Hot. I can no longer brook thy vanities. [They fight.[3191]
Enter Falstaff.
Fal. Well said, Hal! to it, Hal! Nay, you shall find75
no boy's play here, I can tell you.
Re-enter Douglas; he fights with Falstaff, who falls down as if he were dead, and exit Douglas. Hotspur is wounded, and falls.[3192]
Hot. O, Harry, thou hast robb'd me of my youth![3193]
I better brook the loss of brittle life[3194]
Than those proud titles thou hast won of me;
They wound my thoughts worse than thy sword my flesh:[3195]80
But thought's the slave of life, and life time's fool;[3196]
And time, that takes survey of all the world,
Must have a stop. O, I could prophesy,
But that the earthy and cold hand of death[3197]
Lies on my tongue: no, Percy, thou art dust,85
And food for— [Dies.
Prince. For worms, brave Percy: fare thee well, great heart![3198]
Ill-weaved ambition, how much art thou shrunk!
When that this body did contain a spirit,
A kingdom for it was too small a bound;90
But now two paces of the vilest earth
Is room enough: this earth that bears thee dead[3199]
Bears not alive so stout a gentleman.
If thou wert sensible of courtesy,
I should not make so dear a show of zeal:[3200]95
But let my favours hide thy mangled face;[3201]
And, even in thy behalf, I'll thank myself
For doing these fair rites of tenderness.[3202]
Adieu, and take thy praise with thee to heaven!
Thy ignominy sleep with thee in the grave,[3203]100
But not remember'd in thy epitaph!
[He spieth Falstaff on the ground.[3204]
What, old acquaintance! could not all this flesh
Keep in a little life? Poor Jack, farewell!
I could have better spared a better man:
O, I should have a heavy miss of thee,105
If I were much in love with vanity!
Death hath not struck so fat a deer to-day,[3205]
Though many dearer, in this bloody fray.
Embowell'd will I see thee by and by:
Till then in blood by noble Percy lie. [Exit.110
Fal. [Rising up] Embowelled! if thou embowel me[3206]
to-day, I'll give you leave to powder me and eat me too
to-morrow. 'Sblood, 'twas time to counterfeit, or that hot[3207]
termagant Scot had paid me scot and lot too. Counterfeit? I[3208]
lie, I am no counterfeit: to die, is to be a counterfeit; for[3208]115
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 saved my life. 'Zounds, I am[3209]120
afraid of this gunpowder Percy, though he be dead: how, if[3210]
he should counterfeit too, and rise? by my faith, I am[3211]
afraid he would prove the better counterfeit. Therefore
I'll make him sure; yea, and I'll swear I killed him. Why[3212]
may not he rise as well as I? Nothing confutes me but125
eyes, and nobody sees me. Therefore, sirrah [stabbing[3213]
him], with a new wound in your thigh, come you along[3214]
with me. [Takes up Hotspur on his back.
Re-enter the Prince of Wales and Lord John of Lancaster.[3215]