Henry IV, Part 2 - Entire Play
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Henry IV, Part 2 - Entire PlaySynopsis:
Henry IV, Part 2, continues the story of Henry IV, Part I. Northumberland learns that his son Hotspur is dead, and he rejoins the remaining rebels. When Hotspur’s widow convinces Northumberland to withdraw, the rebels are then led by the archbishop of York and Lords Mowbray and Hastings, who muster at York to confront the king’s forces.
Sir John Falstaff, meanwhile, glories in the reputation he has gained by falsely claiming to have killed Hotspur, and he uses his wit and cunning to escape charges by the Lord Chief Justice. Prince Hal and his companion Poins disguise themselves to observe Falstaff, and they hear him insult them both. After they confront him, Prince Hal and Falstaff must return to the wars. The king’s army is again victorious, but more through deceit and false promises than through valor.
With the rebellion over, Prince Hal attends his dying father. Hal becomes Henry V, reassures the Lord Chief Justice, and turns away Falstaff, who had expected royal favor.
⌜RUMOR⌝
0001 Open your ears, for which of you will stop
0002 The vent of hearing when loud Rumor speaks?
0003 I, from the orient to the drooping west,
0004 Making the wind my post-horse, still unfold
0005 5 The acts commencèd on this ball of earth.
0006 Upon my tongues continual slanders ride,
0007 The which in every language I pronounce,
0008 Stuffing the ears of men with false reports.
0009 I speak of peace while covert enmity
0010 10 Under the smile of safety wounds the world.
0011 And who but Rumor, who but only I,
0012 Make fearful musters and prepared defense
0013 Whiles the big year, swoll’n with some other grief,
0014 Is thought with child by the stern tyrant war,
0015 15 And no such matter? Rumor is a pipe
0016 Blown by surmises, jealousies, conjectures,
0017 And of so easy and so plain a stop
0018 That the blunt monster with uncounted heads,
0019 The still-discordant wav’ring multitude,
0020 20 Can play upon it. But what need I thus
0021 My well-known body to anatomize
0022 Among my household? Why is Rumor here?
0023 I run before King Harry’s victory,
0025 25 Hath beaten down young Hotspur and his troops,
0026 Quenching the flame of bold rebellion
0027 Even with the rebels’ blood. But what mean I
0028 To speak so true at first? My office is
0029 To noise abroad that Harry Monmouth fell
0030 30 Under the wrath of noble Hotspur’s sword,
0031 And that the King before the Douglas’ rage
0032 Stooped his anointed head as low as death.
0033 This have I rumored through the peasant towns
0034 Between that royal field of Shrewsbury
0035 35 And this worm-eaten ⌜hold⌝ of ragged stone,
0036 ⟨Where⟩ Hotspur’s father, old Northumberland,
0037 Lies crafty-sick. The posts come tiring on,
0038 And not a man of them brings other news
0039 Than they have learnt of me. From Rumor’s
0040 40 tongues
0041 They bring smooth comforts false, worse than
0042 true wrongs.
⌜Rumor⌝ exits.
LORD BARDOLPH
0043 Who keeps the gate here, ho?
⌜Enter the Porter.⌝
0044 Where is the Earl?
PORTER
0045 What shall I say you are?
LORD BARDOLPH 0046 Tell thou the Earl
0047 5 That the Lord Bardolph doth attend him here.
PORTER
0048 His Lordship is walked forth into the orchard.
0049 Please it your Honor knock but at the gate
0050 And he himself will answer.
Enter the Earl Northumberland, ⌜his head wrapped in a
kerchief and supporting himself with a crutch.⌝
LORD BARDOLPH 0051 Here comes the Earl.
⌜Porter exits.⌝
NORTHUMBERLAND
0052 10 What news, Lord Bardolph? Every minute now
0053 Should be the father of some stratagem.
0054 The times are wild. Contention, like a horse
0056 And bears down all before him.
LORD BARDOLPH 0057 15 Noble earl,
0058 I bring you certain news from Shrewsbury.
NORTHUMBERLAND
0059 Good, an God will!
LORD BARDOLPH 0060 As good as heart can wish.
0061 The King is almost wounded to the death,
0062 20 And, in the fortune of my lord your son,
0063 Prince Harry slain outright; and both the Blunts
0064 Killed by the hand of Douglas; young Prince John
0065 And Westmoreland and Stafford fled the field;
0066 And Harry Monmouth’s brawn, the hulk Sir John,
0067 25 Is prisoner to your son. O, such a day,
0068 So fought, so followed, and so fairly won,
0069 Came not till now to dignify the times
0070 Since Caesar’s fortunes.
NORTHUMBERLAND 0071 How is this derived?
0072 30 Saw you the field? Came you from Shrewsbury?
LORD BARDOLPH
0073 I spake with one, my lord, that came from thence,
0074 A gentleman well bred and of good name,
0075 That freely rendered me these news for true.
Enter Travers.
NORTHUMBERLAND
0076 Here comes my servant Travers, who I sent
0077 35 On Tuesday last to listen after news.
LORD BARDOLPH
0078 My lord, I overrode him on the way,
0079 And he is furnished with no certainties
0080 More than he haply may retail from me.
NORTHUMBERLAND
0081 Now, Travers, what good tidings comes with you?
TRAVERS
0082 40 My lord, Sir John Umfrevile turned me back
0084 Outrode me. After him came spurring hard
0085 A gentleman, almost forspent with speed,
0086 That stopped by me to breathe his bloodied horse.
0087 45 He asked the way to Chester, and of him
0088 I did demand what news from Shrewsbury.
0089 He told me that rebellion had bad luck
0090 And that young Harry Percy’s spur was cold.
0091 With that he gave his able horse the head
0092 50 And, bending forward, struck his armèd heels
0093 Against the panting sides of his poor jade
0094 Up to the rowel-head, and starting so
0095 He seemed in running to devour the way,
0096 Staying no longer question.
NORTHUMBERLAND 0097 55 Ha? Again:
0098 Said he young Harry Percy’s spur was cold?
0099 Of Hotspur, Coldspur? That rebellion
0100 Had met ill luck?
LORD BARDOLPH 0101 My lord, I’ll tell you what:
0102 60 If my young lord your son have not the day,
0103 Upon mine honor, for a silken point
0104 I’ll give my barony. Never talk of it.
NORTHUMBERLAND
0105 Why should that gentleman that rode by Travers
0106 Give then such instances of loss?
LORD BARDOLPH 0107 65 Who, he?
0108 He was some hilding fellow that had stol’n
0109 The horse he rode on and, upon my life,
0110 Spoke at a venture.
Enter Morton.
0111 Look, here comes more news.
NORTHUMBERLAND
0112 70 Yea, this man’s brow, like to a title leaf,
0113 Foretells the nature of a tragic volume.
0115 Hath left a witnessed usurpation.—
0116 Say, Morton, didst thou come from Shrewsbury?
MORTON
0117 75 I ran from Shrewsbury, my noble lord,
0118 Where hateful death put on his ugliest mask
0119 To fright our party.
NORTHUMBERLAND 0120 How doth my son and brother?
0121 Thou tremblest, and the whiteness in thy cheek
0122 80 Is apter than thy tongue to tell thy errand.
0123 Even such a man, so faint, so spiritless,
0124 So dull, so dead in look, so woebegone,
0125 Drew Priam’s curtain in the dead of night
0126 And would have told him half his Troy was burnt;
0127 85 But Priam found the fire ere he his tongue,
0128 And I my Percy’s death ere thou report’st it.
0129 This thou wouldst say: “Your son did thus and thus;
0130 Your brother thus; so fought the noble Douglas”—
0131 Stopping my greedy ear with their bold deeds.
0132 90 But in the end, to stop my ear indeed,
0133 Thou hast a sigh to blow away this praise,
0134 Ending with “Brother, son, and all are dead.”
MORTON
0135 Douglas is living, and your brother yet,
0136 But for my lord your son—
NORTHUMBERLAND 0137 95 Why, he is dead.
0138 See what a ready tongue suspicion hath!
0139 He that but fears the thing he would not know
0140 Hath, by instinct, knowledge from others’ eyes
0141 That what he feared is chancèd. Yet speak,
0142 100 Morton.
0143 Tell thou an earl his divination lies,
0144 And I will take it as a sweet disgrace
0145 And make thee rich for doing me such wrong.
MORTON
0146 You are too great to be by me gainsaid,
0147 105 Your spirit is too true, your fears too certain.
0148 Yet, for all this, say not that Percy’s dead.
0149 I see a strange confession in thine eye.
0150 Thou shak’st thy head and hold’st it fear or sin
0151 To speak a truth. If he be slain, ⟨say so.⟩
0152 110 The tongue offends not that reports his death;
0153 And he doth sin that doth belie the dead,
0154 Not he which says the dead is not alive.
0155 Yet the first bringer of unwelcome news
0156 Hath but a losing office, and his tongue
0157 115 Sounds ever after as a sullen bell
0158 Remembered tolling a departing friend.
LORD BARDOLPH
0159 I cannot think, my lord, your son is dead.
MORTON, ⌜to Northumberland⌝
0160 I am sorry I should force you to believe
0161 That which I would to God I had not seen,
0162 120 But these mine eyes saw him in bloody state,
0163 Rend’ring faint quittance, wearied and outbreathed,
0164 To Harry Monmouth, whose swift wrath beat down
0165 The never-daunted Percy to the earth,
0166 From whence with life he never more sprung up.
0167 125 In few, his death, whose spirit lent a fire
0168 Even to the dullest peasant in his camp,
0169 Being bruited once, took fire and heat away
0170 From the best-tempered courage in his troops;
0171 For from his mettle was his party steeled,
0172 130 Which, once in him abated, all the rest
0173 Turned on themselves, like dull and heavy lead.
0174 And as the thing that’s heavy in itself
0175 Upon enforcement flies with greatest speed,
0176 So did our men, heavy in Hotspur’s loss,
0177 135 Lend to this weight such lightness with their fear
0178 That arrows fled not swifter toward their aim
0179 Than did our soldiers, aiming at their safety,
0181 So soon ta’en prisoner; and that furious Scot,
0182 140 The bloody Douglas, whose well-laboring sword
0183 Had three times slain th’ appearance of the King,
0184 Gan vail his stomach and did grace the shame
0185 Of those that turned their backs and in his flight,
0186 Stumbling in fear, was took. The sum of all
0187 145 Is that the King hath won and hath sent out
0188 A speedy power to encounter you, my lord,
0189 Under the conduct of young Lancaster
0190 And Westmoreland. This is the news at full.
NORTHUMBERLAND
0191 For this I shall have time enough to mourn.
0192 150 In poison there is physic, and these news,
0193 Having been well, that would have made me sick,
0194 Being sick, have in some measure made me well.
0195 And as the wretch whose fever-weakened joints,
0196 Like strengthless hinges, buckle under life,
0197 155 Impatient of his fit, breaks like a fire
0198 Out of his keeper’s arms, even so my limbs,
0199 Weakened with grief, being now enraged with
0200 grief,
0201 Are thrice themselves. Hence therefore, thou
0202 160 nice crutch.⌜He throws down his crutch.⌝
0203 A scaly gauntlet now with joints of steel
0204 Must glove this hand. And hence, thou sickly
0205 coif.⌜He removes his kerchief.⌝
0206 Thou art a guard too wanton for the head
0207 165 Which princes, fleshed with conquest, aim to hit.
0208 Now bind my brows with iron, and approach
0209 The ragged’st hour that time and spite dare bring
0210 To frown upon th’ enraged Northumberland.
0211 Let heaven kiss Earth! Now let not Nature’s hand
0212 170 Keep the wild flood confined. Let order die,
0213 And let this world no longer be a stage
0215 But let one spirit of the firstborn Cain
0216 Reign in all bosoms, that, each heart being set
0217 175 On bloody courses, the rude scene may end,
0218 And darkness be the burier of the dead.
⌜LORD BARDOLPH⌝
0219 [This strainèd passion doth you wrong, my lord.]
⌜MORTON⌝
0220 Sweet earl, divorce not wisdom from your honor.
0221 The lives of all your loving complices
0222 180 ⟨Lean⟩ on ⟨your⟩ health, the which, if you give o’er
0223 To stormy passion, must perforce decay.
0224 ⟨You cast th’ event of war, my noble lord,
0225 And summed the accompt of chance before you
0226 said
0227 185 “Let us make head.” It was your presurmise
0228 That in the dole of blows your son might drop.
0229 You knew he walked o’er perils on an edge,
0230 More likely to fall in than to get o’er.
0231 You were advised his flesh was capable
0232 190 Of wounds and scars, and that his forward spirit
0233 Would lift him where most trade of danger
0234 ranged.
0235 Yet did you say “Go forth,” and none of this,
0236 Though strongly apprehended, could restrain
0237 195 The stiff-borne action. What hath then befall’n,
0238 Or what ⌜did⌝ this bold enterprise bring forth,
0239 More than that being which was like to be?⟩
LORD BARDOLPH
0240 We all that are engagèd to this loss
0241 Knew that we ventured on such dangerous seas
0242 200 That if we wrought out life, ’twas ten to one;
0243 And yet we ventured, for the gain proposed
0244 Choked the respect of likely peril feared;
0245 And since we are o’erset, venture again.
0246 Come, we will all put forth, body and goods.
0247 205 ’Tis more than time.—And, my most noble lord,
0248 I hear for certain, and dare speak the truth:
0249 ⟨The gentle Archbishop of York is up
0250 With well-appointed powers. He is a man
0251 Who with a double surety binds his followers.
0252 210 My lord your son had only but the corpse,
0253 But shadows and the shows of men, to fight;
0254 For that same word “rebellion” did divide
0255 The action of their bodies from their souls,
0256 And they did fight with queasiness, constrained,
0257 215 As men drink potions, that their weapons only
0258 Seemed on our side. But, for their spirits and
0259 souls,
0260 This word “rebellion,” it had froze them up
0261 As fish are in a pond. But now the Bishop
0262 220 Turns insurrection to religion.
0263 Supposed sincere and holy in his thoughts,
0264 He’s followed both with body and with mind,
0265 And doth enlarge his rising with the blood
0266 Of fair King Richard, scraped from Pomfret
0267 225 stones;
0268 Derives from heaven his quarrel and his cause;
0269 Tells them he doth bestride a bleeding land,
0270 Gasping for life under great Bolingbroke;
0271 And more and less do flock to follow him.⟩
NORTHUMBERLAND
0272 230 I knew of this before, but, to speak truth,
0273 This present grief had wiped it from my mind.
0274 Go in with me and counsel every man
0275 The aptest way for safety and revenge.
0276 Get posts and letters, and make friends with speed.
0277 235 Never so few, and never yet more need.
They exit.
and buckler.
FALSTAFF 0278 Sirrah, you giant, what says the doctor to my
0279 water?
PAGE 0280 He said, sir, the water itself was a good healthy
0281 water, but, for the party that owed it, he might have
0282 5 more diseases than he knew for.
FALSTAFF 0283 Men of all sorts take a pride to gird at me.
0284 The brain of this foolish-compounded clay, man, is
0285 not able to invent anything that intends to laughter
0286 more than I invent, or is invented on me. I am not
0287 10 only witty in myself, but the cause that wit is in
0288 other men. I do here walk before thee like a sow
0289 that hath overwhelmed all her litter but one. If the
0290 Prince put thee into my service for any other reason
0291 than to set me off, why then I have no judgment.
0292 15 Thou whoreson mandrake, thou art fitter to be
0293 worn in my cap than to wait at my heels. I was never
0294 manned with an agate till now, but I will inset you
0295 neither in gold nor silver, but in vile apparel, and
0296 send you back again to your master for a jewel. The
0297 20 juvenal, the Prince your master, whose chin is not
0298 yet fledge—I will sooner have a beard grow in the
0299 palm of my hand than he shall get one off his cheek,
0300 and yet he will not stick to say his face is a face
0301 royal. God may finish it when He will. ’Tis not a hair
0302 25 amiss yet. He may keep it still at a face royal, for a
0303 barber shall never earn sixpence out of it, and yet
0304 he’ll be crowing as if he had writ man ever since his
0305 father was a bachelor. He may keep his own grace,
0306 but he’s almost out of mine, I can assure him. What
0307 30 said Master Dommelton about the satin for my
0308 short cloak and my slops?
0310 assurance than Bardolph. He would not take his
0311 band and yours. He liked not the security.
FALSTAFF 0312 35Let him be damned like the glutton! Pray
0313 God his tongue be hotter! A whoreson Achitophel, a
0314 ⟨rascally⟩ yea-forsooth knave, to bear a gentleman in
0315 hand and then stand upon security! The whoreson
0316 smoothy-pates do now wear nothing but high shoes
0317 40 and bunches of keys at their girdles; and if a man is
0318 through with them in honest taking up, then they
0319 must stand upon security. I had as lief they would
0320 put ratsbane in my mouth as offer to stop it with
0321 “security.” I looked he should have sent me two-and-twenty
0322 45 yards of satin, as I am a true knight, and
0323 he sends me “security.” Well, he may sleep in
0324 security, for he hath the horn of abundance, and the
0325 lightness of his wife shines through it, and yet
0326 cannot he see though he have his own lantern to
0327 50 light him. Where’s Bardolph?
PAGE 0328 He’s gone in Smithfield to buy your Worship a
0329 horse.
FALSTAFF 0330 I bought him in Paul’s, and he’ll buy me a
0331 horse in Smithfield. An I could get me but a wife in
0332 55 the stews, I were manned, horsed, and wived.
Enter Lord Chief Justice ⟨and Servant.⟩
PAGE, ⌜to Falstaff⌝ 0333 Sir, here comes the nobleman that
0334 committed the Prince for striking him about
0335 Bardolph.
FALSTAFF 0336 Wait close. I will not see him.
⌜They begin to exit.⌝
CHIEF JUSTICE, ⌜to Servant⌝ 0337 60What’s he that goes there?
SERVANT 0338 Falstaff, an ’t please your Lordship.
CHIEF JUSTICE 0339 He that was in question for the robbery?
SERVANT 0340 He, my lord; but he hath since done good
0342 65 with some charge to the Lord John of Lancaster.
CHIEF JUSTICE 0343 What, to York? Call him back again.
SERVANT 0344 Sir John Falstaff!
FALSTAFF 0345 Boy, tell him I am deaf.
PAGE 0346 You must speak louder. My master is deaf.
CHIEF JUSTICE 0347 70I am sure he is, to the hearing of
0348 anything good.—Go pluck him by the elbow. I must
0349 speak with him.
SERVANT, ⌜plucking Falstaff’s sleeve⌝ 0350 Sir John!
FALSTAFF 0351 What, a young knave and begging? Is there
0352 75 not wars? Is there not employment? Doth not the
0353 King lack subjects? Do not the rebels need soldiers?
0354 Though it be a shame to be on any side but one, it is
0355 worse shame to beg than to be on the worst side,
0356 were it worse than the name of rebellion can tell
0357 80 how to make it.
SERVANT 0358 You mistake me, sir.
FALSTAFF 0359 Why sir, did I say you were an honest man?
0360 Setting my knighthood and my soldiership aside, I
0361 had lied in my throat if I had said so.
SERVANT 0362 85I pray you, sir, then set your knighthood and
0363 your soldiership aside, and give me leave to tell you,
0364 you lie in your throat if you say I am any other than
0365 an honest man.
FALSTAFF 0366 I give thee leave to tell me so? I lay aside that
0367 90 which grows to me? If thou gett’st any leave of me,
0368 hang me; if thou tak’st leave, thou wert better be
0369 hanged. You hunt counter. Hence! Avaunt!
SERVANT 0370 Sir, my lord would speak with you.
CHIEF JUSTICE 0371 Sir John Falstaff, a word with you.
FALSTAFF 0372 95My good lord. God give your Lordship good
0373 time of ⟨the⟩ day. I am glad to see your Lordship
0374 abroad. I heard say your Lordship was sick. I hope
0375 your Lordship goes abroad by advice. Your Lordship,
0377 100 some smack of an ague in you, some relish of the
0378 saltness of time in you, and I most humbly beseech
0379 your Lordship to have a reverend care of your
0380 health.
CHIEF JUSTICE 0381 Sir John, I sent for you before your
0382 105 expedition to Shrewsbury.
FALSTAFF 0383 An ’t please your Lordship, I hear his Majesty
0384 is returned with some discomfort from Wales.
CHIEF JUSTICE 0385 I talk not of his Majesty. You would not
0386 come when I sent for you.
FALSTAFF 0387 110And I hear, moreover, his Highness is fallen
0388 into this same whoreson apoplexy.
CHIEF JUSTICE 0389 Well, God mend him. I pray you let me
0390 speak with you.
FALSTAFF 0391 This apoplexy, as I take it, is a kind of
0392 115 lethargy, an ’t please your Lordship, a kind of
0393 sleeping in the blood, a whoreson tingling.
CHIEF JUSTICE 0394 What tell you me of it? Be it as it is.
FALSTAFF 0395 It hath it original from much grief, from
0396 study, and perturbation of the brain. I have read the
0397 120 cause of his effects in Galen. It is a kind of deafness.
CHIEF JUSTICE 0398 I think you are fallen into the disease,
0399 for you hear not what I say to you.
FALSTAFF 0400 Very well, my lord, very well. Rather, an ’t
0401 please you, it is the disease of not listening, the
0402 125 malady of not marking, that I am troubled withal.
CHIEF JUSTICE 0403 To punish you by the heels would amend
0404 the attention of your ears, and I care not if I do
0405 become your physician.
FALSTAFF 0406 I am as poor as Job, my lord, but not so
0407 130 patient. Your Lordship may minister the potion of
0408 imprisonment to me in respect of poverty, but how
0409 I should be your patient to follow your prescriptions,
0410 the wise may make some dram of a scruple,
0411 or indeed a scruple itself.
0413 against you for your life, to come speak with me.
FALSTAFF 0414 As I was then advised by my learned counsel
0415 in the laws of this land-service, I did not come.
CHIEF JUSTICE 0416 Well, the truth is, Sir John, you live in
0417 140 great infamy.
FALSTAFF 0418 He that buckles himself in my belt cannot
0419 live in less.
CHIEF JUSTICE 0420 Your means are very slender, and your
0421 waste is great.
FALSTAFF 0422 145I would it were otherwise. I would my means
0423 were greater and my waist slender.
CHIEF JUSTICE 0424 You have misled the youthful prince.
FALSTAFF 0425 The young prince hath misled me. I am the
0426 fellow with the great belly, and he my dog.
CHIEF JUSTICE 0427 150Well, I am loath to gall a new-healed
0428 wound. Your day’s service at Shrewsbury hath a
0429 little gilded over your night’s exploit on Gad’s Hill.
0430 You may thank th’ unquiet time for your quiet
0431 o’erposting that action.
FALSTAFF 0432 155My lord.
CHIEF JUSTICE 0433 But since all is well, keep it so. Wake not
0434 a sleeping wolf.
FALSTAFF 0435 To wake a wolf is as bad as ⟨to⟩ smell a fox.
CHIEF JUSTICE 0436 What, you are as a candle, the better
0437 160 part burnt out.
FALSTAFF 0438 A wassail candle, my lord, all tallow. If I did
0439 say of wax, my growth would approve the truth.
CHIEF JUSTICE 0440 There is not a white hair in your face but
0441 should have his effect of gravity.
FALSTAFF 0442 165His effect of gravy, gravy, gravy.
CHIEF JUSTICE 0443 You follow the young prince up and
0444 down like his ill angel.
FALSTAFF 0445 Not so, my lord. Your ill angel is light, but I
0446 hope he that looks upon me will take me without
0447 170 weighing. And yet in some respects I grant I cannot
0449 costermongers’ times that true valor is turned bearherd;
0450 pregnancy is made a tapster, and ⟨hath⟩ his
0451 quick wit wasted in giving reckonings. All the other
0452 175 gifts appurtenant to man, as the malice of ⟨this⟩ age
0453 shapes ⟨them, are⟩ not worth a gooseberry. You that
0454 are old consider not the capacities of us that are
0455 young. You do measure the heat of our livers with
0456 the bitterness of your galls, and we that are in the
0457 180 vaward of our youth, I must confess, are wags too.
CHIEF JUSTICE 0458 Do you set down your name in the scroll
0459 of youth, that are written down old with all the
0460 characters of age? Have you not a moist eye, a dry
0461 hand, a yellow cheek, a white beard, a decreasing
0462 185 leg, an increasing belly? Is not your voice broken,
0463 your wind short, your chin double, your wit single,
0464 and every part about you blasted with antiquity?
0465 And will you yet call yourself young? Fie, fie, fie, Sir
0466 John.
FALSTAFF 0467 190My lord, I was born [about three of the clock
0468 in the afternoon,] with a white head and something
0469 a round belly. For my voice, I have lost it with
0470 halloing and singing of anthems. To approve my
0471 youth further, I will not. The truth is, I am only old
0472 195 in judgment and understanding. And he that will
0473 caper with me for a thousand marks, let him lend
0474 me the money, and have at him. For the box of the
0475 ⟨ear⟩ that the Prince gave you, he gave it like a rude
0476 prince, and you took it like a sensible lord. I have
0477 200 checked him for it, and the young lion repents.
0478 ⌜Aside.⌝ Marry, not in ashes and sackcloth, but in
0479 new silk and old sack.
CHIEF JUSTICE 0480 Well, God send the Prince a better
0481 companion.
FALSTAFF 0482 205God send the companion a better prince. I
0483 cannot rid my hands of him.
0485 Prince Harry.⟩ I hear you are going with Lord John
0486 of Lancaster against the Archbishop and the Earl of
0487 210 Northumberland.
FALSTAFF 0488 Yea, I thank your pretty sweet wit for it. But
0489 look you pray, all you that kiss my Lady Peace at
0490 home, that our armies join not in a hot day, for, by
0491 the Lord, I take but two shirts out with me, and I
0492 215 mean not to sweat extraordinarily. If it be a hot day
0493 and I brandish anything but a bottle, I would I
0494 might never spit white again. There is not a dangerous
0495 action can peep out his head but I am thrust
0496 upon it. Well, I cannot last ever. [But it was always
0497 220 yet the trick of our English nation, if they have a
0498 good thing, to make it too common. If you will
0499 needs say I am an old man, you should give me rest.
0500 I would to God my name were not so terrible to the
0501 enemy as it is. I were better to be eaten to death
0502 225 with a rust than to be scoured to nothing with
0503 perpetual motion.]
CHIEF JUSTICE 0504 Well, be honest, be honest, and God
0505 bless your expedition.
FALSTAFF 0506 Will your Lordship lend me a thousand
0507 230 pound to furnish me forth?
CHIEF JUSTICE 0508 Not a penny, not a penny. You are too
0509 impatient to bear crosses. Fare you well. Commend
0510 me to my cousin Westmoreland.
⌜Lord Chief Justice and his Servant exit.⌝
FALSTAFF 0511 If I do, fillip me with a three-man beetle. A
0512 235 man can no more separate age and covetousness
0513 than he can part young limbs and lechery; but the
0514 gout galls the one, and the pox pinches the other,
0515 and so both the degrees prevent my curses.—Boy!
PAGE 0516 Sir.
FALSTAFF 0517 240What money is in my purse?
PAGE 0518 Seven groats and two pence.
0520 of the purse. Borrowing only lingers and lingers
0521 it out, but the disease is incurable. ⌜Giving
papers to the Page.⌝ 0522 245Go bear this letter to my Lord
0523 of Lancaster, this to the Prince, this to the Earl
0524 of Westmoreland, and this to old Mistress Ursula,
0525 whom I have weekly sworn to marry since I perceived
0526 the first white hair of my chin. About it. You
0527 250 know where to find me. ⌜Page exits.⌝ A pox of this
0528 gout! Or a gout of this pox, for the one or the other
0529 plays the rogue with my great toe. ’Tis no matter if I
0530 do halt. I have the wars for my color, and my
0531 pension shall seem the more reasonable. A good wit
0532 255 will make use of anything. I will turn diseases to
0533 commodity.
⌜He exits.⌝
Marshal), the Lord Hastings, and ⟨Lord⟩ Bardolph.
ARCHBISHOP
0534 Thus have you heard our cause and known our
0535 means,
0536 And, my most noble friends, I pray you all
0537 Speak plainly your opinions of our hopes.
0538 5 And first, Lord Marshal, what say you to it?
MOWBRAY
0539 I well allow the occasion of our arms,
0540 But gladly would be better satisfied
0541 How in our means we should advance ourselves
0542 To look with forehead bold and big enough
0543 10 Upon the power and puissance of the King.
HASTINGS
0544 Our present musters grow upon the file
0546 And our supplies live largely in the hope
0547 Of great Northumberland, whose bosom burns
0548 15 With an incensèd fire of injuries.
LORD BARDOLPH
0549 The question, then, Lord Hastings, standeth thus:
0550 Whether our present five-and-twenty thousand
0551 May hold up head without Northumberland.
HASTINGS
0552 With him we may.
LORD BARDOLPH 0553 20 Yea, marry, there’s the point.
0554 But if without him we be thought too feeble,
0555 My judgment is we should not step too far
0556 ⟨Till we had his assistance by the hand.
0557 For in a theme so bloody-faced as this,
0558 25 Conjecture, expectation, and surmise
0559 Of aids incertain should not be admitted.⟩
ARCHBISHOP
0560 ’Tis very true, Lord Bardolph, for indeed
0561 It was young Hotspur’s cause at Shrewsbury.
LORD BARDOLPH
0562 It was, my lord; who lined himself with hope,
0563 30 Eating the air and promise of supply,
0564 Flatt’ring himself in project of a power
0565 Much smaller than the smallest of his thoughts,
0566 And so, with great imagination
0567 Proper to madmen, led his powers to death
0568 35 And, winking, leapt into destruction.
HASTINGS
0569 But, by your leave, it never yet did hurt
0570 To lay down likelihoods and forms of hope.
LORD BARDOLPH
0571 ⟨Yes, if this present quality of war —
0572 Indeed the instant action, a cause on foot—
0573 40 Lives so in hope, as in an early spring
0574 We see th’ appearing buds, which to prove fruit
0576 That frosts will bite them. When we mean to build,
0577 We first survey the plot, then draw the model,
0578 45 And when we see the figure of the house,
0579 Then must we rate the cost of the erection,
0580 Which if we find outweighs ability,
0581 What do we then but draw anew the model
0582 In fewer offices, or at least desist
0583 50 To build at all? Much more in this great work,
0584 Which is almost to pluck a kingdom down
0585 And set another up, should we survey
0586 The plot of situation and the model,
0587 Consent upon a sure foundation,
0588 55 Question surveyors, know our own estate,
0589 How able such a work to undergo,
0590 To weigh against his opposite. Or else⟩
0591 We fortify in paper and in figures,
0592 Using the names of men instead of men,
0593 60 Like one that draws the model of an house
0594 Beyond his power to build it, who, half through,
0595 Gives o’er and leaves his part-created cost
0596 A naked subject to the weeping clouds
0597 And waste for churlish winter’s tyranny.
HASTINGS
0598 65 Grant that our hopes, yet likely of fair birth,
0599 Should be stillborn and that we now possessed
0600 The utmost man of expectation,
0601 I think we are ⟨a⟩ body strong enough,
0602 Even as we are, to equal with the King.
LORD BARDOLPH
0603 70 What, is the King but five-and-twenty thousand?
HASTINGS
0604 To us no more, nay, not so much, Lord Bardolph,
0605 For his divisions, as the times do brawl,
0606 ⟨Are⟩ in three heads: one power against the French,
0607 And one against Glendower; perforce a third
0609 In three divided, and his coffers sound
0610 With hollow poverty and emptiness.
ARCHBISHOP
0611 That he should draw his several strengths together
0612 And come against us in full puissance
0613 80 Need not to be dreaded.
HASTINGS 0614 If he should do so,
0615 ⟨He leaves his back unarmed, the French and Welsh⟩
0616 Baying him at the heels. Never fear that.
LORD BARDOLPH
0617 Who is it like should lead his forces hither?
HASTINGS
0618 85 The Duke of Lancaster and Westmoreland;
0619 Against the Welsh, himself and Harry Monmouth;
0620 But who is substituted against the French
0621 I have no certain notice.
⟨ARCHBISHOP 0622 Let us on,
0623 90 And publish the occasion of our arms.
0624 The commonwealth is sick of their own choice.
0625 Their over-greedy love hath surfeited.
0626 An habitation giddy and unsure
0627 Hath he that buildeth on the vulgar heart.
0628 95 O thou fond many, with what loud applause
0629 Didst thou beat heaven with blessing Bolingbroke
0630 Before he was what thou wouldst have him be.
0631 And being now trimmed in thine own desires,
0632 Thou, beastly feeder, art so full of him
0633 100 That thou provok’st thyself to cast him up.
0634 So, so, thou common dog, didst thou disgorge
0635 Thy glutton bosom of the royal Richard,
0636 And now thou wouldst eat thy dead vomit up
0637 And howl’st to find it. What trust is in these
0638 105 times?
0639 They that, when Richard lived, would have him die
0640 Are now become enamored on his grave.
0642 When through proud London he came sighing on
0643 110 After th’ admirèd heels of Bolingbroke,
0644 Criest now “O earth, yield us that king again,
0645 And take thou this!” O thoughts of men accursed!
0646 Past and to come seems best; things present,
0647 worst.⟩
⟨MOWBRAY⟩
0648 115 Shall we go draw our numbers and set on?
HASTINGS
0649 We are time’s subjects, and time bids begone.
They exit.
Fang and Snare,⟩ ⌜who lags behind.⌝
HOSTESS 0650 Master Fang, have you entered the action?
FANG 0651 It is entered.
HOSTESS 0652 Where’s your yeoman? Is ’t a lusty yeoman?
0653 Will he stand to ’t?
FANG, ⌜calling⌝ 0654 5Sirrah! Where’s Snare?
HOSTESS 0655 O Lord, ay, good Master Snare.
SNARE, ⌜catching up to them⌝ 0656 Here, here.
FANG 0657 Snare, we must arrest Sir John Falstaff.
HOSTESS 0658 Yea, good Master Snare, I have entered him
0659 10 and all.
SNARE 0660 It may chance cost some of us our lives, for he
0661 will stab.
HOSTESS 0662 Alas the day, take heed of him. He stabbed me
0663 in mine own house, ⟨and that⟩ most beastly, in good
0664 15 faith. He cares not what mischief he does. If his
0665 weapon be out, he will foin like any devil. He will
0666 spare neither man, woman, nor child.
FANG 0667 If I can close with him, I care not for his thrust.
HOSTESS 0668 No, nor I neither. I’ll be at your elbow.
FANG 0669 20An I but fist him once, an he come but within my
0670 view—
HOSTESS 0671 I am undone by his going. I warrant you, he’s
0673 Fang, hold him sure. Good Master Snare, let him
0674 25 not ’scape. He comes ⟨continuantly⟩ to Pie Corner,
0675 saving your manhoods, to buy a saddle, and he is
0676 indited to dinner to the Lubber’s Head in Lumbert
0677 Street, to Master Smooth’s the silkman. I pray you,
0678 since my exion is entered, and my case so openly
0679 30 known to the world, let him be brought in to his
0680 answer. A hundred mark is a long one for a poor
0681 lone woman to bear, and I have borne, and borne,
0682 and borne, and have been fubbed off, and fubbed
0683 off, and fubbed off from this day to that day, that it is
0684 35 a shame to be thought on. There is no honesty in
0685 such dealing, unless a woman should be made an
0686 ass and a beast to bear every knave’s wrong. Yonder
0687 he comes, and that arrant malmsey-nose knave,
0688 Bardolph, with him. Do your offices, do your offices,
0689 40 Master Fang and Master Snare, do me, do me,
0690 do me your offices.
Enter Sir John ⟨Falstaff⟩ and Bardolph, and the ⌜Page.⌝
FALSTAFF 0691 How now, whose mare’s dead? What’s the
0692 matter?
FANG 0693 ⟨Sir John,⟩ I arrest you at the suit of Mistress
0694 45 Quickly.
FALSTAFF 0695 Away, varlets!—Draw, Bardolph. Cut me off
0696 the villain’s head. Throw the quean in the
0697 channel.⌜They draw.⌝
HOSTESS 0698 Throw me in the channel? I’ll throw thee in
0699 50 the channel. Wilt thou, wilt thou, thou bastardly
0700 rogue?—Murder, murder!—Ah, thou honeysuckle
0701 villain, wilt thou kill God’s officers and the King’s?
0702 Ah, thou honeyseed rogue, thou art a honeyseed, a
0703 man-queller, and a woman-queller.
FALSTAFF 0704 55Keep them off, Bardolph.
HOSTESS 0706 Good people, bring a rescue or two.—Thou
0707 wot, wot thou? Thou wot, wot ta? Do, do, thou
0708 rogue. Do, thou hempseed.
PAGE 0709 60Away, you scullion, you rampallian, you fustilarian!
0710 I’ll tickle your catastrophe.
Enter Lord Chief Justice and his Men.
CHIEF JUSTICE
0711 What is the matter? Keep the peace here, ho!
HOSTESS 0712 Good my lord, be good to me. I beseech you
0713 stand to me.
CHIEF JUSTICE
0714 65 How now, Sir John? What, are you brawling here?
0715 Doth this become your place, your time, and
0716 business?
0717 You should have been well on your way to York.—
0718 Stand from him, fellow. Wherefore hang’st thou
0719 70 upon him?
HOSTESS 0720 O my most worshipful lord, an ’t please your
0721 Grace, I am a poor widow of Eastcheap, and he is
0722 arrested at my suit.
CHIEF JUSTICE 0723 For what sum?
HOSTESS 0724 75It is more than for some, my lord; it is for all I
0725 have. He hath eaten me out of house and home. He
0726 hath put all my substance into that fat belly of his.
0727 ⌜To Falstaff.⌝ But I will have some of it out again, or I
0728 will ride thee o’ nights like the mare.
FALSTAFF 0729 80I think I am as like to ride the mare if I have
0730 any vantage of ground to get up.
CHIEF JUSTICE 0731 How comes this, Sir John? ⟨Fie,⟩ what
0732 man of good temper would endure this tempest of
0733 exclamation? Are you not ashamed to enforce a
0734 85 poor widow to so rough a course to come by her
0735 own?
HOSTESS 0737 Marry, if thou wert an honest man, thyself
0738 and the money too. Thou didst swear to me upon a
0739 90 parcel-gilt goblet, sitting in my Dolphin chamber at
0740 the round table by a sea-coal fire, upon Wednesday
0741 in Wheeson week, when the Prince broke thy head
0742 for liking his father to a singing-man of Windsor,
0743 thou didst swear to me then, as I was washing thy
0744 95 wound, to marry me and make me my lady thy wife.
0745 Canst thou deny it? Did not Goodwife Keech, the
0746 butcher’s wife, come in then and call me Gossip
0747 Quickly, coming in to borrow a mess of vinegar,
0748 telling us she had a good dish of prawns, whereby
0749 100 thou didst desire to eat some, whereby I told thee
0750 they were ill for a green wound? And didst thou not,
0751 when she was gone downstairs, desire me to be no
0752 more so familiarity with such poor people, saying
0753 that ere long they should call me madam? And didst
0754 105 thou not kiss me and bid me fetch thee thirty
0755 shillings? I put thee now to thy book-oath. Deny it if
0756 thou canst.
FALSTAFF 0757 My lord, this is a poor mad soul, and she says
0758 up and down the town that her eldest son is like
0759 110 you. She hath been in good case, and the truth is,
0760 poverty hath distracted her. But, for these foolish
0761 officers, I beseech you I may have redress against
0762 them.
CHIEF JUSTICE 0763 Sir John, Sir John, I am well acquainted
0764 115 with your manner of wrenching the true cause the
0765 false way. It is not a confident brow, nor the throng
0766 of words that come with such more than impudent
0767 sauciness from you, can thrust me from a level
0768 consideration. You have, as it appears to me, practiced
0769 120 upon the easy-yielding spirit of this woman,
0770 [and made her serve your uses both in purse and in
0771 person.]
CHIEF JUSTICE 0773 Pray thee, peace.—Pay her the debt you
0774 125 owe her, and unpay the villainy you have done with
0775 her. The one you may do with sterling money, and
0776 the other with current repentance.
FALSTAFF 0777 My lord, I will not undergo this sneap without
0778 reply. You call honorable boldness “impudent
0779 130 sauciness.” If a man will make curtsy and say
0780 nothing, he is virtuous. No, my lord, my humble
0781 duty remembered, I will not be your suitor. I say to
0782 you, I do desire deliverance from these officers,
0783 being upon hasty employment in the King’s affairs.
CHIEF JUSTICE 0784 135You speak as having power to do wrong;
0785 but answer in th’ effect of your reputation, and
0786 satisfy the poor woman.
FALSTAFF 0787 Come hither, hostess.
⌜He speaks aside to the Hostess.⌝
Enter a Messenger, ⟨Master Gower.⟩
CHIEF JUSTICE 0788 Now, Master Gower, what news?
GOWER
0789 140 The King, my lord, and Harry Prince of Wales
0790 Are near at hand. The rest the paper tells.
⌜He gives the Chief Justice a paper to read.⌝
FALSTAFF, ⌜to the Hostess⌝ 0791 As I am a gentleman!
HOSTESS 0792 Faith, you said so before.
FALSTAFF 0793 As I am a gentleman. Come. No more words
0794 145 of it.
HOSTESS 0795 By this heavenly ground I tread on, I must be
0796 fain to pawn both my plate and the tapestry of my
0797 dining chambers.
FALSTAFF 0798 Glasses, glasses, is the only drinking. And for
0799 150 thy walls, a pretty slight drollery, or the story of the
0800 Prodigal or the German hunting in waterwork is
0801 worth a thousand of these bed-hangers and these
0803 canst. Come, an ’twere not for thy humors, there’s
0804 155 not a better wench in England. Go wash thy face,
0805 and draw the action. Come, thou must not be in this
0806 humor with me. Dost not know me? Come, come. I
0807 know thou wast set on to this.
HOSTESS 0808 Pray thee, Sir John, let it be but twenty
0809 160 nobles. I’ faith, I am loath to pawn my plate, so God
0810 save me, la.
FALSTAFF 0811 Let it alone. I’ll make other shift. You’ll be a
0812 fool still.
HOSTESS 0813 Well, you shall have it, though I pawn my
0814 165 gown. I hope you’ll come to supper. You’ll pay
0815 me all together?
FALSTAFF 0816 Will I live? ⌜Aside to Bardolph.⌝ Go with her,
0817 with her. Hook on, hook on.
HOSTESS 0818 Will you have Doll Tearsheet meet you at
0819 170 supper?
FALSTAFF 0820 No more words. Let’s have her.
Hostess, ⌜Fang, Snare, Bardolph, Page,
and others⌝ exit.
CHIEF JUSTICE, ⌜to Gower⌝ 0821 I have heard better news.
FALSTAFF, ⌜to Chief Justice⌝ 0822 What’s the news, my ⟨good⟩
0823 lord?
CHIEF JUSTICE, ⌜to Gower⌝ 0824 175Where lay the King
0825 tonight?
GOWER 0826 At ⟨Basingstoke,⟩ my lord.
FALSTAFF, ⌜to Chief Justice⌝ 0827 I hope, my lord, all’s
0828 well. What is the news, my lord?
CHIEF JUSTICE, ⌜to Gower⌝ 0829 180Come all his forces back?
GOWER
0830 No. Fifteen hundred foot, five hundred horse
0831 Are marched up to my Lord of Lancaster
0832 Against Northumberland and the Archbishop.
0833 Comes the King back from Wales, my noble lord?
CHIEF JUSTICE, ⌜to Gower⌝
0834 185 You shall have letters of me presently.
0835 Come. Go along with me, good Master Gower.
FALSTAFF 0836 My lord!
CHIEF JUSTICE 0837 What’s the matter?
FALSTAFF 0838 Master Gower, shall I entreat you with me to
0839 190 dinner?
GOWER 0840 I must wait upon my good lord here. I thank
0841 you, good Sir John.
CHIEF JUSTICE 0842 Sir John, you loiter here too long, being
0843 you are to take soldiers up in counties as you go.
FALSTAFF 0844 195Will you sup with me, Master Gower?
CHIEF JUSTICE 0845 What foolish master taught you these
0846 manners, Sir John?
FALSTAFF 0847 Master Gower, if they become me not, he was
0848 a fool that taught them me.—This is the right
0849 200 fencing grace, my lord: tap for tap, and so part fair.
CHIEF JUSTICE 0850 Now the Lord lighten thee. Thou art a
0851 great fool.
⟨They ⌜separate and⌝ exit.⟩
PRINCE 0852 Before God, I am exceeding weary.
POINS 0853 Is ’t come to that? I had thought weariness durst
0854 not have attached one of so high blood.
PRINCE 0855 Faith, it does me, though it discolors the complexion
0856 5 of my greatness to acknowledge it. Doth it
0857 not show vilely in me to desire small beer?
POINS 0858 Why, a prince should not be so loosely studied
0859 as to remember so weak a composition.
0861 10 for, by my troth, I do now remember the poor
0862 creature small beer. But indeed these humble considerations
0863 make me out of love with my greatness.
0864 What a disgrace is it to me to remember thy name,
0865 or to know thy face tomorrow, or to take note how
0866 15 many pair of silk stockings thou hast—with these,
0867 and those that were thy peach-colored ⟨ones⟩—or to
0868 bear the inventory of thy shirts, as, one for superfluity
0869 and another for use. But that the tennis-court
0870 keeper knows better than I, for it is a low ebb of
0871 20 linen with thee when thou keepest not racket there,
0872 as thou hast not done a great while, because the rest
0873 of the low countries have ⟨made a shift to⟩ eat up thy
0874 holland; [and God knows whether those that bawl
0875 out the ruins of thy linen shall inherit His kingdom;
0876 25 but the midwives say the children are not in the
0877 fault, whereupon the world increases and kindreds
0878 are mightily strengthened.]
POINS 0879 How ill it follows, after you have labored so
0880 hard, you should talk so idly! Tell me, how many
0881 30 good young princes would do so, their fathers being
0882 so sick as yours at this time is?
PRINCE 0883 Shall I tell thee one thing, Poins?
POINS 0884 Yes, faith, and let it be an excellent good thing.
PRINCE 0885 It shall serve among wits of no higher breeding
0886 35 than thine.
POINS 0887 Go to. I stand the push of your one thing that
0888 you will tell.
PRINCE 0889 Marry, I tell thee it is not meet that I should be
0890 sad, now my father is sick—albeit I could tell to
0891 40 thee, as to one it pleases me, for fault of a better, to
0892 call my friend, I could be sad, and sad indeed too.
POINS 0893 Very hardly, upon such a subject.
0895 devil’s book as thou and Falstaff for obduracy and
0896 45 persistency. Let the end try the man. But I tell thee,
0897 my heart bleeds inwardly that my father is so sick;
0898 and keeping such vile company as thou art hath in
0899 reason taken from me all ostentation of sorrow.
POINS 0900 The reason?
PRINCE 0901 50What wouldst thou think of me if I should
0902 weep?
POINS 0903 I would think thee a most princely hypocrite.
PRINCE 0904 It would be every man’s thought, and thou art
0905 a blessed fellow to think as every man thinks. Never
0906 55 a man’s thought in the world keeps the roadway
0907 better than thine. Every man would think me an
0908 hypocrite indeed. And what accites your most worshipful
0909 thought to think so?
POINS 0910 Why, because you have been so lewd and so
0911 60 much engraffed to Falstaff.
PRINCE 0912 And to thee.
POINS 0913 By this light, I am well spoke on. I can hear it
0914 with mine own ears. The worst that they can say of
0915 me is that I am a second brother, and that I am a
0916 65 proper fellow of my hands; and those two things, I
0917 confess, I cannot help. By the Mass, here comes
0918 Bardolph.
Enter Bardolph and ⌜Page.⌝
PRINCE 0919 And the boy that I gave Falstaff. He had him
0920 from me Christian, and look if the fat villain have
0921 70 not transformed him ape.
BARDOLPH 0922 God save your Grace.
PRINCE 0923 And yours, most noble Bardolph.
POINS, ⌜to Bardolph⌝ 0924 Come, you virtuous ass, you bashful
0925 fool, must you be blushing? Wherefore blush
0926 75 you now? What a maidenly man-at-arms are you
0928 maidenhead?
PAGE 0929 He calls me ⌜e’en now,⌝ my lord, through a red
0930 lattice, and I could discern no part of his face from
0931 80 the window. At last I spied his eyes, and methought
0932 he had made two holes in the ale-wife’s ⟨new⟩
0933 petticoat and so peeped through.
PRINCE 0934 Has not the boy profited?
BARDOLPH, ⌜to Page⌝ 0935 Away, you whoreson upright ⟨rabbit⟩,
0936 85 away!
PAGE 0937 Away, you rascally Althea’s dream, away!
PRINCE 0938 Instruct us, boy. What dream, boy?
PAGE 0939 Marry, my lord, Althea dreamt she was delivered
0940 of a firebrand, and therefore I call him her dream.
PRINCE 0941 90A crown’s worth of good interpretation. There
0942 ’tis, boy.⌜He gives the Page money.⌝
POINS 0943 O, that this ⟨good⟩ blossom could be kept from
0944 cankers! Well, there is sixpence to preserve thee.
⌜He gives the Page money.⌝
BARDOLPH 0945 An you do not make him ⟨be⟩ hanged among
0946 95 you, the gallows shall have wrong.
PRINCE 0947 And how doth thy master, Bardolph?
BARDOLPH 0948 Well, my ⟨good⟩ lord. He heard of your
0949 Grace’s coming to town. There’s a letter for you.
⌜He gives the Prince a paper.⌝
POINS 0950 Delivered with good respect. And how doth the
0951 100 Martlemas your master?
BARDOLPH 0952 In bodily health, sir.
POINS 0953 Marry, the immortal part needs a physician, but
0954 that moves not him. Though that be sick, it dies not.
PRINCE 0955 I do allow this wen to be as familiar with me as
0956 105 my dog, and he holds his place, for look you how he
0957 writes.⌜He shows the letter to Poins.⌝
POINS ⌜reads the superscription⌝ 0958 John Falstaff, knight.
0959 Every man must know that as oft as he has occasion
0961 110 King, for they never prick their finger but they say
0962 “There’s some of the King’s blood spilt.” “How
0963 comes that?” says he that takes upon him not to
0964 conceive. The answer is as ready as a ⌜borrower’s⌝
0965 cap: “I am the King’s poor cousin, sir.”
PRINCE 0966 115Nay, they will be kin to us, or they will fetch it
0967 from Japheth. But ⟨to⟩ the letter: ⌜Reads.⌝ Sir John
0968 Falstaff, knight, to the son of the King nearest his
0969 father, Harry Prince of Wales, greeting.
POINS 0970 Why, this is a certificate.
PRINCE 0971 120Peace!
0972 ⌜Reads.⌝ I will imitate the honorable Romans in
0973 brevity.
POINS 0974 He sure means brevity in breath, short-winded.
⌜PRINCE reads⌝ 0975 I commend me to thee, I commend thee,
0976 125 and I leave thee. Be not too familiar with Poins, for he
0977 misuses thy favors so much that he swears thou art to
0978 marry his sister Nell. Repent at idle times as thou
0979 mayst, and so farewell.
0980 Thine by yea and no, which is as much as
0981 130 to say, as thou usest him,
0982 Jack Falstaff with my ⟨familiars,⟩
0983 John with my brothers and sisters, and
0984 Sir John with all Europe.
POINS 0985 My lord, I’ll steep this letter in sack and make
0986 135 him eat it.
PRINCE 0987 That’s to make him eat twenty of his words.
0988 But do you use me thus, Ned? Must I marry your
0989 sister?
POINS 0990 God send the wench no worse fortune! But I
0991 140 never said so.
PRINCE 0992 Well, thus we play the fools with the time, and
0993 the spirits of the wise sit in the clouds and mock us.
0994 ⌜To Bardolph.⌝ Is your master here in London?
BARDOLPH 0995 Yea, my lord.
0997 old frank?
BARDOLPH 0998 At the old place, my lord, in Eastcheap.
PRINCE 0999 What company?
PAGE 1000 Ephesians, my lord, of the old church.
PRINCE 1001 150Sup any women with him?
PAGE 1002 None, my lord, but old Mistress Quickly and
1003 Mistress Doll Tearsheet.
PRINCE 1004 What pagan may that be?
PAGE 1005 A proper gentlewoman, sir, and a kinswoman of
1006 155 my master’s.
PRINCE 1007 Even such kin as the parish heifers are to the
1008 town bull.—Shall we steal upon them, Ned, at
1009 supper?
POINS 1010 I am your shadow, my lord. I’ll follow you.
PRINCE 1011 160Sirrah—you, boy—and Bardolph, no word to
1012 your master that I am yet come to town. There’s for
1013 your silence.⌜He gives money.⌝
BARDOLPH 1014 I have no tongue, sir.
PAGE 1015 And for mine, sir, I will govern it.
PRINCE 1016 165Fare you well. Go.⌜Bardolph and Page exit.⌝
1017 This Doll Tearsheet should be some road.
POINS 1018 I warrant you, as common as the way between
1019 Saint Albans and London.
PRINCE 1020 How might we see Falstaff bestow himself
1021 170 tonight in his true colors, and not ourselves be
1022 seen?
POINS 1023 Put on two leathern jerkins and aprons, and
1024 wait upon him at his table as drawers.
PRINCE 1025 From a god to a bull: a heavy descension. It
1026 175 was Jove’s case. From a ⟨prince⟩ to a ’prentice: a low
1027 transformation that shall be mine, for in everything
1028 the purpose must weigh with the folly. Follow me,
1029 Ned.
They exit.
Harry Percy.
NORTHUMBERLAND
1030 I pray thee, loving wife and gentle daughter,
1031 Give even way unto my rough affairs.
1032 Put not you on the visage of the times
1033 And be, like them, to Percy troublesome.
LADY NORTHUMBERLAND
1034 5 I have given over. I will speak no more.
1035 Do what you will; your wisdom be your guide.
NORTHUMBERLAND
1036 Alas, sweet wife, my honor is at pawn,
1037 And, but my going, nothing can redeem it.
LADY PERCY
1038 O yet, for God’s sake, go not to these wars.
1039 10 The time was, father, that you broke your word
1040 When you were more ⟨endeared⟩ to it than now,
1041 When your own Percy, when my heart’s dear Harry,
1042 Threw many a northward look to see his father
1043 Bring up his powers; but he did long in vain.
1044 15 Who then persuaded you to stay at home?
1045 There were two honors lost, yours and your son’s.
1046 For yours, the God of heaven brighten it.
1047 For his, it stuck upon him as the sun
1048 In the gray vault of heaven, and by his light
1049 20 Did all the chivalry of England move
1050 To do brave acts. He was indeed the glass
1051 Wherein the noble youth did dress themselves.
1052 ⟨He had no legs that practiced not his gait;
1053 And speaking thick, which nature made his blemish,
1054 25 Became the accents of the valiant;
1055 For those that could speak low and tardily
1056 Would turn their own perfection to abuse
1058 In diet, in affections of delight,
1059 30 In military rules, humors of blood,
1060 He was the mark and glass, copy and book,
1061 That fashioned others. And him—O wondrous him!
1062 O miracle of men!—him did you leave,
1063 Second to none, unseconded by you,
1064 35 To look upon the hideous god of war
1065 In disadvantage, to abide a field
1066 Where nothing but the sound of Hotspur’s name
1067 Did seem defensible. So you left him.
1068 Never, O never, do his ghost the wrong
1069 40 To hold your honor more precise and nice
1070 With others than with him. Let them alone.
1071 The Marshal and the Archbishop are strong.
1072 Had my sweet Harry had but half their numbers,
1073 Today might I, hanging on Hotspur’s neck,
1074 45 Have talked of Monmouth’s grave.⟩
NORTHUMBERLAND 1075 Beshrew your
1076 heart,
1077 Fair daughter, you do draw my spirits from me
1078 With new lamenting ancient oversights.
1079 50 But I must go and meet with danger there,
1080 Or it will seek me in another place
1081 And find me worse provided.
LADY NORTHUMBERLAND 1082 O, fly to Scotland
1083 Till that the nobles and the armèd commons
1084 55 Have of their puissance made a little taste.
LADY PERCY
1085 If they get ground and vantage of the King,
1086 Then join you with them like a rib of steel
1087 To make strength stronger; but, for all our loves,
1088 First let them try themselves. So did your son;
1089 60 He was so suffered. So came I a widow,
1090 And never shall have length of life enough
1092 That it may grow and sprout as high as heaven
1093 For recordation to my noble husband.
NORTHUMBERLAND
1094 65 Come, come, go in with me. ’Tis with my mind
1095 As with the tide swelled up unto his height,
1096 That makes a still-stand, running neither way.
1097 Fain would I go to meet the Archbishop,
1098 But many thousand reasons hold me back.
1099 70 I will resolve for Scotland. There am I
1100 Till time and vantage crave my company.
They exit.
FRANCIS 1101 What the devil hast thou brought there—
1102 applejohns? Thou knowest Sir John cannot endure
1103 an applejohn.
⟨SECOND⟩ DRAWER 1104 Mass, thou sayst true. The Prince
1105 5 once set a dish of applejohns before him and told
1106 him there were five more Sir Johns and, putting off
1107 his hat, said “I will now take my leave of these six
1108 dry, round, old, withered knights.” It angered him
1109 to the heart. But he hath forgot that.
FRANCIS 1110 10Why then, cover and set them down, and see if
1111 thou canst find out Sneak’s noise. Mistress Tearsheet
1112 would fain hear some music. [Dispatch. The
1113 room where they supped is too hot. They’ll come in
1114 straight.
Enter Will.]
⌜WILL⌝ 1115 15Sirrah, here will be the Prince and Master
1116 Poins anon, and they will put on two of our jerkins
1118 Bardolph hath brought word.
⌜SECOND⌝ DRAWER 1119 By the Mass, here will be old utis. It
1120 20 will be an excellent stratagem.
FRANCIS 1121 I’ll see if I can find out Sneak.
He exits ⌜with the Second Drawer.⌝
Enter ⟨Hostess⟩ and Doll Tearsheet.
HOSTESS 1122 I’ faith, sweetheart, methinks now you are in
1123 an excellent good temperality. Your pulsidge beats
1124 as extraordinarily as heart would desire, and your
1125 25 color, I warrant you, is as red as any rose, in good
1126 truth, la. But, i’ faith, you have drunk too much
1127 canaries, and that’s a marvellous searching wine,
1128 and it perfumes the blood ere one can say “What’s
1129 this?” How do you now?
DOLL 1130 30Better than I was. Hem.
HOSTESS 1131 Why, that’s well said. A good heart’s worth
1132 gold. Lo, here comes Sir John.
Enter Sir John ⟨Falstaff.⟩
FALSTAFF, ⌜singing⌝
1133 When Arthur first in court—
1134 ⌜To Will.⌝ Empty the jordan.⌜Will exits.⌝
1135 35 And was a worthy king—
1136 How now, Mistress Doll?
HOSTESS 1137 Sick of a calm, yea, good faith.
FALSTAFF 1138 So is all her sect. An they be once in a calm,
1139 they are sick.
DOLL 1140 40A pox damn you, you muddy rascal. Is that all the
1141 comfort you give me?
FALSTAFF 1142 You make fat rascals, Mistress Doll.
DOLL 1143 I make them? Gluttony and diseases make ⟨them⟩;
1144 I make them not.
1146 help to make the diseases, Doll. We catch of you,
1147 Doll, we catch of you. Grant that, my poor virtue,
1148 grant that.
DOLL 1149 Yea, joy, our chains and our jewels.
FALSTAFF 1150 50Your brooches, pearls, and ouches—for to
1151 serve bravely is to come halting off, you know; to
1152 come off the breach with his pike bent bravely, and
1153 to surgery bravely, to venture upon the charged
1154 chambers bravely—
[DOLL 1155 55Hang yourself, you muddy conger, hang yourself!]
HOSTESS 1156 By my troth, this is the old fashion. You two
1157 never meet but you fall to some discord. You are
1158 both, i’ good truth, as rheumatic as two dry toasts.
1159 You cannot one bear with another’s confirmities.
1160 60 What the good-year! One must bear, and ⌜to Doll⌝
1161 that must be you. You are the weaker vessel, as they
1162 say, the emptier vessel.
DOLL 1163 Can a weak empty vessel bear such a huge full
1164 hogshead? There’s a whole merchant’s venture of
1165 65 Bordeaux stuff in him. You have not seen a hulk
1166 better stuffed in the hold.—Come, I’ll be friends
1167 with thee, Jack. Thou art going to the wars, and
1168 whether I shall ever see thee again or no, there is
1169 nobody cares.
Enter Drawer.
DRAWER 1170 70Sir, Ancient Pistol’s below and would speak
1171 with you.
DOLL 1172 Hang him, swaggering rascal! Let him not come
1173 hither. It is the foul-mouthed’st rogue in England.
HOSTESS 1174 If he swagger, let him not come here. No, by
1175 75 my faith, I must live among my neighbors. I’ll no
1176 swaggerers. I am in good name and fame with the
1178 here. I have not lived all this while to have
1179 swaggering now. Shut the door, I pray you.
FALSTAFF 1180 80Dost thou hear, hostess?
HOSTESS 1181 Pray you pacify yourself, Sir John. There
1182 comes no swaggerers here.
FALSTAFF 1183 Dost thou hear? It is mine ancient.
HOSTESS 1184 Tilly-vally, Sir John, ne’er tell me. And your
1185 85 ancient swaggerer comes not in my doors. I was
1186 before Master Tisick the debuty t’ other day, and, as
1187 he said to me—’twas no longer ago than Wednesday
1188 last, i’ good faith—“Neighbor Quickly,” says
1189 he—Master Dumb, our minister, was by then—
1190 90 “Neighbor Quickly,” says he, “receive those that
1191 are civil, for,” said he, “you are in an ill name.”
1192 Now he said so, I can tell whereupon. “For,” says
1193 he, “you are an honest woman, and well thought
1194 on. Therefore take heed what guests you receive.
1195 95 Receive,” says he, “no swaggering companions.”
1196 There comes none here. You would bless you to
1197 hear what he said. No, I’ll no swaggerers.
FALSTAFF 1198 He’s no swaggerer, hostess, a tame cheater, i’
1199 faith. You may stroke him as gently as a puppy
1200 100 greyhound. He’ll not swagger with a Barbary hen if
1201 her feathers turn back in any show of resistance.—
1202 Call him up, drawer.⌜Drawer exits.⌝
HOSTESS 1203 “Cheater” call you him? I will bar no honest
1204 man my house, nor no cheater, but I do not love
1205 105 swaggering. By my troth, I am the worse when one
1206 says “swagger.” Feel, masters, how I shake; look
1207 you, I warrant you.
DOLL 1208 So you do, hostess.
HOSTESS 1209 Do I? Yea, in very truth, do I, an ’twere an
1210 110 aspen leaf. I cannot abide swaggerers.
PISTOL 1211 God save you, Sir John.
FALSTAFF 1212 Welcome, Ancient Pistol. Here, Pistol, I
1213 charge you with a cup of sack. Do you discharge
1214 upon mine hostess.
PISTOL 1215 115I will discharge upon her, Sir John, with two
1216 bullets.
FALSTAFF 1217 She is pistol-proof. Sir, you shall not hardly
1218 offend her.
HOSTESS 1219 Come, I’ll drink no proofs nor no bullets. I’ll
1220 120 drink no more than will do me good, for no man’s
1221 pleasure, I.
PISTOL 1222 Then, to you, Mistress Dorothy! I will charge
1223 you.
DOLL 1224 Charge me? I scorn you, scurvy companion.
1225 125 What, you poor, base, rascally, cheating lack-linen
1226 mate! Away, you mouldy rogue, away! I am meat for
1227 your master.
PISTOL 1228 I know you, Mistress Dorothy.
DOLL 1229 Away, you cutpurse rascal, you filthy bung, away!
1230 130 By this wine, I’ll thrust my knife in your mouldy
1231 chaps an you play the saucy cuttle with me. Away,
1232 you bottle-ale rascal, you basket-hilt stale juggler,
1233 you. Since when, I pray you, sir? God’s light, with
1234 two points on your shoulder? Much!
PISTOL 1235 135God let me not live but I will murder your ruff
1236 for this.
[FALSTAFF 1237 No more, Pistol. I would not have you go off
1238 here. Discharge yourself of our company, Pistol.]
HOSTESS 1239 No, good Captain Pistol, not here, sweet
1240 140 captain!
DOLL 1241 Captain? Thou abominable damned cheater, art
1242 thou not ashamed to be called captain? An captains
1244 taking their names upon you before you have
1245 145 earned them. You a captain? You slave, for what?
1246 For tearing a poor whore’s ruff in a bawdy house?
1247 He a captain! Hang him, rogue. He lives upon
1248 mouldy stewed prunes and dried cakes. A captain?
1249 God’s light, these villains will make the word as
1250 150 odious [as the word “occupy,” which was an excellent
1251 good word before it was ill sorted.] Therefore
1252 captains had need look to ’t.
BARDOLPH, ⌜to Pistol⌝ 1253 Pray thee go down, good ancient.
FALSTAFF 1254 Hark thee hither, Mistress Doll.
PISTOL, ⌜to Bardolph⌝ 1255 155Not I. I tell thee what, Corporal
1256 Bardolph, I could tear her. I’ll be revenged of her.
PAGE 1257 Pray thee go down.
PISTOL 1258 I’ll see her damned first to Pluto’s damnèd
1259 lake, by this hand, to th’ infernal deep with Erebus
1260 160 and tortures vile also. Hold hook and line, say I.
1261 Down, down, dogs! Down, ⟨Fates!⟩ Have we not
1262 Hiren here?⌜He draws his sword.⌝
HOSTESS 1263 Good Captain Peesell, be quiet. ’Tis very late,
1264 i’ faith. I beseek you now, aggravate your choler.
PISTOL 1265 165These be good humors indeed. Shall pack-horses
1266 and hollow pampered jades of Asia, which
1267 cannot go but thirty mile a day, compare with
1268 Caesars and with cannibals and Troyant Greeks?
1269 Nay, rather damn them with King Cerberus, and let
1270 170 the welkin roar. Shall we fall foul for toys?
HOSTESS 1271 By my troth, captain, these are very bitter
1272 words.
BARDOLPH 1273 Begone, good ancient. This will grow to a
1274 brawl anon.
PISTOL 1275 175⟨Die⟩ men like dogs! Give crowns like pins! Have
1276 we not Hiren here?
1278 What the good-year, do you think I would deny her?
1279 For God’s sake, be quiet.
PISTOL 1280 180Then feed and be fat, my fair Calipolis. Come,
1281 give ’s some sack. Si fortune me tormente, sperato
1282 me contento. Fear we broadsides? No, let the fiend
1283 give fire. Give me some sack, and, sweetheart, lie
1284 thou there. ⌜Laying down his sword.⌝ Come we to
1285 185 full points here? And are etceteras nothings?
FALSTAFF 1286 Pistol, I would be quiet.
PISTOL 1287 Sweet knight, I kiss thy neaf. What, we have
1288 seen the seven stars.
DOLL 1289 For God’s sake, thrust him downstairs. I cannot
1290 190 endure such a fustian rascal.
PISTOL 1291 “Thrust him downstairs”? Know we not Galloway
1292 nags?
FALSTAFF 1293 Quoit him down, Bardolph, like a shove-groat
1294 shilling. Nay, an he do nothing but speak
1295 195 nothing, he shall be nothing here.
BARDOLPH 1296 Come, get you downstairs.
PISTOL, ⌜taking up his sword⌝ 1297 What, shall we have
1298 incision? Shall we imbrue? Then death rock me
1299 asleep, abridge my doleful days. Why then, let
1300 200 grievous, ghastly, gaping wounds untwind the Sisters
1301 Three. Come, Atropos, I say.
HOSTESS 1302 Here’s goodly stuff toward!
FALSTAFF 1303 Give me my rapier, boy.
DOLL 1304 I pray thee, Jack, I pray thee do not draw.
FALSTAFF, ⌜to Pistol⌝ 1305 205Get you downstairs.⌜They fight.⌝
HOSTESS 1306 Here’s a goodly tumult. I’ll forswear keeping
1307 house afore I’ll be in these tirrits and frights. So,
1308 murder, I warrant now. Alas, alas, put up your
1309 naked weapons, put up your naked weapons.
⌜Bardolph and Pistol exit.⌝
DOLL 1310 210I pray thee, Jack, be quiet. The rascal’s gone. Ah,
1311 you whoreson little valiant villain, you.
1313 Methought he made a shrewd thrust at your belly.
⌜Enter Bardolph.⌝
FALSTAFF 1314 Have you turned him out o’ doors?
BARDOLPH 1315 215Yea, sir. The rascal’s drunk. You have hurt
1316 him, sir, i’ th’ shoulder.
FALSTAFF 1317 A rascal to brave me!
DOLL 1318 Ah, you sweet little rogue, you. Alas, poor ape,
1319 how thou sweat’st! Come, let me wipe thy face.
1320 220 Come on, you whoreson chops. Ah, rogue, i’ faith, I
1321 love thee. Thou art as valorous as Hector of Troy,
1322 worth five of Agamemnon, and ten times better
1323 than the Nine Worthies. Ah, villain!
FALSTAFF 1324 Ah, rascally slave! I will toss the rogue in a
1325 225 blanket.
DOLL 1326 Do, an thou darest for thy heart. An thou dost, I’ll
1327 canvass thee between a pair of sheets.
Enter ⌜Musicians and Francis.⌝
PAGE 1328 The music is come, sir.
FALSTAFF 1329 Let them play.—Play, sirs.—Sit on my knee,
1330 230 Doll. A rascal bragging slave! The rogue fled from
1331 me like quicksilver.
DOLL 1332 I’ faith, and thou followed’st him like a church.
1333 Thou whoreson little tidy Bartholomew boar-pig,
1334 when wilt thou leave fighting a-days and foining a-nights
1335 235 and begin to patch up thine old body for
1336 heaven?
Enter ⌜behind them⌝ Prince and Poins ⟨disguised.⟩
FALSTAFF 1337 Peace, good Doll. Do not speak like a death’s-head;
1338 do not bid me remember mine end.
DOLL 1339 Sirrah, what humor’s the Prince of?
FALSTAFF 1340 240A good shallow young fellow, he would have
1342 well.
DOLL 1343 They say Poins has a good wit.
FALSTAFF 1344 He a good wit? Hang him, baboon. His wit’s
1345 245 as thick as Tewkesbury mustard. There’s no more
1346 conceit in him than is in a mallet.
DOLL 1347 Why does the Prince love him so then?
FALSTAFF 1348 Because their legs are both of a bigness, and
1349 he plays at quoits well, and eats conger and fennel,
1350 250 and drinks off candles’ ends for flap-dragons, and
1351 rides the wild mare with the boys, and jumps upon
1352 joint stools, and swears with a good grace, and
1353 wears his boots very smooth like unto the sign of
1354 the Leg, and breeds no bate with telling of discreet
1355 255 stories, and such other gambol faculties he has that
1356 show a weak mind and an able body, for the which
1357 the Prince admits him; for the Prince himself is
1358 such another. The weight of a hair will turn ⟨the⟩
1359 scales between their avoirdupois.
PRINCE, ⌜aside to Poins⌝ 1360 260Would not this nave of a wheel
1361 have his ears cut off?
POINS 1362 Let’s beat him before his whore.
PRINCE 1363 Look whe’er the withered elder hath not his
1364 poll clawed like a parrot.
POINS 1365 265Is it not strange that desire should so many years
1366 outlive performance?
FALSTAFF 1367 Kiss me, Doll.
PRINCE, ⌜aside to Poins⌝ 1368 Saturn and Venus this year in
1369 conjunction! What says th’ almanac to that?
POINS 1370 270And look whether the fiery trigon, his man, be
1371 not lisping to his ⟨master’s⟩ old tables, his notebook,
1372 his counsel keeper.
FALSTAFF, ⌜to Doll⌝ 1373 Thou dost give me flattering busses.
DOLL 1374 By my troth, I kiss thee with a most constant
1375 275 heart.
FALSTAFF 1376 I am old, I am old.
1378 boy of them all.
FALSTAFF 1379 What stuff wilt ⟨thou⟩ have a kirtle of? I shall
1380 280 receive money o’ Thursday; ⟨thou⟩ shalt have a cap
1381 tomorrow. A merry song! Come, it grows late. We’ll
1382 to bed. Thou ’lt forget me when I am gone.
DOLL 1383 By my troth, thou ’lt set me a-weeping an thou
1384 sayst so. Prove that ever I dress myself handsome till
1385 285 thy return. Well, harken a’ th’ end.
FALSTAFF 1386 Some sack, Francis.
PRINCE, POINS, ⌜coming forward⌝ 1387 Anon, anon, sir.
FALSTAFF 1388 Ha? A bastard son of the King’s?—And art
1389 not thou Poins his brother?
PRINCE 1390 290Why, thou globe of sinful continents, what a
1391 life dost thou lead?
FALSTAFF 1392 A better than thou. I am a gentleman. Thou
1393 art a drawer.
PRINCE 1394 Very true, sir, and I come to draw you out by
1395 295 the ears.
HOSTESS 1396 O, the Lord preserve thy ⟨good⟩ Grace! By my
1397 troth, welcome to London. Now the Lord bless that
1398 sweet face of thine. O Jesu, are you come from
1399 Wales?
FALSTAFF, ⌜to Prince⌝ 1400 300Thou whoreson mad compound
1401 of majesty, by this light flesh and corrupt blood,
1402 thou art welcome.
DOLL 1403 How? You fat fool, I scorn you.
POINS 1404 My lord, he will drive you out of your revenge
1405 305 and turn all to a merriment if you take not the heat.
PRINCE, ⌜to Falstaff⌝ 1406 You whoreson candle-mine, you,
1407 how vilely did you speak of me ⟨even⟩ now before
1408 this honest, virtuous, civil gentlewoman!
HOSTESS 1409 God’s blessing of your good heart, and so she
1410 310 is, by my troth.
FALSTAFF, ⌜to Prince⌝ 1411 Didst thou hear me?
1413 away by Gad’s Hill. You knew I was at your back,
1414 and spoke it on purpose to try my patience.
FALSTAFF 1415 315No, no, no, not so. I did not think thou wast
1416 within hearing.
PRINCE 1417 I shall drive you, then, to confess the wilfull
1418 abuse, and then I know how to handle you.
FALSTAFF 1419 No abuse, Hal, o’ mine honor, no abuse.
PRINCE 1420 320Not to dispraise me and call me pantler and
1421 bread-chipper and I know not what?
FALSTAFF 1422 No abuse, Hal.
POINS 1423 No abuse?
FALSTAFF 1424 No abuse, Ned, i’ th’ world, honest Ned,
1425 325 none. I dispraised him before the wicked, (⌜to
Prince⌝) 1426 that the wicked might not fall in love with
1427 thee; in which doing, I have done the part of a
1428 careful friend and a true subject, and thy father is to
1429 give me thanks for it. No abuse, Hal.—None, Ned,
1430 330 none. No, faith, boys, none.
PRINCE 1431 See now whether pure fear and entire cowardice
1432 doth not make thee wrong this virtuous gentlewoman
1433 to close with us. Is she of the wicked, is
1434 thine hostess here of the wicked, or is thy boy of the
1435 335 wicked, or honest Bardolph, whose zeal burns in
1436 his nose, of the wicked?
POINS 1437 Answer, thou dead elm, answer.
FALSTAFF 1438 The fiend hath pricked down Bardolph irrecoverable,
1439 and his face is Lucifer’s privy kitchen,
1440 340 where he doth nothing but roast malt-worms. For
1441 the boy, there is a good angel about him, but the
1442 devil blinds him too.
PRINCE 1443 For the women?
FALSTAFF 1444 For one of them, she’s in hell already and
1445 345 burns poor souls. For th’ other, I owe her money,
1446 and whether she be damned for that I know not.
FALSTAFF 1448 No, I think thou art not. I think thou art quit
1449 for that. Marry, there is another indictment upon
1450 350 thee for suffering flesh to be eaten in thy house
1451 contrary to the law, for the which I think thou wilt
1452 howl.
HOSTESS 1453 All vitlars do so. What’s a joint of mutton or
1454 two in a whole Lent?
PRINCE, ⌜to Doll⌝ 1455 355You, gentlewoman.
DOLL 1456 What says your Grace?
FALSTAFF 1457 His grace says that which his flesh rebels
1458 against.
Peto knocks at door.
HOSTESS 1459 Who knocks so loud at door? Look to th’ door
1460 360 there, Francis.⌜Francis exits.⌝
⟨Enter Peto.⟩
PRINCE 1461 Peto, how now, what news?
PETO
1462 The King your father is at Westminster,
1463 And there are twenty weak and wearied posts
1464 Come from the north, and as I came along
1465 365 I met and overtook a dozen captains,
1466 Bareheaded, sweating, knocking at the taverns
1467 And asking everyone for Sir John Falstaff.
PRINCE
1468 By heaven, Poins, I feel me much to blame
1469 So idly to profane the precious time
1470 370 When tempest of commotion, like the south
1471 Borne with black vapor, doth begin to melt
1472 And drop upon our bare unarmèd heads.—
1473 Give me my sword and cloak.—Falstaff, good
1474 night.Prince, ⌜Peto,⌝ and Poins exit.
FALSTAFF 1475 375Now comes in the sweetest morsel of the
1476 night, and we must hence and leave it unpicked.
1478 door? (⌜Bardolph returns.⌝) How now, what’s the
1479 matter?
BARDOLPH
1480 380 You must away to court, sir, presently.
1481 A dozen captains stay at door for you.
FALSTAFF, ⌜to Page⌝ 1482 Pay the musicians, sirrah.—
1483 Farewell, hostess.—Farewell, Doll. You see, my
1484 good wenches, how men of merit are sought after.
1485 385 The undeserver may sleep when the man of action
1486 is called on. Farewell, good wenches. If I be not sent
1487 away post, I will see you again ere I go.
DOLL 1488 I cannot speak. If my heart be not ready to
1489 burst—well, sweet Jack, have a care of thyself.
FALSTAFF 1490 390Farewell, farewell.
He exits ⌜with Bardolph, Page, and Musicians.⌝
HOSTESS 1491 Well, fare thee well. I have known thee these
1492 twenty-nine years, come peasecod time, but an
1493 honester and truer-hearted man—well, fare thee
1494 well.
BARDOLPH, ⌜within⌝ 1495 395Mistress Tearsheet!
HOSTESS 1496 What’s the matter?
BARDOLPH, ⌜within⌝ 1497 Bid Mistress Tearsheet come to my
1498 master.
HOSTESS 1499 O, run, Doll, run, run, good Doll. [Come.—
1500 400 She comes blubbered.—Yea! Will you come, Doll?]
They exit.
KING
1501 Go call the Earls of Surrey and of Warwick;
1502 But, ere they come, bid them o’erread these letters
1503 And well consider of them. Make good speed.
⌜Page⌝ ⟨exits.⟩
1504 How many thousand of my poorest subjects
1505 5 Are at this hour asleep! O sleep, O gentle sleep,
1506 Nature’s soft nurse, how have I frighted thee,
1507 That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down
1508 And steep my senses in forgetfulness?
1509 Why rather, sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs,
1510 10 Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee,
1511 And hushed with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber,
1512 Than in the perfumed chambers of the great,
1513 Under the canopies of costly state,
1514 And lulled with sound of sweetest melody?
1515 15 O thou dull god, why liest thou with the vile
1516 In loathsome beds and leavest the kingly couch
1517 A watch-case or a common ’larum bell?
1518 Wilt thou upon the high and giddy ⟨mast⟩
1519 Seal up the shipboy’s eyes and rock his brains
1520 20 In cradle of the rude imperious surge
1521 And in the visitation of the winds,
1523 Curling their monstrous heads and hanging them
1524 With deafing clamor in the slippery clouds
1525 25 That with the hurly death itself awakes?
1526 Canst thou, O partial sleep, give ⟨thy⟩ repose
1527 To the wet ⟨sea-boy⟩ in an hour so rude,
1528 And, in the calmest and most stillest night,
1529 With all appliances and means to boot,
1530 30 Deny it to a king? Then, happy low, lie down.
1531 Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.
Enter Warwick, Surrey and Sir John Blunt.
WARWICK
1532 Many good morrows to your Majesty.
KING 1533 Is it good morrow, lords?
WARWICK 1534 ’Tis one o’clock, and past.
KING
1535 35 Why then, good morrow to you all, my lords.
1536 Have you read o’er the letter that I sent you?
WARWICK 1537 We have, my liege.
KING
1538 Then you perceive the body of our kingdom
1539 How foul it is, what rank diseases grow,
1540 40 And with what danger near the heart of it.
WARWICK
1541 It is but as a body yet distempered,
1542 Which to his former strength may be restored
1543 With good advice and little medicine.
1544 My Lord Northumberland will soon be cooled.
KING
1545 45 O God, that one might read the book of fate
1546 And see the revolution of the times
1547 Make mountains level, and the continent,
1548 Weary of solid firmness, melt itself
1549 Into the sea, and other times to see
1551 Too wide for Neptune’s hips; how chance’s mocks
1552 And changes fill the cup of alteration
1553 With divers liquors! [O, if this were seen,
1554 The happiest youth, viewing his progress through,
1555 55 What perils past, what crosses to ensue,
1556 Would shut the book and sit him down and die.]
1557 ’Tis not ten years gone
1558 Since Richard and Northumberland, great friends,
1559 Did feast together, and in two ⟨years⟩ after
1560 60 Were they at wars. It is but eight years since
1561 This Percy was the man nearest my soul,
1562 Who like a brother toiled in my affairs
1563 And laid his love and life under my foot,
1564 Yea, for my sake, even to the eyes of Richard
1565 65 Gave him defiance. But which of you was by—
1566 ⌜To Warwick.⌝ You, cousin Nevil, as I may
1567 remember—
1568 When Richard, with his eye brimful of tears,
1569 Then checked and rated by Northumberland,
1570 70 Did speak these words, now proved a prophecy?
1571 “Northumberland, thou ladder by the which
1572 My cousin Bolingbroke ascends my throne”—
1573 Though then, God knows, I had no such intent,
1574 But that necessity so bowed the state
1575 75 That I and greatness were compelled to kiss—
1576 “The time shall come,” thus did he follow it,
1577 “The time will come that foul sin, gathering head,
1578 Shall break into corruption”—so went on,
1579 Foretelling this same time’s condition
1580 80 And the division of our amity.
WARWICK
1581 There is a history in all men’s lives
1582 Figuring the natures of the times deceased,
1583 The which observed, a man may prophesy,
1584 With a near aim, of the main chance of things
1586 And weak beginning lie intreasurèd.
1587 Such things become the hatch and brood of time,
1588 And by the necessary form of this,
1589 King Richard might create a perfect guess
1590 90 That great Northumberland, then false to him,
1591 Would of that seed grow to a greater falseness,
1592 Which should not find a ground to root upon
1593 Unless on you.
KING 1594 Are these things then necessities?
1595 95 Then let us meet them like necessities.
1596 And that same word even now cries out on us.
1597 They say the Bishop and Northumberland
1598 Are fifty thousand strong.
WARWICK 1599 It cannot be, my lord.
1600 100 Rumor doth double, like the voice and echo,
1601 The numbers of the feared. Please it your Grace
1602 To go to bed. Upon my soul, my lord,
1603 The powers that you already have sent forth
1604 Shall bring this prize in very easily.
1605 105 To comfort you the more, I have received
1606 A certain instance that Glendower is dead.
1607 Your Majesty hath been this fortnight ill,
1608 And these unseasoned hours perforce must add
1609 Unto your sickness.
KING 1610 110 I will take your counsel.
1611 And were these inward wars once out of hand,
1612 We would, dear lords, unto the Holy Land.
They exit.
SHALLOW 1613 Come on, come on, come on. Give me your
1614 hand, sir, give me your hand, sir. An early stirrer, by
1615 the rood. And how doth my good cousin Silence?
SILENCE 1616 Good morrow, good cousin Shallow.
SHALLOW 1617 5And how doth my cousin your bedfellow?
1618 And your fairest daughter and mine, my goddaughter
1619 Ellen?
SILENCE 1620 Alas, a black ousel, cousin Shallow.
SHALLOW 1621 By yea and no, sir. I dare say my cousin
1622 10 William is become a good scholar. He is at Oxford
1623 still, is he not?
SILENCE 1624 Indeed, sir, to my cost.
SHALLOW 1625 He must then to the Inns o’ Court shortly. I
1626 was once of Clement’s Inn, where I think they will
1627 15 talk of mad Shallow yet.
SILENCE 1628 You were called “Lusty Shallow” then,
1629 cousin.
SHALLOW 1630 By the Mass, I was called anything, and I
1631 would have done anything indeed too, and roundly
1632 20 too. There was I, and little John Doit of Staffordshire,
1633 and black George Barnes, and Francis Pickbone,
1634 and Will Squele, a Cotswold man. You had
1635 not four such swinge-bucklers in all the Inns o’
1636 Court again. And I may say to you, we knew where
1637 25 the bona robas were and had the best of them all at
1638 commandment. Then was Jack Falstaff, now Sir
1639 John, a boy, and page to Thomas Mowbray, Duke of
1640 Norfolk.
SILENCE 1641 This Sir John, cousin, that comes hither anon
1642 30 about soldiers?
SHALLOW 1643 The same Sir John, the very same. I see him
1644 break Scoggin’s head at the court gate, when he
1645 was a crack not thus high; and the very same day did
1647 35 behind Grey’s Inn. Jesu, Jesu, the mad days that I
1648 have spent! And to see how many of my old acquaintance
1649 are dead.
SILENCE 1650 We shall all follow, cousin.
SHALLOW 1651 Certain, ’tis certain, very sure, very sure.
1652 40 Death, as the Psalmist saith, is certain to all. All
1653 shall die. How a good yoke of bullocks at ⟨Stamford⟩
1654 Fair?
SILENCE 1655 By my troth, ⟨cousin,⟩ I was not there.
SHALLOW 1656 Death is certain. Is old Dooble of your town
1657 45 living yet?
SILENCE 1658 Dead, sir.
SHALLOW 1659 Jesu, Jesu, dead! He drew a good bow, and
1660 dead? He shot a fine shoot. John o’ Gaunt loved him
1661 well, and betted much money on his head. Dead! He
1662 50 would have clapped i’ th’ clout at twelve score, and
1663 carried you a forehand shaft a fourteen and fourteen
1664 and a half, that it would have done a man’s
1665 heart good to see. How a score of ewes now?
SILENCE 1666 Thereafter as they be, a score of good ewes
1667 55 may be worth ten pounds.
SHALLOW 1668 And is old Dooble dead?
SILENCE 1669 Here come two of Sir John Falstaff’s men, as I
1670 think.
Enter Bardolph and one with him.
⟨SHALLOW⟩ 1671 Good morrow, honest gentlemen.
BARDOLPH 1672 60I beseech you, which is Justice Shallow?
SHALLOW 1673 I am Robert Shallow, sir, a poor esquire of
1674 this county and one of the King’s justices of the
1675 peace. What is your good pleasure with me?
BARDOLPH 1676 My captain, sir, commends him to you, my
1677 65 captain, Sir John Falstaff, a tall gentleman, by
1678 heaven, and a most gallant leader.
1680 backsword man. How doth the good knight? May I
1681 ask how my lady his wife doth?
BARDOLPH 1682 70Sir, pardon. A soldier is better ⟨accommodated⟩
1683 than with a wife.
SHALLOW 1684 It is well said, in faith, sir, and it is well said
1685 indeed too. “Better accommodated.” It is good,
1686 yea, indeed is it. Good phrases are surely, and ever
1687 75 were, very commendable. “Accommodated.” It
1688 comes of accommodo. Very good, a good phrase.
BARDOLPH 1689 Pardon, sir, I have heard the word—
1690 “phrase” call you it? By this day, I know not the
1691 phrase, but I will maintain the word with my sword
1692 80 to be a soldierlike word, and a word of exceeding
1693 good command, by heaven. “Accommodated,” that
1694 is when a man is, as they say, accommodated, or
1695 when a man is being whereby he may be thought to
1696 be accommodated, which is an excellent thing.
Enter Falstaff.
SHALLOW 1697 85It is very just. Look, here comes good Sir
1698 John.—Give me your good hand, give me your
1699 Worship’s good hand. By my troth, you like well and
1700 bear your years very well. Welcome, good Sir John.
FALSTAFF 1701 I am glad to see you well, good Master
1702 90 Robert Shallow.—Master ⟨Sure-card,⟩ as I think?
SHALLOW 1703 No, Sir John. It is my cousin Silence, in
1704 commission with me.
FALSTAFF 1705 Good Master Silence, it well befits you
1706 should be of the peace.
SILENCE 1707 95Your good Worship is welcome.
FALSTAFF 1708 Fie, this is hot weather, gentlemen. Have you
1709 provided me here half a dozen sufficient men?
SHALLOW 1710 Marry, have we, sir. Will you sit?
⌜They sit at a table.⌝
SHALLOW 1712 100Where’s the roll? Where’s the roll? Where’s
1713 the roll? Let me see, let me see, let me see. So, so,
1714 so, so, so. So, so. Yea, marry, sir.—Rafe Mouldy!—
1715 Let them appear as I call, let them do so, let them
1716 do so.
⌜Enter Mouldy, followed by Shadow, Wart, Feeble,
and Bullcalf.⌝
1717 105 Let me see, where is Mouldy?
MOULDY, ⌜coming forward⌝ 1718 Here, an it please you.
SHALLOW 1719 What think you, Sir John? A good-limbed
1720 fellow, young, strong, and of good friends.
FALSTAFF 1721 Is thy name Mouldy?
MOULDY 1722 110Yea, an ’t please you.
FALSTAFF 1723 ’Tis the more time thou wert used.
SHALLOW 1724 Ha, ha, ha, most excellent, i’ faith! Things
1725 that are mouldy lack use. Very singular good, in
1726 faith. Well said, Sir John, very well said.
⟨FALSTAFF 1727 115Prick him.⟩
⌜Shallow marks the scroll.⌝
MOULDY 1728 I was pricked well enough before, an you
1729 could have let me alone. My old dame will be
1730 undone now for one to do her husbandry and her
1731 drudgery. You need not to have pricked me. There
1732 120 are other men fitter to go out than I.
FALSTAFF 1733 Go to. Peace, Mouldy. You shall go. Mouldy,
1734 it is time you were spent.
MOULDY 1735 Spent?
SHALLOW 1736 Peace, fellow, peace. Stand aside. Know you
1737 125 where you are?—For th’ other, Sir John. Let me
1738 see.—Simon Shadow!
FALSTAFF 1739 Yea, marry, let me have him to sit under.
1740 He’s like to be a cold soldier.
SHALLOW 1741 Where’s Shadow?
FALSTAFF 1743 Shadow, whose son art thou?
SHADOW 1744 My mother’s son, sir.
FALSTAFF 1745 Thy mother’s son! Like enough, and thy
1746 father’s shadow. So the son of the female is the
1747 135 shadow of the male. It is often so, indeed, but much
1748 of the father’s substance.
SHALLOW 1749 Do you like him, Sir John?
FALSTAFF 1750 Shadow will serve for summer. Prick him,
1751 for we have a number of shadows ⟨to⟩ fill up the
1752 140 muster book.
SHALLOW 1753 Thomas Wart!
FALSTAFF 1754 Where’s he?
WART, ⌜coming forward⌝ 1755 Here, sir.
FALSTAFF 1756 Is thy name Wart?
WART 1757 145Yea, sir.
FALSTAFF 1758 Thou art a very ragged wart.
SHALLOW 1759 Shall I prick him ⟨down,⟩ Sir John?
FALSTAFF 1760 It were superfluous, for ⟨his⟩ apparel is built
1761 upon his back, and the whole frame stands upon
1762 150 pins. Prick him no more.
SHALLOW 1763 Ha, ha, ha. You can do it, sir, you can do it. I
1764 commend you well.—Francis Feeble!
FEEBLE, ⌜coming forward⌝ 1765 Here, sir.
SHALLOW 1766 What trade art thou, Feeble?
FEEBLE 1767 155A woman’s tailor, sir.
SHALLOW 1768 Shall I prick him, sir?
FALSTAFF 1769 You may, but if he had been a man’s tailor,
1770 he’d ha’ pricked you.—Wilt thou make as many
1771 holes in an enemy’s battle as thou hast done in a
1772 160 woman’s petticoat?
FEEBLE 1773 I will do my good will, sir. You can have no
1774 more.
FALSTAFF 1775 Well said, good woman’s tailor, well said,
1776 courageous Feeble. Thou wilt be as valiant as the
1778 Prick the woman’s tailor well, Master Shallow,
1779 deep, Master Shallow.
FEEBLE 1780 I would Wart might have gone, sir.
FALSTAFF 1781 I would thou wert a man’s tailor, that thou
1782 170 mightst mend him and make him fit to go. I cannot
1783 put him to a private soldier that is the leader of so
1784 many thousands. Let that suffice, most forcible
1785 Feeble.
FEEBLE 1786 It shall suffice, sir.
FALSTAFF 1787 175I am bound to thee, reverend Feeble.—Who
1788 is ⟨the⟩ next?
SHALLOW 1789 Peter Bullcalf o’ th’ green.
FALSTAFF 1790 Yea, marry, let’s see Bullcalf.
BULLCALF, ⌜coming forward⌝ 1791 Here, sir.
FALSTAFF 1792 180Fore God, a likely fellow. Come, prick ⟨me⟩
1793 Bullcalf till he roar again.
BULLCALF 1794 O Lord, good my lord captain—
FALSTAFF 1795 What, dost thou roar before thou art
1796 pricked?
BULLCALF 1797 185O Lord, sir, I am a diseased man.
FALSTAFF 1798 What disease hast thou?
BULLCALF 1799 A whoreson cold, sir, a cough, sir, which I
1800 caught with ringing in the King’s affairs upon his
1801 coronation day, sir.
FALSTAFF 1802 190Come, thou shalt go to the wars in a gown.
1803 We will have away thy cold, and I will take such
1804 order that thy friends shall ring for thee.—Is here
1805 all?
SHALLOW 1806 Here is two more called than your number.
1807 195 You must have but four here, sir, and so I pray you
1808 go in with me to dinner.
FALSTAFF 1809 Come, I will go drink with you, but I cannot
1810 tarry dinner. I am glad to see you, by my troth,
1811 Master Shallow.
1813 all night in the windmill in Saint George’s Field?
FALSTAFF 1814 No more of that, ⟨good⟩ Master Shallow, ⟨no
1815 more of that.⟩
SHALLOW 1816 Ha, ’twas a merry night. And is Jane Nightwork
1817 205 alive?
FALSTAFF 1818 She lives, Master Shallow.
SHALLOW 1819 She never could away with me.
FALSTAFF 1820 Never, never. She would always say she could
1821 not abide Master Shallow.
SHALLOW 1822 210By the Mass, I could anger her to th’ heart.
1823 She was then a bona roba. Doth she hold her own
1824 well?
FALSTAFF 1825 Old, old, Master Shallow.
SHALLOW 1826 Nay, she must be old. She cannot choose but
1827 215 be old. Certain, she’s old, and had Robin Nightwork
1828 by old Nightwork before I came to Clement’s Inn.
SILENCE 1829 That’s fifty-five year ago.
SHALLOW 1830 Ha, cousin Silence, that thou hadst seen that
1831 that this knight and I have seen!—Ha, Sir John, said
1832 220 I well?
FALSTAFF 1833 We have heard the chimes at midnight, Master
1834 Shallow.
SHALLOW 1835 That we have, that we have, that we have. In
1836 faith, Sir John, we have. Our watchword was “Hem,
1837 225 boys.” Come, let’s to dinner, come, let’s to dinner.
1838 Jesus, the days that we have seen! Come, come.
⌜Shallow, Silence, and Falstaff rise and⌝ exit.
BULLCALF 1839 Good Master Corporate Bardolph, stand my
1840 friend, and here’s four Harry ten-shillings in
1841 French crowns for you. ⌜He gives Bardolph money.⌝
1842 230 In very truth, sir, I had as lief be hanged, sir, as go.
1843 And yet, for mine own part, sir, I do not care, but
1844 rather because I am unwilling, and, for mine own
1845 part, have a desire to stay with my friends. Else, sir,
1846 I did not care, for mine own part, so much.
MOULDY 1848 And, good Master Corporal Captain, for my
1849 old dame’s sake, stand my friend. She has nobody to
1850 do anything about her when I am gone, and she is
1851 old and cannot help herself. You shall have forty,
1852 240 sir.⌜He gives money.⌝
BARDOLPH 1853 Go to. Stand aside.
FEEBLE 1854 By my troth, I care not. A man can die but
1855 once. We owe God a death. I’ll ne’er bear a base
1856 mind. An ’t be my destiny, so; an ’t be not, so. No
1857 245 man’s too good to serve ’s prince, and let it go
1858 which way it will, he that dies this year is quit for
1859 the next.
BARDOLPH 1860 Well said. Th’ art a good fellow.
FEEBLE 1861 Faith, I’ll bear no base mind.
Enter Falstaff and the Justices.
FALSTAFF 1862 250Come, sir, which men shall I have?
SHALLOW 1863 Four of which you please.
BARDOLPH, ⌜aside to Falstaff⌝ 1864 Sir, a word with you. I
1865 have three pound to free Mouldy and Bullcalf.
FALSTAFF 1866 Go to, well.
SHALLOW 1867 255Come, Sir John, which four will you have?
FALSTAFF 1868 Do you choose for me.
SHALLOW 1869 Marry, then, Mouldy, Bullcalf, Feeble, and
1870 Shadow.
FALSTAFF 1871 Mouldy and Bullcalf! For you, Mouldy, stay
1872 260 at home till you are past service.—And for your
1873 part, Bullcalf, grow till you come unto it. I will
1874 none of you.⌜Mouldy and Bullcalf exit.⌝
SHALLOW 1875 Sir John, Sir John, do not yourself wrong.
1876 They are your likeliest men, and I would have you
1877 265 served with the best.
FALSTAFF 1878 Will you tell me, Master Shallow, how to
1879 choose a man? Care I for the limb, the thews, the
1881 me the spirit, Master Shallow. Here’s Wart. You see
1882 270 what a ragged appearance it is. He shall charge you
1883 and discharge you with the motion of a pewterer’s
1884 hammer, come off and on swifter than he that
1885 gibbets on the brewer’s bucket. And this same half-faced
1886 fellow, Shadow, give me this man. He presents
1887 275 no mark to the enemy. The foeman may with
1888 as great aim level at the edge of a penknife. And for
1889 a retreat, how swiftly will this Feeble, the woman’s
1890 tailor, run off! O, give me the spare men, and spare
1891 me the great ones.—Put me a caliver into Wart’s
1892 280 hand, Bardolph.
BARDOLPH, ⌜giving Wart a musket⌝ 1893 Hold, Wart. Traverse.
1894 Thas, thas, thas.
FALSTAFF, ⌜to Wart⌝ 1895 Come, manage me your caliver: so,
1896 very well, go to, very good, exceeding good. O, give
1897 285 me always a little, lean, old, chopped, bald shot.
1898 Well said, i’ faith, Wart. Th’ art a good scab. Hold,
1899 there’s a tester for thee.⌜He gives Wart money.⌝
SHALLOW 1900 He is not his craft’s master. He doth not do it
1901 right. I remember at Mile End Green, when I lay at
1902 290 Clement’s Inn—I was then Sir Dagonet in Arthur’s
1903 show—there was a little quiver fellow, and he
1904 would manage you his piece thus. ⌜Shallow performs
with the musket.⌝ 1905 And he would about and
1906 about, and come you in, and come you in. “Rah,
1907 295 tah, tah,” would he say. “Bounce,” would he say,
1908 and away again would he go, and again would he
1909 come. I shall ne’er see such a fellow.
FALSTAFF 1910 These fellows will do well, Master Shallow.
1911 —God keep you, Master Silence. I will not use
1912 300 many words with you. Fare you well, gentlemen
1913 both. I thank you. I must a dozen mile tonight.—
1914 Bardolph, give the soldiers coats.
1916 your affairs. God send us peace. At your return, visit
1917 305 our house. Let our old acquaintance be renewed.
1918 Peradventure I will with you to the court.
FALSTAFF 1919 Fore God, would you would, ⟨Master
1920 Shallow.⟩
SHALLOW 1921 Go to. I have spoke at a word. God keep you.
FALSTAFF 1922 310Fare you well, gentle gentlemen.
⌜Shallow and Silence⌝ exit.
1923 On, Bardolph. Lead the men away.
⌜All but Falstaff exit.⌝
1924 As I return, I will fetch off these justices. I do see
1925 the bottom of Justice Shallow. Lord, Lord, how
1926 subject we old men are to this vice of lying. This
1927 315 same starved justice hath done nothing but prate to
1928 me of the wildness of his youth and the feats he hath
1929 done about Turnbull Street, and every third word a
1930 lie, duer paid to the hearer than the Turk’s tribute. I
1931 do remember him at Clement’s Inn, like a man
1932 320 made after supper of a cheese paring. When he was
1933 naked, he was, for all the world, like a forked radish
1934 with a head fantastically carved upon it with a
1935 knife. He was so forlorn that his dimensions to
1936 any thick sight were invincible. He was the very
1937 325 genius of famine, [yet lecherous as a monkey,
1938 and the whores called him “mandrake.”[ He came
1939 ⟨ever⟩ in the rearward of the fashion, [and sung
1940 those tunes to the overscutched huswives that he
1941 heard the carmen whistle, and swore they were his
1942 330 fancies or his good-nights.] And now is this Vice’s
1943 dagger become a squire, and talks as familiarly
1944 of John o’ Gaunt as if he had been sworn brother
1945 to him, and I’ll be sworn he ne’er saw him but
1946 once in the tilt-yard, and then he burst his head
1947 335 for crowding among the Marshal’s men. I saw it
1948 and told John o’ Gaunt he beat his own name, for
1950 an eel-skin; the case of a treble hautboy was a
1951 mansion for him, a court. And now has he land and
1952 340 beefs. Well, I’ll be acquainted with him if I return,
1953 and ’t shall go hard but I’ll make him a philosopher’s
1954 two stones to me. If the young dace be a
1955 bait for the old pike, I see no reason in the law of
1956 nature but I may snap at him. Let time shape, and
1957 345 there an end.
⌜He exits.⌝
Bardolph, Hastings, ⌜and their officers⌝ within the Forest
of Gaultree.
ARCHBISHOP 1958 What is this forest called?
HASTINGS
1959 ’Tis Gaultree Forest, an ’t shall please your Grace.
ARCHBISHOP
1960 Here stand, my lords, and send discoverers forth
1961 To know the numbers of our enemies.
HASTINGS
1962 5 We have sent forth already.
ARCHBISHOP 1963 ’Tis well done.
1964 My friends and brethren in these great affairs,
1965 I must acquaint you that I have received
1966 New-dated letters from Northumberland,
1967 10 Their cold intent, tenor, and substance, thus:
1968 Here doth he wish his person, with such powers
1969 As might hold sortance with his quality,
1970 The which he could not levy; whereupon
1971 He is retired, to ripe his growing fortunes,
1972 15 To Scotland, and concludes in hearty prayers
1973 That your attempts may overlive the hazard
1974 And fearful meeting of their opposite.
MOWBRAY
1975 Thus do the hopes we have in him touch ground
1976 And dash themselves to pieces.
HASTINGS 1977 20 Now, what news?
MESSENGER
1978 West of this forest, scarcely off a mile,
1979 In goodly form comes on the enemy,
1980 And, by the ground they hide, I judge their number
1981 Upon or near the rate of thirty thousand.
MOWBRAY
1982 25 The just proportion that we gave them out.
1983 Let us sway on and face them in the field.
Enter Westmoreland.
ARCHBISHOP
1984 What well-appointed leader fronts us here?
MOWBRAY
1985 I think it is my Lord of Westmoreland.
WESTMORELAND
1986 Health and fair greeting from our general,
1987 30 The Prince Lord John and Duke of Lancaster.
ARCHBISHOP
1988 Say on, my Lord of Westmoreland, in peace,
1989 What doth concern your coming.
WESTMORELAND 1990 Then, my lord,
1991 Unto your Grace do I in chief address
1992 35 The substance of my speech. If that rebellion
1993 Came like itself, in base and abject routs,
1994 Led on by bloody youth, guarded with rage,
1995 And countenanced by boys and beggary—
1996 I say, if damned commotion so ⌜appeared⌝
1997 40 In his true, native, and most proper shape,
1998 You, reverend father, and these noble lords
1999 Had not been here to dress the ugly form
2000 Of base and bloody insurrection
2001 With your fair honors. You, Lord Archbishop,
2003 Whose beard the silver hand of peace hath touched,
2004 Whose learning and good letters peace hath tutored,
2005 Whose white investments figure innocence,
2006 The dove and very blessèd spirit of peace,
2007 50 Wherefore do you so ill translate yourself
2008 Out of the speech of peace, that bears such grace,
2009 Into the harsh and boist’rous tongue of war,
2010 Turning your books to graves, your ink to blood,
2011 Your pens to lances, and your tongue divine
2012 55 To a loud trumpet and a point of war?
ARCHBISHOP
2013 Wherefore do I this? So the question stands.
2014 Briefly, to this end: we are all diseased
2015 ⟨And with our surfeiting and wanton hours
2016 Have brought ourselves into a burning fever,
2017 60 And we must bleed for it; of which disease
2018 Our late King Richard, being infected, died.
2019 But, my most noble Lord of Westmoreland,
2020 I take not on me here as a physician,
2021 Nor do I as an enemy to peace
2022 65 Troop in the throngs of military men,
2023 But rather show awhile like fearful war
2024 To diet rank minds sick of happiness
2025 And purge th’ obstructions which begin to stop
2026 Our very veins of life. Hear me more plainly.
2027 70 I have in equal balance justly weighed
2028 What wrongs our arms may do, what wrongs we
2029 suffer,
2030 And find our griefs heavier than our offenses.
2031 We see which way the stream of time doth run
2032 75 And are enforced from our most quiet there
2033 By the rough torrent of occasion,
2034 And have the summary of all our griefs,
2035 When time shall serve, to show in articles;
2037 80 And might by no suit gain our audience.
2038 When we are wronged and would unfold our griefs,
2039 We are denied access unto his person
2040 Even by those men that most have done us wrong.⟩
2041 The dangers of the days but newly gone,
2042 85 Whose memory is written on the earth
2043 With yet-appearing blood, and the examples
2044 Of every minute’s instance, present now,
2045 Hath put us in these ill-beseeming arms,
2046 Not to break peace or any branch of it,
2047 90 But to establish here a peace indeed,
2048 Concurring both in name and quality.
WESTMORELAND
2049 Whenever yet was your appeal denied?
2050 Wherein have you been gallèd by the King?
2051 What peer hath been suborned to grate on you,
2052 95 That you should seal this lawless bloody book
2053 Of forged rebellion with a seal divine
2054 [And consecrate commotion’s bitter edge?]
ARCHBISHOP
2055 My brother general, the commonwealth,
2056 [To brother born an household cruelty,]
2057 100 I make my quarrel in particular.
WESTMORELAND
2058 There is no need of any such redress,
2059 Or if there were, it not belongs to you.
MOWBRAY
2060 Why not to him in part, and to us all
2061 That feel the bruises of the days before
2062 105 And suffer the condition of these times
2063 To lay a heavy and unequal hand
2064 Upon our honors?
WESTMORELAND 2065 ⟨O, my good Lord Mowbray,
2066 Construe the times to their necessities,
2068 And not the King, that doth you injuries.
2069 Yet for your part, it not appears to me
2070 Either from the King or in the present time
2071 That you should have an inch of any ground
2072 115 To build a grief on. Were you not restored
2073 To all the Duke of Norfolk’s seigniories,
2074 Your noble and right well remembered father’s?
MOWBRAY
2075 What thing, in honor, had my father lost
2076 That need to be revived and breathed in me?
2077 120 The King that loved him, as the state stood then,
2078 Was ⌜force⌝ perforce compelled to banish him,
2079 And then that Henry Bolingbroke and he,
2080 Being mounted and both rousèd in their seats,
2081 Their neighing coursers daring of the spur,
2082 125 Their armèd staves in charge, their beavers down,
2083 Their eyes of fire sparkling through sights of steel,
2084 And the loud trumpet blowing them together,
2085 Then, then, when there was nothing could have
2086 stayed
2087 130 My father from the breast of Bolingbroke,
2088 O, when the King did throw his warder down—
2089 His own life hung upon the staff he threw—
2090 Then threw he down himself and all their lives
2091 That by indictment and by dint of sword
2092 135 Have since miscarried under Bolingbroke.
WESTMORELAND
2093 You speak, Lord Mowbray, now you know not what.
2094 The Earl of Hereford was reputed then
2095 In England the most valiant gentleman.
2096 Who knows on whom fortune would then have
2097 140 smiled?
2098 But if your father had been victor there,
2099 He ne’er had borne it out of Coventry;
2101 Cried hate upon him; and all their prayers and
2102 145 love
2103 Were set on Hereford, whom they doted on
2104 And blessed and graced, ⌜indeed⌝ more than the
2105 King.⟩
2106 But this is mere digression from my purpose.
2107 150 Here come I from our princely general
2108 To know your griefs, to tell you from his Grace
2109 That he will give you audience; and wherein
2110 It shall appear that your demands are just,
2111 You shall enjoy them, everything set off
2112 155 That might so much as think you enemies.
MOWBRAY
2113 But he hath forced us to compel this offer,
2114 And it proceeds from policy, not love.
WESTMORELAND
2115 Mowbray, you overween to take it so.
2116 This offer comes from mercy, not from fear.
2117 160 For, lo, within a ken our army lies,
2118 Upon mine honor, all too confident
2119 To give admittance to a thought of fear.
2120 Our battle is more full of names than yours,
2121 Our men more perfect in the use of arms,
2122 165 Our armor all as strong, our cause the best.
2123 Then reason will our hearts should be as good.
2124 Say you not then our offer is compelled.
MOWBRAY
2125 Well, by my will, we shall admit no parley.
WESTMORELAND
2126 That argues but the shame of your offense.
2127 170 A rotten case abides no handling.
HASTINGS
2128 Hath the Prince John a full commission,
2129 In very ample virtue of his father,
2131 Of what conditions we shall stand upon?
WESTMORELAND
2132 175 That is intended in the General’s name.
2133 I muse you make so slight a question.
ARCHBISHOP, ⌜giving Westmoreland a paper⌝
2134 Then take, my Lord of Westmoreland, this schedule,
2135 For this contains our general grievances.
2136 Each several article herein redressed,
2137 180 All members of our cause, both here and hence
2138 That are insinewed to this action,
2139 Acquitted by a true substantial form
2140 And present execution of our wills
2141 To us and ⟨to⟩ our purposes confined,
2142 185 We come within our awful banks again
2143 And knit our powers to the arm of peace.
WESTMORELAND
2144 This will I show the General. Please you, lords,
2145 In sight of both our battles we may meet,
2146 ⌜And⌝ either end in peace, which God so frame,
2147 190 Or to the place of difference call the swords
2148 Which must decide it.
ARCHBISHOP 2149 My lord, we will do so.
Westmoreland exits.
MOWBRAY
2150 There is a thing within my bosom tells me
2151 That no conditions of our peace can stand.
HASTINGS
2152 195 Fear you not that. If we can make our peace
2153 Upon such large terms and so absolute
2154 As our conditions shall consist upon,
2155 Our peace shall stand as firm as rocky mountains.
MOWBRAY
2156 Yea, but our valuation shall be such
2157 200 That every slight and false-derivèd cause,
2159 Shall to the King taste of this action,
2160 That, were our royal faiths martyrs in love,
2161 We shall be winnowed with so rough a wind
2162 205 That even our corn shall seem as light as chaff,
2163 And good from bad find no partition.
ARCHBISHOP
2164 No, no, my lord. Note this: the King is weary
2165 Of dainty and such picking grievances,
2166 For he hath found to end one doubt by death
2167 210 Revives two greater in the heirs of life;
2168 And therefore will he wipe his tables clean
2169 And keep no telltale to his memory
2170 That may repeat and history his loss
2171 To new remembrance. For full well he knows
2172 215 He cannot so precisely weed this land
2173 As his misdoubts present occasion;
2174 His foes are so enrooted with his friends
2175 That, plucking to unfix an enemy,
2176 He doth unfasten so and shake a friend;
2177 220 So that this land, like an offensive wife
2178 That hath enraged him on to offer strokes,
2179 As he is striking holds his infant up
2180 And hangs resolved correction in the arm
2181 That was upreared to execution.
HASTINGS
2182 225 Besides, the King hath wasted all his rods
2183 On late offenders, that he now doth lack
2184 The very instruments of chastisement,
2185 So that his power, like to a fangless lion,
2186 May offer but not hold.
ARCHBISHOP 2187 230 ’Tis very true,
2188 And therefore be assured, my good Lord Marshal,
2189 If we do now make our atonement well,
2190 Our peace will, like a broken limb united,
2191 Grow stronger for the breaking.
2193 Here is returned my Lord of Westmoreland.
Enter Westmoreland.
WESTMORELAND, ⌜to the Archbishop⌝
2194 The Prince is here at hand. Pleaseth your Lordship
2195 To meet his Grace just distance ’tween our armies.
Enter Prince John and his army.
MOWBRAY, ⌜to the Archbishop⌝
2196 Your Grace of York, in God’s name then set
2197 240 forward.
ARCHBISHOP
2198 Before, and greet his Grace.—My lord, we come.
⌜All move forward.⌝
JOHN OF LANCASTER
2199 You are well encountered here, my cousin
2200 Mowbray.—
2201 Good day to you, gentle Lord Archbishop,—
2202 245 And so to you, Lord Hastings, and to all.—
2203 My Lord of York, it better showed with you
2204 When that your flock, assembled by the bell,
2205 Encircled you to hear with reverence
2206 Your exposition on the holy text
2207 250 ⟨Than⟩ now to see you here, an iron man talking,
2208 Cheering a rout of rebels with your drum,
2209 Turning the word to sword, and life to death.
2210 That man that sits within a monarch’s heart
2211 And ripens in the sunshine of his favor,
2212 255 Would he abuse the countenance of the King,
2213 Alack, what mischiefs might he set abroach
2214 In shadow of such greatness! With you, Lord
2215 Bishop,
2216 It is even so. Who hath not heard it spoken
2217 260 How deep you were within the books of God,
2219 To us th’ ⌜imagined⌝ voice of God Himself,
2220 The very opener and intelligencer
2221 Between the grace, the sanctities, of heaven,
2222 265 And our dull workings? O, who shall believe
2223 But you misuse the reverence of your place,
2224 ⟨Employ⟩ the countenance and grace of heaven
2225 As a false favorite doth his prince’s name,
2226 In deeds dishonorable? You have ta’en up,
2227 270 Under the counterfeited zeal of God,
2228 The subjects of His substitute, my father,
2229 And both against the peace of heaven and him
2230 Have here up-swarmed them.
ARCHBISHOP 2231 Good my Lord of
2232 275 Lancaster,
2233 I am not here against your father’s peace,
2234 But, as I told my Lord of Westmoreland,
2235 The time misordered doth, in common sense,
2236 Crowd us and crush us to this monstrous form
2237 280 To hold our safety up. I sent your Grace
2238 The parcels and particulars of our grief,
2239 The which hath been with scorn shoved from the
2240 court,
2241 Whereon this Hydra son of war is born,
2242 285 Whose dangerous eyes may well be charmed asleep
2243 With grant of our most just and right desires,
2244 And true obedience, of this madness cured,
2245 Stoop tamely to the foot of majesty.
MOWBRAY
2246 If not, we ready are to try our fortunes
2247 290 To the last man.
HASTINGS 2248 And though we here fall down,
2249 We have supplies to second our attempt;
2250 If they miscarry, theirs shall second them,
2251 And so success of mischief shall be born,
2253 Whiles England shall have generation.
JOHN OF LANCASTER
2254 You are too shallow, Hastings, much too shallow
2255 To sound the bottom of the after-times.
WESTMORELAND
2256 Pleaseth your Grace to answer them directly
2257 300 How far forth you do like their articles.
JOHN OF LANCASTER
2258 I like them all, and do allow them well,
2259 And swear here by the honor of my blood
2260 My father’s purposes have been mistook,
2261 And some about him have too lavishly
2262 305 Wrested his meaning and authority.
2263 ⌜To the Archbishop.⌝ My lord, these griefs shall be
2264 with speed redressed;
2265 Upon my soul, they shall. If this may please you,
2266 Discharge your powers unto their several counties,
2267 310 As we will ours, and here, between the armies,
2268 Let’s drink together friendly and embrace,
2269 That all their eyes may bear those tokens home
2270 Of our restorèd love and amity.
ARCHBISHOP
2271 I take your princely word for these redresses.
⟨JOHN OF LANCASTER⟩
2272 315 I give it you, and will maintain my word,
2273 And thereupon I drink unto your Grace.
⌜The Leaders of both armies begin to drink together.⌝
⟨HASTINGS,⟩ ⌜to an Officer⌝
2274 Go, captain, and deliver to the army
2275 This news of peace. Let them have pay, and part.
2276 I know it will well please them. Hie thee, captain.
⌜Officer⌝ ⟨exits.⟩
ARCHBISHOP, ⌜toasting Westmoreland⌝
2277 320 To you, my noble Lord of Westmoreland.
WESTMORELAND, ⌜returning the toast⌝
2279 I have bestowed to breed this present peace,
2280 You would drink freely. But my love to you
2281 Shall show itself more openly hereafter.
ARCHBISHOP
2282 325 I do not doubt you.
WESTMORELAND 2283 I am glad of it.—
2284 Health to my lord and gentle cousin, Mowbray.
MOWBRAY
2285 You wish me health in very happy season,
2286 For I am on the sudden something ill.
ARCHBISHOP
2287 330 Against ill chances men are ever merry,
2288 But heaviness foreruns the good event.
WESTMORELAND
2289 Therefore be merry, coz, since sudden sorrow
2290 Serves to say thus: “Some good thing comes
2291 tomorrow.”
ARCHBISHOP
2292 335 Believe me, I am passing light in spirit.
MOWBRAY
2293 So much the worse if your own rule be true.
Shout ⌜within.⌝
JOHN OF LANCASTER
2294 The word of peace is rendered. Hark how they
2295 shout.
MOWBRAY
2296 This had been cheerful after victory.
ARCHBISHOP
2297 340 A peace is of the nature of a conquest,
2298 For then both parties nobly are subdued,
2299 And neither party loser.
JOHN OF LANCASTER, ⌜to Westmoreland⌝ 2300 Go, my lord,
2301 And let our army be dischargèd too.
⌜Westmoreland⌝ ⟨exits.⟩
2303 you, let our trains
2304 March by us, that we may peruse the men
2305 We should have coped withal.
ARCHBISHOP 2306 Go, good Lord
2307 350 Hastings,
2308 And ere they be dismissed, let them march by.
⌜Hastings⌝ ⟨exits.⟩
JOHN OF LANCASTER
2309 I trust, lords, we shall lie tonight together.
Enter Westmoreland.
2310 Now, cousin, wherefore stands our army still?
WESTMORELAND
2311 The leaders, having charge from you to stand,
2312 355 Will not go off until they hear you speak.
JOHN OF LANCASTER 2313 They know their duties.
Enter Hastings.
HASTINGS, ⌜to the Archbishop⌝
2314 My lord, our army is dispersed already.
2315 Like youthful steers unyoked, they take their
2316 courses
2317 360 East, west, north, south, or, like a school broke up,
2318 Each hurries toward his home and sporting-place.
WESTMORELAND
2319 Good tidings, my Lord Hastings, for the which
2320 I do arrest thee, traitor, of high treason.—
2321 And you, Lord Archbishop, and you, Lord Mowbray,
2322 365 Of capital treason I attach you both.
MOWBRAY
2323 Is this proceeding just and honorable?
WESTMORELAND 2324 Is your assembly so?
ARCHBISHOP
2325 Will you thus break your faith?
2327 370 I promised you redress of these same grievances
2328 Whereof you did complain, which, by mine honor,
2329 I will perform with a most Christian care.
2330 But for you rebels, look to taste the due
2331 Meet for rebellion ⟨and such acts as yours.⟩
2332 375 Most shallowly did you these arms commence,
2333 Fondly brought here, and foolishly sent hence.—
2334 Strike up our drums; pursue the scattered stray.
2335 God, and not we, hath safely fought today.—
2336 Some guard ⟨these traitors⟩ to the block of death,
2337 380 Treason’s true bed and yielder-up of breath.
⟨They exit.⟩
FALSTAFF 2338 What’s your name, sir? Of what condition are
2339 you, and of what place, ⟨I pray⟩?
COLEVILE 2340 I am a knight, sir, and my name is Colevile of
2341 the Dale.
FALSTAFF 2342 5Well then, Colevile is your name, a knight is
2343 your degree, and your place the Dale. Colevile shall
2344 be still your name, a traitor your degree, and the
2345 dungeon your place, a place deep enough so shall
2346 you be still Colevile of the Dale.
COLEVILE 2347 10Are not you Sir John Falstaff?
FALSTAFF 2348 As good a man as he, sir, whoe’er I am. Do
2349 you yield, sir, or shall I sweat for you? If I do sweat,
2350 they are the drops of thy lovers and they weep for
2351 thy death. Therefore rouse up fear and trembling,
2352 15 and do observance to my mercy.
COLEVILE 2353 I think you are Sir John Falstaff, and in that
2354 thought yield me.
2356 of mine, and not a tongue of them all speaks any
2357 20 other word but my name. An I had but a belly of any
2358 indifferency, I were simply the most active fellow in
2359 Europe. My womb, my womb, my womb undoes
2360 me. Here comes our general.
Enter John, Westmoreland, and the rest.
JOHN OF LANCASTER
2361 The heat is past. Follow no further now.
2362 25 Call in the powers, good cousin Westmoreland.
⌜Westmoreland exits.⌝ Retreat ⌜is sounded.⌝
2363 Now, Falstaff, where have you been all this while?
2364 When everything is ended, then you come.
2365 These tardy tricks of yours will, on my life,
2366 One time or other break some gallows’ back.
FALSTAFF 2367 30I would be sorry, my lord, but it should be
2368 thus. I never knew yet but rebuke and check was the
2369 reward of valor. Do you think me a swallow, an
2370 arrow, or a bullet? Have I in my poor and old
2371 motion the expedition of thought? I have speeded
2372 35 hither with the very extremest inch of possibility. I
2373 have foundered ninescore and odd posts, and here,
2374 travel-tainted as I am, have in my pure and immaculate
2375 valor taken Sir John Colevile of the Dale, a most
2376 furious knight and valorous enemy. But what of
2377 40 that? He saw me and yielded, that I may justly say,
2378 with the hook-nosed fellow of Rome, “There, cousin,
2379 I came, saw, and overcame.”
JOHN OF LANCASTER 2380 It was more of his courtesy than
2381 your deserving.
FALSTAFF 2382 45I know not. Here he is, and here I yield him.
2383 And I beseech your Grace let it be booked with the
2384 rest of this day’s deeds, or, by the Lord, I will have it
2385 in a particular ballad else, with mine own picture
2386 on the top on ’t, Colevile kissing my foot; to the
2388 like gilt twopences to me, and I in the clear sky of
2389 fame o’ershine you as much as the full moon doth
2390 the cinders of the element (which show like pins’
2391 heads to her), believe not the word of the noble.
2392 55 Therefore let me have right, and let desert mount.
JOHN OF LANCASTER 2393 Thine’s too heavy to mount.
FALSTAFF 2394 Let it shine, then.
JOHN OF LANCASTER 2395 Thine’s too thick to shine.
FALSTAFF 2396 Let it do something, my good lord, that may
2397 60 do me good, and call it what you will.
JOHN OF LANCASTER 2398 Is thy name Colevile?
COLEVILE 2399 It is, my lord.
JOHN OF LANCASTER 2400 A famous rebel art thou,
2401 Colevile.
FALSTAFF 2402 65And a famous true subject took him.
COLEVILE
2403 I am, my lord, but as my betters are
2404 That led me hither. Had they been ruled by me,
2405 You should have won them dearer than you have.
FALSTAFF 2406 I know not how they sold themselves, but
2407 70 thou, like a kind fellow, gavest thyself away gratis,
2408 and I thank thee for thee.
Enter Westmoreland.
JOHN OF LANCASTER 2409 Now, have you left pursuit?
WESTMORELAND
2410 Retreat is made and execution stayed.
JOHN OF LANCASTER
2411 Send Colevile with his confederates
2412 75 To York, to present execution.—
2413 Blunt, lead him hence, and see you guard him sure.
⌜Blunt⌝ ⟨exits with Colevile.⟩
2414 And now dispatch we toward the court, my lords.
2415 I hear the King my father is sore sick.
2417 80 ⌜To Westmoreland.⌝ Which, cousin, you shall bear
2418 to comfort him,
2419 And we with sober speed will follow you.
FALSTAFF 2420 My lord, I beseech you give me leave to go
2421 through Gloucestershire, and, when you come to
2422 85 court, stand my good lord, ⟨pray,⟩ in your good
2423 report.
JOHN OF LANCASTER
2424 Fare you well, Falstaff. I, in my condition,
2425 Shall better speak of you than you deserve.
⌜All but Falstaff⌝ ⟨exit.⟩
FALSTAFF 2426 I would you had ⟨but⟩ the wit; ’twere better
2427 90 than your dukedom. Good faith, this same young
2428 sober-blooded boy doth not love me, nor a man
2429 cannot make him laugh. But that’s no marvel; he
2430 drinks no wine. There’s never none of these demure
2431 boys come to any proof, for thin drink doth so
2432 95 overcool their blood, and making many fish meals,
2433 that they fall into a kind of male green-sickness, and
2434 then, when they marry, they get wenches. They are
2435 generally fools and cowards, which some of us
2436 should be too, but for inflammation. A good sherris
2437 100 sack hath a two-fold operation in it. It ascends me
2438 into the brain, dries me there all the foolish and
2439 dull and crudy vapors which environ it, makes it
2440 apprehensive, quick, forgetive, full of nimble, fiery,
2441 and delectable shapes, which, delivered o’er to the
2442 105 voice, the tongue, which is the birth, becomes
2443 excellent wit. The second property of your excellent
2444 sherris is the warming of the blood, which,
2445 before cold and settled, left the liver white and pale,
2446 which is the badge of pusillanimity and cowardice.
2447 110 But the sherris warms it and makes it course from
2448 the inwards to the parts’ extremes. It illumineth the
2450 of this little kingdom, man, to arm; and then the
2451 vital commoners and inland petty spirits muster me
2452 115 all to their captain, the heart, who, great and puffed
2453 up with this retinue, doth any deed of courage, and
2454 this valor comes of sherris. So that skill in the
2455 weapon is nothing without sack, for that sets it
2456 a-work; and learning a mere hoard of gold kept
2457 120 by a devil till sack commences it and sets it in
2458 act and use. Hereof comes it that Prince Harry is
2459 valiant, for the cold blood he did naturally inherit
2460 of his father he hath, like lean, sterile, and bare
2461 land, manured, husbanded, and tilled with excellent
2462 125 endeavor of drinking good and good store
2463 of fertile sherris, that he is become very hot and valiant.
2464 If I had a thousand sons, the first human principle
2465 I would teach them should be to forswear
2466 thin potations and to addict themselves to sack.
Enter Bardolph.
2467 130 How now, Bardolph?
BARDOLPH 2468 The army is discharged all and gone.
FALSTAFF 2469 Let them go. I’ll through Gloucestershire,
2470 and there will I visit Master Robert Shallow,
2471 Esquire. I have him already temp’ring between my
2472 135 finger and my thumb, and shortly will I seal with
2473 him. Come away.
⟨They exit.⟩
Clarence, Humphrey ⌜Duke⌝ of Gloucester, ⌜and
Attendants.⌝
KING
2474 Now, lords, if God doth give successful end
2475 To this debate that bleedeth at our doors,
2476 We will our youth lead on to higher fields
2477 And draw no swords but what are sanctified.
2478 5 Our navy is addressed, our power collected,
2479 Our substitutes in absence well invested,
2480 And everything lies level to our wish.
2481 Only we want a little personal strength;
2482 And pause us till these rebels now afoot
2483 10 Come underneath the yoke of government.
WARWICK
2484 Both which we doubt not but your Majesty
2485 Shall soon enjoy.
KING
2486 Humphrey, my son of Gloucester, where is the
2487 Prince your brother?
HUMPHREY OF GLOUCESTER
2488 15 I think he’s gone to hunt, my lord, at Windsor.
KING
2489 And how accompanied?
HUMPHREY OF GLOUCESTER 2490 I do not know, my lord.
KING
2491 Is not his brother Thomas of Clarence with him?
HUMPHREY OF GLOUCESTER
2492 No, my good lord, he is in presence here.
THOMAS OF CLARENCE, ⌜coming forward⌝ 2493 20What would
2494 my lord and father?
KING
2495 Nothing but well to thee, Thomas of Clarence.
2497 brother?
2498 25 He loves thee, and thou dost neglect him, Thomas.
2499 Thou hast a better place in his affection
2500 Than all thy brothers. Cherish it, my boy,
2501 And noble offices thou mayst effect
2502 Of mediation, after I am dead,
2503 30 Between his greatness and thy other brethren.
2504 Therefore omit him not, blunt not his love,
2505 Nor lose the good advantage of his grace
2506 By seeming cold or careless of his will.
2507 For he is gracious if he be observed;
2508 35 He hath a tear for pity, and a hand
2509 Open as day for ⟨melting⟩ charity;
2510 Yet notwithstanding, being incensed he is flint,
2511 As humorous as winter, and as sudden
2512 As flaws congealèd in the spring of day.
2513 40 His temper therefore must be well observed.
2514 Chide him for faults, and do it reverently,
2515 When you perceive his blood inclined to mirth;
2516 But, being moody, give him time and scope
2517 Till that his passions, like a whale on ground,
2518 45 Confound themselves with working. Learn this,
2519 Thomas,
2520 And thou shalt prove a shelter to thy friends,
2521 A hoop of gold to bind thy brothers in,
2522 That the united vessel of their blood,
2523 50 Mingled with venom of suggestion
2524 (As, force perforce, the age will pour it in),
2525 Shall never leak, though it do work as strong
2526 As aconitum or rash gunpowder.
THOMAS OF CLARENCE
2527 I shall observe him with all care and love.
KING
2528 55 Why art thou not at Windsor with him, Thomas?
2529 He is not there today; he dines in London.
KING
2530 And how accompanied? ⟨Canst thou tell that?⟩
THOMAS OF CLARENCE
2531 With Poins and other his continual followers.
KING
2532 Most subject is the fattest soil to weeds,
2533 60 And he, the noble image of my youth,
2534 Is overspread with them; therefore my grief
2535 Stretches itself beyond the hour of death.
2536 The blood weeps from my heart when I do shape,
2537 In forms imaginary, th’ unguided days
2538 65 And rotten times that you shall look upon
2539 When I am sleeping with my ancestors.
2540 For when his headstrong riot hath no curb,
2541 When rage and hot blood are his counsellors,
2542 When means and lavish manners meet together,
2543 70 O, with what wings shall his affections fly
2544 Towards fronting peril and opposed decay!
WARWICK
2545 My gracious lord, you look beyond him quite.
2546 The Prince but studies his companions
2547 Like a strange tongue, wherein, to gain the
2548 75 language,
2549 ’Tis needful that the most immodest word
2550 Be looked upon and learned; which, once attained,
2551 Your Highness knows, comes to no further use
2552 But to be known and hated. So, like gross terms,
2553 80 The Prince will, in the perfectness of time,
2554 Cast off his followers, and their memory
2555 Shall as a pattern or a measure live,
2556 By which his Grace must mete the lives of others,
2557 Turning past evils to advantages.
2558 85 ’Tis seldom when the bee doth leave her comb
2559 In the dead carrion.
Enter Westmoreland.
2560 Who’s here? Westmoreland?
WESTMORELAND
2561 Health to my sovereign, and new happiness
2562 Added to that that I am to deliver.
2563 90 Prince John your son doth kiss your Grace’s hand.
2564 Mowbray, the Bishop Scroop, Hastings, and all
2565 Are brought to the correction of your law.
2566 There is not now a rebel’s sword unsheathed,
2567 But peace puts forth her olive everywhere.
2568 95 The manner how this action hath been borne
2569 Here at more leisure may your Highness read
2570 With every course in his particular.
⌜He gives the King a paper.⌝
KING
2571 O Westmoreland, thou art a summer bird,
2572 Which ever in the haunch of winter sings
2573 100 The lifting up of day.
Enter Harcourt.
2574 Look, here’s more news.
HARCOURT
2575 From enemies heavens keep your Majesty,
2576 And when they stand against you, may they fall
2577 As those that I am come to tell you of.
2578 105 The Earl Northumberland and the Lord Bardolph,
2579 With a great power of English and of Scots,
2580 Are by the shrieve of Yorkshire overthrown.
2581 The manner and true order of the fight
2582 This packet, please it you, contains at large.
⌜He gives the King papers.⌝
2583 110 And wherefore should these good news make me
2584 sick?
2585 Will Fortune never come with both hands full,
2586 But ⟨write⟩ her fair words still in foulest ⟨letters⟩?
2587 She either gives a stomach and no food—
2588 115 Such are the poor, in health—or else a feast
2589 And takes away the stomach—such are the rich,
2590 That have abundance and enjoy it not.
2591 I should rejoice now at this happy news,
2592 And now my sight fails, and my brain is giddy.
2593 120 O, me! Come near me, now I am much ill.
HUMPHREY OF GLOUCESTER
2594 Comfort, your Majesty.
THOMAS OF CLARENCE 2595 O, my royal father!
WESTMORELAND
2596 My sovereign lord, cheer up yourself, look up.
WARWICK
2597 Be patient, princes. You do know these fits
2598 125 Are with his Highness very ordinary.
2599 Stand from him, give him air. He’ll straight be
2600 well.
THOMAS OF CLARENCE
2601 No, no, he cannot long hold out these pangs.
2602 Th’ incessant care and labor of his mind
2603 130 Hath wrought the mure that should confine it in
2604 So thin that life looks through ⟨and will break out.⟩
HUMPHREY OF GLOUCESTER
2605 The people fear me, for they do observe
2606 Unfathered heirs and loathly births of nature.
2607 The seasons change their manners, as the year
2608 135 Had found some months asleep and leapt them
2609 over.
THOMAS OF CLARENCE
2610 The river hath thrice flowed, no ebb between,
2611 And the old folk, time’s doting chronicles,
2613 140 That our great-grandsire, Edward, sicked and died.
WARWICK
2614 Speak lower, princes, for the King recovers.
HUMPHREY OF GLOUCESTER
2615 This apoplexy will certain be his end.
KING
2616 I pray you take me up and bear me hence
2617 Into some other chamber. ⟨Softly, pray.⟩
⌜The King is carried to a bed on another
part of the stage.⌝
2618 145 Let there be no noise made, my gentle friends,
2619 Unless some dull and favorable hand
2620 Will whisper music to my weary spirit.
WARWICK, ⌜to an Attendant⌝
2621 Call for the music in the other room.
KING
2622 Set me the crown upon my pillow here.
⌜The crown is placed on the bed.⌝
THOMAS OF CLARENCE, ⌜aside to the others⌝
2623 150 His eye is hollow, and he changes much.
WARWICK
2624 Less noise, less noise.
Enter ⟨Prince⟩ Harry.
PRINCE 2625 Who saw the Duke of Clarence?
THOMAS OF CLARENCE, ⌜weeping⌝
2626 I am here, brother, full of heaviness.
PRINCE
2627 How now, rain within doors, and none abroad?
2628 155 How doth the King?
HUMPHREY OF GLOUCESTER 2629 Exceeding ill.
PRINCE
2630 Heard he the good news yet? Tell it him.
HUMPHREY OF GLOUCESTER
2631 He altered much upon the hearing it.
2633 160 physic.
WARWICK
2634 Not so much noise, my lords.—Sweet prince, speak
2635 low.
2636 The King your father is disposed to sleep.
THOMAS OF CLARENCE
2637 Let us withdraw into the other room.
WARWICK
2638 165 Will ’t please your Grace to go along with us?
PRINCE
2639 No, I will sit and watch here by the King.
⌜All but Prince and King exit.⌝
2640 Why doth the crown lie there upon his pillow,
2641 Being so troublesome a bedfellow?
2642 O polished perturbation, golden care,
2643 170 That keep’st the ports of slumber open wide
2644 To many a watchful night! Sleep with it now;
2645 Yet not so sound and half so deeply sweet
2646 As he whose brow with homely biggen bound
2647 Snores out the watch of night. O majesty,
2648 175 When thou dost pinch thy bearer, thou dost sit
2649 Like a rich armor worn in heat of day,
2650 That scald’st with safety. By his gates of breath
2651 There lies a downy feather which stirs not;
2652 Did he suspire, that light and weightless down
2653 180 Perforce must move. My gracious lord, my father,
2654 This sleep is sound indeed. This is a sleep
2655 That from this golden rigol hath divorced
2656 So many English kings. Thy due from me
2657 Is tears and heavy sorrows of the blood,
2658 185 Which nature, love, and filial tenderness
2659 Shall, O dear father, pay thee plenteously.
2660 My due from thee is this imperial crown,
2661 Which, as immediate from thy place and blood,
2662 Derives itself to me. ⌜He puts on the crown.⌝ Lo,
2663 190 where it sits,
2665 strength
2666 Into one giant arm, it shall not force
2667 This lineal honor from me. This from thee
2668 195 Will I to mine leave, as ’tis left to me.
He exits ⌜with the crown.⌝
KING, ⌜rising up in his bed⌝ 2669 Warwick! Gloucester!
2670 Clarence!
Enter Warwick, Gloucester, Clarence, ⌜and others.⌝
THOMAS OF CLARENCE 2671 Doth the King call?
WARWICK
2672 What would your Majesty? ⟨How fares your Grace?⟩
KING
2673 200 Why did you leave me here alone, my lords?
THOMAS OF CLARENCE
2674 We left the Prince my brother here, my liege,
2675 Who undertook to sit and watch by you.
KING
2676 The Prince of Wales? Where is he? Let me see him.
2677 [He is not here.]
WARWICK
2678 205 This door is open. He is gone this way.
HUMPHREY OF GLOUCESTER
2679 He came not through the chamber where we
2680 stayed.
KING
2681 Where is the crown? Who took it from my pillow?
WARWICK
2682 When we withdrew, my liege, we left it here.
KING
2683 210 The Prince hath ta’en it hence. Go seek him out.
2684 Is he so hasty that he doth suppose my sleep my
2685 death?
2686 Find him, my Lord of Warwick. Chide him hither.
⌜Warwick exits.⌝
2687 This part of his conjoins with my disease
2689 are,
2690 How quickly nature falls into revolt
2691 When gold becomes her object!
2692 For this the foolish overcareful fathers
2693 220 Have broke their sleep with thoughts,
2694 Their brains with care, their bones with industry.
2695 For this they have engrossèd and ⟨piled⟩ up
2696 The cankered heaps of strange-achievèd gold.
2697 For this they have been thoughtful to invest
2698 225 Their sons with arts and martial exercises—
2699 When, like the bee, tolling from every flower
2700 ⟨The virtuous sweets,⟩
2701 Our ⟨thighs⟩ packed with wax, our mouths with
2702 honey,
2703 230 We bring it to the hive and, like the bees,
2704 Are murdered for our pains. This bitter taste
2705 Yields his engrossments to the ending father.
Enter Warwick.
2706 Now where is he that will not stay so long
2707 Till his friend sickness ⟨hath⟩ determined me?
WARWICK
2708 235 My lord, I found the Prince in the next room,
2709 Washing with kindly tears his gentle cheeks,
2710 With such a deep demeanor in great sorrow
2711 That tyranny, which never quaffed but blood,
2712 Would, by beholding him, have washed his knife
2713 240 With gentle eyedrops. He is coming hither.
KING
2714 But wherefore did he take away the crown?
Enter ⟨Prince⟩ Harry ⌜with the crown.⌝
2715 Lo where he comes.—Come hither to me, Harry.—
2716 Depart the chamber. Leave us here alone.
⌜Gloucester, Clarence, Warwick, and others⌝ exit.
2717 I never thought to hear you speak again.
KING
2718 245 Thy wish was father, Harry, to that thought.
2719 I stay too long by thee; I weary thee.
2720 Dost thou so hunger for mine empty chair
2721 That thou wilt needs invest thee with my honors
2722 Before thy hour be ripe? O foolish youth,
2723 250 Thou seek’st the greatness that will overwhelm
2724 thee.
2725 Stay but a little, for my cloud of dignity
2726 Is held from falling with so weak a wind
2727 That it will quickly drop. My day is dim.
2728 255 Thou hast stol’n that which after some few hours
2729 Were thine without offense, and at my death
2730 Thou hast sealed up my expectation.
2731 Thy life did manifest thou loved’st me not,
2732 And thou wilt have me die assured of it.
2733 260 Thou hid’st a thousand daggers in thy thoughts,
2734 Whom thou hast whetted on thy stony heart
2735 To stab at half an hour of my life.
2736 What, canst thou not forbear me half an hour?
2737 Then get thee gone, and dig my grave thyself,
2738 265 And bid the merry bells ring to thine ear
2739 That thou art crownèd, not that I am dead.
2740 Let all the tears that should bedew my hearse
2741 Be drops of balm to sanctify thy head;
2742 Only compound me with forgotten dust.
2743 270 Give that which gave thee life unto the worms.
2744 Pluck down my officers, break my decrees,
2745 For now a time is come to mock at form.
2746 Harry the Fifth is crowned. Up, vanity,
2747 Down, royal state, all you sage councillors,
2748 275 hence,
2749 And to the English court assemble now,
2750 From every region, apes of idleness.
2752 Have you a ruffian that will swear, drink, dance,
2753 280 Revel the night, rob, murder, and commit
2754 The oldest sins the newest kind of ways?
2755 Be happy, he will trouble you no more.
2756 England shall double gild his treble guilt.
2757 England shall give him office, honor, might,
2758 285 For the fifth Harry from curbed license plucks
2759 The muzzle of restraint, and the wild dog
2760 Shall flesh his tooth on every innocent.
2761 O my poor kingdom, sick with civil blows!
2762 When that my care could not withhold thy riots,
2763 290 What wilt thou do when riot is thy care?
2764 O, thou wilt be a wilderness again,
2765 Peopled with wolves, thy old inhabitants.
PRINCE, ⌜placing the crown on the pillow⌝
2766 O pardon me, my liege! But for my tears,
2767 The moist impediments unto my speech,
2768 295 I had forestalled this dear and deep rebuke
2769 Ere you with grief had spoke and I had heard
2770 The course of it so far. There is your crown,
2771 And He that wears the crown immortally
2772 Long guard it yours. ⌜He kneels.⌝ If I affect it
2773 300 more
2774 Than as your honor and as your renown,
2775 Let me no more from this obedience rise,
2776 Which my most inward true and duteous spirit
2777 Teacheth this prostrate and exterior bending.
2778 305 God witness with me, when I here came in
2779 And found no course of breath within your Majesty,
2780 How cold it struck my heart! If I do feign,
2781 O, let me in my present wildness die
2782 And never live to show th’ incredulous world
2783 310 The noble change that I have purposèd.
2784 Coming to look on you, thinking you dead,
2785 And dead almost, my liege, to think you were,
2787 And thus upbraided it: “The care on thee
2788 315 depending
2789 Hath fed upon the body of my father;
2790 Therefore thou best of gold art ⟨worst of⟩ gold.
2791 Other, less fine in carat, ⟨is⟩ more precious,
2792 Preserving life in med’cine potable;
2793 320 But thou, most fine, most honored, most renowned,
2794 Hast eat thy bearer up.” Thus, my most royal liege,
2795 Accusing it, I put it on my head
2796 To try with it, as with an enemy
2797 That had before my face murdered my father,
2798 325 The quarrel of a true inheritor.
2799 But if it did infect my blood with joy
2800 Or swell my thoughts to any strain of pride,
2801 If any rebel or vain spirit of mine
2802 Did with the least affection of a welcome
2803 330 Give entertainment to the might of it,
2804 Let God forever keep it from my head
2805 And make me as the poorest vassal is
2806 That doth with awe and terror kneel to it.
KING 2807 ⟨O my son,⟩
2808 335 God put ⟨it⟩ in thy mind to take it hence
2809 That thou mightst win the more thy father’s love,
2810 Pleading so wisely in excuse of it.
2811 Come hither, Harry, sit thou by my bed
2812 And hear, I think, the very latest counsel
2813 340 That ever I shall breathe.
⌜The Prince rises from his knees and sits
near the bed.⌝
2814 God knows, my son,
2815 By what bypaths and indirect crook’d ways
2816 I met this crown, and I myself know well
2817 How troublesome it sat upon my head.
2818 345 To thee it shall descend with better quiet,
2819 Better opinion, better confirmation,
2821 With me into the earth. It seemed in me
2822 But as an honor snatched with boist’rous hand,
2823 350 And I had many living to upbraid
2824 My gain of it by their assistances,
2825 Which daily grew to quarrel and to bloodshed,
2826 Wounding supposèd peace. All these bold fears
2827 Thou seest with peril I have answerèd,
2828 355 For all my reign hath been but as a scene
2829 Acting that argument. And now my death
2830 Changes the mood, for what in me was purchased
2831 Falls upon thee in a more fairer sort.
2832 So thou the garland wear’st successively.
2833 360 Yet though thou stand’st more sure than I could do,
2834 Thou art not firm enough, since griefs are green,
2835 And all ⌜my⌝ friends, which thou must make thy
2836 friends,
2837 Have but their stings and teeth newly ta’en out,
2838 365 By whose fell working I was first advanced
2839 And by whose power I well might lodge a fear
2840 To be again displaced; which to avoid,
2841 I cut them off and had a purpose now
2842 To lead out many to the Holy Land,
2843 370 Lest rest and lying still might make them look
2844 Too near unto my state. Therefore, my Harry,
2845 Be it thy course to busy giddy minds
2846 With foreign quarrels, that action, hence borne
2847 out,
2848 375 May waste the memory of the former days.
2849 More would I, but my lungs are wasted so
2850 That strength of speech is utterly denied me.
2851 How I came by the crown, O God forgive,
2852 And grant it may with thee in true peace live.
PRINCE 2853 380⟨My gracious liege,⟩
2854 You won it, wore it, kept it, gave it me.
2856 Which I with more than with a common pain
2857 ’Gainst all the world will rightfully maintain.
Enter ⟨John of⟩ Lancaster ⌜and others.⌝
KING
2858 385 Look, look, here comes my John of Lancaster.
JOHN OF LANCASTER
2859 Health, peace, and happiness to my royal father.
KING
2860 Thou bring’st me happiness and peace, son John,
2861 But health, alack, with youthful wings is flown
2862 From this bare withered trunk. Upon thy sight
2863 390 My worldly business makes a period.
2864 Where is my Lord of Warwick?
PRINCE 2865 My Lord of Warwick.
⌜Enter⌝ ⟨Warwick.⟩
KING
2866 Doth any name particular belong
2867 Unto the lodging where I first did swoon?
WARWICK
2868 395 ’Tis called Jerusalem, my noble lord.
KING
2869 Laud be to God! Even there my life must end.
2870 It hath been prophesied to me many years,
2871 I should not die but in Jerusalem,
2872 Which vainly I supposed the Holy Land.
2873 400 But bear me to that chamber; there I’ll lie.
2874 In that Jerusalem shall Harry die.
⟨They exit.⟩
SHALLOW 2875 By cock and pie, sir, you shall not away
2876 tonight.—What, Davy, I say!
FALSTAFF 2877 You must excuse me, Master Robert Shallow.
SHALLOW 2878 I will not excuse you. You shall not be
2879 5 excused. Excuses shall not be admitted. There is no
2880 excuse shall serve. You shall not be excused.—
2881 Why, Davy!
⌜Enter⌝ ⟨Davy.⟩
DAVY 2882 Here, sir.
SHALLOW 2883 Davy, Davy, Davy, Davy, let me see, Davy, let
2884 10 me see, Davy, let me see. Yea, marry, William cook,
2885 bid him come hither.—Sir John, you shall not be
2886 excused.
DAVY 2887 Marry, sir, thus: those precepts cannot be served.
2888 And again, sir: shall we sow the hade land with
2889 15 wheat?
SHALLOW 2890 With red wheat, Davy. But for William cook,
2891 are there no young pigeons?
DAVY 2892 Yes, sir. Here is now the smith’s note for shoeing
2893 and plow irons.⌜He gives Shallow a paper.⌝
SHALLOW 2894 20Let it be cast and paid.—Sir John, you shall
2895 not be excused.
DAVY 2896 Now, sir, a new link to the bucket must needs be
2898 wages about the sack he lost ⟨the other day⟩ at
2899 25 ⟨Hinckley⟩ Fair?
SHALLOW 2900 He shall answer it. Some pigeons, Davy, a
2901 couple of short-legged hens, a joint of mutton, and
2902 any pretty little tiny kickshaws, tell William cook.
⌜Shallow and Davy walk aside.⌝
DAVY 2903 Doth the man of war stay all night, sir?
SHALLOW 2904 30Yea, Davy, I will use him well. A friend i’ th’
2905 court is better than a penny in purse. Use his men
2906 well, Davy, for they are arrant knaves and will
2907 backbite.
DAVY 2908 No worse than they are back-bitten, sir, for they
2909 35 have marvelous foul linen.
SHALLOW 2910 Well-conceited, Davy. About thy business,
2911 Davy.
DAVY 2912 I beseech you, sir, to countenance William Visor
2913 of Woncot against Clement Perkes o’ th’ hill.
SHALLOW 2914 40There is many complaints, Davy, against that
2915 Visor. That Visor is an arrant knave, on my
2916 knowledge.
DAVY 2917 I grant your Worship that he is a knave, sir, but
2918 yet, God forbid, sir, but a knave should have some
2919 45 countenance at his friend’s request. An honest
2920 man, sir, is able to speak for himself when a knave is
2921 not. I have served your Worship truly, sir, this eight
2922 years; an I cannot once or twice in a quarter bear
2923 out a knave against an honest man, I have ⟨but a
2924 50 very⟩ little credit with your Worship. The knave is
2925 mine honest friend, sir; therefore I beseech you let
2926 him be countenanced.
SHALLOW 2927 Go to, I say, he shall have no wrong. Look
2928 about, Davy. ⌜Davy exits.⌝ Where are you, Sir John?
2929 55 Come, come, come, off with your boots.—Give me
2930 your hand, Master Bardolph.
SHALLOW 2932 I thank thee with ⟨all⟩ my heart, kind Master
2933 Bardolph, (⌜to Page⌝) and welcome, my tall
2934 60 fellow.—Come, Sir John.
FALSTAFF 2935 I’ll follow you, good Master Robert Shallow.
2936 ⌜Shallow exits.⌝ Bardolph, look to our horses. ⌜Bardolph
and Page exit.⌝ 2937 If I were sawed into quantities,
2938 I should make four dozen of such bearded hermits’
2939 65 staves as Master Shallow. It is a wonderful thing to
2940 see the semblable coherence of his men’s spirits
2941 and his. They, by observing ⟨of⟩ him, do bear
2942 themselves like foolish justices; he, by conversing
2943 with them, is turned into a justice-like servingman.
2944 70 Their spirits are so married in conjunction with the
2945 participation of society that they flock together in
2946 consent like so many wild geese. If I had a suit to
2947 Master Shallow, I would humor his men with the
2948 imputation of being near their master; if to his men,
2949 75 I would curry with Master Shallow that no man
2950 could better command his servants. It is certain
2951 that either wise bearing or ignorant carriage is
2952 caught, as men take diseases, one of another. Therefore
2953 let men take heed of their company. I will
2954 80 devise matter enough out of this Shallow to keep
2955 Prince Harry in continual laughter the wearing out
2956 of six fashions, which is four terms, or two actions,
2957 and he shall laugh without intervallums. O, it is
2958 much that a lie with a slight oath and a jest with a
2959 85 sad brow will do with a fellow that never had the
2960 ache in his shoulders. O, you shall see him laugh till
2961 his face be like a wet cloak ill laid up.
SHALLOW, ⌜within⌝ 2962 Sir John.
FALSTAFF 2963 I come, Master Shallow, I come, Master
2964 90 Shallow.
⌜He exits.⌝
WARWICK
2965 How now, my Lord Chief Justice, whither away?
CHIEF JUSTICE 2966 How doth the King?
WARWICK
2967 Exceeding well. His cares are now all ended.
CHIEF JUSTICE
2968 I hope, not dead.
WARWICK 2969 5 He’s walked the way of nature,
2970 And to our purposes he lives no more.
CHIEF JUSTICE
2971 I would his Majesty had called me with him.
2972 The service that I truly did his life
2973 Hath left me open to all injuries.
WARWICK
2974 10 Indeed, I think the young king loves you not.
CHIEF JUSTICE
2975 I know he doth not, and do arm myself
2976 To welcome the condition of the time,
2977 Which cannot look more hideously upon me
2978 Than I have drawn it in my fantasy.
Enter John, Thomas, and Humphrey.
WARWICK
2979 15 Here come the heavy issue of dead Harry.
2980 O, that the living Harry had the temper
2981 Of he the worst of these three gentlemen!
2982 How many nobles then should hold their places
2983 That must strike sail to spirits of vile sort!
CHIEF JUSTICE
2984 20 O God, I fear all will be overturned.
JOHN OF LANCASTER
2985 Good morrow, cousin Warwick, good morrow.
JOHN OF LANCASTER
2987 We meet like men that had forgot to speak.
WARWICK
2988 We do remember, but our argument
2989 25 Is all too heavy to admit much talk.
JOHN OF LANCASTER
2990 Well, peace be with him that hath made us heavy.
CHIEF JUSTICE
2991 Peace be with us, lest we be heavier.
HUMPHREY OF GLOUCESTER
2992 O, good my lord, you have lost a friend indeed,
2993 And I dare swear you borrow not that face
2994 30 Of seeming sorrow; it is sure your own.
JOHN OF LANCASTER, ⌜to the Chief Justice⌝
2995 Though no man be assured what grace to find,
2996 You stand in coldest expectation.
2997 I am the sorrier; would ’twere otherwise.
THOMAS OF CLARENCE
2998 Well, you must now speak Sir John Falstaff fair,
2999 35 Which swims against your stream of quality.
CHIEF JUSTICE
3000 Sweet princes, what I did I did in honor,
3001 Led by th’ impartial conduct of my soul;
3002 And never shall you see that I will beg
3003 A ragged and forestalled remission.
3004 40 If truth and upright innocency fail me,
3005 I’ll to the king my master that is dead
3006 And tell him who hath sent me after him.
Enter the Prince, ⌜as Henry V,⌝ and Blunt.
WARWICK 3007 Here comes the Prince.
CHIEF JUSTICE
3008 Good morrow, and God save your Majesty.
3009 45 This new and gorgeous garment majesty
3010 Sits not so easy on me as you think.—
3011 Brothers, you ⟨mix⟩ your sadness with some fear.
3012 This is the English, not the Turkish court;
3013 Not Amurath an Amurath succeeds,
3014 50 But Harry Harry. Yet be sad, good brothers,
3015 For, by my faith, it very well becomes you.
3016 Sorrow so royally in you appears
3017 That I will deeply put the fashion on
3018 And wear it in my heart. Why then, be sad.
3019 55 But entertain no more of it, good brothers,
3020 Than a joint burden laid upon us all.
3021 For me, by heaven, I bid you be assured,
3022 I’ll be your father and your brother too.
3023 Let me but bear your love, I’ll bear your cares.
3024 60 Yet weep that Harry’s dead, and so will I,
3025 But Harry lives that shall convert those tears
3026 By number into hours of happiness.
BROTHERS
3027 We hope no otherwise from your Majesty.
PRINCE
3028 You all look strangely on me. ⌜To the Chief Justice.⌝
3029 65 And you most.
3030 You are, I think, assured I love you not.
CHIEF JUSTICE
3031 I am assured, if I be measured rightly,
3032 Your Majesty hath no just cause to hate me.
PRINCE
3033 No? How might a prince of my great hopes forget
3034 70 So great indignities you laid upon me?
3035 What, rate, rebuke, and roughly send to prison
3036 Th’ immediate heir of England? Was this easy?
3037 May this be washed in Lethe and forgotten?
CHIEF JUSTICE
3038 I then did use the person of your father;
3040 And in th’ administration of his law,
3041 Whiles I was busy for the commonwealth,
3042 Your Highness pleasèd to forget my place,
3043 The majesty and power of law and justice,
3044 80 The image of the King whom I presented,
3045 And struck me in my very seat of judgment,
3046 Whereon, as an offender to your father,
3047 I gave bold way to my authority
3048 And did commit you. If the deed were ill,
3049 85 Be you contented, wearing now the garland,
3050 To have a son set your decrees at nought?
3051 To pluck down justice from your awful bench?
3052 To trip the course of law and blunt the sword
3053 That guards the peace and safety of your person?
3054 90 Nay more, to spurn at your most royal image
3055 And mock your workings in a second body?
3056 Question your royal thoughts, make the case yours;
3057 Be now the father and propose a son,
3058 Hear your own dignity so much profaned,
3059 95 See your most dreadful laws so loosely slighted,
3060 Behold yourself so by a son disdained,
3061 And then imagine me taking your part
3062 And in your power soft silencing your son.
3063 After this cold considerance, sentence me,
3064 100 And, as you are a king, speak in your state
3065 What I have done that misbecame my place,
3066 My person, or my liege’s sovereignty.
PRINCE
3067 You are right, justice, and you weigh this well.
3068 Therefore still bear the balance and the sword.
3069 105 And I do wish your honors may increase
3070 Till you do live to see a son of mine
3071 Offend you and obey you as I did.
3072 So shall I live to speak my father’s words:
3074 110 That dares do justice on my proper son;
3075 And not less happy, having such a son
3076 That would deliver up his greatness so
3077 Into the hands of justice.” You did commit me,
3078 For which I do commit into your hand
3079 115 Th’ unstainèd sword that you have used to bear,
3080 With this remembrance: that you use the same
3081 With the like bold, just, and impartial spirit
3082 As you have done ’gainst me. There is my hand.
⌜They clasp hands.⌝
3083 You shall be as a father to my youth,
3084 120 My voice shall sound as you do prompt mine ear,
3085 And I will stoop and humble my intents
3086 To your well-practiced wise directions.—
3087 And, princes all, believe me, I beseech you:
3088 My father is gone wild into his grave,
3089 125 For in his tomb lie my affections,
3090 And with his spirits sadly I survive
3091 To mock the expectation of the world,
3092 To frustrate prophecies, and to raze out
3093 Rotten opinion, who hath writ me down
3094 130 After my seeming. The tide of blood in me
3095 Hath proudly flowed in vanity till now.
3096 Now doth it turn and ebb back to the sea,
3097 Where it shall mingle with the state of floods
3098 And flow henceforth in formal majesty.
3099 135 Now call we our high court of parliament,
3100 And let us choose such limbs of noble counsel
3101 That the great body of our state may go
3102 In equal rank with the best-governed nation;
3103 That war, or peace, or both at once, may be
3104 140 As things acquainted and familiar to us,
3105 ⌜To the Chief Justice.⌝ In which you, father, shall
3106 have foremost hand.
3108 As I before remembered, all our state.
3109 145 And, God consigning to my good intents,
3110 No prince nor peer shall have just cause to say
3111 God shorten Harry’s happy life one day.
⟨They exit.⟩
Bardolph, ⌜and⌝ Page.
SHALLOW 3112 Nay, you shall see my orchard, where, in an
3113 arbor, we will eat a last year’s pippin of mine own
3114 graffing, with a dish of caraways, and so forth.—
3115 Come, cousin Silence.—And then to bed.
FALSTAFF 3116 5Fore God, you have here ⟨a⟩ goodly dwelling,
3117 and ⟨a⟩ rich.
SHALLOW 3118 Barren, barren, barren, beggars all, beggars
3119 all, Sir John. Marry, good air.—Spread, Davy,
3120 spread, Davy. Well said, Davy.
FALSTAFF 3121 10This Davy serves you for good uses. He is
3122 your servingman and your husband.
SHALLOW 3123 A good varlet, a good varlet, a very good
3124 varlet, Sir John. By the Mass, I have drunk too
3125 much sack at supper. A good varlet. Now sit down,
3126 15 now sit down.—Come, cousin.
SILENCE 3127 Ah, sirrah, quoth he, we shall
⌜Sings.⌝ 3128 Do nothing but eat and make good cheer,
3129 And praise God for the merry year,
3130 When flesh is cheap and females dear,
3131 20 And lusty lads roam here and there
3132 So merrily,
3133 And ever among so merrily.
FALSTAFF 3134 There’s a merry heart!—Good Master Silence,
3135 I’ll give you a health for that anon.
DAVY, ⌜to the guests⌝ 3137 Sweet sir, sit. I’ll be with you
3138 anon. Most sweet sir, sit. Master page, good master
3139 page, sit. Proface. What you want in meat, we’ll
3140 have in drink, but you must bear. The heart’s all.
⌜He exits.⌝
SHALLOW 3141 30Be merry, Master Bardolph.—And, my little
3142 soldier there, be merry.
SILENCE ⌜sings⌝
3143 Be merry, be merry, my wife has all,
3144 For women are shrews, both short and tall.
3145 ’Tis merry in hall when beards wags all,
3146 35 And welcome merry Shrovetide.
3147 Be merry, be merry.
FALSTAFF 3148 I did not think Master Silence had been a
3149 man of this mettle.
SILENCE 3150 Who, I? I have been merry twice and once ere
3151 40 now.
Enter Davy.
DAVY, ⌜to the guests⌝ 3152 There’s a dish of leather-coats for
3153 you.
SHALLOW 3154 Davy!
DAVY 3155 Your Worship, I’ll be with you straight.—A cup
3156 45 of wine, sir.
SILENCE ⌜sings⌝
3157 A cup of wine that’s brisk and fine,
3158 And drink unto thee, leman mine,
3159 And a merry heart lives long-a.
FALSTAFF 3160 Well said, Master Silence.
SILENCE 3161 50And we shall be merry; now comes in the
3162 sweet o’ th’ night.
FALSTAFF 3163 Health and long life to you, Master Silence.
SILENCE ⌜sings⌝
3164 Fill the cup, and let it come,
3165 I’ll pledge you a mile to th’ bottom.
3167 anything and wilt not call, beshrew thy heart.—
3168 Welcome, my little tiny thief, and welcome indeed
3169 too. I’ll drink to Master Bardolph, and to all the
3170 cabileros about London.
DAVY 3171 60I hope to see London once ere I die.
BARDOLPH 3172 An I might see you there, Davy!
SHALLOW 3173 By the Mass, you’ll crack a quart together,
3174 ha, will you not, Master Bardolph?
BARDOLPH 3175 Yea, sir, in a pottle-pot.
SHALLOW 3176 65By God’s liggens, I thank thee. The knave
3177 will stick by thee, I can assure thee that. He will not
3178 out, he. ’Tis true bred!
BARDOLPH 3179 And I’ll stick by him, sir.
SHALLOW 3180 Why, there spoke a king. Lack nothing, be
3181 70 merry. (One knocks at door.) Look who’s at door
3182 there, ho. Who knocks?⌜Davy exits.⌝
FALSTAFF 3183 Why, now you have done me right.
SILENCE ⌜sings⌝
3184 Do me right,
3185 And dub me knight,
3186 75 Samingo.
3187 Is ’t not so?
FALSTAFF 3188 ’Tis so.
SILENCE 3189 Is ’t so? Why then, say an old man can do
3190 somewhat.
⌜Enter Davy.⌝
DAVY 3191 80An ’t please your Worship, there’s one Pistol
3192 come from the court with news.
FALSTAFF 3193 From the court? Let him come in.
Enter Pistol.
3194 How now, Pistol?
PISTOL 3195 Sir John, God save you.
PISTOL 3197 Not the ill wind which blows no man to good.
3198 Sweet knight, thou art now one of the greatest men
3199 in this realm.
SILENCE 3200 By ’r Lady, I think he be, but Goodman Puff of
3201 90 Barson.
PISTOL 3202 Puff?
3203 Puff ⟨in⟩ thy teeth, most recreant coward base!—
3204 Sir John, I am thy Pistol and thy friend,
3205 And helter-skelter have I rode to thee,
3206 95 And tidings do I bring, and lucky joys,
3207 And golden times, and happy news of price.
FALSTAFF 3208 I pray thee now, deliver them like a man of
3209 this world.
PISTOL
3210 A foutre for the world and worldlings base!
3211 100 I speak of Africa and golden joys.
FALSTAFF
3212 O base Assyrian knight, what is thy news?
3213 Let King Cophetua know the truth thereof.
SILENCE ⌜sings⌝
3214 And Robin Hood, Scarlet, and John.
PISTOL
3215 Shall dunghill curs confront the Helicons,
3216 105 And shall good news be baffled?
3217 Then, Pistol, lay thy head in Furies’ lap.
SHALLOW 3218 Honest gentleman, I know not your
3219 breeding.
PISTOL 3220 Why then, lament therefor.
SHALLOW 3221 110Give me pardon, sir. If, sir, you come with
3222 news from the court, I take it there’s but two ways,
3223 either to utter them, or ⟨to⟩ conceal them. I am, sir,
3224 under the King in some authority.
PISTOL
3225 Under which king, besonian? Speak or die.
3226 115 Under King Harry.
PISTOL 3227 Harry the Fourth, or Fifth?
SHALLOW
3228 Harry the Fourth.
PISTOL 3229 A foutre for thine office!—
3230 Sir John, thy tender lambkin now is king.
3231 120 Harry the Fifth’s the man. I speak the truth.
3232 When Pistol lies, do this and fig me, like
3233 The bragging Spaniard.⌜Pistol makes a fig.⌝
FALSTAFF 3234 What, is the old king dead?
PISTOL
3235 As nail in door. The things I speak are just.
FALSTAFF 3236 125Away, Bardolph.—Saddle my horse.—
3237 Master Robert Shallow, choose what office thou
3238 wilt in the land, ’tis thine.—Pistol, I will double-charge
3239 thee with dignities.
BARDOLPH 3240 O joyful day! I would not take a ⟨knight-hood⟩
3241 130 for my fortune.
PISTOL 3242 What, I do bring good news!
FALSTAFF 3243 Carry Master Silence to bed.—Master Shallow,
3244 my Lord Shallow, be what thou wilt. I am
3245 Fortune’s steward. Get on thy boots. We’ll ride all
3246 135 night.—O sweet Pistol!—Away, Bardolph!—Come,
3247 Pistol, utter more to me, and withal devise something
3248 to do thyself good.—Boot, boot, Master Shallow.
3249 I know the young king is sick for me. Let us
3250 take any man’s horses. The laws of England are at
3251 140 my commandment. Blessed are they that have been
3252 my friends, and woe to my Lord Chief Justice!
PISTOL
3253 Let vultures vile seize on his lungs also!
3254 “Where is the life that late I led?” say they.
3255 Why, here it is. Welcome these pleasant days.
⟨They exit.⟩
HOSTESS 3256 No, thou arrant knave. I would to God that I
3257 might die, that I might have thee hanged. Thou hast
3258 drawn my shoulder out of joint.
BEADLE 3259 The Constables have delivered her over to me,
3260 5 and she shall have whipping cheer ⟨enough,⟩ I
3261 warrant her. There hath been a man or two ⟨lately⟩
3262 killed about her.
DOLL 3263 Nut-hook, nut-hook, you lie! Come on, I’ll tell
3264 thee what, thou damned tripe-visaged rascal: an the
3265 10 child I ⟨now⟩ go with do miscarry, thou wert better
3266 thou hadst struck thy mother, thou paper-faced
3267 villain.
HOSTESS 3268 O the Lord, that Sir John were come! I would
3269 make this a bloody day to somebody. But I pray God
3270 15 the fruit of her womb ⟨might⟩ miscarry.
BEADLE 3271 If it do, you shall have a dozen of cushions
3272 again; you have but eleven now. Come, I charge you
3273 both go with me, for the man is dead that you and
3274 Pistol beat amongst you.
DOLL 3275 20I’ll tell you what, you thin man in a censer, I will
3276 have you as soundly swinged for this, you bluebottle
3277 rogue, you filthy famished correctioner. If you be
3278 not swinged, I’ll forswear half-kirtles.
BEADLE 3279 Come, come, you she-knight-errant, come.
HOSTESS 3280 25O God, that right should thus overcome
3281 might! Well, of sufferance comes ease.
DOLL 3282 Come, you rogue, come, bring me to a justice.
HOSTESS 3283 Ay, come, you starved bloodhound.
DOLL 3284 Goodman Death, Goodman Bones!
HOSTESS 3285 30Thou atomy, thou!
DOLL 3286 Come, you thin thing, come, you rascal.
BEADLE 3287 Very well.
⟨They exit.⟩
⟨FIRST GROOM⟩ 3288 More rushes, more rushes.
⟨SECOND GROOM⟩ 3289 The trumpets have sounded twice.
⟨FIRST GROOM⟩ 3290 ’Twill be two o’clock ere they come
3291 from the coronation. Dispatch, dispatch.
⟨Grooms exit.⟩
Trumpets sound, and the King and his train pass over
the stage. After them enter Falstaff, Shallow, Pistol,
Bardolph, and the ⟨Page.⟩
FALSTAFF 3292 5Stand here by me, Master ⟨Robert⟩ Shallow. I
3293 will make the King do you grace. I will leer upon
3294 him as he comes by, and do but mark the countenance
3295 that he will give me.
PISTOL 3296 God bless thy lungs, good knight!
FALSTAFF 3297 10Come here, Pistol, stand behind me.—O, if I
3298 had had time to have made new liveries, I would
3299 have bestowed the thousand pound I borrowed of
3300 you. But ’tis no matter. This poor show doth better.
3301 This doth infer the zeal I had to see him.
⟨SHALLOW⟩ 3302 15It doth so.
FALSTAFF 3303 It shows my earnestness of affection—
⌜SHALLOW⌝ 3304 It doth so.
FALSTAFF 3305 My devotion—
⌜SHALLOW⌝ 3306 It doth, it doth, it doth.
FALSTAFF 3307 20As it were, to ride day and night, and not to
3308 deliberate, not to remember, not to have patience
3309 to shift me—
SHALLOW 3310 It is best, certain.
⟨FALSTAFF⟩ 3311 But to stand stained with travel and sweating
3312 25 with desire to see him, thinking of nothing else,
3313 putting all affairs else in oblivion, as if there were
3314 nothing else to be done but to see him.
3316 ⟨all⟩ in every part.
SHALLOW 3317 30’Tis so indeed.
PISTOL 3318 My knight, I will inflame thy noble liver, and
3319 make thee rage. Thy Doll and Helen of thy noble
3320 thoughts is in base durance and contagious prison,
3321 haled thither by most mechanical and dirty hand.
3322 35 Rouse up revenge from ebon den with fell Alecto’s
3323 snake, for Doll is in. Pistol speaks nought but truth.
FALSTAFF 3324 I will deliver her.
⌜Shouts within.⌝ ⟨The trumpets sound.⟩
PISTOL
3325 There roared the sea, and trumpet-clangor sounds.
Enter the King and his train.
FALSTAFF
3326 God save thy Grace, King Hal, my royal Hal.
PISTOL
3327 40 The heavens thee guard and keep, most royal
3328 imp of fame!
FALSTAFF 3329 God save thee, my sweet boy!
KING
3330 My Lord Chief Justice, speak to that vain man.
CHIEF JUSTICE, ⌜to Falstaff⌝
3331 Have you your wits? Know you what ’tis you
3332 45 speak?
FALSTAFF, ⌜to the King⌝
3333 My king, my Jove, I speak to thee, my heart!
KING
3334 I know thee not, old man. Fall to thy prayers.
3335 How ill white hairs becomes a fool and jester.
3336 I have long dreamt of such a kind of man,
3337 50 So surfeit-swelled, so old, and so profane;
3338 But being awaked, I do despise my dream.
3339 Make less thy body hence, and more thy grace;
3341 For thee thrice wider than for other men.
3342 55 Reply not to me with a fool-born jest.
3343 Presume not that I am the thing I was,
3344 For God doth know—so shall the world perceive—
3345 That I have turned away my former self.
3346 So will I those that kept me company.
3347 60 When thou dost hear I am as I have been,
3348 Approach me, and thou shalt be as thou wast,
3349 The tutor and the feeder of my riots.
3350 Till then I banish thee, on pain of death,
3351 As I have done the rest of my misleaders,
3352 65 Not to come near our person by ten mile.
3353 For competence of life I will allow you,
3354 That lack of means enforce you not to evils.
3355 And, as we hear you do reform yourselves,
3356 We will, according to your strengths and qualities,
3357 70 Give you advancement. ⌜To the Lord Chief Justice.⌝
3358 Be it your charge, my lord,
3359 To see performed the tenor of my word.—
3360 Set on.
⟨King ⌜and his train⌝ exit.⟩
FALSTAFF 3361 Master Shallow, I owe you a thousand pound.
SHALLOW 3362 75Yea, marry, Sir John, which I beseech you to
3363 let me have home with me.
FALSTAFF 3364 That can hardly be, Master Shallow. Do not
3365 you grieve at this. I shall be sent for in private to
3366 him. Look you, he must seem thus to the world.
3367 80 Fear not your advancements. I will be the man yet
3368 that shall make you great.
SHALLOW 3369 I cannot ⟨well⟩ perceive how, unless you
3370 ⟨should⟩ give me your doublet and stuff me out with
3371 straw. I beseech you, good Sir John, let me have five
3372 85 hundred of my thousand.
FALSTAFF 3373 Sir, I will be as good as my word. This that
3374 you heard was but a color.
FALSTAFF 3376 Fear no colors. Go with me to dinner.—
3377 90 Come, lieutenant Pistol.—Come, Bardolph.—I
3378 shall be sent for soon at night.
Enter ⌜the Lord Chief⌝ Justice and Prince John, ⌜with
Officers.⌝
CHIEF JUSTICE
3379 Go, carry Sir John Falstaff to the Fleet.
3380 Take all his company along with him.
FALSTAFF 3381 My lord, my lord —
CHIEF JUSTICE
3382 95 I cannot now speak. I will hear you soon.—
3383 Take them away.
PISTOL 3384 Si fortuna me tormenta, spero ⟨me⟩ contenta.
⌜All but John of⌝ ⟨Lancaster and
Chief Justice⟩ exit.
JOHN OF LANCASTER
3385 I like this fair proceeding of the King’s.
3386 He hath intent his wonted followers
3387 100 Shall all be very well provided for,
3388 But all are banished till their conversations
3389 Appear more wise and modest to the world.
CHIEF JUSTICE 3390 And so they are.
JOHN OF LANCASTER
3391 The King hath called his parliament, my lord.
CHIEF JUSTICE 3392 105He hath.
JOHN OF LANCASTER
3393 I will lay odds that, ere this year expire,
3394 We bear our civil swords and native fire
3395 As far as France. I heard a bird so sing,
3396 Whose music, to my thinking, pleased the King.
3397 110 Come, will you hence?
⟨They exit.⟩
3398 First my fear, then my curtsy, last my speech. My
3399 fear is your displeasure, my curtsy my duty, and my
3400 speech, to beg your pardons. If you look for a good
3401 speech now, you undo me, for what I have to say is
3402 5 of mine own making, and what indeed I should say
3403 will, I doubt, prove mine own marring.
3404 But to the purpose, and so to the venture. Be it
3405 known to you, as it is very well, I was lately here in
3406 the end of a displeasing play to pray your patience
3407 10 for it and to promise you a better. I meant indeed to
3408 pay you with this, which, if like an ill venture it
3409 come unluckily home, I break, and you, my gentle
3410 creditors, lose. Here I promised you I would be,
3411 and here I commit my body to your mercies. Bate
3412 15 me some, and I will pay you some, and, as most
3413 debtors do, promise you infinitely. And so I kneel
3414 down before you, but, indeed, to pray for the
3415 Queen.
3416 If my tongue cannot entreat you to acquit me,
3417 20 will you command me to use my legs? And yet that
3418 were but light payment, to dance out of your debt.
3419 But a good conscience will make any possible
3420 satisfaction, and so would I. All the gentlewomen
3421 here have forgiven me; if the gentlemen will not,
3422 25 then the gentlemen do not agree with the gentlewomen,
3424 assembly.
3425 One word more, I beseech you: if you be not too
3426 much cloyed with fat meat, our humble author will
3427 30 continue the story, with Sir John in it, and make
3428 you merry with fair Katherine of France, where, for
3429 anything I know, Falstaff shall die of a sweat, unless
3430 already he be killed with your hard opinions; for
3431 Oldcastle died ⟨a⟩ martyr, and this is not the man.
3432 35 My tongue is weary; when my legs are too, I will bid
3433 you good night.