KING HENRY IV But I have sent for him to answer this.
And for this cause awhile we must neglect
Our holy purpose to Jerusalem.
Cousin, on Wednesday next our council we
Will hold at Windsor, and so inform the lords.
But come yourself with speed to us again,
For more is to be said and to be done
Than out of anger can be utterèd.
WESTMORLAND I will, my liege.
Exeunt
Act 1 Scene 2
running scene 2
Location: in London, but unspecified; perhaps the prince’s apartments
Enter Henry, Prince of Wales [and] Sir John Falstaff
FALSTAFF Now, Hal, what time of day is it, lad?
PRINCE HENRY Thou art so fat-witted with drinking of old sack
and unbuttoning thee after supper and sleeping upon
benches in the afternoon, that thou hast forgotten to
demand that truly which thou wouldst truly know. 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 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 seven stars, and not by
Phoebus, he, ‘that wand’ring knight so 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 HENRY What, none?
FALSTAFF No, not so much as will serve to be prologue to an
egg and butter.
PRINCE HENRY 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, 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 HENRY Thou say’st well, and it holds well too, for the
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 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 Thou say’st true, lad. And is not my hostess of the
tavern a most sweet wench?
PRINCE HENRY As is 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?
PRINCE HENRY Why, what a pox have I to do with my hostess of
the tavern?
FALSTAFF Well, thou hast called her to a reck’ning many a
time and oft.
PRINCE HENRY Did I ever call for thee to pay thy part?
FALSTAFF No, I’ll give thee thy due, thou hast paid all there.
PRINCE HENRY 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 here 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 fobbed as it is with the rusty curb of old
father antic the law? Do not thou, when thou art a king,
hang a thief.
PRINCE HENRY No, thou shalt.
FALSTAFF Shall I? O rare! I’ll be a brave judge.
PRINCE HENRY Thou judgest false already: I mean, thou shalt
have the hanging of the thieves and so become a rare
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 HENRY For obtaining of suits
FALSTAFF Yea, for obtaining of suits, whereof the hangman
hath no lean wardrobe. I am as melancholy as a gib cat or a
lugged bear.
PRINCE HENRY Or an old lion, or a lover’s lute.
FALSTAFF Yea, or the drone of a Lincolnshire bagpipe.
PRINCE HENRY What say’st thou to a hare, or the melancholy of
Moorditch?
FALSTAFF Thou hast the most unsavoury similes and art
indeed the most comparative, rascalli’st, sweet young prince.
But, Hal, I prithee trouble me no more with vanity. I would
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
wisely, and in the street too.
PRINCE HENRY Thou didst well, for no man regards it.
FALSTAFF O, thou hast damnable iteration and art indeed able
to corrupt a saint. Thou hast done much harm unto me, Hal,
God forgive thee for it! Before I knew thee, Hal, I knew
nothing. And now I am, 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. An I do not, I am a villain. I’ll be damned for
never a king’s son in Christendom.
PRINCE HENRY Where shall we take a purse tomorrow, Jack?
FALSTAFF Where thou wilt, lad, I’ll make one. An I do not, call
me villain and baffle
PRINCE HENRY I see a good amendment of life in thee, from
praying to purse-taking.
FALSTAFF Why, Hal, ’tis my vocation, Hal: ’tis no sin for a man
to labour in his vocation. Poins! Now shall we know if
Gadshill have set a watch. O, if men were to be saved by
merit, what hole in hell were hot enough for him? This is the
most omnipotent villain that ever cried ‘Stand’ to a true
man.
[Enter Poins]
PRINCE HENRY Good morrow, Ned.
POINS Good morrow, sweet Hal. What says Monsieur
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 HENRY Sir John stands to his word, the devil shall have
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 HENRY Else he had been damned for cozening the devil.
POINS But, my lads, my lads, tomorrow morning, by 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 you all; you have horses for
yourselves. Gadshill lies tonight in Rochester. I have bespoke
supper tomorrow 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.
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 HENRY Who, I rob? I a thief? Not I.
FALSTAFF There’s neither honesty, manhood, nor good
fellowship in thee, nor thou cam’st not of the blood royal, if
thou dar’st not stand for ten shillings .
PRINCE HENRY Well then, once in my days I’ll be a madcap.
FALSTAFF Why, that’s well said.
PRINCE HENRY Well, come what will, I’ll tarry at home.
FALSTAFF I’ll be a traitor then, when thou art king.
PRINCE HENRY I care not.
POINS Sir John, I prithee leave the prince and me alone: I
will lay him down such reasons for this adventure that he
shall go.
FALSTAFF Well, mayst thou have the spirit of persuasion and
he the ears of profiting, that what thou speakest may move
and what he hears may be believed, that the 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
Eastcheap.
PRINCE HENRY Farewell, the latter spring! Farewell, All-hallown
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, Peto, Bardolph and Gadshill shall rob those
men that we have already waylaid: yourself and I will not be
there. And when they have the booty, if you and I do not rob
them, cut this head from my shoulders.
PRINCE HENRY But how shall we part with them in setting forth?
POINS Why, we will set forth before or after them, and
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 HENRY Ay, but ’tis like that they will know us by our
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 nonce, to immask our
noted outward garments.
PRINCE HENRY But I doubt they will be too hard for us.
POINS Well, for two of them, I know them to be as truebred
cowards as ever turned back. And for the third, if he
fight longer than he sees reason, I’ll forswear arms. The
virtue of this jest will be the incomprehensible lies that this
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 lies the
jest.
PRINCE HENRY 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 Poins
PRINCE HENRY I know you all, and will awhile uphold
The unyoked 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,
Being wanted, he may be more wondered 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;
But when they seldom come, they wished-for come,
And nothing pleaseth but rare accidents.
So, when this loose behaviour I throw off
And pay the debt I never promisèd,
By how much better than my word I am,
By so much shall I falsify men’s hopes,
And like bright metal on a sullen ground,
My reformation, glittering o’er my fault,
Shall show more goodly and attract more eyes
Than that which hath no foil to set it off.
I’ll so offend to make offence a skill,
Redeeming time when men think least I will.
[Exit]
Act 1 Scene 3
running scene 3
Location: the royal court
Enter the King, Northumberland, Worcester, Hotspur, Sir Walter Blunt and others
KING HENRY IV 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,
Mighty and to be feared, 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
The scourge of greatness to be used on it.
And that same greatness too which our own hands
Have holp to make so portly.
NORTHUMBERLAND My lord—
To the King
KING HENRY IV Worcester, get thee gone, for I do see
Danger and disobedience in thine eye.
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.—
[Exit Worcester]
You were about to speak.
To Northumberland
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 denied
As was delivered to your majesty,
Who either through envy or misprision
Was guilty of this fault and not my son.
HOTSPUR My liege, I did deny no prisoners.
To the King
But I remember, when the fight was done,
When I was dry with rage and extreme toil,
Breathless and faint, leaning upon my sword,
Came there a certain lord, neat and trimly dressed,
Fresh as a bridegroom, and his chin new reaped
Showed like a stubble-land at harvest-home.
He was perfumèd like a milliner,
And ’twixt his finger and his thumb he held
A pouncet-box, which ever and anon
He gave his nose and took’t away again,
Who therewith angry, when it next came there,
Took it in snuff. And still he smiled and talked,
And as the soldiers bore dead bodies by,
He called them untaught knaves, unmannerly,
To bring a slovenly unhandsome corpse
Betwixt the wind and his nobility.
With many holiday and lady terms
He questioned me, among the rest demanded
My prisoners in your majesty’s behalf.
I then, all smarting with my wounds being cold,
To be so pestered with a popinjay,
Out of my grief and my impatience,
Answered neglectingly I know not what,
He should or 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! —
And telling me the sovereign’st thing on earth
Was parmaceti for an inward bruise,
And that it was great pity, so it was,
That villainous saltpetre should be digged
Out of the bowels of the harmless earth,
Which many a good tall fellow had destroyed
So cowardly, and but for these vile guns,
He would himself have been a soldier.
This bald unjointed chat of his, my lord,
Made me to answer indirectly, as I said,
And I beseech you let not this report
Come current for an accusation
Betwixt my love and your high majesty.
BLUNT The circumstance considered, good my lord,
To the King
Whatever Harry Percy then had said
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.
KING HENRY IV 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, in my soul, hath wilfully betrayed
The lives of those that he did lead to fight
Against the great magician, damned Glendower,
Whose daughter, as we hear, the Earl of March
Hath lately married. Shall our coffers, then,
Be emptied to redeem a traitor home?
Shall we buy treason, and indent with fears
When they have lost and forfeited themselves?
No, on the barren mountain let him starve,
For I shall never hold that man my friend
Whose tongue shall ask me for one penny cost
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,
Those mouthèd 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.
Henry IV, Part 1 Page 4