To us and to our purposes confined,
We come within our awful banks again
And knit our powers to the arm of peace.
WESTMORLAND This will I show the general. Please you, lords,
In sight of both our battles we may meet,
At either end in peace, which heaven so frame,
Or to the place of difference call the swords
Which must decide it.
ARCHBISHOP OF YORK My lord, we will do so.
[Exit Westmorland]
MOWBRAY There is a thing within my bosom tells me
That no conditions of our peace can stand.
HASTINGS Fear you not that. If we can make our peace
Upon such large terms and so absolute
As our conditions shall consist upon ,
Our peace shall stand as firm as rocky mountains.
MOWBRAY Ay, but our valuation shall be such
That every slight and false-derivèd cause,
Yea, every idle, nice and wanton reason
Shall to the king taste of this action,
That, were our royal faiths martyrs in love,
We shall be winnowed with so rough a wind
That even our corn shall seem as light as chaff
And good from bad find no partition.
ARCHBISHOP OF YORK No, no, my lord. Note this: the king is weary
Of dainty and such picking grievances,
For he hath found to end one doubt by death
Revives two greater in the heirs of life ,
And therefore will he wipe his tables clean
And keep no tell-tale to his memory
That may repeat and history his loss
To new remembrance. For full well he knows
He cannot so precisely weed this land
As his misdoubts present occasion :
His foes are so enrooted with his friends
That, plucking to unfix an enemy,
He doth unfasten so and shake a friend,
So that this land, like an offensive wife
That hath enraged him on to offer strokes,
As he is striking, holds his infant up
And hangs resolved correction in the arm
That was upreared to execution .
HASTINGS Besides, the king hath wasted all his rods
On late offenders, that he now doth lack
The very instruments of chastisement,
So that his power, like to a fangless lion,
May offer, but not hold.
ARCHBISHOP OF YORK ’Tis very true,
And therefore be assured, my good lord marshal,
If we do now make our atonement well,
Our peace will, like a broken limb united,
Grow stronger for the breaking.
MOWBRAY Be it so.
Here is returned my lord of Westmorland.
Enter Westmorland
WESTMORLAND The prince is here at hand. Pleaseth your lordship
To meet his grace just distance ’tween our armies.
MOWBRAY Your grace of York, in heaven’s name then forward.
ARCHBISHOP OF YORK Before, and greet his grace.— My lord, we
come.
Enter Prince John [and Attendants]
PRINCE JOHN You are well encountered here, my cousin
Mowbray.—
Good day to you, gentle lord archbishop.—
And so to you, Lord Hastings, and to all.—
My lord of York, it better showed with you
When that your flock, assembled by the bell,
Encircled you to hear with reverence
Your exposition on the holy text
Than now to see you here an iron man,
Cheering a rout of rebels with your drum,
Turning the word to sword and life to death.
That man that sits within a monarch’s heart,
And ripens in the sunshine of his favour,
Would he abuse the countenance of the king,
Alack, what mischiefs might he set abroach
In shadow of such greatness! With you, lord bishop,
It is even so. Who hath not heard it spoken
How deep you were within the books of heaven?
To us, the speaker in his parliament;
To us, th’imagined voice of heaven itself,
The very opener and intelligencer
And our dull workings . O, who shall believe
But you misuse the reverence of your place,
Employ the countenance and grace of heaven,
As a false favourite doth his prince’s name,
In deeds dishonourable? You have taken up ,
Under the counterfeited zeal of heaven,
The subjects of heaven’s substitute, my father,
And both against the peace of heaven and him
Have here upswarmèd them.
ARCHBISHOP OF YORK Good my lord of Lancaster,
I am not here against your father’s peace,
But, as I told my lord of Westmorland,
The time misordered 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 charmed 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 .
PRINCE JOHN You are too shallow, Hastings, much too shallow,
To sound the bottom of the after-times.
WESTMORLAND Pleaseth your grace to answer them directly
How far forth you do like their articles.
PRINCE JOHN 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
redressed,
To Archbishop
Upon my life, 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 restorèd love and amity.
ARCHBISHOP OF YORK I take your princely word for these
redresses.
PRINCE JOHN I give it you, and will maintain my word,
And thereupon I drink unto your grace.
Toasts Archbishop
HASTINGS Go, captain, and deliver to the army
This news of peace: let them have pay, and part .
I know it will well please them. Hie thee, captain.
Exit [Officer]
ARCHBISHOP OF YORK To you, my noble lord of
Toasts Westmorland
Westmorland.
WESTMORLAND I pledge your grace, and if you
Toasts Archbishop
knew what pains
I have bestowed to breed this present peace,
You would drink freely. But my love to ye
Shall show itself more openly hereafter.
ARCHBISHOP OF YORK I do not doubt you.
WESTMORLAND I am glad of it.
—
Health to my lord and gentle cousin, Mowbray.
Toasts Mowbray
MOWBRAY You wish me health in very happy season ,
For I am, on the sudden, something ill.
ARCHBISHOP OF YORK Against ill chances men are ever merry,
But heaviness foreruns the good event .
WESTMORLAND Therefore be merry, coz, since sudden sorrow
Serves to say thus: ‘Some good thing comes tomorrow.’
ARCHBISHOP OF YORK Believe me, I am passing light in spirit.
MOWBRAY So much the worse, if your own rule be true.
PRINCE JOHN The word of peace is rendered . Hark, how they
shout!
MOWBRAY This had been cheerful after victory.
ARCHBISHOP OF YORK A peace is of the nature of a conquest,
For then both parties nobly are subdued,
And neither party loser.
PRINCE JOHN Go, my lord,
To Westmorland
And let our army be dischargèd too.—
Exit [Westmorland]
And, good my lord, so please you, let our trains
To Archbishop
March by us, that we may peruse the men
We should have coped withal .
ARCHBISHOP OF YORK Go, good Lord Hastings,
And ere they be dismissed, let them march by.
Exit [Hastings]
PRINCE JOHN I trust, lords, we shall lie tonight together.
Enter Westmorland
Now, cousin, wherefore stands our army still?
WESTMORLAND The leaders, having charge from you to stand,
Will not go off until they hear you speak.
PRINCE JOHN They know their duties.
Enter Hastings
HASTINGS Our army is dispersed.
Like youthful steers unyoked, they took their course
East, west, north, south, or, like a school broke up,
Each hurries toward his home and sporting-place.
WESTMORLAND 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?
WESTMORLAND Is your assembly so?
ARCHBISHOP OF YORK Will you thus break your faith?
PRINCE JOHN I pawned 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 scattered stray .
Heaven, and not we, have safely fought today.
Some guard these traitors to the block of death,
Treason’s true bed and yielder up of breath.
[Exeunt]
Enter Falstaff and Coleville [separately]
FALSTAFF What’s your name, sir? Of what condition are you,
and of what place, I pray?
COLEVILLE I am a knight, sir, and my name is Coleville of the
Dale.
FALSTAFF Well, then, Coleville is your name, a knight is your
degree, and your place, the Dale. Coleville shall still be your
name, a traitor your degree, and the dungeon your place, a
place deep enough so shall you be still Coleville of the Dale.
COLEVILLE 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.
COLEVILLE I think you are Sir John Falstaff, an d 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 and Westmorland [with Blunt and others]
PRINCE JOHN The heat is past. Follow no further now.
Call in the powers, good cousin Westmorland.
[Exit Westmorland]
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 bey 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 Coleville 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.’
PRINCE JOHN 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, I swear, I will have it in a particular ballad, with
mine own picture on the top of it, Coleville kissing my foot:
to the which course, if I be enforced, if you do not all show
like gilt two-pences 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 .
PRINCE JOHN Thine’s too heavy to mount.
FALSTAFF Let it shine, then.
PRINCE JOHN 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.
PRINCE JOHN Is thy name Coleville?
COLEVILLE It is, my lord.
PRINCE JOHN A famous rebel art thou, Coleville.
FALSTAFF And a famous true subject took him.
COLEVILLE 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, gav’st thyself away; and I thank thee for thee.
Enter Westmorland
PRINCE JOHN Have you left pursuit?
WESTMORLAND Retreat is made and execution stayed .
PRINCE JOHN Send Coleville with his confederates
To York, to present execution.—
Blunt, lead him hence, and see you guard him sure.
Exeunt [Blunt and others] with Coleville
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,
To Westmorland
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.
PRINCE JOHN 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 any 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 sherry-sack hath a two-fold operation
in it: it ascends me into the brain, dries me there all the
foolish and dull and curdy 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 sherry 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 sherry warms it and makes it course from the
inwards to the parts extremes : it illuminateth 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 his retinue, doth any deed of
courage, and this valour comes of sherry. 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 sherry, that he is