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Bard. Tell thou the earl,
That the lord Bardolph doth attend him here.
Port. His lordship is walk'd forth into the or-
chard;

Please it your honour, knock but at the gate,
And he himself will answer.

Enter NORTHUMBERLAND.

Bard. Here comes the earl.

North. What news, lord Bardolph? every mi

nute 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.

Bard. Noble earl,

I bring you certain news from Shrewsbury.
North. Good, an heaven will!

Bard. 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 Cæsar's fortunes!

North. How is this deriv'd?

Saw you the field? came you from Shrewsbury?
Bard. I spake with one, my lord, that came
from thence;

A gentleman well bred, and of good name,
That freely rendered me these news for true.
North. Here comes my servant, Travers, whom
I sent

On Tuesday last to listen after news.

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

Enter TRAVERS.

North. Now, Travers, what good tidings come with you?

Tra. My lord, Sir John Umfrevile turn'd me

back

With joyful tidings; and, being better hors'd,
Out-rode me. After him, came spurring hard,
A gentleman almost forspentt 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.

North. Ha!-Again.

Said he, young Harry Percy's spur was cold?
Of Hotspur, coldspur? that rebellion
Had met ill-luck!

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

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North. Yea, this man's brow, like to a title leaf,
Foretells the nature of a tragic volume:
So looks the strond, whereon the imperious flood
Hath left a witness'd usurpation.†-

Say, Morton, didst thou come from Shrewsbury?
Mor. I ran from Shrewsbury, my noble lord;
Where hateful death put on his ugliest mask,
To fright our party.

North. 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
But Priam found the fire, ere he his tongue,
And I my Percy's death, ere thou report'st it.

burn'd:

This thou would'st 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 mine ear indeed,
Thou hast a sigh to blow away this praise,
Ending with-brother, son, and all are dead.

Mor. Douglas is living, and your brother, yet:
But, for my lord your son,-

North. 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, Mor-

ton;

Tell thou thy earl his divination lies;
And I will take it as a sweet disgrace,
And make thee rich for doing me such wrong.

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

North. Yet, for all this, say not that Percy's
dead.

I see a strange confession in thine eye :
Thou shak'st 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 knolling a departing friend.

Bard. I cannot think, my lord, your son is dead.
Mor. I am sorry, I should force you to believe
That, which I would to heaven I had not seen:
But these mine eyes saw him in bloody state,
Rend'ring faint quittance, wearied and out-
breath'd

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

North. Why should the gentleman, that rode Even to the dullest peasant in his camp,)

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Being bruited once, took fire and heat away

* Hilderling, base, cowardly.

† An attestation of its ravage.

Return of blows. In few words. || Reported

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 that noble Wor-

cester

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,

Would lift him where most trade of danger
rang'd;

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 enterprize brought forth,
More than that being which was like to be?

Bard. We all, that are engaged to this loss,
Knew that we ventur'd on such dangerous seas,
That, if we wrought out life, 'twas ten to one:
And yet we ventur'd, for the gain propos'd
Chok'd the respect of likely peril fear'd;
And, since we are o'erset, venture again.
Come, we will all put forth; body, and goods.
Mor. 'Tis more than time: And, my most no-
ble 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 corps,
But shadows, and the shows of men, to fight:

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.
North. For this I shall have time enough to For that same word, rebellion, did divide

mourn.

In poison there is physic; and these news,
Having been well, that would have made me
sick,
[well:
Being sick, have in some measure made me
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 enrag'd with
grief,

Are thrice themselves: hence therefore, thou
nicet 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 enrag'd Northumberland!
Let heaven kiss earth! Now let not nature's
hand

Keep the wild flood confin'd! 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!

Tra. This strained passion doth you wrong, my
lord.

Bard. Sweet earl, divorce not wisdom from your honour.

Mor. The lives of all your loving complices Lean on your health; the which, if you give

o'er

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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:

Suppos'd sincere and holy in his thoughts,
He's follow'd both with body and with mind;
And doth enlarge his rising with the blood
Of fair king Richard, scrap'd 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.
North. I knew of this before; but, to speak
truth,

This present grief hath wip'd 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.

SCENE II.-London.-A Street.

Enter Sir JOHN FALSTAFF, with his PAGE, bearing his Sword and Buckler.

Fal. 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.

Fal. Men of all sorts take a pride to gird at me: The brain of this foolish-compounded clay, mau, is not able to vent any thing 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 judgement. Thou whoreson mandrake, thou art fitter to be worn in

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Fal. 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.

my cap, than to wait at my heels. I was never soldiers? Though it be a shame to be on any manned with an agate* till now: but I will set side but one, it is worse shame to beg than to be you neither in gold nor silver, but in vile apparel, on the worst side, were it worse than the name and send you back again to your master, for a of rebellion can tell how to make it. jewel; the juvenal, the prince your master, Allen. You mistake me, Sir. 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, it is not a hair amiss yet: he may keep it still as a face-royal, for a barber shall never earn sixpence out of it; and yet he will be crowing, as if he had writ man ever since his father was a bachelor. He may keep his own grace, but he is almost out of mine, I can assure him.- -What said master Dumbleton about the satin for my short cloak, and slops?

Alten. I pray you, Sir, then set your knighthood and your 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.

Fal. I give thee leave to tell me so! I lay aside that which grows to me! If thou get'st any leave of me, hang me: if thou takest leave, thou wert better be hanged: You hunt-counter,* hence! avaunt!

Page. He said, Sir, you should procure him better assurance than Bardolph: he would not Atten. Sir, my lord would speak with you. take his bond and yours; he liked not the security. Ch. Just. Sir John Falstaff, a word with you. Fal. Let him be damned like a glutton! may Fal. My good lord!-God give your lordship his tongue be hotter!-A whoreson Achitophel! good time of day. I am glad to see your lordship a rascally yea-forsooth knave! to bear a gentle- abroad: I heard say, your lordship was sick : I man in hand, and then stand upon security!-hope, your lordship goes abroad by advice. Your The whoreson smooth-pates do now wear nothing but high shoes, and bunches of keys at their girdles; and if a man is thorought with them in honest taking up, then they must stand uponsecurity. I had as lief they would put ratsbane in my mouth, as offer to stop it with security. I looked he 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 lantern to light him.- Where's Bardolph ?

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

a

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

Enter the LORD CHIEF JUSTICE, and an AT

TENDANT.

Page. Sir, here comes the nobleman that com-
mitted the prince for stricking him about Bardolph.
Fal. Wait close, I will not see him.
Ch. Just. What's he that goes there?
Atten. Falstaff, an't please your lordship.

lordship, though not clean past your youth, hath yet some smack of age in you, some relish of the saltness of time; and I most humbly beseech your lordship, to have a reverend care of your health. Ch. Just. Sir John, I sent for you before your expedition to Shrewsbury.

Fal. An't please your lordship, I hear, his majesty is returned with some discomfort from

Wales.

Ch. Just. I talk not of his majesty :-You would not come when I sent for you.

Fal. And I hear moreover, his highness is fallen into this same whoreson apoplexy.

Ch. Just. Well, heaven mend him! I pray, let me speak with you.

Fal. 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.

Ch. Just. What tell you me of it? be it as it is.

Fal. 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.

Ch. Just. I think, you are fallen into the disease; for you hear not what I say to you. Fal. Very well, my lord, very well: rather, Ch. Just. He that was in question for the rob-an't please you, it is the disease of not listening, bery? the malady of not marking, that I am troubled withal.

Atten. 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.

Ch. Just. What, to York? Call him back again.
Atten. Sir John Falstaff!

Fal. Boy, tell him, I am deaf.

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

Atten. Sir John,

Fal. What! a young knave, and beg! Is there not wars? Is there not employment? Doth not the king lack subjects? do not the rebels need

A little figure cut in an agate. In their debt.

Ch. Just. To punish you by the heels, would amend the attention of your ears; and I care not, if I do become your physician.

Fal. 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 I should be your patient to follow your prescriptions, the wise may make some dram of scruple, or, indeed, a scruple itself.

a

Ch. Just. I sent for you, when there were matters against you for your life, to come speak with me.

Fal. As I was then advised by my learned counsel in the laws of this land-service, I did not

come.

Ch. Just. Well, the truth is, Sir John, you live

Alluding to an old proverb: Who goes to Westminster in great infamy. for a wife, to St. Paul's for a man, and to Smithfield for a horse, may meet with a whore, a knave, and a jade.

*A catch-pole, or bum-bailiff.

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Fal. He that buckles him in my belt, cannot live in less.

Ch. Just. Your means are very slender, and your waste is great.

and Prince Harry: I hear, you are going with lord John of Lancaster, against the archbishop, and the earl of Northumberland.

Fal. Yea; I thank your pretty sweet wit for Fal. I would it were otherwise; I would my it. But look you pray, all you that kiss my lady means were greater, and my waist slenderer. peace at home, that our armies join not in a hot Ch. Just. You have misled the youthful prince.day! for, by the Lord, I take but two shirts out Fal. The young prince hath misled me: I am with me, and I mean not to sweat extraordinathe fellow with the great belly, and he my dog.rily: if it be a hot day, an I brandish any thing Ch. Just. Well, I am loath to gall a new-but my bottle, I would I might never spit white healed wound; your day's service at Shrewsbury hath a little gilded over your night's exploit on Gads-hill you may thank the unquiet time for your quiet o'er-posting that action.

Fal. My lord?

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 always yet the trick of our English nation, if they have a good thing, to make it too common. If you 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 Fal. To wake a wolf, is as bad as to smell a fox. enemy as it is. I were better to be eaten to Ch. Just. What! you are as a candle, the bet-death with rust, than to be scoured to nothing ter part burnt out. with perpetual motion.

Ch. Just. But since all is well, keep it so: wake not a sleeping wolf.

Fal. A wassel* candle, my lord; all tallow: if I did say of wax, my growth would approve

the truth.

Ch. Just. There is not a white hair on your face, but should have his effect of gravity.

Fal. His effect of gravy, gravy, gravy. Ch. Just. You follow the young prince up and down, like his ill angel.

Fal. Not so, my lord; your ill angelt 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 coster-monger times, that true valour is turned bearherd: 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 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.

Ch. Just. 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!

Fal. 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 hollaing, and singing of anthems. To approve my youth further, I will not: the truth is, I am only old in judgement 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 o'the ear that the prince gave you,-he gave it like a rude prince, and you took it like a sensible lord. I have checked him for it; and the young lion repents: marry, not in ashes, and sackcloth; but in new silk, and old sack.

Ch. Just. Well, heaven send the prince a better companion!

Fal. Heaven send the companion a better prince! I cannot rid my hands of him. Ch. Just. Well, the king hath severed you

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:

Ch. Just. Well, be honest, be honest; And God bless your expedition!

Fal. Will your lordship lend me a thousand pound, to furnish me forth?

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

Page. Sir?

Fal. What money is in my purse?
Page. Seven groats and twopence.

Fal. 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. It is 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. SCENE III.-York.-A Room in the Archbishop's Palace.

Enter the ARCHBISHOP OF YORK, the Lords HAST-
INGS, MOWBRAY, and BARDOLPH.
Arch. 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?

Mowb. 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.

Hast. 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.

* A large wooden hammer so heavy as to require three men to wield it. † Anticipate. Profit.

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Bard. The question then, lord Hastings, standeth thus:

Whether our present five and twenty thousand May hold up head without Northumberland. Hast. With him, we may.

Bard. Ay, marry, there's the point: But if without him we be thought too feeble, My judgement is, we should not step too far Till we had his assistance by the hand: For, in a theme so bloody-fac'd as this, Conjecture, expectation, and surmise Of aids uncertain, should not be admitted. Arch. "Tis very true, lord Bardolph; for, indeed,

It was young Hotspur's case at Shrewsbury. Bard. It was, my lord; who lin'd himself with hope,

Eating the air on promise of supply,
Flattering himself with 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.
Hast. But, by your leave, it never yet did
hurt,

To lay down likelihoods, and forms of hope.
Bard. Yes, in this present quality of war;-
Indeed, the instant action, (a cause on foot,)
Lives so in hope, as in an early spring [fruit,
We see the appearing buds; which, to prove
Hope gives not so much warrant, as despair,
That frosts will bite them. When we mean to
build,

[work,

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 least, desist
To build at all? Much more, in this great
(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.
Hast. Grant, that our hopes (yet likely for
fair birth,)

Should be still-born, and that we now pos-
The utmost man of expectation;

[sess'd

I think, we are a body strong enough,
Even as we are, to equal with the king.
Bard. What! is the king but five and twenty

thousand?

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Hast. If he should do so,

He leaves his back unarm'd, the French andl Welsh

Baying him at the heels: never fear that. Bard. Who, is it like, should lead his forces hither?

For his divisions, as the times do brawl,[French,
Are in three heads: one power against the
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.

Hast. The duke of Lancaster, and West-
moreland:
[mouth :
Against the Welsh, himself and Harry Mon-
But who is substituted 'gainst the French,
I have no certain notice.
Arch. Let us on;

And publish the occasion of our arms.
The commonwealth is sick of their own choice,
Their over-greedy love hath surfeited:-
A 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 Boling.
broke,

Arch. That he should draw his several
strengths together,

And come against us in full puissance,
Need not be dreaded.

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Before he was what thou would'st have him
And being now trimm'dt in thine own desires,
Thou beastly feeder, art so full of him,
That thou provok'st thyself to cast him up.
So, so,

thou common dog, didst thou disgorge Thy glutton bosom of the royal Richard; And now thou would'st eat thy dead vomit up, And howl'st to find it. What trust is in these times?

They that, when Richard liv'd, 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 After the admired heels of Bolingbroke, [an Cry'st now, O earth, yield us that king again, And take thou this! O thoughts of men accurst! Past, and to come, seem best; things present,

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Host. Yea, good master Snare; I have entered him and all.

Snare. It may chance cost some of us our lives, for he will stab.

Host. Alas the day! take heed of him; he stabbed me in mine own house, and that most chief he doth, if his weapon be out: he will beastly: in good faith, a' cares not what misfoing like any devil; he will spare neither man, woman, nor child.

Fang. If I can close with him, I care not for his thrust.

Host. No, nor I neither: I'll be at your elbow.

Fang. An I but fist him once; an a' come but within my vice ;||-

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