So much complexion? Look ye, how they change! Their cheeks are paper. Why, what read you there,

That hath so cowarded and chased your blood

Out of appearance ?

Cam.

I do confess my fault

And do submit me to your highness' mercy.

;

K. Hen. The mercy that was quick in us but
late,

By your own counsel is suppress'd and kill'd:
You must not dare, for shame, to talk of mercy ;
For your own reasons turn into your bosoms,
As dogs upon their masters, worrying you.
See you, my princes and my noble peers,
These English monsters! My Lord of Cambridge
here,

You know how apt our love was to accord
To furnish him with all appertinents
Belonging to his honour; and this man
Hath, for a few light crowns, lightly conspired,
And sworn unto the practices of France,
To kill us here in Hampton: to the which
This knight, no less for bounty bound to us
Than Cambridge is, hath likewise sworn.

But, O,

What shall I say to thee, Lord Scroop? thou cruel,

Ingrateful, savage and inhuman creature!

Thou that didst bear the key of all my counsels,
That knew'st the very bottom of my soul,
That almost mightst have coin'd me into gold,
Wouldst thou have practised on me for thy use !
May it be possible, that foreign hire

Could out of thee extract one spark of evil

90. practices, plots.

91. Hampton, Southampton.

80

90

100

That might annoy my finger? 'tis so strange,
That, though the truth of it stands off as gross
As black and white, my eye will scarcely see it.
Treason and murder ever kept together,
As two yoke-devils sworn to either's purpose,
Working so grossly in a natural cause,
That admiration did not hoop at them:

But thou, 'gainst all proportion, didst bring in
Wonder to wait on treason and on murder:
And whatsoever cunning fiend it was
That wrought upon thee so preposterously
Hath got the voice in hell for excellence :
All other devils that suggest by treasons

Do botch and bungle up damnation

With patches, colours, and with forms being fetch'd

From glistering semblances of piety;

But he that temper'd thee bade thee stand up, Gave thee no instance why thou shouldst do

treason,

Unless to dub thee with the name of traitor.
If that same demon that hath gull'd thee thus
Should with his lion gait walk the whole world,
He might return to vasty Tartar back,
And tell the legions 'I can never win
A soul so easy as that Englishman's.'
O, how hast thou with jealousy infected
The sweetness of affiance! Show men dutiful?
Why, so didst thou: seem they grave and learned ?
Why, so didst thou: come they of noble family?
Why, so didst thou: seem they religious?
Why, so didst thou: or are they spare in diet

103. stands off, stands out. 108. That admiration, etc., that wonder did not cry out at them; they excited no surprise.

114. suggest, tempt.

119. instance, ground.
123. Tartar, Tartarus, Hell.
127. affiance, confidence.

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 de

meanour, 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

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.

190

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!

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.