PRINCE JOHN I like them all, and do allow them well,
And swear here, by the honour of my blood,
My father's purposes have been mistook,
And some about him have too lavishly
Wrested his meaning and authority.--
My lord, these griefs shall be with speed
redressed,
To Archbishop
Upon my life, they shall. If this may please you,
Discharge your powers unto their several counties,
As we will ours, and here between the armies,
Let's drink together friendly and embrace,
That all their eyes may bear those tokens home
Of our restored love and amity.
ARCHBISHOP OF YORK I take your princely word for these
redresses.
PRINCE JOHN I give it you, and will maintain my word,
And thereupon I drink unto your grace.
Toasts Archbishop
HASTINGS Go, captain, and deliver to the army
This news of peace: let them have pay, and part .
I know it will well please them. Hie thee, captain.
Exit [Officer]
ARCHBISHOP OF YORK To you, my noble lord of
Toasts Westmorland
Westmorland.
WESTMORLAND I pledge your grace, and if you
Toasts Archbishop
knew what pains
I have bestowed to breed this present peace,
You would drink freely. But my love to ye
Shall show itself more openly hereafter.
ARCHBISHOP OF YORK I do not doubt you.
WESTMORLAND I am glad of it.--
Health to my lord and gentle cousin, Mowbray.
Toasts Mowbray
MOWBRAY You wish me health in very happy season ,
For I am, on the sudden, something ill.
ARCHBISHOP OF YORK Against ill chances men are ever merry,
But heaviness foreruns the good event .
WESTMORLAND Therefore be merry, coz, since sudden sorrow
Serves to say thus: 'Some good thing comes tomorrow.'
ARCHBISHOP OF YORK Believe me, I am passing light in spirit.
MOWBRAY So much the worse, if your own rule be true.
PRINCE JOHN The word of peace is rendered . Hark, how they
shout!
MOWBRAY This had been cheerful after victory.
ARCHBISHOP OF YORK A peace is of the nature of a conquest,
For then both parties nobly are subdued,
And neither party loser.
PRINCE JOHN Go, my lord,
To Westmorland
And let our army be discharged too.--
Exit [Westmorland]
And, good my lord, so please you, let our trains
To Archbishop
March by us, that we may peruse the men
We should have coped withal .
ARCHBISHOP OF YORK Go, good Lord Hastings,
And ere they be dismissed, let them march by.
Exit [Hastings]
PRINCE JOHN I trust, lords, we shall lie tonight together.
Enter Westmorland
Now, cousin, wherefore stands our army still?
WESTMORLAND The leaders, having charge from you to stand,
Will not go off until they hear you speak.
PRINCE JOHN They know their duties.
Enter Hastings
HASTINGS Our army is dispersed.
Like youthful steers unyoked, they took their course
East, west, north, south, or, like a school broke up,
Each hurries toward his home and sporting-place.
WESTMORLAND Good tidings, my lord Hastings, for the which
I do arrest thee, traitor, of high treason.--
And you, lord archbishop, and you, Lord Mowbray,
Of capital treason I attach you both.
MOWBRAY Is this proceeding just and honourable?
WESTMORLAND Is your assembly so?
ARCHBISHOP OF YORK Will you thus break your faith?
PRINCE JOHN I pawned thee none:
I promised you redress of these same grievances
Whereof you did complain; which, by mine honour,
I will perform with a most Christian care.
But for you, rebels, look to taste the due
Meet for rebellion and such acts as yours.
Most shallowly did you these arms commence,
Fondly brought here and foolishly sent hence.
Strike up our drums, pursue the scattered stray .
Heaven, and not we, have safely fought today.
Some guard these traitors to the block of death,
Treason's true bed and yielder up of breath.
[Exeunt]
Enter Falstaff and Coleville [separately]
FALSTAFF What's your name, sir? Of what condition are you,
and of what place, I pray?
COLEVILLE I am a knight, sir, and my name is Coleville of the
Dale.
FALSTAFF Well, then, Coleville is your name, a knight is your
degree, and your place, the Dale. Coleville shall still be your
name, a traitor your degree, and the dungeon your place, a
place deep enough so shall you be still Coleville of the Dale.
COLEVILLE Are not you Sir John Falstaff?
FALSTAFF As good a man as he, sir, whoe'er I am. Do ye yield,
sir, or shall I sweat for you? If I do sweat, they are the drops of
thy lovers, and they weep for thy death: therefore rouse up
fear and trembling, and do observance to my mercy.
COLEVILLE I think you are Sir John Falstaff, an d in that thought
yield me.
FALSTAFF I have a whole school of tongues in this belly of
mine, and not a tongue of them all speaks any other word
but my name . An I had but a belly of any indifferency, I were
simply the most active fellow in Europe. My womb, my
womb, my womb, undoes me. Here comes our general.
Enter Prince John and Westmorland [with Blunt and others]
PRINCE JOHN The heat is past. Follow no further now.
Call in the powers, good cousin Westmorland.
[Exit Westmorland]
Now, Falstaff, where have you been all this while?
When everything is ended, then you come.
These tardy tricks of yours will, on my life,
One time or other break some gallows' back .
FALSTAFF I would be sorry, my lord, but it should bey thus: I
never knew yet but rebuke and check was the reward of
valour. Do you think me a swallow, an arrow, or a bullet?
Have I, in my poor and old motion, the expedition of
thought? I have speeded hither with the very extremest inch
of possibility . I have foundered nine score and odd posts, and
here, travel-tainted as I am, have in my pure and immaculate
valour, taken Sir John Coleville of the Dale, a most furious
knight and valorous enemy. But what of that? He saw me,
and yielded, that I may justly say, with the hook-nosed fellow
of Rome , 'I came, saw, and overcame.'
PRINCE JOHN It was more of his courtesy than your deserving.
FALSTAFF I know not. Here he is, and here I yield him. And I
beseech your grace, let it be booked with the rest of this day's
deeds; or, I swear, I will have it in a particular ballad, with
mine own picture on the top of it, Coleville kissing my foot:
to the which course, if I be enforced, if you do not all show
like gilt two-pences to me, and I in the clear sky of fame
o'ershine you as much as the full moon doth the cinders of
the element --which show like pins' heads to her--believe
not the word of the noble: therefore let me have right, and
let
desert mount .
PRINCE JOHN Thine's too heavy to mount.
FALSTAFF Let it shine, then.
PRINCE JOHN Thine's too thick to shine.
FALSTAFF Let it do something, my good lord, that may do me
good, and call it what you will.
PRINCE JOHN Is thy name Coleville?
COLEVILLE It is, my lord.
PRINCE JOHN A famous rebel art thou, Coleville.
FALSTAFF And a famous true subject took him.
COLEVILLE I am, my lord, but as my betters are
That led me hither. Had they been ruled by me ,
You should have won them dearer than you have.
FALSTAFF I know not how they sold themselves, but thou, like
a kind fellow, gav'st thyself away; and I thank thee for thee.
Enter Westmorland
PRINCE JOHN Have you left pursuit?
WESTMORLAND Retreat is made and execution stayed .
PRINCE JOHN Send Coleville with his confederates
To York, to present execution.--
Blunt, lead him hence, and see you guard him sure.
Exeunt [Blunt and others] with Coleville
And now dispatch we toward the court, my lords.
I hear the king my father is sore sick.
Our news shall go before us to his majesty,
Which, cousin, you shall bear to comfort him,
To Westmorland
And we with sober speed will follow you.
FALSTAFF My lord, I beseech you give me leave to go through
Gloucestershire, and, when you come to court, stand my
good lord, pray, in your good report.
PRINCE JOHN Fare you well, Falstaff. I, in my condition
Shall better speak of you than you deserve.
Exeunt [all but Falstaff]
FALSTAFF I would you had but the wit: 'twere better than your
dukedom. Good faith, this same young sober-blooded boy
doth not love me, nor a man cannot make him laugh. But
that's no marvel: he drinks no wine. There's never any of
these demure boys come to any proof , for thin drink doth so
over-cool their blood, and making many fish-meals, that
they fall into a kind of male green-sickness, and then when
they marry, they get wenches . They are generally fools and
cowards; which some of us should be too, but for
inflammation . A good sherry-sack hath a two-fold operation
in it: it ascends me into the brain, dries me there all the
foolish and dull and curdy vapours which environ it, makes
it apprehensive, quick, forgetive, full of nimble, fiery and
delectable shapes, which, delivered o'er to the voice, the
tongue, which is the birth, becomes excellent wit. The
second property of your excellent sherry is the warming of
the blood, which, before cold and settled, left the liver white
and pale, which is the badge of pusillanimity and cowardice.
But the sherry warms it and makes it course from the
inwards to the parts extremes : it illuminateth the face,
which as a beacon gives warning to all the rest of this little
kingdom, man, to arm. And then the vital commoners and
inland petty spirits muster me all to their captain, the heart,
who, great and puffed up with his retinue, doth any deed of
courage, and this valour comes of sherry. So that skill in the
weapon is nothing without sack, for that sets it a-work, and
learning a mere hoard of gold kept by a devil, till sack
commences it and sets it in act and use. Hereof comes it that
Prince Harry is valiant, for the cold blood he did naturally
inherit of his father, he hath, like lean, sterile and bare land,
manured, husbanded and tilled with excellent endeavour of
drinking good and good store of fertile sherry, that he is
become very hot and valiant. If I had a thousand sons, the
first principle I would teach them should be to forswear thin
potations and to addict themselves to sack.
Enter Bardolph
How now Bardolph?
BARDOLPH The army is discharged all and gone.
FALSTAFF Let them go. I'll through Gloucestershire, and there
will I visit Master Robert Shallow, Esquire. I have him
already tempering between my finger and my thumb, and
shortly will I seal with him . Come away.
Exeunt
Act 4 Scene 2
running scene 11
Location: the Jerusalem Chamber in Westminster Abbey, though here transferred to the royal court
Enter King, Warwick, Clarence, Gloucester
KING HENRY IV Now, lords, if heaven doth give successful end
To this debate that bleedeth at our doors,
We will our youth lead on to higher fields
And draw no swords but what are sanctified.
Our navy is addressed, our power collected,
Our substitutes in absence well invested,
And everything lies level to our wish;
Only we want a little personal strength,
And pause us, till these rebels, now afoot,
Come underneath the yoke of government.
WARWICK Both which we doubt not but your majesty
Shall soon enjoy.
KING HENRY IV Humphrey, my son of Gloucester,
Where is the prince your brother?
GLOUCESTER I think he's gone to hunt, my lord, at Windsor.
KING HENRY IV And how accompanied?
GLOUCESTER I do not know, my lord.
KING HENRY IV Is not his brother, Thomas of Clarence, with him?
GLOUCESTER No, my good lord, he is in presence here.
CLARENCE What would my lord and father?
Comes forward
KING HENRY IV Nothing but well to thee, Thomas of Clarence.
How chance thou art not with the prince thy brother?
He loves thee, and thou dost neglect him, Thomas.
Thou hast a better place in his affection
Than all thy brothers. Cherish it, my boy,
And noble offices thou mayst effect
Of mediation, after I am dead,
Between his greatness and thy other brethren:
Therefore omit him not, blunt not his love,
Nor lose the good advantage of his grace
By seeming cold or careless of his will,
For he is gracious, if he be observed.
He hath a tear for pity and a hand
Open as day for melting charity:
Yet notwithstanding, being incensed, he's flint,
As humorous as winter, and as sudden
As flaws congealedin the spring of day.
His temper, therefore, must be well observed:
Chide him for faults, and do it reverently,
When you perceive his blood inclined to mirth,
But being moody, give him line and scope,
Till that his passions, like a whale on ground,
Confound themselves with working. Learn this, Thomas,
And thou shalt prove a shelter to thy friends,
A hoop of gold to bind thy brothers in,
That the united vessel of their blood,
Mingled with venom of suggestion--
As, force perforce, the age will pour it in--
Shall never leak, though it do work as strong
As aconitum or rash gunpowder.
CLARENCE I shall observe him with all care and love.
KING HENRY IV Why art thou not at Windsor with him, Thomas?
CLARENCE He is not there today. He dines in London.
KING HENRY IV And how accompanied? Canst thou tell that?
CLARENCE With Poins, and other his contin
ual followers.
KING HENRY IV Most subject is the fattest soil to weeds,
And he, the noble image of my youth,
Is overspread with them: therefore my grief
Stretches itself beyond the hour of death.
The blood weeps from my heart when I do shape
In forms imaginary th'unguided days
And rotten times that you shall look upon
When I am sleeping with my ancestors.
For when his headstrong riot hath no curb,
When rage and hot blood are his counsellors,
When means and lavish manners meet together,
O, with what wings shall his affections fly
Towards fronting peril and opposed decay!
WARWICK My gracious lord, you look beyond him quite:
The prince but studies his companions
Like a strange tongue, wherein, to gain the language,
'Tis needful that the most immodest word
Be looked upon and learned, which once attained,
Your highness knows, comes to no further use
But to be known and hated. So, like gross terms,
The prince will, in the perfectness of time,
Cast off his followers, and their memory
Shall as a pattern or a measure live,
By which his grace must mete the lives of others,
Turning past evils to advantages.
KING HENRY IV 'Tis seldom when the bee doth leave her comb
In the dead carrion.
Enter Westmorland
Who's here? Westmorland?
WESTMORLAND Health to my sovereign, and new happiness
Added to that that I am to deliver!
Prince John, your son, doth kiss your grace's hand.
Mowbray, the Bishop Scroop, Hastings and all
Are brought to the correction of your law.
There is not now a rebel's sword unsheathed,
But peace puts forth her olive everywhere.
The manner how this action hath been borne
Here at more leisure may your highness read,
Gives a paper
With every course in his particular.
KING HENRY IV O Westmorland, thou art a summer bird,
Which ever in the haunch of winter sings
The lifting up of day.
Enter Harcourt
Look, here's more news.
HARCOURT From enemies heaven keep your majesty,
And when they stand against you, may they fall
As those that I am come to tell you of.
The Earl Northumberland and the lord Bardolph,
With a great power of English and of Scots
Are by the sheriff of Yorkshire overthrown:
The manner and true order of the fight
This packet, please it you, contains at large.
Gives papers
KING HENRY IV And wherefore should these good news make me sick?
Will fortune never come with both hands full,
The Oxford Shakespeare: Henry IV, Part 2 (Oxford World's Classics) Page 10
