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may move and what he hears may be believed,
that the true prince may, for recreation sake,
prove a false thief; for the poor abuses of the
time want countenance: Farewell: you shall
find me in Eastcheap.

Prince. Farewell, thou latter spring! farewell, All-
hallown summer!

[Exit Falstaff. Poins. Now, my good sweet honey lord, ride with us to-morrow: I have a jest to execute that I can- 170 not manage alone. Falstaff, Bardolph, Peto and Gadshill shall rob those men that we have already waylaid; yourself and I will not be there; and when they have the booty, if you and I do not rob them, cut this head off from my shoulders. Prince. How shall we part with them in setting forth? Poins. Why, we will set forth before or after them, and appoint them a place of meeting, wherein it is at our pleasure to fail, and then will they adventure upon the exploit themselves; which 180 they shall have no sooner achieved, but we'll set upon them.

Prince. Yea, but 'tis like that they will know us by our horses, by our habits, and by every other appointment, to be ourselves.

Poins. Tut! our horses they shall not see; I'll tie them in the wood; our vizards we will change after we leave them: and, sirrah, I have cases of buckram for the nonce, to inmask our noted outward garments.

Prince. Yea, but I doubt they will be too hard for us. Poins. Well, for two of them, I know them to be astrue-bred cowards as ever turned back; and for

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the third, if he fight longer than he sees reason,
I'll forswear arms. The virtue of this jest will
be, the incomprehensible lies that this same fat
rogue will tell us when we meet at supper: how
thirty, at least, he fought with; what wards,
what blows, what extremities he endured; and
in the reproof of this lies the jest.

Prince. Well, I'll go with thee: provide us all things
necessary, and meet me to-morrow night in
Eastcheap; there I'll sup. Farewell.

Poins. Farewell, my lord.

Prince. I know you all, and will a while uphold
The unyoked humour of your idleness:
Yet herein will I imitate the sun,

Who doth permit the base contagious clouds
To smother up his beauty from the world,
That, when he please again to be himself,
Being wanted, he may be more wonder'd at,
By breaking through the foul and ugly mists
Of vapours that did seem to strangle him.
If all the year were playing holidays,
To sport would be as tedious as to work;

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[Exit.

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But when they seldom come, they wish'd for come,
And nothing pleaseth but rare accidents.

So, when this loose behaviour I throw off
And pay the debt I never promised,
By how much better than my word I am,
By so much shall I falsify men's hopes;
And like bright metal on a sullen ground,
My reformation, glittering o'er my fault,
Shall show more goodly and attract more eyes
Than that which hath no foil to set it off.

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I'll so offend, to make offence a skill;

Redeeming time when men think least I will.

[Exit.

Scene III.

London. The palace.

Enter the King, Northumberland, Worcester, Hotspur, Sir Walter Blunt, with others.

King. My blood hath been too cold and temperate,
Unapt to stir at these indignities,

And you have found me; for accordingly
You tread upon my patience: but be sure
I will from henceforth rather be myself,
Mighty and to be fear'd, than my condition;
Which hath been smooth as oil, soft as young down,
And therefore lost that title of respect
Which the proud soul ne'er pays but to the proud.
Wor. Our house, my sovereign liege, little deserves
The scourge of greatness to be used on it;

And that same greatness too which our own hands
Have holp to make so portly.

North. My lord,

King. Worcester, get thee gone; for I do see

Danger and disobedience in thine eye:

O, sir, your presence is too bold and peremptory,
And majesty might never yet endure

The moody frontier of a servant brow.

ΙΟ

You have good leave to leave us: when we need 20
Your use and counsel, we shall send for you.

You were about to speak.

[Exit Wor.

[To North.

North.

Yea, my good lord.

Those prisoners in your highness' name demanded,
Which Harry Percy here at Holmedon took,
Were, as he says, not with such strength denied
As is deliver'd to your majesty:

Either envy, therefore, or misprision

Is guilty of this fault and not my son.

Hot. My liege, I did deny no prisoners.

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But I remember, when the fight was done,
When I was dry with rage and extreme toil,
Breathless and faint, leaning upon my sword,
Came there a certain lord, neat, and trimly dress'd,
Fresh as a bridegroom; and his chin new reap'd
Show'd like a stubble-land at harvest home;

He was perfumed like a milliner;

And 'twixt his finger and his thumb he held

A pouncet-box, which ever and anon

He gave his nose and took't away again;

Who therewith angry, when it next came there, 40
Took it in snuff; and still he smiled and talk'd,

And as the soldiers bore dead bodies by,

He call'd them untaught knaves, unmannerly,
To bring a slovenly unhandsome corse
Betwixt the wind and his nobility.

With many holiday and lady terms

He question'd me; amongst the rest, demanded
My prisoners in your majesty's behalf.

I then, all smarting with my wounds being cold,

To be so pester'd with a popinjay,

Out of my grief and my impatience,

Answer'd neglectingly I know not what,

He should, or he should not; for he made me mad

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To see him shine so brisk, and smell so sweet,
And talk so like a waiting-gentlewoman

Of guns and drums and wounds,-God save the

mark!

And telling me the sovereign'st thing on earth
Was parmaceti for an inward bruise;

And that it was great pity, so it was,

This villanous salt-petre should be digg'd
Out of the bowels of the harmless earth,
Which many a good tall fellow had destroy'd
So cowardly; and but for these vile guns,
He would himself have been a soldier.
This bald unjointed chat of his, my lord,
I answered indirectly, as I said;
And I beseech you, let not his report
Come current for an accusation

Betwixt my love and your high majesty.

Blunt. The circumstance consider'd, good my lord,
Whate'er Lord Harry Percy then had said
To such a person and in such a place,
At such a time, with all the rest re-told,
May reasonably die and never rise
To do him wrong, or any way impeach
What then he said, so he unsay it now.

King. Why, yet he doth deny his prisoners,

But with proviso and exception,

That we at our own charge shall ransom straight
His brother-in-law, the foolish Mortimer;

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Who, on my soul, hath wilfully betray'd
The lives of those that he did lead to fight

Against that great magician, damn'd Glendower,
Whose daughter, as we hear, the Earl of March

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