PRINCE HARRY Else he had been damned for cozening the devil.

POINS But my lads, my lads, tomorrow morning by four o’clock early, at Gads Hill, there are pilgrims going to Canterbury with rich offerings, and traders riding to London with fat purses. I have visors for you all; you have horses for yourselves. Gadshill lies tonight in Rochester. I have bespoke supper tomorrow night in Eastcheap. We may do it as secure as sleep. If you will go, I will stuff your purses full of crowns; if you will not, tarry at home and be hanged.

SIR JOHN Hear ye, Edward, if I tarry at home and go not, I’ll hang you for going.

POINS You will, chops?

SIR JOHN Hal, wilt thou make one?

PRINCE HARRY Who, I rob? I a thief? Not I, by my faith.

SIR JOHN There’s neither honesty, manhood, nor good fellowship in thee, nor thou earnest not of the blood royal, if thou darest not stand for ten shillings.

PRINCE HARRY Well then, once in my days I’ll be a madcap.

SIR JOHN Why, that’s well said.

PRINCE HARRY Well, come what will, I’ll tarry at home.

SIR JOHN By the Lord, I’ll be a traitor then, when thou art king.

PRINCE HARRY I care not.

POINS Sir John, I prithee leave the Prince and me alone. I will lay him down such reasons for this adventure that he shall go.

SIR JOHN Well, God give thee the spirit of persuasion and him the ears of profiting, that what thou speakest may move and what he hears may be believed, that the true prince may, for recreation’ sake, prove a false thief; for the poor abuses of the time want countenance. Farewell. You shall find me in Eastcheap.

PRINCE HARRY Farewell, the latter spring; farewell, Allhallown summer. Exit Sir John

POINS Now, my good sweet honey lord, ride with us tomorrow. I have a jest to execute that I cannot manage alone. Oldcastle, Harvey, Russell, and Gadshill shall rob those men that we have already waylaid—yourself and I will not be there—and when they have the booty, if you and I do not rob them, cut this head off from my shoulders.

PRINCE HARRY But how shall we part with them in setting forth?

POINS Why, we will set forth before or after them and appoint them a place of meeting, wherein it is at our pleasure to fail. And then will they adventure upon the exploit themselves, which they shall have no sooner achieved but we’ll set upon them.

PRINCE HARRY Ay, but ’tis like that they will know us by our horses, by our habits, and by every other appointment, to be ourselves.

POINS Tut, our horses they shall not see—I’ll tie them in the wood; our visors we will change after we leave them; and, sirrah, I have cases of buckram for the nonce, to immask our noted outward garments.

PRINCE HARRY But I doubt they will be too hard for us.

POINS Well, for two of them, I know them to be as true-bred cowards as ever turned back; and for the third, if he fight longer than he sees reason, I’ll forswear arms. The virtue of this jest will be the incomprehensible lies that this same fat rogue will tell us when we meet at supper: how thirty at least he fought with, what wards, what blows, what extremities he endured; and in the reproof of this lives the jest.

PRINCE HARRY Well, I’ll go with thee. Provide us all things necessary, and meet me tomorrow night in Eastcheap; there I’ll sup. Farewell.

POINS Farewell, my lord. Exit

PRINCE HARRY I know you all, and will a while uphold The unyoked humour of your idleness. Yet herein will I imitate the sun, Who doth permit the base contagious clouds To smother up his beauty from the world, That when he please again to be himself, Being wanted he may be more wondered at By breaking through the foul and ugly mists Of vapours that did seem to strangle him. If all the year were playing holidays, To sport would be as tedious as to work; But when they seldom come, they wished-for come, And nothing pleaseth but rare accidents. So when this loose behaviour I throw off And pay the debt I never promised, By how much better than my word I am, By so much shall I falsify men’s hopes; And like bright metal on a sullen ground, My reformation, glitt‘ring o’er my fault, Shall show more goodly and attract more eyes Than that which hath no foil to set it off. I’ll so offend to make offence a skill, Redeeming time when men think least I will. Exit

1.3 Enter the King, the Earls of Northumberland and Worcester, Hotspur, Sir Walter Blunt, with other ⌈lords⌉

KING HENRY (to Hotspur, Northumberland, and Worcester) My blood hath been too cold and temperate, Unapt to stir at these indignities, And you have found me, for accordingly You tread upon my patience; but be sure I will from henceforth rather be myself, Mighty and to be feared, than my condition, Which hath been smooth as oil, soft as young down, And therefore lost that title of respect Which the proud soul ne’er pays but to the proud.

WORCESTER Our house, my sovereign liege, little deserves The scourge of greatness to be used on it, And that same greatness too, which our own hands Have holp to make so portly.

NORTHUMBERLAND (to the King) My lord—

KING HENRY

Worcester, get thee gone, for I do see

Danger and disobedience in thine eye.

O sir, your presence is too bold and peremptory,

And majesty might never yet endure

The moody frontier of a servant brow.

You have good leave to leave us. When we need

Your use and counsel we shall send for you.

Exit Worcester

You were about to speak.

NORTHUMBERLAND Yea, my good lord.

Those prisoners in your highness’ name demanded,

Which Harry Percy here at Holmedon took,

Were, as he says, not with such strength denied

As was delivered to your majesty,

Who either through envy or misprision

Was guilty of this fault, and not my son.

HOTSPUR (to the King)

My liege, I did deny no prisoners;

But I remember, when the fight was done,

When I was dry with rage and extreme toil,

Breathless and faint, leaning upon my sword,

Came there a certain lord, neat and trimly dressed,

Fresh as a bridegroom, and his chin, new-reaped,

Showed like a stubble-land at harvest-home.

He was perfumed like a milliner,

And ‘twixt his finger and his thumb he held

A pouncet-box, which ever and anon

He gave his nose and took’t away again—

Who therewith angry, when it next came there

Took it in snuff—and still he smiled and talked;

And as the soldiers bore dead bodies by,

He called them untaught knaves, unmannerly

To bring a slovenly unhandsome corpse

Betwixt the wind and his nobility.

With many holiday and lady terms

He questioned me; amongst the rest demanded

My prisoners in your majesty’s behalf.

I then, all smarting with my wounds being cold—