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As by discharge of their artillery,

And shape of likelihood, the news was told;
For he that brought them, in the very heat
And pride of their contention did take horse, 60
Uncertain of the issue any way.

King. Here is a dear, a true industrious friend,
Sir Walter Blunt, new lighted from his horse,
Stain'd with the variation of each soil

Betwixt that Homildon and this seat of ours;
And he hath brought us smooth and welcome

news.

The Earl of Douglas is discomfited:

Ten thousand bold Scots, two and twenty knights,

Balk'd in their own blood did Sir Walter see
On Homildon's plains. Of prisoners, Hot-
spur took

Mordake the Earl of Fife, and eldest son
To beaten Douglas; and the Earl of Athol,
Of Murray, Angus, and Menteith:

70

57. "their artillery"; Holinshed says that "with violence of the English shot [the Scotch] were quite vanquished and put to flight." Holinshed means arrows, and Mr. Wright suggests that Shakespeare "may have misunderstood" the ambiguous word "shot." In another account of the battle, however (Hist. of Scotland, ii. 254, quot. Stone, p. 132), Holinshed speaks expressly of the "incessant shot of arrows.” It is probable that Shakespeare understood perfectly that Holinshed meant arrows, and chose himself to mean the more impressive discharge of cannon.-C. H. H.

64. No circumstance could have been better chosen to mark the expedition of Sir Walter. It is used by Falstaff in a similar manner, "to stand stained with travel.”—H. N. H.

71. "Mordake the Earl of Fife"; this was "Murdach Stewart, not the son of Douglas, but the eldest son of Robert, Duke of Albany, Regent of Scotland, third son of King Robert II” (“the” first supplied by Pope).—I. G.

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And is not this an honorable spoil?
A gallant prize? ha, cousin, is it not?
West. In faith,

It is a conquest for a prince to boast of. King. Yea, there thou makest me sad and makest me sin

80

In envy that my Lord Northumberland
Should be the father to so blest a son,
A son who is the theme of honor's tongue;
Amongst a grove, the very straightest plant;
Who is sweet Fortune's minion and her pride:
Whilst I, by looking on the praise of him,
See riot and dishonor stain the brow

Of my young Harry. O that it could be
proved

That some night-tripping fairy had exchanged
In cradle-clothes our children where they lay,
And call'd mine Percy, his Plantagenet!

Then would I have his Harry, and he mine. 90
But let him from my thoughts. What think
you, coz,

Of this young Percy's pride? the prisoners,
Which he in this adventure hath surprised,
To his own use he keeps; and sends me word,
I shall have none but Mordake Earl of Fife.

95. Percy had an exclusive right to these prisoners, except the earl of Fife. By the law of arms, every man who had taken any captive, whose redemption did not exceed ten thousand crowns, had him clearly to himself to acquit or ransom at his pleasure. But Percy could not refuse the earl of Fife; for, he being a prince of the royal blood, Henry might justly claim him, by his acknowledged military prerogative.-H. N. H.

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West. This is his uncle's teaching: this is Worces

ter,

Malevolent to you in all aspects;

up

Which makes him prune himself, and bristle
The crest of youth against your dignity.
King. But I have sent for him to answer this; 100
And for this cause awhile we must neglect
Our holy purpose to Jerusalem.

Cousin, on Wednesday next our council we
Will hold at Windsor; so inform the lords:
But come yourself with speed to us again;
For more is to be said and to be done
Than out of anger can be uttered.
West. I will, my liege.

[Exeunt.

SCENE II

London. An apartment of the Prince's.
Enter the Prince of Wales and Falstaff.
Fal. Now, Hal, what time of day is it, lad?
Prince. Thou are so fat-witted, with drinking

of old sack and unbuttoning thee after sup-
per and sleeping upon benches after noon,

96. "Worcester"; Thomas Percy, Earl of Worcester, younger brother of the Earl of Northumberland.-C. H. H.

97. An astrological allusion. Worcester is represented as a malignant star that influenced the conduct of Hotspur.-H. N. H.

107. That is, more is to be said than anger will suffer me to say.— H. N. H.

Scene 2. The place of this scene, which cannot be made more specific, was first given thus by Theobald.-C. H. H.

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that thou hast forgotten to demand that truly which thou wouldst truly know. What a devil hast thou to do with the time of the day? Unless hours were cups of sack, and minutes capons, and clocks the tongues of bawds, and dials the signs of 10 leaping-houses, and the blessed sun himself a fair hot wench in flame-colored taffeta, I see no reason why thou shouldst be so superfluous to demand the time of the day. Fal. Indeed, you come near me now, Hal; for we that take purses go by the moon and the seven stars, and not by Phoebus, he, 'that wandering knight so fair.' And, I prithee, sweet wag, when thou art king, as, God save thy grace, majesty I should say, for grace

thou wilt have none,

Prince. What, none?

Fal. No, by my troth, not so much as will serve

to be prologue to an egg and butter. Prince. Well, how then? come,

roundly.

roundly,

20

16. "the seven stars"; so in the first four quartos; the other old copies and modern editions generally omit the.-H. N. H.

17. "that wandering knight so fair"; an allusion to "El Donzel del Febo," the "Knight of the Sun," whose adventures were translated from the Spanish:-"The First Part of the Mirrour of Princely deeds and Knighthood: Wherein is shewed the Worthiness of the Knight of the Sunne and his brother Rosicleer. Now newly translated out of Spanish into our vulgar English tongue, by M(argaret) T(iler)"; eight parts of the book were published between 1579 and 1601. Shirley alludes to the Knight in the Gamester (iii. 1) :—

"He has knocked the flower of chivalry, the very
Donzel del Phebo of the time.”—I. G.

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Fal. Marry, then, sweet wag, when thou art king, let not us that are squires of the night's body be called thieves of the day's beauty: let us be Diana's foresters, gentle- 30 men of the shade, minions of the moon; and let men say we be men of good government, being governed, as the sea is, by our noble and chaste mistress the moon, under whose countenance we steal.

Prince. Thou sayest well, and it holds well too;

for the fortune of us that are the moon's
men doth ebb and flow like the sea, being
governed, as the sea is, by the moon. As,
for proof, now: a purse of gold most reso- 40
lutely snatched on Monday night and most
dissolutely spent on Tuesday morning; got
with swearing 'Lay by' and spent with cry-
ing 'Bring in;' now in as low an ebb as the
foot of the ladder, and by and by in as high
a flow as the ridge of the gallows.

Fal. By the Lord, thou sayest true, lad. And
is not my hostess of the tavern a most sweet
wench?

Prince. As the honey of Hybla, my old lad 50

29, 30. "night's"; "beauty"; Falstaff is an inveterate player upon words, as here between "night" and knight, and "beauty" and booty. A squire of the body originally meant an attendant on a knight, but became a sort of flash phrase for a pimp.—As to "Diana's foresters," Hall the chronicler tells of a pageant exhibited in the reign of Henry VIII wherein were certain persons called Diana's knights.-H. N. H. 50. "Of Hybla"; reading of Qq., omitted in Ff.; "my old lad of the castle"; probably a pun on the original name of Falstaff (cp. Preface).-I. G.