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Fal. What is the old king dead? Pist. As nail in door: the things I speak, are just. Fal. Away, Bardolph; saddle my horse.- Master Robert Shallow, choose what office thou wilt in the land, 'tis thine. - Pistol, I will double-charge thee with dignities.

Bard. O joyful day! I would not take a knighthood for my fortune.

Pist. What? I do bring good news? Fal. Carry master Silence to bed. Master Shallow, my lord Shallow, be what thou wilt, I am fortune's steward. Get on thy boots; we'll ride all night: O, sweet Pistol : Away Bardolph. [Exit BARD.] Come, Pistol, utter more to me; and withal, devise something, to do thyself good.— Boot, boot, master Shallow; I know, the young king is sick for me. Let us take any man's horses; the laws of England are at my commandment. Happy are they which have been my friends; and woe to my lord chief justice!

Pist. Let vultures vile seize on his lungs also! Where is the life that late I led, say they : Why, here it is; Welcome these pleasant days. [Exeunt.

SCENE IV.

A public Place near Westminster
Abbey.

Enter two Grooms, strewing Rushes.

1 Groom. More rushes, more rushes.

2 Groom. The trumpets have sounded twice. 1 Groom. It will be two o'clock ere they come from the coronation: Despatch, despatch.

[Exeunt Grooms. Enter FALSTAFF, SHALLOW, PISTOL, BARDOLPH, and the Page.

Fal. Stand here by me, master Robert Shallow; I will make the king do you grace: I will leer upon him, as 'a comes by; and do but mark the countenance that he will give me.

Pist. Bless thy lungs, good knight.

Fal. Come here, Pistol; stand behind me. - - 0, if I had had time to have made new liveries, I would have bestowed the thousand pound I borrowed of you. [To SHALLOW.] But 'tis no matter; this poor show doth better: this doth infer the zeal I had to see him.

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Pist. The heavens thee guard and keep, most royal imp of fame!

Fal. God save thee, my sweet boy!

King. My lord chief justice, speak to that vain

man.

Ch. Just. Have you your wits? know you what 'tis you speak?

Fal. My king! my Jove! I speak to thee, my heart!

King. I know thee not, old man: Fall to thy

prayers;

How ill white hairs become a fool, and jester!
I have long dream'd of such a kind of man,
So surfeit-swell'd, so old, and so profane;
But, being awake, I do despise my dream.
Make less thy body, hence, and more thy grace;
Leave gormandizing; know, the grave doth gape
For thee thrice wider than for other men:
Reply not to me with a fool-born jest ;
Presume not, that I am the thing I was.
For heaven doth know, so shall the world perceive,
That I have turn'd away my former self;
So will I those that kept me company.
When thou dost hear I am as I have been,
Approach me; and thou shalt be as thou wast,
The tutor and the feeder of my riots:
Till then, I banish thee, on pain of death, -
As I have done the rest of my misleaders,
Not to come near our person by ten miles.
For competence of life, I will allow you,
That lack of means enforce you not to evil :
And, as we hear you do reform yourselves,
We will, according to your strength, and qua-
lities,-
lord,
To see perform'd the tenor of our word.
Set on.
[Exeunt KING, and his Train.
Fal. Master Shallow, I owe you a thousand
pound.
Shal. Ay, marry, sir John; which I beseech you
to let me have home with me.

Give you advancement,

Be it your charge, my

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Fal. That can hardly be, master Shallow. not you grieve at this; I shall be sent for in private to him look you, he must seem thus to the world. Fear not your advancement; I will be the man yet, that shall make you great.

Shal. I cannot perceive how; unless you give me your doublet, and stuff me out with straw. I beseech you, good sir John, let me have five hundred of my thousand.

Fal. Sir, I will be as good as my word: this that you heard, was but a colour.

Shal. A colour, I fear, that you will die in, sir John.

Fal. Fear no colours; go with me to dinner. Come, lieutenant Pistol; come, Bardolph : - I shall be sent for soon at night. [Exeunt.

Re-enter PRINCE JOHN, the Chief Justice,
Officers, &c.

P. John. I like this fair proceeding of the king's;
He hath intent, his wonted followers
Shall all be very well provided for;
But all are banish'd, till their conversations
Appear more wise and modest to the world.
Ch. Just. And so they are.

P. John. The king hath call'd his parliament, iny lord. 8 Henceforward.

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As far as France: I heard a bird so sing,

that ere this year | Whose musick, to my thinking, pleas'd the king. Come, will you hence?

We bear our civil swords, and native fire,

[Exeunt.

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FIRST, my fear; then, my court'sy; last, my | speech. My fear is, your displeasure; my court'sy, my duty; and my speech, to beg your pardons. If you look for a good speech now, you undo me: for what I have to say, is of mine own making; and what, indeed, I should say, will, I doubt, prove mine own marring. But to the purpose, and so to the venture. Be it known to you, (as is very well,) I was lately here in the end of a displeasing play, to pray your patience for it, and to promise you a better. I did mean, indeed, to pay you with this; which, if, like an ill venture, it come unluckily home, I break, and you, my gentle creditors lose. Here, I promised you, I would be, and here I commit my body to your mercies: bale me some, and I will pay you some, and as most debtors do, promise you infinitely.

If my tongue cannot entreat you to acquit me, will you command me to use my legs? and yet that were

But

but light payment,· -to dance out of your debt. a good conscience will make any possible satisfaction, and so will I. All the gentlewomen here have forgiven me; if the gentlemen will not, then the gentlemen do not agree with the gentlewomen, which was never seen before in such an assembly.

One word more, I beseech you. If you be not too much cloyed with fat ment, our humble author will continue the story, with sir John in it, and make you merry with fair Katharine of France: where, for any thing I know, Falstaff shall die of a sweat, unless already he be killed with your hard opinions; for Oldcastle died a martyr, and this is not the man. My tongue is weary; when my legs are too, I will bid you good night and so kneel down before you; -but, indeed, to pray for the queen.

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9 Most of the ancient interludes conclude with a prayer for the king or queen. Hence, perhaps, the Vivant Rex & Regina, at the bottom of our modern play-bills.

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EARLS OF SALISBURY, WESTMORELAND, and WAR- DUKES OF BURGUNDY, ORLEANS, and BOURBON.

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Conspirators against the
King.

SIR THOMAS ERPINGHAM, GOWER, FLUELLEN,
MACMORRIS, JAMY, Officers in King
Henry's army.

BATES, COURT, WILLIAMS, Soldiers in the same.
NYM, BARDOLPH, PISTOL, formerly Servants to
Falstaff, now Soldiers in the same.

Boy, Servant to them.

The CONSTABLE of France.

RAMBURES, and GRANDPREE, French Lords.
Governor of Harfleur.

MONTJOY, a French Herald.
Ambassadors to the King of England.

ISABEL, Queen of France.

KATHARINE, Daughter of Charles and Isabel.
ALICE, a Lady attending on the Princess Katharina.
QUICKLY, Pistol's Wife, an Hostess.

Lords, Ladies, Officers, French and English Soldiers.
Messengers, and Attendants.

The SCENE, at the beginning of the play, lies in England; but afterwards wholly in France.

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Enter CHORUS.

O, for a muse of fire that would ascend
The brightest heaven of invention !
A kingdom for a stage, princes to act,
And monarchs to behold the swelling scene!
Then should the warlike Harry, like himself,
Assume the port of Mars; and at his heels,
Leash'd in like hounds, should famine, sword, and
fire,

Crouch for employment. But pardon, gentles all,
The flat unraised spirit, that hath dar'd,
On this unworthy scaffold, to bring forth
So great an object: Can this cockpit bold
The vasty fields of France, or may we cram
Within the wooden O, the very casques,
That did affright the air at Agincourt?
O, pardon! since a crooked figure may

An illusion to the circular form of the theatre. 2 Helmcts.

Attest, in little place, a million;
And let us, ciphers to this great accompt,
On your imaginary forces 9 work:
Suppose, within the girdle of these walls,
Are now confin'd two mighty monarchies,
Whose high upreared and abutting fronts
The perilous, narrow ocean parts asunder.
Piece out our imperfections with your thoughts,
Into a thousand parts divide one man,
And make imaginary puissance :
Think, when we talk of horses, that you see them
Printing their proud hoofs i' the receiving earth:
For 'tis your thoughts that now must deck our kings,
Carry them here and there; jumping o'er times;
Turning the accomplishment of many years
Into an hour-glass; For the which supply,
Admit me Chorus to this history;

Who, prologue-like, your humble patience pray
Gently to hear, kindly to judge, our play.

3 Powers of fancy

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