The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, William Shakespeare [book recommendations based on other books txt] 📗

And swear here, by the honour of my blood, My father’s purposes have been mistook; And some about him have too lavishly

Wrested his meaning and authority.

My lord, these griefs shall be with speed redress’d; Upon my soul, they shall. If this may please you, Discharge your powers unto their several counties, As we will ours; and here, between the armies, Let’s drink together friendly and embrace, That all their eyes may bear those tokens home Of our restored love and amity.

ARCHBISHOP. I take your princely word for these redresses.

PRINCE JOHN. I give it you, and will maintain my word; And thereupon I drink unto your Grace.

HASTINGS. Go, Captain, and deliver to the army This news of peace. Let them have pay, and part.

I know it will please them. Hie thee, Captain.

Exit Officer ARCHBISHOP. To you, my noble Lord of Westmoreland.

WESTMORELAND. I pledge your Grace; and if you knew what pains I have bestow’d to breed this present peace, You would drink freely; but my love to ye Shall show itself more openly hereafter.

ARCHBISHOP. I do not doubt you.

WESTMORELAND. I am glad of it.

Health to my lord and gentle cousin, Mowbray.

MOWBRAY. You wish me health in very happy season, For I am on the sudden something ill.

ARCHBISHOP. Against ill chances men are ever merry; But heaviness foreruns the good event.

WESTMORELAND. Therefore be merry, coz; since sudden sorrow Serves to say thus, ‘Some good thing comes tomorrow.’

ARCHBISHOP. Believe me, I am passing light in spirit.

MOWBRAY. So much the worse, if your own rule be true.

[Shouts within]

PRINCE JOHN. The word of peace is rend’red. Hark, how they shout!

MOWBRAY. This had been cheerful after victory.

ARCHBISHOP. A peace is of the nature of a conquest; For then both parties nobly are subdu’d, And neither party loser.

PRINCE JOHN. Go, my lord,

And let our army be discharged too.

Exit WESTMORELAND

And, good my lord, so please you let our trains March by us, that we may peruse the men We should have cop’d withal.

ARCHBISHOP. Go, good Lord Hastings,

And, ere they be dismiss’d, let them march by.

Exit HASTINGS

PRINCE JOHN. I trust, lords, we shall lie tonight together.

 

Re-enter WESTMORELAND

 

Now, cousin, wherefore stands our army still?

WESTMORELAND. The leaders, having charge from you to stand, Will not go off until they hear you speak.

PRINCE JOHN. They know their duties.

 

Re-enter HASTINGS

 

HASTINGS. My lord, our army is dispers’d already.

Like youthful steers unyok’d, they take their courses East, west, north, south; or like a school broke up, Each hurries toward his home and sporting-place.

WESTMORELAND. Good tidings, my Lord Hastings; for the which I do arrest thee, traitor, of high treason; And you, Lord Archbishop, and you, Lord Mowbray, Of capital treason I attach you both.

MOWBRAY. Is this proceeding just and honourable?

WESTMORELAND. Is your assembly so?

ARCHBISHOP. Will you thus break your faith?

PRINCE JOHN. I pawn’d thee none:

I promis’d you redress of these same grievances Whereof you did complain; which, by mine honour, I will perform with a most Christian care.

But for you, rebels-look to taste the due Meet for rebellion and such acts as yours.

Most shallowly did you these arms commence, Fondly brought here, and foolishly sent hence.

Strike up our drums, pursue the scatt’red stray.

God, and not we, hath safely fought to-day.

Some guard these traitors to the block of death, Treason’s true bed and yielder-up of breath. Exeunt

SCENE III.

Another part of the forest

 

Alarum; excursions. Enter FALSTAFF and COLVILLE, meeting FALSTAFF. What’s your name, sir? Of what condition are you, and of what place, I pray?

COLVILLE. I am a knight sir; and my name is Colville of the Dale.

FALSTAFF. Well then, Colville is your name, a knight is your degree, and your place the Dale. Colville shall still be your name, a traitor your degree, and the dungeon your place-a place deep enough; so shall you be still Colville of the Dale.

COLVILLE. Are not you Sir John Falstaff?

FALSTAFF. As good a man as he, sir, whoe’er I am. Do you yield, sir, or shall I sweat for you? If I do sweat, they are the drops of thy lovers, and they weep for thy death; therefore rouse up fear and trembling, and do observance to my mercy.

COLVILLE. I think you are Sir John Falstaff, and in that thought yield me.

FALSTAFF. I have a whole school of tongues in this belly of mine; and not a tongue of them all speaks any other word but my name.

An I had but a belly of any indifferency, I were simply the most active fellow in Europe. My womb, my womb, my womb undoes me.

Here comes our general.

 

Enter PRINCE JOHN OF LANCASTER, WESTMORELAND, BLUNT, and others PRINCE JOHN. The heat is past; follow no further now.

Call in the powers, good cousin Westmoreland.

Exit WESTMORELAND

Now, Falstaff, where have you been all this while?

When everything is ended, then you come.

These tardy tricks of yours will, on my life, One time or other break some gallows’ back.

FALSTAFF. I would be sorry, my lord, but it should be thus: I never knew yet but rebuke and check was the reward of valour. Do you think me a swallow, an arrow, or a bullet? Have I, in my poor and old motion, the expedition of thought? I have speeded hither with the very extremest inch of possibility; I have found’red nine score and odd posts; and here, travel tainted as I am, have, in my pure and immaculate valour, taken Sir John Colville of the Dale,a most furious knight and valorous enemy. But what of that?

He saw me, and yielded; that I may justly say with the hook-nos’d fellow of Rome-I came, saw, and overcame.

PRINCE JOHN. It was more of his courtesy than your deserving.

FALSTAFF. I know not. Here he is, and here I yield him; and I beseech your Grace, let it be book’d with the rest of this day’s deeds; or, by the Lord, I will have it in a particular ballad else, with mine own picture on the top on’t, Colville kissing my foot; to the which course if I be enforc’d, if you do not all show like gilt twopences to me, and I, in the clear sky of fame, o’ershine you as much as the full moon doth the cinders of the element, which show like pins’ heads to her, believe not the word of the noble. Therefore let me have right, and let desert mount.

PRINCE JOHN. Thine’s too heavy to mount.

FALSTAFF. Let it shine, then.

PRINCE JOHN. Thine’s too thick to shine.

FALSTAFF. Let it do something, my good lord, that may do me good, and call it what you will.

PRINCE JOHN. Is thy name Colville?

COLVILLE. It is, my lord.

PRINCE JOHN. A famous rebel art thou, Colville.

FALSTAFF. And a famous true subject took him.

COLVILLE. I am, my lord, but as my betters are That led me hither. Had they been rul’d by me, You should have won them dearer than you have.

FALSTAFF. I know not how they sold themselves; but thou, like a kind fellow, gavest thyself away gratis; and I thank thee for thee.

 

Re-enter WESTMORELAND

 

PRINCE JOHN. Now, have you left pursuit?

WESTMORELAND. Retreat is made, and execution stay’d.

PRINCE JOHN. Send Colville, with his confederates, To York, to present execution.

Blunt, lead him hence; and see you guard him sure.

Exeunt BLUNT and others And now dispatch we toward the court, my lords.

I hear the King my father is sore sick.

Our news shall go before us to his Majesty, Which, cousin, you shall bear to comfort him And we with sober speed will follow you.

FALSTAFF. My lord, I beseech you, give me leave to go through Gloucestershire; and, when you come to court, stand my good lord, pray, in your good report.

PRINCE JOHN. Fare you well, Falstaff. I, in my condition, Shall better speak of you than you deserve.

Exeunt all but FALSTAFF

FALSTAFF. I would you had but the wit; ‘twere better than your dukedom. Good faith, this same young sober-blooded boy doth not love me; nor a man cannot make him laugh-but that’s no marvel; he drinks no wine. There’s never none of these demure boys come to any proof; for thin drink doth so over-cool their blood, and making many fish-meals, that they fall into a kind of male green-sickness; and then, when they marry, they get wenches. They are generally fools and cowards-which some of us should be too, but for inflammation. A good sherris-sack hath a twofold operation in it. It ascends me into the brain; dries me there all the foolish and dull and crudy vapours which environ it; makes it apprehensive, quick, forgetive, full of nimble, fiery, and delectable shapes; which delivered o’er to the voice, the tongue, which is the birth, becomes excellent wit. The second property of your excellent sherris is the warming of the blood; which before, cold and settled, left the liver white and pale, which is the badge of pusillanimity and cowardice; but the sherris warms it, and makes it course from the inwards to the parts extremes. It illumineth the face, which, as a beacon, gives warning to all the rest of this little kingdom, man, to arm; and then the vital commoners and inland petty spirits muster me all to their captain, the heart, who, great and puff’d up with this retinue, doth any deed of courage-and this valour comes of sherris. So that skill in the weapon is nothing without sack, for that sets it a-work; and learning, a mere hoard of gold kept by a devil till sack commences it and sets it in act and use. Hereof comes it that Prince Harry is valiant; for the cold blood he did naturally inherit of his father, he hath, like lean, sterile, and bare land, manured, husbanded, and till’d, with excellent endeavour of drinking good and good store of fertile sherris, that he is become very hot and valiant. If I had a thousand sons, the first humane principle I would teach them should be to forswear thin potations and to addict themselves to sack.

 

Enter BARDOLPH

 

How now, Bardolph!

BARDOLPH. The army is discharged all and gone.

FALSTAFF. Let them go. I’ll through Gloucestershire, and there will I visit Master Robert Shallow, Esquire. I have him already temp’ring between my finger and my thumb, and shortly will I seal with him. Come away. Exeunt

SCENE IV.

Westminster. The Jerusalem Chamber

 

Enter the KING, PRINCE THOMAS OF CLARENCE, PRINCE HUMPHREY OF GLOUCESTER, WARWICK, and others

 

KING. Now, lords, if God doth give successful end To this debate that bleedeth at our doors, We will our youth lead on to higher fields, And draw no swords but what are sanctified.

Our navy is address’d, our power connected, Our substitutes in absence well invested, And everything lies level to our wish.

Only we want a little personal strength; And pause us till these rebels, now afoot, Come underneath the yoke of government.

WARWICK. Both which we doubt not but your Majesty Shall soon enjoy.

KING. Humphrey, my son of Gloucester,

Where is the Prince your brother?

PRINCE HUMPHREY. I think he’s gone to hunt, my lord, at Windsor.

KING. And how accompanied?

PRINCE HUMPHREY. I do not know, my lord.

KING. Is not his brother, Thomas of Clarence, with him?

PRINCE HUMPHREY. No, my good lord, he is in presence here.

CLARENCE. What would my lord and father?

KING. Nothing but well to thee, Thomas of Clarence.

How chance thou art not with the Prince thy brother?

He loves thee, and thou dost neglect him, Thomas.

Thou hast a better place in his affection