412

And, in the fortune of my lord your son,
Prince Harry slain outright; and both the Blunts
Kil'd by the hand of Douglas: young prince John,
And Westmoreland, and Stafford, fled the neld;
And Harry Monmouth's brawn, the hulk sir John,
Is prisoner to your son: O, such a day,
So fought, so follow'd, and so fairly won,
Came not, till now, to dignify the times,
Since Cæsar's fortunes!

North.

How is this deriv'd?

Saw you the field? came you from Shrewsbury?
Bard, I spake with one, my lord, that came from
thence;

A gentleman well bred, and of good name,
That freely render'd me these news for true.
North. Here comes my servant, Travers, whom
I sent

On Tuesday last to listen after news,

Bard, My lord, I over-rode him on the way;
And he is furnish'd with no certainties,
More than he haply may retain from me.
Enter Travers.

North. Now, Travers, what good tidings come
with you?

Tra. My lord, sir John Umfrevile turn'd me back
With joyful tidings; and, being better hors'd,
Out-rode me, After him, came, spurring hard,
A gentleman almost forspent' with speed,
That stopp'd by me to breathe his bloodied horse:
He ask'd the way to Chester; and of him
I did demand, what news from Shrewsbury.
He told me, that rebellion had bad luck,
And that young Harry Percy's spur was cold:
With that, he gave his able horse the head,
And, bending forward, struck his armed heels
Against the panting sides of his poor jade
Up to the rowel-head; and, starting so,
We seem'd in running to devour the way,
Staving no longer question.

North.

Said he, young Harry Percy's spur was cold?
Ha!--Again,
Or Hotspur, coldspur? that rebellion

Had met ill luck?

Bard.

My lord, I'll tell you what

If my young lord your son has not the day,

Upon mine honour, for a silken point

I give my barony: never talk of it.

Your brother, thus; so fought the noble Douglas;
Stopping my greedy ear with their bold deeds;
Thou hast a sigh to blow away this praise,
But in the end, to stop mine ear indeed,
Ending with-brother, son, and all, are dead.
Mor. Douglas is living, and your brother, yet:
But, for my lord your son,--

North.

He, that but fears the thing he would not know,
See, what a ready tongue suspicion hath!
Why, he is dead.
Hath, by instinct, knowledge from others' eyes,
That what he fear'd is chanced. Yet speak, Morton;
Tell thou thy earl, his divination lies;
And I will take it as a sweet disgrace,
And make thee rich for doing me such wrong.
Mor. You are too great to be by me gainsaid:
Your spirit is too true, your fears too certain.
North. Yet, for all this, say not that Percy's dead,
Thou shak'st thy head, and hold'st it fear, or sin,
see a strange confession in thine eye:
To speak a truth. If he be slain, say so:
The tongue offends not, that reports his death:
Not he, which says the dead is not alive.
And he doth sin, that doth belie the dead;
Yet the first bringer of unwelcome news
Hath but a losing office; and his tongue
Sounds ever after as a sullen bell,
Remember'd knolling a departed friend.

I

Bard. I cannot think, my lord, your son is dead,
Mor. I am sorry, I should force you to believe
That, which I would to heaven I had not seen:
But these mine eves saw him in bloody state,
Rend'ring faint quittance, wearied and outbreath'd,
To Harry Monmouth: whose swift wrath beatdown
The never-daunted Percy to the earth,
From whence with life he never more sprung up.
In few, his death (whose spirit lent a fire
;-Being bruited' once, took fire and heat away
Even to the dullest peasant in his camp,)
From the best temper'd courage in his troops;
For from his metal was his party steel'd;
Which once in him abated, all the rest

North. Why should the gentleman, that rode by Turn'd on themselves, like dull and heavy lead.

Travers,

Give then such instances of loss?

Bard.

He was some hilding fellow, that had stol'n
Who, he?
The horse he rode on; and, upon my life,
Speke at a venture. Look, here comes more news,
Enter Morton.

North. Yea, this man's brow, like to a title-leaf,
Foretells the nature of a tragic volume:
So looks the strond, whereon the imperious flood
Hath left a witness'd usurpation.4-
Say, Morton, didst thou come from Shrewsbury?
Mor. I ran from Shrewsbury, my noble lord;
Where hateful death put on his ugliest mask,
To fright our party.
North.
Thou tremblest; and the whiteness in thy cheek
How doth my son, and brother?
Is apter than thy tongue to tell thy errand.
Even such a man, so faint, so spiritless,

So dull, so dead in look, so wo-begone,

(1) Exhausted.

(3) Hilderling, base, cowardly.
(2) Lace tagged.
(4) An attestation of its ravage.

And as the thing that's heavy in itself,
Upon enforcement, flies with greatest speed;
So did our men, heavy in Hotspur's loss,
Lend to this weight such lightness with their fear,
Than did our soldiers, aiming at their safety,
That arrows fled not swifter toward their aim,
Fly from the field: Then was that noble Worcester
The bloody Douglas, whose well-labouring sword
Too soon ta'en prisoner: and that furious Scot,
Had three times slain the appearance of the king,
'Gan vail his stomach, and did grace the shame
Stumbling in fear, was took. The sum of all
Of those that turn'd their backs; and, in his flight,
Is,-that the king hath won; and hath sent out
A speedy power to encounter you, my lord,
And Westmoreland: this is the news in full.
Under the conduct of young Lancaster,

North. For this I shall have time enough to mourn,
In poison there is physic; and these news,
Having been well, that would have made me sick,
Being sick, have in some measure made me well:
And as the wretch, whose fever-weaken'd joints,

And summ'd the account of chance, before you worn in my cap, than to wait at my heels. I was

Ch. Just. I think, you are fallen into the disease; for you hear not what I say to you.

please you, it is the disease of not listening, the Fal. Very well, my lord, very well: rather, an't malady of not marking, that I am troubled withal.

Ch. Just. To punish you by the heels, would amend the attention of your ears; and I care not, if I become your physician.

in the stews, I were manned, horsed, and wived.'| Enter the Lord Chief Justice, and an attendant. Page. Sir, here comes the nobleman that committed the prince for striking him about Bardolph. Fal. Wait close; I will not see him. Ch. Just. What's he that goes there? Atten. Falstaff, an't please your lordship. Ch. Just. He that was in question for the robbery? Atten. He, my lord but he hath since done patient: your lordship may minister the potion of Fal. I am as poor as Job, my lord; but not so good service at Shrewsbury; and, as I hear, is imprisonment to me, in respect of poverty; but now going with some charge to the lord John of how I should be your patient to follow your pre Lancaster. Ch. Just. What, to York? Call him back again. scruple, or, indeed, a scruple itself. scriptions, the wise may make some dram of a Atten. Sir John Falstaff!

Fal. Boy, tell him, I am deaf.

Page. You must speak louder, my master is deaf. Ch. Just. I am sure, he is, to the hearing of any thing good.-Go, pluck him by the elbow; I must speak with him.

Atten. Sir John,

Ch. Just. I sent for you, when there were mat
me.
ters against you for your life, to come speak with

sel in the laws of this land-service, I did not come.
Fal. As I was then advised by my learned coun-
Ch. Just. Well, the truth is, sir John, you live
Fal. He that buckles him in my belt, cannot
in great infamy.
live in less.

Ch. Just. Your means are very slender, and

Fal. What! a young knave, and beg! Is there not wars? is there not employment? Doth not the king lack subjects? do not the rebels need soldiers? Though it be a shame to be on any side your waste is great. but one, it is worse shame to beg than to be on the worst side, were it worse than the name of rebel-means were greater, and my waist slenderer. lion can tell how to make it.

Atten. You mistake me, sir.

Fal. Why, sir, did I say you were an honest man? setting my knighthood and my soldiership aside, I had lied in my throat if I had said so.

Alten. pray you, sir, then set your knighthood and your soldiership aside; and give me leave to tell you, you lie in your throat, if you say I am any other than an honest man.

Fal. give thee leave to tell me so! I lay aside that which grows to me! If thou gett'st any leave of me, hang me; if thou takest leave, thou wert better be hanged: You hunt-counter, hence! avaunt!

Atten. Sir, my lord would speak with you.

Ch. Just. Sir John Falstaff, a word with you. Fal. My good lord!-God give your lordship good time of day. I am glad to see your lordship abroad: I heard say, your lordship was sick: hope your lordship goes abroad by advice. Your Jordship, though not clean past your youth, hath yet some smack of age in you, some relish of the saltness of time; and I most humbly beseech your lordship, to have a reverend care of your health.

I

Fal. I would it were otherwise; I would my

Ch. Just. You have misled the youthful prince. the fellow with the great belly, and he my dog. Fal. The young prince hath misled me: I am

Ch. Just. Well, I am loath to gall a new-healed little gilded over your night's exploit on Gads-hill: wound; your day's service at Shrewsbury hath a you may thank the unquiet time for your quiet o'er. posting that action.

Fal. My lord?

not a sleeping wolf.
Ch. Just. But since all is well, keep it so: wake

Fal. To wake a wolf, is as bad as to smell a fox. Ch. Just. What! you are as a candle, the better part burnt out.

Fal. A wassel' candle, my lord; all tallow: if truth. did say of wax, my growth would approve the

Ch. Just. There is not a white hair on your face, but should have his effect of gravity.

Fal. His effect of gravy, gravy, gravy. down, like his ill angel. Ch. Just. You follow the young prince up and

Fal. Not so, my lord; your ill angel is light; Ch. Just. Sir John, I sent for you before your without weighing: and yet, in some respects, I but, I hope, he that looks upon me, will take me expedition to Shrewsbury. Fal. An't please your lordship, I hear, his ma- little regard in these coster-monger times, that true grant, I cannot go, I cannot tell: Virtue is of so jesty is returned with some discomfort from Wales. valour is turned bear-herd: Pregnancy is made a Ch. Just. I talk not of his majesty:-You would tapster, and hath his quick wit wasted in giving not come when I sent for you. reckonings: all the other gifts appertinent to man,

Fal. And I hear moreover, his highness is fallen as the malice of this age shapes them, are not into this same whoreson apoplexy.

Ch. Just. Well, heaven mend him! I pray,

me speak with you.

worth a gooseberry. You, that are old, consider let not the capacities of us that are young: you measure the heat of our livers with the bitterness of

Fal. This apoplexy is, as I take it, a kind of your galls: and we that are in the vaward' of our lethargy, an't please your lordship; a kind of sleep-youth, I must confess, are wags too. ing in the blood, a whoreson tingling. Ch. Just. Do you set down your name in the

Ch. Just. What tell you me of it? be it as it is. scroll of youth, that are written down old with all Fal. It hath its original from much grief; from the characters of age? Have you not a moist eye? study, and perturbation of the brain: I have read a dry hand? a yellow cheek? a white beard? a the cause of his effects in Galen; it is a kind of decreasing leg? an increasing belly? Is not your deafness. voice broken? your wind short? your chin double?

(1) Alluding to an old proverb: Who goes to Westminster for a wife, to St. Paul's for a man, and to Smithfield for a horse, may meet with a whore, a knave, and a jade.

(2) A catch-pole or bum-bailiff.
(3) A large candle for a feast.
(4) The coin called an angel.
(6) Readiness.

(5) Pass current. (7) Forepart,