Free from gross passion or of mirth or anger,
Constant in spirit, not swerving with the blood,
Garnish'd and deck'd in modest complement,
Not working with the eye without the ear,
And but in purged judgement trusting neither?
Such and so finely bolted didst thou seem:
And thus thy fall hath left a kind of blot,
To mark the full-fraught man and best-indued
With some suspicion. I will weep for thee;
For this revolt of thine, methinks, is like
Another fall of man.

Their faults are open:

Arrest them to the answer of the law;
And God acquit them of their practices !

Exe. I arrest thee of high treason, by the name of Richard Earl of Cambridge.

I arrest thee of high treason, by the name of Henry Lord Scroop of Masham.

I arrest thee of high treason, by the name of Thomas Grey, knight, of Northumberland.

Scroop. Our purposes God justly hath discover'd; And I repent my fault more than my death; Which I beseech your highness to forgive, Although my body pay the price of it.

Cam. For me, the gold of France did not seduce;

Although I did admit it as a motive

The sooner to effect what I intended:

133. blood, impulse of passion. 134. complement, outward demeanour, manners.

135. Not working with the eye without the ear, not judging by the looks of men without having had intercourse with them.

137. bolted, sifted, purified from dross.

139. mark the, Theobald's correction for Ff 'make thee.'

140

150

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 glorious.

158. for prevention, for having forestalled me.

159. rejoice, rejoice at.

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

170

180

letter addressed to the queen in 1585 by Parry, after his conviction of treason: Discharge me A culpa, but not A pena, 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, NYM, 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

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 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.

13. at the turning o' the tide; according to a current belief, death took place only during the ebb.

14. fumble with the sheets, a supposed symptom of approaching death.

17. a' babbled of green fields; Theobald's famous correction of Ff and a Table of greene

fields.' Delius, almost alone among recent editors, retains the Folio reading, on account of Mrs. Quickly's habitual proneness to nonsense. But her nonsense is always intelligible.

29. of, 'on,' at; he cried out against it.

40. rheumatic, i. e. lunatic.

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

a flea was a

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!

Boy. And that's but unwholesome food, they say.

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

[Exeunt.

50

ба

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.'

E