Histories

Boling. Carlisle, this is your doom:

Choose out some secret place, some reverend room,
More than thou hast, and with it joy thy life;
So as thou livest in peace, die free from strife:
For though mine enemy thou hast ever been,
High sparks of honour in thee have I seen.

Enter EXTON, with persons bearing a coffin.

Exton. Great king, within this coffin I present Thy buried fear. herein all breathless lies

The mightiest of thy greatest enemies,

Richard of Bordeaux, by me hither brought.

Boling. Exton, I thank thee not; for thou hast wrought

A deed of slander with thy fatal hand

Upon my head and all this famous land.

Exton. From your own mouth, my lord, did I this deed.
Boling. They love not poison that do poison need,
Nor do I thee: though I did wish him dead,

I hate the murderer, love him murdered.
The guilt of conscience take thou for thy labour,
But neither my good word nor princely favour:
With Cain go wander thorough shades of night,
And never show thy head by day nor light.
Lords, I protest, my soul is full of woe,

That blood should sprinkle me to make me grow:
Come, mourn with me for that I do lament,
And put on sullen black incontinent:

I'll make a voyage to the Holy Land,

To wash this blood off from my guilty hand:
March sadly after; grace my mournings here;
In weeping after this untimely bier.

[Exeunt.

Enter KING HENRY, LORD JOHN OF LANCASTER, the EARL
OF WESTMORELAND, SIR WALTER BLUNT, and others.
King. So shaken as we are, so wan with care,
Find we a time for frighted peace to pant,
And breathe short-winded accents of new broils
To be commenced in strands afar remote.

No more the thirsty entrance of this soil
Shall daub her lips with her own children's blood;
No more shall trenching war channel her fields,
Nor bruise her flowerets with the armed hoofs
Of hostile paces: those opposed eyes,
Which, like the meteors of a troubled heaven,
All of one nature, of one substance bred,

Did lately meet in the intestine shock
And furious close of civil butchery
Shall now, in mutual well be seeming ranks,
March all one way and be no more opposed
Against acquaintance, kindred and allies:
The edge of war, like an ill-sheathed knife,
No more shall cut his master. Therefore, friends,
As far as to the sepulchre of Christ,

Whose soldier now, under whose blessed cross

We are impressed and engaged to fight,

Forthwith a power of English shall we levy;

Whose arms were moulded in their mothers' womb

To chase these pagans in those holy fields
Over whose acres walk'd those blessed feet

Which fourteen hundred years ago were nail'd
For our advantage on the bitter cross.

But this our purpose now is twelve month old,
And bootless 'tis to tell you we will go:
Therefore we meet not now. Then let me hear
Of you, my gentle cousin Westmoreland,
What yesternight our council did decree
In forwarding this dear expedience.

West. My liege, this haste was hot in question,
And many limits of the charge set down
But yesternight: when all athwart there came
A post from Wales loaden with heavy news;
Whose worst was, that the noble Mortimer,
Leading the men of Herefordshire to fight
Against the irregular and wild Glendower,
Was by the rude hands of that Welshman taken,
A thousand of his people butchered;

Upon whose dead corpse there was such misuse,
Such beastly shameless transformation,

By those Welshwomen done as may not be

Without much shame retold or spoken of.

King. It seems then that the tidings of this broil

Brake off our business for the Holy Land.

West. This match'd with other did, my gracious lord;

For more uneven and unwelcome news

Came from the north and thus it did import:

On Holyrood day, the gallant Hotspur there,
Young Harry Percy and brave Archibald,
That ever-valiant and approved Scot,

At Holmedon met,

Where they did spend a sad and bloody hour;
As by discharge of their artillery,

And shape of likelihood, the news was told;

For he that brought them, in the very heat
And pride of their contention did take horse,
Uncertain of the issue any way.

King. Here is a dear, a true industrious friend,
Sir Walter Blunt, new lighted from his horse,
Stain'd with the variation of each soil

Betwixt that Holmedon and this seat of ours;
And he hath brought us smooth and welcome news.
The Earl of Douglas is discomfited:

Ten thousand bold Scots, two and twenty knights,
Balk'd in their own blood did Sir Walter see

On Holmedon's plains. Of prisoners, Hotspur took
Mordake the Earl of Fife, and eldest son

To beaten Douglas; and the Earl of Athol,
Of Murray, Angus, and Menteith:

And is not this an honourable spoil?

A gallant prize? ha, cousin, is it not?
West. In faith,

It is a conquest for a prince to boast of.

King. Yea, there thou makest me sad and makest me sin In envy that my Lord Northumberland

Should be the father to so blest a son,

A son who is the theme of honour's tongue;
Amongst a grove, the very straightest plant;
Who is sweet Fortune's minion and her pride:
Whilst I, by looking on the praise of him,
See riot and dishonour stain the brow

Of my young Harry. O that it could be proved
That some night-tripping fairy had exchanged
In cradle-clothes our children where they lay,
And call'd mine Percy, his Plantagenet!
Then would I have this Harry, and he mine.

But let him from my thoughts. What think you, coz,
Of this young Percy's pride? the prisoners,
Which he in this adventure hath surprised,

To his own use he keeps; and sends me word,

I shall have none but Mordake Earl of Fife.

West. This is his uncle's teaching: this is Worcester,
Malevolent to you in all aspects;

Which makes him prune himself, and bristle up
The crest of youth against your dignity.

King. But I have sent for him to anwer 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; so inform the lords:
But come yourself with speed to us again;

100

For more is to be said and to be done

Than out of anger can be uttered.

West. I will, my liege.

[Exeunt.

SCENE II. London. An apartment of the Prince's.

Enter the PRINCE OF WALES and FALSTAFF.

Fal. Now, Hal, what time of day is it, lad?

Prince. Thou art so fat-witted, with drinking of old sack and unbuttoning thee after supper and sleeping upon benches after noon, 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.

Fal. Indeed, you come near me now, Hal; for we that take purses go by the moon and the seven stars, and not by Phoebus, he, that wandering 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. What, none?

Fal. No, by my troth, not so much as will serve to be prologue to an egg and butter.

Prince: Well, how then? come, roundly, roundly.

Fal. 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. Thou sayest 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.

Fal. By the Lord, thou sayest true, ad. hostess of the tavern a most sweet wench?

And is not my

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