude scene may end, And darkness be the burier of the dead ! 160 Tra. This strained passion doth you wrong, my lord. L. Bard. Sweet earl, divorce not wisdom from your honour. Mor. The lives of all your loving complices Lean on your health ; the which, if you give o'er To stormy passion, must perforce decay. You cast the event of war, my noble lord. And summ'd the account of chance, before you said "Let us make head." It was your presurmise. That, in the dole of blows, your son might drop : You knew he walk'd o'er perils, on an edge, i7o More likely to fall in than to get o'er ; You were advised his flesh was capable Of wounds and scars and that his forward spirit Would lift him where most trade of danger ranged : Yet did you say "Go forth"; and none of this. Though strongly apprehended, could restrain The stiff-borne action : what hath then befallen. Or what hath this bold enterprise brought forth. More than that being which was like to be '^ L. Bard. We all that are engaged to this loss 180 Knew that we ventured on such dangerous seas That if we wrought out life 'twas ten to one ; And yet we ventured, for the gain proposed Choked the respect of likely peril fear'd ; 10 KING HENRY THE FOURTH [Act One And since we are o'erset, venture again. Come, we will all put forth, body and goods. Mor. 'T is more than time : and, my most noble lord, I hear for certain, and do speak the truth. The gentle Archbishop of York is up 190 With well-appointed powers : he is a man Who with a double surety binds his followers. My lord your son had only but the corpse. But shadows and the shows of men, to fight; For that same word, rebellion, did divide The action of their bodies from their souls ; And they did fight with queasiness, constrained, As men drink potions, that their weapons only Seem'd on our side; but, for their spirits and souls. This word, rebellion, it had froze them up, 200 As fish are in a pond. But now the bishop Turns insurrection to religion : Supposed sincere and holy in his thoughts. He 's followed both with body and with mind ; And doth enlarge his rising with the blood Of fair King Richard, scraped from Pomfret stones ; Derives from heaven his quarrel and his cause; Tells them he doth bestride a bleeding land, Gasping for life under great Bolingbroke ; And more and less do flock to follow him. 210 North. I knew of this before; but, to speak truth. This present grief had wiped it from my mind. Go in with me ; and counsel every man Scene Two] KING HENRY THE FOURTH 11 The aptest way for safety and revenge : Get posts and letters, and make friends with speed : Never so few, and never yet more need. [Exeunt. Scene II — London. A street Enter Falstaff, with his Page bearing his sword and bidder Fat. Sirrah, you giant, what says the doctor to my water ? Page. He said, sir, the water itself was a good healthy water ; but, for the party that owed it, he might have more diseases than he knew for. Fal. Men of all sorts take a pride to gird at me : the brain of this foolish-compounded clay, man, is not able to invent any thing that tends to laughter, more than I invent or is invented onio me : I am not only witty in myself, but the cause that wit is in other men. I do here walk before thee like a sow that hath overwhelmed all her litter but one. If the prince put thee into my service for any other reason than to set me off, why then I have no judgement. Thou whoreson mandrake, thou art fitter to be worn in my cap than to wait at my heels. I was never manned with an agate till now : but I will inset you neither in gold nor silver, but in vile apparel, 20 and send you back again to your master, for a jewel, — the juvenal, the prince your master, whose chin is not yet fledged. I will sooner have a beard grow in the palm of my hand than he shall get one on his cheek; and yet he will 12 KING HENRY THE FOURTH [Act One not stick to say Ms face is a face-royal : God may finish it when he will, 'tis not a hair amiss yet : he may keep it still at a face-royal, for a barber shall never earn sixpence out of it; and 30 yet he '11 be crowing as if he had writ man ever since his father wa,s a bachelor. He may keep his own grace, but ihe 's almost out of mine, I can assure him. Wiiat said Master Dombledon about the satin for my short cloak and my slops.? Page. He said, sir, you should procure him better assurance than Bardolph : he would not take his band and yours; he liked not the se- curity. Fal. Let him be damned, like the glutton ! 40 pray God his tongue be hotter ! A whoreson Achitophel ! a rascally yea-forsooth knave ! to bear a gentleman in hand, and then stand upon security ! The whoreson smooth-pates do now wear nothing but high shoes, and bunches of keys at their girdles; and if a man is through with them in honest taking up, then they must stand upon security. I had as lief they would put ratsbane in my mouth as offer to stop it with security. I looked a' should have sent me two 50 and twenty yards of satin, as I am a true knight, and he sends me security. Well, he may sleep in security; for he hath the horn of abundance, and the lightness of his wife shines through it : and yet cannot he see, though he have his own lanthorn to light him. Where 's Bardolph ^ Page. He 's gone into Smithfield to buy your worship a horse. Scene Two] KING. HENRY THE FOURTH 13 FaL I bought him in Paul's, and he '11 buy me a horse in Smithfield : an I could get me but a wife in the stews, I were manned, horsed, andeo wived. Enter the Lord Chief -Justice and Servant Page. Sir, here comes the nobleman that committed the prince for striking him about Bardolph. Fat. Wait close ; I will not see him. Ch. Just. What 's he that goes there ^ Serv. Falstaff, an 't please your lordship. Ch. Just. He that was in question for the robbery ? Serv. He, my lord : but he hath since done 7o good service at Shrewsbury; and, as I hear, is now going with some charge to the Lord John of Lancaster. Ch. Just. What, to York? Call him back again. Serv. Sir John Falstaff ! Fal. Boy, tell him I am deaf. Page. You must speak louder; my master is deaf. Ch. Just. I am sure he is, to the hearing of so any thing good. Go, pluck him by the elbow; I must speak with him. Serv. Sir John ! Fal. What! a young knave, and begging! Is there not wars.f^ is there not employment? doth not the king lack subjects ? do not the rebels need soldiers? Though it be a shame to be on 14 KING HENRY THE FOURTH [Act One any side but one, it is worse shame to beg than to be on the worst side, were it worse than the 90 name of rebeUion can tell how to make it. Serv. You mistake me, sir. Fal. Why, sir, did I say you were an honest man? setting my knighthood and my soldiership aside, I had lied in my throat, if I had said so. Serv. I pray you, sir, then set your knight- hood and your soldiership aside; and give me leave to tell you, you lie in your throat, if you say I am any other than an honest man. Fal. I give thee leave to tell me so ! I lay 100 aside that which grows to me ! If thou gettest any leave of me, hang me; if thou takest leave, thou wert better be hanged. You hunt counter : hence ! avaunt ! Serv. Sir, my lord would speak with you. Ch. Just. Sir John Falstaff, a word with you. Fal. My good lord ! God give your lordship good time of day. I am glad to see your lord- ship abroad : I heard say your lordship was sick : I hope your lordship goes abroad by advice. 110 Your lordship, though not clean past your youth, hath yet some smack of age in you, some relish of the saltness of time; and I most humbly be- seech your lordship to have a reverent care of your health. Ch. Just. Sir John, I sent for you before your expedition to Shrewsbury. Fal. An 't please your lordship, I hear his majesty is returned with some discomfort from Wales. Scene Two] KING HENRY THE FOURTH 15 Ch. Just. I talk not of his majesty : you 120 would not come when I sent for you. Fal. And I hear, moreover, his highness is fallen into this same whoreson apoplexy. Ch. Just. Well, God mend him ! I pray you, let me speak with you. Fal. This apoplexy is, as I take it, a kind of lethargy, an 't please your lordship ; a kind of sleeping in the blood, a whoreson tingling. Ch. Just. What tell you me of it ? be it as it is. 130 Fal. It hath it original from much grief, from study and perturbation of the brain : I have read the cause of his effects in Galen : it is a kind of deafness. Ch. Just. I think you are fallen into the disease ; for you hear not what I say to you. Fal. Very well, my lord, very well : rather, an 't please you, it is the disease of not listening, the malady of not marking, that I am troubled withal. 140 \\ Ch. Just. To punish you by the heels would amend the attention of your ears; and I care not if I do become your physician. Fal. I am as poor as Job, my lord, but not so patient : your lordship may minister the potion of imprisonment to me in respect of poverty ; but how I should be your patient to follow your pre- scriptions, the wise may make some dram of a scruple, or indeed a scruple itself. Ch. Just. I sent for you, when there were i5o matters against you for your life, to come speak with me. 16 KING HENRY THE FOURTH [Act One Fal. As I was tlien advised by my learned counsel in the laws of this land-service, I did not come. Ch. Just. Well, the truth is, Sir John, you live in great infamy. Fal. He that buckles him in my belt cannot live in less. 160 Ch. Just. Your means are very slender, and your waste is great. Fal. I would it were otherwise ; I would my means were greater, and my waist slenderer. Ch. Just. You have misled the youthful prince. Fal. The young prince hath misled me : I am the fellow with the great belly, and he my dog. Ch. Just. Well, I am loath to gall a new- healed wound : your day's service at Shrewsbury hath a little gilded over your night's exploit on 170 Gad's-hill : you may thank the unquiet time for your quiet o'er-posting that action. Fal. My lord.? Ch. Just. But since all is well, keep it so : wake not a sleeping wolf. Fal. To wake a wolf is as bad as to smell a fox. Ch. Just. What ! you are as a candle, the better part burnt out. Fal. A wassail candle, my lord, all tallow: 180 if I did say of wax, my growth would approve the truth. Ch. Just. There is not a white hair on your face but should have his effect of gravity. Fal. His effect of gravy, gravy, gravy. Scene Two] KING HENRY THE FOURTH 17 Ch. Just. You follow the young prince up and down, like his ill angel. Fal. Not so, my lord; your ill angel is light; but I hope he that looks upon me will take me without weighing: and yet, in some respects, I grant, I cannot go: I cannot tell. Virtue is ofi9o so little regard in these costermonger times that true valour is turned bear-herd : pregnancy is made a tapster, and hath his quick wit wasted in giving reckonings : all the other gifts appertinent to man, as the malice of this age shapes them, are not worth a gooseberry. You that are old consider not the capacities of us that are young; you do measure the heat of our livers with the bitterness of your galls: and we that are in the vaward of our youth, I must confess, are wags too. 200 Ch. Just. Do you set down your name in the scroll of youth, that are written down old with all the characters of age.^^ Have you not a moist eye ? a dry hand ? a yellow cheek ? a white beard .P a decreasing leg.? an increasing belly? is not your voice broken.? your wind short? your chin double? your wit single? and every part about you blasted with antiquity? and will you yet call yourself young ? Fie, fie, fie. Sir John ! Fal. My lord, I was born about three of the 210 clock in the afternoon, with a white head and something a round belly. For my voice, I have lost it with halloing and singing of anthems. To approve my youth further, I will not: the truth is, I am only old in judgement and understanding ; and he that will caper with me for a thousand 18 KING HENRY THE FOURTH [Act One marks, let him lend me the money, and have at him ! For the box of the ear that the prince gave you, he gave it like a rude prince, and you took 220 it like a sensible lord. I have checked him for it, and the young lion repents; marry, not in ashes and sackcloth, but in new silk and old Sack. Ch, Just. Well, God send the prince a better companion ! Fal. God send the companion a better prince ! I cannot rid my hands of him. Ch. Just. Well, the king hath severed you and Prince Harry : I hear you are going with Lord John of Lancaster against the Archbishop 230 and the Earl of Northumberland. Fal. Yea; I thank your pretty sweet wit for it. But look you pray, all you that kiss my lady Peace at home, that our armies join not in a hot day; for, by the Lord, I take but two shirts out with me, and I mean not to sweat extraordinarily : if it be a hot day, and I brandish any thing but a bottle, I would I might never spit white again. There is not a dangerous action can peep out his head but I am thrust upon it: well, I cannot 240 last ever : but it was alway yet the trick of our English nation, if they have a good thing, to make it too common. If ye will needs say I am an old man, you should give me rest. I would to God my name were not so terrible to the enemy as it is : I were better to be eaten to death with a rust than to be scoured to nothing with perpet- ual motion. Ch. Just, Well, be honest, be honest; and Scene Two] KING HENRY THE FOURTH 19 God bless your expedition ! Fal. Will your lordship lend me a thousand 250 pound to furnish me forth ? Ch. Just Not a penny, not a penny ; you are too impatient to bear crosses. Fare you well: commend me to my cousin Westmoreland. [Exeunt Chief-Justice and Servant. Fal. If I do, fillip me with a three-man beetle. A man can no more separate age and covet- ousness than a' can part young limbs and lechery : but the gout galls the one, and the pox pinches the other; and so both the degrees prevent my curses. Boy ! 26O Page. Sir ? Fal. What money is in my purse ? Page. Seven groats and two pence. Fal. I can get no remedy against this con- sumption of the purse : borrowing only lingers and lingers it out, but the disease is incurable. Go bear this letter to my Lord of Lancaster ; this to the prince; this to the Earl of Westmoreland; and this to old Mistress Ursula, whom I have weekly sworn to marry since I perceived the first 270 white hair on my chin. About it : you know where to find me. [Exit Page.] A pox of this gout ! or, a gout of this pox ! for the one or the other plays the rogue with my great toe. 'T is no matter if I do halt ; I have the wars for my colour, and my pension shall seem the more reasonable. A good wit will make use of any thing : I will turn diseases to commodity. [Exit. 20 KING HENRY THE FOURTH [Act One Scene III — Yorh. The Aechbishop's palace Enter the Archbishop, the Lords Hastings, Mowbray, and Bardolph Arch. Thus have you heard our cause and known our means ; And, my most noble friends, I pray you all. Speak plainly your opinions of our hopes : And first, lord marshal, what say you to it ? Mowh. I well allow the occasion of our arms; But gladly would be better satisfied How in our means we should advance ourselves To look with forehead bold and big enough Upon the power and puissance of the king. 10 Hast. Our present musters grow upon the file To five and twenty thousand men of choice ; And our supplies live largely in the hope Of great Northumberland, whose bosom burns With an incensed fire of injuries. L, Bard. The question then. Lord Hastings, standeth thus ; Whether our present five and twenty thousand May hold up head without Northumberland ? Hast. With him, we may. L. Bard. Yea, marry, there 's the point : But if without him we be thought too feeble, 20 My judgement is, we should not step too far Till we had his assistance by the hand ; For in a theme so bloody-faced as this Conjecture, expectation, and surmise Of aids incertain should not be admitted. Scene Three] KING HENRY THE FOUETH 21 Arch. 'T is very true, Lord Bardolph; for indeed It was young Hotspur's case at Shrewsbury. L. Bard. It was, my lord; who lined himself with hope. Eating the air on promise of supply. Flattering himself in project of a power Much smaller than the smallest of his thoughts : 30 And so, with great imagination Proper to madmen, led his powers to death And winking leap'd into destruction. Hast. But, by your leave, it never yet did hurt To lay down likelihoods and forms of hope. L. Bard. Yes, if this present quality of war, Indeed the instant action : a cause on foot Lives so in hope as in an early spring We see the appearing buds ; which to prove fruit, Hope gives not so much warrant as despair 40 That frosts will bite them. When we mean to build. We first survey the plot, then draw the model; And when we see the figure of the house. Then must we rate the cost of the erection ; Which if we find outweighs ability. What do we then but draw anew the model In fewer offices, or at last desist To build at all ? Much more, in this great work. Which is almost to pluck a kingdom down And set another up, should we survey so The plot of situation and the model. Consent upon a sure foundation. Question surveyors, know our own estate. 22 KING HENRY THE FOURTH [Act One How able such a work to undergo, To weigh against his, opposite; or^else We fortify in paper and in figures, n Using the names of men instead of men : Like one that draws the model of a house Beyond his power to build it ; who, haK through, 60 Gives o'er and leaves his part-created cost A naked subject to the weeping clouds And waste for churlish winter's tyranny. Hast. Grant that our hopes, yet likely of fair birth. Should be still-born, and that we now possess'd The utmost man of expectation, I think we are a body strong enough. Even as we are, to equal with the king. L. Bard. What, is the king but five and twenty thousand ? Hast. To us no more ; nay, not so much, Lord Bardolph. 70 For his divisions, as the times do brawl. Are in three heads : one power against the French, And one against Glendower ; perforce a third Must take up us : so is the unfirm king In three divided ; and his coffers sound With hollow poverty and emptiness. Arch. That he should draw his several strengths together And come against us in full puissance, Need not be dreaded. Hast. If he should do so. He leaves his back unarm'd, the French and Welsh Scene Three] KING HENRY THE FOURTH 23 Baying him at the heels : never fear that. so L. Bard. Who is it hke should lead his forces hither ? Hast. The Duke of Lancaster and Westmore- land; Against the Welsh, himself and Harry Monmouth : But who is substituted 'gainst the French, I have no certain notice. Arch. Let us on, And publish the occasion of our arms. The commonwealth is sick of their own choice ; Their over-greedy love hath surfeited : An habitation giddy and unsure Hath he that buildeth on the vulgar heart. 90 O thou fond many, with what loud applause Didst thou beat heaven with blessing BoHngbroke, Before he was what thou wouldst have him be ! And being now trimm'd in thine own desires, Thou, beastly feeder, art so full of him. That thou provokest thyself to cast him up. So, so, thou common dog, didst thou disgorge Thy glutton bosom of the royal Richard ; And now thou wouldst eat thy dead vomit up. And howl'st to find it. What trust is in these times ? 100 They that, when Richard lived, would have him die. Are now become enamour'd on his grave : Thou, that threw'st dust upon his goodly head When through proud London he came sighing on After the admired heels of Bolingbroke, Criest now "O earth, yield us that king again. 24 KING HENRY THE FOURTH [Act Two And take thou this ! " O thoughts of men accursed ! Past and to come seems best; things present worst. Mowb. Shall we go draw our numbers and set on? 110 Hast. We are time's subjects, and time bids be gone. [Exeunt. ACT II Scene I — London. A street Enter Hostess, Fang and his Boy with her, and Snare following Host. Master Fang, have you entered the action ? Fang. It is entered. Host. Where's your yeoman? Is't a lusty yeoman ? will a' stand to 't ? Fang. Sirrah, where 's Snare ? Host. O Lord, ay ! good Master Snare. Snare. Here, here. Fang. Snare, we must arrest Sir John Falstaff . 10 Host. Yea, good Master Snare ; I have entered him and all. Snare. It may chance cost some of us our lives, for he will stab. Host. Alas the day ! take heed of him ; he stabbed me in mine own house, arid that most beastly : in good faith, he cares not what mischief he does, if his weapon be out: he will foin like Scene One] KING HENRY THE FOURTH 25 any devil; he will spare neither man, woman, nor child. Fang, If I can close with him, I care not for 20 his thrust. Host. No, nor I neither : I '11 be at your elbow. Fang. An I but fist him once; an a' come but within my vice, — Host. I am undone by his going; I warrant you, he 's an infinitive thing upon my score. Good Master Fang, hold him sure : good Master Snare, let him not 'scape. A' comes continuantly to Pie- corner — saving your manhoods — to buy a saddle ; and he is indited to dinner to the Lubber's-head 30 in Lumbert street, to Master Smooth's the silk- man : I pray ye, since my exion is entered and my case so openly known to the world, let him be brought in to his answer. A hundred mark is a long one for a poor lone woman to bear : and I have borne, and borne, and borne, and have been fubbed off, and fubbed off, and fubbed off, from this day to that day, that it is a shame to be thought on. There is no honesty in such dealing; unless a woman should be made an ass4o and a beast, to bear every knave's wrong. Yonder he comes; and that arrant malmsey-nose knave, Bardolph, with him. Do your offices, do your offices : Master Fang and Master Snare, do me, do me, do me your offices. Enter Falstaff, Page, and Bardolph Fal. How now! whose mare's dead? what's the matter? 26 KING HENRY THE FOURTH [Act Two Fang. Sir John, I arrest you at the suit of Mistress Quickly. 50 Fal. Away, varlets ! Draw, Bardolph : cut me off the villain's head : throw the quean in the channel. Host. Throw me in the channel ! I '11 throw thee in the channel. Wilt thou? wilt thou? thou bastardly rogue ! Murder, murder ! Ah, thou honey-suckle villain ! wilt thou kill God's officers and the king's ? Ah, thou honey-seed rogue ! thou art a honey-seed, a man-queller, and a woman- queller. 60 Fal. Keep them off, Bardolph. Fang. A rescue ! a rescue ! Host. Good people, bring a rescue or two. Thou wo 't, wo 't thou ? thou wo 't, wo 't ta ? do, do, thou rogue ! do, thou hemp-seed ! Fal. Away, you scullion ! you rampallian ! you fustilarian ! I '11 tickle your catastrophe. Enter the Lord Chief-Justice, and his men Ch. Just. What is the matter? keep the peace here, ho ! Host. Good my lord, be good to me. I beseech 70 you, stand to me. Ch. Just. How now. Sir John! what are you brawling here ? Doth this become your place, your time and business ? You should have been well on your way to York. Stand from him, fellow: wherefore hang'st upon him? Scene One] KING HENRY THE FOURTH £7 Host. O my most worshipful lord, an 't please your grace, I am a poor widow of Eastcheap, and he is arrested at my suit. Ch. Just. For what sum ? Host. It is more than for some, my lord ; it is for all, all I have. He hath eaten me out of so house and home ; he hath put all my substance into that fat belly of his : but I will have some of it out again, or I will ride thee o' nights like the mare. Fal. I think I am as like to ride the mare, if I have any vantage of ground to get up. Ch. Just. How comes this, Sir John? Fie! what man of good temper would endure this tem- pest of exclamation .f* Are you not ashamed to enforce a poor widow to so rough a course to come by her own ? 9o Fal. What is the gross sum that I owe thee ? Host. Marry, if thou wert an honest man, thyself and the money too. Thou didst swear to me upon a parcel-gilt goblet, sitting in my Dol- phin-chamber, at the round table, by a sea-coal fire, upon Wednesday in Wheeson week, when the prince broke thy head for liking his father to a singing-man of Windsor, thou didst swear to me then, as I was washing thy wound, to marry me and make me my lady thy wife. Canst thouioo deny it.^ Did not goodwife Keech, the butcher's wife, come in then and call me gossip Quickly? coming in to borrow a mess of vinegar ; telling us she had a good dish of prawns; whereby thou didst desire to eat some ; whereby I told thee they 28 KING HENRY THE FOURTH [Act Two were ill for a green wound? And didst thou not, when she was gone down stairs, desire me to be no more so familiarity with such poor people; saying that ere long they should call me madam? 110 And didst thou not kiss me and bid me fetch thee thirty shillings? I put thee now to thy book- oath : deny it, if thou canst. Fal. My lord, this is a poor mad soul; and she says up and down the town that her eldest son is like you : she hath been in good case, and the truth is, poverty hath distracted her. But for these foolish officers, I beseech you I may have redress against them. Ch. Just. Sir John, Sir John, I am well 120 acquainted with your manner of wrenching the true cause the false way. It is not a confident brow, nor the throng of words that come with such more than impudent sauciness from you, can thrust me from a level consideration : you have, as it appears to me, practised upon the easy-yield- ing spirit of this woman, and made her serve your uses both in purse and in person. Host. Yea, in truth, my lord. Ch. Just. Pray thee, peace. Pay her the debt 130 you owe her, and unpay the villany you have done her : the one you may do with sterling money, and the other with current repentance. Fal. My lord, I will not undergo this sneap without reply. You call honourable boldness impudent sauciness : if a man will make courtesy and say nothing, he is virtuous : no, my lord, my humble duty remembered, I will not be your Scene One] KING HENRY THE FOURTH 29 suitor. I say to you, I do desire deliverance from these officers, being upon hasty employment in the king's affairs. i4o Ch. Just. You speak as having power to do wrong: but answer in the effect of your reputa- tion, and satisfy the poor woman. Fal. Come hither, hostess. Enter Gower Ch. Just. Now, Master Gower, what news? Gow. The king, my lord, and Harry Prince of Wales Are near at hand : the rest the paper tells. Fal. As I am a gentleman. Host. Faith, you said so before. Fal. As I am a gentleman. Come, no moreiso words of it. Host. By this heavenly ground I tread on, I must be fain to pawn both my plate and the tapestry of my dining-chambers. Fal. Glasses, glasses, is the only drinking: and for thy walls, a pretty slight drollery, or the story of the Prodigal, or the German hunting in water-work, is worth a thousand of these bed- hangings and these fly-bitten tapestries. Let it be ten pound, if thou canst. Come, an 't were not i6o for thy humours, there 's not a better wench in England. Go, wash thy face, and draw the action. Come, thou must not be in this humour with me ; dost not know me? come, come, I know thou wast set on to this. Host. Pray thee, Sir John, let it be but twenty 30 KING HENRY THE FOURTH [Act Two nobles : i' faith, I am loath to pawn my plate, so God save me, la ! Fal. Let it alone ; I '11 make other shift : you '11 170 be a fool still. Host Well, you shall have it, though I pawn my gown. I hope you '11 come to supper. You '11 pay me all together ? Fal. Will I live? [To Bardolph] Go, with her, with her ; hook on, hook on. Host. Will you have Doll Tearsheet meet you at supper ? Fal. No more words ; let 's have her. [Exeunt Hostess, Bardolph, Officers, and Boy. Ch. Just. I have heard better news. 180 Fal. What 's the news, my lord ? Ch. Just. Where lay the king last night ? Gow. At Basingstoke, my lord. Fal. I hope, my lord, all 's well : what is the news, my lord ? Ch. Just. Come all his forces back ? Gow. No; fifteen hundred foot, five hundred horse, Are march'd up to my lord of Lancaster, Against Northumberland and the Archbishop. Fal. Comes the king back from Wales, my noble lord ? 190 Ch. Just. You shall have letters of me presently : Come, go along with me, good Master Gower. Fal. My lord ! Ch. Ju^t. What 's the matter ? Fal. Master Gower, shall I entreat you with . me to dinner ? Scene Two] KING HENRY THE FOURTH 31 Gow. I must wait upon my good lord here; I thank you, good Sir John. Ch. Just. Sir John, you loiter here too long, being you are to take soldiers up in counties as you go. 200 Fal. Will you sup with me. Master Gower? Ch. Just. What foolish master taught you these manners. Sir John ? Fal. Master Gower, if they become me not, he was a fool that taught them me. This is the right fencing grace, my lord; tap for tap, and so part fair. Ch. Just. Now the Lord lighten thee ! thou art a great fool. [Exeunt. Scene II — London. Another street Enter Prince Henry and Poins Prince. Before God, I am exceeding weary. Poins. Is 't come to that.? I had thought weariness durst not have attached one of so high blood. Prince. Faith, it does me ; though it discolours the complexion of my greatness to acknowledge it. Doth it not show vilely in me to desire small beer ? Poins. Why, a prince should not be so loosely studied as to remember so weak a composition. 10 Prince. Belike, then, my appetite was not princely got; for, by my troth, I do now remem- ber the poor creature, small beer. But, indeed, these humble considerations make me out of love with my greatness. What a disgrace is it to me 32 KING HENRY THE FOURTH [Act Two to remember thy name ! or to know thy face to- morrow ! or to take note how many pair of silk stockings thou hast, viz. these, and those that were thy peach-coloured ones ! or to bear the 20 inventory of thy shirts, as, one for superfluity, and another for use ! But that the tennis-court-keeper knows better than I; for it is a low ebb of linen with thee when thou keepest not racket there ; as thou hast not done a great while, because the rest of thy low countries have made a shift to eat up thy hoUand : and God knows, whether those that bawl out the ruins of thy linen shall inherit his kingdom: but the midwives say the children are not in the fault; whereupon the world in- 30 creases, and kindreds are mightily strengthened. Poins. How ill it follows, after you have laboured so hard, you should talk so idly ! Tell me, how many good young princes would do so, their fathers being so sick as yours at this time is ? Prince. Shall I tell thee one thing, Poins .^ Poins. Yes, faith; and let it be an excellent good thing. Prince. It shall serve among wits of no higher breeding than thine. 40 Poins. Go to; I stand the push of your one thing that you will tell. Prince. Marry, I tell thee, it is not meet that I should be sad, now my father is sick: albeit I could tell to thee, as to one it pleases me, for fault of a better, to call my friend, I could be sad, and sad indeed too. Poins. Very hardly upon such a subject. Scene Two] KING HENRY THE FOURTH 33 Prince. By this hand, thou thinkest me as far in the devil's book as thou and Falstaff for obduracy and persistency: let the end try the50 man. But I tell thee, my heart bleeds inwardly that my father is so sick : and keeping such vile company as thou art hath in reason taken from me all ostentation of sorrow. Poins. The reason ? Prince. What wouldst thou think of me, if I should weep ? K Poins. I would think thee a most princely hypocrite. Prince. It would be every man's thought ; andeo thou art a blessed fellow to think as every man thinks : never a man's thought in the world keeps the road- way better than thine : every man would think me an hypocrite indeed. And what accites your most worshipful thought to think so ? Poins. Why, because you have been so lewd and so much engraffed to Falstaff. Prince. And to thee. Poins. By this Hght, I am well spoke on ; I can hear it with mine own ears : the worst that they 70 can say of me is that I am a second brother and that I am a proper fellow of my hands ; and those two things, I confess, I cannot help. By the mass, here comes Bardolph. Enter Bardolph and Page Prince. And the boy that I gave Falstaff : a' had him from me Christian; and look, if the fat villain have not transformed him ape. 34 KING HENRY THE FOURTH [Act Two Bard. God save your grace ! Prince. And yours, most noble Bardolph! 80 Bard. Come, you virtuous ass, you bashful fool, must you be blushing? wherefore blush you now? What a maidenly man-at-arms are you become ! Is 't such a matter to get a pottle-pot's maidenhead ? Page. A' calls me e'en now, my lord, through a red lattice, and I could discern no part of his face from the window: at last I spied his eyes, and methought he had made two holes in the ale-wife's new petticoat and so peeped through. 90 Prince. Has not the boy profited ? Bard. Away, you whoreson upright rabbit, away ! Page. Away, you rascally Althaea's dream, away ! Prince. Instruct us, boy; what dream, boy? Page. Marry, my lord, Althaea dreamed she was delivered of a fire-brand; and therefore I call him her dream. Prince. A crown's worth of good interpreta- 100 tion : there 't is, boy. Poins. O, that this good blossom could be kept from cankers ! Well, there is sixpence to preserve thee. Bard. An you do not make him hanged among you, the gallows shall have wrong. Prince. And how doth thy master, Bardolph? Bard. Well, my lord. He heard of your grace's coming to town : there 's a letter for you. Poins. Delivered with good respect. And how Scene Two] KING HENRY THE FOURTH 35 doth the martlemas, your master ? no Bard. In bodily health, sir. Poins. Marry, the immortal part needs a physician; but that moves not him: though that be sick, it dies not. Prince. I do allow this wen to be as familiar with me as my dog; and he holds his place; for look you how he writes. Poins. [Reads] "John Falstaff, knight," — every man must know that, as oft as he has occasion to name himself : even like those that are kin to the 120 king; for they never prick their finger but they say, "There's some of the king's blood spilt." "How comes that?" says he, that takes upon him not to conceive. The answer is as ready as a borrower's cap, "I am the king's poor cousin, sir." Prince. Nay, they will be kin to us, or they will fetch it from Japhet. But to the letter : Poins. [Reads] "Sir John Falstafif, knight, to the son of the king, nearest his father, Harry 130 Prince of Wales, greeting." Why, this is a certificate. Prince. Peace ! Poins. [Reads] "I will imitate the honour- able Romans in brevity": he sure means brevity in breath, short-winded. " I commend me to thee, I commend thee, and I leave thee. Be not too familiar with Poins; for he misuses thy favours so much, that he swears thou art to marry his sister Nell. Repent at idle times as thou mayest ; i40 and so, farewell. 36 KING HENRY THE FOURTH [Act Two "Thine, by yea and no, which is as much as to say, as thou usest him. Jack Fal- STAPF with my famihars, John with my brothers and sisters, and Sir John with all Europe." My lord, I '11 steep this letter in sack and make him eat it. Prince. That's to make him eat twenty of 150 his words. But do you use me thus, Ned.f^ must I marry your sister ^ Poins. God send the wench no worse fortune ! But I never said so. Prince. Well, thus we play the fools with the time, and the spirits of the wise sit in the clouds and mock us. Is your master here in London ? Bard. Yea, my lord. Prince. Where sups he? doth the old boar 160 feed in the old frank ? Bard. At the old place, my lord, in East- cheap. Prince. What company ? Page. Ephesians, my lord, of the old church. Prince. Sup any women with him ? Page. None, my lord, but old Mistress Quickly and Mistress Doll Tearsheet. Prince. What pagan may that be ? Page. A proper gentlewoman, sir, and a kins- 170 woman of my master's. Prince. Even such kin as the parish heifers are to the town bull. Shall we steal upon them, Ned, at supper ? Scene Theee] KING HENRY THE FOURTH 37 Poins. I am your shadow, my lord ; I '11 follow you. Prince. Sirrah, you boy, and Bardolph, no word to your master that I am yet come to town : there 's for your silence. Bard. I have no tongue, sir. Page. And for mine, sir, I will govern it. iso Prince. Fare you well; go. [Exeunt Bardolph and Page.] This Doll Tearsheet should be some road. Poins. I warrant you, as common as the way between Saint Alban's and London. Prince. How might we see Falstaff bestow himself to-night in his true colours, and not our- selves be seen ? Poins. Put on two leathern jerkins and aprons, and wait upon him at his table as i90 drawers. Prince. From a God to a bull.? a heavy descension ! it was Jove's case. From a prince to a prentice ? a low transformation ! that shall be mine; for in every thing the purpose must weigh with the folly. Follow me, Ned. [Exeunt. Scene HI — Warkwortk. Before the castle Enter Northumberland, Lady Northumberland, and Lady Percy North. I pray thee, loving wife, and gentle daughter. Give even way unto my rough affairs ; Put not you on the visage of the times 38 KING HENRY THE FOURTH [Act Two And be like them to Percy troublesome. Lady N. I have given over, I will speak no more: Do what you will ; your wisdom be your guide. North. Alas, sweet wife, my honour is at pawn; And, but my going, nothing can redeem it. Lady P. O yet, for God's sake, go not to these wars ! 10 The time was, father, that you broke your word, When you were more endear'd to it than now ; When your own Percy, when my heart's dear Harry, Threw many a northward look to see his father Bring up his powers ; but he did long in vain. Who then persuaded you to stay at home ? There were two honours lost, yours and your son's. For yours, the God of heaven brighten it ! For his, it stuck upon him as the sun In the grey vault of heaven, and by his light 20 Did all the chivalry of England move To do brave acts : he was indeed the glass Wherein the noble youth did dress themselves : He had no legs that practised not his gait ; And speaking thick, which nature made his blemish, Became the accents of the valiant ; ^ For those that could speak low and tardily Would turn their own perfection to abuse. To seem like him : so that in speech, in gait. In diet, in affections of delight, 30 In military rules, humours of blood, He was the mark and glass, copy and book. Scene Three] KING HENRY THE FOURTH 39 That fashion'd others. And him, O wondrous him ! O miracle of men ! him did you leave, Second to none, unseconded by you, . To look upon the hideous god of war In disadvantage ; to abide a field Where nothing but the sound of Hotspur's name Did seem defensible : so you left him. Never, O never, do his ghost the wrong To hold your honour more precise and nice 4o With others than with him ! let them alone : The marshal and the archbishop are strong : Had my sweet Harry had but half their numbers, To-day might I, hanging on Hotspur's neck, Have talk'd of Monmouth's grave. North. Beshrew your heart, Fair daughter, you do draw my spirits from me With new lamenting ancient oversights. But I must go and meet with danger there. Or it will seek me in another place And find me worse provided. Lady N. O, fly to Scotland, so Till that the nobles and the armed commons Have of their puissance made a little taste. Lady P. If they get ground and vantage of the king. Then join you with them, like a rib of steel. To make strength stronger ; but, for all our loves, First let them try themselves. So did your son; He was so suffer'd : so came I a widow ; And never shall have length of life enough To rain upon remembrance with mine eyes. 40 KING HENRY THE FOURTH [Act Two 60 That it may grow and sprout as high as heaven. For recordation to my noble husband. North. Come, come, go in with me. 'T is with my mind As with the tide swelFd up unto his height. That makes a still-stand, running neither way : Fain would I go to meet the archbishop, But many thousand reasons hold me back. I will resolve for Scotland : there am I, Till time and vantage crave my company. [Exeunt. Scene IV — London. The Boards-head Tavern in Eastcheap Enter two Drawers First Draw. What the devil hast thou brought there? apple-johns .f* thou knowest Sir John can- not endure an apple-john. Sec. Draw. Mass, thou sayest true. The prince once set a dish of apple- Johns before him, and told him there were five more Sir Johns, and, putting ojff his hat, said " I will now take my leave of these six dry, round, old, withered knights." It angered him to the heart : but he 10 hath forgot that. First Draw. Why, then, cover, and set them down : and see if thou canst find out Sneak's noise; Mistress Tearsheet would fain hear some music. Dispatch: the room where they supped is too hot ; they '11 come in straight. Sec. Draw. Sirrah, here will be the prince and Master Poins anon; and they will put on Scene Four] KING HENRY THE FOURTH 41 two of our jerkins and aprons; and Sir John must not know of it : Bardolph hath brought word. 20 First Draw. By the mass, here will be old Utis : it will be an excellent stratagem. Sec, Draw. I '11 see if I can find out Sneak. [Exit Enter Hostess and Doll Tearsheet Host V faith, sweetheart, methinks now you are in an excellent good temperality : your pul- sidge beats as extraordinarily as heart would desire; and your colour, I warrant you, is as red as any rose, in good truth, la ! But, i' faith, you have drunk too much canaries ; and that 's a marvellous searching wine, and it perfumes so the blood ere one can say "What's this?" How do you now ^ Dot Better than I was : hem ! Host. Why, that 's well said ; a good heart 's worth gold. Lo, here comes Sir John. Enter Falstaff Fat [Singing] "When Arthur first in court" — Empty the Jordan. [Exit First Drawer.] — [Singing] "And was a worthy king." How now. Mistress Doll ! Host. Sick of a calm ; yea, good faith. 40 Fat So is all her sect; an they be once in a calm, they are sick. Dot You muddy rascal, is that all the comfort you give me ^ Fat You make fat rascals, Mistress Doll. 42 KING HENRY THE FOURTH [Act Two Dol. I make them! gluttony and diseases make them ; I make them not. Fat. If the cook help to make the gluttony, you help to make the diseases, Doll: we catch 50 of you, Doll, we catch of you; grant that, my poor virtue, grant that. Dol. Yea, joy, our chains and our jewels. Fal. "Your brooches, pearls, and ouches": for to serve bravely is to come halting off, you know : to come off the breach with his pike bent bravely, and to surgery bravely ; to venture upon the charged chambers bravely, — Dol. Hang yourself, you muddy conger, hang yourself ! 60 Host. By my troth, this is the old fashion : you two never meet but you fall to some discord : you are both, i' good truth, as rheumatic as two dry toasts; you cannot one bear with another's confirmities. What the good-year ! one must bear, and that must be you : you are the weaker vessel, as they say, the emptier vessel. Dol. Can a weak empty vessel bear such a huge full hogshead .f^ there's a whole merchant's venture of Bourdeaux stuff in him ; you have not 70 seen a hulk better stuffed in the hold. Come, I '11 be friends with-thee. Jack : thou art going to the wars; and whether I shall ever see thee again or no, there is nobody cares. Re-enter First Drawer First Draw. Sir, Ancient Pistol 's below, and would speak with you. Scene Four] KING HENRY THE FOURTH 43 Dol. Hang him, swaggering rascal! let him not come hither : it is the foul-mouthed'st rogue in England. M Host. If he swagger, let him not come here : no, by my faith; I must live among my neigh- so hours ; I '11 no swaggerers : I am in good] name and fame with the very best: shut the door; there comes no swaggerers here : I have not lived all this while, to have swaggering now: shut the door, I pray you. Fal. Dost thou hear, hostess ? Host. Pray ye, pacify yourself. Sir John: there comes no swaggerers here. Fal. Dost thou hear.? it is mine ancient. Host. Tilly-fally, Sir John, ne'er tell me : 90 your ancient swaggerer comes not in my doors. I was before Master Tisick, the debuty, t' other day; and, as he said to me, 'twas no longer ago than Wednesday last, "I' good faith, neighbour Quickly," says he; Master Dumbe, our minister, was by then; "neighbour Quickly," says he, "receive those that are civil; for," said he, "you are in an ill name": now a' said so, I can tell whereupon; "for," says he, "you are an honest woman, and well thought on ; therefore take 100 heed what guests you receive : receive," says he, "no swaggering companions." There comes none here : you would bless you to hear what he said : no, I '11 no swaggerers. Fal. He 's no swaggerer, hostess ; a tame cheater, i' faith; you may stroke him as gently as a puppy greyhound : _^he '11 not swagger with a 44 KING HENRY THE FOURTH [Act Two Barbary hen, if her feathers turn back in any show of resistance. Call him up, drawer. [Exit First Drawer, 110 Host. Cheater, call you him.^^ I will bar no honest man my house, nor no cheater : but I do not love swaggering, by my troth; I am the worse, when one says swagger : feel, masters, how I shake ; look you, I warrant you. Dol. So you do, hostess. Host. Do I? yea, in very truth, do I, an 'twere an aspen leaf: I cannot abide swag- gerers. Enter Pistol, Bardolph, and Page Pist. God save you. Sir John ! 120 Fal. Welcome, Ancient Pistol. Here, Pistol, I charge you with a cup of sack : do you discharge upon mine hostess. Pist. I will discharge upon her, Sir John, with two bullets. Fal. She is pistol-proof, sir; you shall hardly offend her. Host. Come, I '11 drink no proofs nor no bullets : I '11 drink no more than will do me good, for no man's pleasure, I. 130 Pist. Then to you. Mistress Dorothy; I will charge you. Dol. Charge me ! I scorn you, scurvy com- panion. What ! you poor, base, rascally, cheat- ing, lack-linen mate ! Away, you mouldy rogue, away ! I am meat for your master. Pist. I know you. Mistress Dorothy. DoL Away, you cut-purse rascal! you filthy Scene Four] KING HENRY THE FOURTH 45 bung, away ! by 'this wine, I '11 thrust my knife in your mouldy chaps, an you play the saucy cuttle, with me. Away, you bottle-ale rascal ! you 140 basket-hilt stale juggler, you ! Since when, I pray you, sir? God's light, with two points on your shoulder ? much ! Pist. God let me not live, but I will murder your ruff for this. Fal. No more. Pistol ; I would not have you go off here : discharge yourself of our company, Pistol. Host. No, good Captain Pistol ; not here, sweet captain. iso Dol. Captain! thou abominable damned cheater, art thou not ashamed to be called captain .5^ An captains were of my mind, they would truncheon you out, for taking their names upon you before you have earned them. You a captain ! you slave, for what ^ for tearing a poor whore's ruff in a bawdy-house ? He a captain ! hang him, rogue ! he lives upon mouldy stewed prunes and dried cakes. A captain ! God's light, these villains will make the word as odious asieo the word "occupy"; which was an excellent good word before it was ill sorted : therefore captains had need look to 't. Bard. Pray thee, go down, good ancient. Fal. Hark thee hither. Mistress Doll. Pist. Not I: I tell thee what. Corporal Bar- dolph, I could tear her : I '11 be revenged of her. Page. Pray thee, go down. Pist. I '11 see her damned first ; to Pluto's damned lake, by this hand, to the infernal deep, 170 46 KING HENRY THE FOURTH [Act Two with Erebus and tortures vile also. Hold hook and line, say I. Down, down, dogs! down, f aitors ! Have we not Hiren here ? Host. Good Captain Peesel, be quiet; 'tis very late, i' faith : I beseek you now, aggravate your choler. Fist. These be good humours, indeed! Shall pack-horses And hollow pamper 'd jades of Asia, Which cannot go but thirty mile a-day, 180 Compare with Csesars, and with Cannibals, And Trojan Greeks ? nay, rather damn them with King Cerberus ; and let the welkin roar. Shall we fall foul for toys ? Host. By my troth, captain, these are very bitter words. Bard. Be gone, good ancient : this will grow to a brawl anon. Pist. Die men like dogs ! give crowns like pins ! Have we not Hiren here ? 190 Host. O' my word, captain, there 's none such here. What the good-year ! do you think I would deny her? For God's sake, be quiet. Pist. Then feed, and be fat, my fair CaHpolis. Come, give 's some sack. "Si fortune me tormente, sperato me contento." Fear we broadsides ? no, let the fiend give fire : Give me some sack : and, sweetheart, lie thou there. [Laying down his sword. Come we to full points here; and are etceteras nothing ? Fal. Pistol, I would be quiet. Scene Four] KING HENRY THE FOURTH 47 Pist. Sweet knight, I kiss thy neif: what! 200 we have seen the seven stars. Dol. For God's sake, thrust him down stairs : I cannot endure such a fustian rascal. Pist. Thrust him down stairs! know we not Galloway nags ? Fal. Quoit him down, Bardolph, like a shove- groat shiUing: nay, an a' do nothing but speak nothing, a' shall be nothing here. Bard, Come, get you down stairs. Pist. What! shall we have incision? shall we imbrue ? [Snatching up his sword. 210 Then death rock me asleep, abridge my doleful days! Why, then, let grievous, ghastly, gaping wounds Untwine the Sisters Three! Come, Atropos, I say! Host. Here 's a goodly stuff toward ! Fal. Give me my rapier, boy. Dol. I pray thee. Jack, I pray thee, do not draw. Fal. Get you down stairs. [Drawing, and driving Pistol out. Host. Here 's a goodly tumult ! I '11 forswear keeping house, afore I '11 be in these tirrits and 220 frights. So; murder, I warrant now. Alas, alas! put up your naked weapons, put up your naked weapons. [Exeunt Pistol and Bardolph. Dol. I pray thee. Jack, be quiet ; the rascal 's gone. Ah, you whoreson little valiant villain, you ! Host. Are you not hurt i' the groin ? methought a' made a shrewd thrust at your belly. 48 KING HENRY THE FOURTH [Act Two Re-enter Bardolph FaL Have you turned him out o' doors ? 230 Bard. Yea, sir. The rascal 's drunk : you have hurt him, sir, i' the shoulder. Fat, A rascal ! to brave me ! Dot. Ah, you sweet little rogue, you ! Alas, poor ape, how thou sweatest ! come, let me wipe thy face ; come on, you whoreson chops : ah, rogue ! i* faith, I love thee : thou art as valorous as Hector of Troy, worth five of Agamemnon, and ten times better than the Nine Worthies : ah, villain ! 240 Fal. A rascally slave! I will toss the rogue in a blanket. DoL Do, an thou darest for thy heart: an thou dost, I '11 canvass thee between a pair of sheets. Enter Music Page. The music is come, sir. Fal. Let them play. Play, sirs. Sit on my knee, Doll. A rascal bragging slave ! the rogue fled from me like quicksilver. Dol. V faith, and thou foUowedst him like a 250 church. Thou whoreson little tidy Bartholomew boar-pig, when wilt thou leave fighting o' days and foining o' nights, and begin to patch up thine old body for heaven ? Entery behind. Prince Henry and Poins, disguised Fal. Peace, good Doll ! do not speak like a death's-head ; do not bid me remember mine end. Scene Four] KING HENRY THE FOURTH 49 Dol. Sirrah, what humour 's the prince of ? Fal. A good shallow young fellow : a* would have made a good pantler, a' would ha' chipped bread well. Dol. They say Poins has a good wit. 26o Fal. He a good wit ? hang him, baboon ! his wit 's as thick as Tewksbury mustard ; there 's no more conceit in him than is in a mallet. Dol. Why does the prince love him so, then .? Fal. Because their legs are both of a bigness, and a' plays at quoits well, and eats conger and fennel, and drinks off candles' ends for flap- dragons, and rides the wild-mare with the boys, and jumps upon joined-stools, and swears with a good grace, and wears his boots very smooth, 270 like unto the sign of the leg, and breeds no bate with telling of discreet stories; and such other gambol faculties a' has, that show a weak mind and an able body, for the which the prince admits him : for the prince himself is such another ; the weight of a hair will turn the scales between their avoirdupois. Prince. Would not this nave of a wheel have his ears cut off .? Poins. Let 's beat him before his whore. 280 Prince. Look, whether the withered elder hath not his poll clawed like a parrot. Poins. Is it not strange that desire should so many years outlive performance? Fal. Kiss me, Doll. Prince. Saturn and Venus this year in con- junction ! what says the almanac to that ^ 50 KING HENRY THE FOURTH [Act Two Poins. And, look, whether the fiery Trigon, his man, be not Hsping to his master's old tables, 5Q0 his note-book, his counsel-keeper. Fal. Thou dost give me flattering busses. Dol. By my troth, I kiss thee with a most constant heart. Fal. I am old, I am old. Dol. I love thee better than I love e'er a scurvy young boy of them all. Fal. What stuff wilt have a kirtle of .^ I shall receive money o' Thursday : shalt have a cap to- morrow. A merry song, come : it grows late ; 300 we '11 to bed. Thou 'It forget me when I am gone. Dol. By my troth, thou 'It set me a-weeping, an thou sayest so : prove that ever I dress myself handsome till thy return : well, hearken at the end. Fal. Some sack, Francis. Ptxtlcb ") p . ' \ Anon, anon, sir. [Coming forward. Fal. Ha! a bastard son of the king's? And art not thou Poins his brother ? Prince. Why, thou globe of sinful continents, 310 what a life dost thou lead ! Fal. A better than thou: I am a gentleman; thou art a drawer. Prince. Very true, sir ; and I come to draw you out by the ears. Host. O, the Lord preserve thy good grace! by my troth, welcome to London. Now, the Lord bless that sweet face of thine ! O Jesu, are you come from Wales ? Fal. Thou whoreson mad compound of ma- Scene Four] KING HENRY THE FOURTH 51 jesty, by this light flesh and corrupt blood, thou 320 art welcome. Dol. How, you fat fool ! I scorn you. Poins. My lord, he will drive you out of your revenge and turn all to a merriment, if you take not the heat. Prince. You whoreson candle-mine, you, how vilely did you speak of me even now before this honest, virtuous, civil gentlewoman ! Host. God's blessing of your good heart! and so she is, by my troth. 330 Fal. Didst thou hear me ? Prince. Yea; and you knew me, as you did when you ran away by Gad's-hill : you knew I was at your back, and spoke it on purpose to try my patience. Fal. No, no, no ; not so ; I did not think thou wast within hearing. Prince. I shall drive you then to confess the wilful abuse ; and then I know how to handle you. Fal. No abuse, Hal, o' mine honour ; no abuse. 340 Prince. Not to dispraise me, and call me pant- ler and bread-chipper and I know not what? Fal. No abuse, Hal. Poins. No abuse ? Fal. No abuse, Ned, i' the world; honest Ned, none. I dispraised him before the wicked, that the wicked might not fall in love with him; in which doing, I have done the part of a careful friend and a true subject, and thy father is to give me thanks for it. No abuse, Hal: none, 350 Ned, none: no, faith, boys, none. 52 KING HENRY THE FOURTH [Act Two Prince. See now, whether pure fear and entire cowardice doth not make thee wrong this virtu- ous gentlewoman to close with us. Is she of the wicked? is thine hostess here of the wicked? or is thy boy of the wicked? or honest Bardolph, whose zeal burns in his nose, of the wicked ? Poins. Answer, thou dead elm, answer. Fal. The fiend hath pricked down Bardolph 360 irrecoverable ; and his face is Lucifer's privy- kitchen, where he doth nothing but roast malt- worms. For the boy, there is a good angel about him; but the devil outbids him too. Prince. For the women ? Fal. For one of them, she is in hell already, and burns poor souls. For the other, I owe her money; and whether she be damned for that, I know not. Host. No, I warrant you. 370 Fal. No, I think thou art not ; I think thou art quit for that. Marry, there is another indict- ment upon thee, for suffering flesh to be eaten in thy house, contrary to the law; for the which I think thou wilt howl. Host. All victuallers do so: what's a joint of mutton or two in a whole Lent ? Prince. You, gentlewoman, — Dol. What says your grace ? Fal. His grace says that which his flesh rebels 380 against. [Knocking within. Host. Who knocks so loud at door? Look to the door there, Francis. Scene Four] KING HENRY THE FOURTH 53 Enter Peto Prince. Peto, how now ! what news ? Peto. The king your father is at Westminster; And there are twenty weak and wearied posts Come from the north : and, as I came along, I met and overtook a dozen captains. Bare-headed, sweating, knocking at the taverns. And asking every one for Sir John Falstaff. Prince. By heaven, Poins, I feel me much to blame, 390 So idly to profane the precious time. When tempest of commotion, like the south Borne with black vapour, doth begin to melt And drop upon our bare unarmed heads. Give me my sword and cloak. Falstaff, good night. [Exeunt Prince Henry, Poins, Peto, and Bardolph. Fal. Now comes in the sweetest morsel of the night, and we must hence and leave it unpicked. [Knocking within.] More knocking at the door ! Re-enter Bardolph How now ! what 's the matter ? 4oo Bard. You must away to court, sir, presently; A dozen captains stay at door for you. Fal. [To the Page] Pay the musicians, sirrah. Farewell, hostess; farewell, Doll. You see, my good wenches, how men of merit are sought after ; the undeserver may sleep, when the man of action is called on. Farewell, good wenches : if I be not sent away post, I will see you again ere I go. 54 KING HENRY THE FOURTH [Act Three Dol. I cannot speak ; if my heart be not ready 410 to burst, — well, sweet Jack, have a care of thyself. Fal. Farewell, farewell. [Exeunt Falstaff and Bardolph. Host. Well, fare thee well : I have known thee these twenty nine years, come peascod-time ; but an honester and truer-hearted man, — well, fare thee well. Bard. [Within] Mistress Tearsheet ! Host. What 's the matter ? Bard. [Within] Bid Mistress Tearsheet come to my master. 420 Host. O, run, Doll, run ; run, good Doll : come. [She comes blubbered.] Yea, will you come, Doll? [Exeunt, ACT III Scene I — Westminster. The palace Enter the King in his nightgown, with a Page King. Go call the Earls of Surrey and of Warwick ; But, ere they come, bid them o'er-read these letters. And well consider of them : make good speed. [Exit Page. How many thousand of my poorest subjects Are at this hour asleep ! O sleep, O gentle sleep. Nature's soft nurse, how have I frighted thee. That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down And steep my senses in f orgetf ulness ? Scene One] KING HENRY THE FOURTH 55 Why rather, sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs, Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee lo And hush'd with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber, Than in the perfumed chambers of the great. Under the canopies of costly state. And luird with sound of sweetest melody ? O thou dull god, why liest thou with the vile In loathsome beds, and leavest the kingly couch A watch-case or a common 'larum-bell ? Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast Seal up the ship-boy's eyes, and rock his brains In cradle of the rude imperious surge 20 And in the visitation of the winds. Who take the ruflian billows by the top, Curling their monstrous heads and hanging them With deafening clamour in the slippery clouds. That, with the hurly, death itself awakes ? Canst thou, O partial sleep, give thy repose To the wet sea-boy in an hour so rude. And in the calmest and most stillest night, With all appliances and means to boot. Deny it to a king ? Then happy low, lie down ! so Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown. Enter Warwick and Surrey War. Many good morrows to your majesty ! King. Is it good morrow, lords ? War. 'T is one o'clock, and past. King. Why, then, good morrow to you all, my lords. Have you read o'er the letters that I sent you ? War. We have, my liege. 56 KING HENRY THE FOURTH [Act Three King. Then you perceive the body of our kingdom How foul it is ; what rank diseases grow, 40 And with what danger, near the heart of it. War. It is but as a body yet distemper'd ; Which to his former strength may be restored With good advice and httle medicine : My Lord Northumberland will soon be cool'd. King. O God ! that one might read the book of fate, And see the revolution of the times Make mountains level, and the continent, Weary of solid firmness, melt itself Into the sea ! and, other times, to see 50 The beachy girdle of the ocean Too wide for Neptune's hips ; how chances mock. And changes fill the cup of alteration With divers liquors ! O, if this were seen. The happiest youth, viewing his progress through, What perils past, what crosses to ensue. Would shut the book, and sit him down and die. 'T is not ten years gone Since Richard and Northumberland, great friends. Did feast together, and in two years after 60 Were they at wars : it is but eight years since This Percy was the man nearest my soul, Who like a brother toil'd in my affairs And laid his love and life under my foot, Yea, for my sake, even to the eyes of Richard Gave him defiance. But which of you was by — You, cousin Nevil, as I may remember — [To Warwick. Scene One] KING HENRY THE FOURTH 57 When Richard, with his eye brimful of tears, Then check'd and rated by Northumberland, Did speak these words, now proved a prophecy ? "Northumberland, thou ladder by the which 7o My cousin Bolingbroke ascends my throne" ; Though then, God knows, I had no such intent, But that necessity so bow'd the state That I and greatness were compell'd to kiss : "The time shall come," thus did he follow it, "The time will come, that foul sin, gathering head, Shall break into corruption" : so went on, Foretelling this same time's condition And the division of our amity. War. There is a history in all men's lives, so Figuring the nature of the times deceased ; The which observed, a man may prophesy, With a near aim, of the main chance of things As yet not come to life, which in their seeds And weak beginnings lie intreasured. Such things become the hatch and brood of time ; And by the necessary form of this King Richard might create a perfect guess That great Northumberland, then false to him. Would of that seed grow to a greater falseness; 90 Which should not find a ground to root upon, Unless on you. King. Are these things then necessities ? Then let us meet them like necessities : And that same word even now cries out on us : They say the bishop and Northumberland Are fifty thousand strong. War, It cannot be, my lord ; 58 KING HENRY THE FOURTH [Act Three Rumour doth double, like the voice and echo, The numbers of the fear'd. Please it your grace To go to bed. Upon my soul, my lord, 100 The powers that you already have sent forth Shall bring this prize in very easily. To comfort you the more, I have received A certain instance that Glendower is dead. Your majesty hath been this fortnight ill. And these unseason'd hours perforce must add Unto your sickness. King. I will take your counsel : And were these inward wars once out of hand, We would, dear lords, unto the Holy Land.' [Exeunt. Scene H — Gloucestershire. Before Justice Shallow's liouse Enter Shallow and Silence, meeting; Mouldy, Shadow, Wart, Feeble, Bullcalf, a Servant or two with them I Shal. Come on, come on, come on, sir; give me your hand, sir, give me your hand, sir : an early stirrer, by the rood! And how doth my good cousin Silence ? Sil. Good morrow, good cousin Shallow. Shal. And how doth my cousin, your bed- fellow .^^ and your fairest daughter and mine, my god-daughter Ellen ? Sil. Alas, a black ousel, cousin Shallow ! 10 Shal. By yea and nay, sir, I dare say my cousin William is become a good scholar : he is at Oxford still, is he not ? Scene Two] KING HENRY THE FOURTH 59 Sil. Indeed, sir, to my cost. Shal. A' must, then, to the inns o' court shortly. I was once of Clement's Inn, where I think they will talk of mad Shallow yet. Sil. You were called "lusty Shallow" then, cousin. Shal. By the mass, I was called any thing; and I would have done any thing indeed too, and 20 roundly too. There was I, and little John Doit of Staffordshire, and black George Barnes, and Francis Pickbone, and Will Squele, a Cotswold man; you had not four such swinge-bucklers in all the inns o' court again : and I may say to you, we knew where the bona-robas were and had the best of them all at commandment. Then was Jack Falstaff, now Sir John, a boy, and page to Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk. Sil. This Sir John, cousin, that comes hither 30 anon about soldiers ? Shal. The same Sir John, the very same. I see him break Skogan's head at the court-gate, when a' was a ^rack not thus high : and the very same day did I fight with one Sampson Stockfish, a fruiterer, behind Gray's Inn. Jesu, Jesu, the mad days that I have spent ! and to see how many of my old acquaintance are dead ! Sil. We shall all follow, cousin. Shal. Certain, 't is certain; very sure, very 40 sure: death, as the Psalmist saith, is certain to all; all shall die. How a good yoke of bullocks at Stamford fair ? Sil. By my troth, I was not there. 60 KING HENRY THE FOURTH [Act Three Shal. Death is certain. Is old Double of your town living yet ? ^ Sil. Dead, sir. Shal. Jesu, Jesu, dead! a' drew a good bow; and dead ! a* shot a fine shoot : John a Gaunt 50 loved him well, and betted much money on his head. Dead ! a' would have clapped i' the clout at twelve score ; and carried you a forehand shaft a fourteen and fourteen and a half, that it would have done a man's heart good to see. How a score of ewes now ? Sil. Thereafter as they be: a score of good ewes may be worth ten pounds. Shal. And is old Double dead ? Sil. Here come two of Sir John Falstaff's 60 men, as I think. Enter Bardolph and one with him Bard. Good morrow, honest gentlemen : I beseech you, which is Justice Shallow .f^ Shal. I am Robert Shallow, sir ; a poor esquire of this county, and one of the king's justices of the peace : what is your good pleasure with me ? Bard. My captain, sir, commends him to you; my captain. Sir John Falstaff, a tall gentleman, by heaven, and a most gallant leader. Shal. He greets me well, sir. I knew him a 70 good backsword man. How doth the good knight ? may I ask how my lady his wife doth ? Bard. Sir, pardon; a soldier is better accom- modated than with a wife. • Shal. It is well said, in faith, sir; and it is Scene Two] KING HENRY THE FOURTH 61 well said indeed too. Better accommodated ! it is good ; yea, indeed, is it : good phrases are surely, and ever were, very commendable. Ac- commodated ! it comes of " accommodo " : very good; a good phrase. Bard. Pardon me, sir ; I have heard the word, so Phrase call you it.? by this good day, I know not the phrase; but I will maintain the word with my sword to be a soldier-like word, and a word of exceeding good command, by heaven. Ac- commodated ; that is, when a man is, as they say, accommodated; or when a man is, being, where- by a' may be thought to be accommodated ; which is an excellent thing. Shal. It is very just. Enter Falstaff Look, here comes good Sir John. Give me your 90 good hand, give me your worship's good hand : by my troth, you like well and bear your years very well : welcome, good Sir John. Fal. I am glad to see you well, good Master Robert Shallow: Master Surecard, as I think? Shal. No, Sir John; it is my cousin Silence, in commission with me. Fal. Good Master Silence, it well befits you should be of the peace. Sil. Your good worship is welcome. 100 Fal. Fie ! this is hot weather, gentlemen. Have you provided me here half a dozen sufficient men? Shal. Marry, have we, sir. Will you sit ? 62 KING HENRY THE FOURTH [Act Three Fal. Let me see them, I beseech you. Shot. Where's the roll? where 's the roll? where 's the roll ? Let me see, let me see, let me see. So, so, so, so, so, so, so : yea, marry, sir : Ralph Mouldy ! Let them appear as I call ; let 110 them do so, let them do so. Let me see; where is Mouldy? Moul. Here, an 't please you. Shot. What think you. Sir John? a good- limbed fellow ; young, strong, and of good friends. Fal. Is thy name Mouldy ? Moul. Yea, an 't please you. Fal. 'T is the more time thou wert used. Shal. Ha, ha, ha ! most excellent, i' faith ! things that are mouldy lack use : very singular 120 good ! in faith, well said. Sir John, very well said. Fal. Prick him. Moul. I was pricked well enough before, an you could have let me alone : my old dame will be undone now for one to do her husbandry and her drudgery : you need not to have pricked me ; there are other men fitter to go out than I. Fal. Go to : peace. Mouldy ; you shall go. Mouldy, it is time you were spent. Moul. Spent ! 130 Shal. Peace, fellow, peace ; stand aside : know you where you are ? For the other. Sir John : let me see : Simon Shadow ! Fal. Yea, marry, let me have him to sit under : he 's like to be a cold soldier. Shal. Where 's Shadow ? Shad. Here, sir. Scene Two] KING HENRY THE FOURTH 63 Fal. Shadow, whose son art thou ? Shad. My mother's son, sir. Fal. Thy mother's son ! like enough, and thy father's shadow: so the son of the female is thei4o shadow of the male: it is often so, indeed; but much of the father's substance ! Shot. Do you like him. Sir John ? Fal. Shadow will serve for summer; prick him, for we have a number of shadows to fill up the muster-book. Shal. Thomas Wart ! Fal. Where 'she? Wart. Here, sir. Fal. Is thy name Wart ? iso Wart. Yea, sir. Fal. Thou art a very ragged wart. Shal. Shall I prick him down. Sir John ? Fal. It were superfluous; for his apparel is built upon his back and the whole frame stands upon pins : prick him no more. Shal. Ha, ha, ha ! you can do it, sir ; you can do it: I commend you well. Francis Feeble! Fee. Here, sir. Fal. What trade art thou, Feeble ? 160 Fee. A woman's tailor, sir. Shal. Shall I prick him, sir ^ Fal. You may : but if he had been a man's tailor, he 'Id ha' pricked you. Wilt thou make as many holes in an enemy's battle as thou hast done in a woman's petticoat .? Fee. I will do my good will, sir : you can have no more. 64 KING HENRY THE FOURTH [Act Three FaL Well said, good woman's tailor ! well said, 170 courageous Feeble ! thou wilt be as valiant as the wrathful dove or most magnanimous mouse. Prick the woman's tailor well, Master Shallow; deep, Master Shallow. Fee. I would Wart might have gone, sir. Fal. I would thou wert a man's tailor, that thou mightst mend him and make him fit to go. I cannot put him to a private soldier that is the leader of so many thousands : let that suffice, most forcible Feeble. 180 Fee. It shall suffice, sir. Fal. I am bound to thee, reverend Feeble. Who is next ? Shot. Peter BuUcalf o' the green ! Fal. Yea, marry, let 's see BuUcalf. Bull. Here, sir. Fal. 'Fore God, a likely fellow! Come, prick me BuUcalf till he roar again. Bull. O Lord ! good my lord captain, — Fal. What, dost thou roar before thou art 190 pricked } Bull. O Lord, sir ! I am a diseased man. Fal. What disease hast thou ? Bull. A whoreson cold, sir, a cough, sir, which I caught with ringing in the king's affairs upon his coronation-day, sir. Fal. Come, thou shalt go to the wars in a gown; we will have away thy cold; and I will take such order that thy friends shall ring for thee. Is here all ? 200 Shal. Here is two more called than your Scene Two] KING HENRY THE FOURTH 65 number ; you must have but four here, sir : and so, I pray you, go in with me to dinner. Fal. Come, I will go drink with you, but I cannot tarry dinner. I am glad to see you, by my troth, Master Shallow. Shal. O, Sir John, do you remember since we lay all night in the windmill in Saint George's field ? Fal. No more of that, good Master Shallow, no more of that. Shal. Ha ! 't was a merry night. And is Jane 210 Nightwork alive ? Fal. She lives. Master Shallow. Shal. She never could away with me. Fal. Never, never; she would always say she could not abide Master Shallow. Shal. By the mass, I could anger her to the heart. She was then a bona-roba. Doth she hold her own well ? Fal. Old, old. Master Shallow. Shal. Nay, she must be old; she cannot 220 choose but be old; certain she 's old; and had Robin Nightwork by old Nightwork before I came to Clement's Inn. Sil. That 's fifty five year ago. Shal. Ha, cousin Silence, that thou hadst seen that that this knight and I have seen ! Ha, Sir John, said I well ? Fal. We have heard the chimes at midnight, Master Shallow. Shal. That we have, that we have, that we 230 have ; in faith. Sir John, we have : our watch- word was " Hem boys \ " Come, let 's to dinner ; 66 KING HENRY THE FOURTH [Act Three come, let 's to dinner: Jesus, the days that we have seen ! Come, come. [Exeunt Falstaff and the Justices. Bull. Good Master Corporate Bardolph, stand my friend; and here 's four Harry ten shiUings in French crowns for you. In very truth, sir, I had as hef be hanged, sir, as go : and yet, for mine own part, sir, I do not care; but rather, 240 because I am unwilHng, and, for mine own part, have a desire to stay with my friends; else, sir, I did not care, for mine own part, so much. Bard. Go to ; stand aside. Moid. And, good master corporal captain, for my old dame's sake, stand my friend : she has nobody to do any thing about her when I am gone; and she is old, and cannot help herself: you shall have forty, sir. Bard. Go to; stand aside. 250 Fee. By my troth, I care not; a man can die but once : we owe God a death : I '11 ne'er bear a base mind : an 't be my destiny, so ; an 't be not, so : no man is too good to serve 's prince ; and let it go which way it will, he that dies this year is quit for the next. Bard. Well said ; thou 'rt a good fellow. Fee. Faith, I '11 bear no base mind. Re-enter Falstaff and the Justices Fal. Come, sir, which men shall I have ? Shal. Four of which you please. 260 Bard. Sir, a word with you: I have three pound to free Mouldy and BuUcalf . Scene Two] KING HENRY THE FOURTH 67 'Fal. Go to ; well. Shal. Come, Sir John, which four will you have ? FaL Do you choose for me. Shal. Marry, then, Mouldy, BuUcalf, Feeble and Shadow. FaL Mouldy and BuUcalf: for you, Mouldy, stay at home till you are past service : and for your part, BuUcalf, grow till you come unto it: 270 I will none of you. Shal. Sir John, Sir John, do not yourself wrong : they are your likeliest men, and I would have you served with the best. Fal. Will you tell me. Master Shallow, how to choose a man ? Care I for the limb, the thewes, the stature, bulk, and big assemblance of a man ! Give me the spirit. Master Shallow. Here 's Wart ; you see what a ragged appearance it is : a' shall charge you and discharge you with the28o motion of a pewterer's hammer, come off and on swifter than he that gibbets on the brewer's bucket. And this same half-faced fellow. Sha- dow ; give me this man : he presents no mark to the enemy; the foeman may with as great aim level at the edge of a penknife. And for a re- treat; how swiftly will this Feeble the woman's tailor run off ! O, give me the spare men, and spare me the great ones. Put me a caliver into Wart's hand, Bardolph. 290 Bard. Hold, Wart, traverse; thus, thus, thus. Fal. Come, manage me your caliver. So : very well : go to : very good, exceeding good. 0, give me always a little, lean, old, chapt, bald 68 KING HENRY THE FOURTH [Act Three shot. Well said, i' faith, Wart ; thou 'rt a good scab : hold, there 's a tester for thee. Shal. He is not his craft's master; he doth not do it right. I remember at Mile-end Green, when I lay at Clement's Inn, — I was then Sir 300 Dagonet in Arthur's show, — there was a little quiver fellow, and a' would manage you his piece thus; and a' would about and about, and come you in and come you in: "rah, tah, tah," would a' say; "bounce" would a' say; and away again would a' go, and again would a' come : I shall ne'er see such a fellow. Fal. These fellows will do well, Master Shal- low. God keep you. Master Silence : I will not use many words with you. Fare you well, gen- 310 tlemen both : I thank you : I must a dozen mile to-night. Bardolph, give the soldiers coats. Shal. Sir John, the Lord bless you ! God prosper your affairs ! God send us peace ! At your return visit our house; let our old acquaint- ance be renewed : peradventure I will with ye to the court. Fal. 'Fore God, I would you would. Master Shallow. Shal. Go to; I have spoke at a word. God 320 keep you. Fal. Fare you well, gentle gentlemen. [Exeunt Justices.] On, Bardolph; lead the men away. [Exeunt Bardolph, Recruits, etc.] As I return, I will fetch off these justices : I do see the bottom of Justice Shallow. Lord, Lord, how subject we old men are to this vice of lying! This same Scene Two] KING HENRY THE FOURTH 69 starved justice hath done nothing but prate to me of the wildness of his youth, and the feats he hath done about TurnbuU Street; and every third word a he, duer paid to the hearer than the 330 Turk's tribute. I do remember him at Clement's Inn hke a man made after supper of a cheese- paring : when a' was naked, he was, for all the world, like a forked radish, with a head fantas- tically carved upon it with a knife : a' was so for- lorn, that his dimensions to any thick sight were invincible : a' was the very genius of famine ; yet lecherous as a monkey, and the whores called him mandrake : a' came ever in the rearward of the fashion, and sung those tunes to the over- 340 scutched huswives that he heard the carmen whistle, and sware they were his fancies or his good-nights. And now is this Vice's dagger be- come a squire, and talks as familiarly of John a Gaunt as if he had been sworn brother to him; and I '11 be sworn a' ne'er saw him but once in the Tilt-yard; and then he burst his head for crowd- ing among the marshal's men. I saw it, and told John a Gaunt he beat his own name; for you might have thrust him and all his apparel into an 350 eel-skin; the case of a treble hautboy was a man- sion for him, a court : and now has he land and . beefs. Well, I '11 be acquainted with him, if I return; and it shall go hard but I will make him a philosopher's two stones to me : if the young dace be a bait for the old pike, I see no reason in the law of nature but I may snap at him. Let time shape, and there an end. [Exit. to KING HENRY THE FOUKTH [Act Four ACT IV Scene I — Yorkshire. Gaultree Forest Enter the Aechbishop of York, Mowbray, Hastings, and others Arch. What is this forest call'd ? Hast. 'T is Gaultree Forest, an 't shall please your grace. Arch. Here stand, my lords; and send dis- coverers forth To know the numbers of our enemies. Hast. We have sent forth already. Arch. 'T is well done. My friends and brethren in these great affairs, I must acquaint you that I have received New-dated letters from Northumberland ; Their cold intent, tenour and substance, thus : 10 Here doth he wish his person, with such powers As might hold sortance with his quality, The which he could not levy ; whereupon He is retired, to ripe his growing fortunes, To Scotland : and concludes in hearty prayers That your attempts may overlive the hazard And fearful meeting of their opposite. Mowb. Thus do the hopes we have in him touch ground And dash themselves to pieces. Enter a Messenger Hast. Now, what news ? Mess. West of this forest, scarcely off a mile, 20 In goodly form comes on the enemy ; Scene One] KING HENRY THE FOURTH 71 And, by the ground they hide, I judge their number Upon or near the rate of thirty thousand. Mowb. The just proportion that we gave them out. Let us sway on and face them in the field. Arch. What well-appointed leader fronts us here? Enter Westmoreland Mowb. I think it is my Lord of Westmoreland. West. Health and fair greeting from our general, The prince. Lord John and Duke of Lancaster. Arch. Say on, my Lord of Westmoreland, in peace : What doth concern your coming ? West. Then, my lord, so Unto your grace do I in chief address The substance of my speech. If that rebellion Came like itself, in base and abject routs. Led on by bloody youth, guarded with rags. And countenanced by boys and beggary, I say, if damn'd commotion so appear'd. In his true, native and most proper shape, You, reverend father, and these noble lords Had not been here, to dress the ugly form Of base and bloody insurrection 40 With your fair honours. You, lord archbishop. Whose see is by a civil peace maintained, Whose beard the silver hand of peace hath touch'd. Whose learning and good letters peace hath tutor'd. Whose white investments figure innocence, 72 KING HENRY THE FOURTH [Act Four The dove and very blessed spirit of peace, Wherefore do you so ill translate yourself Out of the speech of peace that bears such grace. Into the harsh and boisterous tongue of war ; 50 Turning your books to graves, your ink to blood. Your pens to lances and your tongue divine To a loud trumpet and a point of war ? Arch. Wherefore do I this? so the question stands. Briefly to this end : we are all diseased, And with our surfeiting and wanton hours Have brought ourselves into a burning fever. And we must bleed for it ; of which disease Our late king, Richard, being infected, died. But, my most noble Lord of Westmoreland, 60 1 take not on me here as a physician. Nor do I as an enemy to peace Troop in the throngs of military men ; But rather show awhile like fearful war. To diet rank minds sick of happiness And purge the obstructions which begin to stop Our very veins of life. Hear me more plainly. I have in equal balance justly weigh'd What wrongs our arms may do, what wrongs we suffer. And find our griefs heavier than our offences. 7oW^e see which way the stream of time doth run. And are enforced from our most quiet there By the rough torrent of occasion ; And have the summary of all our griefs. When time shall serve, to show in articles ; Which long ere this we offer'd to the king. Scene One] KING HENRY THE FOURTH 73 And might by no suit gain our audience : When we are wrong'd and would unfold our I ■' griefs, We are denied access unto his person Even by those men that most have done us wrong. The dangers of the days but newly gone, so Whose memory is written on the earth With yet appearing blood, and the examples Of every minute's instance, present now, Hath put us in these ill-beseeming arms. Not to break peace or any branch of it. But to establish here a peace indeed. Concurring both in name and quality. West. When ever yet was your appeal denied ? Wherein have you been galled by the king ? What peer hath been suborn'd to grate on you, m That you should seal this lawless bloody book Of forged rebellion with a seal divine And consecrate commotion's bitter edge ? Arch. My brother general, the commonwealth. To brother born an household cruelty, I make my quarrel in particular. West. There is no need of any such redress ; Or if there were, it not belongs to you. Mowh. Why not to him in part, and to us all That feel the bruises of the days before, lOO And suffer the condition of these times To lay a heavy and unequal hand Upon our honours ^ West. O, my good Lord Mowbray, Construe the times to their necessities. And you shall say indeed, it is the time. 74 KING HENRY THE FOURTH [Act Foub And not the king, that doth you injuries. Yet for your part, it not appears to me Either from the king or in the present time That you should have an inch of any ground 110 To build a grief on : were you not restored To all the Duke of Norfolk's signories. Your noble and right well remember'd father's ? Mowb. What thing, in honour, had my father lost. That need to be revived and breathed in me ? The king that loved him, as the state stood then. Was force perforce compell'd to banish him : And then that Henry Bolingbroke and he. Being mounted and both roused in their seats. Their neighing coursers daring of the spur, 120 Their armed staves in charge, their beavers down. Their eyes of fire sparkling through sights of steel And the loud trumpet blowing them together. Then, then, when there was nothing could have stay'd My father from the breast of Bolingbroke, O, when the king did throw his warder down. His own life hung upon the staff he threw ; Then threw he down himself and all their lives That by indictment and by dint of sword Have since miscarried under Bolingbroke. 130 West. You speak. Lord Mowbray, now you know not what. The Earl of Hereford was reputed then In England the most valiant gentleman : Who knows on whom fortune would then have smiled ? Scene One] KING HENRY THE FOURTH 75 But if your father had been victor there, He ne'er had borne it out of Coventry : For all the country in a general voice Cried hate upon him; and all their prayers and love ) Were set on Hereford, whom they doted on And bless'd and graced indeed, more than the king. But this is mere digression from my purpose. i40 Here come I from our princely general To know your griefs ; to tell you from his grace That he will give you audience ; and wherein It shall appear that your demands are just. You shall enjoy them, every thing set off That might so much as think you enemies. Mowb. But he hath forced us to compel this offer; And it proceeds from policy, not love. West. Mowbray, you overween to take it so ; This offer comes from mercy, not from fear : 150 For, lo ! within a ken our army lies. Upon mine honour, all too confident To give admittance to a thought of fear. Our battle is more full of names than yours. Our men more perfect in the use of arms. Our armour all as strong, our cause the best ; Then reason will our hearts should be as good : Say you not then our offer is compelled. Mowb. Well, by my will we shall admit no parley. West. That argues but the shame of your offence : 160 76 KING HENRY THE FOURTH [Act Four A rotten case abides no handling. Hast. Hath the Prince John a full commission, In very ample virtue of his father, To hear and absolutely to determine Of what conditions we shall stand upon ? West. That is intended in the general's name : I muse you make so slight a question. Arch. Then take, my Lord of Westmoreland, this schedule, For this contains our general grievances : 170 Each several article herein redress'd, All members of our cause, both here and hence, That are insinew'd to this action, Acquitted by a true substantial form And present execution of our wills To us and to our purposes confined. We come within our awful banks again And knit our powers to the arm of peace. West. This will I show the general. Please you, lords, In sight of both our battles we may meet ; 180 And either end in peace, which God so frame ! Or to the place of difference call the swords Which must decide it. Arch. My lord, we will do so. [Exit West. Mowh. There is a thing within my bosom tells me That no conditions of our peace can stand. Hast. Fear you not that : if we can make our peace Upon such large terms and so absolute As our conditions shall consist upon, Scene One] KING HENRY THE FOURTH 77 Our peace shall stand as firm as rocky mountains. Mowh. Yea, but our valuation shall be such That every slight and false-derived cause, 190 Yea, every idle, nice and wanton reason Shall to the king taste of this action ; That, were our royal faiths martyrs in love, We shall be winnow'd with so rough a wind That even our corn shall seem as light as chaff And good from bad find no partition. Arch. No, no, my lord. Note this; the king is weary Of dainty and such picking grievances : For he hath found to end one doubt by death Revives two greater in the heirs of life, 200 And therefore will he wipe his tables clean And keep no tell-tale to his memory That may repeat and history his loss To new remembrance ; for full well he knows He cannot so precisely weed this land As his misdoubts present occasion : His foes are so enrooted with his friends That, plucking to unfix an enemy, He doth unfasten so and shake a friend : So that this land, like an offensive wife 210 That hath enraged him on to offer strokes, As he is striking, holds his infant up And hangs resolved correction in the arm That was uprear'd to execution. Hast. Besides, the king hath wasted all his rods On late offenders, that he now doth lack The very instruments of chastisement : 78 KING HENRY THE FOURTH [Act Four So that his power, Hke to a fangless Hon, May offer, but not hold. Arch. 'T is very true : 220 And therefore be assured, my good lord marshal. If we do now make our atonement well, Our peace will, like a broken limb united, Grow stronger for the breaking. Mowb. Be it so. Here is returned my Lord of Westmoreland. Re-enter Westmoreland West. The prince is here at hand : pleaseth your lordship To meet his grace just distance 'tween our armies. Mowb. Your grace of York, in God's name, then, set forward. Arch. Before, and greet his grace: my lord, we come. [Exeunt. Scene II — Another part of the forest Enter, from one side, Mowbray, attended; afterwards the Archbishop, Hastings, and others: from the other side. Prince John of Lancaster, and Westmoreland; Officers, and others with them Lan. You are well encounter'd here, my cousin Mowbray : Good day to you, gentle lord archbishop ; And so to you. Lord Hastings, and to all. My Lord of York, it better show'd with you When that your flock, assembled by the bell. Encircled you to hear with reverence Scene Two] KING HENRY THE FOURTH 79 Your exposition on the holy text Than now to see you here an iron man, Cheering a rout of rebels with your drum, Turning the word to sword and life to death. lo That man that sits within a monarch's heart, And ripens in the sunshine of his favour, Would he abuse the countenance of the king, Alack, what mischiefs might he set abroach In shadow of such greatness ! With you, lord bishop. It is even so. Who hath not heard it spoken How deep you were within the books of God? To us the speaker in his parliament ; To us the imagined voice of God himself ; The very opener and intelligencer 20 Between the grace, the sanctities of heaven And our dull workings. O, who shall believe But you misuse the reverence of your place, Employ the countenance and grace of heaven. As a false favourite doth his prince's name, In deeds dishonourable ? You have ta'en up. Under the counterfeited zeal of God, The subjects of his substitute, my father. And both against the peace of heaven and him Have here up-swarm'd them. Arch. Good my Lord of Lancaster, 30 I am not here against your father's peace ; But, as I told my Lord of Westmoreland, The time misorder'd doth, in common sense, Crowd us and crush us to this monstrous form. To hold our safety up. I sent your grace The parcels and particulars of our grief. .80 KING HENRY THE FOURTH [Act Pour The which hath been with scorn shoved from the court, Whereon this Hydra son of war is born ; Whose dangerous eyes may well be charm'd asleep 40 With grant of our most just and right desires, And true obedience, of this madness cured. Stoop tamely to the foot of majesty. Mowb. If not, we ready are to try our fortunes To the last man. Hast. And though we here fall down, We have supplies to second our attempt : If they miscarry, theirs shall second them ; And so success of mischief shall be born And heir from heir shall hold this quarrel up Whiles England shall have generation. 60 Lan. You are too shallow, Hastings, much too shallow, To sound the bottom of the after-times. West. Pleaseth your grace to answer them directly How far forth you do like their articles. Lan. I like them all, and do allow them well, And swear here, by the honour of my blood, My father's purposes have been mistook. And some about him have too lavishly Wrested his meaning and authority. My lord, these griefs shall be with speed redress'd ; 60 Upon my soul, they shall. If this may please you. Discharge your powers unto their several counties. As we will ours : and here between the armies Scene Two] KING HENRY THE FOURTH SI Let 's drink together friendly and embrace, That all their eyes may bear those tokens home Of our restored love and amity. Arch. I take your princely word for these redresses. Lan. I give it you, and will maintain my word : And thereupon I drink unto your grace. Hast. Go, captain, and deliver to the army This news of peace : let them have pay, and part : 7o I know it will well please them. Hie thee, captain. [Exit Officer. Arch. To you, my noble Lord of Westmoreland. West, I pledge your grace; and, if you knew what pains I have bestow'd to breed this present peace, You would drink freely : but my love to ye Shall show itself more openly hereafter. Arch. I do not doubt you. West. I am glad of it. Health to my lord and gentle cousin, Mowbray. Mowb. You wish me health in very happy season ; For I am, on the sudden, something ill. so Arch. Against ill chances men are ever merry; But heaviness foreruns the good event. West. Therefore be merry, coz; since sudden sorrow Serves to say thus, "some good thing comes to- morrow." Arch. Believe me, I am passing light in spirit. Mowb. So much the worse, if your own rule be true. [Shouts ivithin. 8^ KING HENRY THE FOURTH [Act Foub Lan. The word of peace is rendered: hark, how they shout ! Mowh. This had been cheerful after victory. Arch. A peace is of the nature of a conquest; 90 For then both parties nobly are subdued. And neither party loser. Lan. Go, my lord. And let our army be discharged too. [Exit Westmoreland. And, good my lord, so please you, let our trains March by us, that we may peruse the men We should have coped withal. Arch. Go, good Lord Hastings, And, ere they be dismiss'd, let them march by. [Exit Hastings. Lan. I trust, lords, we shall lie to-night together. Re-enter Westmoreland Now cousin, wherefore stands our army still? West. The leaders, having charge from you to stand, 100 Will not go off until they hear you speak. Lan. They know their duties. Re-enter Hastings Hast. My lord, our army is dispersed already : Like youthful steers unyoked, they take their courses East, west, north, south; or, like a school broke up. Each hurries toward his home and sporting- place. Scene Three] KING HENRY THE FOURTH 83 West. Good tidings, my Lord Hastings; for the which I do arrest thee, traitor, of high treason : And you, lord archbishop, and you, lord Mowbray, Of capital treason I attach you both. Moiub. Is this proceeding just and honourable ? no West. Is your assembly so ? Arch. Will you thus break your faith ? Lan. I pawn'd thee none : I promised you redress of these same grievances Whereof you did complain; which, by mine honour, I will perform with a most Christian care. But for you, rebels, look to taste the due Meet for rebellion and such acts as yours. Most shallowly did you these arms commence, Fondly brought here and foolishly sent hence. Strike up our drums, pursue the scattered stray : 120 God, and not we, hath safely fought to-day. Some guard these traitors to the block of death. Treason's true bed and yielder up of breath. [Exeunt, Scene IH — Another part of the forest Alarum. Excursions. Enter Falstaff and CoLEViLE, meeting Fal. What 's your name, sir.?^ of what condi- tion are you, and of what place, I pray ? Cole. I am a knight, sir; and my name is Cole vile of the dale. Fal. Well, then, Colevile is your name, a 84 KING HENRY THE FOURTH [Act Foub knight is your degree, and your place the dale: Cole^dle shall be still your name, a traitor your degree, and the dungeon your place, a place deep enough; so shall you be still Colevile of 10 the dale. Cole. Are not you Sir John Falstaff ? Fal. As good a man as he, sir, whoe'er I am. Do ye yield, sir? or shall I sweat for you? If I do sweat, they are the drops of thy lovers, and they weep for thy death : therefore rouse up fear and trembling, and do observance to my mercy. Cole. I think you are Sir John Falstaff, and in that thought yield me. 20 Fal. I have a whole school of tongues in this belly of mine, and not a tongue of them all speaks any other word but my name. An I had but a belly of any indifferency, I were simply the most active fellow in Europe: my womb, my womb, my womb, undoes me. Here comes our general. Enter Prince John of Lancaster, Westmoreland, Blunt, and others Lan. The heat is past ; follow no further now : Call in the powers, good cousin Westmoreland. [Exit Westmoreland. Now, Falstaff, where have you been all this while ? 30 When every thing is ended, then you come : These tardy tricks of yours will, on my life. One time or other break some gallows' back. Scene Three] KING HENRY THE FOURTH 85 Fal. I would be sorry, my lord, but it should be thus : I never knew yet but rebuke and check was the reward of valour. Do you think me a swallow, an arrow, or a bullet? have I, in my poor and old motion, the expedition of thought ? I have speeded hither with the very extremest inch of possibility; I have foundered nine score and odd posts : and here, travel-tainted as I am, 40 have, in my pure and immaculate valour, taken Sir John Colevile of the dale, a most furious knight and valorous enemy. But what of that.f^ he saw me, and yielded; that I may justly say, with the hook-nosed fellow of Rome, "I came, saw, and overcame." Lan. It was more of his courtesy than your deserving. Fal. I know not : here he is, and here I yield him : and I beseech your grace, let it be booked 5o with the rest of this day's deeds ; or, by the Lord, I will have it in a particular ballad else, with mine own picture on the top on 't, Colevile kissing my foot: to the which course if I be enforced, if you do not all show like gilt two- pences to me, and I in the clear sky of fame o'ershine you as much as the full moon doth the cinders of the element, which show like pins' heads to her, believe not the word of the noble : therefore let me have right, and let desert 6o mount. Lan. Thine 's too heavy to mount. Fal. Let it shine, then. Lan. Thine 's too thick to shine. 86 KING HENRY THE FOUHTH [Act Four Fal. Let it do something, my good lord, that may do me good, and call it what you will. Lan. Is thy name Cole vile ? Cole. It is, my lord. Lan. A famous rebel art thou, Colevile. 70 Fal. And a famous true subject took him. Cole. I am, my lord, but as my betters are That led me hither : had they been ruled by me. You should have won them dearer than you have. Fal. I know not how they sold themselves : but thou, like a kind fellow, gavest thyself away gratis ; and I thank thee for thee. Re-enter Westmoreland Lan. Now, have you left pursuit ? West. Retreat is made and execution stay'd. Lan. Send Colevile with his confederates 80 To York, to present execution : Blunt, lead him hence; and see you guard him sure. [Exeunt Blunt and others with Colevile. And now dispatch we toward the court, my lords : I hear the king my father is sore sick : Our news shall go before us to his majesty, Which, cousin, you shall bear to comfort him. And we with sober speed will follow you. Fal. My lord, I beseech you, give me leave to go Through Gloucestershire : and, when you come to court. Stand my good lord, pray, in your good report. Scene Three] KING HENRY THE FOURTH 87 Lan. Fare you well, Falstaff: I, in my condi- tion, 90 Shall better speak of you than you deserve. [Exeunt all hut Falstaff. Fat. I would you had but the wit : 't were better than your dukedom. Good faith, this same young sober-blooded boy doth not love me; nor a man cannot make him laugh; but that 's no marvel, he drinks no wine. There 's never none of these demure boys come to any proof; for thin drink doth so over-cool their blood, and making many fish-meals, that they fall into a kind of male green-sickness ; and then, loo when they marry, they get wenches: they are generally fools and cowards; which some of us should be too, but for inflammation. A good sherris-sack hath a two-fold operation in it. It ascends me into the brain; dries me there all the foolish and dull and crudy vapours which environ it; makes it apprehensive, quick, forgetive, full of nimble fiery and delectable shapes; which, delivered o'er to the voice, the tongue, which is the birth, becomes excellent wit. The second no property of your excellent sherris is, the warming of the blood; which, before cold and settled, left the liver white and pale, which is the badge of pusillanimity and cowardice; but the sherris warms it and makes it course from the inwards to the parts extreme : it illumineth the face, which as a beacon gives warning to all the rest of this little kingdom, man, to arm; and then the vital commoners and inland petty spirits 88 KING HENRY THE FOURTH [Act Four 120 muster me all to their captain, the heart, who, great and puffed up with this retinue, doth any deed of courage ; and this valour comes of sherris. So that skill in the weapon is nothing without sack, for that sets it a- work; and learning a mere hoard of gold kept by a devil, till sack com- mences it and sets it in act and use. Hereof comes it that Prince Harry is valiant; for the cold blood he did naturally inherit of his father, he hath, like lean, sterile and bare land, manured, 130 husbanded and tilled with excellent endeavour of drinking good and good store of fertile sherris, that he is become very hot and valiant. If I had a thousand sons, the first humane principle I would teach them should be, to forswear thin potations and to addict themselves to sack. Enter Bardolph How now, Bardolph ? Bard. The army is discharged all and gone. Fal. Let them go. I'll through Gloucester- shire; and there will I visit Master Robert Shal- 140 low, esquire : I have him already tempering between my finger and my thumb, and shortly will I seal with him. Come away. [Exeunt. Scene IV — Westminster. The Jerusalem Chamber Enter the King, the Princes Thomas of Clarence and Humphrey of Gloucester, Warwick, and others King. Now, lords, if God doth give successful end Scene Four] KING HENRY THE FOURTH 89 To this debate that bleedeth at our doors, We will our youth lead on to higher fields And draw no swords but what are sanctified. Our navy is address'd, our power collected, Our substitutes in absence well invested, And every thing lies level to our wish : Only, we want a little personal strength ; And pause us, till these rebels, now afoot. Come underneath the yoke of government. lo War. Both which we doubt not but your majesty Shall soon enjoy. King. Humphrey, my son of Gloucester, Where is the prince your brother ? Glou. I think he 's gone to hunt, my lord, at Windsor. King. And how accompanied ? Glou. I do not know, my lord. King. Is not his brother, Thomas of Clarence^ with him ? Glou. No, my good lord; he is in presence here. Clar. What would my lord and father ? King. Nothing but well to thee, Thomas of Clarence. How chance thou art not with the prince thy brother ? 20 He loves thee, and thou dost neglect him, Thomas ; Thou hast a better place in his affection Than all thy brothers : cherish it, my boy. And noble oflSices thou mayst effect Of mediation, after I am dead. 90 KING HENRY THE FOURTH [Act Four Between his greatness and thy other brethren : Therefore omit him not ; blunt not his love. Nor lose the good advantage of his grace By seeming cold or careless of his will ; 30 For he is gracious, if he be observed : He hath a tear for pity and a hand Open as day for melting charity : Yet notwithstanding, being incensed, he 's flint. As humorous as winter and as sudden As flaws congealed in the spring of day. His temper, therefore, must be well observed : Chide him for faults, and do it reverently, When you perceive his blood inclined to mirth ; But, being moody, give him line and scope, 40 Till that his passions, like a whale on ground, ' Confound themselves with working. Learn this, Thomas, And thou shalt prove a shelter to thy friends, A hoop of gold to bind thy brothers in. That the united vessel of their blood. Mingled with venom of suggestion — As, force perforce, the age will pour it in — Shall never leak, though it do work as strong As aconitum or rash gunpowder. Clar. I shall observe him with all care and love. ^m King. Why art thou not at Windsor with him, Thomas? ^^ Clar. He is not there to-day; he dines in London. King. And how accompanied.^ canst thou tell that?'' Scene Four] KING HENRY THE FOURTH 91 Clar. With Poins, and other his continual followers. King. Most subject is the fattest soil to weeds ; And he, the noble image of my youth, Is overspread with them : therefore my grief Stretches itself beyond the hour of death : The blood weeps from my heart when I do shape In forms imaginary the unguided days And rotten times that you shall look upon 60 When I am sleeping with my ancestors. For when his headstrong riot hath no curb. When rage and hot blood are his counsellors. When means and lavish manners meet together, O, with what wings shall his affections fly Towards fronting peril and opposed decay ! War. My gracious lord, you look beyond him quite : The prince but studies his companions Like a strange tongue, wherein, to gain the lan- guage, 'T is needful that the most immodest word 70 Be look'd upon and learn'd ; which once attained. Your highness knows, comes to no further use But to be known and hated. So, like gross terms, The prince will in the perfectness of time Cast off his followers ; and their memory Shall as a pattern or a measure live. By which his grace must mete the lives of others. Turning past evils to advantages. King. 'T is seldom when the bee doth leave her comb In the dead carrion. 92 KING jHENRY THE FOURTH [Act Four Ewier^WESTMORELAND 80 Who 's here ? Westmoreland ? West. Health to my sovereign, and new happi- ness Added to that that I am to deliver ! Prince John your son doth kiss your grace's hand : Mowbray, the Bishop Scroop, Hastings and all Are brought to the correction of your law ; There is not now a rebel's sword unsheathed, But Peace puts forth her olive every where. The manner how this action hath been borne Here at more leisure may your highness read, 90 With every course in his particular. King. O Westmoreland, thou art a summer bird. Which ever in the haunch of winter sings The lifting up of day. Enter Harcourt Look, here 's more news. Har. From enemies heaven keep your majesty ; And, when they stand against you, may they fall As those that I am come to tell you of ! The Earl Northumberland and the Lord Bardolph, With a great power of English and of Scots, Are by the sheriff of Yorkshire overthrown : 100 The manner and true order of the fight This packet, please it you, contains at large. King. And wherefore should these good news make me sick ? Will Fortune never come with both hands full, Scene Four] KING HENRY THE FOURTH 93 But write her fair words still in foulest letters ? She either gives a stomach and no food ; Such are the poor, in health ; or else a feast And takes away the stomach ; such are the rich, That have abundance and enjoy it not. I should rejoice now at this happy news ; And now my sight fails, and my brain is giddy : no O me ! come near me ; now I am much ill. Glou. Comfort, your majesty ! Clar, my royal father ! West. My sovereign lord, cheer up yourself, look up. War. Be patient, princes ; you do know, these fits Are with his highness very ordinary. Stand from him, give him air ; he '11 straight be well. Clar. No, no, he cannot long hold out these pangs : The incessant care and labour of his mind Hath wrought the mure that should confine it in So thin that life looks through and will break out. 120 Glou. The people fear me ; for they do observe Unfather'd heirs and loathly births of nature : The seasons change their manners, as the year Had found some months asleep and leap'd them over. Clar. The river hath thrice fiow'd, no ebb between ; And the old folk, time's doting chronicles. Say it did so a little time before That our great-grandsire, Edward, sick'd and died. War. Speak lower, princes, for the king recovers. 94 KING HENRY THE FOURTH [Act Four 130 Glou. This apoplexy will certain be his end. King. I pray you, take me up, and bear me hence Into some other chamber : softly, pray. [Exeunt. Scene V — Another chamber The King lying on a bed: Claeence, Gloucester, Warwick, and others in attendance King. Let there be no noise made, my gentle friends ; Unless some dull and favourable hand Will whisper music to my weary spirit. War. Call for the music in the other room. King. Set me the crown upon my pillow here. Clar. His eye is hollow, and he changes much. War. Less noise, less noise ! Enter Prince Henry Prince. Who saw the Duke of Clarence ? Clar. I am here, brother, full of heaviness. Prince. How now ! rain within doors, and none abroad ! 10 How doth the king ? Glou. Exceeding ill. Prince. Heard he the good news yet ? Tell it him. Glou. He alter'd much upon the hearing it. Prince. If he be sick with joy, he '11 recover without physic. War. Not so much noise, my lords ; sweet prince, speak low; Scene Five] KING HENRY THE FOURTH 95 The king your father is disposed to sleep. Clar. Let us withdraw into the other room. War. Will 't please your grace to go along with us? Prince. No; I will sit and watch here by the king. [Exeunt all but the Prince. 20 Why doth the crown lie there upon his pillow, Being so troublesome a bedfellow ? O polish'd perturbation ! golden care ! That keep'st the ports of slumber open wide To many a watchful night ! sleep with it now ! Yet not so sound and half so deeply sweet As he whose brow with homely biggen bound Snores out the watch of night. O majesty ! When thou dost pinch thy bearer, thou dost sit Like a rich armour worn in heat of day, 30 That scalds with safety. By his gates of breath There lies a downy feather which stirs not : Did he suspire, that light and weightless down Perforce must move. My gracious lord! my father ! This sleep is sound indeed ; this is a sleep That from this golden rigol hath divorced So many English kings. Thy due from me Is tears and heavy sorrows of the blood, Which nature, love, and filial tenderness, Shall, O dear father, pay thee plenteously : 40 My due from thee is this imperial crown, Which, as immediate from thy place and blood, Derives itself to me. Lo, here it sits. Which God shall guard : and put the world's whole strength 96 KING HENRY THE FOURTH [Act Four Into one giant arm, it shall not force This lineal honour from me : this from thee Will I to mine leave, as 't is left to me. [Exit. King. Warwick ! Gloucester ! Clarence ! Re-enter Warwick, Gloucester, Clarence, and the rest Clar. Doth the king call ? ' 50 War. What would your majesty? How fares your grace ? King. Why did you leave me here alone, my lords ? Clar. We left the prince my brother here, my liege. Who undertook to sit and watch by you. King. The Prince of Wales ! Where is he ? let me see him : He is not here. War. This door is open ; he is gone this way. Glou. He came not through the chamber where we stay'd. ! King. Where is the crown .^^ who took it from my pillow ? War. When we withdrew, my liege, we left it here. 60 King. The prince hath ta'en it hence : go, seek him out. Is he so hasty that he doth suppose My sleep my death ? Find him, my Lord of Warwick ; chide him hither. [Exit Warwick. This part of his conjoins with my disease. Scene Five] KING HENRY THE FOURTH 97 And helps to end me. See, sons, what things you are ! How quickly nature falls into revolt When gold becomes her object ! For this the foolish over-careful fathers Have broke their sleep with thoughts, their brains with care, Their bones with industry ; 7o For this they have engross'd and piled up The canker'd heaps of strange-achieved gold ; For this they have been thoughtful to invest Their sons with arts and martial exercises : When, like the bee, culling from every flower The virtuous sweets. Our thighs pack'd with wax, our mouths with honey, We bring it to the hive, and, like the bees. Are murdered for our pains. This bitter taste Yield his engrossments to the ending father. so Re-enter Warwick Now, where is he that will not stay so long Till his friend sickness hath determined me ? War. My lord, I found the prince in the next room. Washing with kindly tears his gentle cheeks. With such a deep demeanour in great sorrow That tyranny, which never quaff'd but blood. Would, by beholding him, have wash'd his knife With gentle eye-drops. He is coming hither. King. But wherefore did he take away the crown ? 98 KING HENRY THE FOURTH [Act Four Re-enter Prince Henry 90 Lo, where he comes. Come hither to me, Harry. Depart the chamber, leave us here alone. [Exeunt Warwick and the rest. Prince. I never thought to hear you speak again. King. Thy wish was father, Harry, to that thought : I stay too long by thee, I weary thee. Dost thou so hunger for mine empty chair That thou wilt needs invest thee with my honours Before thy hour be ripe ? O foolish youth ! Thou seek'st the greatness that will overwhelm thee. Stay but a little ; for my cloud of dignity 100 Is held from falling with so weak a wind That it will quickly drop : my day is dim. Thou hast stolen that which after some few hours Were thine without offence ; and at my death Thou hast seal'd up my expectation : Thy life did manifest thou lovedst me not, And thou wilt have me die assured of it. Thou hidest a thousand daggers in thy thoughts. Which thou hast whetted on thy stony heart. To stab at half an hour of my life. 110 What ! canst thou not forbear me half an hour ? Then get thee gone and dig my grave thyself. And bid the merry bells ring to thine ear That thou art crowned, not that I am dead. Let all the tears that should bedew my hearse Be drops of balm to sanctify thy head : Only compound me with forgotten dust ; Give that which gave thee life unto the worms. Scene Five] KING HENRY THE FOURTH 99 Pluck down my ojQficers, break my decrees ; For now a time is come to mock at form : Harry the Fifth is crown'd : up, vanity ! 120 Down, royal state ! all you sage counsellors, hence ! And to the English court assemble now. From every region, apes of idleness ! Now, neighbour confines, purge you of your scum : Have you a ruffian that will swear, drink, dance. Revel the night, rob, murder, and commit The oldest sins the newest kind of ways ? Be happy, he will trouble you no more ; England shall double gild his treble guilt, England shall give him office, honour, might ; 130 For the fifth Harry from curb'd license plucks The muzzle of restraint, and the wild dog Shall flesh his tooth on every innocent. my poor kingdom, sick with civil blows ! When that my care could not withhold thy riots, What wilt thou do when riot is thy care ? O, thou wilt be a wilderness again. Peopled with wolves, thy old inhabitants ! Prince. O, pardon me, my liege ! but for my tears. The moist impediments unto my speech, 140 1 had forestall'd this dear and deep rebuke Ere you with grief had spoke and I had heard The course of it so far. There is your crown ; And He that wears the crown immortally Long guard it yours ! If I affect it more Than as your honour and as your renown. Let me no more from this obedience rise. Which my most inward true and duteous spirit 100 KING HENRY THE FOURTH (Act Fous Teacheth, this prostrate and exterior bending. 150 God witness with me, when I here came in, And found no course of breath within your majesty, How cold it struck my heart ! If I do feign, O, let me in my present wildness die And never live to show the incredulous world The noble change that I have purposed ! Coming to look on you, thinking you dead, And dead almost, my liege, to think you were, I spake unto this crown as having sense. And thus upbraided it : "The care on thee depend- ing 160 Hath fed upon the body of my father ; Therefore, thou best of gold art worst of gold : Other, less fine in carat, is more precious. Preserving life in medicine potable ; But thou, most fine, most honour'd, most renown'd, Hast eat thy bearer up." Thus, my most royal liege. Accusing it, I put it on my head. To try with it, as with an enemy That had before my face murder'd my father. The quarrel of a true inheritor. 170 But if it did infect my blood with joy. Or swell my thoughts to any strain of pride ; If any rebel or vain spirit of mine Did with the least affection of a welcome Give entertainment to the might of it, Let God for ever keep it from my head And make me as the poorest vassal is That doth with awe and terror kneel to it ! King. O my son, Scene Five] KING HENRY THE FOURTH 101 God put it in thy mind to take it hence, That thou mightst win the more thy father's love, 180 Pleading so wisely in excuse of it ! Come hither, Harry, sit thou by my bed ; And hear, I think, the very latest counsel That ever I shall breathe. God knows, my son. By what by-paths and indirect crook'd ways I met this crown ; and I myself know well How troublesome it sat upon my head. To thee it shall descend with better quiet, Better opinion, better confirmation ; For all the soil of the achievement goes 190 With me into the earth. It seem'd in me But as an honour snatch'd with boisterous hand. And I had many living to upbraid My gain of it by their assistances ; Which daily grew to quarrel and to bloodshed, Wounding supposed peace : all these bold fears Thou see'st with peril I have answered ; For all my reign hath been but as a scene Acting that argument : and now my death Changes the mode ; for what in me was purchased, 200 Falls upon thee in a more fairer sort ; So thou the garland wear'st successively. Yet, though thou stand'st more sure than I could do. Thou art not firm enough, since griefs are green ; And all my friends, which thou must make thy friends. Have but their stings and teeth newly ta'en out ; By whose fell working I was first advanced 10^ KING HENRY THE FOURTH [Act Five And by whose power I well might lodge a fear To be again displaced : which to avoid, 210 1 cut them off ; and had a purpose now To lead out many to the Holy Land, Lest rest and lying still might make them look Too near unto my state. Therefore, my Harry, Be it thy course to busy giddy minds With foreign quarrels; that action, hence borne out. May waste the memory of the former days. More would I, but my lungs are wasted so That strength of speech is utterly denied me. How I came by the crown, O God forgive ; 220 And grant it may with thee in true peace live ! Prince. My gracious liege. You won it, wore it, kept it, gave it me ; Then plain and right must my possession be : Which I with more than with a common pain 'Gainst all the world will rightfully maintain. Enter Lord John of Lancaster King. Look, look, here comes my John of Lancaster. Lan. Health, peace, and happiness to my royal father ! King. Thou bring'st me happiness and peace, son John; But health, alack, with youthful wings is flown 230 From this bare wither'd trunk : upon thy sight My worldly business makes a period. Where is my Lord of Warwick ? Prince. My Lord of Warwick ! Scene One] KING HENRY THE FOURTH 103 Re-enter Warwick, and others King. Doth any name particular belong Unto the lodging where I first did swoon ? War. 'T is call'd Jerusalem, my noble lord. King. Laud be to God ! even there my life must end. It hath been prophesied to me many years, I should not die but in Jerusalem ; Which vainly I supposed the Holy Land : But bear me to that chamber ; there I '11 lie ; 240 In that Jerusalem shall Harry die. [Exeunt. ACT V Scene I — Gloucestershire. Shallow's house Enter Shallow, Falstaff, Bardolph, and Page Shal. By cock and pie, sir, you shall not away to-night. What, Davy, I say ! Fal. You must excuse me, Master Robert Shallow. Shal. I will not excuse you ; you shall not be excused; excuses shall not be admitted; there is no excuse shall serve; you shall not be excused. Why, Davy ! Enter Davy Davy. Here, sir. Shal. Davy, Davy, Davy, Davy, let me see, lo Davy ; let me see, Davy ; let me see : yea, marry, William cook, bid him come hither. Sir John, you shall not be excused. 104 KING HENRY THE FOURTH [Act Five Davy. Marry, sir, thus; those precepts can- not be served : and, again, sir, shall we sow the headland with wheat ? Shot. With red wheat, Davy. But for Wil- liam cook : are there no young pigeons ? Davy. Yes, sir. Here is now the smith's note 20 for shoeing and plough-irons. Shal. Let it be cast and paid. Sir John, you shall not be excused. Davy. Now, sir, a new link to the bucket must needs be had : and, sir, do you mean to stop any of William's wages, about the sack he lost the other day at Hinckley fair ^ Shot. A' shall answer it. Some pigeons, Davy, a couple of short-legged hens, a joint of mutton, and any pretty little tiny kickshaws, tell William 30 cook. Davy. Doth the man of war stay all night, sir ? Shot. Yea, Davy. I will use him well : a friend i' the court is better than a penny in purse. Use his men well, Davy; for they are arrant knaves, and will backbite. Davy. No worse than they are backbitten, sir; for they have marvellous foul linen. Shal. Well conceited, Davy: about thy busi- 4oness, Davy. Davy. I beseech you, sir, to countenance William Visor of Woncot against Clement Perkes of the hill. Shot. There is many complaints, Davy, against that Visor : that Visor is an arrant knave, on my knowledge. Scene One] KING HENRY THE FOURTH 105 Davy. I grant your worship that he is a knave, sir ; but yet, God forbid, sir, but a knave should have some countenance at his friend's request. An honest man, sir, is able to speak for so himself, when a knave is not. I have served your worship truly, sir, this eight years; and if I cannot once or twice in a quarter bear out a knave against an honest man, I have but a very little credit with your worship. The knave is mine honest friend, sir : therefore, I beseech your worship, let him be countenanced. Shot. Go to; I say he shall have no wrong. Look about, Davy. [Exit Davy,] Where are you. Sir John? Come, come, come, off witheo your boots. Give me your hand. Master Bar- dolph. Bard. I am glad to see your worship. Shot. I thank thee with all my heart, kind Master Bardolph : and welcome, my tall fellow [to the Page]. Come, Sir John. Fat. I '11 follow you, good Master Robert Shallow. [Exit Shallow.] Bardolph, look to our horses. [Exeunt Bardolph and Page.] If I were sawed into quantities, I should make four 70 dozen of such bearded hermits' staves as Master Shallow. It is a wonderful thing to see the sem- blable coherence of his men's spirits and his : they, by observing of him, do bear themselves like foolish justices; he, by conversing with them, is turned into a justice-like serving-man : their spirits are so married in conjunction with the participa- tion of society that they flock together in consent, 106 KING HENRY THE FOURTH [Act Five like so many wild-geese. If I had a suit to Mas- soter Shallow, I would humour his men with the imputation of being near their master : if to his men, I would curry with Master Shallow that no man could better command his servants. It is certain that either wise bearing or ignorant car- riage is caught, as men take diseases, one of another : therefore let men take heed of their company. I will devise matter enough out of this Shallow to keep Prince Harry in continual laughter the wearing out of six fashions, which is 90 four terms, or two actions, and a' shall laugh without inter Valiums. O, it is much that a lie with a slight oath and a jest with a sad brow will do with a fellow that never had the ache in his shoulders ! O, you shall see him laugh till his face be like a wet cloak ill laid up ! Shot. [Within] Sir John ! Fal. I come, Master Shallow; I come, Master Shallow. [Exit Scene II — Westminster. The palace Enter Warwick and the Lord Chief-Justice, meeting War. How now, my lord chief -justice ! whither away ? Ch. Just. How doth the king ? War. Exceeding well; his cares are now all ended. Ch. Just. I hope, not dead. War. He 's walk'd the way of nature ; Scene Two] KING HENRY THE FOURTH 107 And to our purposes he lives no more. Ch. Just. I would his majesty had calFd me with him : The service that I truly did his life Hath left me open to all injuries. War. Indeed I think the young king loves you not. Ch. Just. I know he doth not, and do arm myself lo To welcome the condition of the time, Which cannot look more hideously upon me Than I have drawn it in my fantasy. Enter Lancaster, Clarence, Gloucester, Westmoreland, and others War. Here come the heavy issue of dead Harry : O that the living Harry had the temper Of him, the worst of these three gentlemen ! How many nobles then should hold their places, That must strike sail to spirits of vile sort ! Ch. Just. O God, I fear all will be overturned ! Lan. Good morrow, cousin Warwick, good morrow. 20 Glou.\ '•] Lan. We meet like men that had forgot to i ^ speak. Wi War. We do remember ; but our argument Is all too heavy to admit much talk. Lan. Well, peace be with him that hath made \us heavy ! ^^ , Good morrow, cousin. Ciar. 108 KING HENRY THE FOURTH [Act Five Ch. Just. Peace be with us, lest we be heavier ! Glou. O, good my lord, you have lost a friend indeed ; And I dare swear you borrow not that face Of seeming sorrow, it is sure your own. 30 Lan. Though no man be assured what grace to find, You stand in coldest expectation : I am the sorrier ; would 't were otherwise. Clar. Well, you must now speak Sir John Falstaff fair; Which swims against your stream of quality. Ch. Just. Sweet princes, what I did, I did in honour. Led by the impartial conduct of my soul ; And never shall you see that I will beg A ragged and forestall'd remission. If truth and upright innocency fail me, 40 1 '11 to the king my master that is dead, And tell him who hath sent me after him. War. Here comes the prince. Enter King Henry the Fifth, attended Ch. Just. Good morrow; and God save your majesty ! King. This new and gorgeous garment, ma- jesty. Sits not so easy on me as you think. Brothers, you mix your sadness with some fear : This is the English, not the Turkish court ; Not Amurath an Amurath succeeds, But Harry Harry. Yet be sad, good brothers, Scene Two] KING HENRY THE FOURTH 109 For, by my faith, it very well becomes you : 60 Sorrow so royally in you appears That I will deeply put the fashion on And wear it in my heart : why then, be sad ; But entertain no more of it, good brothers, Than a joint burden laid upon us all. For me, by heaven, I bid you be assured, I '11 be your father and your brother too ; Let me but bear your love, I '11 bear your cares : Yet weep that Harry 's dead ; and so will I ; But Harry lives, that shall convert those tears 6o By number into hours of happiness. Princes. We hope no other from your majesty. King. You all look strangely on me : and you most; You are, I think, assured I love you not. Ch. Just. I am assured, if I be measured rightly. Your majesty hath no just cause to hate me. King. No ! How might a prince of my great hopes forget So great indignities you laid upon me ? What ! rate, rebuke, and roughly send to prison 7o The immediate heir of England ! Was this easy ? May this be wash'd in Lethe, and forgotten ? Ch. Just. I then did use the person of your father ; The image of his power lay then in me : And, in the administration of his law, Whiles I was busy for the commonwealth. Your highness pleased to forget my place. The majesty and power of law and justice, The image of the king whom I presented, 110 KING HENRY THE FOURTH [Act Five 80 And struck me in my very seat of judgement ; Whereon, as an offender to your father, I gave bold way to my authority And did commit you. If the deed were ill. Be you contented, wearing now the garland. To have a son set your decrees at nought. To pluck down justice from your awful bench. To trip the course of law and blunt the sword That guards the peace and safety of your person ; Nay, more, to spurn at your most royal image 90 And mock your workings in a second body. Question your royal thoughts, make the case yours ; Be now the father and propose a son. Hear your own dignity so much profaned. See your most dreadful laws so loosely slighted. Behold yourself so by a son disdain'd ; And then imagine me taking your part And in your power soft silencing your son : After this cold considerance, sentence me ; And, as you are a king, speak in your state 100 What I have done that misbecame my place. My person, or my liege's sovereignty. King. You are right, justice, and you weigh this well; Therefore still bear the balance and the sword : And I do wish your honours may increase. Till you do live to see a son of mine Offend you and obey you, as I did. So shall I live to speak my father's words : " Happy am I, that have a man so bold. That dares do justice on my proper son ; 110 And not less happy, having such a son. Scene Two] KING HENRY THE FOURTH 111 That would deliver up his greatness so Into the hands of justice." You did commit me : For which, I do commit into your hand i The unstained sword that you have used to bear ; With this remembrance, that you use the same With the like bold, just and impartial spirit As you have done 'gainst me. There is my hand. You shall be as a father to my youth : My voice shall sound as you do prompt mine ear, And I will stoop and humble my intents 120 To your well-practised wise directions. And, princes all, believe me, I beseech you ; My father is gone wild into his grave, For in his tomb lie my affections ; And with his spirit sadly I survive. To mock the expectation of the world, To frustrate prophecies and to raze out Rotten opinion, who hath writ me down After my seeming. The tide of blood in me Hath proudly flow'd in vanity till now : 130 Now doth it turn and ebb back to the sea. Where it shall mingle with the state of floods And flow henceforth in formal majesty. Now call we our high court of parliament : And let us choose such limbs of noble counsel. That the great body of our state may go In equal rank with the best govern'd nation ; That war, or peace, or both at once, may be As things acquainted and familiar to us ; In which you, father, shall have foremost hand. i4o Our coronation done, we will accite, As I before remember'd, all our state : m KING HEXRY THE FOURTH [Act Five And, God consigning to my good intents, No prince nor peer shall have just cause to say, God shorten Harry's happy life one day ! [Exeunt. Scene HI — Gloucestershire. Shallow's orchard Enter Falstaff, Shallow, Silexce, Davy, Babdolph, arid the Page Shal. Nay, you shall see my orchard, where, in an arbour, we will eat a last year's pippin of my own graffirig, with a dish of caraways, and so forth : come, cousin Silence : and then to bed. Fal. 'Fore God, you have here a goodly dwell- ing and a rich. Shal. Barren, barren, barren; beggars all, beggars all. Sir John : marr^', good air. Spread, 10 Daw ; spread, Da^y : well said, Davy. Fal. This Da^-y- serves you for good uses; he is your ser^Tag-man and your husband. Shal. A good varlet, a good varlet, a very good varlet, Sir John : by the mass, I have drunk too much sack at supper : a good varlet. Now sit down, now sit down : come, cousin. Sil. Ah, sirrah ! quoth-a, we shall Do nothing but eat, and make good cheer, [Singing. And praise God for the merry year ; 20 When flesh is cheap and females dear. And lusty lads roam here and there So merrily, And ever amons so merrily. Scene Theee] KING HEXRY THE FOURTH 113 Fah There 's a merry heart ! Good Master Silence, I '11 give you a health for that anon. Shal. Give Master Bardolph some wine, Davy. Davy. Sweet sir, sit ; I '11 be with you anon ; most sweet sir, sit. Master page, good master page, sit. Proface ! T\Tiat you want in meat, at we 'U have in drink : but you must bear ; the heart's aU. [Exit. Shal. Be merry. Master Bardolph; and, my little soldier there, be merry. Sil. Be merry, be merry, my wife has all ; [Singing. For women are shrews, both short and tall : 'T is merry in hall when beards wag all, And welcome merry Shrove-tide. Be merry, be merry. Fal. I did not think Master Silence had been4o a man of this mettle. Sil. Who, I? I have been merry twice and once ere now. Re-enter Davy Davy. There 's a dish of leather-coats for you. [To Bardolph. Shal. Davy ! Davy. Your worship ! I '11 be with you straight [to Bardolph]. A cup of wine, sir.'^ Sil. A cup of wine that 's brisk and fine, [Singing. And drink unto the leman mine ; And a merry heart lives long-a. so Fal. Well said, Master Silence. 114 KING HENRY THE FOURTH [Act Five Sil. An we shall be merry, now comes in the sweet o' the night. Fal. Health and long life to you, Master Silence. Sil. Fill the cup, and let it come ; [Singing. I '11 pledge you a mile to the bottom. Shal. Honest Bardolph, welcome : if thou wantest any thing, and wilt not call, beshrew thy 60 heart. Welcome, my little tiny thief [to the Page], and welcome indeed too. I '11 drink to Master Bardolph, and to all the cavaleros about London. Davy. I hope to see London once ere I die. Bard. An I might see you there, Davy, — Shal. By the mass, you '11 crack a quart to- gether, ha ! will you not. Master Bardolph ? Bard. Yea, sir, in a pottle-pot. Shal. By God's liggens, I thank thee : the 70 knave will stick by thee, I can assure thee that. A' will not out ; he is true bred. Bard. And I '11 stick by him, sir. Shal. Why, there spoke a king. Lack no- thing : be merry. [Knocking within.] Look who 's at door there, ho ! who knocks ? [Exit Davy. Fal. Why, now you have done me right. [To Silence, seeing him take off a bumper. Sil. Do me right, [Singing. And dub me knight : Samingo. 80 Is 't not so ? Fal. 'T is so. Sil. Is 't so ? Why then, say an old man can do somewhat. Scene Three] KING HENRY THE FOURTH 115 Re-enter Davy Davy. An't please your worship, there's one Pistol come from the court with news. Fal. From the court ! let him come in. Enter Pistol How now. Pistol ! Pist. Sir John, God save you ! Fal. What wind blew you hither. Pistol ? Pist. Not the ill wind which blows no man to 90 good. Sweet knight, thou art now one of the greatest men in this realm. Sil. By 'r lady, I think a' be, but goodman Puff of Barson. Pist. Puff ! Puff in thy teeth, most recreant coward base ! Sir John, I am thy Pistol and thy friend, And helter-skelter have I rode to thee. And tidings do I bring and lucky joys And golden times and happy news of price. 100 Fal. I pray thee now, deliver them like a man of this world. Pist. A foutre for the world and worldlings base ! I speak of Africa and golden joys. Fal. O base Assyrian knight, what is thy news ? Let King Cophetua know the truth thereof. Sil. And Robin Hood, Scarlet, and John. [Singing. Pist. Shall dunghill curs confront the Helicons ? And shall good news be baffled ? Then, Pistol, lay thy head in Furies' lap. 110 116 KTNG HENRY THE FOIJETH [Act Five Shot. Honest gentleman, I know not your breeding. Pist. Why then, lament therefore. Shal. Give me pardon, sir : if, sir, you come with news from the court, I take it there 's but two ways, either to utter them, or to conceal them. I am, sir, under the king, in some authority. Pist. Under which king, Besonian.^^ speak, or die. 120 Shal. Under King Harry. Pist. Harry the Fourth ? or Fifth ? Shal. Harry the Fourth. Pist. A foutre for thine ojQfice ! Sir John, thy tender lambkin now is king ; Harry the Fifth 's the man. I speak the truth : When Pistol lies, do this ; and ^g me, like The bragging Spaniard. Fal. What, is the old king dead .? Pist. As nail in door : the things I speak are just. Fal. Away, Bardolph ! saddle my horse. Master Robert Shallow, choose what office thou 130 wilt in the land, 't is thine. Pistol, I will double- charge thee with dignities. Bard. O joyful day ! I would not take a knighthood for my fortune. Pist. What ! I do bring good news. Fal. Carry Master Silence to bed. Master Shallow, my Lord Shallow, — be what thou wilt ; I am fortune's steward — get on thy boots : we '11 ride all night. O sweet Pistol ! Away, Bardolph ! Scene Four] KING HENRY THE FOURTH 117 [Exit Bard.] Come, Pistol, utter more to me; and withal devise something to do thyself good. 140 Boot, boot. Master Shallow : I know the young king is sick for me. Let us take any man's horses ; the laws of England are at my command- ment. Blessed are they that have been my friends ; and woe to my lord chief -justice ! Pist. Let vultures vile seize on his lungs also ! "Where is the life that late I led?" say they : Why, here it is ; welcome these pleasant days ! [Exeunt, Scene IV — London. A street Enter Beadles, dragging in Hostess Quickly and Doll Teaesheet Host. No, thou arrant knave ; I would to God that I might die, that I might have thee hanged : thou hast drawn my shoulder out of joint. First Bead. The constables have delivered her over to me; and she shall have whipping- cheer enough, I warrant her : there hath been a man or two lately killed about her. Dot. Nut-hook, nut-hook, you lie. Come on; I '11 tell thee what, thou damned tripe-visaged rascal, an the child I now go with do miscarry, thou wert better thou hadst struck thy mother, thou paper-faced villain. lo Host. O the Lord, that Sir John were come ! he would make this a bloody day to somebody. But I pray God the fruit of her womb miscarry ! First Bead. If it do, you shall have a dozen of cushions again; you have but eleven now. 118 KING HENRY THE FOURTH [Act Five Come, I charge you both go with me; for the man is dead that you and Pistol beat amongst you. 20 Dot. I 'U tell you what, you thin man in a censer, I will have you as soundly swinged for this, — you blue-bottle rogue, you filthy famished correctioner, if you be not swinged, I '11 forswear half-kirtles. First Bead. Come, come, you she knight-errant, come. Host. O God, that right should thus overcome might ! Well, of sufferance comes ease. Dol. Come, you rogue, come; bring me to a 30 justice. Host. Ay, come, you starved blood-hound. Dol. Goodman death, goodman bones ! Host. Thou atomy, thou ! Dol. Come, you thin thing ; come, you rascal. First Bead. Very well. [Exeunt. Scene V — A public place near Westminster Abbey Enter two Grooms, strewing rushes First Groom. More rushes, more rushes. Sec. Groom. The trumpets have sounded twice. First Groom. 'T will be two o'clock ere they come from the coronation : dispatch, dispatch. [Exeunt. Enter Falstaff, Shallow, Pistol, Bardolph, and Page Fal. Stand here by me, Master Robert Shallow ; I will make the king do you grace : I will Scene Five] KING HENRY THE FOURTH 119 leer upon him as a' comes by; and do but mark the countenance that he will give me. Pist. God bless thy lungs, good knight. Fat. Come here, Pistol ; stand behind me. O, lo if I had had time to have made new liveries, I would have bestowed the thousand pound I borrowed of you. But 't is no matter ; this poor show doth better : this doth infer the zeal I had to see him. Shot. It doth so. FaL It shows my earnestness of affection, — Shot. It doth so. Fat. My devotion, — Shot. It doth, it doth, it doth. 20 Fal. As it were, to ride day and night; and not to deliberate, not to remember, not to have patience to shift me, — Shot. It is best, certain. Fal. But to stand stained with travel, and sweating with desire to see him; thinking of no- thing else, putting all affairs else in oblivion, as if there were nothing else to be done but to see him. Pist. 'T is "semper idem," for "obsque hoc 30 nihil est " : 't is all in every part. Shot. 'T is so, indeed. Pist. My knight, I will inflame thy noble liver. And make thee rage. Thy Doll, and Helen of thy noble thoughts. Is in base durance and contagious prison ; Haled thither By most mechanical and dirty hand : no KING HENRY THE FOURTH [Act Five Rouse up revenge from ebon den with fell Alecto's snake, 40 For Doll is in. Pistol speaks nought but truth. Fal. I will deliver her. [Shouts within, and the trumpets sound. Pist, There roar'd the sea, and trumpet-clangor sounds. Enter the King and his train, the Lord Chief- Justice among them Fal. God save thy grace, King Hal ! my royal Hal! Pist. The heavens thee guard and keep, most royal imp of fame ! Fal. God save thee, my sweet boy ! King. My lord chief -justice, speak to that vain man. Ch. Just. Have you your wits ? know you what 't is you speak ? 50 Fal. My king ! my Jove ! I speak to thee, my heart ! King. I know thee not, old man : fall to thy prayers ; How ill white hairs become a fool and jester ! I have long dream'd of such a kind of man, So surfeit-sweird, so old and so profane ; But, being awaked, I do despise my dream. Make less thy body hence, and more thy grace ; Leave gormandizing ; know the grave doth gape For thee thrice wider than for other men. Reply not to me with a fool-born jest : 60 Presume not that I am the thing I was ; Scene Five] KING HENRY THE FOURTH 121 For God doth know, so shall the world perceive, That I have turn'd away my former self ; So will I those that kept me company. When thou dost hear I am as I have been, Approach me, and thou shalt be as thou wast. The tutor and the feeder of my riots : Till then, I banish thee, on pain of death. As I have done the rest of my misleaders. Not to come near our person by ten mile. For competence of life I will allow you, 70 That lack of means enforce you not to evil : And, as we hear you do reform yourselves. We will, according to your strengths and qualities. Give you advancement. Be it your charge, my lord. To see performed the tenour of our word. Set on. [Exeunt King, etc. Fat. Master Shallow, I owe you a thousand pound. Shal. Yea, marry. Sir John; which I beseech you to let me have home with me. so Fat, 'That can hardly be. Master Shallow. Do not you grieve at this; I shall be sent for in private to him : look you, he must seem thus to the world : fear not your advancements ; I will be the man yet that shall make you great. Shot. I cannot well perceive how, unless you should give me your doublet and stuff me out with straw. I beseech you, good Sir John, let me have five hundred of my thousand. Fal, Sir, I will be as good as my word : 90 this that you heard was but a colour. 122 KING HENRY THE FOURTH [Act Five Shal. A colour that I fear you will die in, Sir John. Fal. Fear no colours : go with me to dinner : come, Lieutenant Pistol ; come, Bardolph : I shall be sent for soon at night. Re-enter Prince John, the Lord Chief- Justice ; Officers with them Ch. Just. Go, carry Sir John Falstaff to the Fleet : Take all his company along with him. Fal. My lord, my lord, — 100 Ch. Just. I cannot now speak : I will hear you soon. Take them away. Pist. Si fortuna me tormenta, spero contenta. [Exeunt all but Prince John and the Chief -Justice. Lan. I like this fair proceeding of the king's : He hath intent his wonted followers Shall all be very well provided for ; But all are banish'd till their conversations Appear more wise and modest to the world. Ch. Just. And so they are. Lan. The king hath calFd his parliament, my lord. 110 Ch. Just. He hath. Lan. I will lay odds that, ere this year expire. We bear our civil swords and native fire As far as France : I heard a bird so sing, Whose music, to my thinking, pleased the king. Come, will you hence ? [Exeunt. Epilogue] KING HENRY THE FOURTH 123 EPILOGUE Spoken by a Dancer First my fear; then my courtesy; last my speech. My fear is, your displeasure; my cour- tesy, my duty; and my speech, to beg your pardons. If you look for a good speech now, you undo me : for what I have to say is of mine own making; and what indeed I should say will, I doubt, prove mine own marring. But to the pur- pose, and so to the venture. Be it known to you, as it is very well, I was lately here in the end of a displeasing play, to pray your patience for itio and to promise you a better. I meant indeed to pay you with this ; which, if like an ill venture it come unluckily home, I break, and you, my gentle creditors, lose. Here I promised you I would be and here I commit my body to your mercies : bate me some and I will pay you some and, as most debtors do, promise you infinitely. If my tongue cannot entreat you to acquit me, will you command me to use my legs? and yet that were but light payment, to dance out of your 20 debt. But a good conscience will make any pos- sible satisfaction, and so would I. All the gentle- women here have forgiven me : if the gentlemen will not, then the gentlemen do not agree with the gentlewomen, which was never seen before in such an assembly. One word more, I beseech you. If you be not too much cloyed with fat meat, our humble author will continue the story, with Sir John in it, and 124 KING HENRY THE FOURTH [Epilogue 30 make you merry with fair Katharine of France : where, for any thing I know, FalstafI shall die of a sweat, unless already a' be killed with your hard opinions; for Oldcastle died a martyr, and this is not the man. My tongue is weary ; when my legs are too, I will bid you good night : and so kneel down before you; but, indeed, to pray for the queen. NOTES For the meaning of words not given in these notes, the student is referred to the Glossary at the end of the volume. The numbering of the lines corresponds to that of the Globe edition ; this applies also to the scenes in prose. INDUCTION Warhworth. Holinshed says : " The king, comming forward quicklie, wan the castell of Warworth. Whereupon the Earle of Northumberland, not thinking himself in suertie at Berwicke, fled with the lord Berdolfe into Scotland, where they were received of David, lord Fleming." Enter Rumour, painted full of tongues. On the Elizabethan stage the costuming was often far more elaborate than the scenery, and " Rumour " would be very magnificently represented, in all probability with considerable artistic ingenuity. The conception is ultimately from Virgil {Mneid, iv, 181-183) : " Tot vigiles oculi subter, mirabile dictu. Tot linguae ; totidem ora sonant, tot subrigit auris." 2. vent of hearing, aperture or opening for hearing. 3. drooping west, west, where the sun sets. 4. Making the wind my post-horse. Cf . Macbeth, i. 7. 22-23 : " heaven's cherubim, horsed Upon the sightless couriers of the air." 12. fearful musters, men called together in the fear caused by rumor. 13. hig year, pregnant, likely to give birth to war. Cf . Sonnet, xcvii : " The teeming autumn, big with rich increase." 17. so plain a stop, so simple and rough an instrument ; " rumour is a fife " upon which even the multitude can play. 19. still-discordant, always discordant and divided. 21. anatomize, lay open, interpret or explain. Cf. King Lear, iii. 6. 80-81 : " Then let them anatomize Regan ; see what breeds about her heart." 125 126 KING HENRY THE FOURTH [Act One 24. Shrewsbury, the battle of Shrewsbury. 28. to speak, in speaking. 29. Harry Monmouth. So-called because he was born at Mon- mouth. Cf. Henry V, iv. 7. 23-41, where Fluellen compares him with Alexander the Great because the one was born at Macedon and the other at Monmouth. 31. before the Douglas' rage. " Rumour " was less mistaken than usual because Douglas had killed several who were wearing the " wardrobe " of the king in order to appear like him. 35. hold, stronghold. ragged stone, rugged stone. Cf. Spenser, Faerie Queene, i. 9. 34, " the ragged rocky knees." 37. crafty-sick. According to Shakespeare's version, Northum- berland feigns sickness in order to avoid joining in the rebellion which he had encouraged and helped to raise ; there is nothing of this in Holinshed. tiring on; probably means riding hard without a pause. ACT I — SCENE 1 8. stratagem, strange or wonderful deed. I 9. contention, civil war. 15. in the fortune of, by the hand of. 16. both the Blunts. One of the Blunts was killed by Douglas (Part I, Act v, sc. 4). 19. the hulk Sir John. This separate mention of Falstaff as a prisoner certainly does suggest that he was a noted person. Of course in Shakespeare's original version Oldcastle would be one of the chief people in the realm. 21. so follow' d, followed with such stern resistance. 30. over-rode him, overtook him. 31. furnish'd with no certainties . . . , knows nothing certainly except what he has learned from me. 37. forspent, exhausted. The prefix /or is generally used as an intensive in a bad sense, as in forget. 63. silken point, the tagged lace supporting the hose. 56. instances of loss, proofs of loss and fear. 57. hilding fellow, base fellow, a groom or servant. Cf. Cym^ beline, ii. 3. 128-129 : " A hilding for a livery, a squire's cloth, A pantler, not so eminent." Scene One] NOTES 127 63. a witnessed usurpation, witnesses of its usurpation. Shake- speare may be referring either to rivers or to the sea, probably to the latter, for which he often employs the adjective " imperious." Cf. iii. 1. 20, " In cradle of the rude imperious surge." 66. put on his ugliest mask. In the Mystery plays Death was represented with a mask ; the personification of abstract characters came easily to the Elizabethans as they were already accustomed to them in the religious drama. 84. suspicion, apprehension or fear. 86. Hath by instinct . . . Instinct makes him understand the meaning of a look or a single expression. 101. a losing office, an unwelcome office which brings him nothing but loss. 102. sullen bell. Cf . Sonnet Ixxi : " No longer mourn for me when I am dead Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell." 108. Rendering faint quittance, replying only with faint sword- strokes. 112. In few, in few words ; briefly. 115. best-temper' d, finest and most highly wrought. 118-120. Turn'd on themselves. . . . Hotspur's high-tempered courage seems to steel the hearts of all the rest; but, his courage being " abated " or tamed by death, the rest become no better than lead, dull and heavy, with an edge easily turned. Moreover, they are so heavy that, the impetus of fiight being once given them by their fear, they fiy with the greater speed. 128. Three times slain. Henry IV, with his usual politic cunning, caused several of his followers to be disguised like himself. Cf . Part I, V. 3. 25, where Hotspur says, " The king hath many marching in his coats," and Douglas replies, " I'll murder all his wardrobe, piece by piece. Until I meet the king." Holinshed, however, says that there were four who were slain in likeness of the king. " The earle Douglas . . . slue Sir Walter Blunt, and three other, apparelled in the king's suit and clothing." 129. 'Gan vail his stomach, humbled his pride; stomach here means either pride or courage. did grace the shame. Douglas took to flight himself and, in so doing, seemed to lend some touch of grace to the flight of the rest. 138. having been well. This phrase goes with the pronoun me, i.e. " had I been well this news would have made me sick." nS KING HENRY THE FOURTH [Act One 140-141. joints . . . hucfde under life, his joints give way beneath him when he tries to move. 142. impatient of his fit, made impatient by the sudden onslaught of his fever. Cf. Macbeth, iii. 4. 21, " Then comes my fit again." 145. Are thrice themselves. Northumberland compares him- self to a man who is really weak from fever, but who, seized with delirium, becomes three times as strong as he would normally be. nice crutch, weak or eflFeminate crutch. 147. sickly quoif, the invalid's head-bandage or nightcap. Quoif usually means a cap or headdress. Cf. The Winter's Tale, iv. 4. 226, " Golden quoifs and stomachers." 149. flesh'd with conquest, made fierce with conquest as dogs are made fierce with eating flesh. 161. ragged'st, roughest and most trying. 156. to feed contention in a lingering act, to drag out civil wars at length. 160. darkness be the burier of the dead. There will be none left alive to inter the dead, and primeval darkness alone will cover them. 161. strained passion, overstrained grief. 166. you cast the event of war, you risked this issue. The metaphor is from the casting of dice. 168. It was your presurmise, you knew beforehand that there was the possibility. 169. dole of blows, dealing out of blows. 174. where most trade of danger ranged, where danger was chiefly to be found. Cf. Hotspmr's own speech (Part I, i. 3. 195) : " Send danger from the east unto the west. So honour cross it from the north to south. And let them grapple." 177. stiff-borne, stoutly contested. 180. engaged to this loss, involved in this loss. 182. wrought out life, escaped with our lives. 184. Choked the respect, prevented the consideration. The word " choke " in Shakespeare seems often to have the sense of destroying after a struggle. Cf . Macbeth, i. 2. 8-9 : " As two spent swimmers, that do cling together And choke their art." 192. the corpse; plural for " corpses," here used in the sense of living but " spiritless " bodies, — men whose souls are not in what they do. Scene Two] NOTES nO 196. queasiness, qualms and nausea. 204-205. doth enlarge . . . King Richard. He gets more men to follow him because he claims to be the avenger of Richard II. 205. Pomfret stones. In Richard II Shakespeare describes the murder of the king in Pomfret Castle. The idea that the blood of Richard would exact vengeance haunted both Henry IV and his son. The latter is afraid of losing the battle of Agincourt because of it {Henry F, iv. 1. 309-317:) " Not to-day, O Lord, O, not to-day, think not upon the fault My father made in compassing the crown ! I Richard's body have interred new ; And on it have bestow'd more contrite tears Than from it issued forced drops of blood : Five hundred poor I have in yearly pay. Who twice a-day their wither'd hands hold up Toward heaven, to pardon blood." 207. bestride a bleeding land, stand over the land in order to defend it. So Falstaff entreats the Prince (Part I, v. 1. 121-122) : " Hal, if thou see me down in the battle and bestride me, so ; 'tis a point of friendship " ; and the Prince answers : " Nothing but a colossus can do thee that friendship." 209. more or less, people of all ranks, high and low. SCENE 2 1. you giant; in humorous allusion to the small size of the page. So Viola speaks of the tiny Maria : " Some mollification for your giant, sweet lady " {Twelfth Night, i. 5. 218-219). 5. owed it, owned or possessed it. 8-9. foolish-compounded clay, man, man who is but clay and foolish clay at that. 17. mandrake; the atropa mandragora, whose root was supposed to resemble a human figure and to shriek when torn from the ground ; hence " mandrake " became a term of ridicule for anyone diminu- tive, or effeminate. It is applied to Justice Shallow (iii. 2. 339). The mandrake was also supposed to have magic properties and was often used by witches. Cf. Ben Jonson's Masque of Queens: " I last night lay all alone o' the ground, to hear the mandrake groan," 18-19. manned with an agate, attended by one as small as an image cut in agate. Cf. Romeo and Juliet, i. 4. 53-56: 130 KING HENRY THE FOURTH [Act One " I see Queen Mab hath been with you . . . she comes In shape no bigger than an agate-stone On the fore-finger of an alderman." 28. face-royal, the face stamped on a " royal " or ten-shilling piece. 34. slops, loose breeches. 37. barui, bond. 39. like the glutton. The story of the glutton or Dives and Lazarus was one of the favorite subjects for " painted cloths." We notice here also Falstaff's fondness for Scriptural quotations. 41. yea-forsooth knave; referring to the mild oaths of city tradesmen. Cf. Part I, iii. 1. 252-253, where Hotspur rebukes his wife for employing the phrase " in good sooth." 42. bear . . . in hand, hold out false promises, deceive with flattering phrases. 43. smooth-pates, the sleek-headed Puritanic citizen as con- trasted with the curly-haired courtier; it is an earlier version of the term " round-head." 45-46. is through with them, has come to an agreement with them. 46. honest taking up, buying on credit. 53. the lightness of his wife. Jests at the expense of the citizens' wives were a stock theme in Elizabethan comedy. 58. bought him in Paul's. Falstaff means that he hired Bardolph in the nave of St. Paul's, where business was very commonly transacted. 71. good service at Shrewsbury. This is only one of many evidences that Falstaff was not really a coward. He said he would claim the honor of having killed Percy; but, as a matter of fact, as the preceding scene shows, the true author of that deed was well known to be the Prince of Wales. Falstaff's reputation at Shrews- bury was not, then, founded on a false claim. 93. my knighthood and my soldiership. Falstaff, though he mingles so freely in taverns, is nevertheless proud of his title and position ; he never forgets that he has been the associate of princes. 102. You hunt counter, you are on the wrong scent. 103. avaunt; a term of contempt meaning " get away," " begone." 110. clean past, altogether past. 131-132. It hath it original . . . brain, it has its source in much grief, in anxiety, and distress of the brain. It is the neuter form Scene Two] NOTES 131 of the genitive, older than its. Original is often used by Shake- speare as a noun; of. A Midsummer Nighfs Dream, ii. 1. 117, " We are their parents and original." 133. his effects; his is the oldest form of the neuter genitive as in Anglo-Saxon. Galen, the Arabic master of medicine. 141. to punish . . . by the heels, to lay by the heels, or imprison. 146. in respect of poverty. Falstaff is hinting that the Lord Chief-Justice means to imprison him for debt simply because he is poor. 151. against you for your life, involving life and death, i.e. the highway robbery. 154. This land-service. Falstaff means that his military service excused his obedience to the commands of the Chief- Justice. 164. The young prince hath misled me. This is Falstaff's continual pretence. Cf. Part I, i. 2. 102-104 : " (Thou) art indeed able to corrupt a saint. Thou hast done much harm upon me, Hal ; God forgive thee for it ! " 168. Your day's service at Shrewsbury, another proof that Falstaff really had a certain claim to military valor. 171. o'er-posting, escaping, getting clear of. 179. wassail candle, the specially large kind of candle used at festivals. 187. your ill angel is light. Falstaff purposely misunderstands ; the " angel " was a gold coin worth about ten shiUings ; it bore the figure of the archangel Michael piercing the dragon. 189. without weighing, i.e. as coins are weighed. 190. / cannot go, I cannot tell. A quibbling allusion to light coinage : go is " pass current," tell is " count as good money." Virtue, probably in the Latin sense of valor or courage. 192. bear-herd, keeper of a tame bear. pregnancy, readiness or intelligence of wit. 198. the heat of our livers. The liver was considered as the seat of the passions. Cf . The Tempest, iv. 1. 55-56 : " The white cold virgin snow upon my heart Abates the ardour of my liver." 199. vaward of our youth, the early part of our youth. Falstaff's pretensions to youth grow more and more arrogant until at last the Chief-Justice is compelled to take note of them. 207. single, simple or poor. 213. singing of anthems; in accord with his character as a Lollard or Puritan. Cf . Twelfth Night, ii. 3. 60-61 : " Shall we 132 KING HENRY THE FOURTH [Act One rouse the night-owl in a catch that will draw three souls out of one weaver," the weavers also being famous as Puritans. 214. approve my youth, prove my youth. 216. caper with me, dance a jig in rivalry. 220. checked him for it, chided him for it. 237. never spit white again, as a sign of health or, possibly, of thirst. 250-251. lend me a thousand pound. Falstaff sees that he has succeeded in mollifying the Chief-Justice and hence he makes this startlingly impudent request. It should be noted as the exact sum which he succeeds later in obtaining from Justice Shallow. 253. to bear crosses; a pun upon the double use of the word crosses as afflictions and also as coins with a cross upon them. Cf . As You Like It, ii. 4. 12-14 : " I should bear no cross if I did bear you, for I think you have no money in your purse." 255. three-man beetle, a rammer requiring three men to manipulate it. 259. both the degrees, the two extremes of youth and age. Falstaff means that he does not wish to blame either old men or young because their vices bring their own punishment. Another possible meaning of prevent is " to be beforehand with," " to fore- stall." 265-266. lingers and lingers it out, prolongs it like a wasting disease. 269. Mistress Ursula; apparently Mrs. Quickly. 275. / have the wars for my colour; he means that, even if he does go lame, a wound obtained in the wars can be suggested as the obvious reason. 277-278. turn diseases to commodity. Falstaff means that he can make a profit even out of his diseases. SCENE 3 3. hopes, prospects. 5. well allow the occasion. Mowbray is satisfied that they have sufficient cause for rebellion, but not that their power is sufficient to effect it. 10. upon the file, upon the list. Cf. Macbeth, iii. 1. 102-103: " Now, if you have a station in the file Not i' the worst rank of mankind, say 't.'* 14. incensed fire of injuries; he has great injuries which are increased or " incensed " by the death of his son. Scene Three] NOTES 133 27. lined himself with hope, stuffed or supported himself with hope. Cf. Macbeth i. 3. 111-113. 29-30. Flattering himself . . . thoughts. He flattered himself in the idea of a force which was, in reality, much smaller than his least ambitious thoughts had guessed it. 32. powers, men. 33. winking, closing his eyes, blinding himself. Cf. Hamlet, ii. 2. 136-137: " If I had play'd the desk or table-book. Or given my heart a winking, mute and dumb." 35. forms of hope, probable issues which are also favorable. 37. Indeed. This word is the reading of the Folio; but it makes no sense. A suggested emendation is induced. 37^1. a cause on foot . . . bite them, the issue of war is always doubtful while the war itself is in progress; it is as uncertain as buds in spring for, however flourishing they may appear, it is pos- sible that frosts will blight them. 42. the model, the plan. 47. offices, rooms for servants. Cf. Macbeth, ii. 1. 13-14: " He hath . . . sent forth great largess to your offices." 60. his part-created cost, the product of cost, the building itself. 61-62. a naked subject . . . tyranny, nakedly exposed (with- out roof) to the rain and to the hardships of winter. 63. our hopes, yet likely of fair birth, our hopes which still promise to have a good issue. 65. the utmost man of expectation, as many men as we can possibly expect. 69. to us, in regard to us ; whatever other forces the king may have, they are not moving north for they are required elsewhere. 71. one power against the French. Holinshed says concerning this : " The French king had appointed one of the marshals of France, called Montmerancie, and the master of his crosbowes, with twelve thousand men, to sail into Wales to aid Owen Glendower. They tooke shipping at Brest and landed at Milford Haven." The year was 1405. 72. and one against Glendower. Holinshed says that the French tried but failed to take Haverfordwest and then " they departed towards the towne of Denbigh, where they found Owen Glendower abiding for their comming, with ten thousand of his Welshmen. Here were the Frenchmen joiefullie received of the Welsh rebels." 134 KING HENRY THE FOURTH [Act Two 80. Baying him at the heels, driving him to bay. 82. The Duke of Lancaster, Prince John of Lancaster. He never formally possessed the title. 86. publish the occasion of our arms, announce fully the cause of the rebellion. It should be noted that, historically. Archbishop Scrope's rebellion had been suppressed before the French sent assistance to Glendower. 87. sick of their own choice, regretting that they substituted Henry IV for Richard II. 91. fond many, foolish crowd. Cf. Latin menigo. The word is often used as a noun in Shakespeare. Cf . Coriolanus, iii. 1. 66-67 ; " For the mutable, rank-scented many, let them Regard me as I do not flatter." 92. heat heaven with blessing Bolingbroke. This scene is described in Richard II, v. 2. 11-15: " Whilst all tongues cried ' God save thee, Bolingbroke ! ' You would have thought the very windows spake. So many greedy looks of young and old Through casements darted their desiring eyes Upon his visage." 94. trimm'd in thine own desires, furnished completely with all you desired. The word trimmed in older English means to put the finishing touches to anything. 103. threw'st dust upon his goodly head. Cf. Richard II, v. 2. 28-30: " no man cried ' God save him ! ' No joyful tongue gave him his welcome home : But dust was thrown upon his sacred head." 110. We are time's subjects, we are at the disposal of time. ACT II — SCENE 1 Enter Fang and Snare. These are names which further mark the similarity between this play and Ben Jonson's comedies of "Humours" (see Introduction, p. xvii). So also Shallow, Silence, and Pistol belong to the same class. Ben Jonson is fond of such names as Down-Right, Weil-Bred, Justice Clement, Fastidius, Brisk, etc. Shakespeare's names are, as a rule, less obviously artificial. 1. entered the action, commenced the action for debt against Falstajff. , ' Scene One] NOTES 135 3. yeoman, servant or attendant upon a sheriff's officer. This was a common meaning for the word. Cf. Chaucer's Prologue, " A Yeman hadde he, and servaunts namo." 17-18. Join, to thrust with a sword. 24. within my vice, within my clutches. 26. infinitive, infinite, unlimited. 30. Lubber' s-head, leopard or libbard; the latter form was common. It is notable that the silk-mercer has a signpost for his shop ; in the sixteenth century and much later such signs were not limited to inns. Addison mentions them as characteristic of London even in his time. 31. Lumbert street, Lombard Street ; so called after the Itahan merchants and bankers who had settled there. 32. exion, the Hostess's mistake for action. 34-35. A hundred mark is a long one, a long mark or score ; the word score comes also from the cutting of the mark. 35. A poor lone woman. The Hostess is represented as a widow in this play, and Falstaff makes love to her and promises her mar- riage. Yet she has a husband in Part I, for the Prince says to her, " How doth thy husband ? I love him well, he is an honest man." Falstaff admonishes her, " love thy husband, look to thy servants, cherish thy guests." We may suppose the husband to have died in the meantime or, possibly, this is only another discrepancy in the drawing of the character. 37. fubbed off, put off with worthless excuses. Cf. Part I, i. 2. 66-69 : " Shall there be gallows standing in England when thou art king ? And resolution thus fobbed as it is with the rusty curb of old father antic the law? " 42. malmsey-nose knave, one whose nose is reddened with malmsey wine; a common term of abuse. 46. whose mare's dead? A slang phrase for "what is the matter ? " 51. quean, wench, hussy ; usually employed as a term of abuse. Cf. The Merry Wives, iv. 2. 180-181 ; " A witch, a quean, an old cosening quean ! " The word, like queen, is derived from A. S. cwen, a woman. 53. the channel, the gutter at the side of the street, where refuse was thrown; sometimes a small stream was utilized to carry the refuse away. 55. bastardly; either " bastard " or " dastardly." 56. honey-suckle, homicidal. 58. honey-seed, homicide. 136 KING HENRY THE FOURTH [Act Two 68. man-queller, man-killer, from A. S. cwellan, to kill. Cf. Macbeth, 1. 7. 71-72: " His spongy officers, who shall bear the guilt Of our great quell ? " 62. a rescue or two. The Hostess mistakes the meaning of the word and probably thinks it is some kind of weapon. 63. wo't, wilt. 64. hemp-seed, born to be hanged. Abuse of this kind appealed immensely to the Elizabethans ; Nashe and others never ceased to taunt the critic, Gabriel Harvey, with the fact that he was the son of a ropemaker. 65. rampallian, a term of abuse, signifying a low woman. 66. fusiilarian, a term of abuse apparently coined by Falstaff. 83. ride thee o' nights, like the mare. The nightmare was sup- posed to be a kind of fairy who " rode " people at night or else drove across them and made them dream. Cf . Romeo and Juliet, i. 4, where Shakespeare gives his account of Queen Mab : " Sometime she driveth o'er a soldier's neck. And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats," etc. 85. vantage of ground, suitable opportunity. 88. exclamation, outcry and abuse. 94. parcel-gilt goblet, a goblet partly gilt ; parcel means " in small portions " or " in detail." 94-95. Dolphin-chamber; probably so called because orna- mented with dolphins ; they make a good frieze and are frequent in ItaUan work of the period. 95. sea-coal. Common coal was generally known as " sea-coal," partly to distinguish it from charcoal, which was often used in cooking, and partly because it was usually carried by sea from New- castle. 96. Wheeson, Whitsun. 97. liking his father, likening or comparing his father. 101-102. goodwife Keech, the butchefs wife. A " keech " was a round lump of tallow or fat ; this, like " Fang " and " Snare," is one of the names suggestive of occupations. 106. a green wound, a fresh wound. 109. madam, the herald's title for the wife of a knight. Cf. Chaucer's Prologue : *' It is full fair to been y-clept * madame,' And goon to vigilyes al bifore." Scene One] NOTES 137 111-112. book-oath, oath on the Bible. 115. hath been in good case, was once in better circumstances. 124. a level consideration, a just estimate of the case. 133. sneap, rebuke; used also, by metaphor, of cold winds. Cf. The Winters Tale, i. 2. 13, " No sneaping winds at home." 135-136. make courtesy and say nothing, bow to the judge and keep silent. 141-142. as having power to do wrong. The Chief-Justice means that the king's business must, indeed, take precedence of all other ; and therefore Falstaff has it in his power to do wrong if he wishes. 142-143. answer in the effect of your reputation, reply in a way suitable to your position in the world. 143. satisfy, pay. 145. Master Gower; probably intended for the poet, the author of the Confessio Amantis and the friend of Chaucer. Gower was greatly esteemed in the sixteenth century and was considered a fine moralist. In Ben Jonson's masque. The Golden Age Restored, there appeared the four poetic teachers of England — Chaucer, Gower, Lidgate, and Spenser. " Master " is the term of admiration for a poetic teacher; so Spenser speaks of "Master Chaucer." Gower, like Chaucer, was a Lancastrian. 152. by this heavenly ground; a confusion of two oaths : " by heaven " and " by this ground." 155. glasses, glasses, is the only drinking. Venetian glass had just come into fashion. 156. a slight drollery, probably the representation of some farcical incident. In houses of the better class tapestry was used as a covering for the walls. Falstafif refers to it contemptuously as " bed-hangings " because he wishes the Hostess to be content with the much cheaper " painted cloth," or even with the " water- work," which was probably a kind of distemper. The " painted cloths " appear to have been a perfect museum of subjects and sayings. Ben Jonson in his masque. Pan's Anniver- sary, speaks of some one who " hath found it out in a painted cloth, or some old hanging, (for those are his library)." 157. story of the Prodigal, one of the favorite subjects for " painted cloths." the German hunting; possibly a boar-hunt; or it may refer to the story of St. Hubert, who was hunting the stag when he received the vision which converted him. St. Hubert is a favorite subject in German art and frescoes. 138 KING HENRY THE FOURTH [Act Two 162. draw the action, withdraw the action. 166-167. hut twenty nobles; the noble was worth 6s. 8d. 175. hook on. Falstaff desires Bardolph not to lose sight of the Hostess ; he wishes to make sure of his loan. 190. presently, immediately. 199. take soldiers up in counties, the levy of the militia from each shire. 206. tap for tap, tit for tat. 208. the Lord lighten thee! enlighten thee or give thee sense. SCENE 2 3. attached, seized or arrested. Cf . The Tempest, iii. 3. 5-6 : " Old lord, I cannot blame thee, "Who am myself attach'd with weariness." 5-6. discolours the complexion of my greatness, makes me blush. 9-10. loosely studied, loosely inclined. 21. tennis-court-keeper. Tennis was, apparently, a favorite game both with the Prince and with Poins. In Henry V the King of France sends a special embassy with tennis-balls in order to insult Henry by a jest at the lightness of his temper. 27. bawl out the ruins of thy linen. The meaning is that Poins' illegitimate children " bawl " in swaddling-clothes made out of his old shirts. 30. kindreds are mightily strengthened, families increase. 40. / stand the push, I await the blow or the reproof. 49. in the devil's book, in the devil's register of lost souls. 50. obduracy and persistency, stubbornness in evil. 54. ostentation of sorrow, revealing of sorrow. The Prince means that he does not care to show his genuine grief for his father in such surroundings and amid such company. 62-63. keeps the road-way better than thine. The Prince means that Poins can always be relied upon to think as everybody else thinks and to show no originality of any sort. 64. accites, summons or induces. 67. engraffed to, attached to. 72. proper fellow of my hands, active and vigorous. 83. pottle-pot, a tankard ; a measure of two quarts. 86. a red lattice; marking a tavern of low quality. 90. Has not the boy profited? The Prince means that the page is learning Falstaff's peculiar wit from association with Falstaff. Scene Two] NOTES 139 93. Althaea's dream. The boy confuses Althaea, who snatched the firebrand from the fire, and Hecuba, who dreamed that she was about to give birth to a firebrand {i.e. Paris). Like Pistol, the page has frequented the Elizabethan theatres, and has confused the classical allusions which he has heard there from time to time. 102. cankers, worms that destroy roses. Cf. A Midsummer Night's Dream, ii. 2. 3, " Some to kill cankers in the musk-rose buds." 110. martlemas, Martinmas, the 11th of November ; hence used of a man advanced in years. It was also associated with fatness and grossness of body ; hence doubly appropriate to Falstaff . Cf . Spenser, Faerie Queene, vii. 7 : " Next was November, he full grosse and fat. As fed with lard, and that right well might seeme ; For he had been afatting hogs of late. That yet his browes with sweat did reek and steem." 115. do allow this wen; alluding to Falstaff as a blemish on his character. 118. " John Falstaff, knight/* Falstaff is exceedingly proud of his rank, and often refers to it. 123-124. he, that takes upon him not to conceive, the man who wilfully misunderstands. 128. or . . . fetch it from Japhet, The Prince means that such people will either claim kinship with royalty or else boast of an almost interminable pedigree. 134-135. " / will imitate the honourable Romans in brevity." Falstaff is no less proud of his learning than of his rank, and is fond of bringing in classical references. Cf. iv. 3. 44-46. 140. at idle times, at odd times. 145-146. Sir John with all Europe. Falstaff claims a European reputation and, in the original as Oldcastle, he certainly had some right to it. 160. frank, inclosure or sty. 164. Ephesians; a slang term for boon-companions. Ephesus was supposed to be a special haunt of magicians and strange beings; hence Shakespeare lays there the scene of his Comedy of Errors. 186-187. bestow himself . . . true colours, show himself as he really is. 189. jerkins, jackets. 193. descension, descent, decline. 140 KING HENEY THE FOURTH [Act Two SCENE 3 ' 2. give even way . . . affairs, yield gently to my grievous necessities. 8. but my going, except for my going. 11. more endeafd to it than now, more deeply pledged even than now. 16. There were two honours lost. Northumberland's honor was lost because he failed his son and his friends ; Hotspur's was lost because he was conquered in single combat by Prince Hal. Cf. Part I, V. 4. 77-79 : " O, Harry, thou has robb'd me of my youth ! I better brook the loss of brittle life Than those proud titles thou hast won of me." 21-22. he was the glass . . . dress themselves, he was the model to be imitated by all noble youths. So Ophelia calls Hamlet " The glass of fashion and the mould of form " (Hamlet, iii. 1. 161). 24. thick, indistinctly ; the next lines explain what is meant — Hotspur crowded his utterance, which thus became indistinct. 29. in affections of delight, in choice of pleasures. 30. humours of blood, eccentricities and habits. 31. mark; probably means what is to be steered for ; cf . Othello, V. 2. 268, " And very sea-mark of my utmost sail." 38. Did seem defensible. Lady Percy means that only Hot- spur's name made the battle of Shrewsbury seem possible at all, since the odds were so heavily against the rebels. 40. precise and nice, delicately and carefully. 47. new lamenting ancient oversights, lamenting afresh for old mistakes. Cf. Sonnet xxx, " And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste." 52. Have of their puissance made a little taste, have tested their power and seen what they can do. 55. for all our loves, for the sake of us all. 56. So did your son. Hotspur was left to see what he could do alone, without his father's aid. 61. for recordation to, as a memorial to. SCENE 4 2. apple-John, a kind of winter apple which grew withered from keeping. 11. cover, lay the cloth. Scene Four] NOTES 141 13. noise, band of musicians. The Elizabethans were exceed- ingly fond of music, and bands of players were to be met with in ale-houses, barber shops, and almost all places of public resort. 21-22. old Utis, boisterous merriment, outcry ; cf . O. F. huitaves, the week of a festival. 25. temperality ; probably means the " temperature " of any- thing. 34-35. a good hearths worth gold, Cf. The Winter's Tale, iv. 3. 134-135: " A merry heart goes all the day. Your sad tires in a mile-a." 36. " When Arthur first in court." From the ballad of Sir Lance- lot du Lake. Cf. iii. 2, which shows that Falstaff and Shallow had apparently acted together in Arthur's Show. 40. calm, qualm. 41. sect, sex. 52. our chains and our jewels. This may be meant to suggest that Falstaff has borrowed from Doll or, possibly, she only insinu- ates it as an insult. 53. ouches, ornaments or jewels. In Chaucer the word means a jeweled ornament or a clasp ; its proper significance is the setting for a jewel. Falstaff is quoting this line from an old ballad. 62. rheumatic. The Hostess, as the next line shows, means " choleric." The choleric temperament was supposed to be due to excess of dryness and heat. 64. what the good-year! Probably a corruption of Fr. gouj^re, a disease. 69. Bourdeaux stuff. Bordeaux was then, as now, one of the great ports for wine. Chaucer also makes his merchant bring a cargo of wine from Bordeaux. 74. Ancient Pistol, Ensign Pistol. 91. ancient swaggerer. The Hostess seems to understand ancient in the more common sense of " old." 105-106. tame cheater, a slang term for a sharper. 110. Cheater. The Hostess mistakes the word for the honor- able office of " escheater " — the officer who collected fines due the Exchequer. Cf . The Merry Wives, i. 3. 77-78, " I will be cheater to them both, and they shall be exchequers to me." 137. cut-purse rascal. The purse was generally attached by strings, hence it was the aim of the sharper to cut it away. 138. bung, pick-pocket. 139. chaps, jaws, cuttle, cut-purse. 142 KING HENRY THE FOURTH [Act Two 140. bottle-ale. Ale was a less distinguislied drink tlian wine. Cf. ii. 2. 7, where the Prince asks, " Doth it not show vilely in me to desire small beer? " 141. basket-hilt stale juggler, a juggler who shows off sword- tricks, but who has grown " stale " or tiresome. 142. points; probably the laces that marked his rank. 162. ill-sorted, fell into evil company; the word occupy had acquired a very bad sense. 169-170. Pluto's damned lake; probably the river Lethe, which Pistol has confused with a lake. 173. faitors, evil-doers. Hiren. Probably a reminiscence of Peele's tragedy. The Turkish Mahomet and the Fair Greek Hiren. Pistol seems, however, to confuse it with " iron " and to think that it refers to a sword. 175-176. aggravate your choler. The Hostess means the exact opposite — mitigate or assuage your wrath. 177. good humours, fine ideas. Pistol, as usual, misunder- stands the word. 178. Hollow pamper* d jades of Asia; an amusingly perverted quotation from Marlowe's Tamhurlaine, iv. 4. The stage directions run, " Enter Tamburlaine drawn in his chariot by the Kings of Trebisond and Soria, with bits in their mouths ; in his right hand he has a whip with which he scourgeth them, while his left hand holds the reins." Tamburlaine says : " Holla, ye pampered jades of Asia ! What ! can ye draw but twenty mile a day. And have so proud a chariot at your heels. And such a coachman as great Tamburlaine ? " 180. Cannibals. Pistol probably means Hannibal. 183. fall foul for toys, quarrel for mere trifling creatures ; he may be referring, with would-be magnificence, to Doll herself. 184-185. very bitter words. The Hostess is impressed with the large number of incomprehensible phrases. 188-189. give crowns like pins; probably another allusion to Tamburlaine, where the conqueror distributes crowns to his fol- lowers (iii. 3) : " Tech. We have their crowns : their bodies strew the field. Tamb. Each man a crown ! TMiy kingly fought, i' faith ! " Tamburlaine promises all his Heutenants that they shall be kings in Asia, and he keeps his word. Scene Four] NOTES 143 193. feed and he fat, my fair Calipolis. From Peele's Battle of Alcazar, where Muley Mahomet says to his wife, " Feed then and faint not, fair Calipolis," offering her at the same time a portion of lion's flesh on a sword. It is only the most extravagant portions of the old tragedies which hamit the mind of Pistol. 195. " Si fortune me tormente." It was an Elizabethan trick to use tags from French and Italian ; this proverb was current in both languages and Pistol confuses them hopelessly in his reply. 198. Come we to full points, come to a full stop. 200. neif, fist. Cf. A Midsummer Night's Dream, iv. 1. 20, " Give me your neaf, Mounsieur Mustardseed." 201. seen the seven stars, seen the Pleiades; i.e. spent many nights together; cf. iii. 2. 228-229. 205. Galloway nags, common horses. 206. Quoit him down, throw Uke a quoit. 206-207. shove-groat shilling, " Shove-groat " was a game with a marked board on which coins, either groats or shillings, were pushed along to a given space. Other names for the game were " shovel-board " and " squayles." 207-208. speak nothing, speak nonsense. 210. imbrue, draw blood. 211. death rock me asleep; a popular song commonly attrib- uted to Anne Boleyn. The unfortunate queen was regarded with great sympathy in Shakespeare's day, being considered a Protestant martyr. 213. Untwine the Sisters Three. Pistol, as usual, hopelessly confuses his classical allusions and speaks as if the Three Sisters or Fates were twined or bound together. The "thread" which Atropos slits is, of course, the thread of human life. 235. chops; alluding to Falstaff's fat cheeks. 250. tidy, prime, in good condition. 250-251. Bartholomew boar-pig. Roast pig was the chief dainty at Bartholomew Fair, which was held in Smithfield on the feast day of St. Bartholomew, August 24. Cf. Ben Jonson's Bartholomew Fair, i. 1 : " Now pig, it is a meat, and a meat that is nourishing and may be longed for and so, consequently, eaten ; it may be eaten, very ex- ceeding well eaten : but in the Fair, and as a Bartholomew pig, it cannot be eaten ; for the very calling it a Bartholomew pig, and to eat it so, is a spice of idolatry and you make the Fair no better than one of the high-places." 144 KING HENRY THE FOURTH [Act Three 256. what humour *s the prince of? What is the Prince's nature or character? 258. pantler, servant in charge of the pantry. Cf . The Winter a Tale, iv. 4. 56, " This day she was both pantler, butler, cook." 263. there *s no more conceit . . . mallet, he has no more ideas than a wooden maUet ; he is a blockhead. 267. flapdragons, pieces of burning stuff swallowed with wine ; the modern form is snapdragon. 268. rides the wild-mare, plays at see-saw. 269. joined-stools, folding stools. Cf. King Lear, iii. 6. 54, " Cry you mercy, I took you for a joint-stool." 271. the sign of the leg, the sign over a bootmaker's shop. 271-272. breeds no hate . . . stories, makes no one quarrel with him because the stories he tells are too discreet or tame ; i.e. his anecdotes are indecent. 279. have his ears cut off; a Star-Chamber penalty for defam- ing royalty. 286. Saturn; an allusion to the age and white hairs of Falstaff. 288. Trigon, really a triangle. When the three chief planets — Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn — met in one of the fiery signs — Aries, Leo, or Sagittarius — they were said to form a " fiery trigon." According to medieval astrology, each sign of the zodiac had a special relation to one of the four elements ; there were thus three fiery, three watery, three airy, and three earthy signs. 289. Lisping to his mastefs old tables, courting his master's old mistress. 291. busses, coarse and wanton kisses. 297. kirtle, a jacket with petticoat attached. 306. Anon, immediately, i.e. in one moment. 308. Poins his brother, a brother of Poins. 320. by this light flesh, an extension of the common oath, " by this light." 324-325. if you take not the heat, unless you at once grow angry. 326. candle-mine, a whole magazine of tallow. 358. dead elm, i.e. dangerous to anyone who took shelter near him ; the elm tree had an ill reputation as its boughs were supposed to break easily and fall, sometimes killing those who had taken shelter under it. Possibly Poins means to imply that Falstaff gives poor support to his " vine," Doll Tearsheet. 359-360. pricked down Bardolph irrecoverable, put him in his list or roll. So Falstaff " pricks " the men he means to take for his muster (iii. 2) ; some of them bribe their release from service Scene One] NOTES 145 and so escape, but Bardolph cannot escape from the devil's muster. 361. maltworms, beer-drinkers, topers. 362. a good angel about him. In the old moralities it was usual to represent a man as attended by two angels, a good and an evil angel, who made alternate bids for his soul. This phrase may be a reference to Marlowe's Dr. Faustus, in which the same thing occurs (vi) ; the devil does outbid the good angel. 373. contrary to the law. The sale of meat was forbidden during Lent, but the law was continually being evaded. 392-393. like the south Borne with black vapour. The south or southwest wind was always considered the one that brought rain, pestilence, mildew, and general ill-luck. Cf. The Tempest, i. 2. 323-324 : " a south-west blow on ye And blister you all o'er ! " 408. sent away post, sent post-haste or swiftly. 413. peascod-time, early summer. 421. blubbered, with eyes and cheeks swollen with weeping. ACT III — SCENE 1 nightgown, dressing-gown. 6. Nature's soft nurse. Cf. Macbeth, ii. 2. 37-39: " Sleep that knits up the ravell'd sleave of care, . . . sore labour's bath. Balm of hurt minds . . ." 9. cribs, small, narrow dwellings. 10. uneasy pallets, uncomfortable beds. 17. watch-case, sentry-box. 24. slippery clouds, the clouds which seem to hang down and mingle with the sea. 26. hurly, loud noise, confusion. 26. partial, giving its favors unjustly. 29. means to boot, every assistance that can be of avail. 30. happy low, lie down, happy people of low rank, lie down to your slumbers. 42. his, its, as often in EHzabethan English. 44. will soon be cooVd. Northumberland's rebellion is com- pared to a fever which will soon be cooled or put to an end. 146 KING HENRY THE FOURTH [Act Theee 49-51. To see , . . Neptune's hips, to see the sea shrinking down to what appears to be a lower level. Cf . Sonnet Ixiv : " When I have seen the hungry ocean gain Advantage on the kingdom of the shore. And the firm soil win of the watery main. Increasing store with loss and loss with store.* 60. ocean, here pronounced as three syllables. 55. what crosses to ensue, what diflficulties and miseries to follow. 60. but eight years since; this would make the date 1407 (see Introduction, p. vi). 63. under my foot, at my disposal. 75. thus did he follow it, thus did he continue. 81. Figuring the nature of the times deceased, which repeats, as it were, the past. If a man observes the past carefully, he can prophesy, not exactly but almost exactly, the main current of fu- ture events, for history continually repeats itself. 83. the main chance of things, the main course of events. 85. lie intreasured, lie as yet hidden, like the concealed treasures of plants, in their seeds only. 86. become the hatch and brood of time, are revealed in the natural course of events. Cf. Macbeth, i. 3. 58-60 : " If you can look into the seeds of time. And say which grain will grow and which will not. Speak then to me." 87. the necessary form of this, the form necessarily assumed by the historical observation. 103. instance, information. According to Holinshed, Glendower died in 1408-1409 (see Introduction, p. vii). 105. unseasoned, unseasonable. 108. We would . . . unto the Holy Land. Henry IV always cherished the idea of going on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land to atone for the blood of the murdered Richard. SCENE 2 3. by the rood, by the cross ; the word also occurs in place-names, like Holyrood. 9. a black ousel, a blackbird. At the court of the fair Elizabeth blondes were fashionable and brunettes out of favor. Cf. the Scene Two] NOTES 147 Sonnets in which Shakespeare taunts his mistress with having hairs like " black wires " (cxxx) and with being " a woman colour'd ill " (cxliv). 21. roundly, offhand, without hesitation. 23-24. a Cotswold man. Cotswold was famous for its races and wrestling matches. Shakespeare makes another allusion to Cotswold sports in The Merry Wives of Windsor, i. 1. 92, where we are told that Master Page's fallow greyhound was " outrun on Cotsall." 24. swing e-bucklers, rioters and roysterers. 26. bona-robas, courtesans. 28-29. page to Thomas Mowbray. The historical Sir John Oldcastle did actually hold this position. 33. Skogan. Shakespeare probably means Henry Scogan, who was a court poet to Henry IV and a friend of Chaucer's ; the latter addressed a poem to him entitled " Lenvoy de Chaucer a Scogan." There was also another Scogan, Court Jester to Edward IV, author of a popular book of jests. Shakespeare seems to confuse the two, for the incident recorded is more worthy of the jester than of the poet. 34. crack, urchin. We might observe that this anecdote of Falstaff in his youth is not at all in accord with a character of cowardice. 42. How a good yoke of bullocks, how much is a good yoke of bullocks worth .J* Bullocks were still used for plowing. 51. clapped V the clout. The " clout " was the bull's-eye of a target. Cf. Love's Labour 's Lost, iv. 1. 136, " Indeed, a' must shoot nearer ; or he '11 ne'er hit the clout." 52. forehand shaft, an arrow for shooting point blank. 53. fourteen and a half, fourteen and a half score ; a very fine range. 67. tall, valiant, courageous. Cf. Twelfth Night, i. 3. 20, " He 's as tall a man as any 's in lUyria." 70. backsword man, a player at single-stick. 72. accommodated. The word had suddenly become fashionable. Bardolph evidently does not know what it means. 92. like well, are in good condition. 95. Surecard, a boon companion. 97. in commission with me, i.e. as a fellow Justice. 102-103. sufficient men, men good enough for military service. 121. Prick him, put him down in the roll. See note on ii. 4. 359-360. 148 KING HENRY THE FOURTH [Act Three 122. pricked well enough before; a metaphor from " pricking '* = spurring. Mouldy means that he already has sufficient work. 142. muchof the father's substance; ironic. 145-146. shadows to fill up the muster-book, bogus names for which they would draw pay. 165. an enemy's battle. A " battle " was a division of an army. Cf . Henry V (iv. Prologue, 9), " Each battle sees the other's imiber'd face." 171. magnanimous, great-minded or courageous. 178. leader of so many thousands; he alludes to the vermin in Wart's rags. 197. gown, dressing-gown or bed-gown. 198. take such order. Falstaff is hinting that Bullcalf will not have much chance of coming home. Cf. Part I, v. 3. 36-38 : " I have led my ragamuffins where they are peppered : there 's not three of my hundred and fifty left alive." 213. never could away with me, never could put up with me. 228. heard the chimes at midnight. Elizabethan hours were much earlier than modern ones. 236. Harry ten shillings, the ten-shilKng pieces, first minted by Henry VII and Henry VIII. 238-242. for mine own part. Shakespeare notes the habit of repetition as characteristic of the slow mentality of rustics; it is so with William in As You Like It. Justice Shallow is marked as essentially a rustic by the same habit. 248. you shall have forty, i.e. forty shillings. 260-261. three pound; four have been offered, but Bardolph intends to keep one as his commission. 276. thewes, muscles, sinews. 277. assemblance, semblance, appearance. 282. gibbets on, hangs a barrel on the sling by which it is carried. 289. caliver, musket. 291. traverse, march. 294. chapt, chapped. Cf. choTpt in As You Like It, ii. 4. 50, " the cow . . . that her pretty chopt hands had milkt." 296. scab; often used as a term for a rough and poor fellow ; it really means a sheep afflicted with the disease so called. 296. tester, sixpence. 297. not his craffs master. Shallow means that the man has no real control over his " caKver " or musket. 299-300. Sir Dagonet in Arthur's show. Sir Dagonet in some versions of the tale is Arthur's court fool (see Malory). There was Scene Two] NOTES 149 a famous play called The Misfortunes of Arthur, which was com- posed by members of " Gray's Inn " and acted before Queen Eliza- beth in 1588. It was probably this which suggested the idea to Shakespeare. 301. quiver, nimble. 319. at a word, in one word, briefly. 324. fetch off, score off, cheat. ^ 329. Turnbull Street, more usually Turnmill Street, a notorious neighborhood. 330-331. duer paid to the hearer . . . tribute. Falstaff means that the Turk is not more certain to exact tribute than the hearer, if Shallow is to be paid with lies. 337. invincible; probably an error for invisible; or else Falstaff means that they are not to be " mastered " or " made out." genius of famine, the spirit of famine itself. 339-340. a' came ever in the rearward of the fashion, he tried to be thought fashionable, but was always behind the times. 340-341. over-scutched huswives; probably means prostitutes who are " over-scotched " or whipped ; another possible meaning is " worn out in the service." 342-343. fancies or good-nights, titles of love-poems. 343. Vice's dagger. In the old Moralities, Vice used to carry a dagger of lath. Cf. Twelfth Night, iv. 2. 134-136 : " Like to the old Vice, . , . Who, with dagger of lath," etc. 344-345. John a Gaunt. John of Gaunt was always a favorite character with the Elizabethans, both because of his own valor and because the Tudor claim to the crown was derived through him. He plays a fine part of admonition and warning in Richard II. 345. sworn brother, brother in arms. 349. beat his own name, i.e. Gaunt. Cf. Richard II, ii. 1. 74, " Old Gaunt indeed, and gaunt in being old." 351. treble hautboy, the wind-instrument so called. 355. philosopher's two stones. One changed all metals into gold, the other gave long life by curing all diseases; or possibly the second " philosopher's stone " was the one that was supposed to make glass malleable. 356. the old pike; a play on the name " Lucy " (see Introduction, p. xxvii). With this picture of Lucy we may compare Sir Thomas Overbury's character of " A Country Gentleman " : " His travell is seldome farther then the next market towne, and his inquisition is about the price of corne ; when he travelleth, he will goe ten mile out of the way to a cousins house of his to save charges. . . . 150 KING HENRY THE FOURTH [Act Four Nothing under a * sub poena ' can draw him to London, and when he is there, he sticks fast upon every object, casts his eyes away upon gazing, and becomes the prey of every cutpurse. When he comes home, these wonders serve him for his hohday talke. If he goe to Court, it is in yellow stockings." ACT IV — SCENE 1 2. Gaultree Forest, north of the city of York. 9. cold intent, unwelcome and of chilling effect. 11. hold sortance with his quality, be in keeping with his rank. 15-16. the hazard and fearful meeting of their opposite, the danger and fearful risk of meeting their opponents. 23. The just proportion that we gave them out, exactly as we estimated. 24. sway on, swing on. 30. What doth concern your coming ? What is the reason for your coming ? 33. routs, bands. 34. bloody youth, bloodthirsty and violent youth. guarded, adorned. Cf. Much Ado, i. 1. 288, " your discourse is sometime guarded with fragments." 36. commotion, civil war. 42. by a civil peace maintained, maintained by orderly and good government. 45. investments, robes. 47. translate, transform. Cf. A Midsummer Nighfs Dream, iii. 1.'- 121-122, " Bless thee. Bottom ! bless thee ! thou art trans- lated." 50. Turning your books to graves, i.e. to the graves of the slain. 62. a point of war, a signal given by the blast of a trumpet. 60. / take not on me here as a physician, nor do I claim to be a physician. 64. To diet rank minds sick of happiness, to bring a cure to minds that have grown diseased through too much prosperity. 69. griefs, distresses, grievances. 71. our most quiet there, our best peace in the ordinary course of life. 72. by the rough torrent of occasion, by sudden and violent events. 73. the summary, the summing up. 80. days but newly gone, such as the battle of Shrewsbury. Scene One] NOTES 151 82-83. examples of every minute's instance, fresh examples of rebellion which occur every minute. 87. Concurring both in name and quality, which really is what it seems. 90. suborn'd to grate on you, set on to exasperate you. 92. with a seal divine, by the presence of a consecrated arch- bishop. 94-95. My brother general . . . cruelty. It is obvious that something has dropped out between these lines for they make no sense as they stand; the meaning of the Archbishop's speech is plainly that he makes the quarrel for the sake of his " brother gen- eral " {i.e. the nation), but more particularly because of cruelty to his own brother. Lord Scroop, who had recently been executed. 104. Construe the times to their necessities. Westmoreland means that the king is not unduly harsh, but is compelled to sever- ity by the exigencies of a particularly difficult reign. 116. Was force perforce compelled to banish him. Cf. Richard II, i. 3. 148-151 : Norfolk, for thee remains a heavier doom. Which I with some unwillingness pronounce : The sly slow hours shall not determinate The dateless limit of thy dear exile." 120. armed staves in charge, their spears, i.e. the staffs or shafts, with armed points. beavers. The beaver was the front part or faceguard of the helmet. Cf . Hamlet, i. 2. 229-230 : " Ham. Then saw you not his face ? Hor. O, yes, my Lord ; he wore his beaver up." 125. warder, truncheon; a staff of command. Richard sud- denly and unexpectedly stopped the combat between Bolingbroke and the elder Mowbray ; he banished the former for ten years and the latter for life. 126. his own life hung upon the staff he threw, because, by banishing his most faithful adherent — Mowbray — in the vain effort to stifle faction, he gave free rein to his enemies. 128. by indictment and by dint of sword, by legal process and also by battle. 135. He ne'er had borne it, he would not have been permitted to survive. 145. set off, ignored and pardoned. 152 KING HENRY THE FOURTH [Act Four 147. forced us to compel this offer, driven us into rebellion. 149. you overween, you are too proud. 151. mthin a ken, within a short distance. 154. Our battle is more full of names, our army contains far more men of note than yours. 161. handling; here pronounced in three syllables. 163. In very ample virtue of his father, with full powers granted him by his father. 166. That is intended in the general's name, that is implied in the very title of General. 167. / muse , . . question, I wonder that you ask so trifling a question. 172. that are insinew'd to this action, who are allied with us, who make us strong. 173. true substantial form, i.e. form of pardon. 174-175. and present execution . , . confined, the immediate execution of our wishes being granted to us and to our demands. 176. our awful banks, the limits of awe and reverence to the king. 177. knit our powers to the arm of peace, strengthen the peace by devoting our forces to maintain it. 180. which God so frame, which God so ordain, or bring about. Cf. A. S. fremman, to make or create. 181. place of difference, battlefield where the issue must be decided. 183. a thing . . . tells me. Shakespeare often gives this pre- monition to men about to die. Cf. Hamlet, v. 2. 222-223, " thou wouldst not think how ill all' s here about my heart." 187. shall consist upon, shall insist upon. 189. our valuation, the esteem, or rather lack of esteem, in which we are held. 190. false-derived cause, invented cause. 191. idle, empty, nice and wanton, trivial and far-fetched. 192. taste of this action; the king will, for the future, always interpret us by this one action. 193. were our royal faiths martyrs in love, even if we were faithful to the king to the point of martyrdom. 198. Of dainty and such picking grievances, of grievances for such small and trifling causes. 199. to end one doubt by death. If, through suspicions, the king puts one man to death, he finds that his severity has only caused two new enemies in place of the one executed. 201. tables, records. Cf. Hamlet, i. 5. 99-100 : Scene Two] NOTES 153 " Yea, from the table of my memory I' 11 wipe away all trivial, fond records." 203. history, narrate or tell. Shakespeare often uses nouns as verbs. 205-206. He cannot . . . present occasion. He knows very well that he cannot possibly ruin or destroy everyone whom he suspects. 213. hangs resolved correction, suspends or prevents the punish- ment which he has determined upon. 219. may offer, but not hold, may threaten vengeance but be without the power to execute it. SCENE 2 8. an iron man, a man in armor. 10. Turning the word to sword, employing the material weapon of the sword instead of the spiritual weapon of the word of God. 11. sits within a monarch's heart, is acquainted with all the secrets of the king. Cf. Henry V, ii. 2. 96-97 : *' Thou that didst bear the key of all my counsels. That knew'st the very bottom of my soul." 14. set abroach, start flowing. 20. opener and intelligencer, one who explains and interprets. 22. our dull workings, the dull movements of the mind ; a lack of intelligence. 26. ta'en up, raised in rebellion. 27. Under the counterfeited zeal of God, pretending the motive of religion. 30. up-swarm'd them, made them swarm up ; the term is prop- erly used of bees only. 33. in common sense, as ought to be obvious. 34. Crowd and. . . monsfrous/orm, compel us to this monstrous and extraordinary action. 36. parcels, detached items, details. Cf. As You Like It, ni. 5. 124-126 : " There be some women . . . had they mark'd him In parcels as I did, would have gone near To fall in love with him." 38. Hydra son of war. The heads of the Hydra grew instantly, as soon as the old ones were lopped off; so, when one trouble is 154 KING HENRY THE FOURTH [Act Foub quelled, others immediately spring up in its place, war being pro- ductive of endless surprises. 45. supplies, reserves. 46. If they miscarry, theirs shall second them, i.e. there is one reserve after another. 47. success of mischief, a continual succession of mischiefs or calamities ; mischief was used in a much stronger sense in older English, sometimes meaning Satan himself. 51. to sound the bottom of the after-times, i.e. to know what will happen in the future ; one of Shakespeare's many sea-metaphors. 57. too lavishly, too loosely or carelessly. 61. Discharge your powers . . . counties, dismiss your levies to the different shires from which they came. 63. drink together friendly and embrace. Holinshed places this speech in the mouth of the Earl of Westmoreland : " ' Let us drinke togither in signe of agreement, that the people on both sides male see it, and know that it is true, that we be light at a point.' They had no sooner shaken hands togither, but that a knight was sent streight waies from the archbishop, to bring word to the people that there was peace concluded." Holinshed gives two versions of the interview ; but in both, it is to be noted, he makes Westmore- land guilty of the main treachery in entrapping the rebels. Shake- speare transfers the blackest part of it to Prince John, possibly because he wishes to point out the contrast between him and his hero — Harry. 80. something ill; another example of Mowbray's premonition. 81. Against ill chances men are ever merry. Cf. Romeo and Juliet, V. 3. 88-89 : *' How oft when men are at the point of death Have they been merry ! which their keepers call A lightning before death." 82. heaviness, sadness, dreariness. 94. peruse, consider or look over. 95. coped withal, met with or fought with. 109. attach, arrest. 112. pawn'd, pledged. 118. most shallowly, without consideration ; lightly or foolishly. 119. Fondly, fooHshly. 120. scattered stray, scattered stragglers. 122. the block of death. Holinshed says: "The archbishop and the earle marshall were brought to Pomfret to the king, who in Scene Three] NOTES 155 this meane while was advanced thither with his power; and from thence he went to Yorke, whither the prisoners were also brought, and there beheaded the morrow after Whitsundaie. . . . Unto all which persons, though indemnitie was promised, yet was the same to none of them at anie hand performed." SCENE 3 Holinshed gives no foundation or suggestion for this scene beyond mentioning the name of Sir John Colevile as one of the rebels executed at Durham. 1. condition, rank. 14. drops of thy lovers, tears of thy friends. 15-16. rouse up fear and trembling, tremble and give way. 21-22. not a tongue . . . name. Falstaff means that his fatness makes him absolutely unmistakable. 23. any indifferency, any reasonable size. 25. womb, belly. 37. poor and old motion; his movements are poor {i.e. slow) because he is old. 38-39. extremest inch of possibility, with the utmost possible speed. 39. foundered, disabled by overriding ; another jest at his own excessive size. 40. travel-tainted, travel-stained. 52. a particular ballad. It was the custom in Elizabethan Eng- land for ballads to be composed and sung at any particularly note- worthy event and afterwards sold in printed form. Cf. Antony and Cleopatra, v. 2. 214-216 : " saucy lictors Will catch at us . . . and scald rhymers Ballad us out o' tune." 58. the cinders of the element, the sparks of the air, i.e. the stars. 60-61. let desert mount, let my merits be acknowledged. 73. You should have won them dearer, it would have cost you more to conquer them. 89. Stand . . ,in your good report, do me the favor of speaking well of me. 90. in my condition, in my position as general. 92. the wit, the intelligence. 97-98. come to any proof, show any real sterling excellence. 104. sherris-sack, wine of Xeres in Spain. 156 KING HENRY THE FOURTH [Act Four 106. crudy, raw and crude. 107. apprehensive, quick of understanding. forgetive, able to forge things ; imaginative or inventive. 109-110. the tongue, which is the birth, the tongue, which gives birth to ideas. 113. the liver white and pale, a white or bloodless liver was always supposed to be a sign of cowardice. 116. the parts extreme, outer parts. 125. hoard of gold kept by a devil; probably an allusion to Spenser {Faerie Queene, II, vii), where Guy on comes across a great hoard of gold that is guarded by the monster Mammon and his attendant fiends. 126. commences it and sets it in act and use. Tyrwhitt suggests that there is probably an allusion to the " Commencement " at Cambridge, the conferring of the degree which gives the student the right to employ his learning. 131. fertile, fertilizing. 133. humane principle, rule of manliness. 134-135. thin potations, such as small beer. 140. already tempering; a metaphor from sealing-wax, — being already tempered and prepared ready for sealing. SCENE 4 2. debate, quarrel or battle. The word bore a much stronger sense in Shaikespearean English than it does in modern English. Cf. A Midsummer Nighfs Dream, ii. 1. 115-116: " And this same progeny of evils comes From our debate, from our dissension." 4. sanctified; their swords would be sanctified for service against the infidel. 6. address'd, equipped and fitted out. 6. well invested, installed in their offices and powers. 7. level to our wish, exactly as we desire. 27. omit him not, do not neglect him. 30. he is gracious, if he be observed, he knows how to be gracious if a suitable appeal is made to him. 33. being incensed, he 's flint, if he once becomes angry, he is very hard and stern. 34. as humorous as winter, as capricious and change- able as winter. Scene Four] NOTES 157 35. flaws congealed in the spring of day, thin flakes of ice which are found in the morning on the surface of water and which melt 40. like a whale on ground, like a stranded whale. Holinshed probably suggested this metaphor for in his account of the year 1573-1574 he says : " At six of the clocke at night in the He of Thanet besides Ramsgate in the parish of saint Peter under the cliffe, a monstrous fish or whale of the sea did shoot himselfe on shore- where, for want of water, beating himselfe on the sands, he died about six of the clocke on the next morning, before which time he roared, and was heard more than a mile on the land. 45. mingled with venom of suggestion, even if poisonous sug- gestions are made to them. 46. force perforce, certainly. 47 though it do work as strong; it certainly refers to the poison- ous suggestions which may be infused into the minds of the brothers. 48. rash, suddenly acting. , i ., 54. the fattest soil, the richest and most frmtful soil. 58-59. When I do shape . . . unguided days, when I imagine what the state will be like without guidance. 64. lavish manners, licentious behavior. 66. Towards fronting peril and opposed decay; his affections {i.e. tendencies) will make him hasten toward the peril and rmn that will confront him if he gives way to his licentiousness. 67. you look beyond him quite, you much exaggerate his faults. 74. in the perfectness of time, when the proper time has arrived. 77*. mete the lives of others, measure out and so comprehend the lives of others. , , i i j 79-80. 'tis seldom . . . carrion, when the bee has once placed her comb in the dead carrion, she is likely to remain there. The king does not beUeve in the possibility of his son's reformation. 86. Peace puts forth her olive. Cf . Sonnet cvii : " Incertainties now crown themselves assured And peace proclaims olives of endless age." 90. With every course in his particular, with every movement fully explained in detail. 92. haunch, rear or latter end. 93. lifting up of day, dawn of day. , j ^ ^ 105. a stomach and no food, an appetite, but no food to eat. 106. Such are the poor, in health, such are the poor who have their health, but who have nothing else. 158 KING HENRY THE FOURTH [Act Four 119. Hath wrought the mure; the incessant care and labor of the mind has made the wall of flesh so thin that life may soon break through and escape. 122. Unfather'd heirs, children conceived without mortal fathers, like Merlin, who was supposed to have been begotten by a demon. 125. The river hath thrice flow'd. Holinshed says : "In this year (1411) and upon the twelfth day of October, were three floods in the Thames, the one following upon the other, and no ebbing betweene : which thing no man then living could remember the like to be scene." 128. our great-grandsire, Edward, Edward III. SCENE 5 2. dull, drowsy or sleep-giving. 6. he changes much; the sharpening of the features before death. 9. rain within doors; spoken half in irony because Clarence is weeping. 24. ports of slumber, portals or doors of slumber. 27. biggen, nightcap. 31. scalds with safety, the armor concentrates heat upon the wearer and burns him even while it protects him. 36. rigol, circle. 38. heavy sorrows of the blood, heavy and serious grief of heart. 43. Lo, here it sits. The Prince imagines the king dead and takes the crown from his pillow. This action certainly appears heartless, though Shakespeare, with admirable art, has made it the occasion of reconciliation. In Holinshed, it should be noted, the Prince has really more warrant for his action, for the bystanders also believe the king to be dead and cover his face. " During this his last sickness, he caused his crowne (as some write) to be set on a pillow at his bed's head ; and suddenlie his pangs so sore troubled him, that he laie as though all his vitall spirits had beene from him departed. Such as were about him, thinking verelie that he had beene departed, covered his face with a linnen cloth. The prince, his son, being hereof advertised, entered into the chamber, tooke awaie the crowne, and departed." 64. this part of his conjoins with my disease, this action of his» so truly characteristic of him, assists my disease. 66. falls into revolt, becomes unnatural or base. 1 Scene Five] NOTES 159 71. engrossed, amassed and piled together. 72. canker' d, evil or foul. strange-achieved, got by strange means. 73-74. they have been thoughtful . . . sons, they have taken care to train and educate their sons. 76. the virtuous sweets, honey which has valuable and medic- inal properties. 80. his engrossments; his stores and the treasures he has amassed do no more for him than this. The king means that all the pains which he has spent in acquiring the crown turn only to bitterness in the end. 82. hath determined me, has put an end to me, concluded my days. Cf. Sonnet xiii : *' So should that beauty which you hold in lease Find no determination." 84. kindly tears, natural tears. 93. Thy wish was father, Harry, etc. All this speech and the two following are very much extended by Shakespeare in order to make the reconciliation more touching. Holinshed gives the scene very briefly. The king caused the prince to come before him, " re- quiring of him what he meant so to misuse himselfe. The prince, with a good audacitie, answered: 'Sir, to mine and all mens judgements you seemed dead in this world ; wherefore I, as your next heire apparent, tooke that as mine owne, and not as yours.' • Well, faire sonne ' (said the king with a great sigh), ' what right I had to it, God knoweth.' * Well ' (said the prince), ' if you die king, I will have the garland and trust to keepe it with the sword against all mine enimies, as you have doone.' Then said the king, * I commit all to God, and remember you to doo well.' With that he turned himself in his bed, and shortHe after departed to God." 104. seaVd up my expectation, confirmed my expectation, done exactly as I had anticipated; the metaphor is from sealing up a document. 110. forbear me, spare me. 115. drops of balm, the oil used in consecrating a king. Cf. Richard II, iii. 2. 54-55 : " Not all the water in the rough rude sea Can wash the balm off from an anointed king." 160 KING HENRY THE FOURTH [Act Five 116. compound me, mingle me. 123. apes of idleness, those who waste their time in idle tricks. Perhaps there is an allusion to Spenser's Mother Hubbard's Tale, which tells how the ape and his friend the fox both go to court. 124. neighbour confines, neighboring countries. 129. double gild his treble guilt. Shakespeare is very fond^of puns of this kind. Cf . Macbeth, ii. 2. 55-57 : " If he do bleed, I '11 gild the faces of the grooms withal, For it must seem their guilt." 132. the wild dog, hcense without any muzzle or restraint. 134. sick with civil blows, weary and exhausted after the civil wars. 141. dear and deep rebuke, piercing and cutting to the heart. 146. affect, desire, wish for. 163. in medicine potable. Gold was often used as an ingredient in medicine. Cf . Chaucer's Prologue : " Because that gold in phisik was a cordial. Therefore he lovede gold in special." 169. a true inheritor, a genuine and loyal heir. 189. opinion, reputation, confirmation, security. 190. soil of the achievement, disgrace or stain of the achieve- ment ; he refers to the murder of Richard. 193-194. to upbraid . . . assistances, to cast in my face the assistance they had given me in gaining the crown. 196. supposed peace, unreal peace. Henry means that his kingdom was always in a state of suppressed revolt. 196-197. all these bold fears . . . answered, I have coped with the difficulties of my reign; but I have encountered many perils in doing so. 199. acting that argument, acting and re-acting the same sub- ject, i.e. civil war. 200. what in me was purchased, what I acquired by my act. 202. wear'st successively, in due order of succession. 204. since griefs are green, since wounds and grievances are still fresh. 212-213. look too near unto my state, inquire too closely into my title. 215. with foreign quarrels. Henry V takes the advice, of course, in making war against France. The reader should note how char- Scene One] NOTES 161 acteristic this scene is of Henry IV, who is politic to the very end and does not lose his statecraft or his cunning even in the hour of death. 224. with more thanwith a common pain. The Prince is willing to take immense trouble in order to retain the crown. 230-231. upon thy sight . . . period, even as I see you, all my earthly occupations are drawing to a close. 236. Laud, praise. 241. In that Jerusalem shall Harry die. Cf . Holinshed : " he willed to know if the chamber had anie particular name ; whereunto answer was made, that it was called Jerusalem. Then said the king : ' Lauds be given to the father of heaven, for now I know that I shall die here in this chamber ; according to the prophesie of me declared, that I should depart this life in Jerusalem.' " ACT V — SCENE 1 1. by cock and pie, an oath disguised, the real form being " by God and pica " (the Catholic mass-book). 14. precepts, summonses. Shallow was, of course, as Justice of the Peace, concerned with such matters. 15-16. sow the headland with wheat. The headland was the strip of land left at the end of the furrows, the place where the plow turned. It was a custom in the Cotswolds to sow this with " red " or spring wheat. Shakespeare was obviously well acquainted with the local customs. 19. the smith's note, the blacksmith's bill or account. 21. cast, reckoned out, carefully examined. " 23. link to the bucket, the chain which let the bucket down into the well. 26. Hinckley, a market town near Coventry. 27. A' shall answer it, he must pay for it. 29. kickshaws, dainty dishes or trifles; an Anglicized form of guelques choses. Cf. Twelfth Night, i. 3. 122, where the word re- fers to accomplishments : " Art thou good at these kickshawses, knight?" 34. a friend V the court . . . purse; a popular proverb. Fal- staff carefully employs his favor with the prince to work upon Shallow. 36. will backbite, will readily slander a host if he does not treat them well. 39. Well conceited, witty and clever. 42. William Visor of Woncot. Woncot is the local pronuncia- 162 KING HENRY THE FOURTH [Act Five tion of Woodmancote, a village in Gloucestershire. The family Visor or Vizard has been associated with it since the sixteenth century. A house on Stinchcombe Hill, known locally as " the hill," was also occupied by the family of Perkes. 49. countenance, help or assistance. 63-54. bear out a knave against an honest man, take the part of a knave against an honest man and enable him to get the better in a legal process. 58. / say he shall have no wrong; an ambiguous way of saying that Davie shall wrest the law as he desires. 65. welcome, my tall fellow; another piece of irony on the size of the tiny page. 70. quantities, lengths or small portions. Cf. King John, v. 4. 22-23: " Have I not hideous death within my view. Retaining but a quantity of life ? " 73. semblable coherence, resemblance and agreement. 78. flock together in consent, behave exactly alike. 80-81. humour his men . . . master, flatter his men with the in- sinuation that they could do anything they liked with their master. 84. wise bearing, wise manners or behavior. 84-85. ignorant carriage, stupidity and folly. 90. four terms, or two actions, four legal terms or two cases. FalstajBf is making fun of lawyers by insinuating that one case will always occupy at least two terms. 91. without intervallums, without respite. 92. sad, serious. SCENE 2 6. calVd me, taken me. 8. open to all injuries, exposed to all injuries. 10-11. do arm myself . . . time, I am preparing myself to meet the changed conditions which I know are about to ensue. 13. fantasy, imagination. Cf . Macbeth, i. 3. 139 : " My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical." 14. the heavy issue, the mourning children. 16. Of him, the worst of these three gentlemen. Warwick wishes that Henry V had the disposition of even the least attractive of his three brothers. 18. That must strike . . . sort, who must give way to despicable men such as Pistol and Bardolph. 23. our argument, the subject of our thoughts. Scene Two] NOTES 163 31. you stand in coldest expectation, your prospects are the worst of all. 34. Which swims against your stream of quality, which is utterly opposed to your character. 36. by the impartial conduct of my soul, by my own sense of justice. 38. A ragged and forestalled remission. This is a very difficult phrase. It probably means a pardon asked before the king would have time to grant it and therefore received with contempt. Ragged may mean either that the pardon would be essentially im- perfect, or that it would be granted contemptuously as to a beggar ; forestaU'd may also mean a pardon that would in any case not be granted, being forestalled by the king's prejudices against the Chief -Justice. The whole phrase means, " Ask for a miserable par- don that I know will not be granted." 48. Not Amurath. The Sultan, Amurath III, strangled his brothers upon his accession in 1596. 52. / will deeply put the fashion on, I too will be deeply sorry. 58. Let me hut hear . . . cares, grant me only your love and I will assume your cares for you. 61. hy numher, each one separately. 69. So great indignities, such great indignities. 71. Was this easy? Was this a slight thing.? 76. Whiles. This is the older form of the word ; the adverb is really the genitive of the noun and therefore this form is correct. 79. presented, represented. 84. garland, crown. 87. to trip the course of law, to trip up or disturb the course of the law. 90. in a second hody, in your delegate. 92. propose a son, suppose a son. 98. cold considerance, cold and calm consideration. 99. state, kingly or royal position. 102. you weigh this well, you judge rightly of this matter. 103. the balance and the sword, the emblems of Justice, who is usually represented with them in allegorical paintings and carvings. 109. my proper son, my own son. 112. you did commit me, i.e. commit me to prison. 115. remembrance, injunction or command. 119. My voice shall sound . . . ear, I shall speak as you prompt me to speak. 123-124. My father . . . affections, my father has taken my 164 KING HENRY THE FOURTH [Act Five wildness with him into his grave, for with him lie buried all my former habits and inclinations. 125. with his spirit sadly I survive, I live on seriously and in his spirit. 127-128. to raze out Rotten opinion, to get rid of my evil repu- tation. 132. with the state of floods, with the majesty of the sea itself. 133. formal, grave and dignified. 135. limbs of noble counsel, men capable of giving noble counsel. 141-142. accite . . ,all our state, summon the whole Parliament. 143. God consigning to my good intents, God confirming my good intentions, i.e. helping or aiding me. Cf. Henry F, i. 1. 25- 29: " The breath no sooner left his father's body. But that his wildness, mortified in him, Seem'd to die too ; yea, at that very moment Consideration, like an angel, came And whipp'd the ofiPending Adam out of him." SCENE 3 3. graffing, grafting. a dish of caraways, comfits made with caraway seeds. 10. Spread, Davy, spread the cloth or cover. 12. husband, husbandman ; a kind of steward. 30. Prof ace. Spoken as a kind of health before drinking: " Much good may it do you." 31-32. but you must bear; the heart's all, you must put up with my poor entertainment for the sake of my good will. Shallow speaks deprecatingly of his hospitality, but, in reality, he thinks very well of it. 34. my little soldier; addressed to the page. 41. a man of this mettle, a man as merry ; spoken ironically. It is notable that even Shakespeare's most absolute fools, like Silence and Sir Andrew Aguecheek, have one redeeming quality in their love of song ; this was, indeed, a most widespread Elizabethan trait. 44. leather-coats, golden russets ; a kind of apple. 49. lemon, paramour. 53. the sweet o' the night, the best time of the night, i.e. that for drinking. 57. I'll pledge you a mile to the bottom, I will drink to the bot- tom, even if it is a mile. Scene Three] NOTES 165 59-60. beshrew thy heart, mischief upon thy heart. 62. cavaleros, knights or soldiers. It was the Itahan term of compliment, used half ironically, half seriously. Cf. " Cavalery Cobweb " in A Midsummer Night's Dream. 65. An I might see you there, Davy. Bardolph is thinking joyfully how he would fleece him. 66-67. crack a quart together, venture on a quart of wine to- gether. 68. a pottle-pot, holding two quarts. 76. done me right, pledged me in a health. 78. dub me knight. Malone's note is : " It was the custom of the good fellows of Shakespeare's days to drink a very large draught of wine ... on their knees, to the health of their mistress. He who performed this exploit was dubb'd a knight for the evening." 79. Samingo; a mistake for San Domingo, the patron saint of wine-bibbers. 93-94. but Goodman Puff, except for Goodman Puff. " Good- man " is the same as " gaffer." Bar son may be either Barston or Barton, both villages in Warwickshire. 96. Puff in thy teeth. Pistol misunderstands Silence and, taking his " Puff " for a term of contempt, flings it back in his face. 103. foutre; a term of contempt. 105. base Assyrian; often used as a term of abuse and equivalent to " heathen." In despair of getting at Pistol's news in any other way, Talstaff speaks in the same strain to humor him. 106. King Cophetua; a reference to the old ballad of this name. 108. the Helicons. Pistol evidently mistakes Mount Helicon for the name of some nation or tribe. 111. / know not your breeding, I do not know who you are. 119. Besonian, a term of abuse which really means a beggar or a needy person ; Italian bisogno. 124. fig me; a " fig " or " fico " was an insulting gesture made with the fingers. 125. bragging Spaniard. The Elizabethans always represented the Spanish nation as particularly proud and boastful. So Spenser in his Faerie Queene, I, vii, represents Philip II as Orgoglio, the monster of pride and boastfulness. 135. Carry Master Silence to bed. This is an amusing touch ; Silence, like Sir Andrew Aguecheek in Twelfth Night, cannot carry liquor and is always the first of the party to become drunk. 137. / am fortune's steward. Falstaff has all good^ortune at his disposal. 166 KING HENRY THE FOURTH [Act Five 142-143. Let us take any man's horses. Cruel as Henry's repudiation is, phrases like this almost seem to justify him. But see Introduction, p. xxii. ^ • *! 146. Let vultures vile seize on his lungs. Pistol is probably referring to the story of Prometheus, but, as usual, he blunders. 147. " Where is the life that late I led? " A fragment of an old ballad. SCENE 4 5-6. whipping-cheer, sufficient whipping. 8. nut-hook, catchpole ; a term of abuse for a bailiff. 20-21. thin man in a censer, as thin and meagre as a man em- bossed upon a censer, a metal pan for burning perfumes and so fumigating rooms. 21. swinged, beaten. 22. blue-bottle rogue; an allusion to the beadle's blue uniform. 24. half-kirtles, short gowns; the kirtle was a jacket with a petticoat attached. 25-26. she knight-errant; alluding to Doll's warlike disposition; perhaps also alluding to her roving propensities. 28. of sufferance comes ease, after suffering comes rehef . 33. atomy; a mistake for anatomy or skeleton. SCENE 5 « 4. dispatch, hasten. 7. leer, smile. 8. countenance, approval or welcome. 14. infer the zeal, show or reveal the zeal. 23. to shift me, to change my linen. 30-31. " obsque hoc nihil est, " Pistol's mistake for absque. The meaning of the proverb is, " Ever the same, for without this there is nothing." 31. *t is all in every part; Pistol's mistake for the proverb, " All in all, and all in every part." 33. inflame thy noble liver; the liver was supposed to be the seat of courage and anger. 36. contagious prison. Pistol probably uses the term " con- tagious " without any very exact appreciation of its meaning ; but, as a matter of fact, prisons were " contagious " in the strict sense of the term, and prisoners often fell victims to their poison. So in Measure for Measure a prisoner dies of the prison fever. 39. Rouse up revenge; probably an allusion to the Spanish Scene Five] NOTES 167 Tragedy; the Ghost's cry of "Awake Revenge" is four times repeated. 45-46. imp of fame, scion of fame; imj) first meant the shoot used in grafting. 54. So surfeit-swelVd, so swollen with excess of eating and drinking. 56. hence, henceforward, for the future. 66. The tutor and the feeder of my riots, one who instructed and encouraged me in my riotous living. 70. competence of life, an income sufficient to keep you from want. 73. according to your strengths and qualities, according to your power of amendment. 84. fear not your advancements, have no fear for your advance- ment. 91. a colour, a make-believe, a pretext. 94. Fear no colours; usually employed in the sense of " fear no enemy," do not dread his standards. 102. Si fortuna . . . contenta; apparently Pistol's favorite motto; he had quoted it before (ii. 4. 195), but in a form equally wrong. '^106. conversations, general behavior. 112. civil swords, swords lately exercised in civil war. EPILOGUE 13. / break, I become bankrupt. 15-16. hate me some, be merciful toward me; do not ask too much. 21. will make, will do or perform. 29. continue the story with Sir John in it. This promise is not kept literally. Falstaff himself plays no part in Henry V; we are only told of his illness and then of his death. 31-32. Falstaff shall die of a sweat. As a matter of fact, his end is much more pathetic ; we are told that the king's repudiation has broken his heart and that he dies of grief. 33. Oldcastle died a martyr. The Epilogue was probably appended specially in order to make this retractation. GLOSSARY abated (i. 1. 117), lowered, sub- dued, cast down. O. F. abatre. abroach (iv. 2. 14), afoot, astir. Set abroach = start flowing. O. F. broche, spit or spigot. accites (ii. 2. 64), induces, urges. accommodated (iii. 2. 72, 78), supplied. affect (iv. 5. 145), desire. Lat. affectare, to apply oneself to. affections (v. 2. 124), wild in- clinations. agate (i. 2. 19), figure cut in an agate ; hence, a person of very diminutive size. anatomize (Induction, 21), cut up, dissect, and so explain in full. Fr. anatomiser, to dis- sect. Ancient (ii. 4. 74), Ensign. O. F. ancien. angel (i. 2. 187), the coin so called. anon (ii. 4. 306), at once, im- mediately. O. E. on an, in one moment. apple-john (ii. 4. 21), a variety of apple kept for winter use, said to be in perfection when shrivelled or withered. The name is probably derived from the fact that the apple ripened about St. John's Day. apprehensive (iv. 3. 107), ready to understand. Lat. appre- hendere, to lay hold of, to seize. approve (i. 2. 214), prove, put to the test. argument (v. 2. 23), subject of discourse. O. F. arguer. arrant (v. 1. 35), knavish, mis- chievous, bad. A. S. eargian, to be a coward. assemblance (iii. 2. 277), appear- ance, look, semblance. assurance (i. 2. 36), security. atomy (v. 4. 33), anatomy, skeleton. Fr. anatomie, Gr. avarofji-n, a dissection ; carcass cut up. Cf. anatomize. attached (ii. 2. 3), arrested, taken possession of. O. F. attacher, to attack, fasten. See also iv. 2. 109. avaunt (i. 2. 103), away, begone. Fr. en avant. balm (iv. 5. 115), the oil used in anointing the king for his coronation. O. F. baume, Lat. balsamum. bastardly (ii. 1. 55), a confusion of bastard and dastardly. bate (ii. 4. 271), quarrelling, dis- pute, strife. bate (Epilogue, 15), be merci- ful. battle (iii. 2. 165; iv. 1. 154), division of an army. bear-herd (i. 2. 192), keeper of a tame bear. beaver (iv. 1. 120), movable front piece of the helmet. Fr. bdviere. beetle (i. 2^ 255), a rammer. A. S. bytel, mallet, from beatan, to beat. big (Induction, 13), pregnant, fruitful of events. biggen (iv. 5. 27), nightcap. bloody (iv. 1. 34), violent, fierce. blubbered (ii. 4. 421), sobbing or crying ; the early meaning of the word is " swollen." bona-robas (iii. 2. 26, 217), hand- some women ; women of bad character ; courtesans. 168 GLOSSARY 169 boot, to (iii. 1. 29), in addition, into the bargain. O. E. hot, help, redress. bragging (v. 3. 125), boasting. Fr. hragard, gay gallant. brawl (i. 3. 70), quarrel, con- flict. brawn (i. 1. 19), a mass of muscles; fat person. O. F. hraon, fleshy part, muscle; boar or swine fattened for the table. break (Epilogue, 13), become bankrupt. bruited (i. 1. 114), noised abroad. Fr. hruit, report, rumor. buckle (i. 1. 141), bend or give way. Fr. houcle. buckler (i. 2. s. d.), shield. Fr. houclier, a shield with a boss. bung (ii. 4. 138), a plug for a hole in a cask ; a pick-pocket. busses (ii. 4. 291), kisses. Gael. hus, lip, mouth. caliver (iii. 2. 289), a light mus- ket; a corruption of caliber, the diameter of a piece of ordnance. calm (ii. 4. 40), a mistake for qualm. A. S. cwealm, death, pestilence. canaries (ii. 4. 29), wine made in the Canary Islands. cankers (ii. 2. 102), worms in roses ; something that corrodes. Lat. cancer, crab, ulcer. capable (i. 1. 172), susceptible. carat (iv. 5. 162), a very light weight, the measure for gold. Fr. carat. cast (i. 1. 166), forecast, foretold. (v. 1. 21), reckoned out. chanced (i. 1. 87), happened, came to pass. O. F. cheance, Lat. cadentia, falling. channel (ii. 1. 52), gutter. O. F. chanel, canal. chapt (iii. 2. 294), chapped, worn, wrinkled. charge (i. 2. 72), company of soldiers. cheater (ii. 4. 106), sharper. checked (i. 2. 220), scolded; a sense derived from the more usual one of " hinder," " pre- vent." The word is taken from the game of chess. chops (ii. 4. 235), jaws. civil (iv. 1. 42), orderly, law- abiding. clout (iii. 2. 51), pin in the centre of a target. cock and pie (v. 1. 1), a trivial oath, originally meaning " by God and pica." cold (iv. 1. 9), unhappy, unfor- tunate, as in the phrase " cold comfort." colour (i. 2. 275), reasonable excuse. conceited (v. 1. 39), planned, considered. O. F. conceipt. condition (iv. 3. 90), rank or position. confines (iv. 5. 124), kingdoms bordering on others. confirmation (iv. 5. 189), surety. confirmities (ii. 4. 64), a blunder for infirmities. conger (ii. 4, 58), sea eel; used as a term of abuse. conjoins (iv. 5. 64), joins or unites with. consist (iv. 1. 187), insist. construe (iv. 1. 104), interpret. Lat. construere, to heap to- gether, to build, to construe. contention (i. 1. 9), civil war. corpse (i. 1. 192), bodies (sin- gular for plural). O. F. corps, body. countenance (v. 1. 49), support. O. F. contenance, cheer, visage. counter (i. 2. 102), against the scent, contrary. Fr. contra, Lat. contra, against. cover (ii. 4. 11), set the cloth. crack (iii. 2. 34) , a lively lad. crafty-sick (Induction, 37), sick only in pretence. crib (iii. 1. 9), manger, stall, cradle ; so, a confined and narrow bed. A. S. crih. crosses (i. 2. 253) , coins so called because of the cross upon them. crudy (iv. 3. 106), raw, crude. Lat. crudus, raw. cuttle (ii. 4. 139), cut-purse. 170 GLOSSARY dace (iii. 2. 356), a small river- fish. deep (iv. 5. 141), piercing. defensible (ii. 3. 38), capable of offering defence. degrees (i. 2. 259), degrees of life, — youth and age. delectable (iv. 3. 108), delight- ful. Fr. delectable, Lat. de- lectabilis. derived (i. 1. 23), obtained, as from a source or origin. Fr. deriver, Lat. derivare, to lead or draw off water. descension (ii. 2. 193), decline. determined (iv. 5. 82), put an end to. O. F. determiner, to determine, conclude. divination (i. 1. 88), a divining, guess for the future. O. F. devin, soothsayer ; Lat. divi- nus, soothsayer or prophet. dole (i. 1. 169), a pOTtion or giving out. A. S. dael. dull (iv. 5. 2), drowsy, sleep- inducing. easy (v. 2. 71), slight, unim- portant. element (iv. 3. 58), air. encounter' d (iv. 2. 1), met. endear'd (ii. 3. 11), deeply pledged. engraffed to (ii. 2. 67), attached to, grafted on. O. F. graffe, a style for writing ; Fr. greffe, a shoot. engross'd (iv. 5. 71), amassed. Fr. en gros, in large. engrossments (iv. 5. 80), ac- quisitions. exclamation (ii. 1. 88), outcry, protest. exion (ii. 1. 32), the Hostess's perversion of action. extreme (iv. 3. 116), outer, uttermost. Fr. extreme, Lat. extrem,us. face-royal (i. 2. 26), face on a coin, familiars (ii. 2. 144), people on intimate terms. fantasy (v. 2. 13), imagination. O. F. fantasie, Gr. (j>avTa oriri, to rise. ostentation (ii. 2. 54), manifesta- tion. ouches (ii. 4. 53), ornaments, gems. The true meaning is the socket of a gem, and the older form is nouch. O. F. nouche, a buckle, clasp, or bracelet. ousel (iii. 2. 9) , a kind of thrush. outbreathed (i. 1. 108), tired out. over-rode (i. 1. 30), overtook. overween (iv. 1. 149), to be too proud. O. E. wenan, to im- agine, hope, or think. owed (i. 2. 5), owned, possessed. O. E. dgan, to own. pallet (iii. 1. 10), a kind of mattress or couch. Fr. paillet, a heap of straw. pantler (ii. 4. 258), servant in charge of the pantry. parcel-gilt (ii. 1. 94), partly gilt. Fr. parcelle, a particle or piece. partial (iii. 1. 26), unjust, unfair. particular (iv. 3. 52), special. persistency (ii. 2. 50), stubborn- ness. Fr. persister, to persist. peruse (iv. 2. 94), consider, look over. potion (i. 1. 197), dose of liquid medicine. Lat. potio^potare, to drink, powers (i. 3. 32), forces, armed bands. precepts (v. 1. 14), summonses. O. F. precepte, a precept. pregnancy (i. 2. 192), mental agility, quickness of wit. presurmise (i. 1. 168), something guessed beforehand. pricked (iii. 2. 122), marked for service. Proface (v. 3. 30), a common formula in drinking, meaning " good health." proper (v. 2. 109), own. proper (of hands) (ii. 2. 72), agile and athletic. propose (v. 2. 92), suppose, imagine. puissance (i. 3. 9), power. Fr. puissant, powerful. purchased (iv. 5. 200), acquired. quality (iv. 1. 11), rank; (v. 2. 34), temperament. Fr. qualite. quean (ii. 1. 51), woman of common character. O. E. cwm, woman. queasiness (i. 1. 196), sickness. Scand. kveis, sickness after a debauch. quittance (i. 1. 108), reply. O. F. quite, Lat. quietus, dis- charged, free. quiver (iii. 2. 301), nimble, active. quoif (i. 1. 147), cap for the head. O. F. coiffe, the sick man's nightcap. racket (ii. 2. 23), a play upon the double sense: "tennis- racket " and " noise and con- fusion." ragged (Induction, 35)," rugged, rough. ragged'st (i. 1. 149), roughest. GLOSSARY 173 rampallion (ii. 1. 65), a woman of low character. rank (iii. 1, 39), coarse in growth, strong. rate (iii. 1. 68), chide, scold. Sw. rata, to blame. rate (iv. 1. 22), count or num- ber. O. F. rate, price, value; Lat. ratum. recordation (ii. 3. 61), in memory of. O. F. recorder, to repeat or report. remission (v. 2. 38), pardon. resolved (iv. 1. 213), determined. rigol (iv. 5. 36), circle. roll (iii. 2. 106), muster-roll; list of the men taken into service. rood (iii. 2. 3), cross. O. E. rod, a gallows, a rod or pole, roundly (iii. 2. 21), offhand, with- out ceremony. ' routs (iv. 1. 33), bands or gangs. Fr. route, a company or multi- tude of men. rowel-head (i. 1. 46), the little wheel with sharp points at the end of a spur. Fr. rouelle, a little flat ring. sack (i. 2. 222), name of an old Spanish wine ; also called seek or Sherris-sack, sack from Xeres. sadly (v. 2. 125), seriously. Samingo (v. 3. 79), probably a mistake for San Domingo, patron saint of topers. satisfy (ii. 1. 143), pay. scurvy (ii. 4. 132), afflicted with scurf; mean and poor. seal'd (iv. 5. 104), confirmed. sect (ii. 4. 41), sex. shallowly (iv. 2. 118), foolishly, without reflection. shove-groat shilling (ii. 4. 206- 207), a shilling used in the game of shove-groat, played on a board with marked spaces. slops (i. 2. 34), loose breeches. A. S. slop, frock. sneap (ii. 1. 133), rebuke; a form of snub. Icel. snubba, chide. The original meaning is " to snip off ends," sortance (iv. 1. 11), consort or be appropriate to. spare (iii. 2. 288), thin, slender. O. E. spaer. staves (iv. 1. 120), the staffs or shafts of spears. stiff-borne (i. 1. 177), hard fought. stomach (i. 1. 129), pride; de- rived from stomach in the physical sense. Gr. o-rojaaxo? stomach, from o-Toju-a, a mouth or entrance, (iv. 4. 105), appetite. stop (Induction, 17), note of music; derived from the stopping and unstopping of the holes in a flute. strained (i. 1. 161), overstrained, excessive. strengths (v. 5. 73), powers. suborn' d (iv. 1. 90), instigated secretly to commit perjury. Fr. suborner, to suborn. success (iv. 5. 202), succession. sufferance (v. 4. 28), suffering. Fr. souffrir. suggestion (iv. 4. 45), provoca- tion, in the sense of provoca- tion to discord. sullen (i. 1. 102), gloomy. O. F. solain, solitary. Surecard (iii. 2. 95), lit., boon companion ; a slang term. suspire (iv. 5. 33), breathe. swinge-bucklers (iii. 2. 24), swash-bucklers. tables (ii. 4. 289), notebooks; (iv. 1. 201), records. take up (i. 3. 73), engage. tall (iii. 2. 67), valiant. tap for tap (ii. 1. 206), tit for tat. tester (iii. 2. 296), sixpence; so called from the head of the sovereign on the coin. O. F. teste, a head. thick (ii. 3. 24), indistinctly. tidy (ii. 4. 250), in prime condi- tion, seasonable. O. E. tld, time or hour. tiring (Induction, 37), hastening. toys (ii. 4. 183), idle whims. trade (i. 1. 174), frequency. 174 GLOSSARY translate (iv. 1. 47), transform. travel-tainted (iv, 3. 40), stained with travel. traverse (iii. 2. 291), march. Trigon (ii. 4. 288), triplicity; a name for three signs of the Zodiac taken together. unseason'd (iii. 1. 105), un- seasonable, untimely. up-swarmed (iv. 2. 30), caused them to swarm or throng. vail (i. 1. 129), lower. Vail his stomach = lower his pride. Fr. avaler, to fall down. Cf. avalanche. valuation (iv. 1. 189), estima- tion. vaward (i. 2. 199), vanguard, an abbreviated form of avant- guard, from Fr. avant-garde. vice (ii. 1. 24), clutches, grasp. Fr. vis, the vice or spindle of a press. Vice's dagger (iii. 2. 343), thin person, so called from the " lath " used as a dagger by the one impersonating " Vice." wags (i. 2. 200), persons full of fun. wanton (i. 1. 146), luxurious, lacking in sternness. warder (iv. 1. 125), staff of com- mand. wassail-candle (i. 2. 179), the large candle used at a banquet or festival. O. E. wees hal, a salutation. watch-case (iii. 1. 17), sentry-box. water- work (ii. 1. 158), water colors to ornament the wall ; probably a rough kind of dis- temper. welkin (ii. 4. 182), sky, clouds; the region of clouds. O. E. wolcnu, clouds. wen (ii. 2. 115), a fleshy tumor. O. E. wenn. wench (ii. 2. 152), girl. whipping-cheer (v. 4. 5-6), good flogging. womb (iv. 3. 25), belly. A. S. wamb, belly. workings (iv. 2. 22), workings of the brain; cogitations. yeoman (ii. 1. 4), servant. INDEX OF WORDS (The references are to the Notes ad he. Other words will be found in the Glossary.) aggravate, ii. 4. 175. angel, i. 2. 187; ii. 4. 362. anthem, i. 2. 213. band, i. 2. 37. bawl, ii. 2. 27. beshrew, v. 3. 59-60. bestow, ii. 2. 186-187. bestride, i. 1. 207. bitter, ii. 4. 184-185. Cannibals, ii. 4. 180. caper, i. 2. 216. cavaleros, v. 3. 62. coherence, v. 1. 73. commodity, i. 2. 277-278. conceive, ii. 2. 123-124. considerance, v. 2. 98. consigning, v. 2. 143. drollery, ii. i. 156. Ephesians, ii. 2. 164. faitors, ii. 4. 173. flapdragons, ii. 4, 267. garland, v. 2. 84. giant, i. 2. 1. glutton, i. 2. 39. heels, i. 2. 141. hemp-seed, ii. 1. 64. his, ii. 4. 308. honey-seed, ii. 1. 58. honey-suckle, ii. 1. 5Q. hurly, iii. 1. 25. ill-sorted, ii. 4. 162. infer, v. 5. 14. instance, i. 1. 56. Japhet, ii. 2. 128. kirtle, ii. 4. 297. leather-coats, v. 3. 44. lemon, v. 3. 49. level, ii. 1. 124. lightness, i. 2. 53. lined, i. 3. 27. lisping, ii. 4. 289. liver, i. 2. 198. malmsey-nose, ii. 1. 42. mandrake, i. 2. 17. mare, ii. 1. 46, 83. martlemas, ii. 2. 110. mask, i. 1. 66. model, i. 3. 42. Neptune, iii. 1. 49-51. noise, ii. 4. 13. o'er-posting, i. 2. 171. office, i. 3. 47. opinion, iv. 5. 189. parcels, iv. 2. 36. peascod-time, ii. 4. 413. pike, iii. 2. 356. Pluto, ii. 4. 169. point, i. 1.53; ii. 4. 142, 198. Pomfret, i. 1. 205. pottle-pot, ii. 2.83; v. 3. 68. quoit, ii. 4. 206. 175 176 INDEX OF WORDS rescue, ii. 1. 62. respect,!. 1. 184; i. 2. 146. scab, iii. 2. 296. sea-coal, ii. 1. 95. semblable, v. 1. 73. shadows, iii. 2. 145-146. sickly, i. 1. 147. single, i. 2. 207. smooth-pates, i. 2. 43. suspicion, i. 1. 84. temperality, ii. 4. 25. thewes, iii. 2. 276. Trigon, ii. 4. 288. Utis, ii. 4. 22. utmost, i. 3. 65. winking, i. 3. 33. yea-forsooth, i. 2. 41. GENERAL INDEX Addison, ii. 1. 30. Althaea, ii. 2. 93. Amurath, v. 2. 48. Arthur's Show, ii. 4. 36; iii. 2. 299-300. astrology, ii. 4. 288. ballads, iv. 3. 52; v. 3. 106. Bartholomew Fair, ii. 4. 250-251. Boleyn, Anne, ii. 4. 211. Bordeaux, ii. 4. 69. Calipolis, ii. 4. 193. Chaucer, ii. 1. 3, 109, 145; ii. 4. 53, 69 ; iii. 2. 33. Cotswold, iii. 2. 23-24; v. 1. 15-16. Devil's book, ii. 2. 49. Dives and Lazarus, i. 2. 39. Dolphin-chamber, ii. 1. 94-95. Ephesus, ii. 2. 164. Fates, The Three, ii. 4. 213. Gower, ii. 1. 145. Hannibal, ii. 4. 180. Harvey, Gabriel, ii. 1. 64. Hecuba, ii. 2. 93. Hiren, ii. 4. 173. Holinshed, Induction, intro., 37; i. 1. 128; i. 3. 71, 72; iii. 1. 103; iv. 2. 63, 122; iv. 3. intro.; iv. 4. 40, 125; iv. 5. 43, 93, 241. Holy Land, iii. 1. 108. Jerusalem, iv. 5. 241. Jonson, Ben, i. 2. 17; ii. 1. intro., 145, 156; ii. 4. 250-251. Lethe, ii. 4. 169-170. Lidgate, ii. 1. 145. Lollards, i. 2. 213. Lubber's head, ii. 1. 30. Lucy, iii. 2. 356. Lumbert Street, ii. 1. 31. Malone, v. 3. 78. Marlowe, ii. 4. 178, 189-190, 362. Martinmas, ii. 2. 110. Moralities, ii. 4. 362; iii. 2. 343. Mount Helicon, v. 3. 108. Mystery plays, i. 1. 66. Nashe, ii. 1. 64. Oldcastle, i. 1. 19; ii. 2. 145- 146; iii. 2. 28-29; Epil., 33. Overbury, Sir Thomas, iii. 2. 356. "painted cloths," i. 2. 39; ii. 1. 156 157. Peele,'ii. 4! 173, 193. Prodigal Son, ii. 1. 157. proverbs, ii. 4. 195; v. 1. 34; V. 5. 30-31, 31. Puritans, i. 2. 213. St. Hubert, ii. 1. 157. San Domingo, v. 3. 79. Scogan, iii. 2. 33. shove-groat, ii. 4. 206-207. Sir Lancelot du Lake, ii. 4. 36. Spanish Tragedy, v. 5. 39. Spenser's Faerie Queen, Indue, 35; ii. 2. 110; iv. 3. 125; V. 3. 125. Tamburlaine, ii. 4. 178, 189-190. tennis, ii. 2. 21. textual note, i. 3. 37. Turnbull Street, iii. 2. 329. Tyrwhitt, iv. 3. 126. 177 Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 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