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.

Lan. 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 every thing is ended, then you come: 30 These tardy tricks of yours will, on my life, One time or other break some gallows' back.

Fal. I would be sorry, my lord, but it should be thus: I never knew yet but rebuke and check was the reward of valor. 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 valor, 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.

Lan. It was more of his courtesy than your deserving.

Fal. 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.

Lan. Thine's too heavy to mount. Fal. Let it shine, then.

61

Stand my good lord, pray, in your good report. Lan. Fare you well, Falstaff: 1, in my condition,

90

Shall better speak of you than you deserve. [Exeunt all but Falstaff.

Fal. 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 sherrissack hath a two-fold operation in it. It ascends me into the brain: dries me there all the foolish and dull and crudy vapors 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

So

warms it and makes it course from the inwards to the parts extreme: 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 valor comes of sherris. 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 endeavor 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.

Enter the KING, the PRINCES THOMAS OF CLARENCE and HUMPHREY OF GLOUCESTER, WARWICK, and others.

King. Now, lords, if God doth give successful end

To this debate that bleedeth at our doors,
We will our youth lead on to higher fields,
And draw no swords but what are sanctified.
Our navy is address'd, our power collected,
Our substitutes in absence well invested,
And every thing lies level to our wish:
Only, we want a little personal strength;
And pause us, till these rebels, now afoot,
Come underneath the yoke of government.
War. Both which we doubt not but your
majesty

Shall soon enjoin.

TO

King. Humphrey, my son of Gloucester, Where is the prince your brother?

Glou. I think he's gone to hunt, my lord, at Windsor.

He loves thee, and thou dost neglect him, Thomas;
Thou hast a better place in his affection
Than all thy brothers: cherish it, my boy,
And noble offices thou mayest effect
Of mediation, after I am dead,
Between his greatness and thy other brethren:
Therefore omit him not; blunt not his love,
Nor lose the good advantage of his grace
By seeming cold or careless of his will;
For he is gracious, if he be observed:
He hath a tear for pity, and a hand
Open as day for melting charity:

30

Yet notwithstanding, being incensed, he's flint,
As humorous as winter and as sudden
As flaws congealed in the spring of day.
His temper, therefore, must be well observed:
Chide him for faults, and do it reverently,
When you perceive his blood inclined to mirth;
But, being moody, give him line and scope,
Till that his passions, like a whale on ground, 40
Confound themselves with working. Learn this,
Thomas,

And thou shalt prove a shelter to thy friends,
A hoop of gold to bind thy brothers in,
That the united vessel of their blood,
Mingled with venom of suggestion-
As, force perforce, the age will pour it in-
Shall never leak, though it do work as strong
As aconitum or rash gunpowder.

[love.

Clar. I shall observe him with all care and King Why art thou not at Windsor with him, Thomas? 50

Clar. He is not there to-day; he dines in London.

King. And how accompanied? canst thou tell that?

Clar. With Poins, and other his continual followers.

King. Most subject is the fattest soil to weeds; And he, the noble image of my youth, Is overspread with them: therefore my grief Stretches itself beyond the hour of death: The blood weeps from my heart when I do shape In forms imaginary the unguided days And rotten times that you shall look upon 60 When I am sleeping with my ancestors. For when his headstrong riot hath no curb, When rage and hot blood are his counsellors, When means and lavish manners meet together, O, with what wings shall his affections fly Towards fronting peril and opposed decay! War. My gracious lord, you look beyond him quite:

The prince but studies his companions Like a strange tongue, wherein, to gain the language,

70

'Tis needful that the most immodest word
Be look'd upon and learn'd; which once attain'd,
Your highness knows, comes to no further use
But to be known and hated. So, like gross terms,
The prince will in the perfectness of time
Cast off his followers; and their memory
Shall as a pattern or a measure live,
By which his grace must mete the lives of others,
Turning past evils to advantages.
King. 'Tis seldom when the bee doth leave
her comb

In the dead carrion.

Enter WESTMORELAND.

Who's here? Westmoreland? 80 West. Health to my sovereign, and new happiness

Added to that that I am to deliver!
Prince John your son doth kiss your grace's hand:
Mowbray, the Bishop Scroop, Hastings and all
Are brought to the correction of your law;
There is not now a rebel's sword unsheath'd,
But Peace puts forth her olive everywhere.
The manner how this action hath been borne
Here at more leisure may your highness read,
With every course in his particular.
90

King. Ó Westmoreland, thou art a summer bird,

Which ever in the haunch of winter sings
The lifting up of day.