MOR. 'Tis more than time: and, my most noble lord,

I hear for certain, and do* speak the truth,a-
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 d;
And doth enlarge his rising with the blood
Of fair king Richard, scrap'd from Pomfret 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 wip'd 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.

SCENE II.-London. A Street.

[Exeunt.

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.

FAL. Men of all sorts take a pride to gird at me. The brain of this foolish-compounded clay, man, is not able to invent 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

a And do speak the truth,] Here, again, the quarto omits what follows of Morton's speech.

b More and less,-] That is, great and small. So in "Henry IV." Part I. Act IV. Sc. 3:

"The more and less came in with cap and knee."

e I was never manned with an agate-] An agate stone was frequently cut to represent the human form, and was occasionally worn in the hat by gallants.

d To bear a gentleman in hand,—] To bear in hand, was to buoy up. See note (c), p. 258.

that wit is in other men. 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 in-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. I will sooner have a beard grow in the palm of my hand, than he shall get one on his cheek; and yet he will not stick to say, his face is a face-royal: God + may finish it when he will, it is not a hair amiss yet: he may keep it still as a face-royal, for a barber shall never earn sixpence out of it; and yet he will be crowing, as if he had writ man ever since his father was a bachelor. He may keep his own grace, but he is almost out of mine, I can assure him.- -What said master Dombledon about the satin for my short cloak, and my § 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.

e

FAL. Let him be damned like the glutton! pray God 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. I bought him in Paul's, and he'll buy me a horse in Smithfield: an¶ I could get me but ** a wife in the stews, I were manned, horsed, and wived.f

Enter the Lord Chief Justice,(1) 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.

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.

a You hunt-counter,-] A quibble may have been intended on the cant term hunt-counter for a sheriff's officer, and the fault

ATTEN. Sir John,

FAL. What a young knave, and beg! Is there not wars? Is there not employment? Doth not the king lack subjects? do not the rebels need* soldiers? Though it be a shame to be on any side but one, it is worse shame to beg than to be on the worst side, were it worse than the name of rebellion can tell how to make it.

ATTEN. You mistake me, sir.

FAL. Why, sir, did I say you were an honest man? setting my knighthood and my soldiership aside, I had lied in my throat (2) 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. I give thee leave to tell me so! I lay aside that which grows to me! If thou get'st any leave of me, hang me; if thou takest leave, thou wert better be hanged: you hunt-counter,* hence! avaunt!

ATTEN. Sir, my lord would speak with you. CH. JUST. Sir John Falstaff, a word with you.

(*) First folio, tant.

of a hound in turning and following the scent the way the chase has come.

FAL. My good lord!-God give your lordship good time of day. I am glad to see your lordship abroad: I heard say, your lordship was sick: I Your hope, your lordship goes abroad by advice. lordship, though not clean past your youth, hath yet some smack of age in you, some relish of the saltness of time; and I most humbly beseech your lordship, to have a reverend care of your health. CH. JUST. Sir John, I sent fort you before your expedition to Shrewsbury.

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

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.

FAL. This apoplexy is, as I take it, a kind of lethargy, an't please your lordship; a kind of sleeping in the blood," a whoreson tingling.

CH. JUST. What tell you me of it? be it as it is. FAL. It hath it 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.

CH. JUST. I think, you are fallen into the disease; for you hear not what I say to you.

FAL. Very well, my lord, very well: rather, an't please you, it is the disease of not listening, the malady of not marking, that I am troubled withal.

CH. JUST. To punish you by the heels, would amend the attention of your ears; and I care not, if I do become § your physician.

FAL. I am as poor as Job, my lord, but not so patient 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.

CH. JUST. Your means are very slender, and your waste is great.

*

FAL. I would it were otherwise; I would my means were greater, and my waist slenderer.

CH. JUST. You have misled the youthful prince. FAL. The young prince hath misled me: I am the fellow with the great belly, and he my dog.b

CH. JUST. Well, I am loth to gall a new-healed wound; your day's service at Shrewsbury hath a little gilded over your night's exploit on Gads-hill: you may thank the unquiet time for your quiet o'er-posting that action.

FAL. My lord?

CH. JUST. But since all is well, keep it so: wake not a sleeping wolf.

FAL. To wake a wolf, is as bad as to smell a fox.

CH. JUST. What! you are as a candle, the better part burnt out.

FAL. A wassel candle, my lord; all tallow if I did say of wax, my growth would approve the truth.

CH. JUST. There is not a white hair on your face, but should have his effect of gravity.

FAL. His effect of gravy, gravy, gravy. CH. JUST. You follow the young prince up and down, like his ill† angel.

FAL. Not so, my lord; your ill angel is light; but, I hope, he that looks upon me, will take me without weighing; and yet, in some respects, I grant, I cannot go, I cannot tell : Virtue is of sɔ little regard in these costar-mongers' times, that true valour is turned bear-herd: pregnancy is made a tapster, and hath his quick wit wasted in giving reckonings all the other gifts appertinent to man, as the malice of this age shapes them, are not worth a gooseberry. You, that are old, consider not the capacities of us that are young; you measure the heat of our livers with the bitterness of your galls and we that are in the vaward of our youth, I must confess, are wags too.

:

CH. JUST. Do you set down your name in the scroll of youth, that are written down old with all the characters of age? Have you not a moist eye? a dry hand? a yellow cheek? a white beard? a decreasing leg? an increasing belly? Is not your

(*) First folio omits, God. (1) First folio, If it.

(+) First folio omits, for. (§) First folio, if I be.

a An't please your lordship: a kind of sleeping in the blood, -] So the quarto, for which the folio reads only, a sleeping of the blood."

b The fellow with the great belly, and he my dog.] A supposed allusion to a fat blind beggar, well known at the time, who was Jed by his dog.

Your ill angel is light:] The Chief Justice means evil genius; Falstaff evades the application by alluding to the coin called

(*) First folio omits, is.

(+) First folio, evil. (1) First folio omits, times.

an angel, which was frequently made light enough by the process of clipping.

d I cannot tell:] This phrase usually signifies, as Gifford has shown, no more than, I cannot tell what to think of it, or I cannot account for it but, in the present instance, the interpretation assigned to it by Johnson, "I cannot be taken; I cannot pass current," seems preferable.

e Pregnancy-] That is, Ready wit.

voice broken? your wind short? your chin double ?* your wit single? and every part about you blasted with antiquity; and will you yet + call yourself young? Fie, fie, fie, sir John !

FAL. My lord, I was born about three of the clock in the afternoon, with a white head, and something a round belly. For my voice,-I have lost it with hollaing, and singing of anthems. To approve my youth further, I will not: the truth is, I am only old in judgment and understanding; and he that will caper with me for a thousand marks, let him lend me the money, and have at him. For the box of the ear that the prince gave you,-he gave it like a rude prince, and you took it like a sensible lord. I have checked him for it; and the young lion repents; marry, not in ashes, and sackcloth; but in new silk, and old sack.

CH. JUST. Well, God§ send the prince a better companion!

FAL. God send the companion a better prince! I cannot rid my hands of him.

CH. JUST. Well, the king hath severed you and prince Harry: I hear, you are going with lord John of Lancaster, against the archbishop, and the earl of Northumberland.

FAL. Yea; || I thank your pretty sweet wit for it.

But look you pray, all you that kiss my lady peace at home, that our armies join not in a hot day; for, by the Lord, I take but two shirts out with me, and I mean not to sweat extraordinarily : if it be a hot day, an** I brandish anything but my bottle, would I might never spit white again. There is not a dangerous action can peep out his head, but I am thrust upon it. Well, I cannot last ever; but it was always yet the trick of our English nation, if they have a good thing, to make it too common. If ye will needs I am say, an old man, you should give me rest. I would to God, my name were not so terrible to the enemy as it is. I were better to be eaten to death with rust, than to be scoured to nothing with perpetual motion.

CH. JUST. Well, be honest, be honest; and God bless your expedition!

FAL. Will your lordship lend me a thousand pound, to furnish me forth?

CH. JUST. Not a penny, not a penny; you are too impatient to bear crosses. Fare you well. Commend me to my cousin Westmoreland.

[Exeunt Chief Justice and Attendant.

(*) First folio omits, your chin double. (+) First folio omits, yet. (1) First folio omits, about three of the clock in the afternoon. ($) First folio, Heaven. () First folio, Yes.

() First folio omits, by the Lord, and inserts, if. (**) First folio, if. (tt) First folio, Heaven.

a Your wit single?] Single meant simple, silly, weak. b Never spit white again.] Steevens interprets this "never have my stomach inflamed again with liquor." Mr. Collier thinks the expression may have reference to his exertions and wounds in the expected conflicts, which might compel him to spit blood." The meaning is simply, may I never be thirsty again, want of

FAL. What money is in my purse?
PAGE. Seven groats and two-pence.

FAL. I can get no remedy against this consumption of the purse: borrowing only lingers and lingers it out, but the disease is incurable.Go bear this letter to my lord of Lancaster; this to the prince; this to the earl of Westmoreland; and this to old mistress Ursula, whom I have weekly sworn to marry since I perceived the first white hair on my chin: about it; you know where to find me. [Exit Page.] A pox of this gout! or, a gout of this pox! for the one or the other plays the rogue with my great toe. 'Tis no matter, if I do halt; I have the wars for my colour, and my pension shall seem the more reasonable. A good wit will make use of anything; I will turn diseases to commodity. [Exit.

SCENE III.-York. A Room in the
Archbishop's Palace.

Enter the ARchbishop of YoRK, the Lords
HASTINGS, MOWBRAY, and BARDOLPH.

ARCH. Thus have you heard our cause,* and

know our means;

And, my most noble friends, I pray you all,
Speak plainly your opinions of our hopes :-
And first, lord marshal, what say you to it?

MoWB. I well allow the occasion of our arms;
But gladly would be better satisfied,
How, in our means, we should advance ourselves,
To look with forehead bold and big enough
Upon the power and puissance of the king.

HAST. Our present musters grow upon the file To five and twenty thousand men of choice; And our supplies live largely in the hope Of great Northumberland, whose bosom burns With an incensed fire of injuries.

BARD. The question then, lord Hastings, standeth thus ;—

(*) First folio, causes.

drink being supposed to have the effect of making people sit white. Thus Spungius in Massinger's "Virgin Martyr," Act ill. Sc. 3: Had I been a pagan still, I should not have spit while for want of drink."

eWell, I cannot last ever;] Falstaff's speech ends here in the folio, 1623.

d You are too impatient to bear crosses.] The same pun is met with in "Love's Labour's Lost." See note (c), p. 56.

e A three-man beetle. ] An implement made of wood, and having two long handles and a short one, which was used for driving piles. f Prevent-] i. e. Anticipate, come before.

Whether our present five and twenty thousand
May hold up head without Northumberland?
HAST. With him we may.

BARD.
Ay, marry there's the point;
But if without him we be thought too feeble,
My judgment is, we should not step too far,"
Till we had his assistance by the hand:
For, in a theme so bloody-fac'd as this,
Conjecture, expectation, and surmise

Of aids incertain, should not be admitted.

ARCH. 'Tis very true, lord Bardolph; for, indeed,

It was young Hotspur's case * at Shrewsbury. BARD. It was, my lord; who lin'd himself with

To lay down likelihoods, and forms of hope.
BARD. Yes, if this present quality of war,
Indeed the instant action: a cause on foot,
Lives so in hope, as in an early spring
We see the appearing buds; which, to prove fruit,
Hope gives not so much warrant, as despair,
That frosts will bite them. When we mean to

build,

We first survey the plot, then draw the model;
And when we see the figure of the house,
Then must we rate the cost of the erection;
Which if we find outweighs ability,

What do we then, but draw anew the model
In fewer offices; or, at least, desist
To build at all?

Much more, in this great work, (Which is, almost, to pluck a kingdom down, And set another up,) should we survey

The plot of situation, and the model;
Consent upon a sure foundation;

Question surveyors; know our own estate,
How able such a work to undergo,

To weigh against his opposite; or else,