Fal. Now, my masters, happy man be his dole, say I every man to his business.

Enter the Travellers.

First Trav. Come, neighbour: the boy shall lead our horses down the hill; we'll walk afoot awhile, and ease our legs.

Fal. Strike; down with them; cut the villains' throats: ah! whoreson caterpillars! bacon-fed knaves! they hate us youth down with them; fleece them. Travellers. O, we are undone, both we and ours for ever! Fal. Hang ye, gorbellied knaves, are ye undone? No, 85

76. First Trav.] Capell; Trauel. or Tra. Qq, 79. Stand] Qq 1-4; Stay the rest. 80. Travellers.] Cambridge; Trauel. or Tra. Qq, Ff. 82. Jesus] Jesu Ff. 82. ah!] Rowe; a Qq, Ff. 84. Travellers.] Tra. Qq, Ff (Trauel. Q 3). 85. arc ye] are you Ff.

ye fat chuffs; I would your store were here! On,
bacons, on! What, ye knaves! young men must
live. You are grandjurors, are ye? we'll jure ye,
'faith.

[Here they rob them and bind them. Exeunt.

Re-enter PRINCE HENRY and POINS disguised.

Prince. The thieves have bound the true men.
thou and I rob the thieves and go merrily to London,
it would be argument for a week, laughter for a
month and a good jest for ever.

Poins. Stand close; I hear them coming.

Enter the Thieves again.

Fal. Come, my masters, let us share, and then to horse 95 before day. An the Prince and Poins be not two

arrant cowards, there's no equity stirring: there's no
more valour in that Poins than in a wild-duck.

[As they are sharing, the PRINCE and POINS set upon them; they all run away; and FALSTAFF, after a blow or two, runs away too, leaving the booty behind them.]

Prince. Got with much ease. Now merrily to horse:

88, 89. ye 'faith] Cambridge; ye faith Qq 1, 2; yee yfaith Qq 3-6; ye ifaith Ff 1-3; ye i'faith F 4. 89. Exeunt.] omitted Qq 4-8, Ff. disguised.] Cambridge; Enter the prince and Poynes. Qq, Ff. 90. true men] True-men Ff. 96. An] Pope; and Qq, Ff. 98. more] moe Ff. 100. and Falstaff. . . too,] omitted Ff. 101-107. Got . . . him] verse Pope; prose Qq, Ff.

The thieves are all scatter'd and possess'd with fear
So strongly that they dare not meet each other;
Each takes his fellow for an officer.

Away, good Ned.

Falstaff sweats to death,

And lards the lean earth as he walks along :
Were't not for laughing, I should pity him.

Poins. How the rogue roar'd!

SCENE III.-Warkworth Castle.

Enter HOTSPUR solus, reading a letter.

105

[Exeunt.

Hot. “But, for mine own part, my lord, I could be well contented to be there, in respect of the love I bear your house." He could be contented: why is he not, then? In respect of the love he bears our house he shows in this, he loves his own barn better than he loves our house. Let me see some more. "The purpose you undertake is dangerous; "-why, that's certain: 'tis dangerous to take a cold, to sleep, to drink; but I tell you, my lord fool, out of this

102. all] Q1; omitted the rest. 105. sweats] sweares Qq 3-5. rogue] fat rogue in a fragment of an early quarto (Athen., 4 June, 1881).

SCENE III.

5

108.

Warkworth Castle] Cambridge; Warkworth. A room in the Castle. Capell; Lord Percy's house. Pope, Theobald. 2. in respect] in the respect Qq 1-5.

104. Each officer] So in 3 Henry VI. v. vi. 12: "The thief doth fear each bush an officer." Ray, Proverbs: "He thinks every bush a boggard, i.e. a bugbear or phantasm."

105. to death] immoderately: cf. Othello, II. i. 50.

106. lards] fattens, as in Henry V. IV. vi. 8.

SCENE III.

Warkworth Castle] Wright, in support of Capell, who first fixed the scene at Warkworth, points out that John Hardyng the Chronicler, who was brought up in Hotspur's family, and was with him at Shrewsbury, Humbleton, and other battles, says of the letters from the lords of England promising assistance to the Percys, "whiche letters I sawe in the castell of Werkeworth, when I was constable

of it vnder my lord, sir Robert Vmfreuile" (Chron., p. 361, ed. 1812). Warkworth, in Northumberland, was the principal seat of the Percys.

a letter] Edwards supposed that the writer of this letter was George Dunbar, Earl of March. A letter from Dunbar to King Henry IV. is extant. Wright refers to a tradition that Ralph Rokeby, High Sheriff of Yorkshire, who overthrew Northumberland after the Battle of Shrewsbury, was Hotspur's correspondent. (See Lockhart's Life of Scott, ii. 386-7, ed. 1837.)

8, 9. 'tis dangerous. drink] So Beaumont and Fletcher, The Maid in the Mill, 1. ii:

"Martino. There may be danger. Antonio. So there is to drink, When men are thirsty; to eat hastily,

When we are hungry; so there is in sleep, friend,"

nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety. "The ΙΟ
purpose you undertake is dangerous; the friends
you have named uncertain; the time itself unsorted;
and your whole plot too light for the counterpoise
of so great an opposition." Say you so, say you so?
I say unto you again, you are a shallow cowardly 15
hind, and you lie. What a lack-brain is this! By
the Lord, our plot is a good plot as ever was laid;
our friends true and constant: a good plot, good
friends, and full of expectation; an excellent plot,
very good friends. What a frosty-spirited rogue is
this! Why, my lord of York commends the plot
and the general course of the action. 'Zounds, an I
were now by this rascal, I could brain him with his
lady's fan. Is there not my father, my uncle, and
myself? Lord Edmund Mortimer, my lord of York, 25
and Owen Glendower? is there not besides the

14. so?] Qq 7, 8; so, Qq 1, 4-6; so: Ff; so. Qq 2, 3.

Lord] I protest Ff.

20

16, 17. By the

17. a good] as good a Ff. 18. friends] Qq 1-3, Ff 3, 4; friende, frind or friend the rest. 22. 'Zounds] By this hand Ff. 22. an] Capell; and Qq; if Ff. 25. myself?] Capell; my selfe; Q 1; my selfe, the rest. 26. Glendower?] Glendour? F; Glendower: QI.

19. full of expectation] full of promise. This seems to refer to the plot rather than to the friends (Wright).

20. frosty-spirited] cowardly. Cf. No-Body and Some-Body, line 16: "Your harts I thinke are frosty, for your blood Seems crusted in your faces." Cf. "cold heart," line 31 post, and "a cold coward," Two Noble Kinsmen, II. ii.

21. my lord of York] Richard Scroop, Archbishop of York.

22. action] enterprise, as often. 23, 24. his lady's fan] The fan, which was introduced into England from France about 1572 ("the time of the Massacar in Paris," Stow's Annales, ed. 1615, p. 948), seems to have been an indispensable article of ladies' attire in Elizabeth's reign. See W. W., A Health to the Gentlemanly Profession of Servingmen, 1598; "yf their Mistres

ryde abrode . she must have one to carrie. her Fanne, if she use it not herselfe" (Rye, England as seen by Foreigners, p. 196). Though the fan was made of feathers, the handle was frequently of silver or gold, and sometimes set with jewels. See Dekker, Londons Tempe (Pearson, iv. 123): “Í must now A golden handle make for my wife's fann," and Hall, Satires, v. iv: "a silver-handled fanne." Whalley cited from Beaumont and Fletcher, Wit at Several Weapons, v. i:—

30

Douglas? have I not all their letters to meet me in
arms by the ninth of the next month? and are they
not some of them set forward already? What a
pagan rascal is this! an infidel! Ha! you shall see
now in very sincerity of fear and cold heart, will he
to the king, and lay open all our proceedings. O, I
could divide myself, and go to buffets, for moving
such a dish of skim milk with so honourable an
action! Hang him! let him tell the king: we are 35
prepared. I will set forward to-night.

Enter LADY PERCY.

How now, Kate! I must leave you within these two
hours.

Lady. O, my good lord, why are you thus alone?
For what offence have I this fortnight been
A banish'd woman from my Harry's bed?
Tell me, sweet lord, what is't that takes from thee
Thy stomach, pleasure, and thy golden sleep?
Why dost thou bend thine eyes upon the earth,
And start so often when thou sit'st alone?

40

45

28. month?] month,

27. Douglas?] Dowglas, Q 1; Dowglas? the rest. Qq 1-4: 28. they] there Ff 2-4. 30. an] Q 1; An Ff; and the rest (& Q 8). 34. skim] skim'd Ff. 35. king: we] king, we Qq; King we Ff. forward] forwards Ff. 37. Enter Lady Percy] Enter his Lady Qq, Ff.

31. cold heart] So in North's Plutarch, Demetrius: "Antigonus' heart being cold in his belly," and "Seleucus was cold at the heart to hear these news.

32, 33. I could divide myself. . .] I could be divided against myself, become as it were two Hotspurs, and set them at fisticuffs with one another. Cf. Twelfth Night, v. i. 229-31; and Drayton, The Man in the Moon:

"Now the Sun's sister.

That at the last on Latmus doth
appear,

Her brother's beams enforc'd to
lay aside,
Herself for his sake [Endymion's]
seeming to divide."

33. go to buffets] fall to blows with myself. So in Heywood's The WiseWoman of Hogsdon, 1. ii: "And now I could go to buffets with myself, and cuff this love away," and in the same author's Dialogues, xvi. Also Beaumont

36.

and Fletcher, The Captain, II. ii; and C. Tourneur, The Atheist's Tragedy, I. iii:

"Rousard. I lack but your black

eye. Castabella. If you go to buffets among the boys, they'll give you

one.

34. dish of skim milk] Cf. Beaumont and Fletcher, Women Pleased, IV. iii: "A poor skimm'd thing"; and Sir Thomas More (Shak. Soc. ed., p. 3): "if mens milkie harts dare not strike a straunger."

37. Kate] See Introd. p. xiv.

43. golden sleep] So in Romeo and Juliet, 11. iii. 38; and cf. "the golden dew of sleep "in Richard III. iv. i. 84. "Golden" as an epithet of sleep is common in Elizabethan poetry. See Lyly, Galatea (1592), IV. ii; Heywood, The Golden Age, iv. i; and Chapman, A Hymn to Hymen (1613).