[Singing. And a merry heart lives long-a. Fal. Health and long life to you, master Silence. Shal. Honest Bardolph, welcome: If thou wantest any thing, and wilt not call, beshrew thy heart. Welcome, my little tiny thief; [to the Page.] and welcome, indeed, too. I'll drink to master Bardolph, and to all the cavaleroes about London. Davy. I hope to see London once ere I die. Bard. An I might see you there, Davy,— Shal. By the mass, you'll crack a quart together. Ha! will you not, master Bardolph ? Bard. Yes, sir, in a pottle pot. Shal. I thank thee:-The knave will stick by thee, I can assure thee that: he will not out; he is true bred. Bard. And I'll stick by him, sir. Shal. Why, there spoke a king. Lack nothing: be merry. [Knocking heard.] Look who's at door there: Ho! who knocks? [Exit Davy. Fal. Why, now you have done me right. [To Silence, who drinks a bumper. Sil. Do me right, [Singing. And dub me knight: Re-enter Davy. Shal. Harry the fourth. Pist. A foutra for thine office!-Sir John, thy tender lambkin now is king; Harry the fifth's the man. I speak the truth: When Pistol lies, do this; and fig me, like The bragging Spaniard. Fal. What is the old king dead? Pist. As nail in door: the things I speak, are just. Fal. Away, Bardolph; saddle my horse.- Master Robert Shallow, choose what office thou wilt in the land, 'tis thine.-Pistol, I will double-charge thee with dignities. Bard. O joyful day!-I would not take a knighthood for my fortune. Pist. What? I do bring good news? Fal. Carry master Silence to bed.-Master Shallow, my lord Shallow, be what thou wilt, I am fortune's steward. Get on thy boots: we'll ride all night:-0, sweet Pistol:-Away, Bardolph. [Exit Bard.]-Come, Pistol, utter more to me; and, withal, devise something, to do thyself good. Boot, boot, master Shallow: I know the young king is sick for me. Let us take any man's horses; the laws of England are at my commandment. Happy are they which have been my friends; and woe to my lord chief justice! Pist. Let vultures vile seize on his lungs also' Where is the life that late I led, say they ; Why, here it is; Welcome these pleasant days. [Exeunt. SCENE IV.-London. A Street. Enter Beadles, dragging in Hostess Quickly, and Doll Tear-sheet. Hort. No, thou arrant knave; I would I might die, that I might have thee hanged: thou hast drawn my shoulder out of joint. 1 Bead. The constables have delivered her over to me and she shall have whipping-cheer enough, Davy. An it please your worship there's one I warrant her; there hath been a man or two Pistol come from the court with news. Fal. From the court, let him come in. Enter Pistol. How now, Pistol ? Pist. God save you, sir John! Fal. What wind blew you hither, Pistol? Pist. Not the ill wind which blows no man to good.-Sweet knight, thou art now one of the greatest men in the realm. Sil. By'r lady, I think 'a be; but goodman Puff of Barson. Pist. Puff? Puff in thy teeth, most recreant coward base!- And tidings do I bring, and lucky joys, Pist. A foutra for the world, and worldlings base! ing [Sings. lately killed about her. Doll. Nut-hook, nut-hook, you lie. Come on; I'll tell thee what, thou damned tripe-visaged rascal; an the child I now go with, do miscarry, thou hadst better thou hadst struck thy mother, thou paper-faced villain. Host. O the Lord, that sir John were come! he would make this a bloody day to somebody. But I pray God the fruit of her womb miscarry! 1 Bead. If it do, you shall have a dozen of cushions again; you have but eleven now. Come, I charge you both go with me; for the man is dead, that you and Pistol beat among you. Doll. I'll tell thee what, thou thin man in a censer! I will have you as soundly swinged for this, you blue-bottle rogue! you filthy famished correctioner: if you be not swinged, I'll forswear half-kirtles. 1 Bead. Come, come, you she knight-errant, Approach me; and thou shalt be as thou wast, SCENE V.-A public Place near Westminster The tutor and the feeder of my riots: Abbey. Enter two Grooms, strewing rushes. 1 Groom. More rushes, more rushes. 2 Groom. The trumpets have sounded twice. 1 Groom. It will be two o'clock ere they come from the coronation: Despatch, despatch. [Exeunt Grooms. Enter Falstaff, Shallow, Pistol, Bardolph, and the Page. Fal. Stand here by me, master Robert Shallow; I will make the king do you grace: I will leer upon him, as 'a comes by; and do but mark the countenance that he will give me. Pist. God bless thy lungs, good knight. Fal. Come here, Pistol; stand behind me.-0, :f I had had time to have made new liveries, I would have bestowed the thousand pound I borrowed of you. [To Shallow.] But 'tis no matter; this poor show doth better: this doth infer the zeal I had to see him. Shal. It doth so. Fal. It shows my earnestness of affection. Fal. My devotion. Shal. It doth, it doth, it doth. Fal. As it were, to ride day and night; and not to deliberate, not to remember, not to have patience to shift me. Shal. It is most certain. Till then, I banish thee, on pain of death,— lord, Give you advancement.-Be it your charge, my Shal. Ay, marry, sir John; which I beseech you to let me have home with me. Fal. That can hardly be, master Shallow. Do not you grieve at this; I shall be sent for in private to him: look you, he must seem thus to the world. Fear not your advancement; I will be the man yet, that shall make you great. Shal. I cannot perceive how; unless you give me your doublet, and stuff me out with straw. I beseech you, good sir John, let me have five hundred of my thousand. Fal. Sir, I will be as good as my word: this that you heard, was but a colour. Shal. A colour, I fear, that you will die in, sir John. Fal. Fear no colours; go with me to dinner. Come, lieutenant Pistol ;-come, Bardolph-I Fal. But to stand stained with travel, and sweat-shall be sent for soon at night. ing with desire to see him thinking of nothing else; putting all affairs else in oblivion; as if there were nothing else to be done, but to see him. Re-enter Prince John, the Chief Justice, Officers, &c. Pist. 'Tis semper idem, for absque hoc nihil est : 'Tis all in every part. Shal. 'Tis so, indeed. Pist. My knight, I will inflame thy noble liver, Thy Doll, and Helen of thy noble thoughts, By most mechanical and dirty hand : Rouze up revenge from ebon den with fell Alecto's For Doll is in; Pistol speaks nought but truth. [Shouts within, and the trumpets sound. Pist. There roar'd the sea, and trumpet-clangor sounds. Enter the King and his Train, the Chief Justice among them. Fal. God save thy grace, king Hal! my royal Hal! prayers; thy How ill white hairs become a fool, and jester ! Ch. Just. Go, carry sir John Falstaff to the Fleet: Ch. Just. I cannot now speak: I will hear you P. John. I will lay odds,-that, ere this year We bear our civil swords, and native fire, EPILOGUE.-Spoken by a Dancer. First, my fear; then, my court'sy last, my speech. My fear is, your displeasure; my court'sy, my duty; and my speech, to beg your pardons. If you look for a good speech now, you undo me: for what I have to say, is of mine own making; and what, indeed, I should say, will, I doubt, prove mine own marring. But to the purpose, and so to the venture. Be it known to you, (as it is very well,) I was lately here in the end of a displeasing play, to pray your patience for it, and to promise you a better. I did mean, indeed, to pay you with this; which, if, like an ill venture, it come unluckily home, I break, and you, my gentle creditors, lose. Here, I promised you, I would be, and here I commit my body to your mercies: bate me some, and I will pay you some, and, as most debtors do, promise you infinitely. If my tongue cannot entreat you to acquit me, will you command me to use my legs? and yet that were but light payment,-to dance out of your deb But a good conscience will make any possible satis- make you merry with fair Katharine of France: faction, and so will I. All the gentlewomen here where, for any thing know, Falstaff shall die of have forgiven me: if the gentlemen will not, then a sweat, unless already he be killed with your hard the gentlemen do not agree with the gentlewomen, opinions; for Oldcastle died a martyr, and this is which was never seen before in such an assembly. not the man. My tongue is weary; when my legs One word more, I beseech you. If you be not are too, I will bid you good night: and so kneel too much cloyed with fat meat, our humble author down before you ;-but, indeed, to pray for the will continue the story, with Sir John in it, and queen. King Henry the rifth. Duke of Gloster, KING HENRY V. PERSONS REPRESENTED. Duke of Bedford, brothers to the King. Duke of Exeter, uncle to the King. Duke of York, cousin to the King. Earls of Salisbury, Westmoreland, and War wick. Archbishop of Canterbury. Bishop of Ely. Earl of Cambridge, Sir Thomas Grey, conspirators against the King. Sir Thomas Erpingham, Gower, Fluellen, Macmorris, Jamy, officers in King Henry's army. Bates, Court, Williams, soldiers in the same. Boy, servant to them. A Herald. Charles the Sixth, King of France. Dukes of Burgundy, Orleans, and Bourbon. Rambures and Grandpree, French lords. Isabel, Queen of France. Katharine, daughter of Charles and Isabel. Lords, Ladies, Officers, French and English Solders, The SCENE, at the beginning of the Play, lies in England; but afterwards wholly in France. Enter Chorus. O, for a muse of fire, that would ascend A kingdom for a stage, princes to act, Crouch for employment. But pardon, gentles all, And let us, ciphers to this great accompt, Suppose, within the girdle of these walls Think, when we talk of horses, that you see them Carry them here and there; jumping o'er times; Who, prologue-like, your humble patience pray, ACT I. SCENE L.-London. An Ante-chamber in the Enter the Archbishop of Canterbury, and Bishop of Ely. Cant. My lord, I'll tell you,-that self bill is Which, in the eleventh year o'the last king's reign us, We lose the better half of our possession: A thousand pounds by the year: Thus runs the bill. Ely. This would drink deep. 'Twould drink the cup and all. And whipp'd the offending Adam out of him; To envelop and contain celestial spirits. Never came reformation in a flood, With such a heady current, scouring faults; Nor never Hydra-headed wilfulness Ely. You would say,-it hath been all-in-all his study: And the mute wonder lurketh in men's ears, Sure, we thank you. Shall drop their blood in approbation Which is a wonder, how his grace should glean it, For God doth know, how many, now in health, Ely. The strawberry grows underneath the nettle : And wholesome berries thrive and ripen best, Cant. It must be so; for miracles are ceas'd; Ely. But, my good lord, Cant. Ely. How did this offer seem receiv'd, my lord? Of his true titles to some certain dukedoms; Cant. The French ambassador, upon that instant, same. Of what your reverence shall incite us to: That make such waste in brief mortality. Cant. Then hear me, gracious sovereign,- and That owe your lives, your faith, and services, No woman shall succeed in Salique land : There left behind and settled certain French; Eight hundred five. Besides, their writers say, Of Blithild, which was daughter to king Clothair, Enter King Henry, Gloster, Bedford, Ere. Not here in presence. K. Hen. Send for him, good uncle. Before we hear him, of some things of weight, (Though, in pure truth, it was corrupt and naught, That fair queen Isabel, his grandmother, Daughter to Charles the foresaid duke of Lorain : By the which marriage, the line of Charles the great Was re-united to the crown of France. K. Hen. May I, with right and conscience, make this claim ? Cant. The sin upon my head, dread sovereign! For in the book of Numbers is it writ,When the son dies, let the inheritance Descend unto the daughter. Gracious lord, Stand for your own; unwind your bloody flag; Look back unto your mighty ancestors: Go, my dread lord, to your great grandsire's tomb, From whom you claim; invoke his warlike spirit, And your great uncle's, Edward the black prince; Who on the French ground play'd a tragedy, Making defeat on the full power of France; Whiles his most mighty father on a hill Stood smiling, to behold his lion's whelp Forage in blood of French nobility. O noble English, that could entertain With half their forces the full pride of France; And let another half stand laughing by, All out of work, and cold for action! Cant. She hath been then more fear'd tnan harm'd, my liege: For hear her but exampled by herself,- The king of Scots; whom she did send to France, Then with Scotland first begin; Exe. It follows then, the cat must stay at home: Yet that is but a curs'd necessity; Since we have locks to safeguard necessaries, And pretty traps to catch the petty thieves. While that the armed hand doth fight abroad, The advised head defends itself at home: For government, though high, and low, and lower, Put into parts, doth keep in one concent; Congruing in a full and natural close, Like musick. Cant. True: therefore doth heaven divide Ely. Awake remembrance of these valiant dead, earth Do all expect that you should rouse yourself, West. They know, your grace hath cause, and means, and might; So hath your highness; never king of England Had nobles richer, and more loyal subjects; Whose hearts have left their bodies here in England, And lie pavilion'd in the fields of France. [right: Cant. O, let their bodies follow, my dear liege, K. Hen. We must not only arm to invade But lay down our proportions to defend Who, busied in his majesty, surveys As many several ways meet in one town; Cant. They of those marches, gracious sovereign, Shall be a wall sufficient to defend Our inland from the pilfering borderers. K. Hen. We do not mean the coursing snatchers only, But fear the main intendment of the Scot, Hath shook, and trembled at the ill-neignbourhood. [Exit an Attendant. The King ascends his Now are we well resolv'd ;-and-by God's help; |