1 HENRY IV

1 HENRY IV THE play described in the 1623 Folio as The First Part of Henry the Fourth had been entered on the Stationers’ Register on 25 February 1598 as The History of Henry the Fourth, and that is the title of the first surviving edition, of the same year. An earlier edition, doubtless also printed in 1598, is known only from a single, eight-page fragment. Five more editions appeared before the Folio. The printing of at least two editions within a few months, and the fact that one of them was read almost out of existence, reflect a matter of exceptional topical interest. The earliest title-page advertises the play’s portrayal of ‘the humorous conceits of Sir John Falstaff’; but when it was first acted, probably in 1596 or 1597, this character bore the name of his historical counterpart, the Protestant martyr Sir John Oldcastle. Shakespeare changed his surname as the result of protests from Oldcastle’s descendants, the influential Cobham family, one of whom—William Brooke, 7th Lord Cobham—was Elizabeth I’s Lord Chamberlain from August 1596 till he died on 5 March 1597. Our edition restores Sir John’s original surname for the first time in printed texts (though there is reason to believe that even after the earliest performances the name ’Oldcastle’ was sometimes used on the stage), and also restores Russell and Harvey, names Shakespeare was probably obliged to alter to Bardolph and Peto. Shakespeare had already shown Henry IV’s rise to power, and his troubled state of mind on achieving it, in Richard II; that play also shows Henry’s dissatisfaction with his wayward son, Prince Harry, later Henry V. 1 Henry IV continues the story, but in a very different dramatic style. A play called The Famous Victories of Henry V, entered in the Stationers’ Register in 1594, was published anonymously, in a debased and shortened text, in 1598. This text—which also features Oldcastle as a reprobate—gives a sketchy version of the events portrayed in 1 and 2 Henry IV and Henry V. Shakespeare must have known the original play, but in the absence of a full text we cannot tell how much he depended on it. The surviving version contains nothing about the rebellions against Henry IV, for which Shakespeare seems to have gone to IIolinshed’s, and perhaps other, Chronicles; he draws also on Samuel Daniel’s poem The First Four Books of the Civil Wars (1595). 1 Henry IV is the first of Shakespeare’s history plays to make extensive use of the techniques of comedy. On a national level, the play shows the continuing problems of Henry Bolingbroke, insecure in his hold on the throne, and the victim of rebellions led by Worcester, Hotspur (Harry Percy), and Glyndwr. These scenes are counterpointed by others, written mainly in prose, which, in the manner of a comic sub-plot, provide humorous diversion while also reflecting and extending the concerns of the main plot. Henry suffers not only public insurrection but the personal rebellion of Prince Harry, in his unprincely exploits with the reprobate old knight, Oldcastle. Sir John has become Shakespeare’s most famous comic character, but Shakespeare shows that the Prince’s treatment of him as a surrogate father who must eventually be abandoned has an intensely serious side.

THE PERSONS OF THE PLAY

The History of Henry the Fourth

Atto 1, Scena 1

Speaker	Line
(didascalia)	Enter King Henry, Lord John of Lancaster, and the Earl of Westmorland, with other lords
KING HENRY	So shaken as we are, so wan with care, Find we a time for frighted peace to pant And breathe short-winded accents of new broils To be commenced in strands afar remote. No more the thirsty entrance of this soil Shall daub her lips with her own children’s blood. No more shall trenching war channel her fields, Nor bruise her flow‘rets with the armed hoofs Of hostile paces. Those opposed eyes, Which, like the meteors of a troubled heaven, All of one nature, of one substance bred, Did lately meet in the intestine shock And furious close of civil butchery, Shall now in mutual well-beseeming ranks March all one way, and be no more opposed Against acquaintance, kindred, and allies. The edge of war, like an ill-sheathèd knife, No more shall cut his master. Therefore, friends, As far as to the sepulchre of Christ— Whose soldier now, under whose blessèd cross We are impressèd and engaged to fight— Forthwith a power of English shall we levy, Whose arms were moulded in their mothers’ womb To chase these pagans in those holy fields Over whose acres walked those blessed feet Which fourteen hundred years ago were nailed, For our advantage, on the bitter cross. But this our purpose now is twelve month old, And bootless ’tis to tell you we will go. Therefor we meet not now. Then let me hear Of you, my gentle cousin Westmorland, What yesternight our Council did decree In forwarding this dear expedience.
WESTMORLAND	My liege, this haste was hot in question, And many limits of the charge set down But yesternight, when all athwart there came A post from Wales, loaden with heavy news, Whose worst was that the noble Mortimer, Leading the men of Herefordshire to fight Against the irregular and wild Glyndwr, Was by the rude hands of that Welshman taken, A thousand of his people butcherèd, Upon whose dead corpse’ there was such misuse, Such beastly shameless transformation, By those Welshwomen done as may not be Without much shame retold or spoken of.
KING HENRY	It seems then that the tidings of this broil Brake off our business for the Holy Land.
WESTMORLAND	This matched with other did, my gracious lord, For more uneven and unwelcome news Came from the north, and thus it did import: On Holy-rood day the gallant Hotspur there— Young Harry Percy—and brave Archibald, That ever valiant and approvèd Scot, At Holmedon met, Where they did spend a sad and bloody hour, As by discharge of their artillery And shape of likelihood the news was told; For he that brought them in the very heat And pride of their contention did take horse, Uncertain of the issue any way.
KING HENRY	Here is a dear, a true industrious friend, Sir Walter Blunt, new lighted from his horse, Stained with the variation of each soil Betwixt that Holmedon and this seat of ours; And he hath brought us smooth and welcome news. The Earl of Douglas is discomfited. Ten thousand bold Scots, two-and-twenty knights, Balked in their own blood did Sir Walter see On Holmedon’s plains. Of prisoners Hotspur took Mordake the Earl of Fife and eldest son To beaten Douglas, and the Earl of Athol, Of Moray, Angus, and Menteith; And is not this an honourable spoil, A gallant prize? Ha, cousin, is it not?
WESTMORLAND	In faith, it is a conquest for a prince to boast of.
KING HENRY	Yea, there thou mak‘st me sad, and mak’st me sin In envy that my lord Northumberland Should be the father to so blest a son— A son who is the theme of honour’s tongue, Amongst a grove the very straightest plant, Who is sweet Fortune’s minion and her pride— Whilst I by looking on the praise of him See riot and dishonour stain the brow Of my young Harry. O, that it could be proved That some night-tripping fairy had exchanged In cradle clothes our children where they lay, And called mine Percy, his Plantagenet! Then would I have his Harry, and he mine. But let him from my thoughts. What think you, coz, Of this young Percy’s pride? The prisoners Which he in this adventure hath surprised To his own use he keeps, and sends me word I shall have none but Mordake Earl of Fife.
WESTMORLAND	This is his uncle’s teaching. This is Worcester, Malevolent to you in all aspects, Which makes him prune himself, and bristle up The crest of youth against your dignity.
KING HENRY	But I have sent for him to answer this; And for this cause awhile we must neglect Our holy purpose to Jerusalem. Cousin, on Wednesday next our Council we Will hold at Windsor. So inform the lords. But come yourself with speed to us again, For more is to be said and to be done Than out of anger can be uttered.
WESTMORLAND	I will, my liege.
(didascalia)	Exeunt King Henry, Lancaster, and other lords at one door; Westmorland at another door

Atto 1, Scena 2

Speaker	Line
(didascalia)	Enter Harry Prince of Wales and Sir John Oldcastle SIR JOHN Now, Hal, what time of day is it, lad?
PRINCE HARRY	Thou art so fat-witted with drinking of old sack, and unbuttoning thee after supper, and sleeping upon benches after noon, that thou hast forgotten to demand that truly which thou wouldst truly know. What a devil hast thou to do with the time of the day? Unless hours were cups of sack, and minutes capons, and clocks the tongues of bawds, and dials the signs of leaping-houses, and the blessed sun himself a fair hot wench in flame-coloured taffeta, I see no reason why thou shouldst be so superfluous to demand the time of the day.
SIR JOHN	Indeed you come near me now, Hal, for we that take purses go by the moon and the seven stars, and not ‘By Phoebus, he, that wand’ring knight so fair’. And I prithee, sweet wag, when thou art a king, as God save thy grace—‘majesty’ I should say, for grace thou wilt have none—
PRINCE HARRY	What, none?
SIR JOHN	No, by my troth, not so much as will serve to be prologue to an egg and butter.
PRINCE HARRY	Well, how then? Come, roundly, roundly.
SIR JOHN	Marry then, sweet wag, when thou art king let not us that are squires of the night’s body be called thieves of the day’s beauty. Let us be ‘Diana’s foresters’, ‘gentlemen of the shade’, ‘minions of the moon’, and let men say we be men of good government, being governed, as the sea is, by our noble and chaste mistress the moon, under whose countenance we steal.
PRINCE HARRY	Thou sayst well, and it holds well too, for the fortune of us that are the moon’s men doth ebb and flow like the sea, being governed as the sea is by the moon. As for proof now: a purse of gold most resolutely snatched on Monday night, and most dissolutely spent on Tuesday morning; got with swearing ‘lay by!’, and spent with crying ‘bring in!’; now in as low an ebb as the foot of the ladder, and by and by in as high a flow as the ridge of the gallows.
SIR JOHN	By the Lord, thou sayst true, lad; and is not my Hostess of the tavern a most sweet wench?
PRINCE HARRY	As the honey of Hybla, my old lad of the castle; and is not a buff jerkin a most sweet robe of durance?
SIR JOHN	How now, how now, mad wag? What, in thy quips and thy quiddities? What a plague have I to do with a buff jerkin?
PRINCE HARRY	Why, what a pox have I to do with my Hostess of the tavern?
SIR JOHN	Well, thou hast called her to a reckoning many a time and oft.
PRINCE HARRY	Did I ever call for thee to pay thy part?
SIR JOHN	No, I’ll give thee thy due, thou hast paid all there.
PRINCE HARRY	Yea, and elsewhere so far as my coin would stretch; and where it would not, I have used my credit.
SIR JOHN	Yea, and so used it that were it not here apparent that thou art heir apparent—but I prithee, sweet wag, shall there be gallows standing in England when thou art king, and resolution thus fubbed as it is with the rusty curb of old father Antic the law? Do not thou when thou art king hang a thief.
PRINCE HARRY	No, thou shalt.
SIR JOHN	Shall I? O, rare! By the Lord, I’ll be a brave judge!
PRINCE HARRY	Thou judgest false already. I mean thou shalt have the hanging of the thieves, and so become a rare hangman.
SIR JOHN	Well, Hal, well; and in some sort it jumps with my humour as well as waiting in the court, I can tell you.
PRINCE HARRY	For obtaining of suits?
SIR JOHN	Yea, for obtaining of suits, whereof the hangman hath no lean wardrobe. ’Sblood, I am as melancholy as a gib cat, or a lugged bear.
PRINCE HARRY	Or an old lion, or a lover’s lute.
SIR JOHN	Yea, or the drone of a Lincolnshire bagpipe.
PRINCE HARRY	What sayst thou to a hare, or the melancholy of Moor-ditch?
SIR JOHN	Thou hast the most unsavoury similes, and art indeed the most comparative, rascalliest sweet young Prince. But Hal, I prithee trouble me no more with vanity. I would to God thou and I knew where a commodity of good names were to be bought. An old lord of the Council rated me the other day in the street about you, sir, but I marked him not; and yet he talked very wisely, but I regarded him not; and yet he talked wisely, and in the street too.
PRINCE HARRY	Thou didst well, for wisdom cries out in the streets, and no man regards it.
SIR JOHN	O, thou hast damnable iteration, and art indeed able to corrupt a saint. Thou hast done much harm upon me, Hal, God forgive thee for it. Before I knew thee, Hal, I knew nothing; and now am I, if a man should speak truly, little better than one of the wicked. I must give over this life, and I will give it over. By the Lord, an I do not, I am a villain. I’ll be damned for never a king’s son in Christendom.
PRINCE HARRY	Where shall we take a purse tomorrow, Jack?
SIR JOHN	Zounds, where thou wilt, lad! I’ll make one; an I do not, call me villain and baffle me.
PRINCE HARRY	I see a good amendment of life in thee, from praying to purse-taking.
SIR JOHN	Why, Hal, ‘tis my vocation, Hal. ’Tis no sin for a man to labour in his vocation.
(didascalia)	Enter Poins
SIR JOHN	Poins! Now shall we know if Gadshill have set a match. O, if men were to be saved by merit, what hole in hell were hot enough for him? This is the most omnipotent villain that ever cried ‘Stand!’ to a true man.
PRINCE HARRY	Good morrow, Ned. no
POINS	Good morrow, sweet Hal. (To Sir John) What says Monsieur Remorse? What says Sir John, sack-and-sugar Jack? How agrees the devil and thee about thy soul, that thou soldest him on Good Friday last, for a cup of Madeira and a cold capon’s leg?
PRINCE HARRY	Sir John stands to his word, the devil shall have his bargain, for he was never yet a breaker of proverbs: he will give the devil his due.
POINS	(to Sir John) Then art thou damned for keeping thy word with the devil.
PRINCE HARRY	Else he had been damned for cozening the devil.
POINS	But my lads, my lads, tomorrow morning by four o’clock early, at Gads Hill, there are pilgrims going to Canterbury with rich offerings, and traders riding to London with fat purses. I have visors for you all; you have horses for yourselves. Gadshill lies tonight in Rochester. I have bespoke supper tomorrow night in Eastcheap. We may do it as secure as sleep. If you will go, I will stuff your purses full of crowns; if you will not, tarry at home and be hanged.
SIR JOHN	Hear ye, Edward, if I tarry at home and go not, I’ll hang you for going.
POINS	You will, chops?
SIR JOHN	Hal, wilt thou make one?
PRINCE HARRY	Who, I rob? I a thief? Not I, by my faith.
SIR JOHN	There’s neither honesty, manhood, nor good fellowship in thee, nor thou earnest not of the blood royal, if thou darest not stand for ten shillings.
PRINCE HARRY	Well then, once in my days I’ll be a madcap.
SIR JOHN	Why, that’s well said.
PRINCE HARRY	Well, come what will, I’ll tarry at home.
SIR JOHN	By the Lord, I’ll be a traitor then, when thou art king.
PRINCE HARRY	I care not.
POINS	Sir John, I prithee leave the Prince and me alone. I will lay him down such reasons for this adventure that he shall go.
SIR JOHN	Well, God give thee the spirit of persuasion and him the ears of profiting, that what thou speakest may move and what he hears may be believed, that the true prince may, for recreation’ sake, prove a false thief; for the poor abuses of the time want countenance. Farewell. You shall find me in Eastcheap.
PRINCE HARRY	Farewell, the latter spring; farewell, Allhallown summer. Exit Sir John
POINS	Now, my good sweet honey lord, ride with us tomorrow. I have a jest to execute that I cannot manage alone. Oldcastle, Harvey, Russell, and Gadshill shall rob those men that we have already waylaid—yourself and I will not be there—and when they have the booty, if you and I do not rob them, cut this head off from my shoulders.
PRINCE HARRY	But how shall we part with them in setting forth?
POINS	Why, we will set forth before or after them and appoint them a place of meeting, wherein it is at our pleasure to fail. And then will they adventure upon the exploit themselves, which they shall have no sooner achieved but we’ll set upon them.
PRINCE HARRY	Ay, but ’tis like that they will know us by our horses, by our habits, and by every other appointment, to be ourselves.
POINS	Tut, our horses they shall not see—I’ll tie them in the wood; our visors we will change after we leave them; and, sirrah, I have cases of buckram for the nonce, to immask our noted outward garments.
PRINCE HARRY	But I doubt they will be too hard for us.
POINS	Well, for two of them, I know them to be as true-bred cowards as ever turned back; and for the third, if he fight longer than he sees reason, I’ll forswear arms. The virtue of this jest will be the incomprehensible lies that this same fat rogue will tell us when we meet at supper: how thirty at least he fought with, what wards, what blows, what extremities he endured; and in the reproof of this lives the jest.
PRINCE HARRY	Well, I’ll go with thee. Provide us all things necessary, and meet me tomorrow night in Eastcheap; there I’ll sup. Farewell.
POINS	Farewell, my lord. Exit
PRINCE HARRY	I know you all, and will a while uphold The unyoked humour of your idleness. Yet herein will I imitate the sun, Who doth permit the base contagious clouds To smother up his beauty from the world, That when he please again to be himself, Being wanted he may be more wondered at By breaking through the foul and ugly mists Of vapours that did seem to strangle him. If all the year were playing holidays, To sport would be as tedious as to work; But when they seldom come, they wished-for come, And nothing pleaseth but rare accidents. So when this loose behaviour I throw off And pay the debt I never promised, By how much better than my word I am, By so much shall I falsify men’s hopes; And like bright metal on a sullen ground, My reformation, glitt‘ring o’er my fault, Shall show more goodly and attract more eyes Than that which hath no foil to set it off. I’ll so offend to make offence a skill, Redeeming time when men think least I will. Exit

Atto 1, Scena 3

Speaker	Line
(didascalia)	Enter the King, the Earls of Northumberland and Worcester, Hotspur, Sir Walter Blunt, with other lords
KING HENRY	(to Hotspur, Northumberland, and Worcester) My blood hath been too cold and temperate, Unapt to stir at these indignities, And you have found me, for accordingly You tread upon my patience; but be sure I will from henceforth rather be myself, Mighty and to be feared, than my condition, Which hath been smooth as oil, soft as young down, And therefore lost that title of respect Which the proud soul ne’er pays but to the proud.
WORCESTER	Our house, my sovereign liege, little deserves The scourge of greatness to be used on it, And that same greatness too, which our own hands Have holp to make so portly.
NORTHUMBERLAND	(to the King) My lord—
KING HENRY	Worcester, get thee gone, for I do see Danger and disobedience in thine eye. O sir, your presence is too bold and peremptory, And majesty might never yet endure The moody frontier of a servant brow. You have good leave to leave us. When we need Your use and counsel we shall send for you.
(didascalia)	Exit Worcester
KING HENRY	You were about to speak.
NORTHUMBERLAND	Yea, my good lord. Those prisoners in your highness’ name demanded, Which Harry Percy here at Holmedon took, Were, as he says, not with such strength denied As was delivered to your majesty, Who either through envy or misprision Was guilty of this fault, and not my son.
HOTSPUR	(to the King) My liege, I did deny no prisoners; But I remember, when the fight was done, When I was dry with rage and extreme toil, Breathless and faint, leaning upon my sword, Came there a certain lord, neat and trimly dressed, Fresh as a bridegroom, and his chin, new-reaped, Showed like a stubble-land at harvest-home. He was perfumed like a milliner, And ‘twixt his finger and his thumb he held A pouncet-box, which ever and anon He gave his nose and took’t away again— Who therewith angry, when it next came there Took it in snuff—and still he smiled and talked; And as the soldiers bore dead bodies by, He called them untaught knaves, unmannerly To bring a slovenly unhandsome corpse Betwixt the wind and his nobility. With many holiday and lady terms He questioned me; amongst the rest demanded My prisoners in your majesty’s behalf. I then, all smarting with my wounds being cold— To be so pestered with a popinjay!— Out of my grief and my impatience Answered neglectingly, I know not what— He should, or should not—for he made me mad To see him shine so brisk, and smell so sweet, And talk so like a waiting gentlewoman Of guns, and drums, and wounds, God save the mark! And telling me the sovereign’st thing on earth Was parmacity for an inward bruise, And that it was great pity, so it was, This villainous saltpetre should be digged Out of the bowels of the harmless earth, Which many a good tall fellow had destroyed So cowardly, and but for these vile guns He would himself have been a soldier. This bald unjointed chat of his, my lord, Made me to answer indirectly, as I said, And I beseech you, let not his report Come current for an accusation Betwixt my love and your high majesty.
BLUNT	(to the King) The circumstance considered, good my lord, Whate’er Lord Harry Percy then had said To such a person, and in such a place, At such a time, with all the rest retold, May reasonably die, and never rise To do him wrong or any way impeach What then he said, so he unsay it now.
KING HENRY	Why, yet he doth deny his prisoners, But with proviso and exception That we at our own charge shall ransom straight His brother-in-law the foolish Mortimer, Who, on my soul, hath wilfully betrayed The lives of those that he did lead to fight Against that great magician, damned Glyndŵr— Whose daughter, as we hear, the Earl of March Hath lately married. Shall our coffers, then, Be emptied to redeem a traitor home? Shall we buy treason, and indent with fears When they have lost and forfeited themselves? No, on the barren mountains let him starve; For I shall never hold that man my friend Whose tongue shall ask me for one penny cost To ransom home revolted Mortimer—
HOTSPUR	Revolted Mortimer? He never did fall off, my sovereign liege, But by the chance of war. To prove that true Needs no more but one tongue for all those wounds, Those mouthed wounds, which valiantly he took When on the gentle Severn’s sedgy bank, In single opposition, hand to hand, He did confound the best part of an hour In changing hardiment with great Glyndwr. Three times they breathed, and three times did they drink, Upon agreement, of swift Severn’s flood, Who, then affrighted with their bloody looks, Ran fearfully among the trembling reeds, And hid his crisp head in the hollow bank, Bloodstainèd with these valiant combatants. Never did bare and rotten policy Colour her working with such deadly wounds, Nor never could the noble Mortimer Receive so many, and all willingly. Then let not him be slandered with revolt.
KING HENRY	Thou dost belie him, Percy, thou dost belie him. He never did encounter with Glyndŵr. I tell thee, He durst as well have met the devil alone As Owain Glyndŵr for an enemy. Art thou not ashamed? But, sirrah, henceforth Let me not hear you speak of Mortimer. Send me your prisoners with the speediest means, Or you shall hear in such a kind from me As will displease you.—My lord Northumberland, We license your departure with your son. (To Hotspur) Send us your prisoners, or you’ll hear of it.
(didascalia)	Exeunt all but Hotspur and Northumberland
HOTSPUR	An if the devil come and roar for them I will not send them. I will after straight And tell him so, for I will ease my heart, Although it be with hazard of my head.
NORTHUMBERLAND	What, drunk with choler? Stay and pause awhile.
(didascalia)	Enter the Earl of Worcester
NORTHUMBERLAND	Here comes your uncle.
HOTSPUR	Speak of Mortimer? Zounds, I will speak of him, and let my soul Want mercy if I do not join with him. In his behalf I’ll empty all these veins, And shed my dear blood drop by drop in the dust, But I will lift the downfall Mortimer As high in the air as this unthankful King, As this ingrate and cankered Bolingbroke.
NORTHUMBERLAND	(to Worcester) Brother, the King hath made your nephew mad.
WORCESTER	Who struck this heat up after I was gone?
HOTSPUR	He will forsooth have all my prisoners; And when I urged the ransom once again Of my wife’s brother, then his cheek looked pale, And on my face he turned an eye of death, Trembling even at the name of Mortimer.
WORCESTER	I cannot blame him: was not he proclaimed By Richard, that dead is, the next of blood?
NORTHUMBERLAND	He was; I heard the proclamation. And then it was when the unhappy King, Whose wrongs in us God pardon, did set forth Upon his Irish expedition, From whence he, intercepted, did return To be deposed, and shortly murdered.
WORCESTER	And for whose death we in the world’s wide mouth Live scandalized and foully spoken of.
HOTSPUR	But soft, I pray you; did King Richard then Proclaim my brother Edmund Mortimer Heir to the crown?
NORTHUMBERLAND	He did; myself did hear it.
HOTSPUR	Nay, then I cannot blame his cousin King That wished him on the barren mountains starve. But shall it be that you that set the crown Upon the head of this forgetful man, And for his sake wear the detested blot Of murderous subornation, shall it be That you a world of curses undergo, Being the agents or base second means, The cords, the ladder, or the hangman, rather? O, pardon me that I descend so low To show the line and the predicament Wherein you range under this subtle King! Shall it for shame be spoken in these days, Or fill up chronicles in time to come, That men of your nobility and power Did gage them both in an unjust behalf, As both of you, God pardon it, have done: To put down Richard, that sweet lovely rose, And plant this thorn, this canker, Bolingbroke? And shall it in more shame be further spoken That you are fooled, discarded, and shook off By him for whom these shames ye underwent? No; yet time serves wherein you may redeem Your banished honours, and restore yourselves Into the good thoughts of the world again, Revenge the jeering and disdained contempt Of this proud King, who studies day and night To answer all the debt he owes to you Even with the bloody payment of your deaths. Therefore, I say—
WORCESTER	Peace, cousin, say no more. And now I will unclasp a secret book, And to your quick-conceiving discontents I’ll read you matter deep and dangerous, As full of peril and adventurous spirit As to o’erwalk a current roaring loud On the unsteadfast footing of a spear.
HOTSPUR	If he fall in, good night, or sink or swim. Send danger from the east unto the west, So honour cross it from the north to south; And let them grapple. O, the blood more stirs To rouse a lion than to start a hare!
NORTHUMBERLAND	(to Worcester) Imagination of some great exploit Drives him beyond the bounds of patience.
(didascalia)	HOTSPUR
NORTHUMBERLAND	By heaven, methinks it were an easy leap To pluck bright honour from the pale-faced moon, Or dive into the bottom of the deep, Where fathom-line could never touch the ground, And pluck up drowned honour by the locks, So he that doth redeem her thence might wear, Without corrival, all her dignities. But out upon this half-faced fellowship!
WORCESTER	(to Northumberland) He apprehends a world of figures here, But not the form of what he should attend. (To Hotspur) Good cousin, give me audience for a while, And list to me.
HOTSPUR	I cry you mercy.
WORCESTER	Those same noble Scots That are your prisoners—
HOTSPUR	I’ll keep them all. By God, he shall not have a Scot of them; No, if a scot would save his soul he shall not. I’ll keep them, by this hand.
WORCESTER	You start away, And lend no ear unto my purposes. Those prisoners you shall keep.
HOTSPUR	Nay, I will; that’s flat. He said he would not ransom Mortimer, Forbade my tongue to speak of Mortimer; But I will find him when he lies asleep, And in his ear I’ll hollo ‘Mortimerl’ Nay, I’ll have a starling shall be taught to speak Nothing but ‘Mortimer’, and give it him To keep his anger still in motion.
WORCESTER	Hear you, cousin, a word.
HOTSPUR	All studies here I solemnly defy, Save how to gall and pinch this Bolingbroke. And that same sword-and-buckler Prince of Wales— But that I think his father loves him not And would be glad he met with some mischance— I would have him poisoned with a pot of ale.
WORCESTER	Farewell, kinsman. I’ll talk to you When you are better tempered to attend.
NORTHUMBERLAND	(to Hotspur) Why, what a wasp-stung and impatient fool Art thou to break into this woman’s mood, Tying thine ear to no tongue but thine own I
HOTSPUR	Why, look you, I am whipped and scourged with rods, Nettled and stung with pismires, when I hear Of this vile politician Bolingbroke. In Richard’s time—what d‘ye call the place? A plague upon’t, it is in Gloucestershire. ‘Twas where the madcap Duke his uncle kept— His uncle York—where I first bowed my knee Unto this king of smiles, this Bolingbroke. ’Sblood, when you and he came back from Ravenspurgh.
NORTHUMBERLAND	At Berkeley castle.
HOTSPUR	You say true. Why, what a candy deal of courtesy This fawning greyhound then did proffer me! ‘Look when his infant fortune came to age’, And ‘gentle Harry Percy’, and ‘kind cousin’. O, the devil take such cozeners!—God forgive me. Good uncle, tell your tale; I have done.
WORCESTER	Nay, if you have not, to’t again. We’ll stay your leisure.
HOTSPUR	I have done, i’faith.
WORCESTER	Then once more to your Scottish prisoners. Deliver them up without their ransom straight; And make the Douglas’ son your only mean For powers in Scotland, which, for divers reasons Which I shall send you written, be assured Will easily be granted. (To Northumberland) You, my lord, Your son in Scotland being thus employed, Shall secretly into the bosom creep Of that same noble prelate well-beloved, The Archbishop.
HOTSPUR	Of York, is’t not?
WORCESTER	True, who bears hard His brother’s death at Bristol, the Lord Scrope. I speak not this in estimation, As what I think might be, but what I know Is ruminated, plotted, and set down, And only stays but to behold the face Of that occasion that shall bring it on.
HOTSPUR	I smell it; upon my life, it will do well!
NORTHUMBERLAND	Before the game is afoot thou still lett’st slip.
HOTSPUR	Why, it cannot choose but be a noble plot— And then the power of Scotland and of York To join with Mortimer, ha?
WORCESTER	And so they shall.
HOTSPUR	In faith, it is exceedingly well aimed.
WORCESTER	And ’tis no little reason bids us speed To save our heads by raising of a head; For, bear ourselves as even as we can, The King will always think him in our debt, And think we think ourselves unsatisfied Till he hath found a time to pay us home. And see already how he doth begin To make us strangers to his looks of love.
HOTSPUR	He does, he does. We’ll be revenged on him.
WORCESTER	Cousin, farewell. No further go in this Than I by letters shall direct your course. When time is ripe, which will be suddenly, I’ll steal to Glyndŵr and Lord Mortimer, Where you and Douglas and our powers at once, As I will fashion it, shall happily meet, To bear our fortunes in our own strong arms, Which now we hold at much uncertainty.
NORTHUMBERLAND	Farewell, good brother. We shall thrive, I trust.
HOTSPUR	(to Worcester) Uncle, adieu. O, let the hours be short Till fields and blows and groans applaud our sport!
(didascalia)	Exeunt Worcester at one door, Northumberland and Hotspur at another door

Atto 2, Scena 1

Speaker	Line
(didascalia)	Enter a Carrier, with a lantern in his hand
FIRST CARRIER	Heigh-ho! An’t be not four by the day, I’ll be hanged. Charles’s Wain is over the new chimney, and yet our horse not packed. What, ostler!
OSTLER	(within) Anon, anon!
FIRST CARRIER	I prithee, Tom, beat cut’s saddle, put a few flocks in the point. Poor jade is wrung in the withers, out of all cess.
(didascalia)	Enter another Carrier
SECOND CARRIER	Peas and beans are as dank here as a dog, and that is the next way to give poor jades the bots. This house is turned upside down since Robin Ostler died.
FIRST CARRIER	Poor fellow never joyed since the price of oats rose; it was the death of him.
SECOND CARRIER	I think this be the most villainous house in all London road for fleas. I am stung like a tench.
FIRST CARRIER	Like a tench? By the mass, there is ne’er a king christen could be better bit than I have been since the first cock.
SECOND CARRIER	Why, they will allow us ne’er a jordan, and then we leak in your chimney, and your chamber-lye breeds fleas like a loach.
FIRST CARRIER	What, ostler! Come away, and be hanged, come away!
SECOND CARRIER	I have a gammon of bacon and two races of ginger to be delivered as far as Charing Cross.
FIRST CARRIER	God’s body, the turkeys in my pannier are quite starved! What, ostler! A plague on thee, hast thou never an eye in thy head? Canst not hear? An ’twere not as good deed as drink to break the pate on thee, I am a very villain. Come, and be hanged! Hast no faith in thee?
(didascalia)	Enter Gadshill
GADSHILL	Good morrow, carriers. What’s o’clock?
FIRST CARRIER	I think it be two o’clock.
GADSHILL	I prithee lend me thy lantern to see my gelding in the stable.
FIRST CARRIER	Nay, by God, soft. I know a trick worth two of that, i’faith.
GADSHILL	(to Second Carrier) I pray thee, lend me thine.
SECOND CARRIER	Ay, when? Canst tell? ‘Lend me thy lantern,’ quoth a. Marry, I’ll see thee hanged first.
GADSHILL	Sirrah carrier, what time do you mean to come to London?
SECOND CARRIER	Time enough to go to bed with a candle, I warrant thee.—Come, neighbour Mugs, we’ll call up the gentlemen. They will along with company, for they have great charge. Exeunt Carriers
GADSHILL	What ho, chamberlain!
(didascalia)	Enter Chamberlain
CHAMBERLAIN	’At hand’ quoth Pickpurse.
GADSHILL	That’s even as fair as ‘ “At hand” quoth the chamberlain’, for thou variest no more from picking of purses than giving direction doth from labouring: thou layest the plot how.
CHAMBERLAIN	Good morrow, Master Gadshill. It holds current that I told you yesternight. There’s a franklin in the Weald of Kent hath brought three hundred marks with him in gold. I heard him tell it to one of his company last night at supper—a kind of auditor, one that hath abundance of charge too, God knows what. They are up already, and call for eggs and butter; they will away presently.
GADSHILL	Sirrah, if they meet not with Saint Nicholas’s clerks, I’ll give thee this neck.
CHAMBERLAIN	No, I’ll none of it; I pray thee keep that for the hangman, for I know thou worshippest Saint Nicholas as truly as a man of falsehood may.
GADSHILL	What talkest thou to me of the hangman? If I hang, I’ll make a fat pair of gallows, for if I hang, old Sir John hangs with me, and thou knowest he’s no starveling. Tut, there are other Trojans that thou dreamest not of, the which for sport’ sake are content to do the profession some grace, that would, if matters should be looked into, for their own credit’ sake make all whole. I am joined with no foot-landrakers, no long-staff sixpenny strikers, none of these mad mustachio purple-hued maltworms, but with nobility and tranquillity, burgomasters and great ‘oyez’-ers; such as can hold in, such as will strike sooner than speak, and speak sooner than drink, and drink sooner than pray. And yet, zounds, I lie, for they pray continually to their saint the commonwealth; or rather, not pray to her, but prey on her; for they ride up and down on her and make her their boots.
CHAMBERLAIN	What, the commonwealth their boots? Will she hold out water in foul way?
GADSHILL	She will, she will, justice hath liquored her. We steal as in a castle, cocksure; we have the recipe of fern-seed, we walk invisible.
CHAMBERLAIN	Nay, by my faith, I think you are more beholden to the night than to fern-seed for your walking invisible.
GADSHILL	Give me thy hand; thou shalt have a share in our purchase, as I am a true man.
CHAMBERLAIN	Nay, rather let me have it as you are a false thief.
(didascalia)	GADSHILL Go to, ‘homo’ is a common name to all men. Bid the ostler bring my gelding out of the stable. Farewell, you muddy knave. Exeunt severally

Atto 2, Scena 2

Speaker	Line
(didascalia)	Enter Prince Harry, Poins, Harvey, and Russell
POINS	Come, shelter, shelter!
(didascalia)	Exeunt Harvey and Russell at another door
POINS	I have removed Oldcastle’s horse, and he frets like a gummed velvet.
(didascalia)	PRINCE HARRY Stand close! Exit Poins
(didascalia)	Enter Sir John Oldcastle
SIR JOHN	Poins ! Poins, and be hanged! Poins !
PRINCE HARRY	Peace, ye fat-kidneyed rascal ! What a brawling dost thou keep !
SIR JOHN	Where’s Poins, Hal?
(didascalia)	PRINCE HARRY He is walked up to the top of the hill. I’ll go seek him. Exit
SIR JOHN	I am accursed to rob in that thief’s company. The rascal hath removed my horse and tied him I know not where. If I travel but four foot by the square further afoot, I shall break my wind. Well, I doubt not but to die a fair death, for all this—if I scape hanging for killing that rogue. I have forsworn his company hourly any time this two-and-twenty years, and yet I am bewitched with the rogue’s company. If the rascal have not given me medicines to make me love him, I’ll be hanged. It could not be else: I have drunk medicines. Poins ! Hal ! A plague upon you both ! Russell ! Harvey ! I’ll starve ere I’ll rob a foot further. An ’twere not as good a deed as drink to turn true man and to leave these rogues, I am the veriest varlet that ever chewed with a tooth. Eight yards of uneven ground is threescore and ten miles afoot with me, and the stony-hearted villains know it well enough. A plague upon’t when thieves cannot be true one to another !
(didascalia)	They whistle. Enter Prince Harry, Poins, Harvey, and Russell
SIR JOHN	Whew !A plague upon you all !Give me my horse, you rogues, give me my horse, and be hanged!
PRINCE HARRY	Peace, ye fat-guts. Lie down, lay thine ear close to the ground, and list if thou canst hear the tread of travellers.
SIR JOHN	Have you any levers to lift me up again, being down ? ’Sblood, I’ll not bear my own flesh so far afoot again for all the coin in thy father’s exchequer. What a plague mean ye to colt me thus?
PRINCE HARRY	Thou liest : thou art not colted, thou art uncolted.
SIR JOHN	I prithee, good Prince Hal, help me to my horse, good king’s son.
PRINCE HARRY	Out, ye rogue, shall I be your ostler?
SIR JOHN	Hang thyself in thine own heir-apparent garters ! If I be ta’en, I’ll peach for this. An I have not ballads made on you all and sung to filthy tunes, let a cup of sack be my poison. When a jest is so forward, and afoot too ! I hate it.
(didascalia)	Enter Gadshill visored
GADSHILL	Stand!
SIR JOHN	So I do, against my will.
POINS	O, ’tis our setter, I know his voice. Gadshill, what news?
(didascalia)	GADSHILL Case ye, case ye, on with your visors ! There’s money of the King’s coming down the hill; ’tis going to the King’s exchequer.
SIR JOHN	You lie, ye rogue, ’tis going to the King’s tavern.
GADSHILL	There’s enough to make us all.
SIR JOHN	To be hanged.
(didascalia)	They put on visors
PRINCE HARRY	Sirs, you four shall front them in the narrow lane. Ned Poins and I will walk lower. If they scape from your encounter, then they light on us.
HARVEY	How many be there of them?
GADSHILL	Some eight or ten.
SIR JOHN	Zounds, will they not rob us?
PRINCE HARRY	What, a coward, Sir John Paunch?
SIR JOHN	Indeed I am not John of Gaunt your grandfather, but yet no coward, Hal.
PRINCE HARRY	Well, we leave that to the proof.
POINS	Sirrah Jack, thy horse stands behind the hedge. When thou needest him, there thou shalt find him. Farewell, and stand fast.
SIR JOHN	Now cannot I strike him if I should be hanged.
PRINCE HARRY	(aside to Poins) Ned, where are our disguises?
POINS	(aside to the Prince) Here, hard by. Stand close.
(didascalia)	Exeunt the Prince and Poins
SIR JOHN	Now, my masters, happy man be his dole, say I; every man to his business.
(didascalia)	They stand aside.]
(didascalia)	Enter the Travellers, amongst them the Carriers l
FIRSTI TRAVELLER	Come, neighbour, the boy shall lead our horses down the hill. We’ll walk afoot a while, and ease their legs.
(didascalia)	THIEVES coming forward Stand !
(didascalia)	SECOND TRAVELLER Jesus bless us !
SIR JOHN	Strike, down with them, cut the villains’ throats ! Ah, whoreson caterpillars, bacon-fed knaves ! They hate us youth. Down with them, fleece them !
(didascalia)	FIRST TRAVELLER O, we are undone, both we and ours for ever!
SIR JOHN	Hang ye, gorbellied knaves, are ye undone ? No, ye fat chuffs; I would your store were here. On, bacons, on ! What, ye knaves! Young men must live. You are grand-jurors, are ye? We’ll jure ye, faith. Here they rob them and bind them. Exeunt the thieves with the travellers

Atto 2, Scena 3

Speaker	Line
(didascalia)	Enter Prince Harry and Poins, disguised in buckram suits
PRINCE HARRY	The thieves have bound the true men; now could thou and I rob the thieves, and go merrily to London. It would be argument for a week, laughter for a month, and a good jest for ever.
POINS	Stand close; I hear them coming. They stand aside.
(didascalia)	Enter Sir John Oldcastle, Russell, Harvey, and Gadshill, with the travellers’ money
SIR JOHN	Come, my masters, let us share, and then to horse before day. An the Prince and Poins be not two arrant cowards, there’s no equity stirring. There’s no more valour in that Poins than in a wild duck. As they are sharing, the Prince and Poins set upon them
PRINCE HARRY	Your money!
POINS	Villains!
(didascalia)	Gadshill, Russell, and Harvey run away severally, and Oldcastle, after a blow or two, roars and runs away too, leaving the booty behind them
PRINCE HARRY	Got with much ease. Now merrily to horse. The thieves are all scattered, and possessed with fear So strongly that they dare not meet each other. Each takes his fellow for an officer. Away, good Ned. Oldcastle sweats to death, And lards the lean earth as he walks along. Were’t not for laughing, I should pity him.
POINS	How the fat rogue roared! Exeunt with the booty

Atto 2, Scena 4

Speaker	Line
(didascalia)	Enter Hotspur, reading a letter
HOTSPUR	‘But for mine own part, my lord, I could be well contented to be there, in respect of the love I bear your house.’—He could be contented; why is he not then? In respect of the love he bears our house ! He shows in this he loves his own barn better than he loves our house. Let me see some more.—‘The purpose you undertake is dangerous’—Why, that’s certain: ‘tis dangerous to take a cold, to sleep, to drink; but I tell you, my lord fool, out of this nettle danger we pluck this flower safety.—‘The purpose you undertake is dangerous, the friends you have named uncertain, the time itself unsorted, and your whole plot too light for the counterpoise of so great an opposition.’—Say you so, say you so? I say unto you again, you are a shallow, cowardly hind, and you lie. What a lack-brain is this! By the Lord, our plot is a good plot as ever was laid, our friends true and constant; a good plot, good friends, and full of expectation; an excellent plot, very good friends. What a frosty-spirited rogue is this! Why, my lord of York commends the plot and the general course of the action. Zounds, an I were now by this rascal, I could brain him with his lady’s fan! Is there not my father, my uncle, and myself? Lord Edmund Mortimer, my lord of York, and Owain Glyndwr? Is there not besides the Douglas? Have I not all their letters, to meet me in arms by the ninth of the next month? And are they not some of them set forward already? What a pagan rascal is this, an infidel ! Ha, you shall see now, in very sincerity of fear and cold heart will he to the King, and lay open all our proceedings! O, I could divide myself and go to buffets for moving such a dish of skim-milk with so honourable an action Hang him ! Let him tell the King we are prepared; I will set forward tonight.
(didascalia)	Enter Lady Percy
HOTSPUR	How now, Kate? I must leave you within these two hours.
LADY PERCY	Omy good lord, why are you thus alone ? For what offence have I this fortnight been A banished woman from my Harry’s bed? Tell me, sweet lord, what is’t that takes from thee Thy stomach, pleasure, and thy golden sleep? Why dost thou bend thine eyes upon the earth, And start so often when thou sitt‘st alone? Why hast thou lost the fresh blood in thy cheeks, And given my treasures and my rights of thee To thick-eyed musing and curst melancholy? In thy faint slumbers I by thee have watched, And heard thee murmur tales of iron wars, Speak terms of manège to thy bounding steed, Cry ‘Courage! To the field!’ And thou hast talked Of sallies and retires, of trenches, tents, Of palisadoes, frontiers, parapets, Of basilisks, of cannon, culverin, Of prisoners ransomed, and of soldiers slain, And all the currents of a heady fight. Thy spirit within thee hath been so at war, And thus hath so bestirred thee in thy sleep, That beads of sweat have stood upon thy brow Like bubbles in a late-disturbed stream; And in thy face strange motions have appeared, Such as we see when men restrain their breath On some great sudden hest. O,what portents are these? Some heavy business hath my lord in hand, And I must know it, else he loves me not.
HOTSPUR	What ho!
(didascalia)	Enter Servant
HOTSPUR	Is Gilliams with the packet gone?
SERVANT	He is, my lord, an hour ago.
HOTSPUR	Hath Butler brought those horses from the sheriff?
SERVANT	One horse, my lord, he brought even now.
HOTSPUR	What horse? A roan, a crop-ear, is it not?
SERVANT	It is, my lord.
HOTSPUR	That roan shall be my throne. Well, I will back him straight.—O,Esperance!— Bid Butler lead him forth into the park.
LADY PERCY	But hear you, my lord.
HOTSPUR	What sayst thou, my lady?
LADY PERCY	What is it carries you away?
HOTSPUR	Why, my horse, My love, my horse.
LADY PERCY	Out, you mad-headed ape! A weasel hath not such a deal of spleen As you are tossed with. In faith, I’ll know your business, Harry, that I will. I fear my brother Mortimer doth stir About his title, and hath sent for you To line his enterprise; but if you go—
HOTSPUR	So far afoot? I shall be weary, love.
LADY PERCY	Come, come, you paraquito, answer me Directly to this question that I ask. In faith, I’ll break thy little finger, Harry, An if thou wilt not tell me all things true.
HOTSPUR	Away, away, you trifler! Love ? I love thee not, I care not for thee, Kate. This is no world To play with maumets and to tilt with lips. We must have bloody noses and cracked crowns, And pass them current, too. God’s me, my horse!— What sayst thou, Kate? What wouldst thou have with me?
LADY PERCY	Do you not love me? Do you not indeed? Well, do not, then, for since you love me not I will not love myself. Do you not love me? Nay, tell me if you speak in jest or no.
HOTSPUR	Come, wilt thou see me ride ? And when I am a-horseback, I will swear I love thee infinitely. But hark you, Kate. I must not have you henceforth question me Whither I go, nor reason whereabout. Whither I must, I must; and, to conclude, This evening must I leave you, gentle Kate. I know you wise, but yet no farther wise Than Harry Percy’s wife; constant you are, But yet a woman; and for secrecy No lady closer, for I well believe Thou wilt not utter what thou dost not know. And so far will I trust thee, gentle Kate.
LADY PERCY	How, so far?
HOTSPUR	Not an inch further. But hark you, Kate, Whither I go, thither shall you go too. Today will I set forth, tomorrow you. Will this content you, Kate?
LADY PERCY	It must, of force. Exeunt

Atto 2, Scena 5

Speaker	Line
(didascalia)	Enter Prince Harry
PRINCE HARRY	Ned, prithee come out of that fat room, and lend me thy hand to laugh a little.
(didascalia)	Enter Poins at another door
POINS	Where hast been, Hal?
PRINCE HARRY	With three or four loggerheads, amongst three or fourscore hogsheads. I have sounded the very bass-string of humility. Sirrah, I am sworn brother to a leash of drawers, and can call them all by their christen names, as ‘Tom’, ‘Dick’, and ‘Francis’. They take it already, upon their salvation, that though I be but Prince of Wales yet I am the king of courtesy, and tell me flatly I am no proud jack like Oldcastle, but a Corinthian, a lad of mettle, a good boy—by the Lord, so they call me; and when I am King of England I shall command all the good lads in Eastcheap. They call drinking deep ‘dyeing scarlet’, and when you breathe in your watering they cry ‘Hem!’ and bid you ‘Play it off!’ To conclude, I am so good a proficient in one quarter of an hour that I can drink with any tinker in his own language during my life. I tell thee, Ned, thou hast lost much honour that thou wert not with me in this action. But, sweet Ned—to sweeten which name of Ned I give thee this pennyworth of sugar, clapped even now into my hand by an underskinker, one that never spake other English in his life than ‘Eight shillings and sixpence’, and ‘You are welcome’, with this shrill addition, ‘Anon, anon, sir ! Score a pint of bastard in the Half-moon!’ or so. But, Ned, to drive away the time till Oldcastle come, I prithee do thou stand in some by-room, while I question my puny drawer to what end he gave me the sugar, and do thou never leave calling ‘Francis!’, that his tale to me may be nothing but ‘Anon!’ Step aside, and I’ll show thee a precedent.
(didascalia)	Exit Poins
POINS	(within) Francis!
PRINCE HARRY	Thou art perfect.
POINS	(within) Francis!
(didascalia)	Enter Francis, a drawer
FRANCIS	Anon, anon, sir!—Look down into the Pomegranate, Ralph !
PRINCE HARRY	Come hither, Francis.
FRANCIS	My lord.
PRINCE HARRY	How long hast thou to serve, Francis?
FRANCIS	Forsooth, five years, and as much as to—
POINS	(within) Francis!
FRANCIS	Anon, anon, sir!
PRINCE HARRY	Five year! By’r Lady, a long lease for the clinking of pewter. But Francis, darest thou be so valiant as to play the coward with thy indenture, and show it a fair pair of heels, and run from it?
FRANCIS	O Lord, sir, I’ll be sworn upon all the books in England, I could find in my heart—
POINS	(within) Francis!
FRANCIS	Anon, sir!
PRINCE HARRY	How old art thou, Francis ?
FRANCIS	Let me see, about Michaelmas next I shall be—
POINS	(within) Francis!
FRANCIS	Anon, sir! (To the Prince) Pray, stay a little, my lord.
PRINCE HARRY	Nay, but hark you, Francis. For the sugar thou gavest me, ’twas a pennyworth, was’t not?
FRANCIS	O Lord, I would it had been two I
PRINCE HARRY	I will give thee for it a thousand pound. Ask me when thou wilt, and thou shalt have it—
POINS	(within) Francis!
FRANCIS	Anon, anon!
PRINCE HARRY	Anon, Francis? No, Francis, but tomorrow, Francis; or, Francis, o’ Thursday; or, indeed, Francis, when thou wilt. But Francis.
FRANCIS	My lord.
PRINCE HARRY	Wilt thou rob this leathern-jerkin, crystal-button, knot-pated, agate-ring, puke-stocking, caddis-garter, smooth-tongue, Spanish-pouch?
FRANCIS	O Lord, sir, who do you mean ?
PRINCE HARRY	Why, then, your brown bastard is your only drink ! For look you, Francis, your white canvas doublet will sully. In Barbary, sir, it cannot come to so much.
FRANCIS	What, sir?
POINS	(within) Francis !
PRINCE HARRY	Away, you rogue ! Dost thou not hear them call ?
(didascalia)	As he departs Poins and the Prince both call him.
PRINCE HARRY	The Drawer stands amazed, not knowing which way to go.
(didascalia)	Enter Vintner
VINTNER	What, standest thou still, and hearest such a calling? Look to the guests within. Exit Francis My lord, old Sir John with half a dozen more are at the door. Shall I let them in?
PRINCE HARRY	Let them alone a while, and then open the door. Exit Vintner Poins !
(didascalia)	POINS within Anon, anon, sir!
(didascalia)	Enter Poins
PRINCE HARRY	Sirrah, Oldcastle and the rest of the thieves are at the door. Shall we be merry?
POINS	As merry as crickets, my lad. But hark ye, what cunning match have you made with this jest of the drawer? Come, what’s the issue?
PRINCE HARRY	I am now of all humours that have showed themselves humours since the old days of goodman Adam to the pupil age of this present twelve o’clock at midnight.
(didascalia)	Enter Francis
PRINCE HARRY	What’s o’clock, Francis?
(didascalia)	FRANCIS Anon, anon, sir ! Exit at another door
PRINCE HARRY	That ever this fellow should have fewer words than a parrot, and yet the son of a woman ! His industry is upstairs and downstairs, his eloquence the parcel of a reckoning. I am not yet of Percy’s mind, the Hotspur of the North—he that kills me some six or seven dozen of Scots at a breakfast, washes his hands, and says to his wife, ‘Fie upon this quiet life ! I want work.’ ‘O my sweet Harry,’ says she, ‘how many hast thou killed today?’ Give my roan horse a drench,’says he, and answers, ‘Some fourteen,’ an hour after; ‘a trifle, a trifle.’ I prithee call in Oldcastle. I’ll play Percy, and that damned brawn shall play Dame Mortimer his wife. ‘Rivo!’ says the drunkard. Call in Ribs, call in Tallow.
(didascalia)	Enter Sir John Oldcastle, with sword and buckler, Russell, Harvey, and Gadshill, followed by Francis, with wine
POINS	Welcome, Jack. Where hast thou been?
SIR JOHN	A plague of all cowards, I say, and a vengeance too, marry and amen!—Give me a cup of sack, boy.—Ere I lead this life long, I’ll sew netherstocks, and mend them and foot them too. A plague of all cowards!—Give me a cup of sack, rogue. Is there no virtue extant? He drinketh
PRINCE HARRY	Didst thou never see Titan kiss a dish of butter—pitiful hearted Titan—that melted at the sweet tale of the sun’s? If thou didst, then behold that compound.
(didascalia)	SIR JOHN (to Francis) You rogue, here’s lime in this sack too. There is nothing but roguery to be found in villainous man, yet a coward is worse than a cup of sack with lime in it. Exit Francis A villainous coward ! Go thy ways, old Jack, die when thou wilt. If manhood, good manhood, be not forgot upon the face of the earth, then am I a shotten herring. There lives not three good men unhanged in England, and one of them is fat and grows old, God help the while. A bad world, I say. I would I were a weaver—I could sing psalms, or anything. A plague of all cowards, I say still.
PRINCE HARRY	How now, woolsack, what mutter you?
SIR JOHN	A king’s son ! If I do not beat thee out of thy kingdom with a dagger of lath, and drive all thy subjects afore thee like a flock of wild geese, I’ll never wear hair on my face more. You, Prince of Wales!
PRINCE HARRY	Why, you whoreson round man, what’s the matter?
SIR JOHN	Are not you a coward? Answer me to that. And Poins there?
POINS	Zounds, ye fat paunch, an ye call me coward, by the Lord I’ll stab thee.
SIR JOHN	I call thee coward? I’ll see thee damned ere I call thee coward, but I would give a thousand pound I could run as fast as thou canst. You are straight enough in the shoulders; you care not who sees your back. Call you that backing of your friends ? A plague upon such backing! Give me them that will face me. Give me a cup of sack. I am a rogue if I drunk today.
PRINCE HARRY	O villain, thy lips are scarce wiped since thou drunkest last.
SIR JOHN	All is one for that. He drinketh A plague of all cowards, still say I.
PRINCE HARRY	What’s the matter?
SIR JOHN	What’s the matter? There be four of us here have ta’en a thousand pound this day morning.
PRINCE HARRY	Where is it, Jack, where is it?
SIR JOHN	Where is it? Taken from us it is. A hundred upon poor four of us.
PRINCE HARRY	What, a hundred, man?
SIR JOHN	I am a rogue if I were not at half-sword with a dozen of them, two hours together. I have scaped by miracle. I am eight times thrust through the doublet, four through the hose, my buckler cut through and through, my sword hacked like a handsaw. Ecce signum.
(didascalia)	He shows his sword
SIR JOHN	I never dealt better since I was a man. All would not do. A plague of all cowards! (Pointing to Gadshill, Harvey, and Russell) Let them speak. If they speak more or less than truth, they are villains and the sons of darkness.
(didascalia)	PRINCE HARRY Speak, sirs, how was it?
(didascalia)	GADSHILL We four set upon some dozen—
SIR JOHN	(to the Prince) Sixteen at least, my lord.
(didascalia)	GADSHILL And bound them.
HARVEY	No, no, they were not bound.
SIR JOHN	You rogue, they were bound every man of them, or I am a Jew else, an Hebrew Jew.
(didascalia)	GADSHILL As we were sharing, some six or seven fresh men set upon us.
SIR JOHN	And unbound the rest; and then come in the other.
PRINCE HARRY	What, fought you with them all?
SIR JOHN	All? I know not what you call all, but if I fought not with fifty of them, I am a bunch of radish. If there were not two- or three-and-fifty upon poor old Jack, then am I no two-legged creature.
PRINCE HARRY	Pray God you have not murdered some of them.
SIR JOHN	Nay, that’s past praying for. I have peppered two of them. Two I am sure I have paid—two rogues in buckram suits. I tell thee what, Hal, if I tell thee a lie, spit in my face, call me horse. Thou knowest my old ward—
(didascalia)	He stands as to fight
SIR JOHN	here I lay, and thus I bore my point. Four rogues in buckram let drive at me.
PRINCE HARRY	What, four? Thou saidst but two even now.
SIR JOHN	Four, Hal, I told thee four.
POINS	Ay, ay, he said four.
SIR JOHN	These four came all afront, and mainly thrust at me. I made me no more ado, but took all their seven points in my target, thus.
(didascalia)	He wards himself with his buckler
PRINCE HARRY	Seven? Why, there were but four even now.
SIR JOHN	In buckram?
POINS	Ay, four in buckram suits.
SIR JOHN	Seven, by these hilts, or I am a villain else.
PRINCE HARRY	(aside to Poins) Prithee, let him alone. We shall have more anon.
SIR JOHN	Dost thou hear me, Hal?
PRINCE HARRY	Ay, and mark thee too, Jack.
SIR JOHN	Do so, for it is worth the listening to. These nine in buckram that I told thee of—
PRINCE HARRY	(aside to Poins) So, two more already.
SIR JOHN	Their points being broken—
(didascalia)	POINS aside to the Prince Down fell their hose.
SIR JOHN	Began to give me ground. But I followed me close, came in foot and hand, and, with a thought, seven of the eleven I paid.
PRINCE HARRY	(aside to Poins) O monstrous! Eleven buckram men grown out of two!
SIR JOHN	But, as the devil would have it, three misbegotten knaves in Kendal green came at my back and let drive at me; for it was so dark, Hal, that thou couldst not see thy hand.
PRINCE HARRY	These lies are like their father that begets them—gross as a mountain, open, palpable. Why, thou clay-brained guts, thou knotty-pated fool, thou whoreson obscene greasy tallow-catch-
SIR JOHN	What, art thou mad? Art thou mad? Is not the truth the truth?
PRINCE HARRY	Why, how couldst thou know these men in Kendal green when it was so dark thou couldst not see thy hand? Come, tell us your reason. What sayst thou to this?
POINS	Come, your reason, Jack, your reason.
SIR JOHN	What, upon compulsion? Zounds, an I were at the strappado, or all the racks in the world, I would not tell you on compulsion. Give you a reason on compulsion? If reasons were as plentiful as blackberries, I would give no man a reason upon compulsion, I.
PRINCE HARRY	I’ll be no longer guilty of this sin. This sanguine coward, this bed-presser, this horse-back-breaker, this huge hill of flesh—
SIR JOHN	’Sblood, you starveling, you elf-skin, you dried neat’s tongue, you bull’s pizzle, you stock-fish—O, for breath to utter what is like thee!—you tailor’s yard, you sheath, you bow-case, you vile standing tuck—
PRINCE HARRY	Well, breathe awhile, and then to’t again, and when thou hast tired thyself in base comparisons, hear me speak but this.
POINS	Mark, Jack.
PRINCE HARRY	We two saw you four set on four, and bound them, and were masters of their wealth.—Mark now how a plain tale shall put you down.—Then did we two set on you four, and, with a word, outfaced you from your prize, and have it; yea, and can show it you here in the house. And Oldcastle, you carried your guts away as nimbly, with as quick dexterity, and roared for mercy, and still run and roared, as ever I heard bull-calf. What a slave art thou, to hack thy sword as thou hast done, and then say it was in fight! What trick, what device, what starting-hole canst thou now find out to hide thee from this open and apparent shame?
POINS	Come, let’s hear, Jack; what trick hast thou now?
SIR JOHN	By the Lord, I knew ye as well as he that made ye. Why, hear you, my masters. Was it for me to kill the heir-apparent? Should I turn upon the true prince? Why, thou knowest I am as valiant as Hercules; but beware instinct. The lion will not touch the true prince—instinct is a great matter. I was now a coward on instinct. I shall think the better of myself and thee during my life—I for a valiant lion, and thou for a true prince. But by the Lord, lads, I am glad you have the money.—(Calling) Hostess, clap to the doors.—Watch tonight, pray tomorrow. Gallants, lads, boys, hearts of gold, all the titles of good fellowship come to you! What, shall we be merry, shall we have a play extempore?
PRINCE HARRY	Content, and the argument shall be thy running away.
SIR JOHN	Ah, no more of that, Hal, an thou lovest me.
(didascalia)	Enter Hostess
HOSTESS	O Jesu, my lord the Prince!
PRINCE HARRY	How now, my lady the Hostess, what sayst thou to me?
HOSTESS	Marry, my lord, there is a nobleman of the court at door would speak with you. He says he comes from your father.
PRINCE HARRY	Give him as much as will make him a royal man, and send him back again to my mother.
SIR JOHN	What manner of man is he?
HOSTESS	An old man.
SIR JOHN	What doth gravity out of his bed at midnight? Shall I give him his answer?
PRINCE HARRY	Prithee do, Jack.
SIR JOHN	Faith, and I’ll send him packing. Exit
PRINCE HARRY	Now, sirs; (to Gadshill) by’r Lady, you fought fair—so did you, Harvey, so did you, Russell. You are lions too—you ran away upon instinct, you will not touch the true prince; no, fie!
RUSSELL	Faith, I ran when I saw others run.
PRINCE HARRY	Faith, tell me now in earnest, how came Oldcastle’s sword so hacked?
HARVEY	Why, he hacked it with his dagger, and said he would swear truth out of England but he would make you believe it was done in fight, and persuaded us to do the like.
RUSSELL	Yea, and to tickle our noses with speargrass, to make them bleed; and then to beslubber our garments with it, and swear it was the blood of true men. I did that I did not this seven year before—I blushed to hear his monstrous devices.
PRINCE HARRY	O villain, thou stolest a cup of sack eighteen years ago, and wert taken with the manner, and ever since thou hast blushed extempore. Thou hadst fire and sword on thy side, and yet thou rannest away. What instinct hadst thou for it?
RUSSELL	(indicating his face) My lord, do you see these meteors? Do you behold these exhalations?
PRINCE HARRY	I do.
RUSSELL	What think you they portend?
PRINCE HARRY	Hot livers, and cold purses.
(didascalia)	RUSSELL Choler, my lord, if rightly taken. Exit
PRINCE HARRY	No, if rightly taken, halter.
(didascalia)	Enter Sir John Oldcastle
PRINCE HARRY	Here comes lean Jack; here comes bare-bone. How now, my sweet creature of bombast? How long is’t ago, Jack, since thou sawest thine own knee?
SIR JOHN	My own knee? When I was about thy years, Hal, I was not an eagle’s talon in the waist; I could have crept into any alderman’s thumb-ring. A plague of sighing and grief—it blows a man up like a bladder. There’s villainous news abroad. Here was Sir John Bracy from your father; you must to the court in the morning. That same mad fellow of the North, Percy, and he of Wales that gave Amamon the bastinado, and made Lucifer cuckold, and swore the devil his true liegeman upon the cross of a Welsh hook—what a plague call you him?
POINS	Owain Glyndwr.
SIR JOHN	Owain, Owain, the same; and his son-in-law Mortimer, and old Northumberland, and that sprightly Scot of Scots Douglas, that runs a-horseback up a hill perpendicular—
PRINCE HARRY	He that rides at high speed and with his pistol kills a sparrow flying.
SIR JOHN	You have hit it.
PRINCE HARRY	So did he never the sparrow.
SIR JOHN	Well, that rascal hath good mettle in him; he will not run.
PRINCE HARRY	Why, what a rascal art thou, then, to praise him so for running!
SIR JOHN	A-horseback, ye cuckoo, but afoot he will not budge a foot.
PRINCE HARRY	Yes, Jack, upon instinct.
SIR JOHN	I grant ye, upon instinct. Well, he is there too, and one Mordake, and a thousand blue-caps more. Worcester is stolen away tonight. Thy father’s beard is turned white with the news. You may buy land now as cheap as stinking mackerel.
PRINCE HARRY	Why then, it is like, if there come a hot June and this civil buffeting hold, we shall buy maidenheads as they buy hobnails: by the hundreds.
SIR JOHN	By the mass, lad, thou sayst true; it is like we shall have good trading that way. But tell me, Hal, art not thou horrible afeard? Thou being heir-apparent, could the world pick thee out three such enemies again as that fiend Douglas, that spirit Percy, and that devil Glyndŵr? Art thou not horribly afraid? Doth not thy blood thrill at it?
PRINCE HARRY	Not a whit, i’faith. I lack some of thy instinct. 375
SIR JOHN	Well, thou wilt be horribly chid tomorrow when thou comest to thy father. If thou love me, practise an answer.
PRINCE HARRY	Do thou stand for my father, and examine me upon the particulars of my life.
SIR JOHN	Shall I? Content. This chair shall be my state, this dagger my sceptre, and this cushion my crown. He sits
PRINCE HARRY	Thy state is taken for a joint-stool, thy golden sceptre for a leaden dagger, and thy precious rich crown for a pitiful bald crown.
SIR JOHN	Well, an the fire of grace be not quite out of thee, now shalt thou be moved. Give me a cup of sack to make my eyes look red, that it may be thought I have wept; for I must speak in passion, and I will do it in King Cambyses’ vein.
PRINCE HARRY	(bowing) Well, here is my leg.
SIR JOHN	And here is my speech. (To Harvey, Poins, and Gadshill) Stand aside, nobility.
HOSTESS	O Jesu, this is excellent sport, i’faith.
SIR JOHN	Weep not, sweet Queen, for trickling tears are vain.
HOSTESS	O the Father, how he holds his countenance!
SIR JOHN	For God’s sake, lords, convey my tristful Queen, For tears do stop the floodgates of her eyes.
HOSTESS	O Jesu, he doth it as like one of these harlotry players as ever I see!
SIR JOHN	Peace, good pint-pot; peace, good tickle-brain.— Harry, I do not only marvel where thou spendest thy time, but also how thou art accompanied. For though the camomile, the more it is trodden on, the faster it grows, yet youth, the more it is wasted, the sooner it wears. That thou art my son I have partly thy mother’s word, partly my own opinion, but chiefly a villainous trick of thine eye, and a foolish hanging of thy nether lip, that doth warrant me. If then thou be son to me, here lies the point. Why, being son to me, art thou so pointed at? Shall the blessed sun of heaven prove a micher, and eat btackberries?—A question not to be asked. Shall the son of England prove a thief, and take purses?—A question to be asked. There is a thing, Harry, which thou hast often heard of, and it is known to many in our land by the name of pitch. This pitch, as ancient writers do report, doth defile. So doth the company thou keepest. For Harry, now I do not speak to thee in drink, but in tears; not in pleasure, but in passion; not in words only, but in woes also. And yet there is a virtuous man whom I have often noted in thy company, but I know not his name.
PRINCE HARRY	What manner of man, an it like your majesty?
SIR JOHN	A goodly, portly man, i‘faith, and a corpulent; of a cheerful look, a pleasing eye, and a most noble carriage; and, as I think, his age some fifty, or, by’r Lady, inclining to threescore. And now I remember me, his name is Oldcastle. If that man should be lewdly given, he deceiveth me; for, Harry, I see virtue in his looks. If, then, the tree may be known by the fruit, as the fruit by the tree, then peremptorily I speak it—there is virtue in that Oldcastle. Him keep with; the rest banish. And tell me now, thou naughty varlet, tell me, where hast thou been this month?
PRINCE HARRY	Dost thou speak like a king? Do thou stand for me, and I’ll play my father.
SIR JOHN	(standing) Depose me. If thou dost it half so gravely, so majestically both in word and matter, hang me up by the heels for a rabbit sucker, or a poulter’s hare.
PRINCE HARRY	(sitting) Well, here I am set.
SIR JOHN	And here I stand. (To the others) Judge, my masters.
PRINCE HARRY	Now, Harry, whence come you?
SIR JOHN	My noble lord, from Eastcheap.
PRINCE HARRY	The complaints I hear of thee are grievous.
(didascalia)	SIR JOHN ’Sblood, my lord, they are false. To
(didascalia)	the others
PRINCE HARRY	Nay, I’ll tickle ye for a young prince, i’faith.
PRINCE HARRY	Swearest thou, ungracious boy? Henceforth ne’er look on me. Thou art violently carried away from grace. There is a devil haunts thee in the likeness of an old fat man; a tun of man is thy companion. Why dost thou converse with that trunk of humours, that bolting-hutch of beastliness, that swollen parcel of dropsies, that huge bombard of sack, that stuffed cloak-bag of guts, that roasted Manningtree ox with the pudding in his belly, that reverend Vice, that grey Iniquity, that father Ruffian, that Vanity in Years? Wherein is he good, but to taste sack and drink it? Wherein neat and cleanly, but to carve a capon and eat it? Wherein cunning, but in craft? Wherein crafty, but in villainy? Wherein villainous, but in all things? Wherein worthy, but in nothing?
SIR JOHN	I would your grace would take me with you. Whom means your grace?
PRINCE HARRY	That villainous, abominable misleader of youth, Oldcastle; that old white-bearded Satan.
SIR JOHN	My lord, the man I know.
PRINCE HARRY	I know thou dost.
SIR JOHN	But to say I know more harm in him than in myself were to say more than I know. That he is old, the more the pity, his white hairs do witness it. But that he is, saving your reverence, a whoremaster, that I utterly deny. If sack and sugar be a fault, God help the wicked. If to be old and merry be a sin, then many an old host that I know is damned. If to be fat be to be hated, then Pharaoh’s lean kine are to be loved. No, my good lord, banish Harvey, banish Russell, banish Poins, but for sweet Jack Oldcastle, kind Jack Oldcastle, true Jack Oldcastle, valiant Jack Oldcastle, and therefore more valiant being, as he is, old Jack Oldcastle, Banish not him thy Harry’s company, Banish not him thy Harry’s company. Banish plump Jack, and banish all the world.
PRINCE HARRY	I do; I will.
(didascalia)	Knocking within. Exit Hostess.
(didascalia)	Enter Russell, running
RUSSELL	O my lord, my lord, the sheriff with a most monstrous watch is at the door!
SIR JOHN	Out, ye rogue! Play out the play! I have much to say in the behalf of that Oldeastle.
(didascalia)	Enter the Hostess
HOSTESS	O Jesu! My lord, my lord!
PRINCE HARRY	Heigh, heigh, the devil rides upon a fiddlestick! What’s the matter?
HOSTESS	The sheriff and all the watch are at the door. They are come to search the house. Shall I let them in?
SIR JOHN	Dost thou hear, Hal? Never call a true piece of gold a counterfeit—thou art essentially made, without seeming so.
PRINCE HARRY	And thou a natural coward without instinct.
SIR JOHN	I deny your major. If you will deny the sheriff, so. If not, let him enter. If I become not a cart as well as another man, a plague on my bringing up. I hope I shall as soon be strangled with a halter as another.
PRINCE HARRY	Go, hide thee behind the arras. The rest walk up above. Now, my masters, for a true face and good conscience. Exeunt Poins, Russell, and Gadshill
SIR JOHN	Both which I have had, but their date is out; and therefore I’ll hide me. He withdraws behind the arras
PRINCE HARRY	(to Hostess) Call in the sheriff. Exit Hostess
(didascalia)	Enter Sheriff and a Carrier
PRINCE HARRY	Now, master sheriff, what is your will with me?
SHERIFF	First, pardon me, my lord. A hue and cry Hath followed certain men unto this house.
PRINCE HARRY	What men?
SHERIFF	One of them is well known, my gracious lord, A gross, fat man.
CARRIER	As fat as butter.
PRINCE HARRY	The man, I do assure you, is not here, For I myself at this time have employed him. And, sheriff, I will engage my word to thee That I will by tomorrow dinner-time Send him to answer thee, or any man, For anything he shall be charged withal. And so let me entreat you leave the house.
SHERIFF	I will, my lord. There are two gentlemen Have in this robbery lost three hundred marks.
PRINCE HARRY	It may be so. If he have robbed these men, He shall be answerable. And so, farewell.
SHERIFF	Good night, my noble lord.
PRINCE HARRY	I think it is good morrow, is it not?
SHERIFF	Indeed, my lord, I think it be two o’clock.
(didascalia)	Exeunt Sheriff and Carrier
PRINCE HARRY	This oily rascal is known as well as Paul’s. Go call him forth.
HARVEY	Oldcastle!
(didascalia)	He
(didascalia)	draws back the arras, revealing Sir John asleep
HARVEY	Fast asleep Behind the arras, and snorting like a horse.
PRINCE HARRY	Hark how hard he fetches breath. Search his pockets.
(didascalia)	Harvey searcheth his pocket and findeth certain papers. He closeth the arras and cometh forward
PRINCE HARRY	What hast thou found?
HARVEY	Nothing but papers, my lord.
PRINCE HARRY	Let’s see what they be. Read them.
(didascalia)	HARVEY (reads)
PRINCE HARRY	Item: a capon. 2s. 2d. Item: sauce. 4d. Item: sack, two gallons. 5s. 8d. Item: anchovies and sack after supper. 2s. 6d. Item: bread. ob.
(didascalia)	PRINCE HARRY O monstrous! But one halfpennyworth of bread to this intolerable deal of sack! What there is else, keep close; we’ll read it at more advantage. There let him sleep till day. I’ll to the court in the morning. We must all to the wars, and thy place shall be honourable. I’ll procure this fat rogue a charge of foot, and I know his death will be a march of twelve score. The money shall be paid back again, with advantage. Be with me betimes in the morning; and so good morrow, Harvey.
(didascalia)	HARVEY Good morrow, good my lord. Exeunt severally

Atto 3, Scena 1

Speaker	Line
(didascalia)	Enter Hotspur, the Earl of Worcester, Lord Mortimer, and Owain Glyndŵr, with a map
MORTIMER	These promises are fair, the parties sure, And our induction full of prosperous hope.
HOTSPUR	Lord Mortimer and cousin Glyndŵr, Will you sit down? And uncle Worcester?
(didascalia)	Mortimer, Glyndŵr, and Worcester sit
HOTSPUR	A plague upon it, I have forgot the map! GLYNDŴR No, here it is. Sit, cousin Percy, sit, Good cousin Hotspur;
(didascalia)	Hotspur sits
HOTSPUR	For by that name As oft as Lancaster doth speak of you, His cheek looks pale, and with a rising sigh He wisheth you in heaven.
HOTSPUR	And you in hell, As oft as he hears Owain Glyndŵr spoke of. GLYNDŴR I cannot blame him. At my nativity The front of heaven was full of fiery shapes, Of burning cressets; and at my birth The frame and huge foundation of the earth Shaked like a coward.
HOTSPUR	Why, so it would have done At the same season if your mother’s cat Had but kittened, though yourself had never been born. GLYNDŴR I say the earth did shake when I was born.
HOTSPUR	And I say the earth was not of my mind If you suppose as fearing you it shook. GLYNDŴR The heavens were all on fire, the earth did tremble—
HOTSPUR	O, then the earth shook to see the heavens on fire, And not in fear of your nativity. Diseased nature oftentimes breaks forth In strange eruptions; oft the teeming earth Is with a kind of colic pinched and vexed By the imprisoning of unruly wind
(didascalia)	Within her womb, which for enlargement striving
HOTSPUR	Shakes the old beldam earth, and topples down Steeples and moss-grown towers. At your birth Our grandam earth, having this distemp’rature, In passion shook. GLYNDŴR Cousin, of many men I do not bear these crossings. Give me leave To tell you once again that at my birth The front of heaven was full of fiery shapes, The goats ran from the mountains, and the herds Were strangely clamorous to the frighted fields. These signs have marked me extraordinary, And all the courses of my life do show I am not in the roll of commen men. Where is he living, clipped in with the sea That chides the banks of England, Scotland, Wales, Which calls me pupil or hath read to me? And bring him out that is but woman’s son Can trace me in the tedious ways of art, And hold me pace in deep experiments.
(didascalia)	HOTSPUR standíng
HOTSPUR	I think there’s no man speaketh better Welsh. I’ll to dinner.
MORTIMER	Peace, cousin Percy, you will make him mad. GLYNDŴR I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
HOTSPUR	Why, so can I, or so can any man; But will they come when you do call for them? GLYNDŴR Why, I can teach you, cousin, to command the devil.
HOTSPUR	And I can teach thee, coz, to shame the devil, By telling truth: ‘Tell truth, and shame the devil’. If thou have power to raise him, bring him hither, And I’ll be sworn I have power to shame him hence. O, while you live, tell truth and shame the devil.
MORTIMER	Come, come, no more of this unprofitable chat. GLYNDŴR Three times hath Henry Bolingbroke made head Against my power; thrice from the banks of Wye And sandy-bottomed Severn have I sent him Bootless home, and weather-beaten back.
HOTSPUR	Home without boots, and in foul weather too! How scapes he agues, in the devil’s name? GLYNDŴR Come, here’s the map. Shall we divide our right, According to our threefold order ta’en?
MORTIMER	The Archdeacon hath divided it Into three limits very equally. England from Trent and Severn hitherto By south and east is to my part assigned; All westward-Wales beyond the Severn shore And all the fertile land within that bound— To Owain Glyndwr; (to Hotspur) and, dear coz, to you The remnant northward lying off from Trent. And our indentures tripartite are drawn, Which, being sealèd interchangeably— A business that this night may execute— Tomorrow, cousin Percy, you and I 80 And my good lord of Worcester will set forth To meet your father and the Scottish power, As is appointed us, at Shrewsbury. My father, Glyndŵr., is not ready yet, Nor shall we need his help these fourteen days.
(didascalia)	Within that space you may have drawn together
MORTIMER	Your tenants, friends, and neighbouring gentlemen. GLYNDŴR A shorter time shall send me to you, lords; And in my conduct shall your ladies come, From whom you now must steal and take no leave; For there will be a world of water shed 91 Upon the parting of your wives and you.
HOTSPUR	Methinks my moiety north from Burton here In quantity equals not one of yours. See how this river comes me cranking in, And cuts me from the best of all my land A huge half-moon, a monstrous cantle, out. I’ll have the current in this place dammed up, And here the smug and silver Trent shall run In a new channel fair and evenly. It shall not wind with such a deep indent, To rob me of so rich a bottom here. GLYNDŴR Not wind? It shall, it must; you see it doth.
MORTIMER	Yea, but mark how he bears his course, and runs me up With like advantage on the other side, Gelding the opposed continent as much As on the other side it takes from you.
WORCESTER	Yea, but a little charge will trench him here, And on this north side win this cape of land, And then he runs straight and even. no
HOTSPUR	I’ll have it so; a little charge will do it. GLYNDŴR I’ll not have it altered.
HOTSPUR	Will not you? GLYNDŴR No, nor you shall not.
HOTSPUR	Who shall say me nay? 115 GLYNDŴR Why, that will I.
HOTSPUR	Let me not understand you, then: speak it in Welsh. GLYNDŴR I can speak English, lord, as well as you; For I was trained up in the English court, Where, being but young, I framed to the harp Many an English ditty lovely well, And gave the tongue a helpful ornament— A virtue that was never seen in you.
HOTSPUR	Marry, and I am glad of it, with all my heart. I had rather be a kitten and cry ‘mew’ Than one of these same metre ballad-mongers. I had rather hear a brazen canstick turned, Or a dry wheel grate on the axle-tree, And that would set my teeth nothing on edge, Nothing so much as mincing poetry. ’Tis like the forced gait of a shuffling nag. GLYNDŴR Come, you shall have Trent turned.
HOTSPUR	I do not care. I’ll give thrice so much land To any well-deserving friend; But in the way of bargain—mark ye me—135 I’ll cavil on the ninth part of a hair. Are the indentures drawn? Shall we be gone? GLYNDŴR The moon shines fair. You may away by night. I’ll haste the writer, and withal Break with your wives of your departure hence. I am afraid my daughter will run mad, So much she doteth on her Mortimer. Exit
MORTIMER	Fie, cousin Percy, how you cross my father!
HOTSPUR	I cannot choose. Sometime he angers me With telling me of the moldwarp and the ant, Of the dreamer Merlin and his prophecies, And of a dragon and a finless fish, A clip-winged griffin and a moulten raven, A couching lion and a ramping cat, And such a deal of skimble-skamble stuff 150 As puts me from my faith. I tell you what, He held me last night at the least nine hours In reckoning up the several devils’ names That were his lackeys. I cried, ‘Hum!’ and, ‘Well, go to!’, But marked him not a word. O, he is as tedious As a tired horse, a railing wife, Worse than a smoky house. I had rather live With cheese and garlic, in a windmill, far, Than feed on cates and have him talk to me In any summer house in Christendom. 160
MORTIMER	In faith, he is a worthy gentleman, Exceedingly well read, and profited In strange concealments, valiant as a lion, And wondrous affable, and as bountiful As mines of India. Shall I tell you, cousin? 165 He holds your temper in a high respect, And curbs himself even of his natural scope When you come ’cross his humour; faith, he does. I warrant you, that man is not alive Might so have tempted him as you have done Without the taste of danger and reproof. But do not use it oft, let me entreat you.
WORCESTER	(to Hotspur) In faith, my lord, you are too wilful-blame, And since your coming hither have done enough To put him quite besides his patience. You must needs learn, lord, to amend this fault. Though sometimes it show greatness, courage, blood— And that’s the dearest grace it renders you— Yet oftentimes it doth present harsh rage, Defect of manners, want of government, Pride, haughtiness, opinion, and disdain, The least of which haunting a nobleman Loseth men’s hearts, and leaves behind a stain Upon the beauty of all parts besides, Beguiling them of commendation. 185
HOTSPUR	Well, I am schooled. Good manners be your speed!
(didascalia)	Enter Glyndŵr with Lady Percy and Mortimer’s wife
HOTSPUR	Here come our wives, and let us take our leave.
(didascalia)	Mortimer’s wife weeps, and speaks to him in Welsh
MORTIMER	This is the deadly spite that angers me: My wife can speak no English, I no Welsh. GLYNDŴR My daughter weeps she’ll not part with you. She’ll be a soldier, too; she’ll to the wars.
MORTIMER	Good father, tell her that she and my aunt Percy Shall follow in your conduct speedily. Glyndŵr speaks to her in Welsh, and she answers him in the same
GLYNDWR	She is desperate here, a peevish self-willed harlotry, One that no persuasion can do good upon. 195 The lady speaks in Welsh
MORTIMER	I understand thy looks. That pretty Welsh Which thou down pourest from these swelling heavens I am too perfect in, and but for shame In such a parley should I answer thee. The lady kisses him, and speaks again in Welsh
MORTIMER	I understand thy kisses, and thou mine, And that’s a feeling disputation; But I will never be a truant, love, Till I have learnt thy language, for thy tongue Makes Welsh as sweet as ditties highly penned, Sung by a fair queen in a summer’s bower With ravishing division, to her lute. GLYNDŴR Nay, if you melt, then will she run mad. The lady
(didascalia)	sits on the rushes and speaks again in Welsh
MORTIMER	O, I am ignorance itself in this! GLYNDŴR She bids you on the wanton rushes lay you down And rest your gentle head upon her lap, And she will sing the song that pleaseth you, And on your eyelids crown the god of sleep, Charming your blood with pleasing heaviness, Making such difference ’twixt wake and sleep As is the difference betwixt day and night 215 The hour before the heavenly-harnessed team Begins his golden progress in the east.
MORTIMER	With all my heart, I’ll sit and hear her sing. By that time will our book, I think, be drawn.
(didascalia)	He sits, resting his head on the Welsh lady’s lap
YNDWR	Do so, and those musicians that shall play to you Hang in the air a thousand leagues from hence, And straight they shall be here. Sit and attend.
HOTSPUR	Come, Kate, thou art perfect in lying down. Come, quick, quick, that I may lay my head in thy lap.
LADY PERCY	(sitting) Go, ye giddy goose! Hotspur sits, resting his head on Lady Percy’s lap. The music plays
HOTSPUR	Now I perceive the devil understands Welsh; And ’tis no marvel, he is so humorous. By’r Lady, he’s a good musician.
LADY PERCY	Then should you be nothing but musical, For you are altogether governed by humours. Lie still, ye thief, and hear the lady sing in Welsh.
HOTSPUR	I had rather hear Lady my brach howl in Irish.
LADY PERCY	Wouldst thou have thy head broken?
HOTSPUR	No.
LADY PERCY	Then be still. 235
HOTSPUR	Neither—’tis a woman’s fault.
LADY PERCY	Now God help thee!
HOTSPUR	To the Welsh lady’s bed.
LADY PERCY	What’s that?
HOTSPUR	Peace; she sings. Here the lady sings a Welsh song
HOTSPUR	Come, Kate, I’ll have your song too.
LADY PERCY	Not mine, in good sooth.
HOTSPUR	Not yours, in good sooth! Heart, you swear like a comfit-maker’s wife: ‘Not you, in good sooth!’ and ‘As true as I live!’ and 245 ‘As God shall mend me!’ and ‘As sure as day!’; And giv‘st such sarcenet surety for thy oaths As if thou never walk’st further than Finsbury. Swear me, Kate, like a lady as thou art, A good mouth-filling oath, and leave ’in sooth’ 250 And such protest of pepper gingerbread To velvet-guards and Sunday citizens. Come, sing.
LADY PERCY	I will not sing.
HOTSPUR	’Tis the next way to turn tailor, or be redbreast teacher. (Rising) An the indentures be drawn, I’ll away within these two hours; and so come in when ye will.
(didascalia)	Exit
HOTSPUR	GLYNDŴR Come, come, Lord Mortimer. You are as slow As hot Lord Percy is on fire to go. By this our book is drawn. We’ll but seal, 260 And then to horse immediately.
MORTIMER	(rising) With all my heart. The ladies rise, and all exeunt

Atto 3, Scena 2

Speaker	Line
(didascalia)	Enter King Henry, Prince Harry, and lords
KING HENRY	Lords, give us leave—the Prince of Wales and I Must have some private conference—but be near at hand, For we shall presently have need of you.
(didascalia)	Exeunt Lords
KING HENRY	I know not whether God will have it so For some displeasing service I have done, That in his secret doom out of my blood He’ll breed revengement and a scourge for me, But thou dost in thy passages of life Make me believe that thou art only marked For the hot vengeance and the rod of heaven To punish my mistreadings. Tell me else, Could such inordinate and low desires, Such poor, such bare, such lewd, such mean attempts, Such barren pleasures, rude society, As thou art matched withal and grafted to, 15 Accompany the greatness of thy blood, And hold their level with thy princely heart?
PRINCE HARRY	So please your majesty, I would I could Quit all offences with as clear excuse As well as I am doubtless I can purge Myself of many I am charged withal; Yet such extenuation let me beg As, in reproof of many tales devised— Which oft the ear of greatness needs must hear By smiling pickthanks and base newsmongers— I may, for some things true wherein my youth Hath faulty wandered and irregular, Find pardon on my true submission.
KING HENRY	God pardon thee! Yet let me wonder, Harry, At thy affections, which do hold a wing Quite from the flight of all thy ancestors. Thy place in Council thou hast rudely lost— Which by thy younger brother is supplied— And art almost an alien to the hearts Of all the court and princes of my blood. The hope and expectation of thy time Is ruined, and the soul of every man Prophetically do forethink thy fall. Had I so lavish of my presence been, So common-hackneyed in the eyes of men, So stale and cheap to vulgar company, Opinion, that did help me to the crown, Had still kept loyal to possession, And left me in reputeless banishment, A fellow of no mark nor likelihood. By being seldom seen, I could not stir But, like a comet, I was wondered at, That men would tell their children ‘This is he.’ Others would say ‘Where, which is Bolingbroke?’ And then I stole all courtesy from heaven, And dressed myself in such humility That I did pluck allegiance from men’s hearts, Loud shouts and salutations from their mouths, Even in the presence of the crowned King. Thus did I keep my person fresh and new, My presence like a robe pontifical— Ne‘er seen but wondered at—and so my state, Seldom but sumptuous, showed like a feast, And won by rareness such solemnity. The skipping King, he ambled up and down 60 With shallow jesters and rash bavin wits, Soon kindled and soon burnt, carded his state, Mingled his royalty with cap’ring fools, Had his great name profaned with their scorns, And gave his countenance, against his name, To laugh at gibing boys, and stand the push Of every beardless vain comparative; Grew a companion to the common streets, Enfeoffed himself to popularity, That, being daily swallowed by men’s eyes, They surfeited with honey, and began To loathe the taste of sweetness, whereof a little More than a little is by much too much. So when he had occasion to be seen, He was but as the cuckoo is in June, Heard, not regarded, seen but with such eyes As, sick and blunted with community, Afford no extraordinary gaze Such as is bent on sun-like majesty When it shines seldom in admiring eyes, But rather drowsed and hung their eyelids down, Slept in his face, and rendered such aspect As cloudy men use to their adversaries, Being with his presence glutted, gorged, and full. And in that very line, Harry, standest thou; 85 For thou hast lost thy princely privilege With vile participation. Not an eye But is a-weary of thy common sight, Save mine, which hath desired to see thee more, Which now doth that I would not have it do— Make blind itself with foolish tenderness. He weeps
PRINCE HARRY	I shall hereafter, my thrice-gracious lord, Be more myself.
KING HENRY	For all the world, As thou art to this hour was Richard then, When I from France set foot at Ravenspurgh, And even as I was then is Percy now. Now by my sceptre, and my soul to boot, He hath more worthy interest to the state Than thou, the shadow of succession; For, of no right, nor colour like to right, He doth fill fields with harness in the realm, Turns head against the lion’s armed jaws, And, being no more in debt to years than thou, Leads ancient lords and reverend bishops on To bloody battles, and to bruising arms. 105 What never-dying honour hath he got Against renowned Douglas !—whose high deeds, Whose hot incursions and great name in arms, Holds from all soldiers chief majority And military title capital Through all the kingdoms that acknowledge Christ. Thrice hath this Hotspur, Mars in swaddling-clothes, This infant warrior, in his enterprises Discomfited great Douglas; ta‘en him once; Enlarged him; and made a friend of him 115 To fill the mouth of deep defiance up, And shake the peace and safety of our throne. And what say you to this ? Percy, Northumberland, The Archbishop’s grace of York, Douglas, Mortimer, Capitulate against us, and are up. But wherefore do I tell these news to thee ? Why, Harry, do I tell thee of my foes, Which art my near’st and dearest enemy ?— Thou that art like enough, through vassal fear, Base inclination, and the start of spleen, To fight against me under Percy’s pay, To dog his heels, and curtsy at his frowns, To show how much thou art degenerate.
PRINCE HARRY	Do not think so; you shall not find it so. And God forgive them that so much have swayed Your majesty’s good thoughts away from me. I will redeem all this on Percy’s head, And in the closing of some glorious day Be bold to tell you that I am your son; When I will wear a garment all of blood, And stain my favours in a bloody mask, Which, washed away, shall scour my shame with it. And that shall be the day, whene’er it lights, That this same child of honour and renown, This gallant Hotspur, this all-praised knight, And your unthought-of Harry chance to meet. For every honour sitting on his helm, Would they were multitudes, and on my head My shames redoubled; for the time will come That I shall make this northern youth exchange His glorious deeds for my indignities. Percy is but my factor, good my lord, To engross up glorious deeds on my behalf; And I will call him to so strict account That he shall render every glory up, 150 Yea, even the slightest worship of his time, Or I will tear the reckoning from his heart. This, in the name of God, I promise here, The which if he be pleased I shall perform, I do beseech your majesty may salve The long-grown wounds of my intemperature; If not, the end of life cancels all bonds, And I will die a hundred thousand deaths Ere break the smallest parcel of this vow.
KING HENRY	A hundred thousand rebels die in this. Thou shalt have charge and sovereign trust herein.
(didascalia)	Enter Sir Walter Blunt
KING HENRY	How now, good Blunt ? Thy looks are full of speed.
BLUNT	So hath the business that I come to speak of. Lord Mortimer of Scotland hath sent word That Douglas and the English rebels met The eleventh of this month at Shrewsbury. A mighty and a fearful head they are, If promises be kept on every hand, As ever offered foul play in a state.
KING HENRY	The Earl of Westmorland set forth today, With him my son Lord John of Lancaster, For this advertisement is five days old. On Wednesday next, Harry, you shall set forward. On Thursday we ourselves will march. Our meeting is Bridgnorth, and, Harry, you Shall march through Gloucestershire, by which account, Our business valued, some twelve days hence Our general forces at Bridgnorth shall meet. Our hands are full of business; let’s away. Advantage feeds him fat while men delay. Exeunt

Atto 3, Scena 3

Speaker	Line
(didascalia)	Enter Sir John Oldcastle
(didascalia)	With a truncheon at his waist, and Russell
SIR JOHN	Russell, am I not fallen away vilely since this last action? Do I not bate? Do I not dwindle? Why, my skin hangs about me like an old lady’s loose gown. I am withered like an old apple-john. Well, I’ll repent, and that suddenly, while I am in some liking. I shall be out of heart shortly, and then I shall have no strength to repent. An I have not forgotten what the inside of a church is made of, I am a peppercorn, a brewer’s horse—the inside of a church! Company, villainous company, hath been the spoil of me. 10
RUSSELL	Sir John, you are so fretful you cannot live long.
SIR JOHN	Why, there is it. Come, sing me a bawdy song, make me merry. I was as virtuously given as a gentleman need to be: virtuous enough; swore little; diced not-above seven times a week; went to a bawdy-house not-above once in a quarter—of an hour; paid money that I borrowed—three or four times; lived well, and in good compass. And now I live out of all order, out of all compass.
RUSSELL	Why, you are so fat, Sir John, that you must needs be out of all compass, out of all reasonable compass, Sir John.
SIR JOHN	Do thou amend thy face, and I’ll amend my life. Thou art our admiral, thou bearest the lantern in the poop—but ’tis in the nose of thee. Thou art the Knight of the Burning Lamp.
RUSSELL	Why, Sir John, my face does you no harm.
SIR JOHN	No, I’ll be sworn; I make as good use of it as many a man doth of a death’s head, or a memento mori. I never see thy face but I think upon hell-fire and Dives that lived in purple—for there he is in his robes, burning, burning. If thou wert any way given to virtue, I would swear by thy face; my oath should be ’By this fire that’s God’s angell’ But thou art altogether given over, and wert indeed, but for the light in thy face, the son of utter darkness. When thou rannest up Gads Hill in the night to catch my horse, if I did not think thou hadst been an ignis fatuus or a ball of wildfire, there’s no purchase in money. O, thou art a perpetual triumph, an everlasting bonfire-light! Thou hast saved me a thousand marks in links and torches, walking with thee in the night betwixt tavern and tavern—but the sack that thou hast drunk me would have bought me lights as good cheap at the dearest chandler’s in Europe. I have maintained that salamander of yours with fire any time this two-and-thirty years, God reward me for it.
RUSSELL	’Sblood, I would my face were in your belly!
SIR JOHN	God-a-mercy! ! So should I be sure to be heart-burnt.
(didascalia)	Enter Hostess
SIR JOHN	How now, Dame Partlet the hen, have you enquired yet who picked my pocket?
HOSTESS	Why, Sir John, what do you think, Sir John? Do you think I keep thieves in my house ? I have searched, I have enquired; so has my husband, man by man, boy by boy, servant by servant. The tithe of a hair was never lost in my house before.
SIR JOHN	Ye lie, Hostess: Russell was shaved and lost many a hair, and I’ll be sworn my pocket was picked. Go to, you are a woman, go. 60
HOSTESS	Who, I? No, I defy thee! God’s light, I was never called so in mine own house before.
SIR JOHN	Go to, I know you well enough.
HOSTESS	No, Sir John, you do not know me, Sir John; I know you, Sir John. You owe me money, Sir John, and now you pick a quarrel to beguile me of it. I bought you a dozen of shirts to your back.
SIR JOHN	Dowlas, filthy dowlas. I have given them away to bakers’ wives; they have made bolters of them.
HOSTESS	Now as I am a true woman, holland of eight shillings an ell. You owe money here besides, Sir John: for your diet, and by-drinkings, and money lent you, four-and-twenty pound.
SIR JOHN	(pointing at Russell) He had his part of it. Let him pay.
HOSTESS	He? Alas, he is poor; he hath nothing.
SIR JOHN	How, poor? Look upon his face. What call you rich? Let them coin his nose, let them coin his cheeks, I’ll not pay a denier. What, will you make a younker of me ? Shall I not take mine ease in mine inn, but I shall have my pocket picked? I have lost a seal-ring of my grandfather’s worth forty mark.
HOSTESS	O Jesu, (to Russell) I have heard the Prince tell him, I know not how oft, that that ring was copper.
(didascalia)	SIR JOHN How ? The Prince is a jack, a sneak-up. Raising his truncheon ’Sblood, an he were here I would cudgel him like a dog if he would say so.
(didascalia)	Enter Prince Harry and Harvey, marching; and Sir John Oldcastle meets them, playing upon his truncheon like a fife
HOSTESS	How now, lad, is the wind in that door, i’faith? Must we all march?
RUSSELL	Yea, two and two, Newgate fashion.
HOSTESS	My lord, I pray you hear me.
PRINCE HARRY	What sayst thou, Mistress Quickly? How doth thy husband? I love him well; he is an honest man.
HOSTESS	Good my lord, hear me!!
SIR JOHN	Prithee, let her alone, and list to me.
PRINCE HARRY	What sayst thou, Jack?
SIR JOHN	The other night I fell asleep here behind the arras, and had my pocket picked. This house is turned bawdy-house: they pick pockets.
PRINCE HARRY	What didst thou lose, Jack? 100
SIR JOHN	Wilt thou believe me, Hal, three or four bonds of forty pound apiece, and a seal-ring of my grandfather’s.
PRINCE HARRY	A trifle, some eightpenny matter.
HOSTESS	So I told him, my lord; and I said I heard your grace say so; and, my lord, he speaks most vilely of you, like a foul-mouthed man as he is, and said he would cudgel you. 108
PRINCE HARRY	What? He did not !
HOSTESS	There’s neither faith, truth, nor womanhood in me else.
SIR JOHN	There’s no more faith in thee than in a stewed prune, nor no more truth in thee than in a drawn fox; and, for womanhood, Maid Marian may be the deputy’s wife of the ward to thee. Go, you thing, go!
HOSTESS	Say, what thing, what thing?
SIR JOHN	What thing? Why, a thing to thank God on.
HOSTESS	I am no thing to thank God on. I would thou shouldst know it, I am an honest man’s wife; and setting thy knighthood aside, thou art a knave to call me so.
SIR JOHN	Setting thy womanhood aside, thou art a beast to say otherwise.
HOSTESS	Say, what beast, thou knave, thou? sIR JOHN What beast? Why, an otter.
PRINCE HARRY	An otter, Sir John? Why an otter?
SIR JOHN	Why? She’s neither fish nor flesh; a man knows not where to have her.
HOSTESS	Thou art an unjust man in saying so. Thou or any man knows where to have me, thou knave, thou.
PRINCE HARRY	Thou sayst true, Hostess, and he slanders thee most grossly.
HOSTESS	So he doth you, my lord, and said this other day you owed him a thousand pound.
PRINCE HARRY	(to Sir John) Sirrah, do I owe you a thousand pound?
SIR JOHN	A thousand pound, Hal? A million! Thy love is worth a million; thou owest me thy love.
HOSTESS	Nay, my lord, he called you ’jack’ and said he would cudgel you.
SIR JOHN	Did I, Russell?
RUSSELL	Indeed, Sir John, you said so.
SIR JOHN	Yea, if he said my ring was copper.
PRINCE HARRY	I say ’tis copper; darest thou be as good as thy word now?
SIR JOHN	Why, Hal, thou knowest as thou art but man I dare, but as thou art prince, I fear thee as I fear the roaring of the lion’s whelp.
PRINCE HARRY	And why not as the lion?
SIR JOHN	The King himself is to be feared as the lion. Dost thou think I’ll fear thee as I fear thy father? Nay, an I do, I pray God my girdle break.
PRINCE HARRY	O, if it should, how would thy guts fall about thy knees! But sirrah, there’s no room for faith, truth, nor honesty in this bosom of thine; it is all filled up with guts and midriff. Charge an honest woman with picking thy pocket? Why, thou whoreson impudent embossed rascal, if there were anything in thy pocket but tavern reckonings, memorandums of bawdy-houses, and one poor pennyworth of sugar-candy to make thee long-winded-if thy pocket were enriched with any other injuries but these, I am a villain. And yet you will stand to it, you will not pocket up wrong. Art thou not ashamed?
SIR JOHN	Dost thou hear, Hal? Thou knowest in the state of innocency Adam fell, and what should poor Jack Oldcastle do in the days of villainy? Thou seest I have more flesh than another man, and therefore more frailty. You confess, then, you picked my pocket.
PRINCE HARRY	It appears so by the story.
SIR JOHN	Hostess, I forgive thee. Go make ready breakfast. Love thy husband, look to thy servants, cherish thy guests. Thou shalt find me tractable to any honest reason; thou seest I am pacified still. Nay, prithee, be gone. Exit Hostess Now, Hal, to the news at court. For the robbery, lad, how is that answered?
PRINCE HARRY	O, my sweet beef, I must still be good angel to thee. The money is paid back again.
SIR JOHN	O, I do not like that paying back; ’tis a double labour. 181
PRINCE HARRY	I am good friends with my father, and may do anything.
SIR JOHN	Rob me the exchequer the first thing thou dost, and do it with unwashed hands too.
RUSSELL	Do, my lord.
PRINCE HARRY	I have procured thee, Jack, a charge of foot.
SIR JOHN	I would it had been of horse ! Where shall I find one that can steal well? O, for a fine thief of the age of two-and-twenty or thereabouts! I am heinously unprovided. Well, God be thanked for these rebels-they offend none but the virtuous. I laud them, I praise them.
PRINCE HARRY	Russell.
RUSSELL	My lord?
PRINCE HARRY	(giving letters) Go bear this letter to Lord John of Lancaster, To my brother John; this to my lord of Westmorland.
(didascalia)	Exit Russell
PRINCE HARRY	Go, Harvey, to horse, to horse, for thou and I Have thirty miles to ride yet ere dinner time.
(didascalia)	Exit Harvey
PRINCE HARRY	Jack, meet me tomorrow in the Temple Hall At two o’clock in the afternoon. There shalt thou know thy charge, and there receive Money and order for their furniture. The land is burning, Percy stands on high, And either we or they must lower lie. Exit
SIR JOHN	Rare words I Brave world! (Calling) Hostess, my breakfast, come!— O, I could wish this tavern were my drum! Exit

Atto 4, Scena 1

Speaker	Line
(didascalia)	Enter Hotspur and the Earls of,Worcester and Douglas
HOTSPUR	Well said, my noble Scot ! If speaking truth In this fine age were not thought flattery, Such attribution should the Douglas have As not a soldier of this season’s stamp Should go so general current through the world. By God, I cannot flatter, I do defy The tongues of soothers, but a braver place In my heart’s love hath no man than yourself. Nay, task me to my word, approve me, lord.
DOUGLAS	Thou art the king of honour. No man so potent breathes upon the ground But I will beard him.
HOTSPUR	Do so, and ’tis well.
(didascalia)	Enter a Messenger with letters
HOTSPUR	What letters hast thou there? I can but thank you.
MESSENGER	These letters come from your father.
HOTSPUR	Letters from him? Why comes he not himself? 15
MESSENGER	He cannot come, my lord, he is grievous sick.
HOTSPUR	Zounds, how has he the leisure to be sick In such a jostling time? Who leads his power? Under whose government come they along?
MESSENGER	His letters bears his mind, not I, my lord. Hotspur reads the letter
WORCESTER	I prithee tell me, doth he keep his bed?
MESSENGER	He did, my lord, four days ere I set forth; And at the time of my departure thence He was much feared by his physicians.
WORCESTER	I would the state of time had first been whole Ere he by sickness had been visited. His health was never better worth than now.
HOTSPUR	Sick now? Droop now? This sickness doth infect The very life-blood of our enterprise. ’Tis catching hither, even to our camp. He writes me here that inward sickness stays him, And that his friends by deputation Could not so soon be drawn; nor did he think it meet To lay so dangerous and dear a trust On any soul removed but on his own. Yet doth he give us bold advertisement That with our small conjunction we should on, To see how fortune is disposed to us; For, as he writes, there is no quailing now, Because the King is certainly possessed 40 Of all our purposes. What say you to it?
WORCESTER	Your father’s sickness is a maim to us.
HOTSPUR	A perilous gash, a very limb lopped off. And yet, in faith, it is not. His present want Seems more than we shall find it. Were it good To set the exact wealth of all our states All at one cast, to set so rich a main On the nice hazard of one doubtful hour? It were not good, for therein should we read The very bottom and the sole of hope, The very list, the very utmost bound, Of all our fortunes.
DOUGLAS	Faith, and so we should, where now remains A sweet reversion—we may boldly spend Upon the hope of what is to come in. A comfort of retirement lives in this.
HOTSPUR	A rendezvous, a home to fly unto, If that the devil and mischance look big Upon the maidenhead of our affairs.
WORCESTER	But yet I would your father had been here. 60 The quality and hair of our attempt Brooks no division. It will be thought By some that know not why he is away That wisdom, loyalty, and mere dislike Of our proceedings kept the Earl from hence; And think how such an apprehension May turn the tide of fearful faction, And breed a kind of question in our cause. For, well you know, we of the off’ring side Must keep aloof from strict arbitrement, And stop all sight-holes, every loop from whence The eye of reason may pry in upon us. This absence of your father’s draws a curtain That shows the ignorant a kind of fear Before not dreamt of.
HOTSPUR	You strain too far. I rather of his absence make this use: It lends a lustre, and more great opinion, A larger dare to our great enterprise, Than if the Earl were here; for men must think If we without his help can make a head 80 To push against a kingdom, with his help We shall o’erturn it topsy-turvy down. Yet all goes well, yet all our joints are whole.
DOUGLAS	As heart can think, there is not such a word Spoke of in Scotland as this term of fear.
(didascalia)	Enter Sir Richard Vernon
HOTSPUR	My cousin Vernon! Welcome, by my soul!
VERNON	Pray God my news be worth a welcome, lord. The Earl of Westmorland, seven thousand strong, Is marching hitherwards; with him Prince John.
HOTSPUR	No harm. What more?
VERNON	And further I have learned The King himself in person is set forth, Or hitherwards intended speedily, With strong and mighty preparation.
HOTSPUR	He shall be welcome too. Where is his son, The nimble-footed madcap Prince of Wales, And his comrades that daffed the world aside And bid it pass?
VERNON	All furnished, all in arms, All plumed like ostriches, that with the wind
(didascalia)
VERNON	Baiting like eagles having lately bathed, Glittering in golden coats like images, As full of spirit as the month of May, And gorgeous as the sun at midsummer; Wanton as youthful goats, wild as young bulls. I saw young Harry with his beaver on, 105 His cuishes on his thighs, gallantly armed, Rise from the ground like feathered Mercury, And vaulted with such ease into his seat As if an angel dropped down from the clouds To turn and wind a fiery Pegasus, 110 And witch the world with noble horsemanship.
HOTSPUR	No more, no more! Worse than the sun in March, This praise doth nourish agues. Let them come! They come like sacrifices in their trim, And to the fire-eyed maid of smoky war 115 All hot and bleeding will we offer them. The mailed Mars shall on his altar sit Up to the ears in blood. I am on fire To hear this rich reprisal is so nigh, And yet not ours! Come, let me taste my horse, Who is to bear me like a thunderbolt Against the bosom of the Prince of Wales. Harry to Harry shall, hot horse to horse, Meet and ne’er part till one drop down a corpse. O, that Glyndwr were come!
VERNON	There is more news. I learned in Worcester, as I rode along, He cannot draw his power this fourteen days.
DOUGLAS	That’s the worst tidings that I hear of yet.
WORCESTER	Ay, by my faith, that bears a frosty sound.
HOTSPUR	What may the King’s whole battle reach unto?
VERNON	To thirty thousand.
HOTSPUR	Forty let it be. My father and Glyndŵr being both away, The powers of us may serve so great a day. Come, let us take a muster speedily. Doomsday is near: die all, die merrily.
DOUGLAS	Talk not of dying; I am out of fear Of death or death’s hand for this one half year.
(didascalia)	Exeunt

Atto 4, Scena 2

Speaker	Line
(didascalia)	Enter Sir John Oldcastle and Russell
SIR JOHN	Russell, get thee before to Coventry; fill me a bottle of sack. Our soldiers shall march through. We’ll to Sutton Coldfield tonight.
RUSSELL	Will you give me money, captain?
SIR JOHN	Lay out, lay out. 5
RUSSELL	This bottle makes an angel.
(didascalia)	SIR JOHN giving Russell money An if it do, take it for thy labour; an if it make twenty, take them all; I’ll answer the coinage. Bid my lieutenant Harvey meet me at town’s end.
RUSSELL	I will, captain. Farewell. Exit
SIR JOHN	If I be not ashamed of my soldiers, I am a soused gurnet. I have misused the King’s press damnably. I have got in exchange of one hundred and fifty soldiers three hundred and odd pounds. I press me none but good householders, yeomen’s sons, enquire me out contracted bachelors, such as had been asked twice on the banns, such a commodity of warm slaves as had as lief hear the devil as a drum, such as fear the report of a caliver worse than a struck fowl or a hurt wild duck. I pressed me none but such toasts and butter, with hearts in their bellies no bigger than pins’ heads, and they have bought out their services; and now my whole charge consists of ensigns, corporals, lieutenants, gentlemen of companies—slaves as ragged as Lazarus in the painted cloth, where the glutton’s dogs licked his sores—and such as indeed were never soldiers, but discarded unjust servingmen, younger sons to younger brothers, revolted tapsters, and ostlers trade-fallen, the cankers of a calm world and a long peace, ten times more dishonourable-ragged than an old feazed ensign; and such have I to fill up the rooms of them as have bought out their services, that you would think that I had a hundred and fifty tattered prodigals lately come from swine-keeping, from eating draff and husks. A mad fellow met me on the way and told me I had unloaded all the gibbets and pressed the dead bodies. No eye hath seen such scarecrows. I’ll not march through Coventry with them, that’s flat. Nay, and the villains march wide betwixt the legs, as if they had gyves on, for indeed I had the most of them out of prison. There’s not a shirt and a half in all my company; and the half-shirt is two napkins tacked together and thrown over the shoulders like a herald’s coat without sleeves; and the shirt, to say the truth, stolen from my host at Saint Albans, or the red-nose innkeeper of Daventry. But that’s all one; they’ll find linen enough on every hedge. 48
(didascalia)	Enter Prince Harry and the Earl of Westmorland
PRINCE HARRY	How now, blown Jack? How now, quilt?
SIR JOHN	What, Hal! How now, mad wag? What a devil dost thou in Warwickshire? My good lord of Westmorland, I cry you mercy! I thought your honour had already been at Shrewsbury.
WESTMORLAND	Faith, Sir John, ’tis more than time that I were there, and you too; but my powers are there already. The King, I can tell you, looks for us all. We must away all night.
SIR JOHN	Tut, never fear me. I am as vigilant as a cat to steal cream.
PRINCE HARRY	I think to steal cream indeed, for thy theft hath already made thee butter. But tell me, Jack, whose fellows are these that come after?
SIR JOHN	Mine, Hal, mine.
PRINCE HARRY	I did never see such pitiful rascals.
SIR JOHN	Tut, tut, good enough to toss, food for powder, food for powder. They’ll fill a pit as well as better. Tush, man, mortal men, mortal men.
WESTMORLAND	Ay, but Sir John, methinks they are exceeding poor and bare, too beggarly.
SIR JOHN	Faith, for their poverty, I know not where they had that, and for their bareness, I am sure they never learned that of me.
PRINCE HARRY	No, I’ll be sworn, unless you call three fingers in the ribs bare. But sirrah, make haste. Percy is already in the field. Exit
SIR JOHN	What, is the King encamped?
(didascalia)	WESTMORLAND He is, Sir John. I fear we shall stay too long. Exit
SIR JOHN	Well, to the latter end of a fray And the beginning of a feast Fits a dull fighter and a keen guest. Exit

Atto 4, Scena 3

Speaker	Line
(didascalia)	Enter Hotspur, the Earls of Worcester and Douglas, and Sir Richard Vernon
HOTSPUR	We’ll fight with him tonight.
WORCESTER	It may not be.
DOUGLAS	You give him then advantage.
VERNON	Not a whit.
HOTSPUR	Why say you so? Looks he not for supply?
VERNON	So do we.
HOTSPUR	His is certain; ours is doubtful.
WORCESTER	Good cousin, be advised. Stir not tonight.
VERNON	(to Hotspur) Do not, my lord.
DOUGLAS	You do not counsel well. You speak it out of fear and cold heart.
VERNON	Do me no slander, Douglas. By my life— And I dare well maintain it with my life— If well-respected honour bid me on, 10 I hold as little counsel with weak fear As you, my lord, or any Scot that this day lives. Let it be seen tomorrow in the battle Which of us fears.
DOUGLAS	Yea, or tonight. 15
VERNON	Content.
HOTSPUR	Tonight, say I.
VERNON	Come, come, it may not be. I wonder much, Being men of such great leading as you are, That you foresee not what impediments Drag back our expedition. Certain horse Of my cousin Vernon’s are not yet come up. Your uncle Worcester’s horse came but today, And now their pride and mettle is asleep, Their courage with hard labour tame and dull, That not a horse is half the half himself.
HOTSPUR	So are the horses of the enemy In general journey-bated and brought low. The better part of ours are full of rest.
WORCESTER	The number of the King exceedeth our. For God’s sake, cousin, stay till all come in. The trumpet sounds a parley [within]. Enter Sir Walter Blunt
BLUNT	I come with gracious offers from the King, If you vouchsafe me hearing and respect.
HOTSPUR	Welcome, Sir Walter Blunt; and would to God You were of our determination. Some of us love you well, and even those some Envy your great deservings and good name, Because you are not of our quality, But stand against us like an enemy.
BLUNT	And God defend but still I should stand so, So long as out of limit and true rule You stand against anointed majesty. But to my charge. The King hath sent to know The nature of your griefs, and whereupon You conjure from the breast of civil peace Such bold hostility, teaching his duteous land Audacious cruelty. If that the King Have any way your good deserts forgot, Which he confesseth to be manifold, He bids you name your griefs, and with all speed You shall have your desires, with interest, And pardon absolute for yourself and these Herein misled by your suggestion.
HOTSPUR	The King is kind, and well we know the King Knows at what time to promise, when to pay. My father and my uncle and myself Did give him that same royalty he wears; And when he was not six-and-twenty strong, Sick in the world’s regard, wretched and low, A poor unminded outlaw sneaking home, My father gave him welcome to the shore; And when he heard him swear and vow to God He came but to be Duke of Lancaster, To sue his livery, and beg his peace With tears of innocency and terms of zeal, My father, in kind heart and pity moved, Swore him assistance, and performed it too. Now when the lords and barons of the realm Perceived Northumberland did lean to him, The more and less came in with cap and knee, Met him in boroughs, cities, villages, Attended him on bridges, stood in lanes, Laid gifts before him, proffered him their oaths, Gave him their heirs as pages, followed him, Even at the heels, in golden multitudes. He presently, as greatness knows itself, Steps me a little higher than his vow Made to my father while his blood was poor Upon the naked shore at Ravenspurgh, And now forsooth takes on him to reform Some certain edicts and some strait decrees That lie too heavy on the commonwealth, Cries out upon abuses, seems to weep Over his country’s wrongs; and by this face, This seeming brow of justice, did he win The hearts of all that he did angle for; Proceeded further, cut me off the heads Of all the favourites that the absent King In deputation left behind him here When he was personal in the Irish war.
BLUNT	Tut, I came not to hear this.
HOTSPUR	Then to the point. In short time after, he deposed the King, Soon after that deprived him of his life, And in the neck of that tasked the whole state; To make that worse, suffered his kinsman March— Who is, if every owner were well placed, Indeed his king—to be engaged in Wales, There without ransom to lie forfeited; Disgraced me in my happy victories, Sought to entrap me by intelligence, 100 Rated mine uncle from the Council-board, In rage dismissed my father from the court, Broke oath on oath, committed wrong on wrong, And in conclusion drove us to seek out This head of safety, and withal to pry 105 Into his title, the which we find Too indirect for long continuance.
BLUNT	Shall I return this answer to the King?
HOTSPUR	Not so, Sir Walter. We’ll withdraw awhile. Go to the King, and let there be impawned 110 Some surety for a safe return again; And in the morning early shall mine uncle Bring him our purposes. And so, farewell.
BLUNT	I would you would accept of grace and love.
HOTSPUR	And maybe so we shall.
BLUNT	Pray God you do.
(didascalia)	Exeunt [Hotspur, Worcester, Douglas, and Vernon at one door, Blunt at another door

Atto 4, Scena 4

Speaker	Line
(didascalia)	Enter the Archbishop of York, and Sir Michael
ARCHBISHOP	(giving letters) Hie, good Sir Michael, bear this sealed brief With winged haste to the Lord Marshal, This to my cousin Scrope, and all the rest To whom they are directed. If you knew How much they do import, you would make haste.
SIR MICHAEL	My good lord, I guess their tenor.
ARCHBISHOP	Like enough you do. Tomorrow, good Sir Michael, is a day Wherein the fortune of ten thousand men Must bide the touch; for, sir, at Shrewsbury, As I am truly given to understand, The King with mighty and quick-raised power Meets with Lord Harry. And I fear, Sir Michael, What with the sickness of Northumberland, Whose power was in the first proportion, 15 And what with Owain Glyndŵr’s absence thence, Who with them was a rated sinew too, And comes not in, overruled by prophecies, I fear the power of Percy is too weak To wage an instant trial with the King.
SIR MICHAEL	Why, my good lord, you need not fear; there is Douglas And Lord Mortimer.
ARCHBISHOP	No, Mortimer is not there.
SIR MICHAEL	But there is Mordake, Vernon, Lord Harry Percy; And there is my lord of Worcester, and a head Of gallant warriors, noble gentlemen.
ARCHBISHOP	And so there is; but yet the King hath drawn The special head of all the land together— The Prince of Wales, Lord John of Lancaster, The noble Westmorland, and warlike Blunt, And many more corrivals, and dear men Of estimation and command in arms.
SIR MICHAEL	Doubt not, my lord, they shall be well opposed.
ARCHBISHOP	I hope no less, yet needful ’tis to fear; And to prevent the worst, Sir Michael, speed. For if Lord Percy thrive not, ere the King Dismiss his power he means to visit us, For he hath heard of our confederacy, And ’tis but wisdom to make strong against him; Therefore make haste. I must go write again To other friends; and so farewell, Sir Michael.
(didascalia)	Exeunt
(didascalia)	severally

Atto 5, Scena 1

Speaker	Line
(didascalia)	Enter King Henry, Prince Harry, Lord John of Lancaster, the Earl of Westmorland, Sir Walter Blunt, and Sir John Oldcastle
KING HENRY	How bloodily the sun begins to peer Above yon bulky hill! The day looks pale At his distemp’rature.
PRINCE HARRY	The southern wind Doth play the trumpet to his purposes, And by his hollow whistling in the leaves 5 Foretells a tempest and a blust’ring day.
KING HENRY	Then with the losers let it sympathize, For nothing can seem foul to those that win. The trumpet sounds
(didascalia)	a parley within. Enter the Earl of Worcester
(didascalia)	and Sir Richard Vernon
KING HENRY	How now, my lord of Worcester? ’Tis not well That you and I should meet upon such terms 10 As now we meet. You have deceived our trust, And made us doff our easy robes of peace To crush our old limbs in ungentle steel. This is not well, my lord, this is not well. What say you to it? Will you again unknit 15 This churlish knot of all-abhorred war, And move in that obedient orb again Where you did give a fair and natural light, And be no more an exhaled meteor, A prodigy of fear, and a portent Of broached mischief to the unborn times?
WORCESTER	Hear me, my liege. For mine own part, I could be well content To entertain the lag-end of my life With quiet hours; for I protest, 25 I have not sought the day of this dislike.
KING HENRY	You have not sought it? How comes it, then?
SIR JOHN	Rebellion lay in his way, and he found it.
PRINCE HARRY	Peace, chewet, peace!
WORCESTER	(to the King) It pleased your majesty to turn your looks Of favour from myself and all our house; And yet I must remember you, my lord, We were the first and dearest of your friends. For you my staff of office did I break In Richard’s time, and posted day and night To meet you on the way and kiss your hand When yet you were in place and in account Nothing so strong and fortunate as I. It was myself, my brother, and his son That brought you home, and boldly did outdare The dangers of the time. You swore to us, And you did swear that oath at Doncaster, That you did nothing purpose ‘gainst the state, Nor claim no further than your new-fall’n right, The seat of Gaunt, dukedom of Lancaster. To this we swore our aid, but in short space It rained down fortune show’ring on your head, And such a flood of greatness fell on you, What with our help, what with the absent King, What with the injuries of a wanton time, The seeming sufferances that you had borne, And the contrarious winds that held the King So long in his unlucky Irish wars That all in England did repute him dead; And from this swarm of fair advantages You took occasion to be quickly wooed To gripe the general sway into your hand, Forgot your oath to us at Doncaster, And being fed by us, you used us so As that ungentle gull, the cuckoo’s bird, Useth the sparrow—did oppress our nest, Grew by our feeding to so great a bulk That even our love durst not come near your sight For fear of swallowing. But with nimble wing We were enforced for safety’ sake to fly 65 Out of your sight, and raise this present head, Whereby we stand opposed by such means As you yourself have forged against yourself, By unkind usage, dangerous countenance, And violation of all faith and troth Sworn to us in your younger enterprise.
KING HENRY	These things indeed you have articulate, Proclaimed at market crosses, read in churches, To face the garment of rebellion With some fine colour that may please the eye Of fickle changelings and poor discontents, Which gape and rub the elbow at the news Of hurly-burly innovation; And never yet did insurrection want Such water-colours to impaint his cause, Nor moody beggars starving for a time Of pell-mell havoc and confusion.
PRINCE HARRY	In both our armies there is many a soul Shall pay full dearly for this encounter If once they join in trial. Tell your nephew The Prince of Wales doth join with all the world In praise of Henry Percy. By my hopes, This present enterprise set off his head, I do not think a braver gentleman, More active-valiant or more valiant-young, More daring, or more bold, is now alive To grace this latter age with noble deeds. For my part, I may speak it to my shame, I have a truant been to chivalry; And so I hear he doth account me too. Yet this, before my father’s majesty: I am content that he shall take the odds Of his great name and estimation, And will, to save the blood on either side, Try fortune with him in a single fight.
KING HENRY	And, Prince of Wales, so dare we venture thee, Albeit considerations infinite Do make against it. No, good Worcester, no. We love our people well; even those we love That are misled upon your cousin’s part; 105 And will they take the offer of our grace, Both he and they and you, yea, every man Shall be my friend again, and I’ll be his. So tell your cousin, and bring me word What he will do. But if he will not yield, Rebuke and dread correction wait on us, And they shall do their office. So be gone. We will not now be troubled with reply. We offer fair; take it advisedly.
(didascalia)	Exeunt Worcester [and Vernon]
PRINCE HARRY	It will not be accepted, on my life. The Douglas and the Hotspur both together Are confident against the world in arms.
KING HENRY	Hence, therefore, every leader to his charge, For on their answer will we set on them, And God befriend us as our cause is just!
(didascalia)	Exeunt all but Prince Harry and Oldcastle
SIR JOHN	Hal, if thou see me down in the battle, and bestride me, so. ’Tis a point of friendship.
PRINCE HARRY	Nothing but a colossus can do thee that friendship. Say thy prayers, and farewell.
SIR JOHN	I would ’twere bed-time, Hal, and all well.
PRINCE HARRY	Why, thou owest God a death. Exit
SIR JOHN	‘Tis not due yet. I would be loath to pay him before his day. What need I be so forward with him that calls not on me? Well, ’tis no matter; honour pricks me on. Yea, but how if honour prick me off when I come on? How then? Can honour set-to a leg? No. Or an arm? No. Or take away the grief of a wound? No. Honour hath no skill in surgery, then? No. What is honour? A word. What is in that word ‘honour’? What is that ‘honour’ ? Air. A trim reckoning! Who hath it? He that died o’ Wednesday. Doth he feel it? No. Doth he hear it? No. ’Tis insensible then? Yea, to the dead. But will it not live with the living? No. Why? Detraction will not suffer it. Therefore I’ll none of it. Honour is a mere scutcheon. And so ends my catechism.
(didascalia)	Exit

Atto 5, Scena 2

Speaker	Line
(didascalia)	Enter the Earl of Worcester and Sir Richard Vernon
WORCESTER	O no, my nephew must not know, Sir Richard, The liberal and kind offer of the King.
VERNON	’Twere best he did.
WORCESTER	Then are we all undone. It is not possible, it cannot be, The King should keep his word in loving us. He will suspect us still, and find a time To punish this offence in other faults. Supposition all our lives shall be stuck full of eyes, For treason is but trusted like the fox, Who, ne‘er so tame, so cherished, and locked up, Will have a wild trick of his ancestors. Look how we can, or sad or merrily, Interpretation will misquote our looks, And we shall feed like oxen at a stall, The better cherished still the nearer death. My nephew’s trespass may be well forgot; It hath the excuse of youth and heat of blood, And an adopted name of privilege— A hare-brained Hotspur, governed by a spleen. All his offences live upon my head, And on his father’s. We did train him on, And, his corruption being ta’en from us, We as the spring of all shall pay for all. Therefore, good cousin, let not Harry know In any case the offer of the King.
VERNON	Deliver what you will; I’ll say ’tis so.
(didascalia)	Enter Hotspur and the Earl of Douglas
VERNON	Here comes your cousin.
HOTSPUR	My uncle is returned. Deliver up my lord of Westmorland. Uncle, what news?
WORCESTER	The King will bid you battle presently.
DOUGLAS	Defy him by the Lord of Westmorland.
HOTSPUR	Lord Douglas, go you and tell him so.
DOUGLAS	Marry, and shall, and very willingly. Exit
WORCESTER	There is no seeming mercy in the King.
HOTSPUR	Did you beg any? God forbid!
WORCESTER	I told him gently of our grievances, Of his oath-breaking, which he mended thus: By now forswearing that he is forsworn. He calls us ‘rebels’, ‘traitors’, and will scourge With haughty arms this hateful name in us.
(didascalia)	Enter the Earl of Douglas
DOUGLAS	Arm, gentlemen, to arms, for I have thrown A brave defiance in King Henry’s teeth- And Westmorland that was engaged did bear it— Which cannot choose but bring him quickly on.
WORCESTER	(to Hotspur) The Prince of Wales stepped forth before the King And, nephew, challenged you to single fight.
HOTSPUR	O, would the quarrel lay upon our heads, And that no man might draw short breath today But I and Harry Monmouth ! Tell me, tell me, How showed his tasking? Seemed it in contempt?
VERNON	No, by my soul, I never in my life Did hear a challenge urged more modestly, Unless a brother should a brother dare To gentle exercise and proof of arms. He gave you all the duties of a man, Trimmed up your praises with a princely tongue, Spoke your deservings like a chronicle, Making you ever better than his praise By still dispraising praise valued with you; And, which became him like a prince indeed, He made a blushing cital of himself, And chid his truant youth with such a grace As if he mastered there a double spirit Of teaching and of learning instantly. There did he pause; but let me tell the world, If he outlive the envy of this day, England did never owe so sweet a hope, So much misconstrued in his wantonness.
HOTSPUR	Cousin, I think thou art enamoured On his follies. Never did I hear Of any prince so wild a liberty. But be he as he will, yet once ere night I will embrace him with a soldier’s arm, That he shall shrink under my courtesy. Arm, arm, with speed! And fellows, soldiers, friends, Better consider what you have to do Than I, that have not well the gift of tongue, Can lift your blood up with persuasion.
(didascalia)	Enter a Messenger
MESSENGER	My lord, here are letters for you.
HOTSPUR	I cannot read them now. [Exit Messenger] O gentlemen, the time of life is short. To spend that shortness basely were too long If life did ride upon a dial’s point, Still ending at the arrival of an hour. An if we live, we live to tread on kings; If die, brave death when princes die with us! Now for our consciences: the arms are fair When the intent of bearing them is just.
(didascalia)	Enter another Messenger
MESSENGER	My lord, prepare; the King comes on apace. [Exit]
HOTSPUR	I thank him that he cuts me from my tale, For I profess not talking, only this: Let each man do his best. And here draw I A sword whose temper I intend to stain With the best blood that I can meet withal In the adventure of this perilous day. Now Esperance! Percy! And set on!
(didascalia)	Sound all the lofty instruments of war,
HOTSPUR	And by that music let us all embrace, For, heaven to earth, some of us never shall A second time do such a courtesy. The trumpets sound. Here they embrace. Exeunt

Atto 5, Scena 3

Speaker	Line
(didascalia)	King Henry enters with his power. Alarum, and exeunt to the battle. Then enter the Earl of Douglas, and Sir Walter Blunt, disguised as the King
BLUNT	What is thy name, that in the battle thus Thou crossest me? What honour dost thou seek Upon my head?
DOUGLAS	Know then my name is Douglas, And I do haunt thee in the battle thus Because some tell me that thou art a king.
BLUNT	They tell thee true.
DOUGLAS	The Lord of Stafford dear today hath bought Thy likeness, for instead of thee, King Harry, This sword hath ended him. So shall it thee, Unless thou yield thee as my prisoner.
BLUNT	I was not born a yielder, thou proud Scot, And thou shalt find a king that will revenge Lord Stafford’s death. They fight. Douglas kills Blunt. Then enter Hotspur
HOTSPUR	O Douglas, hadst thou fought at Holmedon thus, I never had triumphed upon a Scot.
DOUGLAS	All’s done, all’s won: here breathless lies the King.
HOTSPUR	Where?
DOUGLAS	Here.
HOTSPUR	This, Douglas? No, I know this face full well. A gallant knight he was; his name was Blunt— Semblably furnished like the King himself.
DOUGLAS	(to Blunt’s body) A fool go with thy soul, whither it goes ! A borrowed title hast thou bought too dear. Why didst thou tell me that thou wert a king?
HOTSPUR	The king hath many marching in his coats.
DOUGLAS	Now by my sword, I will kill all his coats. I’ll murder all his wardrobe, piece by piece, Until I meet the King.
HOTSPUR	Up and away! Our soldiers stand full fairly for the day.
(didascalia)	Exeunt, leaving Blunt’s body
(didascalia)	Alarum. Enter Sir John Oldcastle
SIR JOHN	Though I could scape shot-free at London, I fear the shot here. Here’s no scoring but upon the pate.—Soft, who are you?—Sir Walter Blunt. There’s honour for you. Here’s no vanity. I am as hot as molten lead, and as heavy too. God keep lead out of me; I need no more weight than mine own bowels. I have led my ragamuffins where they are peppered; there’s not three of my hundred and fifty left alive, and they are for the town’s end, to beg during life.
(didascalia)	Enter Prince Harry
SIR JOHN	But who comes here?
PRINCE HARRY	What, stand’st thou idle here? Lend me thy sword. Many a noble man lies stark and stiff Under the hoofs of vaunting enemies, Whose deaths as yet are unrevenged. I prithee Lend me thy sword.
SIR JOHN	O Hal, I prithee give me leave to breathe awhile. Turk Gregory never did such deeds in arms As I have done this day. I have paid Percy, I have made him sure.
PRINCE HARRY	He is indeed, And living to kill thee. I prithee Lend me thy sword.
SIR JOHN	Nay, before God, Hal, If Percy be alive thou gett’st not my sword; But take my pistol if thou wilt.
PRINCE HARRY	Give it me. What, is it in the case?
SIR JOHN	Ay, Hal; ’Tis hot, ’tis hot. There’s that will sack a city. The Prince draws it out, and finds it to be a bottle of sack
PRINCE HARRY	What, is it a time to jest and dally now? He throws the bottle at him. Exit
SIR JOHN	Well, if Percy be alive, I’ll pierce him. If he do come in my way, so; if he do not, if I come in his willingly, let him make a carbonado of me. I like not such grinning honour as Sir Walter hath. Give me life, which if I can save, so; if not, honour comes unlocked for, and there’s an end. Exit [with Blunt’s body]

Atto 5, Scena 4

Speaker	Line
(didascalia)	Alarum. Excursions. Enter King Henry, Prince Harry, wounded, Lord John of Lancaster, and the Earl of Westmorland
KING HENRY	I prithee, Harry, withdraw thyself, thou bleed’st too much. Lord John of Lancaster, go you with him.
JOHN OF LANCASTER	Not I, my lord, unless I did bleed too.
PRINCE HARRY	(to the King) I beseech your majesty, make up, Lest your retirement do amaze your friends.
KING HENRY	I will do so. My lord of Westmorland, Lead him to his tent.
WESTMORLAND	(to the Prince) Come, my lord, I’ll lead you to your tent.
PRINCE HARRY	Lead me, my lord? I do not need your help, And God forbid a shallow scratch should drive The Prince of Wales from such a field as this, Where stained nobility lies trodden on, And rebels’ arms triumph in massacres.
JOHN OF LANCASTER	We breathe too long. Come, cousin Westmorland, Our duty this way lies. For God’s sake, come.
(didascalia)	Exeunt Lancaster and Westmorland
PRINCE HARRY	By God, thou hast deceived me, Lancaster; I did not think thee lord of such a spirit. Before I loved thee as a brother, John, But now I do respect thee as my soul.
KING HENRY	I saw him hold Lord Percy at the point With lustier maintenance than I did look for Of such an ungrown warrior.
PRINCE HARRY	O, this boy lends mettle to us all! Exit
(didascalia)	Enter the Earl of Douglas
DOUGLAS	Another king! They grow like Hydra’s heads. I am the Douglas, fatal to all those That wear those colours on them. What art thou That counterfeit’st the person of a king?
KING HENRY	The King himself, who, Douglas, grieves at heart So many of his shadows thou hast met And not the very King. I have two boys Seek Percy and thyself about the field; But seeing thou fall’st on me so luckily, I will assay thee; and defend thyself.
DOUGLAS	I fear thou art another counterfeit; And yet, in faith, thou bear’st thee like a king. But mine I am sure thou art, whoe’er thou be, And thus I win thee. They fight. The King being in danger, enter Prince Harry
PRINCE HARRY	Hold up thy head, vile Scot, or thou art like Never to hold it up again. The spirits Of valiant Shirley, Stafford, Blunt, are in my arms. It is the Prince of Wales that threatens thee, Who never promiseth but he means to pay. They fight. Douglas flieth Cheerly, my lord! How fares your grace? Sir Nicholas Gawsey hath for succour sent, And so hath Clifton. I’ll to Clifton straight.
KING HENRY	Stay and breathe awhile. Thou hast redeemed thy lost opinion, And showed thou mak’st some tender of my life, In this fair rescue thou hast brought to me.
PRINCE HARRY	O God, they did me too much injury That ever said I hearkened for your death. If it were so, I might have let alone The insulting hand of Douglas over you, Which would have been as speedy in your end As all the poisonous potions in the world, And saved the treacherous labour of your son.
KING HENRY	Make up to Clifton; I’ll to Sir Nicholas Gawsey. Exit
(didascalia)	Enter Hotspur
HOTSPUR	If I mistake not, thou art Harry Monmouth.
PRINCE HARRY	Thou speak’st as if I would deny my name.
HOTSPUR	My name is Harry Percy.
PRINCE HARRY	Why then, I see A very valiant rebel of the name. I am the Prince of Wales; and think not, Percy, To share with me in glory any more. Two stars keep not their motion in one sphere, Nor can one England brook a double reign Of Harry Percy and the Prince of Wales.
HOTSPUR	Nor shall it, Harry, for the hour is come To end the one of us, and would to God Thy name in arms were now as great as mine.
PRINCE HARRY	I’ll make it greater ere I part from thee, And all the budding honours on thy crest I’ll crop to make a garland for my head.
HOTSPUR	I can no longer brook thy vanities. They fight.
(didascalia)	Enter Sir John Oldcastle
SIR JOHN	Well said, Hal! To it, Hal! Nay, you shall find no boy’s play here, I can tell you.
(didascalia)	Enter Douglas. He fighteth with Sir John, who falls down as if he were dead. Exit Douglas. The Prince killeth Hotspur
HOTSPUR	O Harry, thou hast robbed me of my youth. I better brook the loss of brittle life Than those proud titles thou hast won of me. They wound my thoughts worse than thy sword my flesh. But thoughts, the slaves of life, and life, time’s fool, And time, that takes survey of all the world, Must have a stop. O, I could prophesy, But that the earthy and cold hand of death Lies on my tongue. No, Percy, thou art dust, And food for—He dies
PRINCE HARRY	For worms, brave Percy. Fare thee well, great heart. Ill-weaved ambition, how much art thou shrunk! When that this body did contain a spirit, A kingdom for it was too small a bound, But now two paces of the vilest earth Is room enough. This earth that bears thee dead Bears not alive so stout a gentleman. If thou wert sensible of courtesy, I should not make so dear a show of zeal; But let my favours hide thy mangled face, He covers Hotspur’s face And even in thy behalf I’ll thank myself For doing these fair rites of tenderness. Adieu, and take thy praise with thee to heaven. Thy ignominy sleep with thee in the grave, But not remembered in thy epitaph. He spieth Sir John on the ground What, old acquaintance! Could not all this flesh Keep in a little life ? Poor Jack, farewell. I could have better spared a better man. O, I should have a heavy miss of thee, If I were much in love with vanity. Death hath not struck so fat a deer today, Though many dearer in this bloody fray. Embowelled will I see thee by and by. Till then, in blood by noble Percy lie. Exit Sir John riseth up
SIR JOHN	Embowelled? If thou embowel me today, I’ll give you leave to powder me, and eat me too, tomorrow. ’Sblood, ’twas time to counterfeit, or that hot termagant Scot had paid me, scot and lot too. Counterfeit? I lie, I am no counterfeit. To die is to be a counterfeit, for he is but the counterfeit of a man who hath not the life of a man. But to counterfeit dying when a man thereby liveth is to be no counterfeit, but the true and perfect image of life indeed. The better part of valour is discretion, in the which better part I have saved my life. Zounds, I am afraid of this gunpowder Percy, though he be dead. How if he should counterfeit too, and rise ? By my faith, I am afraid he would prove the better counterfeit. Therefore I’ll make him sure; yea, and I’ll swear I killed him. Why may not he rise as well as I? Nothing confutes me but eyes, and nobody sees me. Therefore, sirrah, (stabbing Hotspur) with a new wound in your thigh, come you along with me. He takes up Hotspur on his back.
(didascalia)	Enter Prince Harry and Lord John of Lancaster
PRINCE HARRY	Come, brother John. Full bravely hast thou fleshed Thy maiden sword.
JOHN OF LANCASTER	But soft; whom have we here? Did you not tell me this fat man was dead?
PRINCE HARRY	I did; I saw him dead, Breathless and bleeding on the ground. (To Sir John) Art thou alive? Or is it fantasy that plays upon our eyesight? I prithee speak; we will not trust our eyes Without our ears. Thou art not what thou seem’st.
SIR JOHN	No, that’s certain: I am not a double man. But if I be not Jack Oldcastle, then am I a jack. There is Percy. If your father will do me any honour, so; if not, let him kill the next Percy himself. I look to be either earl or duke, I can assure you.
PRINCE HARRY	Why, Percy I killed myself, and saw thee dead.
SIR JOHN	Didst thou ? Lord, Lord, how this world is given to lying! I grant you I was down and out of breath, and so was he; but we rose both at an instant, and fought a long hour by Shrewsbury clock. If I may be believed, so; if not, let them that should reward valour bear the sin upon their own heads. I’ll take’t on my death I gave him this wound in the thigh. If the man were alive and would deny it, zounds, I would make him eat a piece of my sword.
JOHN OF LANCASTER	This is the strangest tale that e’er I heard.
PRINCE HARRY	This is the strangest fellow, brother John. (To Sir John) Come, bring your luggage nobly on your back. For my part, if a lie may do thee grace, I’ll gild it with the happiest terms I have. A retreat is sounded The trumpet sounds retreat; the day is our. Come, brother, let us to the highest of the field To see what friends are living, who are dead.
(didascalia)	Exeunt the Prince and Lancaster
SIR JOHN	I’ll follow, as they say, for reward. He that rewards me, God reward him. If I do grow great, I’ll grow less; for I’ll purge, and leave sack, and live cleanly, as a nobleman should do.
(didascalia)	Exit, bearing Hotspur’s body

Atto 5, Scena 5

Speaker	Line
(didascalia)	The trumpets sound. Enter King Henry, Prince Harry, Lord John of Lancaster, the Earl of Westmorland, with the Earl of Worcester and Sir Richard Vernon, prisoners, and soldier
KING HENRY	Thus ever did rebellion find rebuke. Ill-spirited Worcester, did not we send grace, Pardon, and terms of love to all of you ? And wouldst thou turn our offers contrary, Misuse the tenor of thy kinsman’s trust? Three knights upon our party slain today, A noble earl, and many a creature else, Had been alive this hour If like a Christian thou hadst truly borne Betwixt our armies true intelligence.
WORCESTER	What I have done my safety urged me to, And I embrace this fortune patiently, Since not to be avoided it falls on me.
KING HENRY	Bear Worcester to the death, and Vernon too. Other offenders we will pause upon.
(didascalia)	Exeunt Worcester and Vernon, guarded
KING HENRY	How goes the field?
PRINCE HARRY	The noble Scot Lord Douglas, when he saw The fortune of the day quite turned from him, The noble Percy slain, and all his men Upon the foot of fear, fled with the rest; And falling from a hill he was so bruised That the pursuers took him. At my tent The Douglas is, and I beseech your grace I may dispose of him.
KING HENRY	With all my heart.
PRINCE HARRY	Then, brother John of Lancaster, To you this honourable bounty shall belong. Go to the Douglas, and deliver him Up to his pleasure ransomless and free. His valours shown upon our crests today Have taught us how to cherish such high deeds Even in the bosom of our adversaries.
JOHN OF LANCASTER	I thank your grace for this high courtesy, Which I shall give away immediately.
KING HENRY	Then this remains, that we divide our power. You, son John, and my cousin Westmorland, Towards York shall bend you with your dearest speed To meet Northumberland and the prelate Scrope, Who, as we hear, are busily in arms. Myself and you, son Harry, will towards Wales, To fight with Glyndwr and the Earl of March. Rebellion in this land shall lose his sway, Meeting the check of such another day; And since this business so fair is done, Let us not leave till all our own be won.
(didascalia)	Exeunt [the King, the Prince, and their power at one door, Lancaster, Westmorland, and their power at another door]
THE MERRY WIVES OF	WINDSOR A LEGEND dating from 1702 claims that Shakespeare wrote The Merry Wives of Windsor in fourteen days and by command of Queen Elizabeth; in 1709 she was said to have wished particularly to see Falstaff in love. Whether or not this is true, a passage towards the end of the play alluding directly to the ceremonies of the Order of the Garter, Britain’s highest order of chivalry, encourages the belief that the play has a direct connection with a specific occasion. In 1597 George Carey, Lord Hunsdon, Lord Chamberlain and patron of Shakespeare’s company, was installed at Windsor as a Knight of the Garter. The Queen was not present at the installation but had attended the Garter Feast at the Palace of Westminster on St George’s Day (23 April). Shakespeare’s play was probably performed in association with this occasion, and may have been written especially for it. It was first printed, in a corrupt text, in 1602; a better text appears in the 1623 Folio. Some of the characters—Sir John Falstaff, Mistress Quickly, Pistol, Nim, Justice Shallow—appear also in I and 2 Henry IV and Henry V, but in spite of a reference to ’the wild Prince and Poins’ at 3.2.66-7, this is essentially an Elizabethan comedy, the only one that Shakespeare set firmly in England. The play is full of details that would have been familiar to Elizabethan Londoners, and the language is colloquial and up to date. The plot, however, is made up of conventional situations whose ancestry is literary rather than realistic. There are many analogues to Shakespeare’s basic plot situations in medieval and other tales, some in books that he probably or certainly knew. The central story, of Sir John’s unsuccessful attempts to seduce Mistress Page and Mistress Ford, and of Master Ford’s unfounded jealousy, is in the tradition of the Italian novella, and may have been suggested by Ser Giovanni Fiorentino’s II Pecorone (1558). Alongside it Shakespeare places the comical but finally romantic love story of Anne Page, wooed by the foolish but rich Abraham Slender and the irascible French Doctor Caius, but won by the young and handsome Fenton. The play contains a higher proportion of prose to verse than any other play by Shakespeare, and the action is often broadly comic; but it ends, after the midnight scene in Windsor Forest during which Sir John is frightened out of his lechery, in forgiveness and love. The Merry Wives of Windsor is known to have been acted for James I on 4 November 1604, and for Charles I in 1638. It was revived soon after the theatres reopened, in 1660; at first it was not particularly popular, but since 1720 it has consistently pleased audiences. Many artists have illustrated it, and it forms the basis for a number of operas, including Otto Nicolai’s Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor (1849) and Giuseppe Verdi’s comic masterpiece, Falstaff (1893).
THE PERSONS OF THE	PLAY

Speaker	Line
(didascalia)	Enter King Henry, Lord John of Lancaster, and the Earl of Westmorland, with other lords
KING HENRY	So shaken as we are, so wan with care, Find we a time for frighted peace to pant And breathe short-winded accents of new broils To be commenced in strands afar remote. No more the thirsty entrance of this soil Shall daub her lips with her own children’s blood. No more shall trenching war channel her fields, Nor bruise her flow‘rets with the armed hoofs Of hostile paces. Those opposed eyes, Which, like the meteors of a troubled heaven, All of one nature, of one substance bred, Did lately meet in the intestine shock And furious close of civil butchery, Shall now in mutual well-beseeming ranks March all one way, and be no more opposed Against acquaintance, kindred, and allies. The edge of war, like an ill-sheathèd knife, No more shall cut his master. Therefore, friends, As far as to the sepulchre of Christ— Whose soldier now, under whose blessèd cross We are impressèd and engaged to fight— Forthwith a power of English shall we levy, Whose arms were moulded in their mothers’ womb To chase these pagans in those holy fields Over whose acres walked those blessed feet Which fourteen hundred years ago were nailed, For our advantage, on the bitter cross. But this our purpose now is twelve month old, And bootless ’tis to tell you we will go. Therefor we meet not now. Then let me hear Of you, my gentle cousin Westmorland, What yesternight our Council did decree In forwarding this dear expedience.
WESTMORLAND	My liege, this haste was hot in question, And many limits of the charge set down But yesternight, when all athwart there came A post from Wales, loaden with heavy news, Whose worst was that the noble Mortimer, Leading the men of Herefordshire to fight Against the irregular and wild Glyndwr, Was by the rude hands of that Welshman taken, A thousand of his people butcherèd, Upon whose dead corpse’ there was such misuse, Such beastly shameless transformation, By those Welshwomen done as may not be Without much shame retold or spoken of.
KING HENRY	It seems then that the tidings of this broil Brake off our business for the Holy Land.
WESTMORLAND	This matched with other did, my gracious lord, For more uneven and unwelcome news Came from the north, and thus it did import: On Holy-rood day the gallant Hotspur there— Young Harry Percy—and brave Archibald, That ever valiant and approvèd Scot, At Holmedon met, Where they did spend a sad and bloody hour, As by discharge of their artillery And shape of likelihood the news was told; For he that brought them in the very heat And pride of their contention did take horse, Uncertain of the issue any way.
KING HENRY	Here is a dear, a true industrious friend, Sir Walter Blunt, new lighted from his horse, Stained with the variation of each soil Betwixt that Holmedon and this seat of ours; And he hath brought us smooth and welcome news. The Earl of Douglas is discomfited. Ten thousand bold Scots, two-and-twenty knights, Balked in their own blood did Sir Walter see On Holmedon’s plains. Of prisoners Hotspur took Mordake the Earl of Fife and eldest son To beaten Douglas, and the Earl of Athol, Of Moray, Angus, and Menteith; And is not this an honourable spoil, A gallant prize? Ha, cousin, is it not?
WESTMORLAND	In faith, it is a conquest for a prince to boast of.
KING HENRY	Yea, there thou mak‘st me sad, and mak’st me sin In envy that my lord Northumberland Should be the father to so blest a son— A son who is the theme of honour’s tongue, Amongst a grove the very straightest plant, Who is sweet Fortune’s minion and her pride— Whilst I by looking on the praise of him See riot and dishonour stain the brow Of my young Harry. O, that it could be proved That some night-tripping fairy had exchanged In cradle clothes our children where they lay, And called mine Percy, his Plantagenet! Then would I have his Harry, and he mine. But let him from my thoughts. What think you, coz, Of this young Percy’s pride? The prisoners Which he in this adventure hath surprised To his own use he keeps, and sends me word I shall have none but Mordake Earl of Fife.
WESTMORLAND	This is his uncle’s teaching. This is Worcester, Malevolent to you in all aspects, Which makes him prune himself, and bristle up The crest of youth against your dignity.
KING HENRY	But I have sent for him to answer this; And for this cause awhile we must neglect Our holy purpose to Jerusalem. Cousin, on Wednesday next our Council we Will hold at Windsor. So inform the lords. But come yourself with speed to us again, For more is to be said and to be done Than out of anger can be uttered.
WESTMORLAND	I will, my liege.
(didascalia)	Exeunt King Henry, Lancaster, and other lords at one door; Westmorland at another door

Speaker	Line
(didascalia)	Enter Harry Prince of Wales and Sir John Oldcastle SIR JOHN Now, Hal, what time of day is it, lad?
PRINCE HARRY	Thou art so fat-witted with drinking of old sack, and unbuttoning thee after supper, and sleeping upon benches after noon, that thou hast forgotten to demand that truly which thou wouldst truly know. What a devil hast thou to do with the time of the day? Unless hours were cups of sack, and minutes capons, and clocks the tongues of bawds, and dials the signs of leaping-houses, and the blessed sun himself a fair hot wench in flame-coloured taffeta, I see no reason why thou shouldst be so superfluous to demand the time of the day.
SIR JOHN	Indeed you come near me now, Hal, for we that take purses go by the moon and the seven stars, and not ‘By Phoebus, he, that wand’ring knight so fair’. And I prithee, sweet wag, when thou art a king, as God save thy grace—‘majesty’ I should say, for grace thou wilt have none—
PRINCE HARRY	What, none?
SIR JOHN	No, by my troth, not so much as will serve to be prologue to an egg and butter.
PRINCE HARRY	Well, how then? Come, roundly, roundly.
SIR JOHN	Marry then, sweet wag, when thou art king let not us that are squires of the night’s body be called thieves of the day’s beauty. Let us be ‘Diana’s foresters’, ‘gentlemen of the shade’, ‘minions of the moon’, and let men say we be men of good government, being governed, as the sea is, by our noble and chaste mistress the moon, under whose countenance we steal.
PRINCE HARRY	Thou sayst well, and it holds well too, for the fortune of us that are the moon’s men doth ebb and flow like the sea, being governed as the sea is by the moon. As for proof now: a purse of gold most resolutely snatched on Monday night, and most dissolutely spent on Tuesday morning; got with swearing ‘lay by!’, and spent with crying ‘bring in!’; now in as low an ebb as the foot of the ladder, and by and by in as high a flow as the ridge of the gallows.
SIR JOHN	By the Lord, thou sayst true, lad; and is not my Hostess of the tavern a most sweet wench?
PRINCE HARRY	As the honey of Hybla, my old lad of the castle; and is not a buff jerkin a most sweet robe of durance?
SIR JOHN	How now, how now, mad wag? What, in thy quips and thy quiddities? What a plague have I to do with a buff jerkin?
PRINCE HARRY	Why, what a pox have I to do with my Hostess of the tavern?
SIR JOHN	Well, thou hast called her to a reckoning many a time and oft.
PRINCE HARRY	Did I ever call for thee to pay thy part?
SIR JOHN	No, I’ll give thee thy due, thou hast paid all there.
PRINCE HARRY	Yea, and elsewhere so far as my coin would stretch; and where it would not, I have used my credit.
SIR JOHN	Yea, and so used it that were it not here apparent that thou art heir apparent—but I prithee, sweet wag, shall there be gallows standing in England when thou art king, and resolution thus fubbed as it is with the rusty curb of old father Antic the law? Do not thou when thou art king hang a thief.
PRINCE HARRY	No, thou shalt.
SIR JOHN	Shall I? O, rare! By the Lord, I’ll be a brave judge!
PRINCE HARRY	Thou judgest false already. I mean thou shalt have the hanging of the thieves, and so become a rare hangman.
SIR JOHN	Well, Hal, well; and in some sort it jumps with my humour as well as waiting in the court, I can tell you.
PRINCE HARRY	For obtaining of suits?
SIR JOHN	Yea, for obtaining of suits, whereof the hangman hath no lean wardrobe. ’Sblood, I am as melancholy as a gib cat, or a lugged bear.
PRINCE HARRY	Or an old lion, or a lover’s lute.
SIR JOHN	Yea, or the drone of a Lincolnshire bagpipe.
PRINCE HARRY	What sayst thou to a hare, or the melancholy of Moor-ditch?
SIR JOHN	Thou hast the most unsavoury similes, and art indeed the most comparative, rascalliest sweet young Prince. But Hal, I prithee trouble me no more with vanity. I would to God thou and I knew where a commodity of good names were to be bought. An old lord of the Council rated me the other day in the street about you, sir, but I marked him not; and yet he talked very wisely, but I regarded him not; and yet he talked wisely, and in the street too.
PRINCE HARRY	Thou didst well, for wisdom cries out in the streets, and no man regards it.
SIR JOHN	O, thou hast damnable iteration, and art indeed able to corrupt a saint. Thou hast done much harm upon me, Hal, God forgive thee for it. Before I knew thee, Hal, I knew nothing; and now am I, if a man should speak truly, little better than one of the wicked. I must give over this life, and I will give it over. By the Lord, an I do not, I am a villain. I’ll be damned for never a king’s son in Christendom.
PRINCE HARRY	Where shall we take a purse tomorrow, Jack?
SIR JOHN	Zounds, where thou wilt, lad! I’ll make one; an I do not, call me villain and baffle me.
PRINCE HARRY	I see a good amendment of life in thee, from praying to purse-taking.
SIR JOHN	Why, Hal, ‘tis my vocation, Hal. ’Tis no sin for a man to labour in his vocation.
(didascalia)	Enter Poins
SIR JOHN	Poins! Now shall we know if Gadshill have set a match. O, if men were to be saved by merit, what hole in hell were hot enough for him? This is the most omnipotent villain that ever cried ‘Stand!’ to a true man.
PRINCE HARRY	Good morrow, Ned. no
POINS	Good morrow, sweet Hal. (To Sir John) What says Monsieur Remorse? What says Sir John, sack-and-sugar Jack? How agrees the devil and thee about thy soul, that thou soldest him on Good Friday last, for a cup of Madeira and a cold capon’s leg?
PRINCE HARRY	Sir John stands to his word, the devil shall have his bargain, for he was never yet a breaker of proverbs: he will give the devil his due.
POINS	(to Sir John) Then art thou damned for keeping thy word with the devil.
PRINCE HARRY	Else he had been damned for cozening the devil.
POINS	But my lads, my lads, tomorrow morning by four o’clock early, at Gads Hill, there are pilgrims going to Canterbury with rich offerings, and traders riding to London with fat purses. I have visors for you all; you have horses for yourselves. Gadshill lies tonight in Rochester. I have bespoke supper tomorrow night in Eastcheap. We may do it as secure as sleep. If you will go, I will stuff your purses full of crowns; if you will not, tarry at home and be hanged.
SIR JOHN	Hear ye, Edward, if I tarry at home and go not, I’ll hang you for going.
POINS	You will, chops?
SIR JOHN	Hal, wilt thou make one?
PRINCE HARRY	Who, I rob? I a thief? Not I, by my faith.
SIR JOHN	There’s neither honesty, manhood, nor good fellowship in thee, nor thou earnest not of the blood royal, if thou darest not stand for ten shillings.
PRINCE HARRY	Well then, once in my days I’ll be a madcap.
SIR JOHN	Why, that’s well said.
PRINCE HARRY	Well, come what will, I’ll tarry at home.
SIR JOHN	By the Lord, I’ll be a traitor then, when thou art king.
PRINCE HARRY	I care not.
POINS	Sir John, I prithee leave the Prince and me alone. I will lay him down such reasons for this adventure that he shall go.
SIR JOHN	Well, God give thee the spirit of persuasion and him the ears of profiting, that what thou speakest may move and what he hears may be believed, that the true prince may, for recreation’ sake, prove a false thief; for the poor abuses of the time want countenance. Farewell. You shall find me in Eastcheap.
PRINCE HARRY	Farewell, the latter spring; farewell, Allhallown summer. Exit Sir John
POINS	Now, my good sweet honey lord, ride with us tomorrow. I have a jest to execute that I cannot manage alone. Oldcastle, Harvey, Russell, and Gadshill shall rob those men that we have already waylaid—yourself and I will not be there—and when they have the booty, if you and I do not rob them, cut this head off from my shoulders.
PRINCE HARRY	But how shall we part with them in setting forth?
POINS	Why, we will set forth before or after them and appoint them a place of meeting, wherein it is at our pleasure to fail. And then will they adventure upon the exploit themselves, which they shall have no sooner achieved but we’ll set upon them.
PRINCE HARRY	Ay, but ’tis like that they will know us by our horses, by our habits, and by every other appointment, to be ourselves.
POINS	Tut, our horses they shall not see—I’ll tie them in the wood; our visors we will change after we leave them; and, sirrah, I have cases of buckram for the nonce, to immask our noted outward garments.
PRINCE HARRY	But I doubt they will be too hard for us.
POINS	Well, for two of them, I know them to be as true-bred cowards as ever turned back; and for the third, if he fight longer than he sees reason, I’ll forswear arms. The virtue of this jest will be the incomprehensible lies that this same fat rogue will tell us when we meet at supper: how thirty at least he fought with, what wards, what blows, what extremities he endured; and in the reproof of this lives the jest.
PRINCE HARRY	Well, I’ll go with thee. Provide us all things necessary, and meet me tomorrow night in Eastcheap; there I’ll sup. Farewell.
POINS	Farewell, my lord. Exit
PRINCE HARRY	I know you all, and will a while uphold The unyoked humour of your idleness. Yet herein will I imitate the sun, Who doth permit the base contagious clouds To smother up his beauty from the world, That when he please again to be himself, Being wanted he may be more wondered at By breaking through the foul and ugly mists Of vapours that did seem to strangle him. If all the year were playing holidays, To sport would be as tedious as to work; But when they seldom come, they wished-for come, And nothing pleaseth but rare accidents. So when this loose behaviour I throw off And pay the debt I never promised, By how much better than my word I am, By so much shall I falsify men’s hopes; And like bright metal on a sullen ground, My reformation, glitt‘ring o’er my fault, Shall show more goodly and attract more eyes Than that which hath no foil to set it off. I’ll so offend to make offence a skill, Redeeming time when men think least I will. Exit

Speaker	Line
(didascalia)	Enter the King, the Earls of Northumberland and Worcester, Hotspur, Sir Walter Blunt, with other lords
KING HENRY	(to Hotspur, Northumberland, and Worcester) My blood hath been too cold and temperate, Unapt to stir at these indignities, And you have found me, for accordingly You tread upon my patience; but be sure I will from henceforth rather be myself, Mighty and to be feared, than my condition, Which hath been smooth as oil, soft as young down, And therefore lost that title of respect Which the proud soul ne’er pays but to the proud.
WORCESTER	Our house, my sovereign liege, little deserves The scourge of greatness to be used on it, And that same greatness too, which our own hands Have holp to make so portly.
NORTHUMBERLAND	(to the King) My lord—
KING HENRY	Worcester, get thee gone, for I do see Danger and disobedience in thine eye. O sir, your presence is too bold and peremptory, And majesty might never yet endure The moody frontier of a servant brow. You have good leave to leave us. When we need Your use and counsel we shall send for you.
(didascalia)	Exit Worcester
KING HENRY	You were about to speak.
NORTHUMBERLAND	Yea, my good lord. Those prisoners in your highness’ name demanded, Which Harry Percy here at Holmedon took, Were, as he says, not with such strength denied As was delivered to your majesty, Who either through envy or misprision Was guilty of this fault, and not my son.
HOTSPUR	(to the King) My liege, I did deny no prisoners; But I remember, when the fight was done, When I was dry with rage and extreme toil, Breathless and faint, leaning upon my sword, Came there a certain lord, neat and trimly dressed, Fresh as a bridegroom, and his chin, new-reaped, Showed like a stubble-land at harvest-home. He was perfumed like a milliner, And ‘twixt his finger and his thumb he held A pouncet-box, which ever and anon He gave his nose and took’t away again— Who therewith angry, when it next came there Took it in snuff—and still he smiled and talked; And as the soldiers bore dead bodies by, He called them untaught knaves, unmannerly To bring a slovenly unhandsome corpse Betwixt the wind and his nobility. With many holiday and lady terms He questioned me; amongst the rest demanded My prisoners in your majesty’s behalf. I then, all smarting with my wounds being cold— To be so pestered with a popinjay!— Out of my grief and my impatience Answered neglectingly, I know not what— He should, or should not—for he made me mad To see him shine so brisk, and smell so sweet, And talk so like a waiting gentlewoman Of guns, and drums, and wounds, God save the mark! And telling me the sovereign’st thing on earth Was parmacity for an inward bruise, And that it was great pity, so it was, This villainous saltpetre should be digged Out of the bowels of the harmless earth, Which many a good tall fellow had destroyed So cowardly, and but for these vile guns He would himself have been a soldier. This bald unjointed chat of his, my lord, Made me to answer indirectly, as I said, And I beseech you, let not his report Come current for an accusation Betwixt my love and your high majesty.
BLUNT	(to the King) The circumstance considered, good my lord, Whate’er Lord Harry Percy then had said To such a person, and in such a place, At such a time, with all the rest retold, May reasonably die, and never rise To do him wrong or any way impeach What then he said, so he unsay it now.
KING HENRY	Why, yet he doth deny his prisoners, But with proviso and exception That we at our own charge shall ransom straight His brother-in-law the foolish Mortimer, Who, on my soul, hath wilfully betrayed The lives of those that he did lead to fight Against that great magician, damned Glyndŵr— Whose daughter, as we hear, the Earl of March Hath lately married. Shall our coffers, then, Be emptied to redeem a traitor home? Shall we buy treason, and indent with fears When they have lost and forfeited themselves? No, on the barren mountains let him starve; For I shall never hold that man my friend Whose tongue shall ask me for one penny cost To ransom home revolted Mortimer—
HOTSPUR	Revolted Mortimer? He never did fall off, my sovereign liege, But by the chance of war. To prove that true Needs no more but one tongue for all those wounds, Those mouthed wounds, which valiantly he took When on the gentle Severn’s sedgy bank, In single opposition, hand to hand, He did confound the best part of an hour In changing hardiment with great Glyndwr. Three times they breathed, and three times did they drink, Upon agreement, of swift Severn’s flood, Who, then affrighted with their bloody looks, Ran fearfully among the trembling reeds, And hid his crisp head in the hollow bank, Bloodstainèd with these valiant combatants. Never did bare and rotten policy Colour her working with such deadly wounds, Nor never could the noble Mortimer Receive so many, and all willingly. Then let not him be slandered with revolt.
KING HENRY	Thou dost belie him, Percy, thou dost belie him. He never did encounter with Glyndŵr. I tell thee, He durst as well have met the devil alone As Owain Glyndŵr for an enemy. Art thou not ashamed? But, sirrah, henceforth Let me not hear you speak of Mortimer. Send me your prisoners with the speediest means, Or you shall hear in such a kind from me As will displease you.—My lord Northumberland, We license your departure with your son. (To Hotspur) Send us your prisoners, or you’ll hear of it.
(didascalia)	Exeunt all but Hotspur and Northumberland
HOTSPUR	An if the devil come and roar for them I will not send them. I will after straight And tell him so, for I will ease my heart, Although it be with hazard of my head.
NORTHUMBERLAND	What, drunk with choler? Stay and pause awhile.
(didascalia)	Enter the Earl of Worcester
NORTHUMBERLAND	Here comes your uncle.
HOTSPUR	Speak of Mortimer? Zounds, I will speak of him, and let my soul Want mercy if I do not join with him. In his behalf I’ll empty all these veins, And shed my dear blood drop by drop in the dust, But I will lift the downfall Mortimer As high in the air as this unthankful King, As this ingrate and cankered Bolingbroke.
NORTHUMBERLAND	(to Worcester) Brother, the King hath made your nephew mad.
WORCESTER	Who struck this heat up after I was gone?
HOTSPUR	He will forsooth have all my prisoners; And when I urged the ransom once again Of my wife’s brother, then his cheek looked pale, And on my face he turned an eye of death, Trembling even at the name of Mortimer.
WORCESTER	I cannot blame him: was not he proclaimed By Richard, that dead is, the next of blood?
NORTHUMBERLAND	He was; I heard the proclamation. And then it was when the unhappy King, Whose wrongs in us God pardon, did set forth Upon his Irish expedition, From whence he, intercepted, did return To be deposed, and shortly murdered.
WORCESTER	And for whose death we in the world’s wide mouth Live scandalized and foully spoken of.
HOTSPUR	But soft, I pray you; did King Richard then Proclaim my brother Edmund Mortimer Heir to the crown?
NORTHUMBERLAND	He did; myself did hear it.
HOTSPUR	Nay, then I cannot blame his cousin King That wished him on the barren mountains starve. But shall it be that you that set the crown Upon the head of this forgetful man, And for his sake wear the detested blot Of murderous subornation, shall it be That you a world of curses undergo, Being the agents or base second means, The cords, the ladder, or the hangman, rather? O, pardon me that I descend so low To show the line and the predicament Wherein you range under this subtle King! Shall it for shame be spoken in these days, Or fill up chronicles in time to come, That men of your nobility and power Did gage them both in an unjust behalf, As both of you, God pardon it, have done: To put down Richard, that sweet lovely rose, And plant this thorn, this canker, Bolingbroke? And shall it in more shame be further spoken That you are fooled, discarded, and shook off By him for whom these shames ye underwent? No; yet time serves wherein you may redeem Your banished honours, and restore yourselves Into the good thoughts of the world again, Revenge the jeering and disdained contempt Of this proud King, who studies day and night To answer all the debt he owes to you Even with the bloody payment of your deaths. Therefore, I say—
WORCESTER	Peace, cousin, say no more. And now I will unclasp a secret book, And to your quick-conceiving discontents I’ll read you matter deep and dangerous, As full of peril and adventurous spirit As to o’erwalk a current roaring loud On the unsteadfast footing of a spear.
HOTSPUR	If he fall in, good night, or sink or swim. Send danger from the east unto the west, So honour cross it from the north to south; And let them grapple. O, the blood more stirs To rouse a lion than to start a hare!
NORTHUMBERLAND	(to Worcester) Imagination of some great exploit Drives him beyond the bounds of patience.
(didascalia)	HOTSPUR
NORTHUMBERLAND	By heaven, methinks it were an easy leap To pluck bright honour from the pale-faced moon, Or dive into the bottom of the deep, Where fathom-line could never touch the ground, And pluck up drowned honour by the locks, So he that doth redeem her thence might wear, Without corrival, all her dignities. But out upon this half-faced fellowship!
WORCESTER	(to Northumberland) He apprehends a world of figures here, But not the form of what he should attend. (To Hotspur) Good cousin, give me audience for a while, And list to me.
HOTSPUR	I cry you mercy.
WORCESTER	Those same noble Scots That are your prisoners—
HOTSPUR	I’ll keep them all. By God, he shall not have a Scot of them; No, if a scot would save his soul he shall not. I’ll keep them, by this hand.
WORCESTER	You start away, And lend no ear unto my purposes. Those prisoners you shall keep.
HOTSPUR	Nay, I will; that’s flat. He said he would not ransom Mortimer, Forbade my tongue to speak of Mortimer; But I will find him when he lies asleep, And in his ear I’ll hollo ‘Mortimerl’ Nay, I’ll have a starling shall be taught to speak Nothing but ‘Mortimer’, and give it him To keep his anger still in motion.
WORCESTER	Hear you, cousin, a word.
HOTSPUR	All studies here I solemnly defy, Save how to gall and pinch this Bolingbroke. And that same sword-and-buckler Prince of Wales— But that I think his father loves him not And would be glad he met with some mischance— I would have him poisoned with a pot of ale.
WORCESTER	Farewell, kinsman. I’ll talk to you When you are better tempered to attend.
NORTHUMBERLAND	(to Hotspur) Why, what a wasp-stung and impatient fool Art thou to break into this woman’s mood, Tying thine ear to no tongue but thine own I
HOTSPUR	Why, look you, I am whipped and scourged with rods, Nettled and stung with pismires, when I hear Of this vile politician Bolingbroke. In Richard’s time—what d‘ye call the place? A plague upon’t, it is in Gloucestershire. ‘Twas where the madcap Duke his uncle kept— His uncle York—where I first bowed my knee Unto this king of smiles, this Bolingbroke. ’Sblood, when you and he came back from Ravenspurgh.
NORTHUMBERLAND	At Berkeley castle.
HOTSPUR	You say true. Why, what a candy deal of courtesy This fawning greyhound then did proffer me! ‘Look when his infant fortune came to age’, And ‘gentle Harry Percy’, and ‘kind cousin’. O, the devil take such cozeners!—God forgive me. Good uncle, tell your tale; I have done.
WORCESTER	Nay, if you have not, to’t again. We’ll stay your leisure.
HOTSPUR	I have done, i’faith.
WORCESTER	Then once more to your Scottish prisoners. Deliver them up without their ransom straight; And make the Douglas’ son your only mean For powers in Scotland, which, for divers reasons Which I shall send you written, be assured Will easily be granted. (To Northumberland) You, my lord, Your son in Scotland being thus employed, Shall secretly into the bosom creep Of that same noble prelate well-beloved, The Archbishop.
HOTSPUR	Of York, is’t not?
WORCESTER	True, who bears hard His brother’s death at Bristol, the Lord Scrope. I speak not this in estimation, As what I think might be, but what I know Is ruminated, plotted, and set down, And only stays but to behold the face Of that occasion that shall bring it on.
HOTSPUR	I smell it; upon my life, it will do well!
NORTHUMBERLAND	Before the game is afoot thou still lett’st slip.
HOTSPUR	Why, it cannot choose but be a noble plot— And then the power of Scotland and of York To join with Mortimer, ha?
WORCESTER	And so they shall.
HOTSPUR	In faith, it is exceedingly well aimed.
WORCESTER	And ’tis no little reason bids us speed To save our heads by raising of a head; For, bear ourselves as even as we can, The King will always think him in our debt, And think we think ourselves unsatisfied Till he hath found a time to pay us home. And see already how he doth begin To make us strangers to his looks of love.
HOTSPUR	He does, he does. We’ll be revenged on him.
WORCESTER	Cousin, farewell. No further go in this Than I by letters shall direct your course. When time is ripe, which will be suddenly, I’ll steal to Glyndŵr and Lord Mortimer, Where you and Douglas and our powers at once, As I will fashion it, shall happily meet, To bear our fortunes in our own strong arms, Which now we hold at much uncertainty.
NORTHUMBERLAND	Farewell, good brother. We shall thrive, I trust.
HOTSPUR	(to Worcester) Uncle, adieu. O, let the hours be short Till fields and blows and groans applaud our sport!
(didascalia)	Exeunt Worcester at one door, Northumberland and Hotspur at another door

Speaker	Line
(didascalia)	Enter a Carrier, with a lantern in his hand
FIRST CARRIER	Heigh-ho! An’t be not four by the day, I’ll be hanged. Charles’s Wain is over the new chimney, and yet our horse not packed. What, ostler!
OSTLER	(within) Anon, anon!
FIRST CARRIER	I prithee, Tom, beat cut’s saddle, put a few flocks in the point. Poor jade is wrung in the withers, out of all cess.
(didascalia)	Enter another Carrier
SECOND CARRIER	Peas and beans are as dank here as a dog, and that is the next way to give poor jades the bots. This house is turned upside down since Robin Ostler died.
FIRST CARRIER	Poor fellow never joyed since the price of oats rose; it was the death of him.
SECOND CARRIER	I think this be the most villainous house in all London road for fleas. I am stung like a tench.
FIRST CARRIER	Like a tench? By the mass, there is ne’er a king christen could be better bit than I have been since the first cock.
SECOND CARRIER	Why, they will allow us ne’er a jordan, and then we leak in your chimney, and your chamber-lye breeds fleas like a loach.
FIRST CARRIER	What, ostler! Come away, and be hanged, come away!
SECOND CARRIER	I have a gammon of bacon and two races of ginger to be delivered as far as Charing Cross.
FIRST CARRIER	God’s body, the turkeys in my pannier are quite starved! What, ostler! A plague on thee, hast thou never an eye in thy head? Canst not hear? An ’twere not as good deed as drink to break the pate on thee, I am a very villain. Come, and be hanged! Hast no faith in thee?
(didascalia)	Enter Gadshill
GADSHILL	Good morrow, carriers. What’s o’clock?
FIRST CARRIER	I think it be two o’clock.
GADSHILL	I prithee lend me thy lantern to see my gelding in the stable.
FIRST CARRIER	Nay, by God, soft. I know a trick worth two of that, i’faith.
GADSHILL	(to Second Carrier) I pray thee, lend me thine.
SECOND CARRIER	Ay, when? Canst tell? ‘Lend me thy lantern,’ quoth a. Marry, I’ll see thee hanged first.
GADSHILL	Sirrah carrier, what time do you mean to come to London?
SECOND CARRIER	Time enough to go to bed with a candle, I warrant thee.—Come, neighbour Mugs, we’ll call up the gentlemen. They will along with company, for they have great charge. Exeunt Carriers
GADSHILL	What ho, chamberlain!
(didascalia)	Enter Chamberlain
CHAMBERLAIN	’At hand’ quoth Pickpurse.
GADSHILL	That’s even as fair as ‘ “At hand” quoth the chamberlain’, for thou variest no more from picking of purses than giving direction doth from labouring: thou layest the plot how.
CHAMBERLAIN	Good morrow, Master Gadshill. It holds current that I told you yesternight. There’s a franklin in the Weald of Kent hath brought three hundred marks with him in gold. I heard him tell it to one of his company last night at supper—a kind of auditor, one that hath abundance of charge too, God knows what. They are up already, and call for eggs and butter; they will away presently.
GADSHILL	Sirrah, if they meet not with Saint Nicholas’s clerks, I’ll give thee this neck.
CHAMBERLAIN	No, I’ll none of it; I pray thee keep that for the hangman, for I know thou worshippest Saint Nicholas as truly as a man of falsehood may.
GADSHILL	What talkest thou to me of the hangman? If I hang, I’ll make a fat pair of gallows, for if I hang, old Sir John hangs with me, and thou knowest he’s no starveling. Tut, there are other Trojans that thou dreamest not of, the which for sport’ sake are content to do the profession some grace, that would, if matters should be looked into, for their own credit’ sake make all whole. I am joined with no foot-landrakers, no long-staff sixpenny strikers, none of these mad mustachio purple-hued maltworms, but with nobility and tranquillity, burgomasters and great ‘oyez’-ers; such as can hold in, such as will strike sooner than speak, and speak sooner than drink, and drink sooner than pray. And yet, zounds, I lie, for they pray continually to their saint the commonwealth; or rather, not pray to her, but prey on her; for they ride up and down on her and make her their boots.
CHAMBERLAIN	What, the commonwealth their boots? Will she hold out water in foul way?
GADSHILL	She will, she will, justice hath liquored her. We steal as in a castle, cocksure; we have the recipe of fern-seed, we walk invisible.
CHAMBERLAIN	Nay, by my faith, I think you are more beholden to the night than to fern-seed for your walking invisible.
GADSHILL	Give me thy hand; thou shalt have a share in our purchase, as I am a true man.
CHAMBERLAIN	Nay, rather let me have it as you are a false thief.
(didascalia)	GADSHILL Go to, ‘homo’ is a common name to all men. Bid the ostler bring my gelding out of the stable. Farewell, you muddy knave. Exeunt severally

Speaker	Line
(didascalia)	Enter Prince Harry, Poins, Harvey, and Russell
POINS	Come, shelter, shelter!
(didascalia)	Exeunt Harvey and Russell at another door
POINS	I have removed Oldcastle’s horse, and he frets like a gummed velvet.
(didascalia)	PRINCE HARRY Stand close! Exit Poins
(didascalia)	Enter Sir John Oldcastle
SIR JOHN	Poins ! Poins, and be hanged! Poins !
PRINCE HARRY	Peace, ye fat-kidneyed rascal ! What a brawling dost thou keep !
SIR JOHN	Where’s Poins, Hal?
(didascalia)	PRINCE HARRY He is walked up to the top of the hill. I’ll go seek him. Exit
SIR JOHN	I am accursed to rob in that thief’s company. The rascal hath removed my horse and tied him I know not where. If I travel but four foot by the square further afoot, I shall break my wind. Well, I doubt not but to die a fair death, for all this—if I scape hanging for killing that rogue. I have forsworn his company hourly any time this two-and-twenty years, and yet I am bewitched with the rogue’s company. If the rascal have not given me medicines to make me love him, I’ll be hanged. It could not be else: I have drunk medicines. Poins ! Hal ! A plague upon you both ! Russell ! Harvey ! I’ll starve ere I’ll rob a foot further. An ’twere not as good a deed as drink to turn true man and to leave these rogues, I am the veriest varlet that ever chewed with a tooth. Eight yards of uneven ground is threescore and ten miles afoot with me, and the stony-hearted villains know it well enough. A plague upon’t when thieves cannot be true one to another !
(didascalia)	They whistle. Enter Prince Harry, Poins, Harvey, and Russell
SIR JOHN	Whew !A plague upon you all !Give me my horse, you rogues, give me my horse, and be hanged!
PRINCE HARRY	Peace, ye fat-guts. Lie down, lay thine ear close to the ground, and list if thou canst hear the tread of travellers.
SIR JOHN	Have you any levers to lift me up again, being down ? ’Sblood, I’ll not bear my own flesh so far afoot again for all the coin in thy father’s exchequer. What a plague mean ye to colt me thus?
PRINCE HARRY	Thou liest : thou art not colted, thou art uncolted.
SIR JOHN	I prithee, good Prince Hal, help me to my horse, good king’s son.
PRINCE HARRY	Out, ye rogue, shall I be your ostler?
SIR JOHN	Hang thyself in thine own heir-apparent garters ! If I be ta’en, I’ll peach for this. An I have not ballads made on you all and sung to filthy tunes, let a cup of sack be my poison. When a jest is so forward, and afoot too ! I hate it.
(didascalia)	Enter Gadshill visored
GADSHILL	Stand!
SIR JOHN	So I do, against my will.
POINS	O, ’tis our setter, I know his voice. Gadshill, what news?
(didascalia)	GADSHILL Case ye, case ye, on with your visors ! There’s money of the King’s coming down the hill; ’tis going to the King’s exchequer.
SIR JOHN	You lie, ye rogue, ’tis going to the King’s tavern.
GADSHILL	There’s enough to make us all.
SIR JOHN	To be hanged.
(didascalia)	They put on visors
PRINCE HARRY	Sirs, you four shall front them in the narrow lane. Ned Poins and I will walk lower. If they scape from your encounter, then they light on us.
HARVEY	How many be there of them?
GADSHILL	Some eight or ten.
SIR JOHN	Zounds, will they not rob us?
PRINCE HARRY	What, a coward, Sir John Paunch?
SIR JOHN	Indeed I am not John of Gaunt your grandfather, but yet no coward, Hal.
PRINCE HARRY	Well, we leave that to the proof.
POINS	Sirrah Jack, thy horse stands behind the hedge. When thou needest him, there thou shalt find him. Farewell, and stand fast.
SIR JOHN	Now cannot I strike him if I should be hanged.
PRINCE HARRY	(aside to Poins) Ned, where are our disguises?
POINS	(aside to the Prince) Here, hard by. Stand close.
(didascalia)	Exeunt the Prince and Poins
SIR JOHN	Now, my masters, happy man be his dole, say I; every man to his business.
(didascalia)	They stand aside.]
(didascalia)	Enter the Travellers, amongst them the Carriers l
FIRSTI TRAVELLER	Come, neighbour, the boy shall lead our horses down the hill. We’ll walk afoot a while, and ease their legs.
(didascalia)	THIEVES coming forward Stand !
(didascalia)	SECOND TRAVELLER Jesus bless us !
SIR JOHN	Strike, down with them, cut the villains’ throats ! Ah, whoreson caterpillars, bacon-fed knaves ! They hate us youth. Down with them, fleece them !
(didascalia)	FIRST TRAVELLER O, we are undone, both we and ours for ever!
SIR JOHN	Hang ye, gorbellied knaves, are ye undone ? No, ye fat chuffs; I would your store were here. On, bacons, on ! What, ye knaves! Young men must live. You are grand-jurors, are ye? We’ll jure ye, faith. Here they rob them and bind them. Exeunt the thieves with the travellers

Speaker	Line
(didascalia)	Enter Prince Harry and Poins, disguised in buckram suits
PRINCE HARRY	The thieves have bound the true men; now could thou and I rob the thieves, and go merrily to London. It would be argument for a week, laughter for a month, and a good jest for ever.
POINS	Stand close; I hear them coming. They stand aside.
(didascalia)	Enter Sir John Oldcastle, Russell, Harvey, and Gadshill, with the travellers’ money
SIR JOHN	Come, my masters, let us share, and then to horse before day. An the Prince and Poins be not two arrant cowards, there’s no equity stirring. There’s no more valour in that Poins than in a wild duck. As they are sharing, the Prince and Poins set upon them
PRINCE HARRY	Your money!
POINS	Villains!
(didascalia)	Gadshill, Russell, and Harvey run away severally, and Oldcastle, after a blow or two, roars and runs away too, leaving the booty behind them
PRINCE HARRY	Got with much ease. Now merrily to horse. The thieves are all scattered, and possessed with fear So strongly that they dare not meet each other. Each takes his fellow for an officer. Away, good Ned. Oldcastle sweats to death, And lards the lean earth as he walks along. Were’t not for laughing, I should pity him.
POINS	How the fat rogue roared! Exeunt with the booty

Speaker	Line
(didascalia)	Enter Hotspur, reading a letter
HOTSPUR	‘But for mine own part, my lord, I could be well contented to be there, in respect of the love I bear your house.’—He could be contented; why is he not then? In respect of the love he bears our house ! He shows in this he loves his own barn better than he loves our house. Let me see some more.—‘The purpose you undertake is dangerous’—Why, that’s certain: ‘tis dangerous to take a cold, to sleep, to drink; but I tell you, my lord fool, out of this nettle danger we pluck this flower safety.—‘The purpose you undertake is dangerous, the friends you have named uncertain, the time itself unsorted, and your whole plot too light for the counterpoise of so great an opposition.’—Say you so, say you so? I say unto you again, you are a shallow, cowardly hind, and you lie. What a lack-brain is this! By the Lord, our plot is a good plot as ever was laid, our friends true and constant; a good plot, good friends, and full of expectation; an excellent plot, very good friends. What a frosty-spirited rogue is this! Why, my lord of York commends the plot and the general course of the action. Zounds, an I were now by this rascal, I could brain him with his lady’s fan! Is there not my father, my uncle, and myself? Lord Edmund Mortimer, my lord of York, and Owain Glyndwr? Is there not besides the Douglas? Have I not all their letters, to meet me in arms by the ninth of the next month? And are they not some of them set forward already? What a pagan rascal is this, an infidel ! Ha, you shall see now, in very sincerity of fear and cold heart will he to the King, and lay open all our proceedings! O, I could divide myself and go to buffets for moving such a dish of skim-milk with so honourable an action Hang him ! Let him tell the King we are prepared; I will set forward tonight.
(didascalia)	Enter Lady Percy
HOTSPUR	How now, Kate? I must leave you within these two hours.
LADY PERCY	Omy good lord, why are you thus alone ? For what offence have I this fortnight been A banished woman from my Harry’s bed? Tell me, sweet lord, what is’t that takes from thee Thy stomach, pleasure, and thy golden sleep? Why dost thou bend thine eyes upon the earth, And start so often when thou sitt‘st alone? Why hast thou lost the fresh blood in thy cheeks, And given my treasures and my rights of thee To thick-eyed musing and curst melancholy? In thy faint slumbers I by thee have watched, And heard thee murmur tales of iron wars, Speak terms of manège to thy bounding steed, Cry ‘Courage! To the field!’ And thou hast talked Of sallies and retires, of trenches, tents, Of palisadoes, frontiers, parapets, Of basilisks, of cannon, culverin, Of prisoners ransomed, and of soldiers slain, And all the currents of a heady fight. Thy spirit within thee hath been so at war, And thus hath so bestirred thee in thy sleep, That beads of sweat have stood upon thy brow Like bubbles in a late-disturbed stream; And in thy face strange motions have appeared, Such as we see when men restrain their breath On some great sudden hest. O,what portents are these? Some heavy business hath my lord in hand, And I must know it, else he loves me not.
HOTSPUR	What ho!
(didascalia)	Enter Servant
HOTSPUR	Is Gilliams with the packet gone?
SERVANT	He is, my lord, an hour ago.
HOTSPUR	Hath Butler brought those horses from the sheriff?
SERVANT	One horse, my lord, he brought even now.
HOTSPUR	What horse? A roan, a crop-ear, is it not?
SERVANT	It is, my lord.
HOTSPUR	That roan shall be my throne. Well, I will back him straight.—O,Esperance!— Bid Butler lead him forth into the park.
LADY PERCY	But hear you, my lord.
HOTSPUR	What sayst thou, my lady?
LADY PERCY	What is it carries you away?
HOTSPUR	Why, my horse, My love, my horse.
LADY PERCY	Out, you mad-headed ape! A weasel hath not such a deal of spleen As you are tossed with. In faith, I’ll know your business, Harry, that I will. I fear my brother Mortimer doth stir About his title, and hath sent for you To line his enterprise; but if you go—
HOTSPUR	So far afoot? I shall be weary, love.
LADY PERCY	Come, come, you paraquito, answer me Directly to this question that I ask. In faith, I’ll break thy little finger, Harry, An if thou wilt not tell me all things true.
HOTSPUR	Away, away, you trifler! Love ? I love thee not, I care not for thee, Kate. This is no world To play with maumets and to tilt with lips. We must have bloody noses and cracked crowns, And pass them current, too. God’s me, my horse!— What sayst thou, Kate? What wouldst thou have with me?
LADY PERCY	Do you not love me? Do you not indeed? Well, do not, then, for since you love me not I will not love myself. Do you not love me? Nay, tell me if you speak in jest or no.
HOTSPUR	Come, wilt thou see me ride ? And when I am a-horseback, I will swear I love thee infinitely. But hark you, Kate. I must not have you henceforth question me Whither I go, nor reason whereabout. Whither I must, I must; and, to conclude, This evening must I leave you, gentle Kate. I know you wise, but yet no farther wise Than Harry Percy’s wife; constant you are, But yet a woman; and for secrecy No lady closer, for I well believe Thou wilt not utter what thou dost not know. And so far will I trust thee, gentle Kate.
LADY PERCY	How, so far?
HOTSPUR	Not an inch further. But hark you, Kate, Whither I go, thither shall you go too. Today will I set forth, tomorrow you. Will this content you, Kate?
LADY PERCY	It must, of force. Exeunt

Speaker	Line
(didascalia)	Enter Prince Harry
PRINCE HARRY	Ned, prithee come out of that fat room, and lend me thy hand to laugh a little.
(didascalia)	Enter Poins at another door
POINS	Where hast been, Hal?
PRINCE HARRY	With three or four loggerheads, amongst three or fourscore hogsheads. I have sounded the very bass-string of humility. Sirrah, I am sworn brother to a leash of drawers, and can call them all by their christen names, as ‘Tom’, ‘Dick’, and ‘Francis’. They take it already, upon their salvation, that though I be but Prince of Wales yet I am the king of courtesy, and tell me flatly I am no proud jack like Oldcastle, but a Corinthian, a lad of mettle, a good boy—by the Lord, so they call me; and when I am King of England I shall command all the good lads in Eastcheap. They call drinking deep ‘dyeing scarlet’, and when you breathe in your watering they cry ‘Hem!’ and bid you ‘Play it off!’ To conclude, I am so good a proficient in one quarter of an hour that I can drink with any tinker in his own language during my life. I tell thee, Ned, thou hast lost much honour that thou wert not with me in this action. But, sweet Ned—to sweeten which name of Ned I give thee this pennyworth of sugar, clapped even now into my hand by an underskinker, one that never spake other English in his life than ‘Eight shillings and sixpence’, and ‘You are welcome’, with this shrill addition, ‘Anon, anon, sir ! Score a pint of bastard in the Half-moon!’ or so. But, Ned, to drive away the time till Oldcastle come, I prithee do thou stand in some by-room, while I question my puny drawer to what end he gave me the sugar, and do thou never leave calling ‘Francis!’, that his tale to me may be nothing but ‘Anon!’ Step aside, and I’ll show thee a precedent.
(didascalia)	Exit Poins
POINS	(within) Francis!
PRINCE HARRY	Thou art perfect.
POINS	(within) Francis!
(didascalia)	Enter Francis, a drawer
FRANCIS	Anon, anon, sir!—Look down into the Pomegranate, Ralph !
PRINCE HARRY	Come hither, Francis.
FRANCIS	My lord.
PRINCE HARRY	How long hast thou to serve, Francis?
FRANCIS	Forsooth, five years, and as much as to—
POINS	(within) Francis!
FRANCIS	Anon, anon, sir!
PRINCE HARRY	Five year! By’r Lady, a long lease for the clinking of pewter. But Francis, darest thou be so valiant as to play the coward with thy indenture, and show it a fair pair of heels, and run from it?
FRANCIS	O Lord, sir, I’ll be sworn upon all the books in England, I could find in my heart—
POINS	(within) Francis!
FRANCIS	Anon, sir!
PRINCE HARRY	How old art thou, Francis ?
FRANCIS	Let me see, about Michaelmas next I shall be—
POINS	(within) Francis!
FRANCIS	Anon, sir! (To the Prince) Pray, stay a little, my lord.
PRINCE HARRY	Nay, but hark you, Francis. For the sugar thou gavest me, ’twas a pennyworth, was’t not?
FRANCIS	O Lord, I would it had been two I
PRINCE HARRY	I will give thee for it a thousand pound. Ask me when thou wilt, and thou shalt have it—
POINS	(within) Francis!
FRANCIS	Anon, anon!
PRINCE HARRY	Anon, Francis? No, Francis, but tomorrow, Francis; or, Francis, o’ Thursday; or, indeed, Francis, when thou wilt. But Francis.
FRANCIS	My lord.
PRINCE HARRY	Wilt thou rob this leathern-jerkin, crystal-button, knot-pated, agate-ring, puke-stocking, caddis-garter, smooth-tongue, Spanish-pouch?
FRANCIS	O Lord, sir, who do you mean ?
PRINCE HARRY	Why, then, your brown bastard is your only drink ! For look you, Francis, your white canvas doublet will sully. In Barbary, sir, it cannot come to so much.
FRANCIS	What, sir?
POINS	(within) Francis !
PRINCE HARRY	Away, you rogue ! Dost thou not hear them call ?
(didascalia)	As he departs Poins and the Prince both call him.
PRINCE HARRY	The Drawer stands amazed, not knowing which way to go.
(didascalia)	Enter Vintner
VINTNER	What, standest thou still, and hearest such a calling? Look to the guests within. Exit Francis My lord, old Sir John with half a dozen more are at the door. Shall I let them in?
PRINCE HARRY	Let them alone a while, and then open the door. Exit Vintner Poins !
(didascalia)	POINS within Anon, anon, sir!
(didascalia)	Enter Poins
PRINCE HARRY	Sirrah, Oldcastle and the rest of the thieves are at the door. Shall we be merry?
POINS	As merry as crickets, my lad. But hark ye, what cunning match have you made with this jest of the drawer? Come, what’s the issue?
PRINCE HARRY	I am now of all humours that have showed themselves humours since the old days of goodman Adam to the pupil age of this present twelve o’clock at midnight.
(didascalia)	Enter Francis
PRINCE HARRY	What’s o’clock, Francis?
(didascalia)	FRANCIS Anon, anon, sir ! Exit at another door
PRINCE HARRY	That ever this fellow should have fewer words than a parrot, and yet the son of a woman ! His industry is upstairs and downstairs, his eloquence the parcel of a reckoning. I am not yet of Percy’s mind, the Hotspur of the North—he that kills me some six or seven dozen of Scots at a breakfast, washes his hands, and says to his wife, ‘Fie upon this quiet life ! I want work.’ ‘O my sweet Harry,’ says she, ‘how many hast thou killed today?’ Give my roan horse a drench,’says he, and answers, ‘Some fourteen,’ an hour after; ‘a trifle, a trifle.’ I prithee call in Oldcastle. I’ll play Percy, and that damned brawn shall play Dame Mortimer his wife. ‘Rivo!’ says the drunkard. Call in Ribs, call in Tallow.
(didascalia)	Enter Sir John Oldcastle, with sword and buckler, Russell, Harvey, and Gadshill, followed by Francis, with wine
POINS	Welcome, Jack. Where hast thou been?
SIR JOHN	A plague of all cowards, I say, and a vengeance too, marry and amen!—Give me a cup of sack, boy.—Ere I lead this life long, I’ll sew netherstocks, and mend them and foot them too. A plague of all cowards!—Give me a cup of sack, rogue. Is there no virtue extant? He drinketh
PRINCE HARRY	Didst thou never see Titan kiss a dish of butter—pitiful hearted Titan—that melted at the sweet tale of the sun’s? If thou didst, then behold that compound.
(didascalia)	SIR JOHN (to Francis) You rogue, here’s lime in this sack too. There is nothing but roguery to be found in villainous man, yet a coward is worse than a cup of sack with lime in it. Exit Francis A villainous coward ! Go thy ways, old Jack, die when thou wilt. If manhood, good manhood, be not forgot upon the face of the earth, then am I a shotten herring. There lives not three good men unhanged in England, and one of them is fat and grows old, God help the while. A bad world, I say. I would I were a weaver—I could sing psalms, or anything. A plague of all cowards, I say still.
PRINCE HARRY	How now, woolsack, what mutter you?
SIR JOHN	A king’s son ! If I do not beat thee out of thy kingdom with a dagger of lath, and drive all thy subjects afore thee like a flock of wild geese, I’ll never wear hair on my face more. You, Prince of Wales!
PRINCE HARRY	Why, you whoreson round man, what’s the matter?
SIR JOHN	Are not you a coward? Answer me to that. And Poins there?
POINS	Zounds, ye fat paunch, an ye call me coward, by the Lord I’ll stab thee.
SIR JOHN	I call thee coward? I’ll see thee damned ere I call thee coward, but I would give a thousand pound I could run as fast as thou canst. You are straight enough in the shoulders; you care not who sees your back. Call you that backing of your friends ? A plague upon such backing! Give me them that will face me. Give me a cup of sack. I am a rogue if I drunk today.
PRINCE HARRY	O villain, thy lips are scarce wiped since thou drunkest last.
SIR JOHN	All is one for that. He drinketh A plague of all cowards, still say I.
PRINCE HARRY	What’s the matter?
SIR JOHN	What’s the matter? There be four of us here have ta’en a thousand pound this day morning.
PRINCE HARRY	Where is it, Jack, where is it?
SIR JOHN	Where is it? Taken from us it is. A hundred upon poor four of us.
PRINCE HARRY	What, a hundred, man?
SIR JOHN	I am a rogue if I were not at half-sword with a dozen of them, two hours together. I have scaped by miracle. I am eight times thrust through the doublet, four through the hose, my buckler cut through and through, my sword hacked like a handsaw. Ecce signum.
(didascalia)	He shows his sword
SIR JOHN	I never dealt better since I was a man. All would not do. A plague of all cowards! (Pointing to Gadshill, Harvey, and Russell) Let them speak. If they speak more or less than truth, they are villains and the sons of darkness.
(didascalia)	PRINCE HARRY Speak, sirs, how was it?
(didascalia)	GADSHILL We four set upon some dozen—
SIR JOHN	(to the Prince) Sixteen at least, my lord.
(didascalia)	GADSHILL And bound them.
HARVEY	No, no, they were not bound.
SIR JOHN	You rogue, they were bound every man of them, or I am a Jew else, an Hebrew Jew.
(didascalia)	GADSHILL As we were sharing, some six or seven fresh men set upon us.
SIR JOHN	And unbound the rest; and then come in the other.
PRINCE HARRY	What, fought you with them all?
SIR JOHN	All? I know not what you call all, but if I fought not with fifty of them, I am a bunch of radish. If there were not two- or three-and-fifty upon poor old Jack, then am I no two-legged creature.
PRINCE HARRY	Pray God you have not murdered some of them.
SIR JOHN	Nay, that’s past praying for. I have peppered two of them. Two I am sure I have paid—two rogues in buckram suits. I tell thee what, Hal, if I tell thee a lie, spit in my face, call me horse. Thou knowest my old ward—
(didascalia)	He stands as to fight
SIR JOHN	here I lay, and thus I bore my point. Four rogues in buckram let drive at me.
PRINCE HARRY	What, four? Thou saidst but two even now.
SIR JOHN	Four, Hal, I told thee four.
POINS	Ay, ay, he said four.
SIR JOHN	These four came all afront, and mainly thrust at me. I made me no more ado, but took all their seven points in my target, thus.
(didascalia)	He wards himself with his buckler
PRINCE HARRY	Seven? Why, there were but four even now.
SIR JOHN	In buckram?
POINS	Ay, four in buckram suits.
SIR JOHN	Seven, by these hilts, or I am a villain else.
PRINCE HARRY	(aside to Poins) Prithee, let him alone. We shall have more anon.
SIR JOHN	Dost thou hear me, Hal?
PRINCE HARRY	Ay, and mark thee too, Jack.
SIR JOHN	Do so, for it is worth the listening to. These nine in buckram that I told thee of—
PRINCE HARRY	(aside to Poins) So, two more already.
SIR JOHN	Their points being broken—
(didascalia)	POINS aside to the Prince Down fell their hose.
SIR JOHN	Began to give me ground. But I followed me close, came in foot and hand, and, with a thought, seven of the eleven I paid.
PRINCE HARRY	(aside to Poins) O monstrous! Eleven buckram men grown out of two!
SIR JOHN	But, as the devil would have it, three misbegotten knaves in Kendal green came at my back and let drive at me; for it was so dark, Hal, that thou couldst not see thy hand.
PRINCE HARRY	These lies are like their father that begets them—gross as a mountain, open, palpable. Why, thou clay-brained guts, thou knotty-pated fool, thou whoreson obscene greasy tallow-catch-
SIR JOHN	What, art thou mad? Art thou mad? Is not the truth the truth?
PRINCE HARRY	Why, how couldst thou know these men in Kendal green when it was so dark thou couldst not see thy hand? Come, tell us your reason. What sayst thou to this?
POINS	Come, your reason, Jack, your reason.
SIR JOHN	What, upon compulsion? Zounds, an I were at the strappado, or all the racks in the world, I would not tell you on compulsion. Give you a reason on compulsion? If reasons were as plentiful as blackberries, I would give no man a reason upon compulsion, I.
PRINCE HARRY	I’ll be no longer guilty of this sin. This sanguine coward, this bed-presser, this horse-back-breaker, this huge hill of flesh—
SIR JOHN	’Sblood, you starveling, you elf-skin, you dried neat’s tongue, you bull’s pizzle, you stock-fish—O, for breath to utter what is like thee!—you tailor’s yard, you sheath, you bow-case, you vile standing tuck—
PRINCE HARRY	Well, breathe awhile, and then to’t again, and when thou hast tired thyself in base comparisons, hear me speak but this.
POINS	Mark, Jack.
PRINCE HARRY	We two saw you four set on four, and bound them, and were masters of their wealth.—Mark now how a plain tale shall put you down.—Then did we two set on you four, and, with a word, outfaced you from your prize, and have it; yea, and can show it you here in the house. And Oldcastle, you carried your guts away as nimbly, with as quick dexterity, and roared for mercy, and still run and roared, as ever I heard bull-calf. What a slave art thou, to hack thy sword as thou hast done, and then say it was in fight! What trick, what device, what starting-hole canst thou now find out to hide thee from this open and apparent shame?
POINS	Come, let’s hear, Jack; what trick hast thou now?
SIR JOHN	By the Lord, I knew ye as well as he that made ye. Why, hear you, my masters. Was it for me to kill the heir-apparent? Should I turn upon the true prince? Why, thou knowest I am as valiant as Hercules; but beware instinct. The lion will not touch the true prince—instinct is a great matter. I was now a coward on instinct. I shall think the better of myself and thee during my life—I for a valiant lion, and thou for a true prince. But by the Lord, lads, I am glad you have the money.—(Calling) Hostess, clap to the doors.—Watch tonight, pray tomorrow. Gallants, lads, boys, hearts of gold, all the titles of good fellowship come to you! What, shall we be merry, shall we have a play extempore?
PRINCE HARRY	Content, and the argument shall be thy running away.
SIR JOHN	Ah, no more of that, Hal, an thou lovest me.
(didascalia)	Enter Hostess
HOSTESS	O Jesu, my lord the Prince!
PRINCE HARRY	How now, my lady the Hostess, what sayst thou to me?
HOSTESS	Marry, my lord, there is a nobleman of the court at door would speak with you. He says he comes from your father.
PRINCE HARRY	Give him as much as will make him a royal man, and send him back again to my mother.
SIR JOHN	What manner of man is he?
HOSTESS	An old man.
SIR JOHN	What doth gravity out of his bed at midnight? Shall I give him his answer?
PRINCE HARRY	Prithee do, Jack.
SIR JOHN	Faith, and I’ll send him packing. Exit
PRINCE HARRY	Now, sirs; (to Gadshill) by’r Lady, you fought fair—so did you, Harvey, so did you, Russell. You are lions too—you ran away upon instinct, you will not touch the true prince; no, fie!
RUSSELL	Faith, I ran when I saw others run.
PRINCE HARRY	Faith, tell me now in earnest, how came Oldcastle’s sword so hacked?
HARVEY	Why, he hacked it with his dagger, and said he would swear truth out of England but he would make you believe it was done in fight, and persuaded us to do the like.
RUSSELL	Yea, and to tickle our noses with speargrass, to make them bleed; and then to beslubber our garments with it, and swear it was the blood of true men. I did that I did not this seven year before—I blushed to hear his monstrous devices.
PRINCE HARRY	O villain, thou stolest a cup of sack eighteen years ago, and wert taken with the manner, and ever since thou hast blushed extempore. Thou hadst fire and sword on thy side, and yet thou rannest away. What instinct hadst thou for it?
RUSSELL	(indicating his face) My lord, do you see these meteors? Do you behold these exhalations?
PRINCE HARRY	I do.
RUSSELL	What think you they portend?
PRINCE HARRY	Hot livers, and cold purses.
(didascalia)	RUSSELL Choler, my lord, if rightly taken. Exit
PRINCE HARRY	No, if rightly taken, halter.
(didascalia)	Enter Sir John Oldcastle
PRINCE HARRY	Here comes lean Jack; here comes bare-bone. How now, my sweet creature of bombast? How long is’t ago, Jack, since thou sawest thine own knee?
SIR JOHN	My own knee? When I was about thy years, Hal, I was not an eagle’s talon in the waist; I could have crept into any alderman’s thumb-ring. A plague of sighing and grief—it blows a man up like a bladder. There’s villainous news abroad. Here was Sir John Bracy from your father; you must to the court in the morning. That same mad fellow of the North, Percy, and he of Wales that gave Amamon the bastinado, and made Lucifer cuckold, and swore the devil his true liegeman upon the cross of a Welsh hook—what a plague call you him?
POINS	Owain Glyndwr.
SIR JOHN	Owain, Owain, the same; and his son-in-law Mortimer, and old Northumberland, and that sprightly Scot of Scots Douglas, that runs a-horseback up a hill perpendicular—
PRINCE HARRY	He that rides at high speed and with his pistol kills a sparrow flying.
SIR JOHN	You have hit it.
PRINCE HARRY	So did he never the sparrow.
SIR JOHN	Well, that rascal hath good mettle in him; he will not run.
PRINCE HARRY	Why, what a rascal art thou, then, to praise him so for running!
SIR JOHN	A-horseback, ye cuckoo, but afoot he will not budge a foot.
PRINCE HARRY	Yes, Jack, upon instinct.
SIR JOHN	I grant ye, upon instinct. Well, he is there too, and one Mordake, and a thousand blue-caps more. Worcester is stolen away tonight. Thy father’s beard is turned white with the news. You may buy land now as cheap as stinking mackerel.
PRINCE HARRY	Why then, it is like, if there come a hot June and this civil buffeting hold, we shall buy maidenheads as they buy hobnails: by the hundreds.
SIR JOHN	By the mass, lad, thou sayst true; it is like we shall have good trading that way. But tell me, Hal, art not thou horrible afeard? Thou being heir-apparent, could the world pick thee out three such enemies again as that fiend Douglas, that spirit Percy, and that devil Glyndŵr? Art thou not horribly afraid? Doth not thy blood thrill at it?
PRINCE HARRY	Not a whit, i’faith. I lack some of thy instinct. 375
SIR JOHN	Well, thou wilt be horribly chid tomorrow when thou comest to thy father. If thou love me, practise an answer.
PRINCE HARRY	Do thou stand for my father, and examine me upon the particulars of my life.
SIR JOHN	Shall I? Content. This chair shall be my state, this dagger my sceptre, and this cushion my crown. He sits
PRINCE HARRY	Thy state is taken for a joint-stool, thy golden sceptre for a leaden dagger, and thy precious rich crown for a pitiful bald crown.
SIR JOHN	Well, an the fire of grace be not quite out of thee, now shalt thou be moved. Give me a cup of sack to make my eyes look red, that it may be thought I have wept; for I must speak in passion, and I will do it in King Cambyses’ vein.
PRINCE HARRY	(bowing) Well, here is my leg.
SIR JOHN	And here is my speech. (To Harvey, Poins, and Gadshill) Stand aside, nobility.
HOSTESS	O Jesu, this is excellent sport, i’faith.
SIR JOHN	Weep not, sweet Queen, for trickling tears are vain.
HOSTESS	O the Father, how he holds his countenance!
SIR JOHN	For God’s sake, lords, convey my tristful Queen, For tears do stop the floodgates of her eyes.
HOSTESS	O Jesu, he doth it as like one of these harlotry players as ever I see!
SIR JOHN	Peace, good pint-pot; peace, good tickle-brain.— Harry, I do not only marvel where thou spendest thy time, but also how thou art accompanied. For though the camomile, the more it is trodden on, the faster it grows, yet youth, the more it is wasted, the sooner it wears. That thou art my son I have partly thy mother’s word, partly my own opinion, but chiefly a villainous trick of thine eye, and a foolish hanging of thy nether lip, that doth warrant me. If then thou be son to me, here lies the point. Why, being son to me, art thou so pointed at? Shall the blessed sun of heaven prove a micher, and eat btackberries?—A question not to be asked. Shall the son of England prove a thief, and take purses?—A question to be asked. There is a thing, Harry, which thou hast often heard of, and it is known to many in our land by the name of pitch. This pitch, as ancient writers do report, doth defile. So doth the company thou keepest. For Harry, now I do not speak to thee in drink, but in tears; not in pleasure, but in passion; not in words only, but in woes also. And yet there is a virtuous man whom I have often noted in thy company, but I know not his name.
PRINCE HARRY	What manner of man, an it like your majesty?
SIR JOHN	A goodly, portly man, i‘faith, and a corpulent; of a cheerful look, a pleasing eye, and a most noble carriage; and, as I think, his age some fifty, or, by’r Lady, inclining to threescore. And now I remember me, his name is Oldcastle. If that man should be lewdly given, he deceiveth me; for, Harry, I see virtue in his looks. If, then, the tree may be known by the fruit, as the fruit by the tree, then peremptorily I speak it—there is virtue in that Oldcastle. Him keep with; the rest banish. And tell me now, thou naughty varlet, tell me, where hast thou been this month?
PRINCE HARRY	Dost thou speak like a king? Do thou stand for me, and I’ll play my father.
SIR JOHN	(standing) Depose me. If thou dost it half so gravely, so majestically both in word and matter, hang me up by the heels for a rabbit sucker, or a poulter’s hare.
PRINCE HARRY	(sitting) Well, here I am set.
SIR JOHN	And here I stand. (To the others) Judge, my masters.
PRINCE HARRY	Now, Harry, whence come you?
SIR JOHN	My noble lord, from Eastcheap.
PRINCE HARRY	The complaints I hear of thee are grievous.
(didascalia)	SIR JOHN ’Sblood, my lord, they are false. To
(didascalia)	the others
PRINCE HARRY	Nay, I’ll tickle ye for a young prince, i’faith.
PRINCE HARRY	Swearest thou, ungracious boy? Henceforth ne’er look on me. Thou art violently carried away from grace. There is a devil haunts thee in the likeness of an old fat man; a tun of man is thy companion. Why dost thou converse with that trunk of humours, that bolting-hutch of beastliness, that swollen parcel of dropsies, that huge bombard of sack, that stuffed cloak-bag of guts, that roasted Manningtree ox with the pudding in his belly, that reverend Vice, that grey Iniquity, that father Ruffian, that Vanity in Years? Wherein is he good, but to taste sack and drink it? Wherein neat and cleanly, but to carve a capon and eat it? Wherein cunning, but in craft? Wherein crafty, but in villainy? Wherein villainous, but in all things? Wherein worthy, but in nothing?
SIR JOHN	I would your grace would take me with you. Whom means your grace?
PRINCE HARRY	That villainous, abominable misleader of youth, Oldcastle; that old white-bearded Satan.
SIR JOHN	My lord, the man I know.
PRINCE HARRY	I know thou dost.
SIR JOHN	But to say I know more harm in him than in myself were to say more than I know. That he is old, the more the pity, his white hairs do witness it. But that he is, saving your reverence, a whoremaster, that I utterly deny. If sack and sugar be a fault, God help the wicked. If to be old and merry be a sin, then many an old host that I know is damned. If to be fat be to be hated, then Pharaoh’s lean kine are to be loved. No, my good lord, banish Harvey, banish Russell, banish Poins, but for sweet Jack Oldcastle, kind Jack Oldcastle, true Jack Oldcastle, valiant Jack Oldcastle, and therefore more valiant being, as he is, old Jack Oldcastle, Banish not him thy Harry’s company, Banish not him thy Harry’s company. Banish plump Jack, and banish all the world.
PRINCE HARRY	I do; I will.
(didascalia)	Knocking within. Exit Hostess.
(didascalia)	Enter Russell, running
RUSSELL	O my lord, my lord, the sheriff with a most monstrous watch is at the door!
SIR JOHN	Out, ye rogue! Play out the play! I have much to say in the behalf of that Oldeastle.
(didascalia)	Enter the Hostess
HOSTESS	O Jesu! My lord, my lord!
PRINCE HARRY	Heigh, heigh, the devil rides upon a fiddlestick! What’s the matter?
HOSTESS	The sheriff and all the watch are at the door. They are come to search the house. Shall I let them in?
SIR JOHN	Dost thou hear, Hal? Never call a true piece of gold a counterfeit—thou art essentially made, without seeming so.
PRINCE HARRY	And thou a natural coward without instinct.
SIR JOHN	I deny your major. If you will deny the sheriff, so. If not, let him enter. If I become not a cart as well as another man, a plague on my bringing up. I hope I shall as soon be strangled with a halter as another.
PRINCE HARRY	Go, hide thee behind the arras. The rest walk up above. Now, my masters, for a true face and good conscience. Exeunt Poins, Russell, and Gadshill
SIR JOHN	Both which I have had, but their date is out; and therefore I’ll hide me. He withdraws behind the arras
PRINCE HARRY	(to Hostess) Call in the sheriff. Exit Hostess
(didascalia)	Enter Sheriff and a Carrier
PRINCE HARRY	Now, master sheriff, what is your will with me?
SHERIFF	First, pardon me, my lord. A hue and cry Hath followed certain men unto this house.
PRINCE HARRY	What men?
SHERIFF	One of them is well known, my gracious lord, A gross, fat man.
CARRIER	As fat as butter.
PRINCE HARRY	The man, I do assure you, is not here, For I myself at this time have employed him. And, sheriff, I will engage my word to thee That I will by tomorrow dinner-time Send him to answer thee, or any man, For anything he shall be charged withal. And so let me entreat you leave the house.
SHERIFF	I will, my lord. There are two gentlemen Have in this robbery lost three hundred marks.
PRINCE HARRY	It may be so. If he have robbed these men, He shall be answerable. And so, farewell.
SHERIFF	Good night, my noble lord.
PRINCE HARRY	I think it is good morrow, is it not?
SHERIFF	Indeed, my lord, I think it be two o’clock.
(didascalia)	Exeunt Sheriff and Carrier
PRINCE HARRY	This oily rascal is known as well as Paul’s. Go call him forth.
HARVEY	Oldcastle!
(didascalia)	He
(didascalia)	draws back the arras, revealing Sir John asleep
HARVEY	Fast asleep Behind the arras, and snorting like a horse.
PRINCE HARRY	Hark how hard he fetches breath. Search his pockets.
(didascalia)	Harvey searcheth his pocket and findeth certain papers. He closeth the arras and cometh forward
PRINCE HARRY	What hast thou found?
HARVEY	Nothing but papers, my lord.
PRINCE HARRY	Let’s see what they be. Read them.
(didascalia)	HARVEY (reads)
PRINCE HARRY	Item: a capon. 2s. 2d. Item: sauce. 4d. Item: sack, two gallons. 5s. 8d. Item: anchovies and sack after supper. 2s. 6d. Item: bread. ob.
(didascalia)	PRINCE HARRY O monstrous! But one halfpennyworth of bread to this intolerable deal of sack! What there is else, keep close; we’ll read it at more advantage. There let him sleep till day. I’ll to the court in the morning. We must all to the wars, and thy place shall be honourable. I’ll procure this fat rogue a charge of foot, and I know his death will be a march of twelve score. The money shall be paid back again, with advantage. Be with me betimes in the morning; and so good morrow, Harvey.
(didascalia)	HARVEY Good morrow, good my lord. Exeunt severally

Speaker	Line
(didascalia)	Enter Hotspur, the Earl of Worcester, Lord Mortimer, and Owain Glyndŵr, with a map
MORTIMER	These promises are fair, the parties sure, And our induction full of prosperous hope.
HOTSPUR	Lord Mortimer and cousin Glyndŵr, Will you sit down? And uncle Worcester?
(didascalia)	Mortimer, Glyndŵr, and Worcester sit
HOTSPUR	A plague upon it, I have forgot the map! GLYNDŴR No, here it is. Sit, cousin Percy, sit, Good cousin Hotspur;
(didascalia)	Hotspur sits
HOTSPUR	For by that name As oft as Lancaster doth speak of you, His cheek looks pale, and with a rising sigh He wisheth you in heaven.
HOTSPUR	And you in hell, As oft as he hears Owain Glyndŵr spoke of. GLYNDŴR I cannot blame him. At my nativity The front of heaven was full of fiery shapes, Of burning cressets; and at my birth The frame and huge foundation of the earth Shaked like a coward.
HOTSPUR	Why, so it would have done At the same season if your mother’s cat Had but kittened, though yourself had never been born. GLYNDŴR I say the earth did shake when I was born.
HOTSPUR	And I say the earth was not of my mind If you suppose as fearing you it shook. GLYNDŴR The heavens were all on fire, the earth did tremble—
HOTSPUR	O, then the earth shook to see the heavens on fire, And not in fear of your nativity. Diseased nature oftentimes breaks forth In strange eruptions; oft the teeming earth Is with a kind of colic pinched and vexed By the imprisoning of unruly wind
(didascalia)	Within her womb, which for enlargement striving
HOTSPUR	Shakes the old beldam earth, and topples down Steeples and moss-grown towers. At your birth Our grandam earth, having this distemp’rature, In passion shook. GLYNDŴR Cousin, of many men I do not bear these crossings. Give me leave To tell you once again that at my birth The front of heaven was full of fiery shapes, The goats ran from the mountains, and the herds Were strangely clamorous to the frighted fields. These signs have marked me extraordinary, And all the courses of my life do show I am not in the roll of commen men. Where is he living, clipped in with the sea That chides the banks of England, Scotland, Wales, Which calls me pupil or hath read to me? And bring him out that is but woman’s son Can trace me in the tedious ways of art, And hold me pace in deep experiments.
(didascalia)	HOTSPUR standíng
HOTSPUR	I think there’s no man speaketh better Welsh. I’ll to dinner.
MORTIMER	Peace, cousin Percy, you will make him mad. GLYNDŴR I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
HOTSPUR	Why, so can I, or so can any man; But will they come when you do call for them? GLYNDŴR Why, I can teach you, cousin, to command the devil.
HOTSPUR	And I can teach thee, coz, to shame the devil, By telling truth: ‘Tell truth, and shame the devil’. If thou have power to raise him, bring him hither, And I’ll be sworn I have power to shame him hence. O, while you live, tell truth and shame the devil.
MORTIMER	Come, come, no more of this unprofitable chat. GLYNDŴR Three times hath Henry Bolingbroke made head Against my power; thrice from the banks of Wye And sandy-bottomed Severn have I sent him Bootless home, and weather-beaten back.
HOTSPUR	Home without boots, and in foul weather too! How scapes he agues, in the devil’s name? GLYNDŴR Come, here’s the map. Shall we divide our right, According to our threefold order ta’en?
MORTIMER	The Archdeacon hath divided it Into three limits very equally. England from Trent and Severn hitherto By south and east is to my part assigned; All westward-Wales beyond the Severn shore And all the fertile land within that bound— To Owain Glyndwr; (to Hotspur) and, dear coz, to you The remnant northward lying off from Trent. And our indentures tripartite are drawn, Which, being sealèd interchangeably— A business that this night may execute— Tomorrow, cousin Percy, you and I 80 And my good lord of Worcester will set forth To meet your father and the Scottish power, As is appointed us, at Shrewsbury. My father, Glyndŵr., is not ready yet, Nor shall we need his help these fourteen days.
(didascalia)	Within that space you may have drawn together
MORTIMER	Your tenants, friends, and neighbouring gentlemen. GLYNDŴR A shorter time shall send me to you, lords; And in my conduct shall your ladies come, From whom you now must steal and take no leave; For there will be a world of water shed 91 Upon the parting of your wives and you.
HOTSPUR	Methinks my moiety north from Burton here In quantity equals not one of yours. See how this river comes me cranking in, And cuts me from the best of all my land A huge half-moon, a monstrous cantle, out. I’ll have the current in this place dammed up, And here the smug and silver Trent shall run In a new channel fair and evenly. It shall not wind with such a deep indent, To rob me of so rich a bottom here. GLYNDŴR Not wind? It shall, it must; you see it doth.
MORTIMER	Yea, but mark how he bears his course, and runs me up With like advantage on the other side, Gelding the opposed continent as much As on the other side it takes from you.
WORCESTER	Yea, but a little charge will trench him here, And on this north side win this cape of land, And then he runs straight and even. no
HOTSPUR	I’ll have it so; a little charge will do it. GLYNDŴR I’ll not have it altered.
HOTSPUR	Will not you? GLYNDŴR No, nor you shall not.
HOTSPUR	Who shall say me nay? 115 GLYNDŴR Why, that will I.
HOTSPUR	Let me not understand you, then: speak it in Welsh. GLYNDŴR I can speak English, lord, as well as you; For I was trained up in the English court, Where, being but young, I framed to the harp Many an English ditty lovely well, And gave the tongue a helpful ornament— A virtue that was never seen in you.
HOTSPUR	Marry, and I am glad of it, with all my heart. I had rather be a kitten and cry ‘mew’ Than one of these same metre ballad-mongers. I had rather hear a brazen canstick turned, Or a dry wheel grate on the axle-tree, And that would set my teeth nothing on edge, Nothing so much as mincing poetry. ’Tis like the forced gait of a shuffling nag. GLYNDŴR Come, you shall have Trent turned.
HOTSPUR	I do not care. I’ll give thrice so much land To any well-deserving friend; But in the way of bargain—mark ye me—135 I’ll cavil on the ninth part of a hair. Are the indentures drawn? Shall we be gone? GLYNDŴR The moon shines fair. You may away by night. I’ll haste the writer, and withal Break with your wives of your departure hence. I am afraid my daughter will run mad, So much she doteth on her Mortimer. Exit
MORTIMER	Fie, cousin Percy, how you cross my father!
HOTSPUR	I cannot choose. Sometime he angers me With telling me of the moldwarp and the ant, Of the dreamer Merlin and his prophecies, And of a dragon and a finless fish, A clip-winged griffin and a moulten raven, A couching lion and a ramping cat, And such a deal of skimble-skamble stuff 150 As puts me from my faith. I tell you what, He held me last night at the least nine hours In reckoning up the several devils’ names That were his lackeys. I cried, ‘Hum!’ and, ‘Well, go to!’, But marked him not a word. O, he is as tedious As a tired horse, a railing wife, Worse than a smoky house. I had rather live With cheese and garlic, in a windmill, far, Than feed on cates and have him talk to me In any summer house in Christendom. 160
MORTIMER	In faith, he is a worthy gentleman, Exceedingly well read, and profited In strange concealments, valiant as a lion, And wondrous affable, and as bountiful As mines of India. Shall I tell you, cousin? 165 He holds your temper in a high respect, And curbs himself even of his natural scope When you come ’cross his humour; faith, he does. I warrant you, that man is not alive Might so have tempted him as you have done Without the taste of danger and reproof. But do not use it oft, let me entreat you.
WORCESTER	(to Hotspur) In faith, my lord, you are too wilful-blame, And since your coming hither have done enough To put him quite besides his patience. You must needs learn, lord, to amend this fault. Though sometimes it show greatness, courage, blood— And that’s the dearest grace it renders you— Yet oftentimes it doth present harsh rage, Defect of manners, want of government, Pride, haughtiness, opinion, and disdain, The least of which haunting a nobleman Loseth men’s hearts, and leaves behind a stain Upon the beauty of all parts besides, Beguiling them of commendation. 185
HOTSPUR	Well, I am schooled. Good manners be your speed!
(didascalia)	Enter Glyndŵr with Lady Percy and Mortimer’s wife
HOTSPUR	Here come our wives, and let us take our leave.
(didascalia)	Mortimer’s wife weeps, and speaks to him in Welsh
MORTIMER	This is the deadly spite that angers me: My wife can speak no English, I no Welsh. GLYNDŴR My daughter weeps she’ll not part with you. She’ll be a soldier, too; she’ll to the wars.
MORTIMER	Good father, tell her that she and my aunt Percy Shall follow in your conduct speedily. Glyndŵr speaks to her in Welsh, and she answers him in the same
GLYNDWR	She is desperate here, a peevish self-willed harlotry, One that no persuasion can do good upon. 195 The lady speaks in Welsh
MORTIMER	I understand thy looks. That pretty Welsh Which thou down pourest from these swelling heavens I am too perfect in, and but for shame In such a parley should I answer thee. The lady kisses him, and speaks again in Welsh
MORTIMER	I understand thy kisses, and thou mine, And that’s a feeling disputation; But I will never be a truant, love, Till I have learnt thy language, for thy tongue Makes Welsh as sweet as ditties highly penned, Sung by a fair queen in a summer’s bower With ravishing division, to her lute. GLYNDŴR Nay, if you melt, then will she run mad. The lady
(didascalia)	sits on the rushes and speaks again in Welsh
MORTIMER	O, I am ignorance itself in this! GLYNDŴR She bids you on the wanton rushes lay you down And rest your gentle head upon her lap, And she will sing the song that pleaseth you, And on your eyelids crown the god of sleep, Charming your blood with pleasing heaviness, Making such difference ’twixt wake and sleep As is the difference betwixt day and night 215 The hour before the heavenly-harnessed team Begins his golden progress in the east.
MORTIMER	With all my heart, I’ll sit and hear her sing. By that time will our book, I think, be drawn.
(didascalia)	He sits, resting his head on the Welsh lady’s lap
YNDWR	Do so, and those musicians that shall play to you Hang in the air a thousand leagues from hence, And straight they shall be here. Sit and attend.
HOTSPUR	Come, Kate, thou art perfect in lying down. Come, quick, quick, that I may lay my head in thy lap.
LADY PERCY	(sitting) Go, ye giddy goose! Hotspur sits, resting his head on Lady Percy’s lap. The music plays
HOTSPUR	Now I perceive the devil understands Welsh; And ’tis no marvel, he is so humorous. By’r Lady, he’s a good musician.
LADY PERCY	Then should you be nothing but musical, For you are altogether governed by humours. Lie still, ye thief, and hear the lady sing in Welsh.
HOTSPUR	I had rather hear Lady my brach howl in Irish.
LADY PERCY	Wouldst thou have thy head broken?
HOTSPUR	No.
LADY PERCY	Then be still. 235
HOTSPUR	Neither—’tis a woman’s fault.
LADY PERCY	Now God help thee!
HOTSPUR	To the Welsh lady’s bed.
LADY PERCY	What’s that?
HOTSPUR	Peace; she sings. Here the lady sings a Welsh song
HOTSPUR	Come, Kate, I’ll have your song too.
LADY PERCY	Not mine, in good sooth.
HOTSPUR	Not yours, in good sooth! Heart, you swear like a comfit-maker’s wife: ‘Not you, in good sooth!’ and ‘As true as I live!’ and 245 ‘As God shall mend me!’ and ‘As sure as day!’; And giv‘st such sarcenet surety for thy oaths As if thou never walk’st further than Finsbury. Swear me, Kate, like a lady as thou art, A good mouth-filling oath, and leave ’in sooth’ 250 And such protest of pepper gingerbread To velvet-guards and Sunday citizens. Come, sing.
LADY PERCY	I will not sing.
HOTSPUR	’Tis the next way to turn tailor, or be redbreast teacher. (Rising) An the indentures be drawn, I’ll away within these two hours; and so come in when ye will.
(didascalia)	Exit
HOTSPUR	GLYNDŴR Come, come, Lord Mortimer. You are as slow As hot Lord Percy is on fire to go. By this our book is drawn. We’ll but seal, 260 And then to horse immediately.
MORTIMER	(rising) With all my heart. The ladies rise, and all exeunt

Speaker	Line
(didascalia)	Enter King Henry, Prince Harry, and lords
KING HENRY	Lords, give us leave—the Prince of Wales and I Must have some private conference—but be near at hand, For we shall presently have need of you.
(didascalia)	Exeunt Lords
KING HENRY	I know not whether God will have it so For some displeasing service I have done, That in his secret doom out of my blood He’ll breed revengement and a scourge for me, But thou dost in thy passages of life Make me believe that thou art only marked For the hot vengeance and the rod of heaven To punish my mistreadings. Tell me else, Could such inordinate and low desires, Such poor, such bare, such lewd, such mean attempts, Such barren pleasures, rude society, As thou art matched withal and grafted to, 15 Accompany the greatness of thy blood, And hold their level with thy princely heart?
PRINCE HARRY	So please your majesty, I would I could Quit all offences with as clear excuse As well as I am doubtless I can purge Myself of many I am charged withal; Yet such extenuation let me beg As, in reproof of many tales devised— Which oft the ear of greatness needs must hear By smiling pickthanks and base newsmongers— I may, for some things true wherein my youth Hath faulty wandered and irregular, Find pardon on my true submission.
KING HENRY	God pardon thee! Yet let me wonder, Harry, At thy affections, which do hold a wing Quite from the flight of all thy ancestors. Thy place in Council thou hast rudely lost— Which by thy younger brother is supplied— And art almost an alien to the hearts Of all the court and princes of my blood. The hope and expectation of thy time Is ruined, and the soul of every man Prophetically do forethink thy fall. Had I so lavish of my presence been, So common-hackneyed in the eyes of men, So stale and cheap to vulgar company, Opinion, that did help me to the crown, Had still kept loyal to possession, And left me in reputeless banishment, A fellow of no mark nor likelihood. By being seldom seen, I could not stir But, like a comet, I was wondered at, That men would tell their children ‘This is he.’ Others would say ‘Where, which is Bolingbroke?’ And then I stole all courtesy from heaven, And dressed myself in such humility That I did pluck allegiance from men’s hearts, Loud shouts and salutations from their mouths, Even in the presence of the crowned King. Thus did I keep my person fresh and new, My presence like a robe pontifical— Ne‘er seen but wondered at—and so my state, Seldom but sumptuous, showed like a feast, And won by rareness such solemnity. The skipping King, he ambled up and down 60 With shallow jesters and rash bavin wits, Soon kindled and soon burnt, carded his state, Mingled his royalty with cap’ring fools, Had his great name profaned with their scorns, And gave his countenance, against his name, To laugh at gibing boys, and stand the push Of every beardless vain comparative; Grew a companion to the common streets, Enfeoffed himself to popularity, That, being daily swallowed by men’s eyes, They surfeited with honey, and began To loathe the taste of sweetness, whereof a little More than a little is by much too much. So when he had occasion to be seen, He was but as the cuckoo is in June, Heard, not regarded, seen but with such eyes As, sick and blunted with community, Afford no extraordinary gaze Such as is bent on sun-like majesty When it shines seldom in admiring eyes, But rather drowsed and hung their eyelids down, Slept in his face, and rendered such aspect As cloudy men use to their adversaries, Being with his presence glutted, gorged, and full. And in that very line, Harry, standest thou; 85 For thou hast lost thy princely privilege With vile participation. Not an eye But is a-weary of thy common sight, Save mine, which hath desired to see thee more, Which now doth that I would not have it do— Make blind itself with foolish tenderness. He weeps
PRINCE HARRY	I shall hereafter, my thrice-gracious lord, Be more myself.
KING HENRY	For all the world, As thou art to this hour was Richard then, When I from France set foot at Ravenspurgh, And even as I was then is Percy now. Now by my sceptre, and my soul to boot, He hath more worthy interest to the state Than thou, the shadow of succession; For, of no right, nor colour like to right, He doth fill fields with harness in the realm, Turns head against the lion’s armed jaws, And, being no more in debt to years than thou, Leads ancient lords and reverend bishops on To bloody battles, and to bruising arms. 105 What never-dying honour hath he got Against renowned Douglas !—whose high deeds, Whose hot incursions and great name in arms, Holds from all soldiers chief majority And military title capital Through all the kingdoms that acknowledge Christ. Thrice hath this Hotspur, Mars in swaddling-clothes, This infant warrior, in his enterprises Discomfited great Douglas; ta‘en him once; Enlarged him; and made a friend of him 115 To fill the mouth of deep defiance up, And shake the peace and safety of our throne. And what say you to this ? Percy, Northumberland, The Archbishop’s grace of York, Douglas, Mortimer, Capitulate against us, and are up. But wherefore do I tell these news to thee ? Why, Harry, do I tell thee of my foes, Which art my near’st and dearest enemy ?— Thou that art like enough, through vassal fear, Base inclination, and the start of spleen, To fight against me under Percy’s pay, To dog his heels, and curtsy at his frowns, To show how much thou art degenerate.
PRINCE HARRY	Do not think so; you shall not find it so. And God forgive them that so much have swayed Your majesty’s good thoughts away from me. I will redeem all this on Percy’s head, And in the closing of some glorious day Be bold to tell you that I am your son; When I will wear a garment all of blood, And stain my favours in a bloody mask, Which, washed away, shall scour my shame with it. And that shall be the day, whene’er it lights, That this same child of honour and renown, This gallant Hotspur, this all-praised knight, And your unthought-of Harry chance to meet. For every honour sitting on his helm, Would they were multitudes, and on my head My shames redoubled; for the time will come That I shall make this northern youth exchange His glorious deeds for my indignities. Percy is but my factor, good my lord, To engross up glorious deeds on my behalf; And I will call him to so strict account That he shall render every glory up, 150 Yea, even the slightest worship of his time, Or I will tear the reckoning from his heart. This, in the name of God, I promise here, The which if he be pleased I shall perform, I do beseech your majesty may salve The long-grown wounds of my intemperature; If not, the end of life cancels all bonds, And I will die a hundred thousand deaths Ere break the smallest parcel of this vow.
KING HENRY	A hundred thousand rebels die in this. Thou shalt have charge and sovereign trust herein.
(didascalia)	Enter Sir Walter Blunt
KING HENRY	How now, good Blunt ? Thy looks are full of speed.
BLUNT	So hath the business that I come to speak of. Lord Mortimer of Scotland hath sent word That Douglas and the English rebels met The eleventh of this month at Shrewsbury. A mighty and a fearful head they are, If promises be kept on every hand, As ever offered foul play in a state.
KING HENRY	The Earl of Westmorland set forth today, With him my son Lord John of Lancaster, For this advertisement is five days old. On Wednesday next, Harry, you shall set forward. On Thursday we ourselves will march. Our meeting is Bridgnorth, and, Harry, you Shall march through Gloucestershire, by which account, Our business valued, some twelve days hence Our general forces at Bridgnorth shall meet. Our hands are full of business; let’s away. Advantage feeds him fat while men delay. Exeunt

Speaker	Line
(didascalia)	Enter Sir John Oldcastle
(didascalia)	With a truncheon at his waist, and Russell
SIR JOHN	Russell, am I not fallen away vilely since this last action? Do I not bate? Do I not dwindle? Why, my skin hangs about me like an old lady’s loose gown. I am withered like an old apple-john. Well, I’ll repent, and that suddenly, while I am in some liking. I shall be out of heart shortly, and then I shall have no strength to repent. An I have not forgotten what the inside of a church is made of, I am a peppercorn, a brewer’s horse—the inside of a church! Company, villainous company, hath been the spoil of me. 10
RUSSELL	Sir John, you are so fretful you cannot live long.
SIR JOHN	Why, there is it. Come, sing me a bawdy song, make me merry. I was as virtuously given as a gentleman need to be: virtuous enough; swore little; diced not-above seven times a week; went to a bawdy-house not-above once in a quarter—of an hour; paid money that I borrowed—three or four times; lived well, and in good compass. And now I live out of all order, out of all compass.
RUSSELL	Why, you are so fat, Sir John, that you must needs be out of all compass, out of all reasonable compass, Sir John.
SIR JOHN	Do thou amend thy face, and I’ll amend my life. Thou art our admiral, thou bearest the lantern in the poop—but ’tis in the nose of thee. Thou art the Knight of the Burning Lamp.
RUSSELL	Why, Sir John, my face does you no harm.
SIR JOHN	No, I’ll be sworn; I make as good use of it as many a man doth of a death’s head, or a memento mori. I never see thy face but I think upon hell-fire and Dives that lived in purple—for there he is in his robes, burning, burning. If thou wert any way given to virtue, I would swear by thy face; my oath should be ’By this fire that’s God’s angell’ But thou art altogether given over, and wert indeed, but for the light in thy face, the son of utter darkness. When thou rannest up Gads Hill in the night to catch my horse, if I did not think thou hadst been an ignis fatuus or a ball of wildfire, there’s no purchase in money. O, thou art a perpetual triumph, an everlasting bonfire-light! Thou hast saved me a thousand marks in links and torches, walking with thee in the night betwixt tavern and tavern—but the sack that thou hast drunk me would have bought me lights as good cheap at the dearest chandler’s in Europe. I have maintained that salamander of yours with fire any time this two-and-thirty years, God reward me for it.
RUSSELL	’Sblood, I would my face were in your belly!
SIR JOHN	God-a-mercy! ! So should I be sure to be heart-burnt.
(didascalia)	Enter Hostess
SIR JOHN	How now, Dame Partlet the hen, have you enquired yet who picked my pocket?
HOSTESS	Why, Sir John, what do you think, Sir John? Do you think I keep thieves in my house ? I have searched, I have enquired; so has my husband, man by man, boy by boy, servant by servant. The tithe of a hair was never lost in my house before.
SIR JOHN	Ye lie, Hostess: Russell was shaved and lost many a hair, and I’ll be sworn my pocket was picked. Go to, you are a woman, go. 60
HOSTESS	Who, I? No, I defy thee! God’s light, I was never called so in mine own house before.
SIR JOHN	Go to, I know you well enough.
HOSTESS	No, Sir John, you do not know me, Sir John; I know you, Sir John. You owe me money, Sir John, and now you pick a quarrel to beguile me of it. I bought you a dozen of shirts to your back.
SIR JOHN	Dowlas, filthy dowlas. I have given them away to bakers’ wives; they have made bolters of them.
HOSTESS	Now as I am a true woman, holland of eight shillings an ell. You owe money here besides, Sir John: for your diet, and by-drinkings, and money lent you, four-and-twenty pound.
SIR JOHN	(pointing at Russell) He had his part of it. Let him pay.
HOSTESS	He? Alas, he is poor; he hath nothing.
SIR JOHN	How, poor? Look upon his face. What call you rich? Let them coin his nose, let them coin his cheeks, I’ll not pay a denier. What, will you make a younker of me ? Shall I not take mine ease in mine inn, but I shall have my pocket picked? I have lost a seal-ring of my grandfather’s worth forty mark.
HOSTESS	O Jesu, (to Russell) I have heard the Prince tell him, I know not how oft, that that ring was copper.
(didascalia)	SIR JOHN How ? The Prince is a jack, a sneak-up. Raising his truncheon ’Sblood, an he were here I would cudgel him like a dog if he would say so.
(didascalia)	Enter Prince Harry and Harvey, marching; and Sir John Oldcastle meets them, playing upon his truncheon like a fife
HOSTESS	How now, lad, is the wind in that door, i’faith? Must we all march?
RUSSELL	Yea, two and two, Newgate fashion.
HOSTESS	My lord, I pray you hear me.
PRINCE HARRY	What sayst thou, Mistress Quickly? How doth thy husband? I love him well; he is an honest man.
HOSTESS	Good my lord, hear me!!
SIR JOHN	Prithee, let her alone, and list to me.
PRINCE HARRY	What sayst thou, Jack?
SIR JOHN	The other night I fell asleep here behind the arras, and had my pocket picked. This house is turned bawdy-house: they pick pockets.
PRINCE HARRY	What didst thou lose, Jack? 100
SIR JOHN	Wilt thou believe me, Hal, three or four bonds of forty pound apiece, and a seal-ring of my grandfather’s.
PRINCE HARRY	A trifle, some eightpenny matter.
HOSTESS	So I told him, my lord; and I said I heard your grace say so; and, my lord, he speaks most vilely of you, like a foul-mouthed man as he is, and said he would cudgel you. 108
PRINCE HARRY	What? He did not !
HOSTESS	There’s neither faith, truth, nor womanhood in me else.
SIR JOHN	There’s no more faith in thee than in a stewed prune, nor no more truth in thee than in a drawn fox; and, for womanhood, Maid Marian may be the deputy’s wife of the ward to thee. Go, you thing, go!
HOSTESS	Say, what thing, what thing?
SIR JOHN	What thing? Why, a thing to thank God on.
HOSTESS	I am no thing to thank God on. I would thou shouldst know it, I am an honest man’s wife; and setting thy knighthood aside, thou art a knave to call me so.
SIR JOHN	Setting thy womanhood aside, thou art a beast to say otherwise.
HOSTESS	Say, what beast, thou knave, thou? sIR JOHN What beast? Why, an otter.
PRINCE HARRY	An otter, Sir John? Why an otter?
SIR JOHN	Why? She’s neither fish nor flesh; a man knows not where to have her.
HOSTESS	Thou art an unjust man in saying so. Thou or any man knows where to have me, thou knave, thou.
PRINCE HARRY	Thou sayst true, Hostess, and he slanders thee most grossly.
HOSTESS	So he doth you, my lord, and said this other day you owed him a thousand pound.
PRINCE HARRY	(to Sir John) Sirrah, do I owe you a thousand pound?
SIR JOHN	A thousand pound, Hal? A million! Thy love is worth a million; thou owest me thy love.
HOSTESS	Nay, my lord, he called you ’jack’ and said he would cudgel you.
SIR JOHN	Did I, Russell?
RUSSELL	Indeed, Sir John, you said so.
SIR JOHN	Yea, if he said my ring was copper.
PRINCE HARRY	I say ’tis copper; darest thou be as good as thy word now?
SIR JOHN	Why, Hal, thou knowest as thou art but man I dare, but as thou art prince, I fear thee as I fear the roaring of the lion’s whelp.
PRINCE HARRY	And why not as the lion?
SIR JOHN	The King himself is to be feared as the lion. Dost thou think I’ll fear thee as I fear thy father? Nay, an I do, I pray God my girdle break.
PRINCE HARRY	O, if it should, how would thy guts fall about thy knees! But sirrah, there’s no room for faith, truth, nor honesty in this bosom of thine; it is all filled up with guts and midriff. Charge an honest woman with picking thy pocket? Why, thou whoreson impudent embossed rascal, if there were anything in thy pocket but tavern reckonings, memorandums of bawdy-houses, and one poor pennyworth of sugar-candy to make thee long-winded-if thy pocket were enriched with any other injuries but these, I am a villain. And yet you will stand to it, you will not pocket up wrong. Art thou not ashamed?
SIR JOHN	Dost thou hear, Hal? Thou knowest in the state of innocency Adam fell, and what should poor Jack Oldcastle do in the days of villainy? Thou seest I have more flesh than another man, and therefore more frailty. You confess, then, you picked my pocket.
PRINCE HARRY	It appears so by the story.
SIR JOHN	Hostess, I forgive thee. Go make ready breakfast. Love thy husband, look to thy servants, cherish thy guests. Thou shalt find me tractable to any honest reason; thou seest I am pacified still. Nay, prithee, be gone. Exit Hostess Now, Hal, to the news at court. For the robbery, lad, how is that answered?
PRINCE HARRY	O, my sweet beef, I must still be good angel to thee. The money is paid back again.
SIR JOHN	O, I do not like that paying back; ’tis a double labour. 181
PRINCE HARRY	I am good friends with my father, and may do anything.
SIR JOHN	Rob me the exchequer the first thing thou dost, and do it with unwashed hands too.
RUSSELL	Do, my lord.
PRINCE HARRY	I have procured thee, Jack, a charge of foot.
SIR JOHN	I would it had been of horse ! Where shall I find one that can steal well? O, for a fine thief of the age of two-and-twenty or thereabouts! I am heinously unprovided. Well, God be thanked for these rebels-they offend none but the virtuous. I laud them, I praise them.
PRINCE HARRY	Russell.
RUSSELL	My lord?
PRINCE HARRY	(giving letters) Go bear this letter to Lord John of Lancaster, To my brother John; this to my lord of Westmorland.
(didascalia)	Exit Russell
PRINCE HARRY	Go, Harvey, to horse, to horse, for thou and I Have thirty miles to ride yet ere dinner time.
(didascalia)	Exit Harvey
PRINCE HARRY	Jack, meet me tomorrow in the Temple Hall At two o’clock in the afternoon. There shalt thou know thy charge, and there receive Money and order for their furniture. The land is burning, Percy stands on high, And either we or they must lower lie. Exit
SIR JOHN	Rare words I Brave world! (Calling) Hostess, my breakfast, come!— O, I could wish this tavern were my drum! Exit

Speaker	Line
(didascalia)	Enter Hotspur and the Earls of,Worcester and Douglas
HOTSPUR	Well said, my noble Scot ! If speaking truth In this fine age were not thought flattery, Such attribution should the Douglas have As not a soldier of this season’s stamp Should go so general current through the world. By God, I cannot flatter, I do defy The tongues of soothers, but a braver place In my heart’s love hath no man than yourself. Nay, task me to my word, approve me, lord.
DOUGLAS	Thou art the king of honour. No man so potent breathes upon the ground But I will beard him.
HOTSPUR	Do so, and ’tis well.
(didascalia)	Enter a Messenger with letters
HOTSPUR	What letters hast thou there? I can but thank you.
MESSENGER	These letters come from your father.
HOTSPUR	Letters from him? Why comes he not himself? 15
MESSENGER	He cannot come, my lord, he is grievous sick.
HOTSPUR	Zounds, how has he the leisure to be sick In such a jostling time? Who leads his power? Under whose government come they along?
MESSENGER	His letters bears his mind, not I, my lord. Hotspur reads the letter
WORCESTER	I prithee tell me, doth he keep his bed?
MESSENGER	He did, my lord, four days ere I set forth; And at the time of my departure thence He was much feared by his physicians.
WORCESTER	I would the state of time had first been whole Ere he by sickness had been visited. His health was never better worth than now.
HOTSPUR	Sick now? Droop now? This sickness doth infect The very life-blood of our enterprise. ’Tis catching hither, even to our camp. He writes me here that inward sickness stays him, And that his friends by deputation Could not so soon be drawn; nor did he think it meet To lay so dangerous and dear a trust On any soul removed but on his own. Yet doth he give us bold advertisement That with our small conjunction we should on, To see how fortune is disposed to us; For, as he writes, there is no quailing now, Because the King is certainly possessed 40 Of all our purposes. What say you to it?
WORCESTER	Your father’s sickness is a maim to us.
HOTSPUR	A perilous gash, a very limb lopped off. And yet, in faith, it is not. His present want Seems more than we shall find it. Were it good To set the exact wealth of all our states All at one cast, to set so rich a main On the nice hazard of one doubtful hour? It were not good, for therein should we read The very bottom and the sole of hope, The very list, the very utmost bound, Of all our fortunes.
DOUGLAS	Faith, and so we should, where now remains A sweet reversion—we may boldly spend Upon the hope of what is to come in. A comfort of retirement lives in this.
HOTSPUR	A rendezvous, a home to fly unto, If that the devil and mischance look big Upon the maidenhead of our affairs.
WORCESTER	But yet I would your father had been here. 60 The quality and hair of our attempt Brooks no division. It will be thought By some that know not why he is away That wisdom, loyalty, and mere dislike Of our proceedings kept the Earl from hence; And think how such an apprehension May turn the tide of fearful faction, And breed a kind of question in our cause. For, well you know, we of the off’ring side Must keep aloof from strict arbitrement, And stop all sight-holes, every loop from whence The eye of reason may pry in upon us. This absence of your father’s draws a curtain That shows the ignorant a kind of fear Before not dreamt of.
HOTSPUR	You strain too far. I rather of his absence make this use: It lends a lustre, and more great opinion, A larger dare to our great enterprise, Than if the Earl were here; for men must think If we without his help can make a head 80 To push against a kingdom, with his help We shall o’erturn it topsy-turvy down. Yet all goes well, yet all our joints are whole.
DOUGLAS	As heart can think, there is not such a word Spoke of in Scotland as this term of fear.
(didascalia)	Enter Sir Richard Vernon
HOTSPUR	My cousin Vernon! Welcome, by my soul!
VERNON	Pray God my news be worth a welcome, lord. The Earl of Westmorland, seven thousand strong, Is marching hitherwards; with him Prince John.
HOTSPUR	No harm. What more?
VERNON	And further I have learned The King himself in person is set forth, Or hitherwards intended speedily, With strong and mighty preparation.
HOTSPUR	He shall be welcome too. Where is his son, The nimble-footed madcap Prince of Wales, And his comrades that daffed the world aside And bid it pass?
VERNON	All furnished, all in arms, All plumed like ostriches, that with the wind
(didascalia)
VERNON	Baiting like eagles having lately bathed, Glittering in golden coats like images, As full of spirit as the month of May, And gorgeous as the sun at midsummer; Wanton as youthful goats, wild as young bulls. I saw young Harry with his beaver on, 105 His cuishes on his thighs, gallantly armed, Rise from the ground like feathered Mercury, And vaulted with such ease into his seat As if an angel dropped down from the clouds To turn and wind a fiery Pegasus, 110 And witch the world with noble horsemanship.
HOTSPUR	No more, no more! Worse than the sun in March, This praise doth nourish agues. Let them come! They come like sacrifices in their trim, And to the fire-eyed maid of smoky war 115 All hot and bleeding will we offer them. The mailed Mars shall on his altar sit Up to the ears in blood. I am on fire To hear this rich reprisal is so nigh, And yet not ours! Come, let me taste my horse, Who is to bear me like a thunderbolt Against the bosom of the Prince of Wales. Harry to Harry shall, hot horse to horse, Meet and ne’er part till one drop down a corpse. O, that Glyndwr were come!
VERNON	There is more news. I learned in Worcester, as I rode along, He cannot draw his power this fourteen days.
DOUGLAS	That’s the worst tidings that I hear of yet.
WORCESTER	Ay, by my faith, that bears a frosty sound.
HOTSPUR	What may the King’s whole battle reach unto?
VERNON	To thirty thousand.
HOTSPUR	Forty let it be. My father and Glyndŵr being both away, The powers of us may serve so great a day. Come, let us take a muster speedily. Doomsday is near: die all, die merrily.
DOUGLAS	Talk not of dying; I am out of fear Of death or death’s hand for this one half year.
(didascalia)	Exeunt

Speaker	Line
(didascalia)	Enter Sir John Oldcastle and Russell
SIR JOHN	Russell, get thee before to Coventry; fill me a bottle of sack. Our soldiers shall march through. We’ll to Sutton Coldfield tonight.
RUSSELL	Will you give me money, captain?
SIR JOHN	Lay out, lay out. 5
RUSSELL	This bottle makes an angel.
(didascalia)	SIR JOHN giving Russell money An if it do, take it for thy labour; an if it make twenty, take them all; I’ll answer the coinage. Bid my lieutenant Harvey meet me at town’s end.
RUSSELL	I will, captain. Farewell. Exit
SIR JOHN	If I be not ashamed of my soldiers, I am a soused gurnet. I have misused the King’s press damnably. I have got in exchange of one hundred and fifty soldiers three hundred and odd pounds. I press me none but good householders, yeomen’s sons, enquire me out contracted bachelors, such as had been asked twice on the banns, such a commodity of warm slaves as had as lief hear the devil as a drum, such as fear the report of a caliver worse than a struck fowl or a hurt wild duck. I pressed me none but such toasts and butter, with hearts in their bellies no bigger than pins’ heads, and they have bought out their services; and now my whole charge consists of ensigns, corporals, lieutenants, gentlemen of companies—slaves as ragged as Lazarus in the painted cloth, where the glutton’s dogs licked his sores—and such as indeed were never soldiers, but discarded unjust servingmen, younger sons to younger brothers, revolted tapsters, and ostlers trade-fallen, the cankers of a calm world and a long peace, ten times more dishonourable-ragged than an old feazed ensign; and such have I to fill up the rooms of them as have bought out their services, that you would think that I had a hundred and fifty tattered prodigals lately come from swine-keeping, from eating draff and husks. A mad fellow met me on the way and told me I had unloaded all the gibbets and pressed the dead bodies. No eye hath seen such scarecrows. I’ll not march through Coventry with them, that’s flat. Nay, and the villains march wide betwixt the legs, as if they had gyves on, for indeed I had the most of them out of prison. There’s not a shirt and a half in all my company; and the half-shirt is two napkins tacked together and thrown over the shoulders like a herald’s coat without sleeves; and the shirt, to say the truth, stolen from my host at Saint Albans, or the red-nose innkeeper of Daventry. But that’s all one; they’ll find linen enough on every hedge. 48
(didascalia)	Enter Prince Harry and the Earl of Westmorland
PRINCE HARRY	How now, blown Jack? How now, quilt?
SIR JOHN	What, Hal! How now, mad wag? What a devil dost thou in Warwickshire? My good lord of Westmorland, I cry you mercy! I thought your honour had already been at Shrewsbury.
WESTMORLAND	Faith, Sir John, ’tis more than time that I were there, and you too; but my powers are there already. The King, I can tell you, looks for us all. We must away all night.
SIR JOHN	Tut, never fear me. I am as vigilant as a cat to steal cream.
PRINCE HARRY	I think to steal cream indeed, for thy theft hath already made thee butter. But tell me, Jack, whose fellows are these that come after?
SIR JOHN	Mine, Hal, mine.
PRINCE HARRY	I did never see such pitiful rascals.
SIR JOHN	Tut, tut, good enough to toss, food for powder, food for powder. They’ll fill a pit as well as better. Tush, man, mortal men, mortal men.
WESTMORLAND	Ay, but Sir John, methinks they are exceeding poor and bare, too beggarly.
SIR JOHN	Faith, for their poverty, I know not where they had that, and for their bareness, I am sure they never learned that of me.
PRINCE HARRY	No, I’ll be sworn, unless you call three fingers in the ribs bare. But sirrah, make haste. Percy is already in the field. Exit
SIR JOHN	What, is the King encamped?
(didascalia)	WESTMORLAND He is, Sir John. I fear we shall stay too long. Exit
SIR JOHN	Well, to the latter end of a fray And the beginning of a feast Fits a dull fighter and a keen guest. Exit

Speaker	Line
(didascalia)	Enter Hotspur, the Earls of Worcester and Douglas, and Sir Richard Vernon
HOTSPUR	We’ll fight with him tonight.
WORCESTER	It may not be.
DOUGLAS	You give him then advantage.
VERNON	Not a whit.
HOTSPUR	Why say you so? Looks he not for supply?
VERNON	So do we.
HOTSPUR	His is certain; ours is doubtful.
WORCESTER	Good cousin, be advised. Stir not tonight.
VERNON	(to Hotspur) Do not, my lord.
DOUGLAS	You do not counsel well. You speak it out of fear and cold heart.
VERNON	Do me no slander, Douglas. By my life— And I dare well maintain it with my life— If well-respected honour bid me on, 10 I hold as little counsel with weak fear As you, my lord, or any Scot that this day lives. Let it be seen tomorrow in the battle Which of us fears.
DOUGLAS	Yea, or tonight. 15
VERNON	Content.
HOTSPUR	Tonight, say I.
VERNON	Come, come, it may not be. I wonder much, Being men of such great leading as you are, That you foresee not what impediments Drag back our expedition. Certain horse Of my cousin Vernon’s are not yet come up. Your uncle Worcester’s horse came but today, And now their pride and mettle is asleep, Their courage with hard labour tame and dull, That not a horse is half the half himself.
HOTSPUR	So are the horses of the enemy In general journey-bated and brought low. The better part of ours are full of rest.
WORCESTER	The number of the King exceedeth our. For God’s sake, cousin, stay till all come in. The trumpet sounds a parley [within]. Enter Sir Walter Blunt
BLUNT	I come with gracious offers from the King, If you vouchsafe me hearing and respect.
HOTSPUR	Welcome, Sir Walter Blunt; and would to God You were of our determination. Some of us love you well, and even those some Envy your great deservings and good name, Because you are not of our quality, But stand against us like an enemy.
BLUNT	And God defend but still I should stand so, So long as out of limit and true rule You stand against anointed majesty. But to my charge. The King hath sent to know The nature of your griefs, and whereupon You conjure from the breast of civil peace Such bold hostility, teaching his duteous land Audacious cruelty. If that the King Have any way your good deserts forgot, Which he confesseth to be manifold, He bids you name your griefs, and with all speed You shall have your desires, with interest, And pardon absolute for yourself and these Herein misled by your suggestion.
HOTSPUR	The King is kind, and well we know the King Knows at what time to promise, when to pay. My father and my uncle and myself Did give him that same royalty he wears; And when he was not six-and-twenty strong, Sick in the world’s regard, wretched and low, A poor unminded outlaw sneaking home, My father gave him welcome to the shore; And when he heard him swear and vow to God He came but to be Duke of Lancaster, To sue his livery, and beg his peace With tears of innocency and terms of zeal, My father, in kind heart and pity moved, Swore him assistance, and performed it too. Now when the lords and barons of the realm Perceived Northumberland did lean to him, The more and less came in with cap and knee, Met him in boroughs, cities, villages, Attended him on bridges, stood in lanes, Laid gifts before him, proffered him their oaths, Gave him their heirs as pages, followed him, Even at the heels, in golden multitudes. He presently, as greatness knows itself, Steps me a little higher than his vow Made to my father while his blood was poor Upon the naked shore at Ravenspurgh, And now forsooth takes on him to reform Some certain edicts and some strait decrees That lie too heavy on the commonwealth, Cries out upon abuses, seems to weep Over his country’s wrongs; and by this face, This seeming brow of justice, did he win The hearts of all that he did angle for; Proceeded further, cut me off the heads Of all the favourites that the absent King In deputation left behind him here When he was personal in the Irish war.
BLUNT	Tut, I came not to hear this.
HOTSPUR	Then to the point. In short time after, he deposed the King, Soon after that deprived him of his life, And in the neck of that tasked the whole state; To make that worse, suffered his kinsman March— Who is, if every owner were well placed, Indeed his king—to be engaged in Wales, There without ransom to lie forfeited; Disgraced me in my happy victories, Sought to entrap me by intelligence, 100 Rated mine uncle from the Council-board, In rage dismissed my father from the court, Broke oath on oath, committed wrong on wrong, And in conclusion drove us to seek out This head of safety, and withal to pry 105 Into his title, the which we find Too indirect for long continuance.
BLUNT	Shall I return this answer to the King?
HOTSPUR	Not so, Sir Walter. We’ll withdraw awhile. Go to the King, and let there be impawned 110 Some surety for a safe return again; And in the morning early shall mine uncle Bring him our purposes. And so, farewell.
BLUNT	I would you would accept of grace and love.
HOTSPUR	And maybe so we shall.
BLUNT	Pray God you do.
(didascalia)	Exeunt [Hotspur, Worcester, Douglas, and Vernon at one door, Blunt at another door

Speaker	Line
(didascalia)	Enter the Archbishop of York, and Sir Michael
ARCHBISHOP	(giving letters) Hie, good Sir Michael, bear this sealed brief With winged haste to the Lord Marshal, This to my cousin Scrope, and all the rest To whom they are directed. If you knew How much they do import, you would make haste.
SIR MICHAEL	My good lord, I guess their tenor.
ARCHBISHOP	Like enough you do. Tomorrow, good Sir Michael, is a day Wherein the fortune of ten thousand men Must bide the touch; for, sir, at Shrewsbury, As I am truly given to understand, The King with mighty and quick-raised power Meets with Lord Harry. And I fear, Sir Michael, What with the sickness of Northumberland, Whose power was in the first proportion, 15 And what with Owain Glyndŵr’s absence thence, Who with them was a rated sinew too, And comes not in, overruled by prophecies, I fear the power of Percy is too weak To wage an instant trial with the King.
SIR MICHAEL	Why, my good lord, you need not fear; there is Douglas And Lord Mortimer.
ARCHBISHOP	No, Mortimer is not there.
SIR MICHAEL	But there is Mordake, Vernon, Lord Harry Percy; And there is my lord of Worcester, and a head Of gallant warriors, noble gentlemen.
ARCHBISHOP	And so there is; but yet the King hath drawn The special head of all the land together— The Prince of Wales, Lord John of Lancaster, The noble Westmorland, and warlike Blunt, And many more corrivals, and dear men Of estimation and command in arms.
SIR MICHAEL	Doubt not, my lord, they shall be well opposed.
ARCHBISHOP	I hope no less, yet needful ’tis to fear; And to prevent the worst, Sir Michael, speed. For if Lord Percy thrive not, ere the King Dismiss his power he means to visit us, For he hath heard of our confederacy, And ’tis but wisdom to make strong against him; Therefore make haste. I must go write again To other friends; and so farewell, Sir Michael.
(didascalia)	Exeunt
(didascalia)	severally

Speaker	Line
(didascalia)	Enter King Henry, Prince Harry, Lord John of Lancaster, the Earl of Westmorland, Sir Walter Blunt, and Sir John Oldcastle
KING HENRY	How bloodily the sun begins to peer Above yon bulky hill! The day looks pale At his distemp’rature.
PRINCE HARRY	The southern wind Doth play the trumpet to his purposes, And by his hollow whistling in the leaves 5 Foretells a tempest and a blust’ring day.
KING HENRY	Then with the losers let it sympathize, For nothing can seem foul to those that win. The trumpet sounds
(didascalia)	a parley within. Enter the Earl of Worcester
(didascalia)	and Sir Richard Vernon
KING HENRY	How now, my lord of Worcester? ’Tis not well That you and I should meet upon such terms 10 As now we meet. You have deceived our trust, And made us doff our easy robes of peace To crush our old limbs in ungentle steel. This is not well, my lord, this is not well. What say you to it? Will you again unknit 15 This churlish knot of all-abhorred war, And move in that obedient orb again Where you did give a fair and natural light, And be no more an exhaled meteor, A prodigy of fear, and a portent Of broached mischief to the unborn times?
WORCESTER	Hear me, my liege. For mine own part, I could be well content To entertain the lag-end of my life With quiet hours; for I protest, 25 I have not sought the day of this dislike.
KING HENRY	You have not sought it? How comes it, then?
SIR JOHN	Rebellion lay in his way, and he found it.
PRINCE HARRY	Peace, chewet, peace!
WORCESTER	(to the King) It pleased your majesty to turn your looks Of favour from myself and all our house; And yet I must remember you, my lord, We were the first and dearest of your friends. For you my staff of office did I break In Richard’s time, and posted day and night To meet you on the way and kiss your hand When yet you were in place and in account Nothing so strong and fortunate as I. It was myself, my brother, and his son That brought you home, and boldly did outdare The dangers of the time. You swore to us, And you did swear that oath at Doncaster, That you did nothing purpose ‘gainst the state, Nor claim no further than your new-fall’n right, The seat of Gaunt, dukedom of Lancaster. To this we swore our aid, but in short space It rained down fortune show’ring on your head, And such a flood of greatness fell on you, What with our help, what with the absent King, What with the injuries of a wanton time, The seeming sufferances that you had borne, And the contrarious winds that held the King So long in his unlucky Irish wars That all in England did repute him dead; And from this swarm of fair advantages You took occasion to be quickly wooed To gripe the general sway into your hand, Forgot your oath to us at Doncaster, And being fed by us, you used us so As that ungentle gull, the cuckoo’s bird, Useth the sparrow—did oppress our nest, Grew by our feeding to so great a bulk That even our love durst not come near your sight For fear of swallowing. But with nimble wing We were enforced for safety’ sake to fly 65 Out of your sight, and raise this present head, Whereby we stand opposed by such means As you yourself have forged against yourself, By unkind usage, dangerous countenance, And violation of all faith and troth Sworn to us in your younger enterprise.
KING HENRY	These things indeed you have articulate, Proclaimed at market crosses, read in churches, To face the garment of rebellion With some fine colour that may please the eye Of fickle changelings and poor discontents, Which gape and rub the elbow at the news Of hurly-burly innovation; And never yet did insurrection want Such water-colours to impaint his cause, Nor moody beggars starving for a time Of pell-mell havoc and confusion.
PRINCE HARRY	In both our armies there is many a soul Shall pay full dearly for this encounter If once they join in trial. Tell your nephew The Prince of Wales doth join with all the world In praise of Henry Percy. By my hopes, This present enterprise set off his head, I do not think a braver gentleman, More active-valiant or more valiant-young, More daring, or more bold, is now alive To grace this latter age with noble deeds. For my part, I may speak it to my shame, I have a truant been to chivalry; And so I hear he doth account me too. Yet this, before my father’s majesty: I am content that he shall take the odds Of his great name and estimation, And will, to save the blood on either side, Try fortune with him in a single fight.
KING HENRY	And, Prince of Wales, so dare we venture thee, Albeit considerations infinite Do make against it. No, good Worcester, no. We love our people well; even those we love That are misled upon your cousin’s part; 105 And will they take the offer of our grace, Both he and they and you, yea, every man Shall be my friend again, and I’ll be his. So tell your cousin, and bring me word What he will do. But if he will not yield, Rebuke and dread correction wait on us, And they shall do their office. So be gone. We will not now be troubled with reply. We offer fair; take it advisedly.
(didascalia)	Exeunt Worcester [and Vernon]
PRINCE HARRY	It will not be accepted, on my life. The Douglas and the Hotspur both together Are confident against the world in arms.
KING HENRY	Hence, therefore, every leader to his charge, For on their answer will we set on them, And God befriend us as our cause is just!
(didascalia)	Exeunt all but Prince Harry and Oldcastle
SIR JOHN	Hal, if thou see me down in the battle, and bestride me, so. ’Tis a point of friendship.
PRINCE HARRY	Nothing but a colossus can do thee that friendship. Say thy prayers, and farewell.
SIR JOHN	I would ’twere bed-time, Hal, and all well.
PRINCE HARRY	Why, thou owest God a death. Exit
SIR JOHN	‘Tis not due yet. I would be loath to pay him before his day. What need I be so forward with him that calls not on me? Well, ’tis no matter; honour pricks me on. Yea, but how if honour prick me off when I come on? How then? Can honour set-to a leg? No. Or an arm? No. Or take away the grief of a wound? No. Honour hath no skill in surgery, then? No. What is honour? A word. What is in that word ‘honour’? What is that ‘honour’ ? Air. A trim reckoning! Who hath it? He that died o’ Wednesday. Doth he feel it? No. Doth he hear it? No. ’Tis insensible then? Yea, to the dead. But will it not live with the living? No. Why? Detraction will not suffer it. Therefore I’ll none of it. Honour is a mere scutcheon. And so ends my catechism.
(didascalia)	Exit

Speaker	Line
(didascalia)	Enter the Earl of Worcester and Sir Richard Vernon
WORCESTER	O no, my nephew must not know, Sir Richard, The liberal and kind offer of the King.
VERNON	’Twere best he did.
WORCESTER	Then are we all undone. It is not possible, it cannot be, The King should keep his word in loving us. He will suspect us still, and find a time To punish this offence in other faults. Supposition all our lives shall be stuck full of eyes, For treason is but trusted like the fox, Who, ne‘er so tame, so cherished, and locked up, Will have a wild trick of his ancestors. Look how we can, or sad or merrily, Interpretation will misquote our looks, And we shall feed like oxen at a stall, The better cherished still the nearer death. My nephew’s trespass may be well forgot; It hath the excuse of youth and heat of blood, And an adopted name of privilege— A hare-brained Hotspur, governed by a spleen. All his offences live upon my head, And on his father’s. We did train him on, And, his corruption being ta’en from us, We as the spring of all shall pay for all. Therefore, good cousin, let not Harry know In any case the offer of the King.
VERNON	Deliver what you will; I’ll say ’tis so.
(didascalia)	Enter Hotspur and the Earl of Douglas
VERNON	Here comes your cousin.
HOTSPUR	My uncle is returned. Deliver up my lord of Westmorland. Uncle, what news?
WORCESTER	The King will bid you battle presently.
DOUGLAS	Defy him by the Lord of Westmorland.
HOTSPUR	Lord Douglas, go you and tell him so.
DOUGLAS	Marry, and shall, and very willingly. Exit
WORCESTER	There is no seeming mercy in the King.
HOTSPUR	Did you beg any? God forbid!
WORCESTER	I told him gently of our grievances, Of his oath-breaking, which he mended thus: By now forswearing that he is forsworn. He calls us ‘rebels’, ‘traitors’, and will scourge With haughty arms this hateful name in us.
(didascalia)	Enter the Earl of Douglas
DOUGLAS	Arm, gentlemen, to arms, for I have thrown A brave defiance in King Henry’s teeth- And Westmorland that was engaged did bear it— Which cannot choose but bring him quickly on.
WORCESTER	(to Hotspur) The Prince of Wales stepped forth before the King And, nephew, challenged you to single fight.
HOTSPUR	O, would the quarrel lay upon our heads, And that no man might draw short breath today But I and Harry Monmouth ! Tell me, tell me, How showed his tasking? Seemed it in contempt?
VERNON	No, by my soul, I never in my life Did hear a challenge urged more modestly, Unless a brother should a brother dare To gentle exercise and proof of arms. He gave you all the duties of a man, Trimmed up your praises with a princely tongue, Spoke your deservings like a chronicle, Making you ever better than his praise By still dispraising praise valued with you; And, which became him like a prince indeed, He made a blushing cital of himself, And chid his truant youth with such a grace As if he mastered there a double spirit Of teaching and of learning instantly. There did he pause; but let me tell the world, If he outlive the envy of this day, England did never owe so sweet a hope, So much misconstrued in his wantonness.
HOTSPUR	Cousin, I think thou art enamoured On his follies. Never did I hear Of any prince so wild a liberty. But be he as he will, yet once ere night I will embrace him with a soldier’s arm, That he shall shrink under my courtesy. Arm, arm, with speed! And fellows, soldiers, friends, Better consider what you have to do Than I, that have not well the gift of tongue, Can lift your blood up with persuasion.
(didascalia)	Enter a Messenger
MESSENGER	My lord, here are letters for you.
HOTSPUR	I cannot read them now. [Exit Messenger] O gentlemen, the time of life is short. To spend that shortness basely were too long If life did ride upon a dial’s point, Still ending at the arrival of an hour. An if we live, we live to tread on kings; If die, brave death when princes die with us! Now for our consciences: the arms are fair When the intent of bearing them is just.
(didascalia)	Enter another Messenger
MESSENGER	My lord, prepare; the King comes on apace. [Exit]
HOTSPUR	I thank him that he cuts me from my tale, For I profess not talking, only this: Let each man do his best. And here draw I A sword whose temper I intend to stain With the best blood that I can meet withal In the adventure of this perilous day. Now Esperance! Percy! And set on!
(didascalia)	Sound all the lofty instruments of war,
HOTSPUR	And by that music let us all embrace, For, heaven to earth, some of us never shall A second time do such a courtesy. The trumpets sound. Here they embrace. Exeunt

Speaker	Line
(didascalia)	King Henry enters with his power. Alarum, and exeunt to the battle. Then enter the Earl of Douglas, and Sir Walter Blunt, disguised as the King
BLUNT	What is thy name, that in the battle thus Thou crossest me? What honour dost thou seek Upon my head?
DOUGLAS	Know then my name is Douglas, And I do haunt thee in the battle thus Because some tell me that thou art a king.
BLUNT	They tell thee true.
DOUGLAS	The Lord of Stafford dear today hath bought Thy likeness, for instead of thee, King Harry, This sword hath ended him. So shall it thee, Unless thou yield thee as my prisoner.
BLUNT	I was not born a yielder, thou proud Scot, And thou shalt find a king that will revenge Lord Stafford’s death. They fight. Douglas kills Blunt. Then enter Hotspur
HOTSPUR	O Douglas, hadst thou fought at Holmedon thus, I never had triumphed upon a Scot.
DOUGLAS	All’s done, all’s won: here breathless lies the King.
HOTSPUR	Where?
DOUGLAS	Here.
HOTSPUR	This, Douglas? No, I know this face full well. A gallant knight he was; his name was Blunt— Semblably furnished like the King himself.
DOUGLAS	(to Blunt’s body) A fool go with thy soul, whither it goes ! A borrowed title hast thou bought too dear. Why didst thou tell me that thou wert a king?
HOTSPUR	The king hath many marching in his coats.
DOUGLAS	Now by my sword, I will kill all his coats. I’ll murder all his wardrobe, piece by piece, Until I meet the King.
HOTSPUR	Up and away! Our soldiers stand full fairly for the day.
(didascalia)	Exeunt, leaving Blunt’s body
(didascalia)	Alarum. Enter Sir John Oldcastle
SIR JOHN	Though I could scape shot-free at London, I fear the shot here. Here’s no scoring but upon the pate.—Soft, who are you?—Sir Walter Blunt. There’s honour for you. Here’s no vanity. I am as hot as molten lead, and as heavy too. God keep lead out of me; I need no more weight than mine own bowels. I have led my ragamuffins where they are peppered; there’s not three of my hundred and fifty left alive, and they are for the town’s end, to beg during life.
(didascalia)	Enter Prince Harry
SIR JOHN	But who comes here?
PRINCE HARRY	What, stand’st thou idle here? Lend me thy sword. Many a noble man lies stark and stiff Under the hoofs of vaunting enemies, Whose deaths as yet are unrevenged. I prithee Lend me thy sword.
SIR JOHN	O Hal, I prithee give me leave to breathe awhile. Turk Gregory never did such deeds in arms As I have done this day. I have paid Percy, I have made him sure.
PRINCE HARRY	He is indeed, And living to kill thee. I prithee Lend me thy sword.
SIR JOHN	Nay, before God, Hal, If Percy be alive thou gett’st not my sword; But take my pistol if thou wilt.
PRINCE HARRY	Give it me. What, is it in the case?
SIR JOHN	Ay, Hal; ’Tis hot, ’tis hot. There’s that will sack a city. The Prince draws it out, and finds it to be a bottle of sack
PRINCE HARRY	What, is it a time to jest and dally now? He throws the bottle at him. Exit
SIR JOHN	Well, if Percy be alive, I’ll pierce him. If he do come in my way, so; if he do not, if I come in his willingly, let him make a carbonado of me. I like not such grinning honour as Sir Walter hath. Give me life, which if I can save, so; if not, honour comes unlocked for, and there’s an end. Exit [with Blunt’s body]

Speaker	Line
(didascalia)	Alarum. Excursions. Enter King Henry, Prince Harry, wounded, Lord John of Lancaster, and the Earl of Westmorland
KING HENRY	I prithee, Harry, withdraw thyself, thou bleed’st too much. Lord John of Lancaster, go you with him.
JOHN OF LANCASTER	Not I, my lord, unless I did bleed too.
PRINCE HARRY	(to the King) I beseech your majesty, make up, Lest your retirement do amaze your friends.
KING HENRY	I will do so. My lord of Westmorland, Lead him to his tent.
WESTMORLAND	(to the Prince) Come, my lord, I’ll lead you to your tent.
PRINCE HARRY	Lead me, my lord? I do not need your help, And God forbid a shallow scratch should drive The Prince of Wales from such a field as this, Where stained nobility lies trodden on, And rebels’ arms triumph in massacres.
JOHN OF LANCASTER	We breathe too long. Come, cousin Westmorland, Our duty this way lies. For God’s sake, come.
(didascalia)	Exeunt Lancaster and Westmorland
PRINCE HARRY	By God, thou hast deceived me, Lancaster; I did not think thee lord of such a spirit. Before I loved thee as a brother, John, But now I do respect thee as my soul.
KING HENRY	I saw him hold Lord Percy at the point With lustier maintenance than I did look for Of such an ungrown warrior.
PRINCE HARRY	O, this boy lends mettle to us all! Exit
(didascalia)	Enter the Earl of Douglas
DOUGLAS	Another king! They grow like Hydra’s heads. I am the Douglas, fatal to all those That wear those colours on them. What art thou That counterfeit’st the person of a king?
KING HENRY	The King himself, who, Douglas, grieves at heart So many of his shadows thou hast met And not the very King. I have two boys Seek Percy and thyself about the field; But seeing thou fall’st on me so luckily, I will assay thee; and defend thyself.
DOUGLAS	I fear thou art another counterfeit; And yet, in faith, thou bear’st thee like a king. But mine I am sure thou art, whoe’er thou be, And thus I win thee. They fight. The King being in danger, enter Prince Harry
PRINCE HARRY	Hold up thy head, vile Scot, or thou art like Never to hold it up again. The spirits Of valiant Shirley, Stafford, Blunt, are in my arms. It is the Prince of Wales that threatens thee, Who never promiseth but he means to pay. They fight. Douglas flieth Cheerly, my lord! How fares your grace? Sir Nicholas Gawsey hath for succour sent, And so hath Clifton. I’ll to Clifton straight.
KING HENRY	Stay and breathe awhile. Thou hast redeemed thy lost opinion, And showed thou mak’st some tender of my life, In this fair rescue thou hast brought to me.
PRINCE HARRY	O God, they did me too much injury That ever said I hearkened for your death. If it were so, I might have let alone The insulting hand of Douglas over you, Which would have been as speedy in your end As all the poisonous potions in the world, And saved the treacherous labour of your son.
KING HENRY	Make up to Clifton; I’ll to Sir Nicholas Gawsey. Exit
(didascalia)	Enter Hotspur
HOTSPUR	If I mistake not, thou art Harry Monmouth.
PRINCE HARRY	Thou speak’st as if I would deny my name.
HOTSPUR	My name is Harry Percy.
PRINCE HARRY	Why then, I see A very valiant rebel of the name. I am the Prince of Wales; and think not, Percy, To share with me in glory any more. Two stars keep not their motion in one sphere, Nor can one England brook a double reign Of Harry Percy and the Prince of Wales.
HOTSPUR	Nor shall it, Harry, for the hour is come To end the one of us, and would to God Thy name in arms were now as great as mine.
PRINCE HARRY	I’ll make it greater ere I part from thee, And all the budding honours on thy crest I’ll crop to make a garland for my head.
HOTSPUR	I can no longer brook thy vanities. They fight.
(didascalia)	Enter Sir John Oldcastle
SIR JOHN	Well said, Hal! To it, Hal! Nay, you shall find no boy’s play here, I can tell you.
(didascalia)	Enter Douglas. He fighteth with Sir John, who falls down as if he were dead. Exit Douglas. The Prince killeth Hotspur
HOTSPUR	O Harry, thou hast robbed me of my youth. I better brook the loss of brittle life Than those proud titles thou hast won of me. They wound my thoughts worse than thy sword my flesh. But thoughts, the slaves of life, and life, time’s fool, And time, that takes survey of all the world, Must have a stop. O, I could prophesy, But that the earthy and cold hand of death Lies on my tongue. No, Percy, thou art dust, And food for—He dies
PRINCE HARRY	For worms, brave Percy. Fare thee well, great heart. Ill-weaved ambition, how much art thou shrunk! When that this body did contain a spirit, A kingdom for it was too small a bound, But now two paces of the vilest earth Is room enough. This earth that bears thee dead Bears not alive so stout a gentleman. If thou wert sensible of courtesy, I should not make so dear a show of zeal; But let my favours hide thy mangled face, He covers Hotspur’s face And even in thy behalf I’ll thank myself For doing these fair rites of tenderness. Adieu, and take thy praise with thee to heaven. Thy ignominy sleep with thee in the grave, But not remembered in thy epitaph. He spieth Sir John on the ground What, old acquaintance! Could not all this flesh Keep in a little life ? Poor Jack, farewell. I could have better spared a better man. O, I should have a heavy miss of thee, If I were much in love with vanity. Death hath not struck so fat a deer today, Though many dearer in this bloody fray. Embowelled will I see thee by and by. Till then, in blood by noble Percy lie. Exit Sir John riseth up
SIR JOHN	Embowelled? If thou embowel me today, I’ll give you leave to powder me, and eat me too, tomorrow. ’Sblood, ’twas time to counterfeit, or that hot termagant Scot had paid me, scot and lot too. Counterfeit? I lie, I am no counterfeit. To die is to be a counterfeit, for he is but the counterfeit of a man who hath not the life of a man. But to counterfeit dying when a man thereby liveth is to be no counterfeit, but the true and perfect image of life indeed. The better part of valour is discretion, in the which better part I have saved my life. Zounds, I am afraid of this gunpowder Percy, though he be dead. How if he should counterfeit too, and rise ? By my faith, I am afraid he would prove the better counterfeit. Therefore I’ll make him sure; yea, and I’ll swear I killed him. Why may not he rise as well as I? Nothing confutes me but eyes, and nobody sees me. Therefore, sirrah, (stabbing Hotspur) with a new wound in your thigh, come you along with me. He takes up Hotspur on his back.
(didascalia)	Enter Prince Harry and Lord John of Lancaster
PRINCE HARRY	Come, brother John. Full bravely hast thou fleshed Thy maiden sword.
JOHN OF LANCASTER	But soft; whom have we here? Did you not tell me this fat man was dead?
PRINCE HARRY	I did; I saw him dead, Breathless and bleeding on the ground. (To Sir John) Art thou alive? Or is it fantasy that plays upon our eyesight? I prithee speak; we will not trust our eyes Without our ears. Thou art not what thou seem’st.
SIR JOHN	No, that’s certain: I am not a double man. But if I be not Jack Oldcastle, then am I a jack. There is Percy. If your father will do me any honour, so; if not, let him kill the next Percy himself. I look to be either earl or duke, I can assure you.
PRINCE HARRY	Why, Percy I killed myself, and saw thee dead.
SIR JOHN	Didst thou ? Lord, Lord, how this world is given to lying! I grant you I was down and out of breath, and so was he; but we rose both at an instant, and fought a long hour by Shrewsbury clock. If I may be believed, so; if not, let them that should reward valour bear the sin upon their own heads. I’ll take’t on my death I gave him this wound in the thigh. If the man were alive and would deny it, zounds, I would make him eat a piece of my sword.
JOHN OF LANCASTER	This is the strangest tale that e’er I heard.
PRINCE HARRY	This is the strangest fellow, brother John. (To Sir John) Come, bring your luggage nobly on your back. For my part, if a lie may do thee grace, I’ll gild it with the happiest terms I have. A retreat is sounded The trumpet sounds retreat; the day is our. Come, brother, let us to the highest of the field To see what friends are living, who are dead.
(didascalia)	Exeunt the Prince and Lancaster
SIR JOHN	I’ll follow, as they say, for reward. He that rewards me, God reward him. If I do grow great, I’ll grow less; for I’ll purge, and leave sack, and live cleanly, as a nobleman should do.
(didascalia)	Exit, bearing Hotspur’s body

Speaker	Line
(didascalia)	The trumpets sound. Enter King Henry, Prince Harry, Lord John of Lancaster, the Earl of Westmorland, with the Earl of Worcester and Sir Richard Vernon, prisoners, and soldier
KING HENRY	Thus ever did rebellion find rebuke. Ill-spirited Worcester, did not we send grace, Pardon, and terms of love to all of you ? And wouldst thou turn our offers contrary, Misuse the tenor of thy kinsman’s trust? Three knights upon our party slain today, A noble earl, and many a creature else, Had been alive this hour If like a Christian thou hadst truly borne Betwixt our armies true intelligence.
WORCESTER	What I have done my safety urged me to, And I embrace this fortune patiently, Since not to be avoided it falls on me.
KING HENRY	Bear Worcester to the death, and Vernon too. Other offenders we will pause upon.
(didascalia)	Exeunt Worcester and Vernon, guarded
KING HENRY	How goes the field?
PRINCE HARRY	The noble Scot Lord Douglas, when he saw The fortune of the day quite turned from him, The noble Percy slain, and all his men Upon the foot of fear, fled with the rest; And falling from a hill he was so bruised That the pursuers took him. At my tent The Douglas is, and I beseech your grace I may dispose of him.
KING HENRY	With all my heart.
PRINCE HARRY	Then, brother John of Lancaster, To you this honourable bounty shall belong. Go to the Douglas, and deliver him Up to his pleasure ransomless and free. His valours shown upon our crests today Have taught us how to cherish such high deeds Even in the bosom of our adversaries.
JOHN OF LANCASTER	I thank your grace for this high courtesy, Which I shall give away immediately.
KING HENRY	Then this remains, that we divide our power. You, son John, and my cousin Westmorland, Towards York shall bend you with your dearest speed To meet Northumberland and the prelate Scrope, Who, as we hear, are busily in arms. Myself and you, son Harry, will towards Wales, To fight with Glyndwr and the Earl of March. Rebellion in this land shall lose his sway, Meeting the check of such another day; And since this business so fair is done, Let us not leave till all our own be won.
(didascalia)	Exeunt [the King, the Prince, and their power at one door, Lancaster, Westmorland, and their power at another door]
THE MERRY WIVES OF	WINDSOR A LEGEND dating from 1702 claims that Shakespeare wrote The Merry Wives of Windsor in fourteen days and by command of Queen Elizabeth; in 1709 she was said to have wished particularly to see Falstaff in love. Whether or not this is true, a passage towards the end of the play alluding directly to the ceremonies of the Order of the Garter, Britain’s highest order of chivalry, encourages the belief that the play has a direct connection with a specific occasion. In 1597 George Carey, Lord Hunsdon, Lord Chamberlain and patron of Shakespeare’s company, was installed at Windsor as a Knight of the Garter. The Queen was not present at the installation but had attended the Garter Feast at the Palace of Westminster on St George’s Day (23 April). Shakespeare’s play was probably performed in association with this occasion, and may have been written especially for it. It was first printed, in a corrupt text, in 1602; a better text appears in the 1623 Folio. Some of the characters—Sir John Falstaff, Mistress Quickly, Pistol, Nim, Justice Shallow—appear also in I and 2 Henry IV and Henry V, but in spite of a reference to ’the wild Prince and Poins’ at 3.2.66-7, this is essentially an Elizabethan comedy, the only one that Shakespeare set firmly in England. The play is full of details that would have been familiar to Elizabethan Londoners, and the language is colloquial and up to date. The plot, however, is made up of conventional situations whose ancestry is literary rather than realistic. There are many analogues to Shakespeare’s basic plot situations in medieval and other tales, some in books that he probably or certainly knew. The central story, of Sir John’s unsuccessful attempts to seduce Mistress Page and Mistress Ford, and of Master Ford’s unfounded jealousy, is in the tradition of the Italian novella, and may have been suggested by Ser Giovanni Fiorentino’s II Pecorone (1558). Alongside it Shakespeare places the comical but finally romantic love story of Anne Page, wooed by the foolish but rich Abraham Slender and the irascible French Doctor Caius, but won by the young and handsome Fenton. The play contains a higher proportion of prose to verse than any other play by Shakespeare, and the action is often broadly comic; but it ends, after the midnight scene in Windsor Forest during which Sir John is frightened out of his lechery, in forgiveness and love. The Merry Wives of Windsor is known to have been acted for James I on 4 November 1604, and for Charles I in 1638. It was revived soon after the theatres reopened, in 1660; at first it was not particularly popular, but since 1720 it has consistently pleased audiences. Many artists have illustrated it, and it forms the basis for a number of operas, including Otto Nicolai’s Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor (1849) and Giuseppe Verdi’s comic masterpiece, Falstaff (1893).
THE PERSONS OF THE	PLAY