But God be thanked for prevention;
Which I in sufferance heartily will rejoice,
Beseeching God and you to pardon me.

Grey. Never did faithful subject more rejoice
At the discovery of most dangerous treason
Than I do at this hour joy o'er myself,
Prevented from a damned enterprise :

My fault, but not my body, pardon, sovereign.
K. Hen. God quit you in his mercy! Hear
your sentence.

You have conspired against our royal person,
Join'd with an enemy proclaim'd and from his

coffers

Received the golden earnest of our death; Wherein you would have sold your king to slaughter,

His princes and his peers to servitude,
His subjects to oppression and contempt
And his whole kingdom into desolation.
Touching our person seek we no revenge;
But we our kingdom's safety must so tender,
Whose ruin you have sought, that to her laws
We do deliver you. Get you therefore hence,
Poor miserable wretches, to your death:
The taste whereof, God of his mercy give
You patience to endure, and true repentance
Of all your dear offences! Bear them hence.
[Exeunt Cambridge, Scroop and Grey,

guarded.

Now, lords, for France; the enterprise whereof
Shall be to you, as us, like

158. for prevention, for having forestalled me.

159. rejoice, rejoice at.

165. My fault, but not my body. Probably derived from a

glorious.

160

170

180

letter addressed to the queen in 1585 by Parry, after his conviction of treason: Discharge me A culpa, but not A pæna, good ladie.'

169. earnest, earnest-money.

We doubt not of a fair and lucky war,

Since God so graciously hath brought to light
This dangerous treason lurking in our way
To hinder our beginnings. We doubt not now
But every rub is smoothed on our way.
Then forth, dear countrymen : let us deliver
Our puissance into the hand of God,
Putting it straight in expedition.
Cheerly to sea; the signs of war advance :
No king of England, if not king of France.

[Exeunt.

SCENE III. London. Before a tavern.

Enter PISTOL, Hostess, NYм, BARDOLPH, and
Boy.

Host. Prithee, honey-sweet husband, let me bring thee to Staines.

Pist. No; for my manly heart doth yearn. Bardolph, be blithe: Nym, rouse thy vaunting veins :

Boy, bristle thy courage up; for Falstaff he is dead,
And we must yearn therefore.

Bard. Would I were with him, wheresome'er he is, either in heaven or in hell!

190

Host. Nay, sure, he's not in hell: he's in Arthur's bosom, if ever man went to Arthur's 10 bosom. A' made a finer end and went away an it had been any christom

191. in expedition, in march. 2. to Staines, the first stage on the road to Southampton.

11. finer, the Hostess' blunder for 'final.'

12. christom child, a child dying within a month of birth.

child; a' parted even

'Christom is Mrs. Quickly's mixture of ' christen and 'chrisome,' the latter being the white cloth bound round the head of the newly christened child and removed at the end of the first month.

just between twelve and one, even at the turning o' the tide for after I saw him fumble with the sheets and play with flowers and smile upon his fingers' ends, I knew there was but one way; for his nose was as sharp as a pen, and a' babbled of green fields. 'How now, Sir John!' quoth I: 'what, man! be o' good cheer.' So a' cried out 'God, God, God!' three or four times.

Now I,

to comfort him, bid him a' should not think of God; I hoped there was no need to trouble himself with any such thoughts yet. So a' bade me lay more clothes on his feet: I put my hand into the bed and felt them, and they were as cold as any stone; then I felt to his knees, and they were as cold as any stone, and so upward and upward, and all was as cold as any stone.

Nym. They say he cried out of sack.

Host. Ay, that a' did.

Bard. And of women.

Host. Nay, that a' did not.

Boy. Yes, that a' did; and said they were devils incarnate.

Host. A' could never abide carnation; 'twas a colour he never liked.

Boy. A' said once, the devil would have him about women.

20

30

Host. A' did in some sort, indeed, handle women; but then he was rheumatic, and talked 40 of the whore of Babylon.

Boy. Do you not remember, a' saw a flea stick upon Bardolph's nose, and a' said it was a black soul burning in hell-fire?

Bard. Well, the fuel is gone that maintained that fire that's all the riches I got in his service. Nym. Shall we shog? the king will be gone from Southampton.

Pist. Come, let's away. My love, give me thy lips.

Look to my chattels and my movables:

Let senses rule; the word is 'Pitch and Pay:'
Trust none;

For oaths are straws, men's faiths are wafer-cakes,
And hold-fast is the only dog, my duck:

Therefore, Caveto be thy counsellor.

Go, clear thy crystals.

Yoke-fellows in arms,

Let us to France; like horse-leeches, my boys,
To suck, to suck, the very blood to suck!

say.

Boy. And that's but unwholesome food, they

Pist. Touch her soft mouth, and march.
Bard. Farewell, hostess.

[Kissing her.

Nym. I cannot kiss, that is the humour of it; but, adieu.

Pist. Let housewifery appear: keep close, I

thee command. Host. Farewell; adieu.

47. shog, be off.

51. 'Pitch and Pay,' 'pay down' ready money; originally it seems a phrase of the London cloth-trade, meaning 'pitch' (or deposit) the cloth in the clothhall, and pay (as a statute

[Exeunt.

50

60

required) at the same time the fee or hallage.

54. hold-fast is the only dog. Douce quotes a contemporary proverb: Brag is a good dog, but Hold-fast is a better.'

VOL. VII

49

E

SCENE IV. France. The KING'S palace.

Flourish. Enter the FRENCH KING, the DAUPHIN, the DUKES OF BERRI and BRETAGNE, the CONSTABLE, and others.

Fr. King. Thus comes the English with full power upon us;

And more than carefully it us concerns

To answer royally in our defences.

Therefore the Dukes of Berri and of Bretagne,
Of Brabant and of Orleans, shall make forth,
And you, Prince Dauphin, with all swift dispatch,
To line and new repair our towns of war
With men of courage and with means defendant ;
For England his approaches makes as fierce
As waters to the sucking of a gulf.

It fits us then to be as provident

As fear may teach us out of late examples
Left by the fatal and neglected English
Upon our fields.

Dau.

My most redoubted father,
It is most meet we arm us 'gainst the foe;
For peace itself should not so dull a kingdom,
Though war nor no known quarrel were in question,
But that defences, musters, preparations,

Should be maintain'd, assembled and collected,
As were a war in expectation.

Therefore, I say 'tis meet we all go forth
To view the sick and feeble parts of France:
And let us do it with no show of fear;

No, with no more than if we heard that England

10

20

13. fatal and neglected, made light of to our ruin.