Sir John, I am thy Pistol and thy friend,
And helter-skelter have I rode to thee,
And tidings do I bring and lucky joys
And golden times and happy news of price.
Fal. I pray thee now, deliver them like a man of
this world.

Pist. A foutre for the world and worldlings base! I speak of Africa and golden joys.

Fal. O base Assyrian knight, what is thy news? Let King Cophetua know the truth thereof. Sil. And Robin Hood, Scarlet, and John.

[Singing.

Pist. Shall dunghill curs confront the Helicons? And shall good news be baffled?

Then, Pistol, lay thy head in Furies' lap.

Sil. Honest gentleman, I know not your breeding Pist. Why then, lament, therefore.

Shal. Give me pardon, sir: if, sir, you come with news from the court, I take it there 's but two ways, either to utter them, or to conceal them. I am, sir, under the king, in some authority.

Pist. Under which king, Besonian? speak, or die.
Shal. Under King Harry.
Pist.
Harry the Fourth? or Fifth?

Shal. Harry the Fourth.
Pist.

A foutre 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, 't is thine. Pistol, I will double-charge thee Bard. O joyful day! [with dignities. 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. O 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. Blessed are they that 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.

Enter Beadles, dragging in Hostess Quickly and Doll Tearsheet.

Host. No, thou arrant knave; I would to God that I might die, that I might have thee hanged: thou hast drawn my shoulder out of joint.

First Bead. The constables have delivered her over to me; and she shall have whipping-cheer enough, I warrant her: there hath been a man or two lately killed about her.

Dol. 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 wert 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!

First 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 amongst you.

Dol. I'll tell you what, you 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 halfkirtles. [come.

First Bead. Come, come, you she knight-errant, Host. O God, that right should thus overcome might! Well, of sufferance comes ease. [tice. Dol. Come, you rogue, come; bring me to a jusHost. Ay, come, you starved blood-hound. Dol. Goodman death, goodman bones! Host. Thou atomy, thou!

Dol. Come, you thin thing; come, you rascal.
First Bead. Very well.
[Exeunt.

SCENE V.-A public place near Westminster
Abbey.

Enter two Grooms, strewing rushes.
First Groom. More rushes, more rushes.

Sec. Groom. The trumpets have sounded twice. First Groom. "T will be two o'clock ere they come from the coronation: dispatch, dispatch. [Exeunt. Enter Falstaff, Shallow, Pistol, Bardolph, and 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. O, if I had had time to have made new liveries, I would have bestowed the thousand pound I borrowed of you. But 't is 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,-
Shal. It doth so.

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 best, certain.

[snake,

By most mechanical and dirty hand:
Rouse up revenge from ebon den with fell Alecto's
For Doll is in. Pistol speaks nought but truth.
Fal. I will deliver her.

[Shouts within, and the trumpets sound. Pist. There roar'd the sea, and trumpet-clangor sounds.

Enter the King and his train, the Lord Chief-Justice among them.

Fal. God save thy grace, King Hal! my royal Hal!

Pist. The heavens thee guard and keep, most royal imp of fame!

[man.

Fal. God save thee, my sweet boy!
King. My lord chief-justice, speak to that vain
Ch. Just. Have you your wits? know you what
't is you speak?

Ful. My king! my Jove! I speak to thee, my heart!

King. I know thee not, old man: fall to thy

prayers;

How ill white hairs become a fool and jester!
I have long dream'd of such a kind of man,
So surfeit-swell'd, so old and so profane;
But, being awaked, I do despise my dream.
Make less thy body hence, and more thy grace;
Leave gormandizing; know the grave doth gape
For thee thrice wider than for other men.
Reply not to me with a fool-born jest:
Presume not that I am the thing I was;
For God doth know, so shall the world perceive,
That I have turned away my former self;
So will I those that kept me company.
When thou dost hear I am as I have been,
Approach me, and thou shalt be as thou wast,
The tutor and the feeder of my riots:
Till then, I banish thee, on pain of death,
As I have done the rest of my misleaders,
Not to come near our person by ten mile.
For competence of life I will allow you,
That lack of means enforce you not to evil:
And, as we hear you do reform yourselves,
We will, according to your strengths and qualities,
Give you advancement. Be it your charge, my lord,
To see perform'd the tenour of our word.
Set on.

[Exeunt King, &c. Fal. Master Shallow, I owe you a thousand pound. Shal. Yea, 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 advancements; I will be the man yet that shall make you great.

Shal. I cannot well perceive how, unless you should 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. [John. Shal. A colour that I fear you will die in, Sir Fal. Fear no colours: go with me to dinner: come, Lieutenant Pistol; come, Bardolph: I shall be sent for soon at night.

Re-enter Prince John, the Lord Chief-Justice;

Officers with them.

Pist. Si fortuna me tormenta, spero contenta. [Exeunt all but Prince John and the Chief-Justice. Lan. I like this fair proceeding of the king's: He hath intent his wonted followers Shall all be very well provided for; But all are banish'd till their conversations Appear more wise and modest to the world. Ch. Just. And so they are.

Lun. The king hath call'd his parliament, my lord. Ch. Just. He hath.

Lun. I will lay odds that, ere this year expire, We bear our civil swords and native fire As far as France: I heard a bird so sing, Whose music, to my thinking, pleased the king. Come, will you hence? [Exeunt.

EPILOGUE.

Spoken by a Dancer.

First my fear; then my courtesy; last my speech. My fear is, your displeasure; my courtesy, 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 meant 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 cominand me to use my legs? and yet that were but light payment, to dance out of your debt. But a good conscience will make any possible satisfaction, and so would I. All the gentlewomen here have forgiven me: if the gentlemen will not, then the gentlemen do not agree with the gentlewomen, which was never seen before in such an assembly.

One word more, I beseech you. If you be not too much cloyed with fat meat, our humble author will continue the story, with Sir John in it, and make you merry with fair Katharine of France: where, for any thing I know, Falstaff shall die of a sweat, unless already a' be killed with your hard opinions; for Oldcastle died a martyr, and this is not the man. My tongue is weary; when my legs are too, I will bid you good night: and so kneel down before you; but, indeed, to pray for the queen.

Enter Chorus.

Chor. O for a Muse of fire, that would ascend The brightest heaven of invention, A kingdom for a stage, princes to act And monarchs to behold the swelling scene! Then should the warlike Harry, like himself, Assume the port of Mars; and at his heels, [fire Leash'd in like hounds, should famine, sword and Crouch for employment. But pardon, gentles all, The flat unraised spirits that have dared On this unworthy scaffold to bring forth So great an object: can this cockpit hold The vasty fields of France? or may we cram Within this wooden O the very casques That did affright the air at Agincourt? O, pardon! since a crooked figure may Attest in little place a million;

And let us, ciphers to this great accompt,
On your imaginary forces work.
Suppose within the girdle of these walls
Are now confined two mighty monarchies,
Whose high upreared and abutting fronts
The perilous narrow ocean parts asunder:
Piece out our imperfections with your thoughts;
Into a thousand parts divide one man,
And make imaginary puissance;

Think, when we talk of horses, that you see them
Printing their proud hoofs i' the receiving earth;
For 't is your thoughts that now must deck our kings,
Carry them here and there; jumping o'er times,
Turning the accomplishment of many years
Into an hour-glass: for the which supply,
Admit me Chorus to this history;
Who prologue-like your humble patience pray,
Gently to hear, kindly to judge, our play.

[Exit.

SCENE I. - London. An ante-chamber in the King's palace.

Enter the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Bishop of Ely.

Cant. My lord, I'll tell you; that self bill is urged, Which in the eleventh year of the last king's reign Was like, and had indeed against us pass'd, But that the scambling and unquiet time Did push it out of farther question.

Ely. But how, my lord, shall we resist it now? Cant. It must be thought on. If it pass against us,

We lose the better half of our possession:
For all the temporal lands which men devout
Would they strip from us; being valued thus:
By testament have given to the church
As much as would maintain, to the king's honour,
Full fifteen earls and fifteen hundred knights,
Six thousand and two hundred good esquires;
And, to relief of lazars and weak age,
Of indigent faint souls past corporal toil,
A hundred almshouses right well supplied;
And to the coffers of the king beside,

A thousand pounds by the year: thus runs the bill

Ely. This would drink deep. Cant.

'T would drink the cup and all. Ely. But what prevention? Cant. The king is full of grace and fair regard. Ely. And a true lover of the holy church.

Cant. The courses of his youth promised it not.
The breath no sooner left his father's body,
But that his wildness, mortified in him,
Seem'd to die too; yea, at that very moment
Consideration, like an angel, came

And whipp'd the offending Adam out of him,
Leaving his body as a paradise,

To envelope and contain celestial spirits.
Never was such a sudden scholar made;
Never came reformation in a flood,
With such a heady currance, scouring faults;
Nor never Hydra-headed wilfulness

So soon did lose his seat and all at once
As in this king.

Ely.
We are blessed in the change.
Cant. Hear him but reason in divinity,
And all-admiring with an inward wish
You would desire the king were made a prelate:
Hear him debate of commonwealth affairs,
You would say it hath been all in all his study:
List his discourse of war, and you shall hear
A fearful battle render'd you in music:
Turn him to any cause of policy,
The Gordian knot of it he will unloose,
Familiar as his garter: that, when he speaks,
The air, a charter'd libertine, is still,

And the mute wonder lurketh in men's ears,
To steal his sweet and honey'd sentences;
So that the art and practic part of life
Must be the mistress to this theoric:

Which is a wonder how his grace should glean it,
Since his addiction was to courses vain,
His companies unletter'd, rude and shallow,
His hours fill'd up with riots, banquets, sports,
And never noted in him any study,
Any retirement, any sequestration
From open haunts and popularity.

Ely. The strawberry grows underneath the nettle
And wholesome berries thrive and ripen best
Neighbour'd by fruit of baser quality:
And so the prince obscured his contemplation
Under the veil of wildness; which, no doubt,
Grew like the summer grass, fastest by night,
Unseen, yet crescive in his faculty.

Cant. It must be so; for miracles are ceased; And therefore we must needs admit the means How things are perfected.

Ely.

But, my good lord, How now for mitigation of this bill Urged by the commons? Doth his majesty Incline to it, or no?

Cant.

He seems indifferent,

Or rather swaying more upon our part
Than cherishing the exhibiters against us;
For I have made an offer to his majesty,
Upon our spiritual convocation

And in regard of causes now in hand,
Which I have open'd to his grace at large,
As touching France, to give a greater sum
Than ever at one time the clergy yet
Did to his predecessors part withal.

Ely. How did this offer seem received, my lord?
Cant. With good acceptance of his majesty;
Save that there was not time enough to hear,
As I perceived his grace would fain have done,
The severals and unhidden passages
Of his true titles to some certain dukedoms
And generally to the crown and seat of France
Derived from Edward, his great-grandfather.
Ely. What was the impediment that broke this
off?

Cant. The French ambassador upon that instant

Enter King Henry, Gloucester, Bedford, Exeter, Warwick, Westmoreland, and Attendants. K.Hen. Where is my gracious Lord of Canterbury? Exe. Not here in presence.

K. Hen. Send for him, good uncle. West. Shall we call in the ambassador, my liege? K. Hen. Not yet, my cousin: we would be resolved, Before we hear him, of some things of weight That task our thoughts, concerning us and France. Enter the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Bishop of Ely.

[ing,

Cant. God and his angels guard your sacred throne
And make you long become it!
K. Hen.
Sure, we thank you.
My learned lord, we pray you to proceed
And justly and religiously unfold
Why the law Salique that they have in France
Or should, or should not, bar us in our claim:
And God forbid, my dear and faithful lord,
That you should fashion, wrest, or bow your read-
Or nicely charge your understanding soul
With opening titles miscreate, whose right
Suits not in native colours with the truth;
For God doth know how many now in health
Shall drop their blood in approbation
Of what your reverence shall incite us to.
Therefore take heed how you impawn our person,
How you awake our sleeping sword of war:
We charge you, in the name of God, take heed;
For never two such kingdoms did contend
Without much fall of blood; whose guiltless drops
Are every one a woe, a sore complaint

'Gainst him whose wrong gives edge unto the swords
That make such waste in brief mortality.
Under this conjuration speak, my lord;
For we will hear, note and believe in heart
That what you speak is in your conscience wash'd
As pure as sin with baptism.
[peers,
Cant. Then hear me, gracious sovereign, and you
That owe yourselves, your lives and services
To this imperial throne. There is no bar
To make against your highness' claim to France
But this, which they produce from Pharamond,
In terram Salicam mulieres ne succedant;'

[ons,

No woman shall succeed in Salique land: ' Which Salique land the French unjustly gloze To be the realm of France, and Pharamond The founder of this law and female bar. Yet their own authors faithfully affirm That the land Salique is in Germany, Between the floods of Sala and of Elbe; Where Charles the Great, having subdued the SaxThere left behind and settled certain French; Who, holding in disdain the German women For some dishonest manners of their life, Establish'd then this law; to wit, no female Should be inheritrix in Salique land: Which Salique, as I said, 'twixt Elbe and Sala, Is at this day in Germany call'd Meisen. Then doth it well appear the Salique law Was not devised for the realm of France; Nor did the French possess the Salique land Until four hundred one and twenty years After defunction of King Pharamond, Idly supposed the founder of this law;

Who died within the year of our redemption
Four hundred twenty-six; and Charles the Great
Subdued the Saxons, and did seat the French
Beyond the river Sala, in the year

Eight hundred five. Besides, their writers say,
King Pepin, which deposed Childeric,
Did, as heir general, being descended

Of Blithild, which was daughter to King Clothair,
Make claim and title to the crown of France.
Hugh Capet also, who usurp'd the crown
Of Charles the duke of Lorraine, sole heir male
Of the true line and stock of Charles the Great,
To find his title with some shows of truth,
Though, in pure truth, it was corrupt and naught,
Conveyed himself as heir to the Lady Lingare,
Daughter to Charlemain, who was the son
To Lewis the emperor, and Lewis the son

Of Charles the Great. Also King Lewis the Tenth,
Who was sole heir to the usurper Capet,
Could not keep quiet in his conscience,
Wearing the crown of France, till satisfied
That fair Queen Isabel, his grandmother,
Was lineal of the Lady Ermengare,

Daughter to Charles the foresaid duke of Lorraine:
By the which marriage the line of Charles the Great
Was re-united to the crown of France.
So that, as clear as is the summer's sun,
King Pepin's title and Hugh Capet's claim,
King Lewis his satisfaction, all appear
To hold in right and title of the female:
So do the kings of France unto this day;
Howbeit they would hold up this Salique law
To bar your highness claiming from the female,
And rather choose to hide them in a net
Than amply to imbar their crooked titles
Usurp'd from you and your progenitors. [claim?
K. Hen. May I with right and conscience make this
Cant. The sin upon my head, dread sovereign!

For in the book of Numbers is it writ,
When the man dies, let the inheritance
Descend unto the daughter. Gracious lord,
Stand for your own; unwind your bloody flag;
Look back into 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!

Ely. Awake remembrance of these valiant dead
And with your puissant arm renew their feats:
You are their heir; you sit upon their throne;
The blood and courage that renowned them
Runs in your veins; and my thrice-puissant liege
Is in the very May-morn of his youth,
Ripe for exploits and mighty enterprises. [earth
Exe. Your brother kings and monarchs of the
Do all expect that you should rouse yourself,
As did the former lions of your blood.

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 pavilioned in the fields of France.

Cant. O, let their bodies follow, my dear liege, With blood and sword and fire to win your right; In aid whereof we of the spiritualty

Will raise your highness such a mighty sum
As never did the clergy at one time
Bring in to any of your ancestors.

K. Hen. We do not mean the coursing snatchers But fear the main intendment of the Scot, Who hath been still a giddy neighbour to us; For you shall read that my great-grandfather Never went with his forces into France But that the Scot on his unfurnish'd kingdom Came pouring, like the tide into a breach, With ample and brim fulness of his force, Galling the gleaned land with hot assays, Girding with grievous siege castles and towns; That England, being empty of defence, Hath shook and trembled at the ill neighbourhood. Cant. She hath been then more fear'd than

harm'd, my liege;

For hear her but exampled by herself:
When all her chivalry hath been in France
And she a mourning widow of her nobles,
She hath herself not only well defended
But taken and impounded as a stray

The King of Scots; whom she did send to France,
To fill King Edward's fame with prisoner kings
And make her chronicle as rich with praise
As is the ooze and bottom of the sea
With sunken wreck and sumless treasuries.
West. But there's a saying very old and true,
"If that you will France win

Then with Scotland first begin:'
For once the eagle England being in prey,
To her unguarded nest the weasel Scot
Comes sneaking and so sucks her princely eggs,
Playing the mouse in absence of the cat,
To tear and havoc more than she can eat.

Exe. It follows then the cat must stay at home: Yet that is but a crush'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 consent, Congreeing in a full and natural close, Like music.

Cant.

Therefore doth heaven divide
The state of man in divers functions,
Setting endeavour in continual motion;
To which is fixed, as an aim or butt,
Obedience: for so work the honey-bees,
Creatures that by a rule in nature teach
The act of order to a peopled kingdom.
They have a king and officers of sorts;
Where some, like magistrates, correct at home,
Others, like merchants, venture trade abroad,
Others, like soldiers, armed in their stings,
Make boot upon the summer's velvet buds,
Which pillage they with merry march bring home
To the tent-royal of their emperor;
Who, busied in his majesty, surveys
The singing masons building roofs of gold,
The civil citizens kneading up the honey,
The poor mechanic porters crowding in
Their heavy burdens at his narrow gate,
The sad-eyed justice, with his surly hum,
Delivering o'er to executors pale

The lazy yawning drone. I this infer,
That many things, having full reference
To one consent, may work contrariously:
As many arrows, loosed several ways,

Come to one mark; as many ways meet in one town;
As many fresh streams meet in one salt sea;

As many lines close in the dial's centre;