Henry IV, Part II: Full Text


Act 1

     Enter LORD BARDOLPH

LORD BARDOLPH: Who keeps the gate here, ho?

    The Porter opens the gate
    Where is the earl?

Porter: What shall I say you are?

LORD BARDOLPH: Tell thou the earl
    That the Lord Bardolph doth attend him here.

Porter: His lordship is walk'd forth into the orchard;
    Please it your honour, knock but at the gate,
    And he himself wilt answer.

    Enter NORTHUMBERLAND

LORD BARDOLPH: Here comes the earl.

    Exit Porter

NORTHUMBERLAND: What news, Lord Bardolph? every minute now
    Should be the father of some stratagem:
    The times are wild: contention, like a horse
    Full of high feeding, madly hath broke loose
    And bears down all before him.

LORD BARDOLPH: Noble earl,
    I bring you certain news from Shrewsbury.

NORTHUMBERLAND: Good, an God will!

LORD BARDOLPH: As good as heart can wish:
    The king is almost wounded to the death;
    And, in the fortune of my lord your son,
    Prince Harry slain outright; and both the Blunts
    Kill'd by the hand of Douglas; young Prince John
    And Westmoreland and Stafford fled the field;
    And Harry Monmouth's brawn, the hulk Sir John,
    Is prisoner to your son: O, such a day,
    So fought, so follow'd and so fairly won,
    Came not till now to dignify the times,
    Since Caesar's fortunes!

NORTHUMBERLAND: How is this derived?
    Saw you the field? came you from Shrewsbury?

LORD BARDOLPH: I spake with one, my lord, that came from thence,
    A gentleman well bred and of good name,
    That freely render'd me these news for true.

NORTHUMBERLAND: Here comes my servant Travers, whom I sent
    On Tuesday last to listen after news.

    Enter TRAVERS

LORD BARDOLPH: My lord, I over-rode him on the way;
    And he is furnish'd with no certainties
    More than he haply may retail from me.

NORTHUMBERLAND: Now, Travers, what good tidings comes with you?

TRAVERS: My lord, Sir John Umfrevile turn'd me back
    With joyful tidings; and, being better horsed,
    Out-rode me. After him came spurring hard
    A gentleman, almost forspent with speed,
    That stopp'd by me to breathe his bloodied horse.
    He ask'd the way to Chester; and of him
    I did demand what news from Shrewsbury:
    He told me that rebellion had bad luck
    And that young Harry Percy's spur was cold.
    With that, he gave his able horse the head,
    And bending forward struck his armed heels
    Against the panting sides of his poor jade
    Up to the rowel-head, and starting so
    He seem'd in running to devour the way,
    Staying no longer question.

NORTHUMBERLAND: Ha! Again:
    Said he young Harry Percy's spur was cold?
    Of Hotspur Coldspur? that rebellion
    Had met ill luck?

LORD BARDOLPH: My lord, I'll tell you what;
    If my young lord your son have not the day,
    Upon mine honour, for a silken point
    I'll give my barony: never talk of it.

NORTHUMBERLAND: Why should that gentleman that rode by Travers
    Give then such instances of loss?

LORD BARDOLPH: Who, he?
    He was some hilding fellow that had stolen
    The horse he rode on, and, upon my life,
    Spoke at a venture. Look, here comes more news.

    Enter MORTON

NORTHUMBERLAND: Yea, this man's brow, like to a title-leaf,
    Foretells the nature of a tragic volume:
    So looks the strand whereon the imperious flood
    Hath left a witness'd usurpation.
    Say, Morton, didst thou come from Shrewsbury?

MORTON: I ran from Shrewsbury, my noble lord;
    Where hateful death put on his ugliest mask
    To fright our party.

NORTHUMBERLAND: How doth my son and brother?
    Thou tremblest; and the whiteness in thy cheek
    Is apter than thy tongue to tell thy errand.
    Even such a man, so faint, so spiritless,
    So dull, so dead in look, so woe-begone,
    Drew Priam's curtain in the dead of night,
    And would have told him half his Troy was burnt;
    But Priam found the fire ere he his tongue,
    And I my Percy's death ere thou report'st it.
    This thou wouldst say, 'Your son did thus and thus;
    Your brother thus: so fought the noble Douglas:'
    Stopping my greedy ear with their bold deeds:
    But in the end, to stop my ear indeed,
    Thou hast a sigh to blow away this praise,
    Ending with 'Brother, son, and all are dead.'

MORTON: Douglas is living, and your brother, yet;
    But, for my lord your son--

NORTHUMBERLAND: Why, he is dead.
    See what a ready tongue suspicion hath!
    He that but fears the thing he would not know
    Hath by instinct knowledge from others' eyes
    That what he fear'd is chanced. Yet speak, Morton;
    Tell thou an earl his divination lies,
    And I will take it as a sweet disgrace
    And make thee rich for doing me such wrong.

MORTON: You are too great to be by me gainsaid:
    Your spirit is too true, your fears too certain.

NORTHUMBERLAND: Yet, for all this, say not that Percy's dead.
    I see a strange confession in thine eye:
    Thou shakest thy head and hold'st it fear or sin
    To speak a truth. If he be slain, say so;
    The tongue offends not that reports his death:
    And he doth sin that doth belie the dead,
    Not he which says the dead is not alive.
    Yet the first bringer of unwelcome news
    Hath but a losing office, and his tongue
    Sounds ever after as a sullen bell,
    Remember'd tolling a departing friend.

LORD BARDOLPH: I cannot think, my lord, your son is dead.

MORTON: I am sorry I should force you to believe
    That which I would to God I had not seen;
    But these mine eyes saw him in bloody state,
    Rendering faint quittance, wearied and out-breathed,
    To Harry Monmouth; whose swift wrath beat down
    The never-daunted Percy to the earth,
    From whence with life he never more sprung up.
    In few, his death, whose spirit lent a fire
    Even to the dullest peasant in his camp,
    Being bruited once, took fire and heat away
    From the best temper'd courage in his troops;
    For from his metal was his party steel'd;
    Which once in him abated, all the rest
    Turn'd on themselves, like dull and heavy lead:
    And as the thing that's heavy in itself,
    Upon enforcement flies with greatest speed,
    So did our men, heavy in Hotspur's loss,
    Lend to this weight such lightness with their fear
    That arrows fled not swifter toward their aim
    Than did our soldiers, aiming at their safety,
    Fly from the field. Then was the noble Worcester
    Too soon ta'en prisoner; and that furious Scot,
    The bloody Douglas, whose well-labouring sword
    Had three times slain the appearance of the king,
    'Gan vail his stomach and did grace the shame
    Of those that turn'd their backs, and in his flight,
    Stumbling in fear, was took. The sum of all
    Is that the king hath won, and hath sent out
    A speedy power to encounter you, my lord,
    Under the conduct of young Lancaster
    And Westmoreland. This is the news at full.

NORTHUMBERLAND: For this I shall have time enough to mourn.
    In poison there is physic; and these news,
    Having been well, that would have made me sick,
    Being sick, have in some measure made me well:
    And as the wretch, whose fever-weaken'd joints,
    Like strengthless hinges, buckle under life,
    Impatient of his fit, breaks like a fire
    Out of his keeper's arms, even so my limbs,
    Weaken'd with grief, being now enraged with grief,
    Are thrice themselves. Hence, therefore, thou nice crutch!
    A scaly gauntlet now with joints of steel
    Must glove this hand: and hence, thou sickly quoif!
    Thou art a guard too wanton for the head
    Which princes, flesh'd with conquest, aim to hit.
    Now bind my brows with iron; and approach
    The ragged'st hour that time and spite dare bring
    To frown upon the enraged Northumberland!
    Let heaven kiss earth! now let not Nature's hand
    Keep the wild flood confined! let order die!
    And let this world no longer be a stage
    To feed contention in a lingering act;
    But let one spirit of the first-born Cain
    Reign in all bosoms, that, each heart being set
    On bloody courses, the rude scene may end,
    And darkness be the burier of the dead!

TRAVERS: This strained passion doth you wrong, my lord.

LORD BARDOLPH: Sweet earl, divorce not wisdom from your honour.

MORTON: The lives of all your loving complices
    Lean on your health; the which, if you give o'er
    To stormy passion, must perforce decay.
    You cast the event of war, my noble lord,
    And summ'd the account of chance, before you said
    'Let us make head.' It was your presurmise,
    That, in the dole of blows, your son might drop:
    You knew he walk'd o'er perils, on an edge,
    More likely to fall in than to get o'er;
    You were advised his flesh was capable
    Of wounds and scars and that his forward spirit
    Would lift him where most trade of danger ranged:
    Yet did you say 'Go forth;' and none of this,
    Though strongly apprehended, could restrain
    The stiff-borne action: what hath then befallen,
    Or what hath this bold enterprise brought forth,
    More than that being which was like to be?

LORD BARDOLPH: We all that are engaged to this loss
    Knew that we ventured on such dangerous seas
    That if we wrought our life 'twas ten to one;
    And yet we ventured, for the gain proposed
    Choked the respect of likely peril fear'd;
    And since we are o'erset, venture again.
    Come, we will all put forth, body and goods.

MORTON: 'Tis more than time: and, my most noble lord,
    I hear for certain, and do speak the truth,
    The gentle Archbishop of York is up
    With well-appointed powers: he is a man
    Who with a double surety binds his followers.
    My lord your son had only but the corpse,
    But shadows and the shows of men, to fight;
    For that same word, rebellion, did divide
    The action of their bodies from their souls;
    And they did fight with queasiness, constrain'd,
    As men drink potions, that their weapons only
    Seem'd on our side; but, for their spirits and souls,
    This word, rebellion, it had froze them up,
    As fish are in a pond. But now the bishop
    Turns insurrection to religion:
    Supposed sincere and holy in his thoughts,
    He's followed both with body and with mind;
    And doth enlarge his rising with the blood
    Of fair King Richard, scraped from Pomfret stones;
    Derives from heaven his quarrel and his cause;
    Tells them he doth bestride a bleeding land,
    Gasping for life under great Bolingbroke;
    And more and less do flock to follow him.

NORTHUMBERLAND: I knew of this before; but, to speak truth,
    This present grief had wiped it from my mind.
    Go in with me; and counsel every man
    The aptest way for safety and revenge:
    Get posts and letters, and make friends with speed:
    Never so few, and never yet more need.

    Exeunt

     Enter FALSTAFF, with his Page bearing his sword and buckler

FALSTAFF: Sirrah, you giant, what says the doctor to my water?

Page: He said, sir, the water itself was a good healthy
    water; but, for the party that owed it, he might
    have more diseases than he knew for.

FALSTAFF: Men of all sorts take a pride to gird at me: the
    brain of this foolish-compounded clay, man, is not
    able to invent anything that tends to laughter, more
    than I invent or is invented on me: I am not only
    witty in myself, but the cause that wit is in other
    men. I do here walk before thee like a sow that
    hath overwhelmed all her litter but one. If the
    prince put thee into my service for any other reason
    than to set me off, why then I have no judgment.
    Thou whoreson mandrake, thou art fitter to be worn
    in my cap than to wait at my heels. I was never
    manned with an agate till now: but I will inset you
    neither in gold nor silver, but in vile apparel, and
    send you back again to your master, for a jewel,--
    the juvenal, the prince your master, whose chin is
    not yet fledged. I will sooner have a beard grow in
    the palm of my hand than he shall get one on his
    cheek; and yet he will not stick to say his face is
    a face-royal: God may finish it when he will, 'tis
    not a hair amiss yet: he may keep it still at a
    face-royal, for a barber shall never earn sixpence
    out of it; and yet he'll be crowing as if he had
    writ man ever since his father was a bachelor. He
    may keep his own grace, but he's almost out of mine,
    I can assure him. What said Master Dombledon about
    the satin for my short cloak and my slops?

Page: He said, sir, you should procure him better
    assurance than Bardolph: he would not take his
    band and yours; he liked not the security.

FALSTAFF: Let him be damned, like the glutton! pray God his
    tongue be hotter! A whoreson Achitophel! a rascally
    yea-forsooth knave! to bear a gentleman in hand,
    and then stand upon security! The whoreson
    smooth-pates do now wear nothing but high shoes, and
    bunches of keys at their girdles; and if a man is
    through with them in honest taking up, then they
    must stand upon security. I had as lief they would
    put ratsbane in my mouth as offer to stop it with
    security. I looked a' should have sent me two and
    twenty yards of satin, as I am a true knight, and he
    sends me security. Well, he may sleep in security;
    for he hath the horn of abundance, and the lightness
    of his wife shines through it: and yet cannot he
    see, though he have his own lanthorn to light him.
    Where's Bardolph?

Page: He's gone into Smithfield to buy your worship a horse.

FALSTAFF: I bought him in Paul's, and he'll buy me a horse in
    Smithfield: an I could get me but a wife in the
    stews, I were manned, horsed, and wived.

    Enter the Lord Chief-Justice and Servant

Page: Sir, here comes the nobleman that committed the
    Prince for striking him about Bardolph.

FALSTAFF: Wait, close; I will not see him.
    Lord Chief-Justice What's he that goes there?

Servant: Falstaff, an't please your lordship.
    Lord Chief-Justice He that was in question for the robbery?

Servant: He, my lord: but he hath since done good service at
    Shrewsbury; and, as I hear, is now going with some
    charge to the Lord John of Lancaster.
    Lord Chief-Justice What, to York? Call him back again.

Servant: Sir John Falstaff!

FALSTAFF: Boy, tell him I am deaf.

Page: You must speak louder; my master is deaf.
    Lord Chief-Justice I am sure he is, to the hearing of any thing good.
    Go, pluck him by the elbow; I must speak with him.

Servant: Sir John!

FALSTAFF: What! a young knave, and begging! Is there not
    wars? is there not employment? doth not the king
    lack subjects? do not the rebels need soldiers?
    Though it be a shame to be on any side but one, it
    is worse shame to beg than to be on the worst side,
    were it worse than the name of rebellion can tell
    how to make it.

Servant: You mistake me, sir.

FALSTAFF: Why, sir, did I say you were an honest man? setting
    my knighthood and my soldiership aside, I had lied
    in my throat, if I had said so.

Servant: I pray you, sir, then set your knighthood and our
    soldiership aside; and give me leave to tell you,
    you lie in your throat, if you say I am any other
    than an honest man.

FALSTAFF: I give thee leave to tell me so! I lay aside that
    which grows to me! if thou gettest any leave of me,
    hang me; if thou takest leave, thou wert better be
    hanged. You hunt counter: hence! avaunt!

Servant: Sir, my lord would speak with you.
    Lord Chief-Justice Sir John Falstaff, a word with you.

FALSTAFF: My good lord! God give your lordship good time of
    day. I am glad to see your lordship abroad: I heard
    say your lordship was sick: I hope your lordship
    goes abroad by advice. Your lordship, though not
    clean past your youth, hath yet some smack of age in
    you, some relish of the saltness of time; and I must
    humbly beseech your lordship to have a reverent care
    of your health.
    Lord Chief-Justice Sir John, I sent for you before your expedition to
    Shrewsbury.

FALSTAFF: An't please your lordship, I hear his majesty is
    returned with some discomfort from Wales.
    Lord Chief-Justice I talk not of his majesty: you would not come when
    I sent for you.

FALSTAFF: And I hear, moreover, his highness is fallen into
    this same whoreson apoplexy.
    Lord Chief-Justice Well, God mend him! I pray you, let me speak with
    you.

FALSTAFF: This apoplexy is, as I take it, a kind of lethargy,
    an't please your lordship; a kind of sleeping in the
    blood, a whoreson tingling.
    Lord Chief-Justice What tell you me of it? be it as it is.

FALSTAFF: It hath its original from much grief, from study and
    perturbation of the brain: I have read the cause of
    his effects in Galen: it is a kind of deafness.
    Lord Chief-Justice I think you are fallen into the disease; for you
    hear not what I say to you.

FALSTAFF: Very well, my lord, very well: rather, an't please
    you, it is the disease of not listening, the malady
    of not marking, that I am troubled withal.
    Lord Chief-Justice To punish you by the heels would amend the
    attention of your ears; and I care not if I do
    become your physician.

FALSTAFF: I am as poor as Job, my lord, but not so patient:
    your lordship may minister the potion of
    imprisonment to me in respect of poverty; but how
    should I be your patient to follow your
    prescriptions, the wise may make some dram of a
    scruple, or indeed a scruple itself.
    Lord Chief-Justice I sent for you, when there were matters against you
    for your life, to come speak with me.

FALSTAFF: As I was then advised by my learned counsel in the
    laws of this land-service, I did not come.
    Lord Chief-Justice Well, the truth is, Sir John, you live in great infamy.

FALSTAFF: He that buckles him in my belt cannot live in less.
    Lord Chief-Justice Your means are very slender, and your waste is great.

FALSTAFF: I would it were otherwise; I would my means were
    greater, and my waist slenderer.
    Lord Chief-Justice You have misled the youthful prince.

FALSTAFF: The young prince hath misled me: I am the fellow
    with the great belly, and he my dog.
    Lord Chief-Justice Well, I am loath to gall a new-healed wound: your
    day's service at Shrewsbury hath a little gilded
    over your night's exploit on Gad's-hill: you may
    thank the unquiet time for your quiet o'er-posting
    that action.

FALSTAFF: My lord?
    Lord Chief-Justice But since all is well, keep it so: wake not a
    sleeping wolf.

FALSTAFF: To wake a wolf is as bad as to smell a fox.
    Lord Chief-Justice What! you are as a candle, the better part burnt
    out.

FALSTAFF: A wassail candle, my lord, all tallow: if I did say
    of wax, my growth would approve the truth.
    Lord Chief-Justice There is not a white hair on your face but should
    have his effect of gravity.

FALSTAFF: His effect of gravy, gravy, gravy.
    Lord Chief-Justice You follow the young prince up and down, like his
    ill angel.

FALSTAFF: Not so, my lord; your ill angel is light; but I hope
    he that looks upon me will take me without weighing:
    and yet, in some respects, I grant, I cannot go: I
    cannot tell. Virtue is of so little regard in these
    costermonger times that true valour is turned
    bear-herd: pregnancy is made a tapster, and hath
    his quick wit wasted in giving reckonings: all the
    other gifts appertinent to man, as the malice of
    this age shapes them, are not worth a gooseberry.
    You that are old consider not the capacities of us
    that are young; you do measure the heat of our
    livers with the bitterness of your galls: and we
    that are in the vaward of our youth, I must confess,
    are wags too.
    Lord Chief-Justice Do you set down your name in the scroll of youth,
    that are written down old with all the characters of
    age? Have you not a moist eye? a dry hand? a
    yellow cheek? a white beard? a decreasing leg? an
    increasing belly? is not your voice broken? your
    wind short? your chin double? your wit single? and
    every part about you blasted with antiquity? and
    will you yet call yourself young? Fie, fie, fie, Sir John!

FALSTAFF: My lord, I was born about three of the clock in the
    afternoon, with a white head and something a round
    belly. For my voice, I have lost it with halloing
    and singing of anthems. To approve my youth
    further, I will not: the truth is, I am only old in
    judgment and understanding; and he that will caper
    with me for a thousand marks, let him lend me the
    money, and have at him! For the box of the ear that
    the prince gave you, he gave it like a rude prince,
    and you took it like a sensible lord. I have
    chequed him for it, and the young lion repents;
    marry, not in ashes and sackcloth, but in new silk
    and old sack.
    Lord Chief-Justice Well, God send the prince a better companion!

FALSTAFF: God send the companion a better prince! I cannot
    rid my hands of him.
    Lord Chief-Justice Well, the king hath severed you and Prince Harry: I
    hear you are going with Lord John of Lancaster
    against the Archbishop and the Earl of
    Northumberland.

FALSTAFF: Yea; I thank your pretty sweet wit for it. But look
    you pray, all you that kiss my lady Peace at home,
    that our armies join not in a hot day; for, by the
    Lord, I take but two shirts out with me, and I mean
    not to sweat extraordinarily: if it be a hot day,
    and I brandish any thing but a bottle, I would I
    might never spit white again. There is not a
    dangerous action can peep out his head but I am
    thrust upon it: well, I cannot last ever: but it
    was alway yet the trick of our English nation, if
    they have a good thing, to make it too common. If
    ye will needs say I am an old man, you should give
    me rest. I would to God my name were not so
    terrible to the enemy as it is: I were better to be
    eaten to death with a rust than to be scoured to
    nothing with perpetual motion.
    Lord Chief-Justice Well, be honest, be honest; and God bless your
    expedition!

FALSTAFF: Will your lordship lend me a thousand pound to
    furnish me forth?
    Lord Chief-Justice Not a penny, not a penny; you are too impatient to
    bear crosses. Fare you well: commend me to my
    cousin Westmoreland.

    Exeunt Chief-Justice and Servant

FALSTAFF: If I do, fillip me with a three-man beetle. A man
    can no more separate age and covetousness than a'
    can part young limbs and lechery: but the gout
    galls the one, and the pox pinches the other; and
    so both the degrees prevent my curses. Boy!

Page: Sir?

FALSTAFF: What money is in my purse?

Page: Seven groats and two pence.

FALSTAFF: I can get no remedy against this consumption of the
    purse: borrowing only lingers and lingers it out,
    but the disease is incurable. Go bear this letter
    to my Lord of Lancaster; this to the prince; this
    to the Earl of Westmoreland; and this to old
    Mistress Ursula, whom I have weekly sworn to marry
    since I perceived the first white hair on my chin.
    About it: you know where to find me.

    Exit Page
    A pox of this gout! or, a gout of this pox! for
    the one or the other plays the rogue with my great
    toe. 'Tis no matter if I do halt; I have the wars
    for my colour, and my pension shall seem the more
    reasonable. A good wit will make use of any thing:
    I will turn diseases to commodity.

    Exit

     Enter the ARCHBISHOP OF YORK, the Lords HASTINGS, MOWBRAY, and BARDOLPH

ARCHBISHOP OF YORK: Thus have you heard our cause and known our means;
    And, my most noble friends, I pray you all,
    Speak plainly your opinions of our hopes:
    And first, lord marshal, what say you to it?

MOWBRAY: I well allow the occasion of our arms;
    But gladly would be better satisfied
    How in our means we should advance ourselves
    To look with forehead bold and big enough
    Upon the power and puissance of the king.

HASTINGS: Our present musters grow upon the file
    To five and twenty thousand men of choice;
    And our supplies live largely in the hope
    Of great Northumberland, whose bosom burns
    With an incensed fire of injuries.

LORD BARDOLPH: The question then, Lord Hastings, standeth thus;
    Whether our present five and twenty thousand
    May hold up head without Northumberland?

HASTINGS: With him, we may.

LORD BARDOLPH: Yea, marry, there's the point:
    But if without him we be thought too feeble,
    My judgment is, we should not step too far
    Till we had his assistance by the hand;
    For in a theme so bloody-faced as this
    Conjecture, expectation, and surmise
    Of aids incertain should not be admitted.

ARCHBISHOP OF YORK: 'Tis very true, Lord Bardolph; for indeed
    It was young Hotspur's case at Shrewsbury.

LORD BARDOLPH: It was, my lord; who lined himself with hope,
    Eating the air on promise of supply,
    Flattering himself in project of a power
    Much smaller than the smallest of his thoughts:
    And so, with great imagination
    Proper to madmen, led his powers to death
    And winking leap'd into destruction.

HASTINGS: But, by your leave, it never yet did hurt
    To lay down likelihoods and forms of hope.

LORD BARDOLPH: Yes, if this present quality of war,
    Indeed the instant action: a cause on foot
    Lives so in hope as in an early spring
    We see the appearing buds; which to prove fruit,
    Hope gives not so much warrant as despair
    That frosts will bite them. When we mean to build,
    We first survey the plot, then draw the model;
    And when we see the figure of the house,
    Then must we rate the cost of the erection;
    Which if we find outweighs ability,
    What do we then but draw anew the model
    In fewer offices, or at last desist
    To build at all? Much more, in this great work,
    Which is almost to pluck a kingdom down
    And set another up, should we survey
    The plot of situation and the model,
    Consent upon a sure foundation,
    Question surveyors, know our own estate,
    How able such a work to undergo,
    To weigh against his opposite; or else
    We fortify in paper and in figures,
    Using the names of men instead of men:
    Like one that draws the model of a house
    Beyond his power to build it; who, half through,
    Gives o'er and leaves his part-created cost
    A naked subject to the weeping clouds
    And waste for churlish winter's tyranny.

HASTINGS: Grant that our hopes, yet likely of fair birth,
    Should be still-born, and that we now possess'd
    The utmost man of expectation,
    I think we are a body strong enough,
    Even as we are, to equal with the king.

LORD BARDOLPH: What, is the king but five and twenty thousand?

HASTINGS: To us no more; nay, not so much, Lord Bardolph.
    For his divisions, as the times do brawl,
    Are in three heads: one power against the French,
    And one against Glendower; perforce a third
    Must take up us: so is the unfirm king
    In three divided; and his coffers sound
    With hollow poverty and emptiness.

ARCHBISHOP OF YORK: That he should draw his several strengths together
    And come against us in full puissance,
    Need not be dreaded.

HASTINGS: If he should do so,
    He leaves his back unarm'd, the French and Welsh
    Baying him at the heels: never fear that.

LORD BARDOLPH: Who is it like should lead his forces hither?

HASTINGS: The Duke of Lancaster and Westmoreland;
    Against the Welsh, himself and Harry Monmouth:
    But who is substituted 'gainst the French,
    I have no certain notice.

ARCHBISHOP OF YORK: Let us on,
    And publish the occasion of our arms.
    The commonwealth is sick of their own choice;
    Their over-greedy love hath surfeited:
    An habitation giddy and unsure
    Hath he that buildeth on the vulgar heart.
    O thou fond many, with what loud applause
    Didst thou beat heaven with blessing Bolingbroke,
    Before he was what thou wouldst have him be!
    And being now trimm'd in thine own desires,
    Thou, beastly feeder, art so full of him,
    That thou provokest thyself to cast him up.
    So, so, thou common dog, didst thou disgorge
    Thy glutton bosom of the royal Richard;
    And now thou wouldst eat thy dead vomit up,
    And howl'st to find it. What trust is in
    these times?
    They that, when Richard lived, would have him die,
    Are now become enamour'd on his grave:
    Thou, that threw'st dust upon his goodly head
    When through proud London he came sighing on
    After the admired heels of Bolingbroke,
    Criest now 'O earth, yield us that king again,
    And take thou this!' O thoughts of men accursed!
    Past and to come seems best; things present worst.

MOWBRAY: Shall we go draw our numbers and set on?

HASTINGS: We are time's subjects, and time bids be gone.

    Exeunt