The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works

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The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 154

by William Shakespeare


  four o’clock early at Gad’s Hill, there are pilgrims

  going to Canterbury with rich offerings, and traders

  riding to London with fat purses. I have vizards for

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  you all; you have horses for yourselves. Gadshill lies

  tonight in Rochester, I have bespoke supper tomorrow

  night in Eastcheap: we may do it as secure as sleep. If

  you will go, I will stuff your purses full of crowns: if

  you will not, tarry at home and be hanged.

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  FALSTAFF Hear ye, Yedward, if I tarry at home and go

  not, I’ll hang you for going.

  POINS You will, chops?

  FALSTAFF Hal, wilt thou make one?

  PRINCE Who, I rob? I a thief? Not I, by my faith.

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  FALSTAFF There’s neither honesty, manhood, nor good

  fellowship in thee, nor thou cam’st not of the blood

  royal, if thou darest not stand for ten shillings.

  PRINCE Well then, once in my days I’ll be a madcap.

  FALSTAFF Why, that’s well said.

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  PRINCE Well, come what will, I’ll tarry at home.

  FALSTAFF By the Lord, I’ll be a traitor then, when thou

  art king.

  PRINCE I care not.

  POINS Sir John, I prithee leave the Prince and me alone:

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  I will lay him down such reasons for this adventure

  that he shall go.

  FALSTAFF Well, God give thee the spirit of persuasion,

  and him the ears of profiting, that what thou speakest

  may move, and what he hears may be believed, that the

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  true prince may (for recreation sake) prove a false

  thief, for the poor abuses of the time want

  countenance. Farewell, you shall find me in East-

  cheap.

  PRINCE Farewell, the latter spring! Farewell, All-hallown

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  summer! Exit Falstaff.

  POINS Now, my good sweet honey lord, ride with us

  tomorrow. I have a jest to execute that I cannot

  manage alone. Falstaff, Bardolph, Peto, and Gadshill

  shall rob those men that we have already waylaid –

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  yourself and I will not be there: and when they have

  the booty, if you and I do not rob them, cut this head

  off from my shoulders.

  PRINCE How shall we part with them in setting forth?

  POINS Why, we will set forth before or after them, and

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  appoint them a place of meeting, wherein it is at our

  pleasure to fail; and then will they adventure upon the

  exploit themselves, which they shall have no sooner

  achieved but we’ll set upon them.

  PRINCE Yea, but ’tis like that they will know us by our

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  horses, by our habits, and by every other appointment

  to be ourselves.

  POINS Tut, our horses they shall not see, I’ll tie them in

  the wood; our vizards we will change after we leave

  them; and sirrah, I have cases of buckram for the

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  nonce, to immask our noted outward garments.

  PRINCE Yea, but I doubt they will be too hard for us.

  POINS Well, for two of them, I know them to be as true-

  bred cowards as ever turned back; and for the third, if

  he fight longer than he sees reason, I’ll forswear arms.

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  The virtue of this jest will be the incomprehensible

  lies that this same fat rogue will tell us when we meet

  at supper, how thirty at least he fought with, what

  wards, what blows, what extremities he endured; and

  in the reproof of this lives the jest.

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  PRINCE Well, I’ll go with thee; provide us all things

  necessary, and meet me tomorrow night in Eastcheap;

  there I’ll sup. Farewell.

  POINS Farewell, my lord. Exit.

  PRINCE I know you all, and will awhile uphold

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  The unyok’d humour of your idleness.

  Yet herein will I imitate the sun,

  Who doth permit the base contagious clouds

  To smother up his beauty from the world,

  That, when he please again to be himself,

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  Being wanted he may be more wonder’d at

  By breaking through the foul and ugly mists

  Of vapours that did seem to strangle him.

  If all the year were playing holidays,

  To sport would be as tedious as to work;

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  But when they seldom come, they wish’d-for come,

  And nothing pleaseth but rare accidents:

  So when this loose behaviour I throw off,

  And pay the debt I never promised,

  By how much better than my word I am,

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  By so much shall I falsify men’s hopes;

  And like bright metal on a sullen ground,

  My reformation, glitt’ring o’er my fault,

  Shall show more goodly, and attract more eyes

  Than that which hath no foil to set it off.

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  I’ll so offend, to make offence a skill,

  Redeeming time when men think least I will. Exit.

  1.3 Enter the KING, NORTHUMBERLAND, WORCESTER, HOTSPUR, SIR WALTER BLUNT, with others.

  KING My blood hath been too cold and temperate,

  Unapt to stir at these indignities,

  And you have found me – for accordingly

  You tread upon my patience: but be sure

  I will from henceforth rather be myself,

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  Mighty, and to be fear’d, than my condition,

  Which hath been smooth as oil, soft as young down,

  And therefore lost that title of respect

  Which the proud soul ne’er pays but to the proud.

  WORCESTER

  Our house, my sovereign liege, little deserves

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  The scourge of greatness to be us’d on it,

  And that same greatness too which our own hands

  Have holp to make so portly.

  NORTHUMBERLAND My lord, –

  KING Worcester, get thee gone, for I do see

  Danger and disobedience in thine eye:

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  O sir, your presence is too bold and peremptory,

  And majesty might never yet endure

  The moody frontier of a servant brow.

  You have good leave to leave us; when we need

  Your use and counsel we shall send for you.

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  Exit Worcester.

  [to Northumberland] You were about to speak.

  NORTHUMBERLAND Yea, my good lord.

  Those prisoners in your Highness’ name demanded,

  Which Harry Percy here at Holmedon took,

  Were, as he says, not with such strength deny’d

  As is deliver’d to your Majesty.

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  Either envy therefore, or misprision,

  Is guilty of this fault, and not my son.

  HOTSPUR My liege, I did deny no prisoners,

  But I remember, when the fight was done,

  When I was dry with rage, and extreme toil,

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  Breathless and faint, leaning upon my sword,

  Came there a certain lord, neat and trimly dress’d,

  Fresh as a bridegroom, and his chin new reap’d

  Show’d like a stubble-land at harvest-home.

  He was perfumed like a milliner,

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  And ’twixt his finger and his thumb he held

  A pouncet-box, which ever and anon

  He ga
ve his nose, and took’t away again –

  Who therewith angry, when it next came there,

  Took it in snuff – and still he smil’d and talk’d:

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  And as the soldiers bore dead bodies by,

  He call’d them untaught knaves, unmannerly,

  To bring a slovenly unhandsome corse

  Betwixt the wind and his nobility.

  With many holiday and lady terms

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  He question’d me, amongst the rest demanded

  My prisoners in your Majesty’s behalf.

  I then, all smarting with my wounds being cold,

  To be so pester’d with a popinjay,

  Out of my grief and my impatience

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  Answer’d neglectingly, I know not what,

  He should, or he should not, for he made me mad

  To see him shine so brisk, and smell so sweet,

  And talk so like a waiting-gentlewoman

  Of guns, and drums, and wounds, God save the mark!

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  And telling me the sovereignest thing on earth

  Was parmacity for an inward bruise,

  And that it was great pity, so it was,

  This villainous saltpetre should be digg’d

  Out of the bowels of the harmless earth,

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  Which many a good tall fellow had destroy’d

  So cowardly, and but for these vile guns

  He would himself have been a soldier.

  This bald unjointed chat of his, my lord,

  I answer’d indirectly, as I said,

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  And I beseech you, let not his report

  Come current for an accusation

  Betwixt my love and your high Majesty.

  BLUNT The circumstance consider’d, good my lord,

  Whate’er Lord Harry Percy then had said

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  To such a person, and in such a place,

  At such a time, with all the rest retold,

  May reasonably die, and never rise

  To do him wrong, or any way impeach

  What then he said, so he unsay it now.

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  KING Why, yet he doth deny his prisoners,

  But with proviso and exception,

  That we at our own charge shall ransom straight

  His brother-in-law, the foolish Mortimer,

  Who, on my soul, hath wilfully betray’d

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  The lives of those that he did lead to fight

  Against that great magician, damn’d Glendower,

  Whose daughter, as we hear, the Earl of March

  Hath lately marry’d: shall our coffers then

  Be empty’d to redeem a traitor home?

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  Shall we buy treason, and indent with fears

  When they have lost and forfeited themselves?

  No, on the barren mountains let him starve;

  For I shall never hold that man my friend

  Whose tongue shall ask me for one penny cost

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  To ransom home revolted Mortimer.

  HOTSPUR Revolted Mortimer!

  He never did fall off, my sovereign liege,

  But by the chance of war: to prove that true

  Needs no more but one tongue for all those wounds,

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  Those mouthed wounds, which valiantly he took,

  When on the gentle Severn’s sedgy bank,

  In single opposition hand to hand,

  He did confound the best part of an hour

  In changing hardiment with great Glendower.

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  Three times they breath’d, and three times did they drink

  Upon agreement of swift Severn’s flood,

  Who then affrighted with their bloody looks

  Ran fearfully among the trembling reeds,

  And hid his crisp head in the hollow bank,

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  Bloodstained with these valiant combatants.

  Never did bare and rotten policy

  Colour her working with such deadly wounds,

  Nor never could the noble Mortimer

  Receive so many, and all willingly:

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  Then let not him be slander’d with revolt.

  KING Thou dost belie him, Percy, thou dost belie him,

  He never did encounter with Glendower:

  I tell thee, he durst as well have met the devil alone

  As Owen Glendower for an enemy.

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  Art thou not asham’d? But sirrah, henceforth

  Let me not hear you speak of Mortimer:

  Send me your prisoners with the speediest means,

  Or you shall hear in such a kind from me

  As will displease you. My Lord Northumberland:

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  We license your departure with your son.

  Send us your prisoners, or you will hear of it.

  Exit King, with Blunt and train.

  HOTSPUR And if the devil come and roar for them

 

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