Henry IV, Part I William Shakespeare (best book series to read TXT) 📖

me medicines to make me love him, I’ll be hanged; it could not be else; I have drunk medicines. Poins! Hal! a plague upon you both! Bardolph! Peto! I’ll starve ere I’ll rob a foot further. An ’twere not as good a deed as drink, to turn true man and to leave these rogues, I am the veriest varlet that ever chewed with a tooth. Eight yards of uneven ground is threescore and ten miles afoot with me; and the stony-hearted villains know it well enough: a plague upon it when thieves cannot be true one to another! They whistle. Whew! A plague upon you all! Give me my horse, you rogues; give me my horse, and be hanged! Prince Peace, ye fat-guts! lie down; lay thine ear close to the ground and list if thou canst hear the tread of travellers. Falstaff Have you any levers to lift me up again, being down? ’Sblood, I’ll not bear mine own flesh so far afoot again for all the coin in thy father’s exchequer. What a plague mean ye to colt me thus? Prince Thou liest; thou art not colted, thou art uncolted. Falstaff I prithee, good Prince Hal, help me to my horse, good king’s son. Prince Out, ye rogue! shall I be your ostler? Falstaff Go, hang thyself in thine own heir-apparent garters! If I be ta’en, I’ll peach for this. An I have not ballads made on you all and sung to filthy tunes, let a cup of sack be my poison: when a jest is so forward, and afoot too! I hate it. Enter Gadshill, Bardolph and Peto with him. Gadshill Stand. Falstaff So I do, against my will. Poins O, ’tis our setter: I know his voice. Bardolph, what news? Bardolph Case ye, case ye; on with your vizards: there’s money of the king’s coming down the hill; ’tis going to the king’s exchequer. Falstaff You lie, ye rogue; ’tis going to the king’s tavern. Gadshill There’s enough to make us all. Falstaff To be hanged. Prince Sirs, you four shall front them in the narrow lane; Ned Poins and I will walk lower: if they ’scape from your encounter, then they light on us. Peto How many be there of them? Gadshill Some eight or ten. Falstaff ’Zounds, will they not rob us? Prince What, a coward, Sir John Paunch? Falstaff Indeed, I am not John of Gaunt, your grandfather; but yet no coward, Hal. Prince Well, we leave that to the proof. Poins Sirrah Jack, thy horse stands behind the hedge: when thou needest him, there thou shalt find him. Farewell, and stand fast. Falstaff Now cannot I strike him, if I should be hanged. Prince Ned, where are our disguises? Poins Here, hard by: stand close. Exeunt Prince and Poins. Falstaff Now, my masters, happy man be his dole, say I: every man to his business. Enter the Travellers. First Traveller Come, neighbour: the boy shall lead our horses down the hill; we’ll walk afoot awhile, and ease our legs. Thieves Stand! Travellers Jesus bless us! Falstaff 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! Falstaff Hang ye, gorbellied knaves, are ye undone? No, 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. Prince The thieves have bound the true men. Now could 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. Falstaff Come, my masters, let us share, and then to horse 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. Prince Your money! Poins Villains! 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:
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! Exeunt. Scene III

Warkworth castle

Enter Hotspur, solus, reading a letter. Hotspur “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 nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety. “The 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 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 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?