Hot. ^note
Well said, my noble Scot: if speaking truth
In this fine age were not thought ^note flattery,
Such attribution should the Douglas have,
As not a soldier of this season's stamp
Should go so general current through the world.
By God ^note, I cannot flatter; I do ^note defy
The tongues ^note of soothers; but a braver place
In my heart's love hath no man than yourself:
Nay, task me to my word; approve me, lord.

Doug.
Thou ^note art the king of honour:
No man so potent breathes upon the ground
But ^note I will beard him.

Hot.
Do so ^note, and 'tis well.

Enter ^note a Messenger with letters.
What letters hast thou ^note there?—I can but thank you. ^note

Mess.
These letters ^note come ^note from your father. ^note

Hot.
Letters from him! why comes he not himself?

Mess.
He cannot come, my lord; he is ^note grievous sick. ^note

Hot.
'Zounds! how has he ^note the leisure to be sick ^note
In such a justling time? Who leads his power?
Under whose government come they along? ^note

Mess.
His letters bear ^note his mind, not I, my lord ^note.

Wor.
I prithee, tell me, doth he keep his bed?

Mess.
He did, my lord, four days ere I set forth;
And at the time of my departure thence
He was much fear'd by his physicians ^note.

Wor.
I would the state of time ^note had first been whole
Ere he by sickness had been visited:
His health was never better worth than now.

Hot.
Sick now! droop now! this sickness doth infect
The very life-blood of our enterprise;
'Tis catching hither, even to our camp.
He writes me here, that inward ^note sickness— ^{note note}
And that his friends by deputation could not
So soon be drawn, nor did he think it meet

To lay so dangerous and dear a trust
On any soul removed but on his own.
Yet doth he give us bold advertisement,
That with our small conjunction we should on,
To see how fortune is disposed to us;
For, as he writes, there is no quailing now,
Because the king is certainly possess'd
Of all our purposes. What say you to it?

Wor.
Your father's sickness is a maim to us.

Hot.
A perilous gash, a very limb lopp'd off:
And yet, in faith, it is not; his ^note present want ^note
Seems more than we shall find it: were it good
To set the exact wealth of all our states
All at one cast? to set ^note so rich a main ^note
On the nice hazard of one doubtful hour? ^note
It were not good; for therein should we read ^note
The very bottom ^note and the soul ^note of hope,
The very list, the very utmost bound
Of all our fortunes.

Doug.
Faith ^note, and so we should;
Where now remains a sweet reversion:
We may ^note boldly spend upon the hope of what
Is ^note to come in ^note: ^note
A comfort of retirement ^note lives in this.

Hot.
A rendezvous, a home to fly unto,
If that the devil and mischance look big
Upon the maidenhead of our affairs.

Wor.
But yet I would your father had been here.
The quality and hair ^note of our attempt
Brooks no division: it ^note will be thought
By some, that know not why he is away,
That wisdom, loyalty and mere dislike
Of our proceedings kept the earl from hence:
And think how such an apprehension
May turn the tide of fearful faction
And breed a kind of question in our cause;
For well you know we of the offering ^note side
Must keep aloof from strict arbitrement,
And stop all sight-holes, every loop from whence
The eye of reason may pry in upon us:
This absence of your father's ^note draws a curtain,
That shows the ignorant a kind of fear
Before not dreamt of ^note.

Hot.
You ^note strain too far.
I rather of his absence make this use:
It lends a lustre and more great opinion,
A larger dare ^note to our ^note great enterprise,
Than if the earl were here; for men must think,
If we without his help can make a head
To push against a kingdom ^note, with his help
We shall o'erturn ^note it topsy-turvy down.
Yet all goes well, yet all our joints are whole.

^note

Doug.
As heart can think: there is not such a word
Spoke of in Scotland as this term ^note of fear. ^noteEnter Sir Richard Vernon.

Hot.
My cousin Vernon! welcome, by my soul.

Ver.
Pray God my news be worth a welcome, lord.
The Earl of Westmoreland, seven thousand strong,
Is marching hitherwards ^note; with him Prince John ^note.

Hot.
No harm: what more?

Ver.
And further, I have learn'd,
The king himself in person is ^note set forth,
Or ^note hitherwards intended ^note speedily,
With strong and mighty preparation. ^note

Hot.
He shall be welcome too. Where is his son,
The nimble-footed madcap Prince ^note of Wales,
And his comrades, that daff'd ^note the world aside,
And bid it pass?

Ver.
All furnish'd, all in arms; ^note
All plumed ^note like estridges that with ^note the wind ^note
Baited ^{note note} like eagles having lately bathed;
Glittering in golden coats, like images;
As full of spirit as the month of May,
And gorgeous as the sun at midsummer;

Wanton as youthful goats, wild as young bulls ^note.
I saw young Harry, with his beaver on ^note,
His cuisses ^note on his thighs, gallantly arm'd,
Rise from the ground like feather'd Mercury,
And vaulted with such ^note ease into his seat,
As if an angel dropp'd ^note down from the clouds,
To turn and wind a fiery Pegasus
And witch the world with noble horsemanship. ^note

Hot.
No more, no more: worse than the sun in March,
This praise doth nourish agues. Let them come;
They come like sacrifices in their trim,
And to the fire-eyed maid of smoky war
All hot and bleeding will we offer them:
The mailed Mars shall on his altar ^note sit
Up to the ears in blood. I am on fire
To hear this rich reprisal is so nigh
And yet not ours. Come, let me taste ^note my horse,
Who is to bear me like a thunderbolt
Against the bosom of the Prince of Wales:
Harry to Harry shall, hot ^note horse to horse,
Meet and ne'er part till one drop down a corse.
O that Glendower were come!

Ver.
There is more news:
I learn'd in Worcester, as I rode along,
He cannot ^note draw his power this fourteen days.

Doug.
That's the worst tidings that I hear of yet ^note.

Wor.
Ay, by my faith, that bears a frosty sound.

Hot.
What may the king's whole battle reach unto?

Ver.
To thirty thousand.

Hot.
Forty let it be:
My father and Glendower being both away,
The powers ^note of us may serve so great a day.
Come, let us take a muster ^note speedily:
Doomsday is near; die all, die merrily.

Doug.
Talk not of dying: I am out of fear
Of death or death's hand for this one half-year. [Exeunt. ^{note note} Scene II. [Footnote: A public road near Coventry. Enter Falstaff and Bardolph.

Fal.

Bardolph, get thee before to Coventry; fill me a bottle of sack: our soldiers shall march through; we'll to Sutton Co'fil' ^note to-night.

Bard.

Will you give me money, captain?

Fal.

Lay out, lay out.

Bard.

This bottle makes an angel.

Fal.

An if it do ^note, take it for thy labour; and if it make twenty, take them all; I'll answer the coinage. Bid my lieutenant Peto meet me at ^note town's end.

Bard.

I will, captain: farewell.

Fal.

If I be not ^note ashamed of my soldiers, I am a soused gurnet. I have misused the king's press damnably. I have got, in exchange of a hundred and fifty ^note soldiers, three hundred ^note and odd pounds. I press me none but good householders, yeoman's sons; inquire ^note me out contracted bachelors,

such as had been asked twice on the banns ^note; such a commodity of warm slaves, as had as lieve hear the devil as a drum; such as fear the report of a caliver ^note worse than a struck fowl ^note or a hurt wild-duck ^note. I pressed ^note me none but such toasts-and-butter, with hearts in their bellies no bigger than pins'-heads, and they have bought ^note out their services; and now my whole charge consists of ancients, corporals, lieutenants, gentlemen of companies, slaves as ragged as Lazarus in the painted cloth, where the glutton's dogs licked ^note his sores; and such as indeed were never soldiers, but discarded unjust serving-men, younger sons to younger brothers, revolted tapsters and ostlers ^note trade-fallen, the cankers of a calm world and a long ^note peace, ten ^note times more dishonourable ^note ragged than an old faced ^note ancient: and such have I, to fill up the rooms of them that have ^note bought out their services, that you would think that I had ^note a hundred and fifty tattered ^note prodigals lately come from swine-keeping, from eating draff and husks. A mad fellow met me on the way and told me I had unloaded all the gibbets and pressed the dead bodies. No eye hath seen such scarecrows. I'll not march through ^note Coventry with them, that's flat: nay, and the villains march wide betwixt ^note the legs, as if they had gyves on; for indeed I had the most of them out of prison. There's but ^note a shirt and a half in all my company; and the half shirt is two napkins tacked together and thrown over

the shoulders like an herald's coat without sleeves; and the shirt, to say the truth, stolen from my host at ^note Saint Alban's, or the red-nose ^note innkeeper of Daventry ^note. But that's all one; they'll find linen enough on every hedge.