The edge of war, like an ill-sheathed knife,
No more shall cut his master. Therefore, friends,
As far as to the sepulchre of Christ –
Whose soldier now, under whose blessed cross
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We are impressed and engag’d 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 walk’d those blessed feet
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Which fourteen hundred years ago were nail’d
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
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Of you, my gentle cousin Westmoreland,
What yesternight our Council did decree
In forwarding this dear expedience.
WESTMORELAND
My liege, this haste was hot in question,
And many limits of the charge set down
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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 Glendower,
40
Was by the rude hands of that Welshman taken,
A thousand of his people butchered,
Upon whose dead corpse there was such misuse,
Such beastly shameless transformation,
By those Welshwomen done, as may not be
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Without much shame retold or spoken of.
KING It seems then that the tidings of this broil
Brake off our business for the Holy Land.
WESTMORELAND
This match’d with other did, my gracious lord,
For more uneven and unwelcome news
50
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 approved Scot,
At Holmedon met, where they did spend
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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,
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Uncertain of the issue any way.
KING Here is a dear, a true industrious friend,
Sir Walter Blunt, new lighted from his horse,
Stain’d with the variation of each soil
Betwixt that Holmedon and this seat of ours;
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And he hath brought us smooth and welcome news.
The Earl of Douglas is discomfited;
Ten thousand bold Scots, two and twenty knights,
Balk’d in their own blood, did Sir Walter see
On Holmedon’s plains; of prisoners Hotspur took
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Mordake, Earl of Fife and eldest son
To beaten Douglas, and the Earl of Athol,
Of Murray, Angus, and Menteith:
And is not this an honourable spoil?
A gallant prize? ha, cousin, is it not?
WESTMORELAND In faith,
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It is a conquest for a prince to boast of.
KING
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,
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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 prov’d
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That some night-tripping fairy had exchang’d
In cradle-clothes our children where they lay,
And call’d mine Percy, his Plantagenet!
Then would I have his Harry, and he mine:
But let him from my thoughts. What think you, coz,
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Of this young Percy’s pride? The prisoners
Which he in this adventure hath surpris’d
To his own use he keeps, and sends me word
I shall have none but Mordake, Earl of Fife.
WESTMORELAND
This is his uncle’s teaching, this is Worcester,
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Malevolent to you in all aspects,
Which makes him prune himself, and bristle up
The crest of youth against your dignity.
KING But I have sent for him to answer this;
And for this cause awhile we must neglect
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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
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Than out of anger can be uttered.
WESTMORELAND I will, my liege. Exeunt.
1.2 Enter PRINCE OF WALES and SIR JOHN FALSTAFF.
FALSTAFF Now, Hal, what time of day is it, lad?
PRINCE 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.
5
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
10
thou shouldst be so superfluous to demand the time of
the day.
FALSTAFF 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
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fair’: and I prithee sweet wag, when thou art king, as
God save thy Grace – Majesty I should say, for grace
thou wilt have none –
PRINCE What, none?
FALSTAFF No, by my troth, not so much as will serve to
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be prologue to an egg and butter.
PRINCE Well, how then? Come, roundly, roundly.
FALSTAFF 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,
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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 Thou sayest well, and it holds well too, for the
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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
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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.
FALSTAFF
By the Lord thou say’st true, lad; and is not
my hostess of the tavern a most sweet wench?
40
PRINCE As the honey of Hybla, my old lad of the castle;
and is not a buff jerkin a most sweet robe of durance?
FALSTAFF How now, how now, mad wag? What, in thy
quips and thy quiddities? What a plague have I to do
with a buff jerkin?
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PRINCE Why, what a pox have I to do with my hostess of
the tavern?
FALSTAFF Well, thou hast called her to a reckoning
many a time and oft.
PRINCE Did I ever call for thee to pay thy part?
50
FALSTAFF No, I’ll give thee thy due, thou hast paid all
there.
PRINCE Yea, and elsewhere, so far as my coin would
stretch, and where it would not I have used my credit.
FALSTAFF Yea, and so used it that were it not here
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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.
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PRINCE No, thou shalt.
FALSTAFF Shall I? O rare! By the Lord, I’ll be a brave
judge!
PRINCE Thou judgest false already, I mean thou shalt
have the hanging of the thieves, and so become a rare
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hangman.
FALSTAFF Well, Hal, well; and in some sort it jumps
with my humour, as well as waiting in the court, I can
tell you.
PRINCE For obtaining of suits?
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FALSTAFF 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 Or an old lion, or a lover’s lute.
FALSTAFF Yea, or the drone of a Lincolnshire bagpipe.
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PRINCE What sayest thou to a hare, or the melancholy of
Moor-ditch?
FALSTAFF Thou hast the most unsavoury similes, and
art indeed the most comparative rascalliest sweet
young prince. But Hal, I prithee trouble me no more
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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
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wisely, and in the street too.
PRINCE Thou didst well, for wisdom cries out in the
streets and no man regards it.
FALSTAFF O, thou hast damnable iteration, and art
indeed able to corrupt a saint: thou hast done much
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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, and I do not I am a villain, I’ll be
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damned for never a king’s son in Christendom.
PRINCE Where shall we take a purse tomorrow, Jack?
FALSTAFF ‘Zounds, where thou wilt, lad, I’ll make one;
an I do not, call me villain and baffle me.
PRINCE I see a good amendment of life in thee, from
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praying to purse-taking.
FALSTAFF Why, Hal, ’tis my vocation, Hal, ’tis no sin
for a man to labour in his vocation.
Enter POINS.
Poins! – Now shall we know if Gadshill have set a
match. O, if men were to be saved by merit, what hole
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in hell were hot enough for him? This is the most
omnipotent villain that ever cried ‘Stand!’ to a true
man.
PRINCE Good morrow, Ned.
POINS Good morrow, sweet Hal. What says Monsieur
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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 Sir John stands to his word, the devil shall have
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his bargain, for he was never yet a breaker of proverbs:
he will give the devil his due.
POINS Then art thou damned for keeping thy word with
the devil.
PRINCE Else he had been damned for cozening the
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devil.
POINS But my lads, my lads, tomorrow morning, by
The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 153
