William Shakespeare
-
Tragedies
- Antony and Cleopatra
- Coriolanus
- Hamlet
- Julius Caesar
- King Lear
- Macbeth
- Othello
- Romeo and Juliet
- Timon of Athens
- Titus Andronicus
-
Histories
- King Henry IV Part 1
- King Henry IV Part 2
- King Henry V
- King Henry VI Part 1
- King Henry VI Part 2
- King Henry VI Part 3
- King Henry VIII
- King John
- Richard II
- Richard III
-
Comedies
- A Midsummer Night's Dream
- All's Well That Ends Well
- As You Like It
- Cymbeline
- Love's Labour's Lost
- Measure for Measure
- Much Ado About Nothing
- Pericles, Prince of Tyre
- The Comedy of Errors
- The Merchant of Venice
- The Merry Wives of Windsor
- The Taming of the Shrew
- The Tempest
- The Two Gentlemen of Verona
- The Winter's Tale
- Troilus and Cressida
- Twelfth Night
-
Poetry
- A Lover's Complaint
- Sonnets 1 to 50
- Sonnets 50 to 100
- Sonnets 100 to 154
- The Passionate Pilgrim
- The Phoenix and the Turtle
- The Rape of Lucrece
- Venus and Adonis
King Henry IV, Part 2 (c. 1598)
Illustration from Cassel's History of Englad, Century Edition, c. 1902" style="width: 185px; height: 180px; float: right;" class="PopBoxImageSmall" title="Click to magnify/shrink" onclick="Pop(this,50,'/');"/>ACT ONE
Warkworth. Before the castle.
[Enter Rumour, painted full of tongues.]
RUMOUR.
- 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 emnity
- Under the smile of safety wounds the world:
- 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
- My well-known body to anatomize
- Among my household? Why is Rumour here?
- I run before King Harry's victory;
- Who in a bloody field by Shrewsbury
- Hath beaten down young Hotspur and his troops,
- Quenching the flame of bold rebellion
- Even with the rebels' blood. But what mean I
- To speak so true at first? my office is
- To noise abroad that Harry Monmouth fell
- Under the wrath of noble Hotspur's 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
- They bring smooth comforts false, worse than true wrongs.
[Exit.]
ACT ONE
[Enter Lord Bardolph.]
LORD BARDOLPH.
- Who keeps the gate here, ho?
[The Porter opens the gate.]
Where is the earl?
PORTER.
- What shall I say you are?
LORD BARDOLPH.
- Tell thou the earl
- That the Lord Bardolph doth attend him here.
PORTER.
- 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.]
LORD BARDOLPH.
- Here comes the earl.
[Exit Porter.]
NORTHUMBERLAND.
- 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
- And bears down all before him.
LORD BARDOLPH.
- Noble earl,
- I bring you certain news from Shrewsbury.
NORTHUMBERLAND.
- Good, an God will!
LORD BARDOLPH.
- 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,
- So fought, so follow'd and so fairly won,
- Came not till now to dignify the times,
- Since Caesar's fortunes!
NORTHUMBERLAND.
- How is this derived?
- Saw you the field? came you from Shrewsbury?
LORD BARDOLPH.
- I spake with one, my lord, that came from thence,
- A gentleman well bred and of good name,
- That freely render'd me these news for true.
NORTHUMBERLAND.
- Here comes my servant Travers, whom I sent
- On Tuesday last to listen after news.
[Enter Travers.]
LORD BARDOLPH.
- My lord, I over-rode him on the way;
- And he is furnish'd with no certainties
- More than he haply may retail from me.
NORTHUMBERLAND.
- Now, Travers, what good tidings comes with you?
TRAVERS.
- 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
- I 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.
NORTHUMBERLAND.
- Ha! Again:
- Said he young Harry Percy's spur was cold?
- Of Hotspur Coldspur? that rebellion
- Had met ill luck?
LORD BARDOLPH.
- My lord, I'll tell you what;
- If my young lord your son have not the day,
- Upon mine honour, for a silken point
- I'll give my barony: never talk of it.
NORTHUMBERLAND.
- Why should that gentleman that rode by Travers
- Give then such instances of loss?
LORD BARDOLPH.
- 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.]
NORTHUMBERLAND.
- Yea, this man's brow, like to a title-leaf,
- 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?
- MORTON. I ran from Shrewsbury, my noble lord;
- Where hateful death put on his ugliest mask
- To fright our party.
NORTHUMBERLAND.
- How doth my son and brother?
- Thou tremblest; and the whiteness in thy cheek
- Is apter than thy tongue to tell thy errand.
- Even such a man, so faint, so spiritless,
- So dull, so dread in look, so woe-begone,
- Drew Priam's curtain in the dead of night,
- And would have told him half his Troy was burnt;
- 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,
- Thou hast a sigh to blow away this praise,
- Ending with "Brother, son, and all are dead."
MORTON.
- Douglas is living, and your brother, yet:
- But, for my lord your son,—
NORTHUMBERLAND.
- 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
- And make thee rich for doing me such wrong.
MORTON.
- You are too great to be by me gainsaid:
- Your spirit is too true, your fears too certain.
NORTHUMBERLAND.
- 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
- Yet the first bringer of unwelcome news
- Hath but a losing office, and his tongue
- Sounds ever after as a sullen bell,
- Remember'd tolling a departing friend.
LORD BARDOLPH.
- I cannot think, my lord, your son is dead.
MORTON.
- 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 outbreathed,
- To Harry Monmouth; whose swift wrath beat down
- The never-daunted Percy to the earth,
- 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,
- So did our men, heavy in Hotspur's loss,
- Lend to this weight such lightness with their fear
- That arrows fled not swifter toward their aim
- Than did our soldiers, aiming at their safety,
- Fly from the field. Then was that noble Worcester
- Too soon ta'en prisoner; and that furious Scot,
- The bloody Douglas, whose well-labouring sword
- Had three times slain the appearance of the king,
- 'Gan vail his stomach and did grace the shame
- Of those that turn'd their backs, and in his flight,
- Stumbling in fear, was took. The sum of all
- 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.
NORTHUMBERLAND.
- For this I shall have time enough to mourn.
- In poison there is physic; and these news,
- Having been well, that would have made me sick,
- Being sick, have in some measure made me well:
- And as the wretch, whose fever-weaken'd joints,
- Like strengthless hinges, buckle under life,
- 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.
- 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!
- 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!
TRAVERS.
- This strained passion doth you wrong, my lord.
LORD BARDOLPH.
- Sweet earl, divorce not wisdom from your honour.
MORTON.
- 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,
- 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?
LORD BARDOLPH.
- We all that are engaged to this loss
- 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;
- And since we are o'erset, venture again.
- Come, we will put forth, body and goods.
MORTON.
- 'Tis more than time: and, my most noble lord,
- I hear for certain, and dare speak the truth:
- The gentle Archbishop of York is up
- With well-appointed powers: he is a man
- Who with a double surety binds his followers.
- My lord your son had only but the corpse,
- But shadows and the shows of men, to fight;
- For that same word, rebellion, did divide
- The action of their bodies from their souls;
- And they did fight with queasiness, constrain'd,
- As men drink potions, that their weapons only
- Seem'd on our side; but, for their spirits and souls,
- This word, rebellion, it had froze them up,
- As fish are in a pond. But now the bishop
- Turns insurrection to religion:
- Supposed sincere and holy in his thoughts,
- He 's follow'd both with body and with mind;
- And doth enlarge his rising with the blood
- Of fair King Richard, 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.
NORTHUMBERLAND.
- 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
- 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.]
[Enter Falstaff, with his Page bearing his sword and buckler.]
FALSTAFF.
- 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 moe diseases than he
- knew for.
FALSTAFF.
- Men of all sorts take a pride to gird at me: the brain of
- this foolish-compounded clay, man, is not able to invent any thing
- that tends to laughter, more than I invent or is invented on me:
- I am not only witty in myself, but the cause that wit is in other men.
- I do here walk before thee like a sow that hath overwhelmed all her
- litter but one.
- If the prince put thee into my service for any other reason than to
- set me off, why then I have no 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, 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 not stick to say his 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 yet he'll be crowing as if he had writ man ever
- since his father was a bachelor. He may keep his own grace, but he's
- almost out of mine, I can assure him. What 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 security.
FALSTAFF.
- Let him be damned, like the glutton! 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 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.
FALSTAFF.
- I bought him in Paul's, and he'll buy me a horse in Smithfield:
- an I could get me but a wife in the stews, I were manned, horsed,
- and wived.
[Enter the Lord Chief-Justice and Servant.]
PAGE. Sir, here comes the nobleman that committed the Prince for
- striking him about Bardolph.
FALSTAFF.
- Wait close; I will not see him.
CHIEF JUSTICE.
- What's he that goes there?
SERVANT.
- Falstaff, an 't please your lordship.
CHIEF JUSTICE.
- He that was in question for the robbery?
SERVANT.
- He, my lord; but he hath since done good service at
- Shrewsbury; and, as I hear, is now going with some charge to the
- Lord John of Lancaster.
CHIEF JUSTICE.
- What, to York? Call him back again.
SERVANT.
- Sir John Falstaff!
FALSTAFF.
- Boy, tell him I am deaf.
PAGE.
- You must speak louder; my master is deaf.
CHIEF JUSTICE.
- I am sure he is, to the hearing of anything good.
- Go, pluck him by the elbow; I must speak with him.
SERVANT.
- Sir John!
FALSTAFF.
- What! a young knave, and begging! Is there not wars? is
- there not employment? doth not the king lack subjects? do not the
- rebels need soldiers? Though it be a shame to be on any side but
- one, it is worse shame to beg than to be on the worst side, were
- it worse than the name of rebellion can tell how to make it.
SERVANT.
- You mistake me, sir.
FALSTAFF.
- 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.
SERVANT.
- I pray you, sir, then set your knighthood 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.
FALSTAFF.
- I give thee leave to tell me so! I lay 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!
SERVANT.
- Sir, my lord would speak with you.
CHIEF JUSTICE.
- Sir John Falstaff, a word with you.
FALSTAFF.
- My good lord! God give your lordship good time of day. I am glad to
- see your lordship abroad: I heard say your lordship was sick:
- I hope your lordship goes abroad by advice. 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 beseech your lordship
- to have a reverend care of your health.
CHIEF JUSTICE.
- Sir John, I sent for you before your expedition to Shrewsbury.
FALSTAFF.
- An 't please your lordship, I hear his majesty is returned
- with some discomfort from Wales.
CHIEF JUSTICE.
- I talk not of his majesty: you would not come when I
- sent for you.
FALSTAFF.
- And I hear, moreover, his highness is fall'n into this same
- whoreson apoplexy.
CHIEF JUSTICE.
- Well God mend him! I pray you, let me speak with you.
FALSTAFF.
- 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.
CHIEF JUSTICE.
- What tell you me of it? be it as it is.
FALSTAFF.
- 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.
CHIEF JUSTICE.
- I think you are fallen into the disease, for you hear not
- what I say to you.
FALSTAFF.
- 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.
CHIEF JUSTICE.
- To punish you by the heels would amend the attention
- of your ears; and I care not if I do become your physician.
FALSTAFF.
- 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 prescriptions,
- the wise may make some dram of a scruple, or indeed a scruple itself.
CHIEF JUSTICE.
- I sent for you, when there were matters against you
- for your life, to come speak with me.
FALSTAFF.
- As I was then advised by my learned counsel in the laws
- of this land-service, I did not come.
CHIEF JUSTICE.
- Well, the truth is, Sir John, you live in great infamy.
FALSTAFF.
- He that buckles himself in my belt cannot live in less.
CHIEF JUSTICE.
- Your means are very slender, and your waste is great.
FALSTAFF.
- I would it were otherwise; I would my means were greater,
- and my waist slenderer.
CHIEF JUSTICE.
- You have misled the youthful prince.
FALSTAFF.
- The young prince hath misled me: I am the fellow with the
- great belly, and he my dog.
CHIEF JUSTICE.
- 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 Gad's-hill: you may thank the unquiet time for your quiet
- o'er-posting that action.
FALSTAFF.
- My lord?
CHIEF JUSTICE.
- But since all is well, keep it so: wake not a sleeping wolf.
FALSTAFF.
- To wake a wolf is as bad as smell a fox.
CHIEF JUSTICE.
- What! you are as a candle, the better part burnt out.
FALSTAFF.
- A wassail candle, my lord, all tallow: if I did say of wax, my
- growth would approve the truth.
CHIEF JUSTICE.
- There is not a white hair in your face but should have his
- effect of gravity.
FALSTAFF.
- His effect of gravy, gravy, gravy.
CHIEF JUSTICE.
- You follow the young prince up and down, like his ill angel.
FALSTAFF.
- 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 of 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.
CHIEF JUSTICE.
- 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? 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!
FALSTAFF.
- My lord, I was born about three of the 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
- 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 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.
CHIEF JUSTICE.
- Well, God send the prince a better companion!
FALSTAFF.
- God send the companion a better prince! I cannot rid my hands of him.
CHIEF JUSTICE.
- Well, the king hath severed you and Prince Harry:
- I hear you are going with Lord John of Lancaster against the
- Archbishop and the Earl of Northumberland.
FALSTAFF.
- 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 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 perpetual motion.
CHIEF JUSTICE.
- Well, be honest, be honest; and God bless your expedition!
FALSTAFF.
- Will your lordship lend me a thousand pound to furnish me forth?
CHIEF JUSTICE.
- 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.]
FALSTAFF.
- If I do, fillip me with a three-man beetle. A man can no more separate
- age and covetousness 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!
PAGE.
- Sir?
FALSTAFF.
- What money is in my purse?
PAGE.
- Seven groats and two pence.
FALSTAFF.
- I can get no remedy against this consumption 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 white hair of 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. 'Tis 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.]
SCENE 3. York. The Archbishop's palace.
[Enter the Archbishop, the Lords Hastings, Mowbray, Bardolph.]
ARCHBISHOP.
- 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?
MOWBRAY.
- 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.
HASTINGS.
- 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.
LORD BARDOLPH.
- The question then, Lord Hastings, standeth thus:
- Whether our present five and twenty thousand
- May hold up head without Northumberland?
HASTINGS.
- With him, we may.
LORD BARDOLPH.
- Yea, marry, there 's the point:
- But if without him we be thought too feeble,
- 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.
ARCHBISHOP.
- 'Tis very true, Lord Bardolph; for indeed
- It was young Hotspur's case at Shrewsbury.
LORD BARDOLPH.
- 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:
- And so, with great imagination
- Proper to madmen, led his powers to death
- And winking leap'd into destruction.
HASTINGS.
- But, by your leave, it never yet did hurt
- To lay down likelihoods and forms of hope.
LORD BARDOLPH.
- 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
- 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 we must 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 least 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
- The plot of situation and the model,
- Consent upon a sure foundation,
- Question surveyors, know our own estate,
- How able such a work to undergo,
- To weigh against his opposite; or else
- We fortify in paper and in figures,
- Using the names of men instead of men;
- Like one that draws the model of a house
- Beyond his power to build it; who, half through,
- Gives o'er and leaves his part-created cost
- A naked subject to the weeping clouds
- And waste for churlish winter's tyranny.
HASTINGS.
- 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.
LORD BARDOLPH.
- What, is the king but five and twenty thousand?
HASTINGS.
- To us no more; nay, not so much, Lord Bardolph.
- 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.
ARCHBISHOP.
- That he should draw his several strengths together
- And come against us in full puissance,
- Need not be dreaded.
HASTINGS.
- If he should do so,
- He leaves his back unarm'd, the French and Welsh
- Baying him at the heels: never fear that.
LORD BARDOLPH.
- Who is it like should lead his forces hither?
HASTINGS.
- The Duke of Lancaster and Westmoreland;
- Against the Welsh, himself and Harry Monmouth:
- But who is substituted 'gainst the French,
- I have no certain notice.
ARCHBISHOP.
- 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.
- O thou fond many, with what loud applause
- Didst thou beat heaven with blessing Bolingbroke,
- 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?
- 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,
- And take thou this!" O thoughts of men accursed!
- Past and to come seems best; things present worst.
MOWBRAY.
- Shall we go draw our numbers, and set on?
HASTINGS.
- We are time's subjects, and time bids be gone.
[Exeunt.]