Henry IV, Part 1 Read online

  but in woes also. And yet there is a virtuous man whom I

  have often noted in thy company, but I know not his name.

  PRINCE HENRY What manner of man, an it like your majesty?

  FALSTAFF A goodly portly man, i’faith, and a corpulent: of a

  cheerful look, a pleasing eye and a most noble carriage, and

  as I think, his age some fifty, or, by’r lady, inclining to

  threescore; and now I remember me, his name is Falstaff. If

  that man should be lewdly given, he deceives me; for, Harry,

  I see virtue in his looks. If then the tree may be known by the

  fruit, as the fruit by the tree, then peremptorily I speak it,

  there is virtue in that Falstaff: him keep with, the rest banish.

  And tell me now, thou naughty varlet, tell me, where hast

  thou been this month?

  PRINCE HENRY Dost thou speak like a king? Do thou stand for

  me, and I’ll play my father.

  FALSTAFF Depose me? If thou dost it half so gravely, so

  majestically, both in word and matter, hang me up by the

  heels for a rabbit-sucker or a poulter’s hare.

  PRINCE HENRY Well, here I am set.

  FALSTAFF And here I stand. Judge, my masters.

  PRINCE HENRY Now, Harry, whence come you?

  FALSTAFF My noble lord, from Eastcheap.

  PRINCE HENRY The complaints I hear of thee are grievous.

  FALSTAFF I’faith, my lord, they are false. — Nay, I’ll tickle ye

  for a young prince.

  PRINCE HENRY Swearest thou, ungracious boy? Henceforth ne’er

  look on me. Thou art violently carried away from grace: there

  is a devil haunts thee in the likeness of a fat old man; a

  tun of man is thy companion. Why dost thou converse with

  that trunk of humours, that bolting-hutch of beastliness, that

  swollen parcel of dropsies, that huge bombard of sack, that

  stuffed cloak-bag of guts, that roasted Manningtree ox with

  the pudding in his belly, that reverend Vice, that grey Iniquity,

  that father Ruffian, that Vanity in years? Wherein is he good,

  but to taste sack and drink it? Wherein neat and cleanly, but

  to carve a capon and eat it? Wherein cunning, but in craft?

  Wherein crafty, but in villainy? Wherein villainous, but in all

  things? Wherein worthy, but in nothing?

  FALSTAFF I would your grace would take me with you: whom

  means your grace?

  PRINCE HENRY That villainous abominable misleader of youth,

  Falstaff, that old white-bearded Satan.

  FALSTAFF My lord, the man I know.

  PRINCE HENRY I know thou dost.

  FALSTAFF But to say I know more harm in him than in myself,

  were to say more than I know. That he is old, the more the

  pity, his white hairs do witness it. But that he is, saving your

  reverence, a whoremaster, that I utterly deny. If sack and

  sugar be a fault, heaven help the wicked: if to be old and

  merry be a sin, then many an old host that I know is

  damned: if to be fat be to be hated, then Pharaoh’s lean kine

  are to be loved. No, my good lord, banish Peto, banish

  Bardolph, banish Poins, but for sweet Jack Falstaff, kind Jack

  Falstaff, true Jack Falstaff, valiant Jack Falstaff, and therefore

  more valiant, being, as he is old Jack Falstaff, banish not him

  thy Harry’s company, banish not him thy Harry’s company:

  banish plump Jack, and banish all the world.

  PRINCE HENRY I do, I will.

  Knocking

  Enter Bardolph, running

  BARDOLPH O, my lord, my lord! The sheriff with a most

  monstrous watch is at the door.

  FALSTAFF Out, you rogue!— Play out the play: I have much to

  say in the behalf of that Falstaff.

  Enter the Hostess [Quickly]

  HOSTESS QUICKLY O, my lord, my lord!

  PRINCE HENRY Heigh, heigh! The devil rides upon a fiddlestick.

  What’s the matter?

  HOSTESS QUICKLY The sheriff and all the watch are at the door:

  they are come to search the house. Shall I let them in?

  FALSTAFF Dost thou hear, Hal? Never call a true piece of gold a

  counterfeit: thou art essentially made, without seeming so.

  PRINCE HENRY And thou a natural coward, without instinct.

  FALSTAFF I deny your major. If you will deny the sheriff, so: if

  not, let him enter: if I become not a cart as well as another

  man, a plague on my bringing up! I hope I shall as soon be

  strangled with a halter as another.

  PRINCE HENRY Go, hide thee behind the arras. The rest walk up

  above. Now, my masters, for a true face and good conscience.

  FALSTAFF Both which I have had: but their date

  Falstaff hides behind the arras

  is out, and therefore I’ll hide me.

  PRINCE HENRY Call in the sheriff.

  Exeunt [all except Prince Henry and Peto]

  Enter Sheriff and the Carrier

  Now, master sheriff, what is your will with me?

  SHERIFF First, pardon me, my lord. A hue and cry

  Hath followed certain men unto this house.

  PRINCE HENRY What men?

  SHERIFF One of them is well known, my gracious lord,

  A gross fat man.

  CARRIER As fat as butter.

  PRINCE HENRY The man, I do assure you, is not here,

  For I myself at this time have employed him.

  And, sheriff, I will engage my word to thee

  That I will, by tomorrow dinnertime,

  Send him to answer thee, or any man,

  For anything he shall be charged withal:

  And so let me entreat you leave the house.

  SHERIFF I will, my lord. There are two gentlemen

  Have in this robbery lost three hundred marks.

  PRINCE HENRY It may be so: if he have robbed these men,

  He shall be answerable , and so farewell.

  SHERIFF Goodnight, my noble lord.

  PRINCE HENRY I think it is good morrow, is it not?

  SHERIFF Indeed, my lord, I think it be two o’clock.

  Exeunt [Sheriff and Carrier]

  PRINCE HENRY This oily rascal is known as well as Paul’s. Go,

  call him forth.

  To Peto

  PETO Falstaff! Fast asleep behind the arras, and snorting

  like a horse.

  PRINCE HENRY Hark, how hard he fetches breath. Search his

  pockets.

  He searcheth his pockets, and findeth certain papers

  What hast thou found?

  PETO Nothing but papers, my lord.

  PRINCE HENRY Let’s see, what be they? Read them.

  PETO ‘Item, A capon, 2s 2d. Item, Sauce, 4d.

  Reads

  Item, Sack, two gallons, 5s 8d. Item, Anchovies and sack

  after supper, 2s 6d. Item, Bread, ob.’

  PRINCE HENRY O, monstrous! But one halfpenny-worth of bread

  to this intolerable deal of sack? What there is else, keep close,

  we’ll read it at more advantage. There let him sleep till day.

  I’ll to the court in the morning. We must all to the wars, and

  thy place shall be honourable. I’ll procure this fat rogue a

  charge of foot, and I know his death will be a march of

  twelvescore. The money shall be paid back again with

  advantage. Be with me betimes in the morning, and so, good

  morrow, Peto.

  PETO Good morrow, good my lord.

  Exeunt

  Act 3 Scene 1

  running scene 8

  Location: unspec
ified; probably in Glendower’s house

  Enter Hotspur, Worcester, Lord Mortimer and Owen Glendower

  MORTIMER These promises are fair, the parties sure,

  And our induction full of prosperous hope.

  HOTSPUR Lord Mortimer, and cousin Glendower,

  Will you sit down?

  And uncle Worcester — a plague upon it,

  I have forgot the map!

  GLENDOWER No, here it is.

  Shows a map

  Sit, cousin Percy, sit, good cousin Hotspur —

  For by that name as oft as Lancaster

  Doth speak of you, his cheeks look pale and with

  A rising sigh he wisheth you in heaven.

  HOTSPUR And you in hell, as oft as he hears Owen Glendower

  spoke of.

  GLENDOWER I cannot blame him: at my nativity

  The front of heaven was full of fiery shapes,

  Of burning cressets, and at my birth

  The frame and foundation of the earth

  Shaked like a coward.

  HOTSPUR Why, so it would have done at the same season, if

  your mother’s cat had but kittened, though yourself had

  never been born.

  GLENDOWER I say the earth did shake when I was born.

  HOTSPUR And I say the earth was not of my mind,

  If you suppose as fearing you it shook.

  GLENDOWER The heavens were all on fire, the earth did tremble.

  HOTSPUR O, then the earth shook to see the heavens on fire,

  And not in fear of your nativity.

  Diseasèd nature oftentimes breaks forth

  In strange eruptions; and the teeming earth

  Is with a kind of colic pinched and vexed

  By the imprisoning of unruly wind

  Within her womb, which, for enlargement striving,

  Shakes the old beldam earth and tumbles down

  Steeples and moss-grown towers. At your birth

  Our grandam earth, having this distemperature,

  In passion shook.

  GLENDOWER Cousin, of many men

  I do not bear these crossings. Give me leave

  To tell you once again that at my birth

  The front of heaven was full of fiery shapes,

  The goats ran from the mountains, and the herds

  Were strangely clamorous to the frighted fields.

  These signs have marked me extraordinary,

  And all the courses of my life do show

  I am not in the roll of common men.

  Where is the living, clipped in with the sea

  That chides the banks of England, Scotland and Wales,

  Which calls me pupil, or hath read to me?

  And bring him out that is but woman’s son

  Can trace me in the tedious ways of art

  And hold me pace in deep experiments.

  HOTSPUR I think there’s no man speaks better Welsh.

  I’ll to dinner.

  MORTIMER Peace, cousin Percy, you will make him mad.

  GLENDOWER I can call spirits from the vasty deep.

  HOTSPUR Why, so can I, or so can any man.

  But will they come when you do call for them?

  GLENDOWER Why, I can teach thee, cousin, to command the

  devil.

  HOTSPUR And I can teach thee, cousin, to shame the devil

  By telling truth: tell truth and shame the devil.

  If thou have power to raise him, bring him hither,

  And I’ll be sworn I have power to shame him hence.

  O, while you live, tell truth and shame the devil!

  MORTIMER Come, come, no more of this unprofitable chat.

  GLENDOWER Three times hath Henry Bullingbrook made head

  Against my power: thrice from the banks of Wye

  And sandy-bottomed Severn have I sent him

  Bootless home and weather-beaten back.

  HOTSPUR Home without boots, and in foul weather too!

  How scapes he agues, in the devil’s name?

  GLENDOWER Come, here’s the map: shall we divide our right

  According to our threefold order ta’en?

  MORTIMER The archdeacon hath divided it

  Into three limits very equally:

  England, from Trent and Severn hitherto,

  By south and east is to my part assigned:

  All westward, Wales beyond the Severn shore,

  And all the fertile land within that bound,

  To Owen Glendower: and, dear coz, to you

  The remnant northward, lying off from Trent.

  And our indentures tripartite are drawn,

  Which being sealèd interchangeably —

  A business that this night may execute—

  Tomorrow, cousin Percy, you and I

  And my good lord of Worcester will set forth

  To meet your father and the Scottish power,

  As is appointed us, at Shrewsbury.

  My father Glendower is not ready yet,

  Nor shall we need his help these fourteen days.—

  Within that space you may have drawn together

  To Glendower

  Your tenants, friends and neighbouring gentlemen.

  GLENDOWER A shorter time shall send me to you, lords.

  And in my conduct shall your ladies come,

  From whom you now must steal and take no leave,

  For there will be a world of water shed

  Upon the parting of your wives and you.

  HOTSPUR Methinks my moiety, north from

  Burton here,

  Looks at map

  In quantity equals not one of yours:

  See how this river comes me cranking in,

  And cuts me from the best of all my land

  A huge half-moon, a monstrous cantle out.

  I’ll have the current in this place dammed up,

  And here the smug and silver Trent shall run

  In a new channel, fair and evenly.

  It shall not wind with such a deep indent,

  To rob me of so rich a bottom here.

  GLENDOWER Not wind? It shall, it must. You see it doth.

  MORTIMER Yea, but

  Mark how he bears his course, and runs me up

  With like advantage on the other side,

  Gelding the opposèd continent as much

  As on the other side it takes from you.

  WORCESTER Yea, but a little charge will trench him here

  And on this north side win this cape of land,

  And then he runs straight and even.

  HOTSPUR I’ll have it so. A little charge will do it.

  GLENDOWER I’ll not have it altered.

  HOTSPUR Will not you?

  GLENDOWER No, nor you shall not.

  HOTSPUR Who shall say me nay?

  GLENDOWER Why, that will I.

  HOTSPUR Let me not understand you, then. Speak it in Welsh.

  GLENDOWER I can speak English, lord, as well as you,

  For I was trained up in the English court;

  Where, being but young, I framed to the harp

  Many an English ditty lovely well

  And gave the tongue a helpful ornament;

  A virtue that was never seen in you.

  HOTSPUR Marry,

  And I am glad of it with all my heart.

  I had rather be a kitten and cry mew

  Than one of these same metre ballad-mongers.

  I had rather hear a brazen candlestick turned,

  Or a dry wheel grate on the axle-tree,

  And that would set my teeth nothing on edge,

  Nothing so much as mincing poetry:

  ’Tis like the forced gait of a shuffling nag.

  GLENDOWER Come, you shall have Trent turned.

  HOTSPUR I do not care: I’ll give thrice so much land

  To any well-deserving friend;

  But in the way of bargain, mark ye me,

  I’ll cavil on the ninth part of a hair.

&
nbsp; Are the indentures drawn? Shall we be gone?

  GLENDOWER The moon shines fair, you may away by night.

  I’ll haste the writer and withal

  Break with your wives of your departure hence.

  I am afraid my daughter will run mad,

  So much she doteth on her Mortimer.

  Exit

  MORTIMER Fie, cousin Percy, how you cross my father!

  HOTSPUR I cannot choose: sometime he angers me

  With telling me of the mouldwarp and the ant,

  Of the dreamer Merlin and his prophecies,

  And of a dragon and a finless fish,

  A clip-winged griffin and a moulten raven,

  A couching lion and a ramping cat,

  And such a deal of skimble-skamble stuff

  As puts me from my faith. I tell you what,

  He held me last night at least nine hours

  In reck’ning up the several devils’ names

  That were his lackeys: I cried ‘Hum’, and ‘Well, go to’,

  But marked him not a word. O, he is as tedious

  As a tired horse, a railing wife,

  Worse than a smoky house. I had rather live

  With cheese and garlic in a windmill far,

  Than feed on cates and have him talk to me

  In any summer-house in Christendom.

  MORTIMER In faith, he was a worthy gentleman,

  Exceeding well read, and profited

  In strange concealments, valiant as a lion

  And wondrous affable and as bountiful

  As mines of India. Shall I tell you, cousin?

  He holds your temper in a high respect

  And curbs himself even of his natural scope

  When you do cross his humour — ’faith, he does.

  I warrant you, that man is not alive

  Might so have tempted him as you have done,

  Without the taste of danger and reproof:

  But do not use it oft, let me entreat you.

  WORCESTER In faith, my lord, you are too wilful-blame,

  To Hotspur

  And since your coming hither have done enough

  To put him quite besides his patience.

  You must needs learn, lord, to amend this fault:

  Though sometimes it show greatness, courage, blood —

  And that’s the dearest grace it renders you —

  Yet oftentimes it doth present harsh rage,

  Defect of manners, want of government,

  Pride, haughtiness, opinion and disdain,