Scroop. Our purposes God justly hath discover'd;
And I repent my fault more than my death;
Which I beseech your highness to forgive,
Although my body pay the price of it.

Cam. For me, the gold of France did not seduce;
Although I did admit it as a motive,
The sooner to effect what I intended:
But God be thanked for prevention;
Which I in sufferance heartily will rejoice,
Beseeching God and you to pardon me.

Grey. Never did faithful subject more rejoice
At the discovery of most dangerous treason,
Than I do at this hour joy o'er myself,
Prevented from a damned enterprize:

My fault, but not my body, pardon, sovereign.

K. Hen. God quit you in his mercy! Hear your sentence.

You have conspired against our royal person,

Join'd with an enemy proclaim'd, and from his coffers
Received the golden earnest of our death;

Wherein you would have sold your king to slaughter,
His princes and his peers to servitude,
His subjects to oppression and contempt,
And his whole kingdom unto desolation.
Touching our person, seek we no revenge;
But we our kingdom's safety must so tender,
Whose ruin you three sought, that to her laws
We do deliver you. Get you therefore hence,
Poor miserable wretches, to your death:
The taste whereof, God, of his mercy, give you
Patience to endure, and true repentance
Of all your dear offences!-Bear them hence.

[Exeunt Conspirators, guarded.
Now, lords, for France; the enterprize whereof
Shall be to you, as us, like glorious.
We doubt not of a fair and lucky war;
Since God so graciously hath brought to light
This dangerous treason, lurking in our way.
To hinder our beginnings, we doubt not now,
But every rub is smoothed on our way.
Then, forth, dear countrymen; let us deliver
Our puissance into the hand of God,
Putting it straight in expedition.

Cheerly to sea; the signs of war advance:

No king of England, if not king of France.

[Exeunt.

SCENE III-London. Mrs. QUICKLY'S House in Eastcheap.

Enter PISTOL, Mrs. QUICKLY, NYM, BARDOLPH, and Boy.

Quick. Prythee, honey-sweet husband, let me bring* thee to Staines.

Pist. No; for my manly heart doth yearn.t

Bardolph, be blithe;-Nym, rouse thy vaunting veins;
Boy, bristle thy courage up; for Falstaff he is dead,
And we must yearn therefore.

Bard. 'Would, I were with him, wheresome'er he is, whether in heaven, or in hell!

Quick. Nay, sure, he's not in hell; he's in Arthur's bosom, if ever man went to Arthur's bosom. 'A made a finer end, and went away, an it had been any christom child; 'a parted even just between twelve and one, e'en at turning o' the tide for after I saw him fumble with the sheets, and play with flowers, and smile upon his fingers' ends, I knew there was but one way; for his nose was as sharp as a pen, and 'a babbled of green fields. How now, Sir John? quoth I: what, man! be of good cheer. So 'a cried out God, God, God! three or four times: now I, to comfort him, bid him, 'a should not think of God; I hoped, there was no need to trouble himself with any such thoughts yet: So, 'a bade me lay more clothes on his feet: I put my hand into the bed, and felt them, and they were as cold as any stone; then I felt to his knees, and so upward, and upward, and all was as cold as any stone.

Nym. They say, he cried out of sack.

Quick. Ay, that 'a did.

Bard. And of women.

Quick. Nay, that 'a did not.

Boy. Yes, that 'a did; and said, they were devils incarnate. Quick. 'A could never abide carnation; 'twas a colour he never liked.

Boy. 'A said once, the devil would have him about women. Quick. 'A did in some sort, indeed, handle women: but then he was rheumatic;t and talked of the whore of Babylon.

Boy. Do you not remember 'a saw a flea stick upon Bardolph's Dose; and 'a said, it was a black soul burning in hell-fire?

Bard. Well, the fuel is gone, that maintained that fire: that's all the riches I got in his service.

Nym. Shall we shog off? the king will be gone from: Southampton.

Pist. Come, let's away. My love, give me thy lips.

Look to my chattels, and my moveables:

Let senses rule; the word is Pitch and pay;

Trust none;

For oaths are straws, men's faiths are wafer-cakes,
And hold-fast is the only dog, my duck;

Therefore caveto be thy counsellor.

Go, clear thy crystals.-Yoke-fellows in arms,

Let us to France! like horse-leeches, my boys;

To suck, to suck, the very blood to suck!

Boy. And that is but unwholesome food, they say.
Pist. Touch her soft mouth, and march.

Bard. Farewell, hostess.

[Kissing her.

Nym. I cannot kiss, that is the humour of it; but adieu.

Pist. Let housewifery appear; keep close, I thee command. Quick. Farewell; adieu.

SCENE IV-France. A Room in the French King's Palace. Enter the French KING attended; the DAUPHIN, the Duke of BURGUNDY, the CONSTABLE, and others.

Fr. King. Thus come the English, with full power upon us; And more than carefully it us concerns,

To answer royally in our defences.

Therefore the dukes of Berry and of Bretagne,

Of Brabant, and of Orleans, shall make forth,

And you, prince Dauphin,-with all swift despatch,
To line, and new repair, our towns of war,

With men of courage, and with means defendant:
For England his approaches makes as fierce,
As waters to the sucking of a gulf.

It fits us then, to be as provident

As fear may teach us, out of late examples
Left by the fatal and neglected English
Upon our fields.

Dau. My most redoubted father,

It is most meet we arm us 'gainst the foe:

For peace itself should not so dull a kingdom

(Though war, nor no known quarrel, were in question,

But that defences, musters, preparations,

Should be maintain'd, assembled, and collected,

As were a war in expectation.

Therefore, I say, 'tis meet we all go forth,

To view the sick and feeble parts of France:

And let us do it with no show of fear;

No, with no more, than if we heard that England

Were busied with a Whitsun morris-dance:

For, my good liege, she is so idly king'd,

Her sceptre so fantastically borne

By a vain, giddy, shallow, humorous youth,
That fear attends her not.

Con. O peace, prince Dauphin!

You are too much mistaken in this king:
Question your grace the late ambassadors,-
With what great state he heard their embassy,
How well supplied with noble counsellors,
How modest in exception,* and, withal,
How terrible in constant resolution,-
And you shall find, his vanities fore-spent +
Were but the outside of the Roman Brutus,
Covering discretion with a coat of folly;
As gardeners do with ordure hide those roots
That shall first spring, and be most delicate.
Dau. Well, 'tis not so, my lord high constable,
But though we think it so, it is no matter:

* Diffident in objection.

+ Exhausted.

In cases of defence, 'tis best to weigh
The enemy more mighty than he seems,
So the proportions of defence are fill'd;
Which, of a weak and niggardly projection,
Doth, like a miser, spoil his coat, with scanting
A little cloth.

Fr. King. Think we king Harry strong;

And, princes, look, you strongly arm to meet him.
The kindred of him hath been flesh'd upon us;
And he is bred out of that bloody strain,*
That haunted us in our familiar paths:
Witness our too much memorable shame,
When Cressy battle fatally was struck,
And all our princes captived, by the hand
Of that black name, Edward black prince of Wales;
Whiles that his mountain sire,-on mountain standing,
Up in the air, crown'd with the golden sun,-
Saw his heroical seed, and smiled to see him
Mangle the work of nature, and deface

The patterns that by God and by French fathers
Had twenty years been made. This is a stem
Of that victorious stock; and let us fear

The native mightiness and fate of him.

Enter a MESSENGER.

Mess. Ambassadors from Henry king of England

Do crave admittance to your majesty.

Fr. King. We'll give them present audience. Go, and bring

them.

[Exeunt MESSENGER and certain LORDS.

You see, this chase is hotly follow'd, friends.

Das. Turn head, and stop pursuit: for coward dogs

Most spend their mouths,t when what they seem to threaten,

Runs far before them. Good my sovereign,

Take up the English short; and let them know

Of what a monarchy you are the head:

Self-love, my liege, is not so vile a sin

As self-neglecting.

Re-enter LORDS, with EXETER and Train.

Fr. King. From our brother England?

Ere. From him; and thus he greets your majesty.

He wills you, in the name of God Almighty,

That you divest yourself, and lay apart
The borrow'd glories, that, by gift of heaven,
By law of nature, and of nations, 'long
To him, and to his heirs; namely, the crown,
And all wide-stretched honours that pertain,
By custom and the ordinance of times,
Unto the crown of France. That you may know,
Tis no sinister, nor no awkward claim,

[Gives a paper.

Pick'd from the worm-holes of long-vanish'd days,
Nor from the dust of old oblivion raked,
He sends you this most memorable line,
In every-branch truly demonstrative;
Willing you, overlook this pedigree:
And, when you find him evenly derived
From his most famed of famous ancestors,
Edward the Third, he bids you then resign
Your crown and kingdom, indirectly held
From him the native and true challenger.
Fr. King. Or else what follows?

Exe. Bloody constraint; for if you hide the crown
Even in your hearts, there will he rake for it:
And therefore in fierce tempest is he coming,
In thunder, and in earthquake, like a Jove
(That, if requiring fail, he will compel);
And bids you, in the bowels of the Lord,
Deliver up the crown; and to take mercy
On the poor souls, for whom this hungry war
Opens his vasty jaws: and on your head
Turns he the widows' tears, the orphans' cries,
The dead men's blood, the pining maidens' groans,
For husbands, fathers, and betrothed lovers,
That shall be swallow'd in this controversy.
This is his claim, his threatening, and my message;
Unless the Dauphin be in presence here,

To whom expressly I bring greeting too.

Fr. King. For us, we will consider of this further:
To-morrow shall you bear our full intent
Back to our brother England.

Dau. For the Dauphin,

I stand here for him; What to him from England?
Exe. Scorn, and defiance; slight regard, contenipt,
And anything that may not misbecome

The mighty sender, doth he prize you at.

Thus says my king: and, if your father's highness
Do not, in grant of all demands at large,

Sweeten the bitter mock you sent his majesty,
He'll call you to so hot an answer for it,
That caves and womby vaultages of France

Shall chide your trespass, and return your mock
In second accent of his ordnance.

Dau. Say, if my father render fair reply,

It is against my will: for I desire

Nothing but odds with England; to that end,

As matching to his youth and vanity,

I did present him with those Paris balls.

Exe. He'll make your Paris Louvre shake for it, Were it the mistress court of mighty Europe: And, be assured, you'll find a difference

(As we, his subjects, have in wonder found)

* Resound, echo.