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Embowell'd will I fee thee by and by;
Till then, in blood by noble Percy lie.

[Exit.

FAL. [Rifing flowly.] Embowell'd! if thou embowel me to-day, I'll give you leave to powder me,2 and eat me too, to-morrow. 'Sblood, 'twas time to counterfeit, or that hot termagant Scot had paid me fcot and lot too. Counterfeit? I lie, I am no counterfeit: To die, is to be a counterfeit; for he is but the counterfeit of a man, who hath not the life of a man: but to counterfeit dying, when a man thereby liveth, is to be no counterfeit, but the true and perfect image of life indeed. The better part of valour is-discretion; in the which better part, I have faved my life. 'Zounds, I am afraid of this gunpowder Percy, though he be dead: How if he fhould counterfeit too, and rife? I am afraid, he would prove the better counterfeit. Therefore I'll make him fure: yea, and I'll fwear I kill'd him. Why may not he rife, as well as I?

mixture of the ferious and ludicrous, produced by the view of Percy and Falstaff. I wish all play on words had been forborn.

JOHNSON. I find the fame quibble in The Two Angry Women of Abington, 1599: "Life is as dear in deer, as 'tis in men." Again, in A Maidenhead well Loft, 1632, a comedy by Heywood: "There's no deer fo dear to him, but he will kill it."

STEEVENS.

Fat is the reading of the firft quarto 1598, the most authentick impreffion of this play, and of the folio. The other quartos have— fair. MALONE.

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So fat a deer, feems to be the better reading, for Turbervile, in The Terms of the Ages of all Beals of Venerie and Chafe, obferves, You fhall fay by anie deare, a great deare, and not a fayre deare, unless it be a rowe, which in the fifth year is called a fayre rowe-bucke." TOLLET.

many dearer,] Many of greater value. JOHNSON.

Nothing confutes me but eyes, and nobody fees me. Therefore, firrah, [Stabbing him.] with a new wound in your thigh, come you along with me.

[Takes HOTSPUR on his back.

Re-enter Prince HENRY and Prince JoнN.

P. HEN. Come, brother John, full bravely haft thou flesh'd

Thy maiden fword.

P. JOHN.

But, foft! whom have we here?

Did you not tell me, this fat man was dead?

P. HEN. I did; I faw him dead, breathlefs and bleeding

Upon the ground.

8

Art thou alive? or is it fantasy

That plays upon our eyefight? I pr'ythee, speak; We will not truft our eyes, without our ears:Thou art not what thou feem'ft.

FAL. No, that's certain; I am not a double man:" but if I be not Jack Falstaff, then am I a Jack. There is Percy: [Throwing the body down.] if your father will do me any honour, fo; if not, let him kill the next Percy himself. I look to be either earl or duke, I can affure you.

P. HEN. Why, Percy I kill'd myself, and faw thee dead.

FAL. Didft thou?-Lord, lord, how this world is given to lying!-I grant you, I was down, and out of breath; and fo was he; but we rose both at

8 Upon the ground.] Old copies

On the ground.- STEEVENS.

9 — a double man:] That is, I am not Falstaff and Percy together, though having Percy on my back, I feem double.

JOHNSON.

an instant, and fought a long hour by Shrewsbury clock. If I may be believ'd, fo; if not, let them, that should reward valour, bear the fin upon their own heads. I'll take it upon my death, I gave him this wound in the thigh: if the man were alive, and would deny it, I would make him eat a piece of my fword.

P. JOHN. This is the ftrangeft tale that e'er I heard.

P. HEN. This is the ftrangeft fellow, brother

John.

Come, bring your luggage nobly on your back:
For my part, if a lie may do thee
do thee grace,
I'll gild it with the happiest terms I have.
[A retreat is founded.
The trumpet founds retreat, the day is ours.
Come, brother, let's to the highest of the field,
To see what friends are living, who are dead.

[Exeunt Prince HENRY and Prince JOHN. FAL. I'll follow, as they fay, for reward. He that rewards me, God reward him! If I do grow great, I'll grow lefs; for I'll purge, and leave fack, and live cleanly, as a nobleman should do.

2

[Exit, bearing off the body.

I gave him this wound in the thigh:] The very learned Lord Lyttelton obferves, that Shakspeare has applied an action to Falftaff, which William of Malmfbury, tells us was really done by one of the Conqueror's knights to the body of King Harold. I do not however believe that Lord Lyttelton fuppofed Shakspeare to have read this old Monk. The story is told likewife by Matthew Paris and Matthew of Weftminster; and by many of the English Chroniclers, Stowe, Speed, &c. &c. FARMER.

SCENE V.

Another Part of the Field.

The trumpets found. Enter King HENRY, Prince
HENRY, Prince JOHN, WESTMORELAND, and
Others, with WORCESTER and VERNON, prisoners.

K. HEN. Thus ever did rebellion find rebuke.'-
Ill-spirited Worcester! did we not fend grace,
Pardon, and terms of love to all of you?
And would'st thou turn our offers contrary ?
Misuse the tenor of thy kinfman's trust?
Three knights upon our party flain to-day,
A noble earl, and many a creature else,
Had been alive this hour,

If, like a chriftian, thou hadst truly borne
Betwixt our armies true intelligence.

WOR. What I have done, my fafety urg'd me to;

And I embrace this fortune patiently,

Since not to be avoided it falls on me.

K. HEN. Bear Worcester to the death, and Ver

non too:

Other offenders we will paufe upon.

[Exeunt WORCESTER and VERNON, guarded. How goes the field?

P. HEN. The noble Scot, lord Douglas, when he faw

The fortune of the day quite turn'd from him,

3 Thus ever did rebellion find rebuke.] Thomas Churchyard, in a catalogue of his own printed works, prefixed to his Challenge, 1593, informs us, that he had published 66 a booke called A Rebuke to Rebellion [dedicated] to the good old Earle of Bedford."

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;

The noble Percy flain, and all his men
Upon the foot of fear,-fled with the rest
And, falling from a hill, he was so bruis'd,
That the purfuers took him. At
At my tent
The Douglas is; and I beseech your grace,
I may dispose of him.

K. HEN.

With all my heart.

P. HEN. Then, brother John of Lancaster, to

you

This honourable bounty fhall belong :

Go to the Douglas, and deliver him

Up to his pleasure, ranfomlefs, and free:
His valour, fhown upon our crefts to-day,

Hath taught us how to cherish such high deeds,
Even in the bofom of our adverfaries."

K. HEN. Then this remains,-that we divide our

power.

You, fon John, and my coufin Westmoreland, Towards York fhall bend you, with your dearest speed,

To meet Northumberland, and the prelate Scroop, Who, as we hear, are bufily in arms:

• Hath taught us-] This reading, which ferves to exclude an inelegant repetition, (and might have been derived from the quarto 1598, corrected by our author,) is refufed by Mr. Malone. See the fubfequent note: and yet, are we authorized to reject the fitteft word, merely because it is not found in the earliest copy? In a note on p. 587, Mr. Malone accepts a reading from a late quarto, which he acknowledges to be of no value. STEEVENS.

Hath fhown us--. -] Thus the quarto, 1598. In that of 1599, Shown was arbitrarily changed to taught, which confequently is the reading of the folio. The repetition is much in our author's manner. MALONE.

5 Here Mr. Pope inferts the following fpeech from the quartos: "Lan. I thank your grace for this high courtesy, "Which I fhall give away immediately."

But Dr. Johnfon judiciously fuppofes it to have been rejected by Shakspeare himself. STEEVENS.

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