Графични страници
PDF файл
ePub

Jack Falstaff do, in the days of villany? Thou seest, I have more flesh than another man; and, therefore, more frailty. You confess, then, you picked my pocket?

P. Hen. It appears so, by the story.

Fal. Hostess, I forgive thee: Go, make ready breakfast: love thy husband, look to thy servants, and cherish thy guests: thou shalt find me tractable to any honest reason; thou seest, I am pacify'd.-Still?— Nay, I pr'ythee, begone. [Exit HOSTESS.] Now, Hal, to the news at court: for the robbery, lad-Hɔw is that answered ?

P. Hen. The money is paid back again.

Fal. O, I do not like that paying back, 'tis a double labour.

P. Hen. I am good friends with my father, and may do any thing.

Fal. Rob me the exchequer the first thing thou dost, and do it with unwashed hands too.

Bard. Do, my

lord.

P. Hen. I have procured thee, Jack, a charge of foot.

Fal. I would it had been of horse! Where shall I find one that can steal well? O for a fine thief, of the age of two and twenty, or thereabouts! I am heinously unprovided. Well, Heaven be thanked for these rebels, they offend none but the virtuous; I laud them, I praise them.

P. Hen. Bardolph,—

Bard. My lord.

P. Hen. Go, bear this letter to Lord John of Lancaster,

My brother John; this to my Lord of Westmoreland. [Exit BARDOLPH,

Jack,

Meet me to-morrow in the Temple Hall,

At two o'clock i'the afternoon :

There shalt thou know thy charge; and there receive

Money, and order for their furniture.

The land is burning; Percy stands on high;
And either they or we must lower lie.

[Exit the PRINCE. Fal. Rare words! brave world!- -Hostess, my

breakfast! come:

O, I could wish, this tavern were my drum! [Exit.

ACT THE FOURTH.

SCENE I.

HOTSPUR'S Camp, near Shrewsbury.

Flourish of Trumpets and Drums.

Enter EARL OF DOUGLAS, HOTSPUR, EARL OF
WORCESTER, GENTLEMEN, and SOLDIERS.

Hot. Well said, my noble Scot: If speaking truth, In this fine age, were not thought flattery,

Such attribution should the Douglas have,
As not a soldier of this season's stamp
Should go so general current through the world.
By Heaven, I cannot flatter; I defy

The tongues of soothers; but a braver place
In my heart's love, hath no man than yourself.
Nay, task me to the word; approve me, lord.
Doug. Thou art the king of honour:

No man so potent breathes upon the ground,
But I will beard him.

Hot. Do so, and 'tis well:

Enter RABY.

What letters hast thou there?

Rab. These letters come from your father.

Hot. Letters from him! why comes he not himself?

Rab. He cannot come, my lord; he's grievous sick.

Hot. Sick! how has he the leisure to be sick?
In such a justling time? Who leads his power?
Under whose government come they along?
Rab. His letters bear his mind, not I.

Hot. His mind!

Wor. I pr'ythee, tell me, doth he keep his bed? Rab. He did, my lord, four days ere I set forth; And, at the time of my departure thence,

He was much fear'd by his physicians.

Wor. I would, the state of time had first been whole,

Ere he by sickness had been visited!

His health was never better worth than now.

Hot. Sick now! droop now! this sickness doth infect

The very life-blood of our enterprise;

'Tis catching hither, even to our camp.

He writes me here,-that inward sickness,

And, that his friends by deputation, could not

So soon be drawn ;—

Yet doth he give us bold advertisement,

That, with our small conjunction, we should on,
To see how fortune is disposed to us:
For, as he writes, there is no quailing now;
Because the king is certainly possess'd
Of all our purposes. What say you to it?

Wor. Your father's sickness is a maim to us.

It will be thought

By some, that know not why he is away,
That wisdom, loyalty, and mere dislike

Of our proceedings, kept the earl from hence;
This absence of your father's, draws a curtain,
That shows the ignorant a kind of fear
Before not dreamt of.

Hot. You strain too far.

I, rather, of his absence make this use:-
It lends a lustre, and more great opinion,
A larger dare to our great enterprise,

Than if the earl were here: for men must think,
If we, without his help, can make a head
To push against the kingdom; with his help,
We shall o'erturn it topsy-turvy down.-
Yet all goes well, yet all our joints are whole.

Doug. As heart can think: there is not such a

word

Spoke of in Scotland, as this term of fear.

[A Trumpet sounds.

Enter SIR RICHARD VERNON, and Two

GENTLEMEN.

Hot. My cousin Vernon! welcome, by my soul! Ver. 'Pray Heaven, my news be worth a welcome, lord!

The Earl of Westmoreland, seven thousand strong, Is marching hitherwards; with him, Prince John. Hot. No harm: What more?

Ver. And further, I have learn'd,The king himself in person is set forth, Or hitherwards intended speedily,

With strong and mighty preparation.

Hot. He shall be welcome too. Where is his son, The nimble-footed, mad-cap, Prince of Wales, And his comrades, that daff'd the world aside, And bid it pass?

Ver. All furnish'd, all in arms.

All plum'd like estridges, that with the wind
Bated, like eagles having lately bath'd:
Glittering in golden coats, like images ;
As full of spirit as the month of May,
And gorgeous as the sun at midsummer?
Wanton as youthful goats, wild as young bulls.
I saw young Harry, with his beaver on,
His cuisses on his thighs, gallantly arm'd,
Rise from the ground, like feather'd Mercury,
And vaulted with such ease into his seat,
As if an angel dropt down from the clouds,
To turn and wind a fiery Pegasus,

And witch the world with noble horsemanship.

Hot. No more, no more; worse than the sun in

March,

This praise doth nourish agues. Let them come;
They come like sacrifices in their trim,
And to the fire-ey'd maid of smoky war,
All hot and bleeding, will we offer them :
The mailed Mars shall on his altar sit,
Up to the ears in blood. I am on fire,
To hear this rich reprisal is so nigh,

And yet not ours: Come, let me take my horse,
Who is to bear me, like a thunderbolt,
Against the bosom of the Prince of Wales:
Harry to Harry shall,-hot horse to horse-
Meet, and ne'er part, till one drop down a corse.
O, that Glendower were come !

Ver. There is more news:

I learn'd in Worcester, as I rode along,
He cannot draw his power this fourteen days.

Doug. That's the worst tidings that I hear of yet.
Wor. Ay, by my faith, that bears a frosty sound.
Hot. What may the king's whole battle reach

unto?

Ver. To thirty thousand.
Hot. Forty let it be;

« ПредишнаНапред »