Henry IV, Part 2

by William Shakespeare

  FALSTAFF What disease hast thou?

  BULLCALF A whoreson cold, sir, a cough, sir, which I caught

  with ringing in the king’s affairs upon his coronation day, sir.

  FALSTAFF Come, thou shalt go to the wars in a gown . We will

  have away thy cold, and I will take such order that thy

  friends shall ring for thee .— Is here all?

  SHALLOW There is two more called than your number. You

  must have but fourx here, sir, and so I pray you go in with me

  to dinner.

  FALSTAFF Come, I will go drink with you, but I cannot tarry

  dinner. I am glad to see you, in good troth, Master Shallow.

  SHALLOW O, Sir John, do you remember since we lay all night

  in the Windmill in St George’s Field?

  FALSTAFF No more of that, good Master Shallow, no more of

  that.

  SHALLOW Ha, it was a merry night. And is Jane Nightwork

  alive?

  FALSTAFF She lives, Master Shallow.

  SHALLOW She never could away with me.

  FALSTAFF Never, never. She would always say she could not

  abide Master Shallow.

  SHALLOW I could anger her to the heart. She was then a bona-

  roba. Doth she hold her own well?

  FALSTAFF Old, old, Master Shallow.

  SHALLOW Nay, she must be old. She cannot choose but be old,

  certain she’s old, and had Robin Nightwork by old

  Nightwork before I came to Clement’s Inn.

  SILENCE That’s fifty-five years ago.

  SHALLOW Ha, cousin Silence, that thou hadst seen that that

  this knight and I have seen! Ha, Sir John, said I well?

  FALSTAFF We have heard the chimes at midnight, Master

  Shallow.

  SHALLOW That we have, that we have, in faith, Sir John, we

  have. Our watch-word was ‘Hem boys!’ Come, let’s to dinner;

  come, let’s to dinner. O, the days that we have seen! Come,

  come.

  [Exeunt Falstaff and the Justices]

  BULLCALF Good Master Corporate Bardolph, stand my friend,

  and here is four Harry ten shillings in French

  Gives money to Bardolph

  crowns for you. In very truth, sir, I had as lief be

  hanged, sir, as go. And yet, for mine own part, sir, I do not

  care; but rather, because I am unwilling, and for mine own

  part, have a desire to stay with my friends. Else, sir, I did not

  care, for mine own part, so much.

  BARDOLPH Go to . Stand aside.

  MOULDY And, good master corporal captain, for my old

  dame’s sake, stand my friend: she hath nobody to do

  anything about her when I am gone, and she is old, and

  cannot help herself. You shall have forty, sir.

  Gives money

  BARDOLPH Go to. Stand aside.

  FEEBLE I care not. A man can die but once: we owe a death.

  I will never bear a base mind. If it be my destiny, so : if it be

  not, so. No man is too good to serve his prince, and let it go

  which way it will, he that dies this year is quit for the next.

  BARDOLPH Well said. Thou art a good fellow.

  FEEBLE Nay, I will bear no base mind.

  [Enter Falstaff and the Justices]

  FALSTAFF Come, sir, which men shall I have?

  SHALLOW Four of which you please.

  BARDOLPH Sir, a word with you: I have three pound to free

  Mouldy and Bullcalf.

  FALSTAFF Go to, well.

  SHALLOW Come, Sir John, which four will you have?

  FALSTAFF Do you choose for me.

  SHALLOW Marry, then, Mouldy, Bullcalf, Feeble and Shadow.

  FALSTAFF Mouldy and Bullcalf: for you, Mouldy, stay at home

  till you are past service .— And for your part, Bullcalf, grow

  till you come unto it . I will none of you.

  SHALLOW Sir John, Sir John, do not yourself wrong. They are

  your likeliest men, and I would have you served with the best.

  FALSTAFF Will you tell me, Master Shallow, how to choose a

  man? Care I for the limb, the thews, the stature, bulk, and big

  assemblance of a man? Give me the spirit, Master Shallow.

  Where’s Wart? You see what a ragged appearance it is. He

  shall charge you and discharge you with the motion of a

  pewterer’s hammer , come off and on swifter than he that

  gibbets on the brewer’s bucket . And this same half-faced .

  fellow, Shadow, give me this man: he presents no mark to the

  enemy. The foeman may with as great aim level at the edge of

  a penknife. And for a retreat, how swiftly will this Feeble, the

  woman’s tailor, run off! O, give me the spare men, and spare

  me the great ones. Put me a caliver into Wart’s hand,

  Bardolph.

  BARDOLPH Hold, Wart, traverse . Thus, thus, thus.

  Gives Wart a caliver

  FALSTAFF Come, manage me your caliver. So, very

  well, go to, very good, exceeding good. O, give me always a

  little, lean, old, chopped, bald shot. Well said, Wart. Thou art

  a good scab . Hold, there is a tester for thee.

  Gives money

  SHALLOW He is not his craft’s master. He doth not do it right. I

  remember at Mile-End Green, when I lay at Clement’s Inn—

  I was then Sir Dagonet in Arthur’s show —there was a little

  quiver fellow, and he would manage you his piece thus.

  And he would about and about, and come you in and come

  you in. ‘Ra, ta, ta s’, would he say. ‘Bounce ’, would he say, and

  away again would he go, and again would he come. I shall

  never see such a fellow.

  FALSTAFF These fellows will do well, Master Shallow. Farewell,

  Master Silence. I will not use many words with you. Fare you

  well, gentlemen both. I thank you. I must a dozen mile

  tonight. Bardolph, give the soldiers coats.

  SHALLOW Sir John, heaven bless you and prosper your affairs,

  and send us peace! As you return, visit my house. Let our old

  acquaintance be renewed. Peradventure I will with you to

  the court.

  FALSTAFF I would you would, Master Shallow.

  SHALLOW Go to. I have spoke at a word . Fare you well.

  Exit

  FALSTAFF Fare you well, gentle gentlemen.— On, Bardolph.

  Lead the men away.

  [Exeunt Bardolph, Mouldy, Shadow, Wart, Feeble and Bullcalf]

  As I return, I will fetch off these justices. I do see the bottom

  of Justice Shallow. How subject we old men are to this vice of

  lying! This same starved justice hath done nothing but prate

  to me of the wildness of his youth, and the feats he hath

  done about Turnbull Street, and every third word a lie, duer

  paid to the hearer than the Turk’s tribute. I do remember

  him at Clement’s Inn like a man made after supper of a

  cheese-paring . When he was naked, he was, for all the world,

  like a forked radish, with a head fantastically carved upon it

  with a knife. He was so forlorn, that his dimensions to any

  thick sight were invincible . He was the very genius of

  famine. He came ever in the rearward of the fashion. And

  now is this Vice’s dagger become a squire, and talks as

  familiarly of John of Gaunt as if he had been sworn brother

  to him, and I’ll be sworn he never saw him but once in the

  Tilt-yard, and then he burst his head for crowding among

  the marshal’s men . I saw it, and told John of G
aunt he beat

  his own name, for you might have trussed him and all his

  apparel into an eel-skin, the case of a treble hautboy was a

  mansion for him, a court. And now hath he land and beefs .

  Well, I will be acquainted with him, if I return, and it shall go

  hard but I will make him a philosopher’s two stones to me. If

  the young dace be a bait for the old pike, I see no reason in

  the law of nature but I may snap at him. Let time shape , and

  there an end.

  Exit

  Act 4 Scene 1

  running scene 10

  Location: Gaultree Forest, north of York

  Enter the Archbishop, Mowbray, Hastings

  ARCHBISHOP OF YORK What is this forest called?

  HASTINGS ’Tis Gaultree Forest, an’t shall please your grace.

  ARCHBISHOP OF YORK Here stand, my lords, and send discoverers

  forth

  To know the numbers of our enemies.

  HASTINGS We have sent forth already.

  ARCHBISHOP OF YORK ’Tis well done.

  My friends and brethren in these great affairs,

  I must acquaint you that I have received

  New-dated letters from Northumberland.

  Their cold intent, tenor and substance, thus:

  Here doth he wish his person, with such powers

  As might hold sortance with his quality,

  The which he could not levy, whereupon

  He is retired, to ripe his growing fortunes,

  To Scotland; and concludes in hearty prayers

  That your attempts may overlive the hazard

  And fearful meeting of their opposite .

  MOWBRAY Thus do the hopes we have in him touch ground

  And dash themselves to pieces.

  Enter a Messenger

  HASTINGS Now, what news?

  MESSENGER West of this forest, scarcely off a mile,

  In goodly form comes on the enemy.

  And by the ground they hide, I judge their number

  Upon or near the rate of thirty thousand.

  MOWBRAY The just proportion that we gave them out .

  Let us sway on and face them in the field.

  Enter Westmorland

  ARCHBISHOP OF YORK What well-appointed leader fronts us here?

  MOWBRAY I think it is my lord of Westmorland.

  WESTMORLAND Health and fair greeting from our general,

  The prince, L ord John and Duke of Lancaster.

  ARCHBISHOP OF YORK Say on, my lord of Westmorland, in peace:

  What doth concern your coming?

  WESTMORLAND Then, my lord,

  Unto your grace do I in chief address

  The substance of my speech. If that rebellion

  Came like itself, in base and abject routs ,

  Led on by bloody youth, guarded with rage,

  And countenanced by boys and beggary,

  I say, if damned commotion so appeared,

  In his true, native and most proper shape,

  You, reverend father, and these noble lords

  Had not been here to dress the ugly form

  Of base and bloody insurrection

  With your fair honours. You, lord archbishop,

  Whose see is by a civil peace maintained,

  Whose beard the silver hand of peace hath touched,

  Whose learning and good letters peace hath tutored,

  Whose white investments figure innocence,

  The dove and very blessèd spirit of peace,

  Wherefore do you so ill translate yourself

  Out of the speech of peace that bears such grace,

  Into the harsh and boisterous tongue of war,

  Turning your books to graves, your ink to blood,

  Your pens to lances and your tongue divine

  To a loud trumpet and a point of war?

  ARCHBISHOP OF YORK Wherefore do I this? So the question stands.

  Briefly to this end: we are all diseased,

  And with our surfeiting and wanton hours

  Have brought ourselves into a burning fever,

  And we must bleed for it, of which disease

  Our late King Richard, being infected, died.

  But, my most noble lord of Westmorland,

  I take not on me here as a physician,

  Nor do I as an enemy to peace

  Troop in the throngs of military men,

  But rather show awhile like fearful war,

  To diet rank minds sick of happiness

  And purge th’obstructions which begin to stop

  Our very veins of life. Hear me more plainly.

  I have in equal balance justly weighed

  What wrongs our arms may do, what wrongs we suffer,

  And find our griefs heavier than our offences.

  We see which way the stream of time doth run,

  And are enforced from our most quiet there

  By the rough torrent of occasion,

  And have the summary of all our griefs,

  When time shall serve, to show in articles;

  Which long ere this we offered to the king,

  And might by no suit gain our audience.

  When we are wronged and would unfold our griefs,

  We are denied access unto his person

  Even by those men that most have done us wrong.

  The dangers of the days but newly gone,

  Whose memory is written on the earth

  With yet appearing blood, and the examples

  Of every minute’s instance, present now,

  Hath put us in these ill-beseeming arms,

  Not to break peace or any branch of it,

  But to establish here a peace indeed,

  Concurring both in name and quality.

  WESTMORLAND Whenever yet was your appeal denied?

  Wherein have you been gallèd by the king?

  What peer hath been suborned to grate on you,

  That you should seal this lawless bloody book

  Of forged rebellion with a seal divine?

  ARCHBISHOP OF YORK My brother general, the commonwealth,

  I make my quarrel in particular.

  WESTMORLAND There is no need of any such redress,

  Or if there were, it not belongs to you.

  MOWBRAY Why not to him in part, and to us all

  That feel the bruises of the days before,

  And suffer the condition of these times

  To lay a heavy and unequal hand

  Upon our honours?

  WESTMORLAND O, my good lord Mowbray,

  Construe the times to their necessities,

  And you shall say indeed, it is the time,

  And not the king, that doth you injuries.

  Yet for your part, it not appears to me

  Either from the king or in the present time

  That you should have an inch of any ground

  To build a grief on. Were you not restored

  To all the Duke of Norfolk’s signories,

  Your noble and right well rememb’red father’s?

  MOWBRAY What thing, in honour, had my father lost,

  That need to be revived and breathed in me?

  The king that loved him, as the state stood then,

  Was force perforce compelled to banish him,

  And then that Henry Bullingbrook and he,

  Being mounted and both rousèd in their seats,

  Their neighing coursers daring of the spur,

  Their armèd staves in charge, their beavers down,

  Their eyes of fire sparkling through sights of steel

  And the loud trumpet blowing them together,

  Then, then, when there was nothing could have stayed

  My father from the breast of Bullingbrook,

  O, when the king did throw his warder down—

  His own life hung upon the staff he threw—

  Then threw he down himself and all their lives


  That by indictment and by dint of sword

  Have since miscarried under Bullingbrook.

  WESTMORLAND You speak, Lord Mowbray, now you know not

  what.

  The Earl of Hereford was reputed then

  In England the most valiant gentleman.

  Who knows on whom fortune would then have smiled?

  But if your father had been victor there,

  He ne’er had borne it out of Coventry,

  For all the country in a general voice

  Cried hate upon him, and all their prayers and love

  Were set on Hereford, whom they doted on

  And blessed and graced and did more than the king—

  But this is mere digression from my purpose.

  Here come I from our princely general

  To know your griefs; to tell you from his grace

  That he will give you audience, and wherein

  It shall appear that your demands are just,

  You shall enjoy them, everything set off,

  That might so much as think you enemies.

  MOWBRAY But he hath forced us to compel this offer,

  And it proceeds from policy, not love.

  WESTMORLAND Mowbray, you overween to take it so.

  This offer comes from mercy, not from fear.

  For, lo, within a ken our army lies,

  Upon mine honour, all too confident

  To give admittance to a thought of fear.

  Our battle is more full of names than yours,

  Our men more perfect in the use of arms,

  Our armour all as strong, our cause the best;

  Then reason will our hearts should be as good.

  Say you not then our offer is compelled.

  MOWBRAY Well, by my will, we shall admit no parley.

  WESTMORLAND That argues but the shame of your offence:

  A rotten case abides no handling .

  HASTINGS Hath the Prince John a full commission,

  In very ample virtue of his father,

  To hear and absolutely to determine

  Of what conditions we shall stand upon?

  WESTMORLAND That is intended in the general’s name.

  I muse you make so slight a question.

  ARCHBISHOP OF YORK Then take, my lord of Westmorland, this

  schedule ,

  Gives paper

  For this contains our general grievances:

  Each several article herein redressed,

  All members of our cause, both here and hence ,

  That are insinewed to this action,

  Acquitted by a true substantial form

  And present execution of our wills