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Why, he is dead.

See, what a ready tongue suspicion hath !
He, that but fears the thing he would not know,
Hath, by instinct, knowledge from others' eyes,
That what he fear'd is chanced. Yet speak, Morton;
Tell thou thy earl, his divination lies;
And I will take it as a sweet disgrace,
And make thee rich for doing me such wrong.

Mor. You are too great to be by me gainsaid:
Your spirit is too true, your fears too certain.
North. Yet for all this, say not that Percy's dead.
I see a strange confession in thine eye :
Thou shak'st thy head; and hold'st it fear, or sin,
To speak a truth. If he be slain, say so:
The tongue offends not, that reports his death:
And he doth sin, that doth belie the dead;
Not he, which says the dead is not alive.
Yet the first bringer of unwelcome news
Hath but a losing office; and his tongue
Sounds ever after as a sullen bell,
Remember'd knolling a departing friend.
Bard. I cannot think, my lord, your son is dead.
Mor. I am sorry, I should force you to believe
That, which I would to heaven I had not seen:
But these mine eyes saw him in bloody state,
Rend'ring faint quittance, wearied and out-breath'd,
To Harry Monmouth; whose swift wrath beat down
The never-daunted Percy to the earth,
From whence with life he never more sprung up.
In few, his death (whose spirit lent a fire
Even to the dullest peasant in his camp,)
Being bruited once, took fire and heat away
From the best temper'd courage in his troops :
For from his metal was his party steel'd;
Which once in him abated, all the rest
Turn'd on themselves, like dull and heavy lead.
And as the thing that's heavy in itself,
Upon enforcement, flies with greatest speed;
So did our men, heavy in Hotspur's loss,
Lend to this weight such lightness with their fear,
That arrows fled not swifter toward their aim,
Than did our soldiers, aiming at their safety,
Fly from the field: Then was that noble Worcester
Too soon ta'en prisoner: and that furious Scot,
The bloody Douglas, whose well labouring sword
Had three times slain the appearance of the king,
'Gan vail his stomach, and did grace the shame
Of those that turn'd their backs; and, in his flight,
Stumbling in fear, was took. The sum of all
Is, that the king hath won; and hath sent out
A speedy power to encounter you, my lord,
Under the conduct of young Lancaster,
And Westmoreland: this is the news at full.
North. For this I shall have time enough to mourn.
In poison there is physic; and these news,
Having been well, that would have made me sick,
Being sick, have in some measure made me well:
And as the wretch, whose fever-weaken'd joints,
Like strengthless hinges, buckle under life,

patient of his fit, breaks like a fire Out of his keeper's arms; even so my limbs, Weakened with grief, being now enrag'd with grief, Are thrice themselves: hence therefore, thou nice crutch;

A scaly gauntlet now, with joints of steel,
Must glove this hand: and hence, thou sickly quoif:
Thou art a guard too wanton for the head,
Which princes, flesh'd with conquest, aim to hit.
Now bind my brows with iron; and approach
The ragged'st hour that time and spite dare bring,
To frown upon the enraged Northumberland!
Let heav'n kiss earth! Now let not nature's hand
Keep the wild flood confin'd! let order die!
And let this world no longer be a stage,
To feed contention in a lingering act;
But let one spirit of the first-born Cain
Reign in all bosoms, that, each heart being set
On bloody courses, the rude scene may end,
And darkness be the burier of the dead!
Tra. This strained passion doth you wrong, my lord.
Bard. Sweet earl, divorce not wisdom from your
honour.

Mor. The lives of all your loving complices
Lean on your health; the which, if you give o'er
To stormy passion, must perforce decay.
You cast the event of war, my noble lord,
And summ'd the account of chance, before you said,-
Let us make head. It was your presurmise,
That, in the dole of blows your son might drop:
You knew, he walk'd o'er perils, on an edge,
More likely to fall in, than to get o'er :
You were advis'd, his flesh was capable
Of wounds, and scars; and that his forward spirit
Would lift him where most trade of danger rang'd;
Yet did you say,-Go forth; and none of this,
Though strongly apprehended, could restrain
The stiff-borne action: What hath then befallen,
Or what hath this bold enterprize brought forth,
More than that being which was like to be?

Bard. We all, that are engaged to this loss,
Knew that we ventur'd on such dangerous seas,
That, if we wrought our life, 'twas ten to one:
And yet we ventur'd, for the gain propos'd
Chok'd the respect of likely peril fear'd;
And, since we are o'erset, venture again.
Come, we will all put forth; body, and goods.

Mor. 'Tis more than time: And, my most noble lord,
I hear for certain, and do speak the truth,-
The gentle archbishop of York is up,
With well-appointed powers, he is a man,
Who with a double surety binds his followers.
My lord your son had only but the corps,
But shadows, and the shows of men, to fight:
For that same word, rebellion, did divide
The action of their bodies from their souls;
And they did fight with queasiness, constrain'd,
As men drink potions; that their weapons only
Seem'd on our side, but, for their spirits and souls,
This word, rebellion, it had froze them up,
As fish are in a pond: But now the bishop
Turns insurrection to religion:

Suppos'd sincere and holy in his thoughts,
He's follow'd both with body and with mind;
And doth enlarge his rising with the blood
Of fair King Richard, scrap'd from Pomfret's stones:
Derives from heaven his quarrel, and his cause;
Tells them, he doth bestride a bleeding land,
Gasping for life under great Bolingbroke ;
And more, and less, do flock to follow him.

North. I knew of this before; but, to speak truth,
This present grief had wiped it from my mind.
Go in with me; and counsel every man
The aptest way for safety, and revenge :
Get posts, and letters, and make friends with speed;
Never so few, and never yet more need. [Exeunt.
? '

SCENE II.-London. A Street. Enter Sir JOHN FALSTAFF, with his Page bearing his sword and buckler.

Fal. Sirrah, you giant, what says the doctor to my water?

Page. He said, sir, the water itself was a good healthy water: but, for the party that owed it, he might have more diseases than he knew for.

men.

Page. You must speak louder, my master is deaf. Ch. Just. I am sure he is, to the hearing of any thing good.-Go, pluck him by the elbow; I must speak with him.

Atten. Sir John,

wars? is there not employment? Doth not the king
Fal. What! a young knave, and beg! Is there not
lack subjects? do not the rebels need soldiers? Though
shame to beg than to be on the worst side, were
it be a shame to be on any side but one, it is worse
it

worse than the name of rebellion can tell how to make it.
Atten. You mistake me, sir.

Ful. Why, sir, did I say you were an honest man? setting my knighthood and my soldiership aside, I had lied in my throat if I had said so.

Atten. I pray you, sir, then set your knighthood and your soldiership aside; and give me leave to tell you, you lie in your throat, if you say I am any other than an honest man.

Fal. Men of all sorts take a pride to gird at me: The brain of this foolish-compounded clay, man, is not able to vent any thing that tends to laughter, more than I invent, or is invented on me: I am not only witty in myself, but the cause that wit is in other I do here walk before thee, like a sow, that hath overwhelmed all her litter but one. If the prince put thee into my service for any other reason than to set me off, why then I have no judgment. Thou whoreson mandrake, thou art fitter to be worn in my cap, than to wait at my heels. I was never manned with an agate till now; but I will set you neither in gold nor silver, but in vile apparel, and send you back again to your master, for a jewel; the juvenal, the prince your master, whose chin is not yet fledged. Atten. Sir, my lord would speak with you. I will sooner have a beard grow in the palm of Ch. Just. Sir John Falstaff, a word with you. my hand, than he shall get one on his cheek; and yet he will not stick to say, his face is a face-royal: time of day. I am glad to see your lordship abroad: Fal. My good lord !—God give your lordship good God may finish it when he will, it is not a hair amiss I heard say, your lordship was sick: I hope, your lordyet he may keep it still as a face-royal, for a barber ship goes abroad by advice. Your lordship, though shall never earn sixpence out of it; and yet he will not clean past your youth, hath yet some smack of age be crowing, as if he had writ man ever since his fa- in you, some relish of the saltness of time; and I ther was a bachelor. He may keep his own grace, most humbly beseech your lordship, to have a reverend care of your health.

but he is almost out of mine, I can assure him.What said master Dumbleton about the satin for my short cloak, and slops?

Page. He said, sir, you should procure him better assurance than Bardolph: he would not take his bond and yours; he liked not the security.

Fal. Let him be damned like the glutton! may his tongue be hotter!-A whoreson Achitophel! a rascally yea-forsooth knave! to bear a gentleman in hand, and then stand upon security!--The whoreson smooth-pates do now wear nothing but high shoes, and bunches of keys at their girdles; and if a man

is thorough with them in honest taking up, then they must stand upon-security. I had as lief they would put ratsbane in my mouth, as offer to stop it with security. I looked he should have sent me two and twenty yards of satin, as I am a true knight, and he sends me security. Well, he may sleep in security: for he hath the horn of abundance, and the lightness of his wife shines through it: and yet cannot he see, though he have his own lantern to light him. Where's Bardolph ?

Page. He's gone into Smithfield to buy your worship a horse.

Fal. bought him in Paul's, and he'll buy me horse in Smithfield: an I could get me but a wife in the stews, I were manned, horsed, and wived.

Enter the LORD CHIEF JUSTICE, and an Attendant.
Page. Sir, here comes the nobleman that committed
the prince for striking him about Bardolph ?
Fal. Wait close, I will not see him.
Ch. Just. What's he that goes there ?
Atten. Falstaff, an't please your lordship.

Ch. Just. He that was in question for the robbery? Atten. He, my lord: but he hath since done good service at Shrewsbury; and, as I hear, is now going with some charge to the lord John of Lancaster.

Ch. Just. What, to York? Call him back again.
Atten. Sir John Falstaff!

Fal. Boy, tell him, I am deaf.

which grows to me! If thou get'st any leave of me, Fal. I give thee leave to tell me so! I lay aside that hang me; if thou takest leave, thou wert better be hanged: You hunt-counter, hence! avaunt!

Ch. Just. Sir John, I sent for you before your expedition to Shrewsbury.

is returned with some discomfort from Wales.
Fal. An't please your lordship, I hear, his majesty

Ch. Just. I talk not of his majesty :- You would not come when I sent for you.

Fal. And I hear moreover, his highness is fallen into this same whoreson apoplexy.

Ch. Just. Well, heaven mend him! I pray, let me speak with you.

thargy, an't please your lordship; a kind of sleeping Fal. This apoplexy is, as I take it, a kind of lein the blood, a whoreson tingling.

Ch. Just. What tell you me of it? be it as it is. Fal. It hath its original from much grief; from study, and perturbation of the brain: I have read the

cause of his effects in Galen; it is a kind of deafness.
for you hear not what I say to you.
Ch. Just. I think, you are fallen into the disease;

Fal. Very well, my lord, very well: rather, an't
please you,
lady of not marking, that I am troubled withal.
it is the disease of not listening, the ma-
the attention of your ears; and I care not, if I do
Ch. Just. To punish you by the heels, would amend
become your physician.

tient :

Fal. I am as poor as Job, my lord; but not so pa: your lordship may minister the potion of imprisonment to me, in respect of poverty; but how I should be your patient to follow your prescriptions, the wise may make some dram of a scruple, or, indeed, a scruple itself.

Ch. Just. I sent for you, when there were matters against you for your life, to come speak with me. Fal. As I was then advised by my learned counsel in the laws of this land-service, I did not come. Ch. Just. Well, the truth is, sir John, you live in great infamy.

Fal. He that buckles him in my belt, cannot live in less.

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