Fal. [Rising up.] Embowell'd! if thou embowel me to-day, I'll give you leave to powder me and eat me too to-morrow. 'Sblood, 't was time to counterfeit, or that hot termagant Scot had paid me scot and lot too. Counterfeit? I lie, I am no counterfeit to die is to be a counterfeit; for he is but the counterfeit of a man who hath not the life of a man: but to counterfeit dying, when a man thereby liveth, is to be no counterfeit, but the true and perfect image of life indeed. The better part of valour is discretion; in the which better part I have saved my life. Zounds, I am afraid of this gunpowder Perey, though he be dead: how, if he should counterfeit too and rise? by my faith, I am afraid he would prove the better counterfeit. Therefore I'll make him sure; yea, and I'll swear I kill'd him. Why may not he rise as well as I? Nothing confutes me but eyes, and nobody sees me. Therefore, sirrah [stabbing him, with a new wound in your thigh, come you along with me.

[Takes up Hotspur on his back.

Re-enter the PRINCE OF WALES and LORD JOHN OF LANCASTER.

Prince. Come, brother John; full bravely hast thou flesh'd Thy maiden sword.

Lan.

But, soft! whom have we here?

Did you not tell me this fat man was dead?
Prince. I did; I saw him dead,

Breathless and bleeding on the ground. Art thou alive?
Or is it fantasy that plays upon our eyesight?
I prithee, speak; we will not trust our eyes
Without our ears: thou art not what thou seem'st.

130

Fal. No, that's certain; I am not a double man: but if I be not Jack Falstaff, then am I a Jack. There is Percy [throw ing the body down]: if your father will do me any honour, so: if not, let him kill the next Percy himself. I look to be either earl or duke, I can assure you.

Prince. Why, Percy I kill'd myself, and saw thee dead. 140 Fal. Didst thou? Lord, Lord, how this world is given to lying! I grant you I was down and out of breath; and so was he: but we rose both at an instant and fought a long hour by Shrewsbury clock. If I may be believed, so; if not, let them that should reward valour bear the sin upon their own heads. I'll take it upon my death, I gave him this wound in the thigh: if the man were alive and would deny it, 'zounds, I would make him eat a piece of my sword.

Lan. This is the strangest tale that ever I heard.
Prince. This is the strangest fellow, brother John.

Come, bring your luggage nobly on your back:

150

112 powder me salt me, or, as we should say nowadays, corn me; the fine or pow dered salt of old times having been replaced by the coarse, corn-like salt we use.

For my part, if a lie may do thee grace,
I'll gild it with the happiest terms I have.
The trumpet sounds retreat; the day is ours.
Come, brother, let us to the highest of the field,
To see what friends are living, who are dead.

[A retreat is sounded.

[Exeunt Prince of Wales and Lancaster. Fal. I'll follow, as they say, for reward. He that rewards me, God reward him! If I do grow great again, I'll grow less; for I'll purge, and leave sack, and live cleanly as a nobleman should do.

SCENE V. Another part of the field.

[Exit.

The trumpets sound. Enter the KING, PRINCE OF WALES, LORD JOHN OF LANCASTER, EARL
OF WESTMORELAND, with WORCESTER and VERNON prisoners.

King. Thus ever did rebellion find rebuke.
Ill-spirited Worcester! did not we send grace,
Pardon and terms of love to all of you?
And wouldst thou turn our offers contrary?
Misuse the tenour of thy kinsman's trust?
Three knights upon our party slain to-day,
A noble earl and many a creature else
Had been alive this hour,

If like a Christian thou hadst truly borne

Betwixt our armies true intelligence.

Wor. What I have done my safety urg'd me to; And I embrace this fortune patiently,

Since not to be avoided it falls on me.

King. Bear Worcester to the death and Vernon too: Other offenders we will pause upon.

How

goes the field?

IO

[Exeunt Worcester and Vernon, guarded.

Prince. The noble Scot, Lord Douglas, when he saw

The fortune of the day quite turn'd from him,

The noble Percy slain, and all his men

Upon the foot of fear, fled with the rest;
And falling from a hill, he was so bruis'd
That the pursuers took him.
At my tent

The Douglas is; and I beseech your grace

I may dispose of him.

King.

With all

my heart.

Prince. Then, brother John of Lancaster, to you

This honourable bounty shall belong:

Go to the Douglas, and deliver him

Up to his pleasure, ransomless and free:

20

18 grote great again. Falstaff was by birth and breeding a gentleman of position,

which he had lost by debauchery and evil courses.

His valour shown upon our crests to-day

Hath taught us how to cherish such high deeds
Even in the bosom of our adversaries.

King. Then this remains, that we divide our power.
You, son John, and my cousin Westmoreland
Towards York shall bend you with your
dearest speed,
To meet Northumberland and the prelate Scroop,
Who, as we hear, are busily in arms:

Myself and you, son Harry, will towards Wales,
To fight with Glendower and the Earl of March.
Rebellion in this land shall lose his sway,
Meeting the check of such another day:
And since this business so fair is done,
Let us not leave till all our own be won.

81 our adversaries.

Prince John: -

30

[Exeunt.

Here the earlier quartos give this drivelling cacophonous speech to

"I thank your grace for this high courtesy,

Which I shall give away immediately."

It is as out of place as the braying of an ass in one of Handel's choruses, and is plainly an interpolation by or for the actor of Prince John, who wished to close his perform ance with a rhyming "tag."

THE SECOND PART OF

KING HENRY THE FOURTH.

INTRODUCTION.

THE origin of the Second Part of King Henry IV. is of course the same as that of the First Part. Indeed, Richard II., the two Parts of Henry IV., and Henry V., may be regarded as the dramatization of one story. This Part of Henry IV. was published once, A. D. 1600, in quarto form before the publication of the folio of 1623. The quarto version lacks some important passages which are found in the folio, and which had probably been struck out of the acting copy for the sake of brevity. The folio also corrects many errors in the text of the quarto; so that, although the latter is on the whole the most authoritative edition in regard to that part of the play which it gives, a satisfactory text can be made only by a judicious selection from the readings of the two editions. This play was written in the 1597. In the folio a list of the dramatis persona is very rarely given; but in this case there is at the end one of such remarkable fulness and particularity of description, and such characteristic style, that I give a literal transcript of it.

THE
ACTORS

year