King Henry IV, Part 2 - William Shakespeare (short books to read txt) 📗

here up-swarm’d them.

ARCHBISHOP. Good my Lord of Lancaster, I am not here against your father’s peace; But, as I told my Lord of Westmoreland, The time misorder’d doth, in common sense, Crowd us and crush us to this monstrous form To hold our safety up. I sent your grace The parcels and particulars of our grief, The which hath been with scorn shoved from the court, Whereon this Hydra son of war is born; Whose dangerous eyes may well be charm’d asleep With grant of our most just and right desires, And true obedience, of this madness cured, Stoop tamely to the foot of majesty.

MOWBRAY. If not, we ready are to try our fortunes To the last man.

HASTINGS. And though we here fall down, We have supplies to second our attempt: If they miscarry, theirs shall second them; And so success of mischief shall be born And heir from heir shall hold this quarrel up Whiles England shall have generation.

LANCASTER. You are too shallow, Hastings, much to shallow, To sound the bottom of the after-times.

WESTMORELAND. Pleaseth your grace to answer them directly How far forth you do like their articles.

LANCASTER. I like them all, and do allow them well, 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.

LANCASTER. 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.]

LANCASTER. The word of peace is render’d: 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 subdued, And neither party loser.

LANCASTER. 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 coped withal.

ARCHBISHOP. Go, good Lord Hastings, And, ere they be dismiss’d, let them march by.

[Exit Hastings.]

LANCASTER. I trust, lords, we shall lie to-night 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.

LANCASTER. They know their duties.

[Re-enter Hastings.]

HASTINGS. My lord, our army is dispersed already: Like youthful steers unyoked, 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?

LANCASTER. I pawn’d thee none: I promised 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 scattr’d 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 Colevile, meeting.]

FALSTAFF. What ‘s your name, sir? of what condition are you, and of what place, I pray?

COLEVILE. I am a knight sir; and my name is Colevile of the Dale.

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

COLEVILE. Are not you Sir John Falstaff?

FALSTAFF. As good a man as he, sir, whoe’er I am. Do ye 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.

COLEVILE. 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.]

LANCASTER. 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 foundered nine score and odd posts: and here, travel-tainted as I am, have, in my pure and immaculate valour, taken Sir John Colevile 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-nosed fellow of Rome, “I came, saw, and overcame.”

LANCASTER. 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 booked 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, Colevile kissing my foot: to the which course if I be enforced, 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.

LANCASTER. Thine ‘s too heavy to mount.

FALSTAFF. Let it shine, then.

LANCASTER. 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.

LANCASTER. Is thy name Colevile?

COLEVILE. It is, my lord.

LANCASTER. A famous rebel art thou, Colevile.

FALSTAFF. And a famous true subject took him.

COLEVILE. I am, my lord, but as my betters are That led me hither: had they been ruled 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.]

LANCASTER. Now, have you left pursuit?

WESTMORELAND. Retreat is made and execution stay’d.

LANCASTER. Send Colevile with his confederates To York, to present execution. Blunt, lead him hence; and see you guard him sure.

[Exeunt Blunt and others with Colevile.]

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.

LANCASTER. 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 two-fold 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 puffed 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 tilled 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 tempering 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, the Princes Thomas of