Shal. Ay, marry, Sir John; which I beseech you to let me have home with me.

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 advancement; 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 John, 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 colour.

Shal. A colour, I fear, that you will die in, Sir John.

Fal. Fear no colours; go with me to dinner. Come, Lieutenant Pistol;-come, Bardolph:-I shall be sent for soon at night.

Re-enter Prince JOHN, the Chief Justice,
Officers, &c.

Ch. Just. Go, carry Sir John Falstaff to the Fleet; take all his company along with bim. Fal. My lord, my lord,

Ch. Just. I cannot now speak: I will hear you soon. Take them away.

Pist. "Si fortuna me tormenta, spero me contenta." [Exeunt FAL., SHAL., PIST., BARD., PAGE, and Officers.

P.John, I like this fair proceeding of the king's: He hath intent, his wonted followers Shall all be very well provided for; But all are banish'd, till their conversations Appear more wise and modest to the world. Ch. Just. And so they are.

P. John. The king hath call'd his parliament, my lord.

Ch. Just. He hath.

P. John. I will lay odds,-that ere this year expire,

We bear our civil swords, and native fire,
As far as France: I heard a bird so sing,
Whose music, to my thinking, pleas'd the king.
Come, will you hence?

[Exeunt.

EPILOGUE. GU

[Spoken by a Dancer.]

First, my fear; then my court'sy; last, my speech. My fear is,your displeasure; my court'sy, my duty; and my speech, to beg your pardons. If you look for a good speech now, 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 end of a displeasing play, to pray your patience for it, and to promise you a better. I did mean, 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 debtors 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 will I. All the gentle women 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 Katherine of France: where, for anything I know, Falstaff shall die of a sweat, unless already he 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.

And to the coffers of the king beside

bill.

Ely. This would drink deep.
Cunt.
'Twould drink the cup and all.
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 promis'd it not.
The breath no sooner left his father's body,
But that his wildness, mortitied 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;
Leaving his body as a paradise,

To envelop and contain celestial spirits.
Never was such a sudden scholar made:
Never came reformation in a flood,

With such a heady currance, scouring faults;
Nor never Hydra-headed wilfulness

So soon did lose his seat, and all at once,
As in this king.

Ely.
We are blessed in the change.
Cunt. 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 Gordion 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:

Which is a wonder, how his grace should glean it,
Since his addiction was to courses vain:
His companies unlettered, rude, and shallow;
His hours filled up with riots, banquets, sports;
And never noted in him any study,
Any retirement, any sequestration
From open haunts and popularity.

Ely. The strawberry grows underneath the
nettle;

And wholesome berries thrive and ripen best
Neighbour'd by fruit of baser quality:
And so the prince obscur'd his contemplation
Under the veil of wildness; which, no doubt,
Grew like the summer grass, fastest by night,
Unseen, yet cre-cive in his faculty.

Cant. It must be so; for miracles are ceas'd;
And therefore we must needs admit the means
How things are perfected.
Ely.
But, my good lord,
How now for mitigation of this bill
Urg'd by the commons? Doth his majesty
Incline to it, or no?

Cant.

He seems indifferent:

Or, rather, swaying more upon our part,
Than cherishing the exhibiters against us:
For I have made an offer to his majesty,-
Upon our spiritual convocation;
And in regard of causes now in hand,
Which I have open'd to his grace at large,
As touching France,-to give a greater sum
Than ever at one time the clergy yet
Did to his predecessors part withal.

Ely. How did this offer seem receiv'd, my lord? Cant. With good acceptance of his majesty; Save, that there was not time enough to hear

Of his true titles to some certain dukedoms; And, generally, to the crown and seat of France Deriv'd from Edward, his great-grandfather

Ely. What was the impediment that broke this off?

Cant. The French ambassador, upon that instant Crav'd audience: and the hour, I think, is come To give him hearing: Is it four o'clock ? Ely.

It is.

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 hear it. [Exeunt. SCENE II.-The same. A Room of State in the

same.

Enter King HENRY, GLOSTER, Bedford, ExeTER WARWICK, WESTMORELAND, and Attendants. K. Hen. Where is my gracious lord of Canter bury?

Exe. Not here in presence.

K. Hen. Send for him, good uncle.

West. Shall we call in the ambassador, my liege?

K. Hen. Not yet, my cousin; we would be resolv'd,

Before we hear him, of some things of weight That task our thoughts, concerning us and France Enter the Archbishop of CANTERBURY and Bishop of ELY.

Cant. God and his angels guard your sacred throne,

K. Hen.

And make you long become it!
Sure, we thank you
My learned lord, we pray you to proceed:
And justly and religiously untold,
Why the law Salique, that they have in France,
Or should, or should not, bar us in our claim.
And God forbid, my dear and faithful lord,
That you should fashion, wrest, or bow your
reading,

Or nicely charge your understanding soul
With opening titles miscreate, whose right
Suits not in native colours with the truth;
For God doth know, how many, now in health,
Shall drop their blood in approbation
Of what your reverence shall incite us to:
Therefore take heed how you impawn our person
How you awake the sleeping sword of war:
We charge you, in the name of God, take heed:
For never two such kingdoms did contend
Without much fall of blood; whose guiltless drop
Are every one a woe, a sore complaint,
'Gainst him whose wrongs give edge unto the
swords

That make such waste in brief mortality.
Under this conjuration, speak, my lord:
For we will hear, note, and believe in heart,
That what you speak is in your conscience wash'd
As pure as sin with baptism.

Cant. Then hear me, gracious sovereign; and

you peers,

That owe yourselves, your lives, and services, To this imperial throne:-There is no bar To make against your highness' claim to France, But this, which they produce from Pharamond,— "In terram Salicam mulieres ne succedant," "No woman shall succeed in Salique land:"

Which Salique land the French unjustly gloze
To be the realm of France, and Pharamond
The founder of this law and female bar.
Yet their own authors faithfully affirm
That the land Salique is in Germany,
Between the floods of Sala and of Elbe:

Where Charles the Great, having subdued the
Saxons,

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.
Thus 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 suppos'd the founder of this law;
Who died within the year of our redemption
Four hundred twenty-six; and Charles the Great
Subdued the Saxons, and did seat the French
Beyond the river Sala, in the year

Eight hundred five. Besides, their writers say,
King Pepin, which deposed Childerick,
Did, as heir general, being descended

Of Blithild, which was daughter to King Clothair,
Make claim and title to the crown of France.
Hugh Capet also, who usurp'd the crown
Of Charles the Duke of Loraine, 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 naught),
Convey'd himself as th' heir to th' 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 Loraine :
By the which marriage, the line of Charles the
Great

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,
That amply to imbar their crooked titles
Jsurp'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 son dies, let the inheritance Descend unto the daughter. Gracious lord, Stand for your own; unwind your bloody flag; Look back unto your mighty ancestors: Go, my dread lord, to your great-grandsire's tomb, From whom you claim; invoke his warlike spirit, And your great-uncle's, Edward the Black Prince; Who on the French ground play'd a tragedy, Making defeat on the full power of France Whiles his most mighty father on a hil

Stood smiling, to behold his lion's whelp
Forage in blood of French nobility.
O noble English, that could entertain
With half their forces the full pride of France.
And let another half stand laughing by,
All out of work, and cold for action!

Ely. Awake remembrance of these valiant dead, And with your puissant arm renew their feats: You are their heir, you sit upon their throne; The blood and courage, that renowned them, Runs in your veins; and my thrice-puissant liego Is in the very May-morn of his youth, Ripe for exploits and mighty enterprises.

Exe. Your brother kings and monarchs of tho earth

Do all expect that you should rouse yourself,
As did the former lions of your blood.

West. They know your grace hath cause, and means, and might:

So hath your highness; never king of England Had nobles richer, and more loyal subjects; Whose hearts have left their bodies here in England,

And lie pavilion'd in the fields of France.

Cant. O, let their bodies follow, my dear liege, With blood, and sword, and fire, to win your right: In aid whereof, we of the spiritualty Will raise your highness such a mighty sum, As never did the clergy at one time Bring in to any of your ancestors.

[French, K. Hen. We must not only arm to invade the But lay down our proportions to defend Against the Scot, who will make road upon us With all advantages.

Cant. They of those marches, gracious sovereign, Shall be a wall sufficient to defend

Our inland from the pilfering borderers.

K. Hen. We do not mean the coursing snatchers only,

But fear the main intendment of the Scot,
Who hath been still a giddy neighbour to us;
For you shall read that my great grandfather
Never went with his forces into France,
But that the Scot on his unfurnish'd kingdom
Came pouring, like the tide into a breach,
With ample and brim fulness of his force;
Galling the gleaned land with hot essays;
Girding with grievous siege castles and towns:
That England, being empty of defence,
Hath shook and trembled at th' ill neighbourhood.
Cant. She hath been then more fear'd than

harm'd, my liege:

For hear her but exampled by herself,--
When all her chivalry hath been in France,
And she a mourning widow of her nobles,
She hath herself not only well defended,
But taken, and impounded as a stray,
The King of Scots; whom she did send to France.
To fill King Edward's fame with prisoner kings'
And make your chronicles as rich with praise
As is the ooze and bottom of the sea
With sunken wrack and sumless treasuries.
West. But there's a saying, very old and true,-
"If that you will France win,,
Then with Scotland first begin;"
For once the eagle England being in prey,
To her unguarded nest the weasel Scot
Comes sneaking, and so sucks her princely eggs;
Playing the mouse, in absence of the cat,
To taint and havoc more than she can eat.

Ere. It follows, then, the cat must stay at nome
Yet that is but a curs'd necessity;
Since we have locks to safeguard necessaries

Amb. Thus, then, in few. Your highness, lately sending into France, Did claim some certain dukedoms, in the right Of your great predecessor, King Edward the

And pretty traps to catch the petty thieves.
While that the armed hand doth fight abroad,
The advised head defends itself at home:
For government, through high, and low, and lower,
Put into parts, doth keep in one concent;
Congreeing in a full and natural close,
Like music.

Cant.

Therefore doth Heaven divide
The state of man in divers functions,
Setting endeavour in continual motion;
To which is fixed as an aim or butt,
Obedience: for so work the honey-bees;
Creatures, that, by a rule in nature, teach
The act of order to a peopled kingdom.
They have a king, and officers of sorts
Where some, like magistrates, correct at home;
Others, like merchants, venture trade abroad;
Others, like soldiers, armed in their stings,
Make boot upon the summer's velvet buds;
Which pillage they with merry march bring home
To the tent-royal of their emperor:
Who, busied in his majesty, surveys
The singing masons building roofs of gold;
The civil citizens kneading up the honey;
The poor mechanic porters crowding in
Their heavy burthens at his narrow gate,
The sad-ey'd justice, with his surly hum,
Delivering o'er to executors pale

The lazy yawning drone. I this infer,-
That many things, having full reference
To one concent, may work contrariously
As many arrows, loosed several ways,
Fly to one mark; as many ways meet in one town;
As many fresh streams run in one salt sea;
As many lines close in the dial's centre;
So may a thousand actions, once afoot,
End in one purpose, and be all well borne
Without defeat. Therefore to France, my liege.
Divide your happy England into four;
Whereof take you one quarter into France,
And you withal shall make all Gallia shake.
If we, with thrice such powers left at home,
Cannot defend our own door from the dog,
Let us be worried; and our nation lose
The name of hardiness and policy.

[dauphin.
K. Hen. Call in the messengers sent from the
[Exit an Attendant. The KING ascends his throne.
Now are we well resolv'd; and, by God's help
And yours, the noble sinews of our power,
France being ours, we'll bend it to our awe,
Or break it all to pieces: Or there we'll sit,
Ruling, in large and ample empery,

O'er France and all her almost kingly dukedoms,
Or lay these bones in an unworthy urn,
Tombless, with no remembrance over them:
Either our history shall with full mouth
Speak freely of our acts; or else our grave,
Like Turkish mute, shall have a tongueless mouth,
Not worshipp'd with a waxen epitaph.

Enter Ambassadors of France.

Now are we well prepar'd to know the pleasure
Of our fair cousin dauphin; for, we hear,
Your greeting is from him, not from the king.
Amb. May't please your majesty to give us leave
Freely to render what we have in charge;
Or shall we sparingly show you far off
The dauphin's meaning, and our embassy?
K. Hen. We are no tyrant, but a Christian king;
Unto whose grace our passion is as subject,
As are our wretches fetter'd in our prisons:
Therefore, with frank and with uncurb'd plainness
Tell us the dauphin's mind.

Third.

In answer of which claim, the prince our master
Says, that you savour too much of your youth,
And bids you be advis'd, there's nought in France
That can be with a nimble galliard won:
You cannot revel into dukedoms there.
He therefore sends you, meeter for your spirit,
This tun of treasure; and, in lieu of this,
Desires you, let the dukedoms that you claim
Hear no more of you. This the dauphin speaks.
K. Hen. What treasure, uncle?

Exe.
Tennis-balls, my liege.
K. Hen. We are glad the dauphin is so pleasant
with us;

His present, and your pains, we thank you for:
When we have match'd our rackets to these balls,
We will in France, by God's grace, play a set
Shall strike his father's crown into the hazard:
Tell him, he hath made a match with such a
wrangler,

That all the courts of France will be disturb'd
With chaces. And we understand him well,
How he comes o'er us with our wilder days,
Not measuring what use we made of them.
We never valued this poor seat of England;
And therefore, living hence, did give ourself
To barbarous licence; as 'tis ever common,
That men are merriest when they are from home.
But tell the dauphin,-I will keep my state;
Be like a king, and show my sail of greatness,
When I do rouse me in my throne of France:
For that I have laid by my majesty,
And plodded like a man for working-days;
But I will rise there with so full a glory,
That I will dazzle all the eyes of France,
Yea, strike the dauphin blind to look on us.
And tell the pleasant prince, this mock of his
Hath turn'd his balls to gun-stones; and his soul
Shall stand sore charged for the wasteful vengeance
That shall fly with them: for many a thousand
widows
[bands;
Shall this his mock mock out of their dear hus-
Mock mothers from their sons, mock castles down:
And some are yet ungotten and unborn, [scorn.
That shall have cause to curse the dauphin's
But this lies all within the will of God,
To whom I do appeal; and in whose name,
Tell you the dauphin, I am coming on
To venge me as I may, and to put forth
My rightful hand in a well-hallow'd cause.
So, get you hence in peace; and tell the dauphin.
His jest will savour but of shallow wit,
When thousands weep, more than did laugh at it.
Convey them with safe conduct.-Fare you well.
[Exeunt Ambassadors.

Exe. This was a merry message.
K. Hen. We hope to make the sender blush at it.
[Descends from his throne.
Therefore, my lords, omit no happy hour,
That may give furtherance to our expedition.
For we liave now no thought in us but France;
Save those to God, that run before our business.
Therefore, let our proportions for these wars
Be soon collected; and all things thought upon,
That may, with reasonable swiftness, add
More feathers to our wings; for, God before,
We'll chide this dauphin at his father's door.
Therefore, let every man now task his thought,
That this fair action may on foot be brought. Ea