he would make this a bloody day to somebody. But I pray God the fruit of her womb miscarry! First Bead. It it do, you shall have a dozen of cushions again; you have but eleven now. Come, I charge you both go with me; for the man is dead that you and Pistol beat amongst you. Dol. I'll tell you what, you thin man in a censer, I will have you as soundly swinged for this,-you blue-bottle rogue, you filthy famished correctioner, if you be not swinged, I'll forswear half-kirtles. First Bead. Come, come, you she knighterrant, come. Host. O God, that right should thus overcome might! Well of sufferance comes ease. Dol. Come, you rogue, come; bring me to a justice. Host. Ay, come, you starved blood-hound. Dol. Goodman death, goodman bones! Host. Thou atomy, thou! 30 Dol. Come, you thin thing; come, you rascal. First Bead. Very well. [Exeunt. SCENE V. A public place near Westminster Abbey. Enter two Grooms, strewing rushes. First Groom. More rushes, more rushes. Sec. Groom. The trumpets have sounded twice. First Groom. "Twill be two o'clock ere they come from the coronation: despatch, despatch. [Exeunt. Enter FALSTAFF, SHALLOW, PISTOL, BARDOLPH, and Page. Fal. Stand here by me, Master Robert Shallow; I will make the king do you grace: I will leer upon him as a' comes by; and do but mark the countenance that he will give me. 9 Pist. God bless thy lungs, good knight. Fal. Come here, Pistol; stand behind me. O, if I had had time to have made new liveries, I would have bestowed the thousand pound I borrowed of you But 'tis no matter; this poor show doth better: this doth infer the zeal I had to see him. Shal. It doth so. By most mechanical and dirty hand: Rouse up revenge from ebon den with fell Alecto's snake, 39 For Doll is in. Pistol speaks nought but truth. Fal. I will deliver her. [Shouts within, and the trumpets sound. Pist. There roar'd the sea, and trumpetclangor sounds. Enter the KING and his train, the LORD CHIEF-JUSTICE among them. Fal. God save thy grace, King Hal! my royal Hal! Pist. The heavens thee guard and keep, most royal imp of fame! Fal. God save thee, my sweet boy! King. My lord chief-justice, speak to that vain man. Ch. Just. Have you your wits? know you what 'tis you speak? [my heart! Fal. My king! my Jove! I speak to thee, King. I know thee not, old man: fall to thy prayers; 60 How ill white hairs become a fool and jester! Fal. As it were, to ride day and night; and not to deliberate, not to remember, not to have patience to shift me, Shal. It is best, certain. Fal. But to stand stained with travel, and sweating with desire to see him; thinking of nothing else, putting all affairs else in oblivion, as if there were nothing else to be done but to see him. 29 Pist. 'Tis semper idem,' for 'obsque hoc nihil est:' 'tis all in every part. Sha!. 'Tis so, indeed. Pist. My knight, I will inflame thy noble liver, And make thee rage. Thy Doll, and Helen of thy noble thoughts, Is in base durance and contagious prison; Haled thither 70 [Exeunt King, &c. Fal. Master Shallow, I owe you a thousand pound. Shal. Yea, marry, Sir John; which I beseech you to let me have home with me. 80 Fal. That can hardly be, Master Shallow. Do not you grieve at this; I shall be sent for in private to him: look you, he must seem thus to the world: fear not your advancements; I will be the man yet that shall make you great. Shal. I cannot well perceive how, unless you should give me your doublet, and stuff me out with straw. I beseech you, good Sir Johr., let me have five hundred of my thousand. Fal. Sir, I will be as good as my word: this that you heard was but a color. Re-enter PRINCE JOHN, the LORD CHIEF-JUS- | pardons. If you look for a good speech now, TICE; Officers with them. Ch. Just, Go, carry Sir John Falstaff to the Take all his company along with him. Ch. Just. I cannot now speak; I will hear end of a displeasing play, to pray your patience you undo me: for what I have to say is of mine own making; and what indeed I should say will, I doubt, prove mine own marring. But to the purpose, and so to the venture. Be it known to you, as it is very well, I was lately here in the for it and to promise you a better. I meant indeed to pay you with this; which, if like an ill venture it come unluckily home, I break, and you, my gentle creditors, lose. Here I promised you I would be, and here I commit my body to your mercies: bate me some, and I will pay you some, and, as most creditors do, promise you infinitely. If my tongue cannot entreat you to acquit me, will you command me to use my legs? and yet that were but light payment, to dance out of your debt. But a good conscience will make any possible satisfaction, and so would I. All the gentlewomen here have forgiven me; if the gentlemen will not, then the gentlemen do not agree with the gentlewomen, which was never seen before in such an assembly. One word more, I beseech you. If you be not too much cloyed with fat meat, our humble author will continue the story, with Sir John in it, and make you merry with fair Katharine of France: where, for any thing I know, Falstaff shall die of a sweat, unless already a' be killed with your hard opinions; for Oldcastle died a martyr, and this is not the man. My tongue is weary; when my legs are too, I will bid you good night: and so kneel down before you; but, indeed, to pray for the queen. Crouch for employment. But pardon, gentles all, And let us, ciphers to this great account, 20 Suppose within the girdle of these walls Are now confined two mighty monarchies, Whose high upreared and abutting fronts The perilous narrow ocean parts asunder: Piece out our imperfections with your thoughts; Into a thousand parts divide one man, And make imaginary puissance; Think, when we talk of horses, that you see them Printing their proud hoofs i' the receiving earth: For 'tis your thoughts that now must deck our kings, Carry them here and there; jumping o'er times, Turning the accomplishment of many years 30 CHARLES the Sixth, King of France. DUKES OF BURGUNDY, ORLEANS, and BOUR BON. The Constable of France. RAMBURES and GRANDPRÉ, French lords. MONTJOY, a French Herald. Ambassadors to the King of England. ISABEL, Queen of France. KATHARINE, daughter to Charles and Isabel. ALICE, a lady attending on her. Hostess of a tavern in Eastcheap, formerly Mistress Quickly, and now married to Pistol. Lords, Ladies, Officers, Soldiers, Citizens, Messengers, and Attendants. Chorus. afterwards France. Into an hour-glass: for the which supply, SCENE I. London. An ante-chamber in the KING'S palace. Enter the Archbishop of CANTERBURY, and the BISHOP OF ELY. Cant. My lord, I'll tell you; that self bill is Which in the eleventh year of the last king's reign Ely. But how, my lord, shall we resist it now? against us, 10 We lose the better half of our possession: For all the temporal lands which men devout By testament have given to the church Would they strip from us; being valued thus: Full fifteen carls and fifteen hundred knights, As much as would maintain, to the king's honor, Six thousand and two hundred good esquires; Of indigent faint souls past corporal toil, And, to relief of lazars and weak age, A hundred almshouses right well supplied; And to the coffers of the king beside, A thousand pounds by the year: thus runs the bill. Ely. This would drink deep. Cant. 'Twould drink the cup and all. 20 Ely. But what prevention? Cant. The king is full of grace and fair regard. Ely. And a true lover of the holy church. Cant. The courses of his youth promised it not. The breath no sooner left his father's body, But that his wildness, mortified in him, Seem'd to die too: yea, at that very moment Consideration, like an angel, came And whipp'd the offending Adam out of him, To envelope and contain celestial spirits. With such a heady currance, scouring faults; 30 40 Ely We are blessed in the change. Cant. Hear him but reason in divinity, And all-admiring with an inward wish You would desire the king were made a prelate: Hear him debate of commonwealth affairs, You would say it hath been all in all his study: List his discourse of war, and you shall hear A fearful battle render'd you in music: Turn him to any cause of policy, The Gordian knot of it he will unloose, Familiar as his garter: that, when he speaks, The air, a charter'd libertine, is still, And the mute wonder lurketh in men's ears, To steal his sweet and honey'd sentences; So that the art and practic part of life Must be the mistress to this theoric: 50 Which is a wonder how his grace should glean it, Since his addiction was to courses vain, Ely. The strawberry grows underneath the nettle, And wholesome berries thrive and ripen best 60 Cant. It must be so; for miracles are ceased: And therefore we must needs admit the means How things are perfected. Ely. But, my good lord, How now for mitigation of this bill Urged by the commons? Doth his majesty Incline to it, or no? 70 80 Ely. How did this offer seem received, my lord? Cant. With good acceptance of his majesty; Save that there was not time enough to hear, As I perceived his grace would fain have done, The severals and unhidden passages Of his true titles to some certain dukedoms And generally to the crown and seat of France Derived from Edward, his great-grandfather. Ely. What was the impediment that broke this off? 90 Cant. The French ambassador upon that Craved audience; and the hour, I think, is come Cant. Then go we in, to know his embassy: Which I could with a ready guess declare, Before the Frenchman speak a word of it. Ely. I'll wait upon you, and I long to hearit. [Exeunt. SCENE II. The same. The Presence chamber. Enter KING HENRY, GLOUCESTER, BEDFORD, EXETER, WARWICK, WESTMORELAND, and Attendants. K. Hen. Where is my gracious Lord of Can- Exe. Not here in presence. Send for him, good uncle. West. Shall we call in the ambassador, my liege? K. Hen. Not yet, my cousin: we would be resolved, Before we hear him, of some things of weight That task our thoughts, concerning us and France. Enter the ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY, and the BISHOP OF ELY. 20 Or nicely charge your understanding soul swords KING HENRY V. To this imperial throne. There is no bar 50 There left behind and settled certain French; Who, holding in disdain the German women For some dishonest manners of their life. Establish'd then this law; to wit, no female Should be inheritrix in Salique land: Which Salique, as I said, 'twixt Elbe and Sala, Is at this day in Germany call'd Meisen. Then doth it well appear the Salique law Was not devised for the realm of France: Nor did the French possess the Salique land Until four hundred one and twenty years After defunction of King Pharamond, Idly supposed the founder of this law; Who died within the year of our redemption 60 Four hundred twenty-six; and Charles the Great Subdued the Saxons, and did seat the French Beyond the river Sala, in the Eight hundred five. Besides, their writers say, year King Pepin, which deposed Childeric, Did, as heir general, being descended Of Blithild, which was daughter to KingClothair, Make claim and title to the crown of France. Hugh Capet also, who usurp'd the crown Of Charles the duke of Lorraine, sole heir male Of the true line and stock of Charles the Great, To find his title with some shows of truth, Though, in pure truth, it was corrupt and nought, Convey'd himself as heir to the Lady Lingare, Daughter to Charlemain, who was the son To Lewis the Emperor, and Lewis the son Of Charles the Great. Also King Lewis the Tenth, Who was sole heir to the usurper Capet, Could not keep quiet in his conscience, Wearing the crown of France, till satisfied That fair Queen Isabel, his grandmother, Was lineal of the Lady Ermengare, Daughter to Charles the foresaid duke of Lor[raine: By the which marriage the line of Charles the Great 69 80 90 Was re-united to the crown of France. So that, as clear as is the summer's sun, King Pepin's title and Hugh Capet's claim, King Lewis his satisfaction, all appear To hold in right and title of the female: So do the kings of France unto this day: Howbeit they would hold up this Salique law To bar your highness claiming from the female, And rather choose to hide them in a net Than amply to imbar their crooked titles Usurp'd from you and your progenitors. K. Hen. May I with right and conscience make this claim? Cant. The sin upon my head, dread sovereign! For in the book of Numbers is it writ, When the man dies, let the inheritance 441. 110 Stand for your own; unwind your bloody flag; Do all expect that you should rouse yourself, I 20 West. They know your grace hath cause and So hath your highness; never king of England And lie pavilion'd in the fields of France. 129 With blood and sword and fire to win your right; K. Hen. We must not only arm to invade the But lay down our proportions to defend 141 Who hath been still a giddy neighbor to us; 150 For hear her but exampled by herself: Descend unto the daughter. Gracious lord, 100 | And make her chronicle as rich with praise S⭑ 160 |