Another part of the forest.
Enter, from one side, MOWBRAY, attended; afterwards the ARCHBISHOP OF YORK, HASTINGS, and others: from the other side, Prince John of LANCASTER, and WESTMORELAND; Officers, and others with them
LANCASTER
You are well encounter'd here, my cousin Mowbray:
Good day to you, gentle lord archbishop;
And so to you, Lord Hastings, and to all.
My Lord of York, it better show'd with you
When that your flock, assembled by the bell,
Encircled you to hear with reverence
Your exposition on the holy text
Than now to see you here an iron man,
Cheering a rout of rebels with your drum,
Turning the word to sword and life to death.
That man that sits within a monarch's heart,
And ripens in the sunshine of his favour,
Would he abuse the countenance of the king,
Alack, what mischiefs might he set abrooch
In shadow of such greatness! With you, lord bishop,
It is even so. Who hath not heard it spoken
How deep you were within the books of God?
To us the speaker in his parliament;
To us the imagined voice of God himself;
The very opener and intelligencer
Between the grace, the sanctities of heaven
And our dull workings. O, who shall believe
But you misuse the reverence of your place,
Employ the countenance and grace of heaven,
As a false favourite doth his prince's name,
In deeds dishonourable? You have ta'en up,
Under the counterfeited zeal of God,
The subjects of his substitute, my father,
And both against the peace of heaven and him
Have here up-swarm'd them.
ARCHBISHOP OF YORK
Good my Lord of Lancaster,
I am not here against your father's peace;
But, as I told my lord of Westmoreland,
The time misorder'd doth, in common sense,
Crowd us and crush us to this monstrous form,
To hold our safety up. I sent your grace
The parcels and particulars of our grief,
The which hath been with scorn shoved from the court,
Whereon this Hydra son of war is born;
Whose dangerous eyes may well be charm'd asleep
With grant of our most just and right desires,
And true obedience, of this madness cured,
Stoop tamely to the foot of majesty.
MOWBRAY
If not, we ready are to try our fortunes
To the last man.
HASTINGS
And though we here fall down,
We have supplies to second our attempt:
If they miscarry, theirs shall second them;
And so success of mischief shall be born
And heir from heir shall hold this quarrel up
Whiles England shall have generation.
LANCASTER
You are too shallow, Hastings, much too shallow,
To sound the bottom of the after-times.
WESTMORELAND
Pleaseth your grace to answer them directly
How far forth you do like their articles.
LANCASTER
I like them all, and do allow them well,
And swear here, by the honour of my blood,
My father's purposes have been mistook,
And some about him have too lavishly
Wrested his meaning and authority.
My lord, these griefs shall be with speed redress'd;
Upon my soul, they shall. If this may please you,
Discharge your powers unto their several counties,
As we will ours: and here between the armies
Let's drink together friendly and embrace,
That all their eyes may bear those tokens home
Of our restored love and amity.
ARCHBISHOP OF YORK
I take your princely word for these redresses.
LANCASTER
I give it you, and will maintain my word:
And thereupon I drink unto your grace.
HASTINGS
Go, captain, and deliver to the army
This news of peace: let them have pay, and part:
I know it will well please them. Hie thee, captain.
Exit Officer
ARCHBISHOP OF YORK
To you, my noble Lord of Westmoreland.
WESTMORELAND
I pledge your grace; and, if you knew what pains
I have bestow'd to breed this present peace,
You would drink freely: but my love to ye
Shall show itself more openly hereafter.
ARCHBISHOP OF YORK
I do not doubt you.
WESTMORELAND
I am glad of it.
Health to my lord and gentle cousin, Mowbray.
MOWBRAY
You wish me health in very happy season;
For I am, on the sudden, something ill.
ARCHBISHOP OF YORK
Against ill chances men are ever merry;
But heaviness foreruns the good event.
WESTMORELAND
Therefore be merry, coz; since sudden sorrow
Serves to say thus, 'some good thing comes
to-morrow.'
ARCHBISHOP OF YORK
Believe me, I am passing light in spirit.
MOWBRAY
So much the worse, if your own rule be true.
Shouts within
LANCASTER
The word of peace is render'd: hark, how they shout!
MOWBRAY
This had been cheerful after victory.
ARCHBISHOP OF YORK
A peace is of the nature of a conquest;
For then both parties nobly are subdued,
And neither party loser.
LANCASTER
Go, my lord,
And let our army be discharged too.
Exit WESTMORELAND
And, good my lord, so please you, let our trains
March, by us, that we may peruse the men
We should have coped withal.
ARCHBISHOP OF YORK
Go, good Lord Hastings,
And, ere they be dismissed, let them march by.
Exit HASTINGS
LANCASTER
I trust, lords, we shall lie to-night together.
Re-enter WESTMORELAND
Now, cousin, wherefore stands our army still?
WESTMORELAND
The leaders, having charge from you to stand,
Will not go off until they hear you speak.
LANCASTER
They know their duties.
Re-enter HASTINGS
HASTINGS
My lord, our army is dispersed already;
Like youthful steers unyoked, they take their courses
East, west, north, south; or, like a school broke up,
Each hurries toward his home and sporting-place.
WESTMORELAND
Good tidings, my Lord Hastings; for the which
I do arrest thee, traitor, of high treason:
And you, lord archbishop, and you, Lord Mowbray,
Of capitol treason I attach you both.
MOWBRAY
Is this proceeding just and honourable?
WESTMORELAND
Is your assembly so?
ARCHBISHOP OF YORK
Will you thus break your faith?
LANCASTER
I pawn'd thee none:
I promised you redress of these same grievances
Whereof you did complain; which, by mine honour,
I will perform with a most Christian care.
But for you, rebels, look to taste the due
Meet for rebellion and such acts as yours.
Most shallowly did you these arms commence,
Fondly brought here and foolishly sent hence.
Strike up our drums, pursue the scatter'd stray:
God, and not we, hath safely fought to-day.
Some guard these traitors to the block of death,
Treason's true bed and yielder up of breath.
Exeunt
Henry IV Part 2, Act 4, Scene 1
Yorkshire. Gaultree Forest.
Enter the ARCHBISHOP OF YORK, MOWBRAY, LORD HASTINGS, and others
ARCHBISHOP OF YORK
What is this forest call'd?
HASTINGS
'Tis Gaultree Forest, an't shall please your grace.
ARCHBISHOP OF YORK
Here stand, my lords; and send discoverers forth
To know the numbers of our enemies.
HASTINGS
We have sent forth already.
ARCHBISHOP OF YORK
'Tis well done.
My friends and brethren in these great affairs,
I must acquaint you that I have received
New-dated letters from Northumberland;
Their cold intent, tenor and substance, thus:
Here doth he wish his person, with such powers
As might hold sortance with his quality,
The which he could not levy; whereupon
He is retired, to ripe his growing fortunes,
To Scotland: and concludes in hearty prayers
That your attempts may overlive the hazard
And fearful melting of their opposite.
MOWBRAY
Thus do the hopes we have in him touch ground
And dash themselves to pieces.
Enter a Messenger
HASTINGS
Now, what news?
Messenger
West of this forest, scarcely off a mile,
In goodly form comes on the enemy;
And, by the ground they hide, I judge their number
Upon or near the rate of thirty thousand.
MOWBRAY
The just proportion that we gave them out
Let us sway on and face them in the field.
ARCHBISHOP OF YORK
What well-appointed leader fronts us here?
Enter WESTMORELAND
MOWBRAY
I think it is my Lord of Westmoreland.
WESTMORELAND
Health and fair greeting from our general,
The prince, Lord John and Duke of Lancaster.
ARCHBISHOP OF YORK
Say on, my Lord of Westmoreland, in peace:
What doth concern your coming?
WESTMORELAND
Then, my lord,
Unto your grace do I in chief address
The substance of my speech. If that rebellion
Came like itself, in base and abject routs,
Led on by bloody youth, guarded with rags,
And countenanced by boys and beggary,
I say, if damn'd commotion so appear'd,
In his true, native and most proper shape,
You, reverend father, and these noble lords
Had not been here, to dress the ugly form
Of base and bloody insurrection
With your fair honours. You, lord archbishop,
Whose see is by a civil peace maintained,
Whose beard the silver hand of peace hath touch'd,
Whose learning and good letters peace hath tutor'd,
Whose white investments figure innocence,
The dove and very blessed spirit of peace,
Wherefore do you so ill translate ourself
Out of the speech of peace that bears such grace,
Into the harsh and boisterous tongue of war;
Turning your books to graves, your ink to blood,
Your pens to lances and your tongue divine
To a trumpet and a point of war?
ARCHBISHOP OF YORK
Wherefore do I this? so the question stands.
Briefly to this end: we are all diseased,
And with our surfeiting and wanton hours
Have brought ourselves into a burning fever,
And we must bleed for it; of which disease
Our late king, Richard, being infected, died.
But, my most noble Lord of Westmoreland,
I take not on me here as a physician,
Nor do I as an enemy to peace
Troop in the throngs of military men;
But rather show awhile like fearful war,
To diet rank minds sick of happiness
And purge the obstructions which begin to stop
Our very veins of life. Hear me more plainly.
I have in equal balance justly weigh'd
What wrongs our arms may do, what wrongs we suffer,
And find our griefs heavier than our offences.
We see which way the stream of time doth run,
And are enforced from our most quiet there
By the rough torrent of occasion;
And have the summary of all our griefs,
When time shall serve, to show in articles;
Which long ere this we offer'd to the king,
And might by no suit gain our audience:
When we are wrong'd and would unfold our griefs,
We are denied access unto his person
Even by those men that most have done us wrong.
The dangers of the days but newly gone,
Whose memory is written on the earth
With yet appearing blood, and the examples
Of every minute's instance, present now,
Hath put us in these ill-beseeming arms,
Not to break peace or any branch of it,
But to establish here a peace indeed,
Concurring both in name and quality.
WESTMORELAND
When ever yet was your appeal denied?
Wherein have you been galled by the king?
What peer hath been suborn'd to grate on you,
That you should seal this lawless bloody book
Of forged rebellion with a seal divine
And consecrate commotion's bitter edge?
ARCHBISHOP OF YORK
My brother general, the commonwealth,
To brother born an household cruelty,
I make my quarrel in particular.
WESTMORELAND
There is no need of any such redress;
Or if there were, it not belongs to you.
MOWBRAY
Why not to him in part, and to us all
That feel the bruises of the days before,
And suffer the condition of these times
To lay a heavy and unequal hand
Upon our honours?
WESTMORELAND
O, my good Lord Mowbray,
Construe the times to their necessities,
And you shall say indeed, it is the time,
And not the king, that doth you injuries.
Yet for your part, it not appears to me
Either from the king or in the present time
That you should have an inch of any ground
To build a grief on: were you not restored
To all the Duke of Norfolk's signories,
Your noble and right well remember'd father's?
MOWBRAY
What thing, in honour, had my father lost,
That need to be revived and breathed in me?
The king that loved him, as the state stood then,
Was force perforce compell'd to banish him:
And then that Harry Bolingbroke and he,
Being mounted and both roused in their seats,
Their neighing coursers daring of the spur,
Their armed staves in charge, their beavers down,
Their eyes of fire sparking through sights of steel
And the loud trumpet blowing them together,
Then, then, when there was nothing could have stay'd
My father from the breast of Bolingbroke,
O when the king did throw his warder down,
His own life hung upon the staff he threw;
Then threw he down himself and all their lives
That by indictment and by dint of sword
Have since miscarried under Bolingbroke.
WESTMORELAND
You speak, Lord Mowbray, now you know not what.
The Earl of Hereford was reputed then
In England the most valiant gentlemen:
Who knows on whom fortune would then have smiled?
But if your father had been victor there,
He ne'er had borne it out of Coventry:
For all the country in a general voice
Cried hate upon him; and all their prayers and love
Were set on Hereford, whom they doted on
And bless'd and graced indeed, more than the king.
But this is mere digression from my purpose.
Here come I from our princely general
To know your griefs; to tell you from his grace
That he will give you audience; and wherein
It shall appear that your demands are just,
You shall enjoy them, every thing set off
That might so much as think you enemies.
MOWBRAY
But he hath forced us to compel this offer;
And it proceeds from policy, not love.
WESTMORELAND
Mowbray, you overween to take it so;
This offer comes from mercy, not from fear:
For, lo! within a ken our army lies,
Upon mine honour, all too confident
To give admittance to a thought of fear.
Our battle is more full of names than yours,
Our men more perfect in the use of arms,
Our armour all as strong, our cause the best;
Then reason will our heart should be as good
Say you not then our offer is compell'd.
MOWBRAY
Well, by my will we shall admit no parley.
WESTMORELAND
That argues but the shame of your offence:
A rotten case abides no handling.
HASTINGS
Hath the Prince John a full commission,
In very ample virtue of his father,
To hear and absolutely to determine
Of what conditions we shall stand upon?
WESTMORELAND
That is intended in the general's name:
I muse you make so slight a question.
ARCHBISHOP OF YORK
Then take, my Lord of Westmoreland, this schedule,
For this contains our general grievances:
Each several article herein redress'd,
All members of our cause, both here and hence,
That are insinew'd to this action,
Acquitted by a true substantial form
And present execution of our wills
To us and to our purposes confined,
We come within our awful banks again
And knit our powers to the arm of peace.
WESTMORELAND
This will I show the general. Please you, lords,
In sight of both our battles we may meet;
And either end in peace, which God so frame!
Or to the place of difference call the swords
Which must decide it.
ARCHBISHOP OF YORK
My lord, we will do so.
Exit WESTMORELAND
MOWBRAY
There is a thing within my bosom tells me
That no conditions of our peace can stand.
HASTINGS
Fear you not that: if we can make our peace
Upon such large terms and so absolute
As our conditions shall consist upon,
Our peace shall stand as firm as rocky mountains.
MOWBRAY
Yea, but our valuation shall be such
That every slight and false-derived cause,
Yea, every idle, nice and wanton reason
Shall to the king taste of this action;
That, were our royal faiths martyrs in love,
We shall be winnow'd with so rough a wind
That even our corn shall seem as light as chaff
And good from bad find no partition.
ARCHBISHOP OF YORK
No, no, my lord. Note this; the king is weary
Of dainty and such picking grievances:
For he hath found to end one doubt by death
Revives two greater in the heirs of life,
And therefore will he wipe his tables clean
And keep no tell-tale to his memory
That may repeat and history his loss
To new remembrance; for full well he knows
He cannot so precisely weed this land
As his misdoubts present occasion:
His foes are so enrooted with his friends
That, plucking to unfix an enemy,
He doth unfasten so and shake a friend:
So that this land, like an offensive wife
That hath enraged him on to offer strokes,
As he is striking, holds his infant up
And hangs resolved correction in the arm
That was uprear'd to execution.
HASTINGS
Besides, the king hath wasted all his rods
On late offenders, that he now doth lack
The very instruments of chastisement:
So that his power, like to a fangless lion,
May offer, but not hold.
ARCHBISHOP OF YORK
'Tis very true:
And therefore be assured, my good lord marshal,
If we do now make our atonement well,
Our peace will, like a broken limb united,
Grow stronger for the breaking.
MOWBRAY
Be it so.
Here is return'd my Lord of Westmoreland.
Re-enter WESTMORELAND
WESTMORELAND
The prince is here at hand: pleaseth your lordship
To meet his grace just distance 'tween our armies.
MOWBRAY
Your grace of York, in God's name then, set forward.
ARCHBISHOP OF YORK
Before, and greet his grace: my lord, we come.
Exeunt
Enter the ARCHBISHOP OF YORK, MOWBRAY, LORD HASTINGS, and others
ARCHBISHOP OF YORK
What is this forest call'd?
HASTINGS
'Tis Gaultree Forest, an't shall please your grace.
ARCHBISHOP OF YORK
Here stand, my lords; and send discoverers forth
To know the numbers of our enemies.
HASTINGS
We have sent forth already.
ARCHBISHOP OF YORK
'Tis well done.
My friends and brethren in these great affairs,
I must acquaint you that I have received
New-dated letters from Northumberland;
Their cold intent, tenor and substance, thus:
Here doth he wish his person, with such powers
As might hold sortance with his quality,
The which he could not levy; whereupon
He is retired, to ripe his growing fortunes,
To Scotland: and concludes in hearty prayers
That your attempts may overlive the hazard
And fearful melting of their opposite.
MOWBRAY
Thus do the hopes we have in him touch ground
And dash themselves to pieces.
Enter a Messenger
HASTINGS
Now, what news?
Messenger
West of this forest, scarcely off a mile,
In goodly form comes on the enemy;
And, by the ground they hide, I judge their number
Upon or near the rate of thirty thousand.
MOWBRAY
The just proportion that we gave them out
Let us sway on and face them in the field.
ARCHBISHOP OF YORK
What well-appointed leader fronts us here?
Enter WESTMORELAND
MOWBRAY
I think it is my Lord of Westmoreland.
WESTMORELAND
Health and fair greeting from our general,
The prince, Lord John and Duke of Lancaster.
ARCHBISHOP OF YORK
Say on, my Lord of Westmoreland, in peace:
What doth concern your coming?
WESTMORELAND
Then, my lord,
Unto your grace do I in chief address
The substance of my speech. If that rebellion
Came like itself, in base and abject routs,
Led on by bloody youth, guarded with rags,
And countenanced by boys and beggary,
I say, if damn'd commotion so appear'd,
In his true, native and most proper shape,
You, reverend father, and these noble lords
Had not been here, to dress the ugly form
Of base and bloody insurrection
With your fair honours. You, lord archbishop,
Whose see is by a civil peace maintained,
Whose beard the silver hand of peace hath touch'd,
Whose learning and good letters peace hath tutor'd,
Whose white investments figure innocence,
The dove and very blessed spirit of peace,
Wherefore do you so ill translate ourself
Out of the speech of peace that bears such grace,
Into the harsh and boisterous tongue of war;
Turning your books to graves, your ink to blood,
Your pens to lances and your tongue divine
To a trumpet and a point of war?
ARCHBISHOP OF YORK
Wherefore do I this? so the question stands.
Briefly to this end: we are all diseased,
And with our surfeiting and wanton hours
Have brought ourselves into a burning fever,
And we must bleed for it; of which disease
Our late king, Richard, being infected, died.
But, my most noble Lord of Westmoreland,
I take not on me here as a physician,
Nor do I as an enemy to peace
Troop in the throngs of military men;
But rather show awhile like fearful war,
To diet rank minds sick of happiness
And purge the obstructions which begin to stop
Our very veins of life. Hear me more plainly.
I have in equal balance justly weigh'd
What wrongs our arms may do, what wrongs we suffer,
And find our griefs heavier than our offences.
We see which way the stream of time doth run,
And are enforced from our most quiet there
By the rough torrent of occasion;
And have the summary of all our griefs,
When time shall serve, to show in articles;
Which long ere this we offer'd to the king,
And might by no suit gain our audience:
When we are wrong'd and would unfold our griefs,
We are denied access unto his person
Even by those men that most have done us wrong.
The dangers of the days but newly gone,
Whose memory is written on the earth
With yet appearing blood, and the examples
Of every minute's instance, present now,
Hath put us in these ill-beseeming arms,
Not to break peace or any branch of it,
But to establish here a peace indeed,
Concurring both in name and quality.
WESTMORELAND
When ever yet was your appeal denied?
Wherein have you been galled by the king?
What peer hath been suborn'd to grate on you,
That you should seal this lawless bloody book
Of forged rebellion with a seal divine
And consecrate commotion's bitter edge?
ARCHBISHOP OF YORK
My brother general, the commonwealth,
To brother born an household cruelty,
I make my quarrel in particular.
WESTMORELAND
There is no need of any such redress;
Or if there were, it not belongs to you.
MOWBRAY
Why not to him in part, and to us all
That feel the bruises of the days before,
And suffer the condition of these times
To lay a heavy and unequal hand
Upon our honours?
WESTMORELAND
O, my good Lord Mowbray,
Construe the times to their necessities,
And you shall say indeed, it is the time,
And not the king, that doth you injuries.
Yet for your part, it not appears to me
Either from the king or in the present time
That you should have an inch of any ground
To build a grief on: were you not restored
To all the Duke of Norfolk's signories,
Your noble and right well remember'd father's?
MOWBRAY
What thing, in honour, had my father lost,
That need to be revived and breathed in me?
The king that loved him, as the state stood then,
Was force perforce compell'd to banish him:
And then that Harry Bolingbroke and he,
Being mounted and both roused in their seats,
Their neighing coursers daring of the spur,
Their armed staves in charge, their beavers down,
Their eyes of fire sparking through sights of steel
And the loud trumpet blowing them together,
Then, then, when there was nothing could have stay'd
My father from the breast of Bolingbroke,
O when the king did throw his warder down,
His own life hung upon the staff he threw;
Then threw he down himself and all their lives
That by indictment and by dint of sword
Have since miscarried under Bolingbroke.
WESTMORELAND
You speak, Lord Mowbray, now you know not what.
The Earl of Hereford was reputed then
In England the most valiant gentlemen:
Who knows on whom fortune would then have smiled?
But if your father had been victor there,
He ne'er had borne it out of Coventry:
For all the country in a general voice
Cried hate upon him; and all their prayers and love
Were set on Hereford, whom they doted on
And bless'd and graced indeed, more than the king.
But this is mere digression from my purpose.
Here come I from our princely general
To know your griefs; to tell you from his grace
That he will give you audience; and wherein
It shall appear that your demands are just,
You shall enjoy them, every thing set off
That might so much as think you enemies.
MOWBRAY
But he hath forced us to compel this offer;
And it proceeds from policy, not love.
WESTMORELAND
Mowbray, you overween to take it so;
This offer comes from mercy, not from fear:
For, lo! within a ken our army lies,
Upon mine honour, all too confident
To give admittance to a thought of fear.
Our battle is more full of names than yours,
Our men more perfect in the use of arms,
Our armour all as strong, our cause the best;
Then reason will our heart should be as good
Say you not then our offer is compell'd.
MOWBRAY
Well, by my will we shall admit no parley.
WESTMORELAND
That argues but the shame of your offence:
A rotten case abides no handling.
HASTINGS
Hath the Prince John a full commission,
In very ample virtue of his father,
To hear and absolutely to determine
Of what conditions we shall stand upon?
WESTMORELAND
That is intended in the general's name:
I muse you make so slight a question.
ARCHBISHOP OF YORK
Then take, my Lord of Westmoreland, this schedule,
For this contains our general grievances:
Each several article herein redress'd,
All members of our cause, both here and hence,
That are insinew'd to this action,
Acquitted by a true substantial form
And present execution of our wills
To us and to our purposes confined,
We come within our awful banks again
And knit our powers to the arm of peace.
WESTMORELAND
This will I show the general. Please you, lords,
In sight of both our battles we may meet;
And either end in peace, which God so frame!
Or to the place of difference call the swords
Which must decide it.
ARCHBISHOP OF YORK
My lord, we will do so.
Exit WESTMORELAND
MOWBRAY
There is a thing within my bosom tells me
That no conditions of our peace can stand.
HASTINGS
Fear you not that: if we can make our peace
Upon such large terms and so absolute
As our conditions shall consist upon,
Our peace shall stand as firm as rocky mountains.
MOWBRAY
Yea, but our valuation shall be such
That every slight and false-derived cause,
Yea, every idle, nice and wanton reason
Shall to the king taste of this action;
That, were our royal faiths martyrs in love,
We shall be winnow'd with so rough a wind
That even our corn shall seem as light as chaff
And good from bad find no partition.
ARCHBISHOP OF YORK
No, no, my lord. Note this; the king is weary
Of dainty and such picking grievances:
For he hath found to end one doubt by death
Revives two greater in the heirs of life,
And therefore will he wipe his tables clean
And keep no tell-tale to his memory
That may repeat and history his loss
To new remembrance; for full well he knows
He cannot so precisely weed this land
As his misdoubts present occasion:
His foes are so enrooted with his friends
That, plucking to unfix an enemy,
He doth unfasten so and shake a friend:
So that this land, like an offensive wife
That hath enraged him on to offer strokes,
As he is striking, holds his infant up
And hangs resolved correction in the arm
That was uprear'd to execution.
HASTINGS
Besides, the king hath wasted all his rods
On late offenders, that he now doth lack
The very instruments of chastisement:
So that his power, like to a fangless lion,
May offer, but not hold.
ARCHBISHOP OF YORK
'Tis very true:
And therefore be assured, my good lord marshal,
If we do now make our atonement well,
Our peace will, like a broken limb united,
Grow stronger for the breaking.
MOWBRAY
Be it so.
Here is return'd my Lord of Westmoreland.
Re-enter WESTMORELAND
WESTMORELAND
The prince is here at hand: pleaseth your lordship
To meet his grace just distance 'tween our armies.
MOWBRAY
Your grace of York, in God's name then, set forward.
ARCHBISHOP OF YORK
Before, and greet his grace: my lord, we come.
Exeunt
Henry IV Part 2, Act 3, Scene 2
Gloucestershire. Before SHALLOW'S house.
Enter SHALLOW and SILENCE, meeting; MOULDY, SHADOW, WART, FEEBLE, BULLCALF, a Servant or two with them
SHALLOW
Come on, come on, come on, sir; give me your hand,
sir, give me your hand, sir: an early stirrer, by
the rood! And how doth my good cousin Silence?
SILENCE
Good morrow, good cousin Shallow.
SHALLOW
And how doth my cousin, your bedfellow? and your
fairest daughter and mine, my god-daughter Ellen?
SILENCE
Alas, a black ousel, cousin Shallow!
SHALLOW
By yea and nay, sir, I dare say my cousin William is
become a good scholar: he is at Oxford still, is he not?
SILENCE
Indeed, sir, to my cost.
SHALLOW
A' must, then, to the inns o' court shortly. I was
once of Clement's Inn, where I think they will
talk of mad Shallow yet.
SILENCE
You were called 'lusty Shallow' then, cousin.
SHALLOW
By the mass, I was called any thing; and I would
have done any thing indeed too, and roundly too.
There was I, and little John Doit of Staffordshire,
and black George Barnes, and Francis Pickbone, and
Will Squele, a Cotswold man; you had not four such
swinge-bucklers in all the inns o' court again: and
I may say to you, we knew where the bona-robas were
and had the best of them all at commandment. Then
was Jack Falstaff, now Sir John, a boy, and page to
Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk.
SILENCE
This Sir John, cousin, that comes hither anon about soldiers?
SHALLOW
The same Sir John, the very same. I see him break
Skogan's head at the court-gate, when a' was a
crack not thus high: and the very same day did I
fight with one Sampson Stockfish, a fruiterer,
behind Gray's Inn. Jesu, Jesu, the mad days that I
have spent! and to see how many of my old
acquaintance are dead!
SILENCE
We shall all follow, cousin.
SHADOW
Certain, 'tis certain; very sure, very sure: death,
as the Psalmist saith, is certain to all; all shall
die. How a good yoke of bullocks at Stamford fair?
SILENCE
By my troth, I was not there.
SHALLOW
Death is certain. Is old Double of your town living
yet?
SILENCE
Dead, sir.
SHALLOW
Jesu, Jesu, dead! a' drew a good bow; and dead! a'
shot a fine shoot: John a Gaunt loved him well, and
betted much money on his head. Dead! a' would have
clapped i' the clout at twelve score; and carried
you a forehand shaft a fourteen and fourteen and a
half, that it would have done a man's heart good to
see. How a score of ewes now?
SILENCE
Thereafter as they be: a score of good ewes may be
worth ten pounds.
SHALLOW
And is old Double dead?
SILENCE
Here come two of Sir John Falstaff's men, as I think.
Enter BARDOLPH and one with him
BARDOLPH
Good morrow, honest gentlemen: I beseech you, which
is Justice Shallow?
SHALLOW
I am Robert Shallow, sir; a poor esquire of this
county, and one of the king's justices of th e peace:
What is your good pleasure with me?
BARDOLPH
My captain, sir, commends him to you; my captain,
Sir John Falstaff, a tall gentleman, by heaven, and
a most gallant leader.
SHALLOW
He greets me well, sir. I knew him a good backsword
man. How doth the good knight? may I ask how my
lady his wife doth?
BARDOLPH
Sir, pardon; a soldier is better accommodated than
with a wife.
SHALLOW
It is well said, in faith, sir; and it is well said
indeed too. Better accommodated! it is good; yea,
indeed, is it: good phrases are surely, and ever
were, very commendable. Accommodated! it comes of
'accommodo' very good; a good phrase.
BARDOLPH
Pardon me, sir; I have heard the word. Phrase call
you it? by this good day, I know not the phrase;
but I will maintain the word with my sword to be a
soldier-like word, and a word of exceeding good
command, by heaven. Accommodated; that is, when a
man is, as they say, accommodated; or when a man is,
being, whereby a' may be thought to be accommodated;
which is an excellent thing.
SHALLOW
It is very just.
Enter FALSTAFF
Look, here comes good Sir John. Give me your good
hand, give me your worship's good hand: by my
troth, you like well and bear your years very well:
welcome, good Sir John.
FALSTAFF
I am glad to see you well, good Master Robert
Shallow: Master Surecard, as I think?
SHALLOW
No, Sir John; it is my cousin Silence, in commission with me.
FALSTAFF
Good Master Silence, it well befits you should be of
the peace.
SILENCE
Your good-worship is welcome.
FALSTAFF
Fie! this is hot weather, gentlemen. Have you
provided me here half a dozen sufficient men?
SHALLOW
Marry, have we, sir. Will you sit?
FALSTAFF
Let me see them, I beseech you.
SHALLOW
Where's the roll? where's the roll? where's the
roll? Let me see, let me see, let me see. So, so:
yea, marry, sir: Ralph Mouldy! Let them appear as
I call; let them do so, let them do so. Let me
see; where is Mouldy?
MOULDY
Here, an't please you.
SHALLOW
What think you, Sir John? a good-limbed fellow;
young, strong, and of good friends.
FALSTAFF
Is thy name Mouldy?
MOULDY
Yea, an't please you.
FALSTAFF
'Tis the more time thou wert used.
SHALLOW
Ha, ha, ha! most excellent, i' faith! Things that
are mouldy lack use: very singular good! in faith,
well said, Sir John, very well said.
FALSTAFF
Prick him.
MOULDY
I was pricked well enough before, an you could have
let me alone: my old dame will be undone now for
one to do her husbandry and her drudgery: you need
not to have pricked me; there are other men fitter
to go out than I.
FALSTAFF
Go to: peace, Mouldy; you shall go. Mouldy, it is
time you were spent.
MOULDY
Spent!
SHALLOW
Peace, fellow, peace; stand aside: know you where
you are? For the other, Sir John: let me see:
Simon Shadow!
FALSTAFF
Yea, marry, let me have him to sit under: he's like
to be a cold soldier.
SHALLOW
Where's Shadow?
SHADOW
Here, sir.
FALSTAFF
Shadow, whose son art thou?
SHADOW
My mother's son, sir.
FALSTAFF
Thy mother's son! like enough, and thy father's
shadow: so the son of the female is the shadow of
the male: it is often so, indeed; but much of the
father's substance!
SHALLOW
Do you like him, Sir John?
FALSTAFF
Shadow will serve for summer; prick him, for we have
a number of shadows to fill up the muster-book.
SHALLOW
Thomas Wart!
FALSTAFF
Where's he?
WART
Here, sir.
FALSTAFF
Is thy name Wart?
WART
Yea, sir.
FALSTAFF
Thou art a very ragged wart.
SHALLOW
Shall I prick him down, Sir John?
FALSTAFF
It were superfluous; for his apparel is built upon
his back and the whole frame stands upon pins:
prick him no more.
SHALLOW
Ha, ha, ha! you can do it, sir; you can do it: I
commend you well. Francis Feeble!
FEEBLE
Here, sir.
FALSTAFF
What trade art thou, Feeble?
FEEBLE
A woman's tailor, sir.
SHALLOW
Shall I prick him, sir?
FALSTAFF
You may: but if he had been a man's tailor, he'ld
ha' pricked you. Wilt thou make as many holes in
an enemy's battle as thou hast done in a woman's petticoat?
FEEBLE
I will do my good will, sir; you can have no more.
FALSTAFF
Well said, good woman's tailor! well said,
courageous Feeble! thou wilt be as valiant as the
wrathful dove or most magnanimous mouse. Prick the
woman's tailor: well, Master Shallow; deep, Master Shallow.
FEEBLE
I would Wart might have gone, sir.
FALSTAFF
I would thou wert a man's tailor, that thou mightst
mend him and make him fit to go. I cannot put him
to a private soldier that is the leader of so many
thousands: let that suffice, most forcible Feeble.
FEEBLE
It shall suffice, sir.
FALSTAFF
I am bound to thee, reverend Feeble. Who is next?
SHALLOW
Peter Bullcalf o' the green!
FALSTAFF
Yea, marry, let's see Bullcalf.
BULLCALF
Here, sir.
FALSTAFF
'Fore God, a likely fellow! Come, prick me Bullcalf
till he roar again.
BULLCALF
O Lord! good my lord captain,--
FALSTAFF
What, dost thou roar before thou art pricked?
BULLCALF
O Lord, sir! I am a diseased man.
FALSTAFF
What disease hast thou?
BULLCALF
A whoreson cold, sir, a cough, sir, which I caught
with ringing in the king's affairs upon his
coronation-day, sir.
FALSTAFF
Come, thou shalt go to the wars in a gown; we wilt
have away thy cold; and I will take such order that
my friends shall ring for thee. Is here all?
SHALLOW
Here is two more called than your number, you must
have but four here, sir: and so, I pray you, go in
with me to dinner.
FALSTAFF
Come, I will go drink with you, but I cannot tarry
dinner. I am glad to see you, by my troth, Master Shallow.
SHALLOW
O, Sir John, do you remember since we lay all night
in the windmill in Saint George's field?
FALSTAFF
No more of that, good Master Shallow, no more of that.
SHALLOW
Ha! 'twas a merry night. And is Jane Nightwork alive?
FALSTAFF
She lives, Master Shallow.
SHALLOW
She never could away with me.
FALSTAFF
Never, never; she would always say she could not
abide Master Shallow.
SHALLOW
By the mass, I could anger her to the heart. She
was then a bona-roba. Doth she hold her own well?
FALSTAFF
Old, old, Master Shallow.
SHALLOW
Nay, she must be old; she cannot choose but be old;
certain she's old; and had Robin Nightwork by old
Nightwork before I came to Clement's Inn.
SILENCE
That's fifty-five year ago.
SHALLOW
Ha, cousin Silence, that thou hadst seen that that
this knight and I have seen! Ha, Sir John, said I well?
FALSTAFF
We have heard the chimes at midnight, Master Shallow.
SHALLOW
That we have, that we have, that we have; in faith,
Sir John, we have: our watch-word was 'Hem boys!'
Come, let's to dinner; come, let's to dinner:
Jesus, the days that we have seen! Come, come.
Exeunt FALSTAFF and Justices
BULLCALF
Good Master Corporate Bardolph, stand my friend;
and here's four Harry ten shillings in French crowns
for you. In very truth, sir, I had as lief be
hanged, sir, as go: and yet, for mine own part, sir,
I do not care; but rather, because I am unwilling,
and, for mine own part, have a desire to stay with
my friends; else, sir, I did not care, for mine own
part, so much.
BARDOLPH
Go to; stand aside.
MOULDY
And, good master corporal captain, for my old
dame's sake, stand my friend: she has nobody to do
any thing about her when I am gone; and she is old,
and cannot help herself: You shall have forty, sir.
BARDOLPH
Go to; stand aside.
FEEBLE
By my troth, I care not; a man can die but once: we
owe God a death: I'll ne'er bear a base mind:
an't be my destiny, so; an't be not, so: no man is
too good to serve's prince; and let it go which way
it will, he that dies this year is quit for the next.
BARDOLPH
Well said; thou'rt a good fellow.
FEEBLE
Faith, I'll bear no base mind.
Re-enter FALSTAFF and the Justices
FALSTAFF
Come, sir, which men shall I have?
SHALLOW
Four of which you please.
BARDOLPH
Sir, a word with you: I have three pound to free
Mouldy and Bullcalf.
FALSTAFF
Go to; well.
SHALLOW
Come, Sir John, which four will you have?
FALSTAFF
Do you choose for me.
SHALLOW
Marry, then, Mouldy, Bullcalf, Feeble and Shadow.
FALSTAFF
Mouldy and Bullcalf: for you, Mouldy, stay at home
till you are past service: and for your part,
Bullcalf, grow till you come unto it: I will none of you.
SHALLOW
Sir John, Sir John, do not yourself wrong: they are
your likeliest men, and I would have you served with the best.
FALSTAFF
Will you tell me, Master Shallow, how to choose a
man? Care I for the limb, the thewes, the stature,
bulk, and big assemblance of a man! Give me the
spirit, Master Shallow. Here's Wart; you see what a
ragged appearance it is; a' shall charge you and
discharge you with the motion of a pewterer's
hammer, come off and on swifter than he that gibbets
on the brewer's bucket. And this same half-faced
fellow, Shadow; give me this man: he presents no
mark to the enemy; the foeman may with as great aim
level at the edge of a penknife. And for a retreat;
how swiftly will this Feeble the woman's tailor run
off! O, give me the spare men, and spare me the
great ones. Put me a caliver into Wart's hand, Bardolph.
BARDOLPH
Hold, Wart, traverse; thus, thus, thus.
FALSTAFF
Come, manage me your caliver. So: very well: go
to: very good, exceeding good. O, give me always a
little, lean, old, chapt, bald shot. Well said, i'
faith, Wart; thou'rt a good scab: hold, there's a
tester for thee.
SHALLOW
He is not his craft's master; he doth not do it
right. I remember at Mile-end Green, when I lay at
Clement's Inn--I was then Sir Dagonet in Arthur's
show,--there was a little quiver fellow, and a'
would manage you his piece thus; and a' would about
and about, and come you in and come you in: 'rah,
tah, tah,' would a' say; 'bounce' would a' say; and
away again would a' go, and again would a' come: I
shall ne'er see such a fellow.
FALSTAFF
These fellows will do well, Master Shallow. God
keep you, Master Silence: I will not use many words
with you. Fare you well, gentlemen both: I thank
you: I must a dozen mile to-night. Bardolph, give
the soldiers coats.
SHALLOW
Sir John, the Lord bless you! God prosper your
affairs! God send us peace! At your return visit
our house; let our old acquaintance be renewed;
peradventure I will with ye to the court.
FALSTAFF
'Fore God, I would you would, Master Shallow.
SHALLOW
Go to; I have spoke at a word. God keep you.
FALSTAFF
Fare you well, gentle gentlemen.
Exeunt Justices
On, Bardolph; lead the men away.
Exeunt BARDOLPH, Recruits, & c
As I return, I will fetch off these justices: I do
see the bottom of Justice Shallow. Lord, Lord, how
subject we old men are to this vice of lying! This
same starved justice hath done nothing but prate to
me of the wildness of his youth, and the feats he
hath done about Turnbull Street: and every third
word a lie, duer paid to the hearer than the Turk's
tribute. I do remember him at Clement's Inn like a
man made after supper of a cheese-paring: when a'
was naked, he was, for all the world, like a forked
radish, with a head fantastically carved upon it
with a knife: a' was so forlorn, that his
dimensions to any thick sight were invincible: a'
was the very genius of famine; yet lecherous as a
monkey, and the whores called him mandrake: a' came
ever in the rearward of the fashion, and sung those
tunes to the overscutched huswives that he heard the
carmen whistle, and swear they were his fancies or
his good-nights. And now is this Vice's dagger
become a squire, and talks as familiarly of John a
Gaunt as if he had been sworn brother to him; and
I'll be sworn a' ne'er saw him but once in the
Tilt-yard; and then he burst his head for crowding
among the marshal's men. I saw it, and told John a
Gaunt he beat his own name; for you might have
thrust him and all his apparel into an eel-skin; the
case of a treble hautboy was a mansion for him, a
court: and now has he land and beefs. Well, I'll
be acquainted with him, if I return; and it shall
go hard but I will make him a philosopher's two
stones to me: if the young dace be a bait for the
old pike, I see no reason in the law of nature but I
may snap at him. Let time shape, and there an end.
Exit
Enter SHALLOW and SILENCE, meeting; MOULDY, SHADOW, WART, FEEBLE, BULLCALF, a Servant or two with them
SHALLOW
Come on, come on, come on, sir; give me your hand,
sir, give me your hand, sir: an early stirrer, by
the rood! And how doth my good cousin Silence?
SILENCE
Good morrow, good cousin Shallow.
SHALLOW
And how doth my cousin, your bedfellow? and your
fairest daughter and mine, my god-daughter Ellen?
SILENCE
Alas, a black ousel, cousin Shallow!
SHALLOW
By yea and nay, sir, I dare say my cousin William is
become a good scholar: he is at Oxford still, is he not?
SILENCE
Indeed, sir, to my cost.
SHALLOW
A' must, then, to the inns o' court shortly. I was
once of Clement's Inn, where I think they will
talk of mad Shallow yet.
SILENCE
You were called 'lusty Shallow' then, cousin.
SHALLOW
By the mass, I was called any thing; and I would
have done any thing indeed too, and roundly too.
There was I, and little John Doit of Staffordshire,
and black George Barnes, and Francis Pickbone, and
Will Squele, a Cotswold man; you had not four such
swinge-bucklers in all the inns o' court again: and
I may say to you, we knew where the bona-robas were
and had the best of them all at commandment. Then
was Jack Falstaff, now Sir John, a boy, and page to
Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk.
SILENCE
This Sir John, cousin, that comes hither anon about soldiers?
SHALLOW
The same Sir John, the very same. I see him break
Skogan's head at the court-gate, when a' was a
crack not thus high: and the very same day did I
fight with one Sampson Stockfish, a fruiterer,
behind Gray's Inn. Jesu, Jesu, the mad days that I
have spent! and to see how many of my old
acquaintance are dead!
SILENCE
We shall all follow, cousin.
SHADOW
Certain, 'tis certain; very sure, very sure: death,
as the Psalmist saith, is certain to all; all shall
die. How a good yoke of bullocks at Stamford fair?
SILENCE
By my troth, I was not there.
SHALLOW
Death is certain. Is old Double of your town living
yet?
SILENCE
Dead, sir.
SHALLOW
Jesu, Jesu, dead! a' drew a good bow; and dead! a'
shot a fine shoot: John a Gaunt loved him well, and
betted much money on his head. Dead! a' would have
clapped i' the clout at twelve score; and carried
you a forehand shaft a fourteen and fourteen and a
half, that it would have done a man's heart good to
see. How a score of ewes now?
SILENCE
Thereafter as they be: a score of good ewes may be
worth ten pounds.
SHALLOW
And is old Double dead?
SILENCE
Here come two of Sir John Falstaff's men, as I think.
Enter BARDOLPH and one with him
BARDOLPH
Good morrow, honest gentlemen: I beseech you, which
is Justice Shallow?
SHALLOW
I am Robert Shallow, sir; a poor esquire of this
county, and one of the king's justices of th e peace:
What is your good pleasure with me?
BARDOLPH
My captain, sir, commends him to you; my captain,
Sir John Falstaff, a tall gentleman, by heaven, and
a most gallant leader.
SHALLOW
He greets me well, sir. I knew him a good backsword
man. How doth the good knight? may I ask how my
lady his wife doth?
BARDOLPH
Sir, pardon; a soldier is better accommodated than
with a wife.
SHALLOW
It is well said, in faith, sir; and it is well said
indeed too. Better accommodated! it is good; yea,
indeed, is it: good phrases are surely, and ever
were, very commendable. Accommodated! it comes of
'accommodo' very good; a good phrase.
BARDOLPH
Pardon me, sir; I have heard the word. Phrase call
you it? by this good day, I know not the phrase;
but I will maintain the word with my sword to be a
soldier-like word, and a word of exceeding good
command, by heaven. Accommodated; that is, when a
man is, as they say, accommodated; or when a man is,
being, whereby a' may be thought to be accommodated;
which is an excellent thing.
SHALLOW
It is very just.
Enter FALSTAFF
Look, here comes good Sir John. Give me your good
hand, give me your worship's good hand: by my
troth, you like well and bear your years very well:
welcome, good Sir John.
FALSTAFF
I am glad to see you well, good Master Robert
Shallow: Master Surecard, as I think?
SHALLOW
No, Sir John; it is my cousin Silence, in commission with me.
FALSTAFF
Good Master Silence, it well befits you should be of
the peace.
SILENCE
Your good-worship is welcome.
FALSTAFF
Fie! this is hot weather, gentlemen. Have you
provided me here half a dozen sufficient men?
SHALLOW
Marry, have we, sir. Will you sit?
FALSTAFF
Let me see them, I beseech you.
SHALLOW
Where's the roll? where's the roll? where's the
roll? Let me see, let me see, let me see. So, so:
yea, marry, sir: Ralph Mouldy! Let them appear as
I call; let them do so, let them do so. Let me
see; where is Mouldy?
MOULDY
Here, an't please you.
SHALLOW
What think you, Sir John? a good-limbed fellow;
young, strong, and of good friends.
FALSTAFF
Is thy name Mouldy?
MOULDY
Yea, an't please you.
FALSTAFF
'Tis the more time thou wert used.
SHALLOW
Ha, ha, ha! most excellent, i' faith! Things that
are mouldy lack use: very singular good! in faith,
well said, Sir John, very well said.
FALSTAFF
Prick him.
MOULDY
I was pricked well enough before, an you could have
let me alone: my old dame will be undone now for
one to do her husbandry and her drudgery: you need
not to have pricked me; there are other men fitter
to go out than I.
FALSTAFF
Go to: peace, Mouldy; you shall go. Mouldy, it is
time you were spent.
MOULDY
Spent!
SHALLOW
Peace, fellow, peace; stand aside: know you where
you are? For the other, Sir John: let me see:
Simon Shadow!
FALSTAFF
Yea, marry, let me have him to sit under: he's like
to be a cold soldier.
SHALLOW
Where's Shadow?
SHADOW
Here, sir.
FALSTAFF
Shadow, whose son art thou?
SHADOW
My mother's son, sir.
FALSTAFF
Thy mother's son! like enough, and thy father's
shadow: so the son of the female is the shadow of
the male: it is often so, indeed; but much of the
father's substance!
SHALLOW
Do you like him, Sir John?
FALSTAFF
Shadow will serve for summer; prick him, for we have
a number of shadows to fill up the muster-book.
SHALLOW
Thomas Wart!
FALSTAFF
Where's he?
WART
Here, sir.
FALSTAFF
Is thy name Wart?
WART
Yea, sir.
FALSTAFF
Thou art a very ragged wart.
SHALLOW
Shall I prick him down, Sir John?
FALSTAFF
It were superfluous; for his apparel is built upon
his back and the whole frame stands upon pins:
prick him no more.
SHALLOW
Ha, ha, ha! you can do it, sir; you can do it: I
commend you well. Francis Feeble!
FEEBLE
Here, sir.
FALSTAFF
What trade art thou, Feeble?
FEEBLE
A woman's tailor, sir.
SHALLOW
Shall I prick him, sir?
FALSTAFF
You may: but if he had been a man's tailor, he'ld
ha' pricked you. Wilt thou make as many holes in
an enemy's battle as thou hast done in a woman's petticoat?
FEEBLE
I will do my good will, sir; you can have no more.
FALSTAFF
Well said, good woman's tailor! well said,
courageous Feeble! thou wilt be as valiant as the
wrathful dove or most magnanimous mouse. Prick the
woman's tailor: well, Master Shallow; deep, Master Shallow.
FEEBLE
I would Wart might have gone, sir.
FALSTAFF
I would thou wert a man's tailor, that thou mightst
mend him and make him fit to go. I cannot put him
to a private soldier that is the leader of so many
thousands: let that suffice, most forcible Feeble.
FEEBLE
It shall suffice, sir.
FALSTAFF
I am bound to thee, reverend Feeble. Who is next?
SHALLOW
Peter Bullcalf o' the green!
FALSTAFF
Yea, marry, let's see Bullcalf.
BULLCALF
Here, sir.
FALSTAFF
'Fore God, a likely fellow! Come, prick me Bullcalf
till he roar again.
BULLCALF
O Lord! good my lord captain,--
FALSTAFF
What, dost thou roar before thou art pricked?
BULLCALF
O Lord, sir! I am a diseased man.
FALSTAFF
What disease hast thou?
BULLCALF
A whoreson cold, sir, a cough, sir, which I caught
with ringing in the king's affairs upon his
coronation-day, sir.
FALSTAFF
Come, thou shalt go to the wars in a gown; we wilt
have away thy cold; and I will take such order that
my friends shall ring for thee. Is here all?
SHALLOW
Here is two more called than your number, you must
have but four here, sir: and so, I pray you, go in
with me to dinner.
FALSTAFF
Come, I will go drink with you, but I cannot tarry
dinner. I am glad to see you, by my troth, Master Shallow.
SHALLOW
O, Sir John, do you remember since we lay all night
in the windmill in Saint George's field?
FALSTAFF
No more of that, good Master Shallow, no more of that.
SHALLOW
Ha! 'twas a merry night. And is Jane Nightwork alive?
FALSTAFF
She lives, Master Shallow.
SHALLOW
She never could away with me.
FALSTAFF
Never, never; she would always say she could not
abide Master Shallow.
SHALLOW
By the mass, I could anger her to the heart. She
was then a bona-roba. Doth she hold her own well?
FALSTAFF
Old, old, Master Shallow.
SHALLOW
Nay, she must be old; she cannot choose but be old;
certain she's old; and had Robin Nightwork by old
Nightwork before I came to Clement's Inn.
SILENCE
That's fifty-five year ago.
SHALLOW
Ha, cousin Silence, that thou hadst seen that that
this knight and I have seen! Ha, Sir John, said I well?
FALSTAFF
We have heard the chimes at midnight, Master Shallow.
SHALLOW
That we have, that we have, that we have; in faith,
Sir John, we have: our watch-word was 'Hem boys!'
Come, let's to dinner; come, let's to dinner:
Jesus, the days that we have seen! Come, come.
Exeunt FALSTAFF and Justices
BULLCALF
Good Master Corporate Bardolph, stand my friend;
and here's four Harry ten shillings in French crowns
for you. In very truth, sir, I had as lief be
hanged, sir, as go: and yet, for mine own part, sir,
I do not care; but rather, because I am unwilling,
and, for mine own part, have a desire to stay with
my friends; else, sir, I did not care, for mine own
part, so much.
BARDOLPH
Go to; stand aside.
MOULDY
And, good master corporal captain, for my old
dame's sake, stand my friend: she has nobody to do
any thing about her when I am gone; and she is old,
and cannot help herself: You shall have forty, sir.
BARDOLPH
Go to; stand aside.
FEEBLE
By my troth, I care not; a man can die but once: we
owe God a death: I'll ne'er bear a base mind:
an't be my destiny, so; an't be not, so: no man is
too good to serve's prince; and let it go which way
it will, he that dies this year is quit for the next.
BARDOLPH
Well said; thou'rt a good fellow.
FEEBLE
Faith, I'll bear no base mind.
Re-enter FALSTAFF and the Justices
FALSTAFF
Come, sir, which men shall I have?
SHALLOW
Four of which you please.
BARDOLPH
Sir, a word with you: I have three pound to free
Mouldy and Bullcalf.
FALSTAFF
Go to; well.
SHALLOW
Come, Sir John, which four will you have?
FALSTAFF
Do you choose for me.
SHALLOW
Marry, then, Mouldy, Bullcalf, Feeble and Shadow.
FALSTAFF
Mouldy and Bullcalf: for you, Mouldy, stay at home
till you are past service: and for your part,
Bullcalf, grow till you come unto it: I will none of you.
SHALLOW
Sir John, Sir John, do not yourself wrong: they are
your likeliest men, and I would have you served with the best.
FALSTAFF
Will you tell me, Master Shallow, how to choose a
man? Care I for the limb, the thewes, the stature,
bulk, and big assemblance of a man! Give me the
spirit, Master Shallow. Here's Wart; you see what a
ragged appearance it is; a' shall charge you and
discharge you with the motion of a pewterer's
hammer, come off and on swifter than he that gibbets
on the brewer's bucket. And this same half-faced
fellow, Shadow; give me this man: he presents no
mark to the enemy; the foeman may with as great aim
level at the edge of a penknife. And for a retreat;
how swiftly will this Feeble the woman's tailor run
off! O, give me the spare men, and spare me the
great ones. Put me a caliver into Wart's hand, Bardolph.
BARDOLPH
Hold, Wart, traverse; thus, thus, thus.
FALSTAFF
Come, manage me your caliver. So: very well: go
to: very good, exceeding good. O, give me always a
little, lean, old, chapt, bald shot. Well said, i'
faith, Wart; thou'rt a good scab: hold, there's a
tester for thee.
SHALLOW
He is not his craft's master; he doth not do it
right. I remember at Mile-end Green, when I lay at
Clement's Inn--I was then Sir Dagonet in Arthur's
show,--there was a little quiver fellow, and a'
would manage you his piece thus; and a' would about
and about, and come you in and come you in: 'rah,
tah, tah,' would a' say; 'bounce' would a' say; and
away again would a' go, and again would a' come: I
shall ne'er see such a fellow.
FALSTAFF
These fellows will do well, Master Shallow. God
keep you, Master Silence: I will not use many words
with you. Fare you well, gentlemen both: I thank
you: I must a dozen mile to-night. Bardolph, give
the soldiers coats.
SHALLOW
Sir John, the Lord bless you! God prosper your
affairs! God send us peace! At your return visit
our house; let our old acquaintance be renewed;
peradventure I will with ye to the court.
FALSTAFF
'Fore God, I would you would, Master Shallow.
SHALLOW
Go to; I have spoke at a word. God keep you.
FALSTAFF
Fare you well, gentle gentlemen.
Exeunt Justices
On, Bardolph; lead the men away.
Exeunt BARDOLPH, Recruits, & c
As I return, I will fetch off these justices: I do
see the bottom of Justice Shallow. Lord, Lord, how
subject we old men are to this vice of lying! This
same starved justice hath done nothing but prate to
me of the wildness of his youth, and the feats he
hath done about Turnbull Street: and every third
word a lie, duer paid to the hearer than the Turk's
tribute. I do remember him at Clement's Inn like a
man made after supper of a cheese-paring: when a'
was naked, he was, for all the world, like a forked
radish, with a head fantastically carved upon it
with a knife: a' was so forlorn, that his
dimensions to any thick sight were invincible: a'
was the very genius of famine; yet lecherous as a
monkey, and the whores called him mandrake: a' came
ever in the rearward of the fashion, and sung those
tunes to the overscutched huswives that he heard the
carmen whistle, and swear they were his fancies or
his good-nights. And now is this Vice's dagger
become a squire, and talks as familiarly of John a
Gaunt as if he had been sworn brother to him; and
I'll be sworn a' ne'er saw him but once in the
Tilt-yard; and then he burst his head for crowding
among the marshal's men. I saw it, and told John a
Gaunt he beat his own name; for you might have
thrust him and all his apparel into an eel-skin; the
case of a treble hautboy was a mansion for him, a
court: and now has he land and beefs. Well, I'll
be acquainted with him, if I return; and it shall
go hard but I will make him a philosopher's two
stones to me: if the young dace be a bait for the
old pike, I see no reason in the law of nature but I
may snap at him. Let time shape, and there an end.
Exit
Henry IV Part 2, Act 3, Scene 1
Westminster. The palace.
Enter KING HENRY IV in his nightgown, with a Page
KING HENRY IV
Go call the Earls of Surrey and of Warwick;
But, ere they come, bid them o'er-read these letters,
And well consider of them; make good speed.
Exit Page
How many thousand of my poorest subjects
Are at this hour asleep! O sleep, O gentle sleep,
Nature's soft nurse, how have I frighted thee,
That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down
And steep my senses in forgetfulness?
Why rather, sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs,
Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee
And hush'd with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber,
Than in the perfumed chambers of the great,
Under the canopies of costly state,
And lull'd with sound of sweetest melody?
O thou dull god, why liest thou with the vile
In loathsome beds, and leavest the kingly couch
A watch-case or a common 'larum-bell?
Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast
Seal up the ship-boy's eyes, and rock his brains
In cradle of the rude imperious surge
And in the visitation of the winds,
Who take the ruffian billows by the top,
Curling their monstrous heads and hanging them
With deafening clamour in the slippery clouds,
That, with the hurly, death itself awakes?
Canst thou, O partial sleep, give thy repose
To the wet sea-boy in an hour so rude,
And in the calmest and most stillest night,
With all appliances and means to boot,
Deny it to a king? Then happy low, lie down!
Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.
Enter WARWICK and SURREY
WARWICK
Many good morrows to your majesty!
KING HENRY IV
Is it good morrow, lords?
WARWICK
'Tis one o'clock, and past.
KING HENRY IV
Why, then, good morrow to you all, my lords.
Have you read o'er the letters that I sent you?
WARWICK
We have, my liege.
KING HENRY IV
Then you perceive the body of our kingdom
How foul it is; what rank diseases grow
And with what danger, near the heart of it.
WARWICK
It is but as a body yet distemper'd;
Which to his former strength may be restored
With good advice and little medicine:
My Lord Northumberland will soon be cool'd.
KING HENRY IV
O God! that one might read the book of fate,
And see the revolution of the times
Make mountains level, and the continent,
Weary of solid firmness, melt itself
Into the sea! and, other times, to see
The beachy girdle of the ocean
Too wide for Neptune's hips; how chances mock,
And changes fill the cup of alteration
With divers liquors! O, if this were seen,
The happiest youth, viewing his progress through,
What perils past, what crosses to ensue,
Would shut the book, and sit him down and die.
'Tis not 'ten years gone
Since Richard and Northumberland, great friends,
Did feast together, and in two years after
Were they at wars: it is but eight years since
This Percy was the man nearest my soul,
Who like a brother toil'd in my affairs
And laid his love and life under my foot,
Yea, for my sake, even to the eyes of Richard
Gave him defiance. But which of you was by--
You, cousin Nevil, as I may remember--
To WARWICK
When Richard, with his eye brimful of tears,
Then cheque'd and rated by Northumberland,
Did speak these words, now proved a prophecy?
'Northumberland, thou ladder by the which
My cousin Bolingbroke ascends my throne;'
Though then, God knows, I had no such intent,
But that necessity so bow'd the state
That I and greatness were compell'd to kiss:
'The time shall come,' thus did he follow it,
'The time will come, that foul sin, gathering head,
Shall break into corruption:' so went on,
Foretelling this same time's condition
And the division of our amity.
WARWICK
There is a history in all men's lives,
Figuring the nature of the times deceased;
The which observed, a man may prophesy,
With a near aim, of the main chance of things
As yet not come to life, which in their seeds
And weak beginnings lie intreasured.
Such things become the hatch and brood of time;
And by the necessary form of this
King Richard might create a perfect guess
That great Northumberland, then false to him,
Would of that seed grow to a greater falseness;
Which should not find a ground to root upon,
Unless on you.
KING HENRY IV
Are these things then necessities?
Then let us meet them like necessities:
And that same word even now cries out on us:
They say the bishop and Northumberland
Are fifty thousand strong.
WARWICK
It cannot be, my lord;
Rumour doth double, like the voice and echo,
The numbers of the fear'd. Please it your grace
To go to bed. Upon my soul, my lord,
The powers that you already have sent forth
Shall bring this prize in very easily.
To comfort you the more, I have received
A certain instance that Glendower is dead.
Your majesty hath been this fortnight ill,
And these unseason'd hours perforce must add
Unto your sickness.
KING HENRY IV
I will take your counsel:
And were these inward wars once out of hand,
We would, dear lords, unto the Holy Land.
Exeunt
Enter KING HENRY IV in his nightgown, with a Page
KING HENRY IV
Go call the Earls of Surrey and of Warwick;
But, ere they come, bid them o'er-read these letters,
And well consider of them; make good speed.
Exit Page
How many thousand of my poorest subjects
Are at this hour asleep! O sleep, O gentle sleep,
Nature's soft nurse, how have I frighted thee,
That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down
And steep my senses in forgetfulness?
Why rather, sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs,
Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee
And hush'd with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber,
Than in the perfumed chambers of the great,
Under the canopies of costly state,
And lull'd with sound of sweetest melody?
O thou dull god, why liest thou with the vile
In loathsome beds, and leavest the kingly couch
A watch-case or a common 'larum-bell?
Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast
Seal up the ship-boy's eyes, and rock his brains
In cradle of the rude imperious surge
And in the visitation of the winds,
Who take the ruffian billows by the top,
Curling their monstrous heads and hanging them
With deafening clamour in the slippery clouds,
That, with the hurly, death itself awakes?
Canst thou, O partial sleep, give thy repose
To the wet sea-boy in an hour so rude,
And in the calmest and most stillest night,
With all appliances and means to boot,
Deny it to a king? Then happy low, lie down!
Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.
Enter WARWICK and SURREY
WARWICK
Many good morrows to your majesty!
KING HENRY IV
Is it good morrow, lords?
WARWICK
'Tis one o'clock, and past.
KING HENRY IV
Why, then, good morrow to you all, my lords.
Have you read o'er the letters that I sent you?
WARWICK
We have, my liege.
KING HENRY IV
Then you perceive the body of our kingdom
How foul it is; what rank diseases grow
And with what danger, near the heart of it.
WARWICK
It is but as a body yet distemper'd;
Which to his former strength may be restored
With good advice and little medicine:
My Lord Northumberland will soon be cool'd.
KING HENRY IV
O God! that one might read the book of fate,
And see the revolution of the times
Make mountains level, and the continent,
Weary of solid firmness, melt itself
Into the sea! and, other times, to see
The beachy girdle of the ocean
Too wide for Neptune's hips; how chances mock,
And changes fill the cup of alteration
With divers liquors! O, if this were seen,
The happiest youth, viewing his progress through,
What perils past, what crosses to ensue,
Would shut the book, and sit him down and die.
'Tis not 'ten years gone
Since Richard and Northumberland, great friends,
Did feast together, and in two years after
Were they at wars: it is but eight years since
This Percy was the man nearest my soul,
Who like a brother toil'd in my affairs
And laid his love and life under my foot,
Yea, for my sake, even to the eyes of Richard
Gave him defiance. But which of you was by--
You, cousin Nevil, as I may remember--
To WARWICK
When Richard, with his eye brimful of tears,
Then cheque'd and rated by Northumberland,
Did speak these words, now proved a prophecy?
'Northumberland, thou ladder by the which
My cousin Bolingbroke ascends my throne;'
Though then, God knows, I had no such intent,
But that necessity so bow'd the state
That I and greatness were compell'd to kiss:
'The time shall come,' thus did he follow it,
'The time will come, that foul sin, gathering head,
Shall break into corruption:' so went on,
Foretelling this same time's condition
And the division of our amity.
WARWICK
There is a history in all men's lives,
Figuring the nature of the times deceased;
The which observed, a man may prophesy,
With a near aim, of the main chance of things
As yet not come to life, which in their seeds
And weak beginnings lie intreasured.
Such things become the hatch and brood of time;
And by the necessary form of this
King Richard might create a perfect guess
That great Northumberland, then false to him,
Would of that seed grow to a greater falseness;
Which should not find a ground to root upon,
Unless on you.
KING HENRY IV
Are these things then necessities?
Then let us meet them like necessities:
And that same word even now cries out on us:
They say the bishop and Northumberland
Are fifty thousand strong.
WARWICK
It cannot be, my lord;
Rumour doth double, like the voice and echo,
The numbers of the fear'd. Please it your grace
To go to bed. Upon my soul, my lord,
The powers that you already have sent forth
Shall bring this prize in very easily.
To comfort you the more, I have received
A certain instance that Glendower is dead.
Your majesty hath been this fortnight ill,
And these unseason'd hours perforce must add
Unto your sickness.
KING HENRY IV
I will take your counsel:
And were these inward wars once out of hand,
We would, dear lords, unto the Holy Land.
Exeunt
Henry IV Part 2, Act 2, Scene 4
London. The Boar's-head Tavern in Eastcheap.
Enter two Drawers
First Drawer
What the devil hast thou brought there? apple-johns?
thou knowest Sir John cannot endure an apple-john.
Second Drawer
Mass, thou sayest true. The prince once set a dish
of apple-johns before him, and told him there were
five more Sir Johns, and, putting off his hat, said
'I will now take my leave of these six dry, round,
old, withered knights.' It angered him to the
heart: but he hath forgot that.
First Drawer
Why, then, cover, and set them down: and see if
thou canst find out Sneak's noise; Mistress
Tearsheet would fain hear some music. Dispatch: the
room where they supped is too hot; they'll come in straight.
Second Drawer
Sirrah, here will be the prince and Master Poins
anon; and they will put on two of our jerkins and
aprons; and Sir John must not know of it: Bardolph
hath brought word.
First Drawer
By the mass, here will be old Utis: it will be an
excellent stratagem.
Second Drawer
I'll see if I can find out Sneak.
Exit
Enter MISTRESS QUICKLY and DOLL TEARSHEET
MISTRESS QUICKLY
I' faith, sweetheart, methinks now you are in an
excellent good temperality: your pulsidge beats as
extraordinarily as heart would desire; and your
colour, I warrant you, is as red as any rose, in good
truth, la! But, i' faith, you have drunk too much
canaries; and that's a marvellous searching wine,
and it perfumes the blood ere one can say 'What's
this?' How do you now?
DOLL TEARSHEET
Better than I was: hem!
MISTRESS QUICKLY
Why, that's well said; a good heart's worth gold.
Lo, here comes Sir John.
Enter FALSTAFF
FALSTAFF
[Singing] 'When Arthur first in court,'
--Empty the jordan.
Exit First Drawer
Singing
--'And was a worthy king.' How now, Mistress Doll!
MISTRESS QUICKLY
Sick of a calm; yea, good faith.
FALSTAFF
So is all her sect; an they be once in a calm, they are sick.
DOLL TEARSHEET
You muddy rascal, is that all the comfort you give me?
FALSTAFF
You make fat rascals, Mistress Doll.
DOLL TEARSHEET
I make them! gluttony and diseases make them; I
make them not.
FALSTAFF
If the cook help to make the gluttony, you help to
make the diseases, Doll: we catch of you, Doll, we
catch of you; grant that, my poor virtue grant that.
DOLL TEARSHEET
Yea, joy, our chains and our jewels.
FALSTAFF
'Your broaches, pearls, and ouches:' for to serve
bravely is to come halting off, you know: to come
off the breach with his pike bent bravely, and to
surgery bravely; to venture upon the charged
chambers bravely,--
DOLL TEARSHEET
Hang yourself, you muddy conger, hang yourself!
MISTRESS QUICKLY
By my troth, this is the old fashion; you two never
meet but you fall to some discord: you are both,
i' good truth, as rheumatic as two dry toasts; you
cannot one bear with another's confirmities. What
the good-year! one must bear, and that must be
you: you are the weaker vessel, as they say, the
emptier vessel.
DOLL TEARSHEET
Can a weak empty vessel bear such a huge full
hogshead? there's a whole merchant's venture of
Bourdeaux stuff in him; you have not seen a hulk
better stuffed in the hold. Come, I'll be friends
with thee, Jack: thou art going to the wars; and
whether I shall ever see thee again or no, there is
nobody cares.
Re-enter First Drawer
First Drawer
Sir, Ancient Pistol's below, and would speak with
you.
DOLL TEARSHEET
Hang him, swaggering rascal! let him not come
hither: it is the foul-mouthed'st rogue in England.
MISTRESS QUICKLY
If he swagger, let him not come here: no, by my
faith; I must live among my neighbours: I'll no
swaggerers: I am in good name and fame with the
very best: shut the door; there comes no swaggerers
here: I have not lived all this while, to have
swaggering now: shut the door, I pray you.
FALSTAFF
Dost thou hear, hostess?
MISTRESS QUICKLY
Pray ye, pacify yourself, Sir John: there comes no
swaggerers here.
FALSTAFF
Dost thou hear? it is mine ancient.
MISTRESS QUICKLY
Tilly-fally, Sir John, ne'er tell me: your ancient
swaggerer comes not in my doors. I was before Master
Tisick, the debuty, t'other day; and, as he said to
me, 'twas no longer ago than Wednesday last, 'I'
good faith, neighbour Quickly,' says he; Master
Dumbe, our minister, was by then; 'neighbour
Quickly,' says he, 'receive those that are civil;
for,' said he, 'you are in an ill name:' now a'
said so, I can tell whereupon; 'for,' says he, 'you
are an honest woman, and well thought on; therefore
take heed what guests you receive: receive,' says
he, 'no swaggering companions.' There comes none
here: you would bless you to hear what he said:
no, I'll no swaggerers.
FALSTAFF
He's no swaggerer, hostess; a tame cheater, i'
faith; you may stroke him as gently as a puppy
greyhound: he'll not swagger with a Barbary hen, if
her feathers turn back in any show of resistance.
Call him up, drawer.
Exit First Drawer
MISTRESS QUICKLY
Cheater, call you him? I will bar no honest man my
house, nor no cheater: but I do not love
swaggering, by my troth; I am the worse, when one
says swagger: feel, masters, how I shake; look you,
I warrant you.
DOLL TEARSHEET
So you do, hostess.
MISTRESS QUICKLY
Do I? yea, in very truth, do I, an 'twere an aspen
leaf: I cannot abide swaggerers.
Enter PISTOL, BARDOLPH, and Page
PISTOL
God save you, Sir John!
FALSTAFF
Welcome, Ancient Pistol. Here, Pistol, I charge
you with a cup of sack: do you discharge upon mine hostess.
PISTOL
I will discharge upon her, Sir John, with two bullets.
FALSTAFF
She is Pistol-proof, sir; you shall hardly offend
her.
MISTRESS QUICKLY
Come, I'll drink no proofs nor no bullets: I'll
drink no more than will do me good, for no man's
pleasure, I.
PISTOL
Then to you, Mistress Dorothy; I will charge you.
DOLL TEARSHEET
Charge me! I scorn you, scurvy companion. What!
you poor, base, rascally, cheating, lack-linen
mate! Away, you mouldy rogue, away! I am meat for
your master.
PISTOL
I know you, Mistress Dorothy.
DOLL TEARSHEET
Away, you cut-purse rascal! you filthy bung, away!
by this wine, I'll thrust my knife in your mouldy
chaps, an you play the saucy cuttle with me. Away,
you bottle-ale rascal! you basket-hilt stale
juggler, you! Since when, I pray you, sir? God's
light, with two points on your shoulder? much!
PISTOL
God let me not live, but I will murder your ruff for this.
FALSTAFF
No more, Pistol; I would not have you go off here:
discharge yourself of our company, Pistol.
MISTRESS QUICKLY
No, Good Captain Pistol; not here, sweet captain.
DOLL TEARSHEET
Captain! thou abominable damned cheater, art thou
not ashamed to be called captain? An captains were
of my mind, they would truncheon you out, for
taking their names upon you before you have earned
them. You a captain! you slave, for what? for
tearing a poor whore's ruff in a bawdy-house? He a
captain! hang him, rogue! he lives upon mouldy
stewed prunes and dried cakes. A captain! God's
light, these villains will make the word as odious
as the word 'occupy;' which was an excellent good
word before it was ill sorted: therefore captains
had need look to 't.
BARDOLPH
Pray thee, go down, good ancient.
FALSTAFF
Hark thee hither, Mistress Doll.
PISTOL
Not I I tell thee what, Corporal Bardolph, I could
tear her: I'll be revenged of her.
Page
Pray thee, go down.
PISTOL
I'll see her damned first; to Pluto's damned lake,
by this hand, to the infernal deep, with Erebus and
tortures vile also. Hold hook and line, say I.
Down, down, dogs! down, faitors! Have we not
Hiren here?
MISTRESS QUICKLY
Good Captain Peesel, be quiet; 'tis very late, i'
faith: I beseek you now, aggravate your choler.
PISTOL
These be good humours, indeed! Shall pack-horses
And hollow pamper'd jades of Asia,
Which cannot go but thirty mile a-day,
Compare with Caesars, and with Cannibals,
And Trojan Greeks? nay, rather damn them with
King Cerberus; and let the welkin roar.
Shall we fall foul for toys?
MISTRESS QUICKLY
By my troth, captain, these are very bitter words.
BARDOLPH
Be gone, good ancient: this will grow to abrawl anon.
PISTOL
Die men like dogs! give crowns like pins! Have we
not Heren here?
MISTRESS QUICKLY
O' my word, captain, there's none such here. What
the good-year! do you think I would deny her? For
God's sake, be quiet.
PISTOL
Then feed, and be fat, my fair Calipolis.
Come, give's some sack.
'Si fortune me tormente, sperato me contento.'
Fear we broadsides? no, let the fiend give fire:
Give me some sack: and, sweetheart, lie thou there.
Laying down his sword
Come we to full points here; and are etceteras nothing?
FALSTAFF
Pistol, I would be quiet.
PISTOL
Sweet knight, I kiss thy neaf: what! we have seen
the seven stars.
DOLL TEARSHEET
For God's sake, thrust him down stairs: I cannot
endure such a fustian rascal.
PISTOL
Thrust him down stairs! know we not Galloway nags?
FALSTAFF
Quoit him down, Bardolph, like a shove-groat
shilling: nay, an a' do nothing but speak nothing,
a' shall be nothing here.
BARDOLPH
Come, get you down stairs.
PISTOL
What! shall we have incision? shall we imbrue?
Snatching up his sword
Then death rock me asleep, abridge my doleful days!
Why, then, let grievous, ghastly, gaping wounds
Untwine the Sisters Three! Come, Atropos, I say!
MISTRESS QUICKLY
Here's goodly stuff toward!
FALSTAFF
Give me my rapier, boy.
DOLL TEARSHEET
I pray thee, Jack, I pray thee, do not draw.
FALSTAFF
Get you down stairs.
Drawing, and driving PISTOL out
MISTRESS QUICKLY
Here's a goodly tumult! I'll forswear keeping
house, afore I'll be in these tirrits and frights.
So; murder, I warrant now. Alas, alas! put up
your naked weapons, put up your naked weapons.
Exeunt PISTOL and BARDOLPH
DOLL TEARSHEET
I pray thee, Jack, be quiet; the rascal's gone.
Ah, you whoreson little valiant villain, you!
MISTRESS QUICKLY
He you not hurt i' the groin? methought a' made a
shrewd thrust at your belly.
Re-enter BARDOLPH
FALSTAFF
Have you turned him out o' doors?
BARDOLPH
Yea, sir. The rascal's drunk: you have hurt him,
sir, i' the shoulder.
FALSTAFF
A rascal! to brave me!
DOLL TEARSHEET
Ah, you sweet little rogue, you! alas, poor ape,
how thou sweatest! come, let me wipe thy face;
come on, you whoreson chops: ah, rogue! i'faith, I
love thee: thou art as valorous as Hector of Troy,
worth five of Agamemnon, and ten times better than
the Nine Worthies: ah, villain!
FALSTAFF
A rascally slave! I will toss the rogue in a blanket.
DOLL TEARSHEET
Do, an thou darest for thy heart: an thou dost,
I'll canvass thee between a pair of sheets.
Enter Music
Page
The music is come, sir.
FALSTAFF
Let them play. Play, sirs. Sit on my knee, Doll.
A rascal bragging slave! the rogue fled from me
like quicksilver.
DOLL TEARSHEET
I' faith, and thou followedst him like a church.
Thou whoreson little tidy Bartholomew boar-pig,
when wilt thou leave fighting o' days and foining
o' nights, and begin to patch up thine old body for heaven?
Enter, behind, PRINCE HENRY and POINS, disguised
FALSTAFF
Peace, good Doll! do not speak like a death's-head;
do not bid me remember mine end.
DOLL TEARSHEET
Sirrah, what humour's the prince of?
FALSTAFF
A good shallow young fellow: a' would have made a
good pantler, a' would ha' chipp'd bread well.
DOLL TEARSHEET
They say Poins has a good wit.
FALSTAFF
He a good wit? hang him, baboon! his wit's as thick
as Tewksbury mustard; there's no more conceit in him
than is in a mallet.
DOLL TEARSHEET
Why does the prince love him so, then?
FALSTAFF
Because their legs are both of a bigness, and a'
plays at quoits well, and eats conger and fennel,
and drinks off candles' ends for flap-dragons, and
rides the wild-mare with the boys, and jumps upon
joined-stools, and swears with a good grace, and
wears his boots very smooth, like unto the sign of
the leg, and breeds no bate with telling of discreet
stories; and such other gambol faculties a' has,
that show a weak mind and an able body, for the
which the prince admits him: for the prince himself
is such another; the weight of a hair will turn the
scales between their avoirdupois.
PRINCE HENRY
Would not this nave of a wheel have his ears cut off?
POINS
Let's beat him before his whore.
PRINCE HENRY
Look, whether the withered elder hath not his poll
clawed like a parrot.
POINS
Is it not strange that desire should so many years
outlive performance?
FALSTAFF
Kiss me, Doll.
PRINCE HENRY
Saturn and Venus this year in conjunction! what
says the almanac to that?
POINS
And look, whether the fiery Trigon, his man, be not
lisping to his master's old tables, his note-book,
his counsel-keeper.
FALSTAFF
Thou dost give me flattering busses.
DOLL TEARSHEET
By my troth, I kiss thee with a most constant heart.
FALSTAFF
I am old, I am old.
DOLL TEARSHEET
I love thee better than I love e'er a scurvy young
boy of them all.
FALSTAFF
What stuff wilt have a kirtle of? I shall receive
money o' Thursday: shalt have a cap to-morrow. A
merry song, come: it grows late; we'll to bed.
Thou'lt forget me when I am gone.
DOLL TEARSHEET
By my troth, thou'lt set me a-weeping, an thou
sayest so: prove that ever I dress myself handsome
till thy return: well, harken at the end.
FALSTAFF
Some sack, Francis.
PRINCE HENRY POINS
Anon, anon, sir.
Coming forward
FALSTAFF
Ha! a bastard son of the king's? And art not thou
Poins his brother?
PRINCE HENRY
Why, thou globe of sinful continents! what a life
dost thou lead!
FALSTAFF
A better than thou: I am a gentleman; thou art a drawer.
PRINCE HENRY
Very true, sir; and I come to draw you out by the ears.
MISTRESS QUICKLY
O, the Lord preserve thy good grace! by my troth,
welcome to London. Now, the Lord bless that sweet
face of thine! O, Jesu, are you come from Wales?
FALSTAFF
Thou whoreson mad compound of majesty, by this light
flesh and corrupt blood, thou art welcome.
DOLL TEARSHEET
How, you fat fool! I scorn you.
POINS
My lord, he will drive you out of your revenge and
turn all to a merriment, if you take not the heat.
PRINCE HENRY
You whoreson candle-mine, you, how vilely did you
speak of me even now before this honest, virtuous,
civil gentlewoman!
MISTRESS QUICKLY
God's blessing of your good heart! and so she is,
by my troth.
FALSTAFF
Didst thou hear me?
PRINCE HENRY
Yea, and you knew me, as you did when you ran away
by Gad's-hill: you knew I was at your back, and
spoke it on purpose to try my patience.
FALSTAFF
No, no, no; not so; I did not think thou wast within hearing.
PRINCE HENRY
I shall drive you then to confess the wilful abuse;
and then I know how to handle you.
FALSTAFF
No abuse, Hal, o' mine honour, no abuse.
PRINCE HENRY
Not to dispraise me, and call me pantier and
bread-chipper and I know not what?
FALSTAFF
No abuse, Hal.
POINS
No abuse?
FALSTAFF
No abuse, Ned, i' the world; honest Ned, none. I
dispraised him before the wicked, that the wicked
might not fall in love with him; in which doing, I
have done the part of a careful friend and a true
subject, and thy father is to give me thanks for it.
No abuse, Hal: none, Ned, none: no, faith, boys, none.
PRINCE HENRY
See now, whether pure fear and entire cowardice doth
not make thee wrong this virtuous gentlewoman to
close with us? is she of the wicked? is thine
hostess here of the wicked? or is thy boy of the
wicked? or honest Bardolph, whose zeal burns in his
nose, of the wicked?
POINS
Answer, thou dead elm, answer.
FALSTAFF
The fiend hath pricked down Bardolph irrecoverable;
and his face is Lucifer's privy-kitchen, where he
doth nothing but roast malt-worms. For the boy,
there is a good angel about him; but the devil
outbids him too.
PRINCE HENRY
For the women?
FALSTAFF
For one of them, she is in hell already, and burns
poor souls. For the other, I owe her money, and
whether she be damned for that, I know not.
MISTRESS QUICKLY
No, I warrant you.
FALSTAFF
No, I think thou art not; I think thou art quit for
that. Marry, there is another indictment upon thee,
for suffering flesh to be eaten in thy house,
contrary to the law; for the which I think thou wilt howl.
MISTRESS QUICKLY
All victuallers do so; what's a joint of mutton or
two in a whole Lent?
PRINCE HENRY
You, gentlewoman,-
DOLL TEARSHEET
What says your grace?
FALSTAFF
His grace says that which his flesh rebels against.
Knocking within
MISTRESS QUICKLY
Who knocks so loud at door? Look to the door there, Francis.
Enter PETO
PRINCE HENRY
Peto, how now! what news?
PETO
The king your father is at Westminster:
And there are twenty weak and wearied posts
Come from the north: and, as I came along,
I met and overtook a dozen captains,
Bare-headed, sweating, knocking at the taverns,
And asking every one for Sir John Falstaff.
PRINCE HENRY
By heaven, Poins, I feel me much to blame,
So idly to profane the precious time,
When tempest of commotion, like the south
Borne with black vapour, doth begin to melt
And drop upon our bare unarmed heads.
Give me my sword and cloak. Falstaff, good night.
Exeunt PRINCE HENRY, POINS, PETO and BARDOLPH
FALSTAFF
Now comes in the sweetest morsel of the night, and
we must hence and leave it unpicked.
Knocking within
More knocking at the door!
Re-enter BARDOLPH
How now! what's the matter?
BARDOLPH
You must away to court, sir, presently;
A dozen captains stay at door for you.
FALSTAFF
[To the Page] Pay the musicians, sirrah. Farewell,
hostess; farewell, Doll. You see, my good wenches,
how men of merit are sought after: the undeserver
may sleep, when the man of action is called on.
Farewell good wenches: if I be not sent away post,
I will see you again ere I go.
DOLL TEARSHEET
I cannot speak; if my heart be not read to burst,--
well, sweet Jack, have a care of thyself.
FALSTAFF
Farewell, farewell.
Exeunt FALSTAFF and BARDOLPH
MISTRESS QUICKLY
Well, fare thee well: I have known thee these
twenty-nine years, come peascod-time; but an
honester and truer-hearted man,--well, fare thee well.
BARDOLPH
[Within] Mistress Tearsheet!
MISTRESS QUICKLY
What's the matter?
BARDOLPH
[Within] Good Mistress Tearsheet, come to my master.
MISTRESS QUICKLY
O, run, Doll, run; run, good Doll: come.
She comes blubbered
Yea, will you come, Doll?
Exeunt
Enter two Drawers
First Drawer
What the devil hast thou brought there? apple-johns?
thou knowest Sir John cannot endure an apple-john.
Second Drawer
Mass, thou sayest true. The prince once set a dish
of apple-johns before him, and told him there were
five more Sir Johns, and, putting off his hat, said
'I will now take my leave of these six dry, round,
old, withered knights.' It angered him to the
heart: but he hath forgot that.
First Drawer
Why, then, cover, and set them down: and see if
thou canst find out Sneak's noise; Mistress
Tearsheet would fain hear some music. Dispatch: the
room where they supped is too hot; they'll come in straight.
Second Drawer
Sirrah, here will be the prince and Master Poins
anon; and they will put on two of our jerkins and
aprons; and Sir John must not know of it: Bardolph
hath brought word.
First Drawer
By the mass, here will be old Utis: it will be an
excellent stratagem.
Second Drawer
I'll see if I can find out Sneak.
Exit
Enter MISTRESS QUICKLY and DOLL TEARSHEET
MISTRESS QUICKLY
I' faith, sweetheart, methinks now you are in an
excellent good temperality: your pulsidge beats as
extraordinarily as heart would desire; and your
colour, I warrant you, is as red as any rose, in good
truth, la! But, i' faith, you have drunk too much
canaries; and that's a marvellous searching wine,
and it perfumes the blood ere one can say 'What's
this?' How do you now?
DOLL TEARSHEET
Better than I was: hem!
MISTRESS QUICKLY
Why, that's well said; a good heart's worth gold.
Lo, here comes Sir John.
Enter FALSTAFF
FALSTAFF
[Singing] 'When Arthur first in court,'
--Empty the jordan.
Exit First Drawer
Singing
--'And was a worthy king.' How now, Mistress Doll!
MISTRESS QUICKLY
Sick of a calm; yea, good faith.
FALSTAFF
So is all her sect; an they be once in a calm, they are sick.
DOLL TEARSHEET
You muddy rascal, is that all the comfort you give me?
FALSTAFF
You make fat rascals, Mistress Doll.
DOLL TEARSHEET
I make them! gluttony and diseases make them; I
make them not.
FALSTAFF
If the cook help to make the gluttony, you help to
make the diseases, Doll: we catch of you, Doll, we
catch of you; grant that, my poor virtue grant that.
DOLL TEARSHEET
Yea, joy, our chains and our jewels.
FALSTAFF
'Your broaches, pearls, and ouches:' for to serve
bravely is to come halting off, you know: to come
off the breach with his pike bent bravely, and to
surgery bravely; to venture upon the charged
chambers bravely,--
DOLL TEARSHEET
Hang yourself, you muddy conger, hang yourself!
MISTRESS QUICKLY
By my troth, this is the old fashion; you two never
meet but you fall to some discord: you are both,
i' good truth, as rheumatic as two dry toasts; you
cannot one bear with another's confirmities. What
the good-year! one must bear, and that must be
you: you are the weaker vessel, as they say, the
emptier vessel.
DOLL TEARSHEET
Can a weak empty vessel bear such a huge full
hogshead? there's a whole merchant's venture of
Bourdeaux stuff in him; you have not seen a hulk
better stuffed in the hold. Come, I'll be friends
with thee, Jack: thou art going to the wars; and
whether I shall ever see thee again or no, there is
nobody cares.
Re-enter First Drawer
First Drawer
Sir, Ancient Pistol's below, and would speak with
you.
DOLL TEARSHEET
Hang him, swaggering rascal! let him not come
hither: it is the foul-mouthed'st rogue in England.
MISTRESS QUICKLY
If he swagger, let him not come here: no, by my
faith; I must live among my neighbours: I'll no
swaggerers: I am in good name and fame with the
very best: shut the door; there comes no swaggerers
here: I have not lived all this while, to have
swaggering now: shut the door, I pray you.
FALSTAFF
Dost thou hear, hostess?
MISTRESS QUICKLY
Pray ye, pacify yourself, Sir John: there comes no
swaggerers here.
FALSTAFF
Dost thou hear? it is mine ancient.
MISTRESS QUICKLY
Tilly-fally, Sir John, ne'er tell me: your ancient
swaggerer comes not in my doors. I was before Master
Tisick, the debuty, t'other day; and, as he said to
me, 'twas no longer ago than Wednesday last, 'I'
good faith, neighbour Quickly,' says he; Master
Dumbe, our minister, was by then; 'neighbour
Quickly,' says he, 'receive those that are civil;
for,' said he, 'you are in an ill name:' now a'
said so, I can tell whereupon; 'for,' says he, 'you
are an honest woman, and well thought on; therefore
take heed what guests you receive: receive,' says
he, 'no swaggering companions.' There comes none
here: you would bless you to hear what he said:
no, I'll no swaggerers.
FALSTAFF
He's no swaggerer, hostess; a tame cheater, i'
faith; you may stroke him as gently as a puppy
greyhound: he'll not swagger with a Barbary hen, if
her feathers turn back in any show of resistance.
Call him up, drawer.
Exit First Drawer
MISTRESS QUICKLY
Cheater, call you him? I will bar no honest man my
house, nor no cheater: but I do not love
swaggering, by my troth; I am the worse, when one
says swagger: feel, masters, how I shake; look you,
I warrant you.
DOLL TEARSHEET
So you do, hostess.
MISTRESS QUICKLY
Do I? yea, in very truth, do I, an 'twere an aspen
leaf: I cannot abide swaggerers.
Enter PISTOL, BARDOLPH, and Page
PISTOL
God save you, Sir John!
FALSTAFF
Welcome, Ancient Pistol. Here, Pistol, I charge
you with a cup of sack: do you discharge upon mine hostess.
PISTOL
I will discharge upon her, Sir John, with two bullets.
FALSTAFF
She is Pistol-proof, sir; you shall hardly offend
her.
MISTRESS QUICKLY
Come, I'll drink no proofs nor no bullets: I'll
drink no more than will do me good, for no man's
pleasure, I.
PISTOL
Then to you, Mistress Dorothy; I will charge you.
DOLL TEARSHEET
Charge me! I scorn you, scurvy companion. What!
you poor, base, rascally, cheating, lack-linen
mate! Away, you mouldy rogue, away! I am meat for
your master.
PISTOL
I know you, Mistress Dorothy.
DOLL TEARSHEET
Away, you cut-purse rascal! you filthy bung, away!
by this wine, I'll thrust my knife in your mouldy
chaps, an you play the saucy cuttle with me. Away,
you bottle-ale rascal! you basket-hilt stale
juggler, you! Since when, I pray you, sir? God's
light, with two points on your shoulder? much!
PISTOL
God let me not live, but I will murder your ruff for this.
FALSTAFF
No more, Pistol; I would not have you go off here:
discharge yourself of our company, Pistol.
MISTRESS QUICKLY
No, Good Captain Pistol; not here, sweet captain.
DOLL TEARSHEET
Captain! thou abominable damned cheater, art thou
not ashamed to be called captain? An captains were
of my mind, they would truncheon you out, for
taking their names upon you before you have earned
them. You a captain! you slave, for what? for
tearing a poor whore's ruff in a bawdy-house? He a
captain! hang him, rogue! he lives upon mouldy
stewed prunes and dried cakes. A captain! God's
light, these villains will make the word as odious
as the word 'occupy;' which was an excellent good
word before it was ill sorted: therefore captains
had need look to 't.
BARDOLPH
Pray thee, go down, good ancient.
FALSTAFF
Hark thee hither, Mistress Doll.
PISTOL
Not I I tell thee what, Corporal Bardolph, I could
tear her: I'll be revenged of her.
Page
Pray thee, go down.
PISTOL
I'll see her damned first; to Pluto's damned lake,
by this hand, to the infernal deep, with Erebus and
tortures vile also. Hold hook and line, say I.
Down, down, dogs! down, faitors! Have we not
Hiren here?
MISTRESS QUICKLY
Good Captain Peesel, be quiet; 'tis very late, i'
faith: I beseek you now, aggravate your choler.
PISTOL
These be good humours, indeed! Shall pack-horses
And hollow pamper'd jades of Asia,
Which cannot go but thirty mile a-day,
Compare with Caesars, and with Cannibals,
And Trojan Greeks? nay, rather damn them with
King Cerberus; and let the welkin roar.
Shall we fall foul for toys?
MISTRESS QUICKLY
By my troth, captain, these are very bitter words.
BARDOLPH
Be gone, good ancient: this will grow to abrawl anon.
PISTOL
Die men like dogs! give crowns like pins! Have we
not Heren here?
MISTRESS QUICKLY
O' my word, captain, there's none such here. What
the good-year! do you think I would deny her? For
God's sake, be quiet.
PISTOL
Then feed, and be fat, my fair Calipolis.
Come, give's some sack.
'Si fortune me tormente, sperato me contento.'
Fear we broadsides? no, let the fiend give fire:
Give me some sack: and, sweetheart, lie thou there.
Laying down his sword
Come we to full points here; and are etceteras nothing?
FALSTAFF
Pistol, I would be quiet.
PISTOL
Sweet knight, I kiss thy neaf: what! we have seen
the seven stars.
DOLL TEARSHEET
For God's sake, thrust him down stairs: I cannot
endure such a fustian rascal.
PISTOL
Thrust him down stairs! know we not Galloway nags?
FALSTAFF
Quoit him down, Bardolph, like a shove-groat
shilling: nay, an a' do nothing but speak nothing,
a' shall be nothing here.
BARDOLPH
Come, get you down stairs.
PISTOL
What! shall we have incision? shall we imbrue?
Snatching up his sword
Then death rock me asleep, abridge my doleful days!
Why, then, let grievous, ghastly, gaping wounds
Untwine the Sisters Three! Come, Atropos, I say!
MISTRESS QUICKLY
Here's goodly stuff toward!
FALSTAFF
Give me my rapier, boy.
DOLL TEARSHEET
I pray thee, Jack, I pray thee, do not draw.
FALSTAFF
Get you down stairs.
Drawing, and driving PISTOL out
MISTRESS QUICKLY
Here's a goodly tumult! I'll forswear keeping
house, afore I'll be in these tirrits and frights.
So; murder, I warrant now. Alas, alas! put up
your naked weapons, put up your naked weapons.
Exeunt PISTOL and BARDOLPH
DOLL TEARSHEET
I pray thee, Jack, be quiet; the rascal's gone.
Ah, you whoreson little valiant villain, you!
MISTRESS QUICKLY
He you not hurt i' the groin? methought a' made a
shrewd thrust at your belly.
Re-enter BARDOLPH
FALSTAFF
Have you turned him out o' doors?
BARDOLPH
Yea, sir. The rascal's drunk: you have hurt him,
sir, i' the shoulder.
FALSTAFF
A rascal! to brave me!
DOLL TEARSHEET
Ah, you sweet little rogue, you! alas, poor ape,
how thou sweatest! come, let me wipe thy face;
come on, you whoreson chops: ah, rogue! i'faith, I
love thee: thou art as valorous as Hector of Troy,
worth five of Agamemnon, and ten times better than
the Nine Worthies: ah, villain!
FALSTAFF
A rascally slave! I will toss the rogue in a blanket.
DOLL TEARSHEET
Do, an thou darest for thy heart: an thou dost,
I'll canvass thee between a pair of sheets.
Enter Music
Page
The music is come, sir.
FALSTAFF
Let them play. Play, sirs. Sit on my knee, Doll.
A rascal bragging slave! the rogue fled from me
like quicksilver.
DOLL TEARSHEET
I' faith, and thou followedst him like a church.
Thou whoreson little tidy Bartholomew boar-pig,
when wilt thou leave fighting o' days and foining
o' nights, and begin to patch up thine old body for heaven?
Enter, behind, PRINCE HENRY and POINS, disguised
FALSTAFF
Peace, good Doll! do not speak like a death's-head;
do not bid me remember mine end.
DOLL TEARSHEET
Sirrah, what humour's the prince of?
FALSTAFF
A good shallow young fellow: a' would have made a
good pantler, a' would ha' chipp'd bread well.
DOLL TEARSHEET
They say Poins has a good wit.
FALSTAFF
He a good wit? hang him, baboon! his wit's as thick
as Tewksbury mustard; there's no more conceit in him
than is in a mallet.
DOLL TEARSHEET
Why does the prince love him so, then?
FALSTAFF
Because their legs are both of a bigness, and a'
plays at quoits well, and eats conger and fennel,
and drinks off candles' ends for flap-dragons, and
rides the wild-mare with the boys, and jumps upon
joined-stools, and swears with a good grace, and
wears his boots very smooth, like unto the sign of
the leg, and breeds no bate with telling of discreet
stories; and such other gambol faculties a' has,
that show a weak mind and an able body, for the
which the prince admits him: for the prince himself
is such another; the weight of a hair will turn the
scales between their avoirdupois.
PRINCE HENRY
Would not this nave of a wheel have his ears cut off?
POINS
Let's beat him before his whore.
PRINCE HENRY
Look, whether the withered elder hath not his poll
clawed like a parrot.
POINS
Is it not strange that desire should so many years
outlive performance?
FALSTAFF
Kiss me, Doll.
PRINCE HENRY
Saturn and Venus this year in conjunction! what
says the almanac to that?
POINS
And look, whether the fiery Trigon, his man, be not
lisping to his master's old tables, his note-book,
his counsel-keeper.
FALSTAFF
Thou dost give me flattering busses.
DOLL TEARSHEET
By my troth, I kiss thee with a most constant heart.
FALSTAFF
I am old, I am old.
DOLL TEARSHEET
I love thee better than I love e'er a scurvy young
boy of them all.
FALSTAFF
What stuff wilt have a kirtle of? I shall receive
money o' Thursday: shalt have a cap to-morrow. A
merry song, come: it grows late; we'll to bed.
Thou'lt forget me when I am gone.
DOLL TEARSHEET
By my troth, thou'lt set me a-weeping, an thou
sayest so: prove that ever I dress myself handsome
till thy return: well, harken at the end.
FALSTAFF
Some sack, Francis.
PRINCE HENRY POINS
Anon, anon, sir.
Coming forward
FALSTAFF
Ha! a bastard son of the king's? And art not thou
Poins his brother?
PRINCE HENRY
Why, thou globe of sinful continents! what a life
dost thou lead!
FALSTAFF
A better than thou: I am a gentleman; thou art a drawer.
PRINCE HENRY
Very true, sir; and I come to draw you out by the ears.
MISTRESS QUICKLY
O, the Lord preserve thy good grace! by my troth,
welcome to London. Now, the Lord bless that sweet
face of thine! O, Jesu, are you come from Wales?
FALSTAFF
Thou whoreson mad compound of majesty, by this light
flesh and corrupt blood, thou art welcome.
DOLL TEARSHEET
How, you fat fool! I scorn you.
POINS
My lord, he will drive you out of your revenge and
turn all to a merriment, if you take not the heat.
PRINCE HENRY
You whoreson candle-mine, you, how vilely did you
speak of me even now before this honest, virtuous,
civil gentlewoman!
MISTRESS QUICKLY
God's blessing of your good heart! and so she is,
by my troth.
FALSTAFF
Didst thou hear me?
PRINCE HENRY
Yea, and you knew me, as you did when you ran away
by Gad's-hill: you knew I was at your back, and
spoke it on purpose to try my patience.
FALSTAFF
No, no, no; not so; I did not think thou wast within hearing.
PRINCE HENRY
I shall drive you then to confess the wilful abuse;
and then I know how to handle you.
FALSTAFF
No abuse, Hal, o' mine honour, no abuse.
PRINCE HENRY
Not to dispraise me, and call me pantier and
bread-chipper and I know not what?
FALSTAFF
No abuse, Hal.
POINS
No abuse?
FALSTAFF
No abuse, Ned, i' the world; honest Ned, none. I
dispraised him before the wicked, that the wicked
might not fall in love with him; in which doing, I
have done the part of a careful friend and a true
subject, and thy father is to give me thanks for it.
No abuse, Hal: none, Ned, none: no, faith, boys, none.
PRINCE HENRY
See now, whether pure fear and entire cowardice doth
not make thee wrong this virtuous gentlewoman to
close with us? is she of the wicked? is thine
hostess here of the wicked? or is thy boy of the
wicked? or honest Bardolph, whose zeal burns in his
nose, of the wicked?
POINS
Answer, thou dead elm, answer.
FALSTAFF
The fiend hath pricked down Bardolph irrecoverable;
and his face is Lucifer's privy-kitchen, where he
doth nothing but roast malt-worms. For the boy,
there is a good angel about him; but the devil
outbids him too.
PRINCE HENRY
For the women?
FALSTAFF
For one of them, she is in hell already, and burns
poor souls. For the other, I owe her money, and
whether she be damned for that, I know not.
MISTRESS QUICKLY
No, I warrant you.
FALSTAFF
No, I think thou art not; I think thou art quit for
that. Marry, there is another indictment upon thee,
for suffering flesh to be eaten in thy house,
contrary to the law; for the which I think thou wilt howl.
MISTRESS QUICKLY
All victuallers do so; what's a joint of mutton or
two in a whole Lent?
PRINCE HENRY
You, gentlewoman,-
DOLL TEARSHEET
What says your grace?
FALSTAFF
His grace says that which his flesh rebels against.
Knocking within
MISTRESS QUICKLY
Who knocks so loud at door? Look to the door there, Francis.
Enter PETO
PRINCE HENRY
Peto, how now! what news?
PETO
The king your father is at Westminster:
And there are twenty weak and wearied posts
Come from the north: and, as I came along,
I met and overtook a dozen captains,
Bare-headed, sweating, knocking at the taverns,
And asking every one for Sir John Falstaff.
PRINCE HENRY
By heaven, Poins, I feel me much to blame,
So idly to profane the precious time,
When tempest of commotion, like the south
Borne with black vapour, doth begin to melt
And drop upon our bare unarmed heads.
Give me my sword and cloak. Falstaff, good night.
Exeunt PRINCE HENRY, POINS, PETO and BARDOLPH
FALSTAFF
Now comes in the sweetest morsel of the night, and
we must hence and leave it unpicked.
Knocking within
More knocking at the door!
Re-enter BARDOLPH
How now! what's the matter?
BARDOLPH
You must away to court, sir, presently;
A dozen captains stay at door for you.
FALSTAFF
[To the Page] Pay the musicians, sirrah. Farewell,
hostess; farewell, Doll. You see, my good wenches,
how men of merit are sought after: the undeserver
may sleep, when the man of action is called on.
Farewell good wenches: if I be not sent away post,
I will see you again ere I go.
DOLL TEARSHEET
I cannot speak; if my heart be not read to burst,--
well, sweet Jack, have a care of thyself.
FALSTAFF
Farewell, farewell.
Exeunt FALSTAFF and BARDOLPH
MISTRESS QUICKLY
Well, fare thee well: I have known thee these
twenty-nine years, come peascod-time; but an
honester and truer-hearted man,--well, fare thee well.
BARDOLPH
[Within] Mistress Tearsheet!
MISTRESS QUICKLY
What's the matter?
BARDOLPH
[Within] Good Mistress Tearsheet, come to my master.
MISTRESS QUICKLY
O, run, Doll, run; run, good Doll: come.
She comes blubbered
Yea, will you come, Doll?
Exeunt
Henry IV Part 2, Act 2, Scene 3
Warkworth. Before the castle.
Enter NORTHUMBERLAND, LADY NORTHUMBERLAND, and LADY PERCY
NORTHUMBERLAND
I pray thee, loving wife, and gentle daughter,
Give even way unto my rough affairs:
Put not you on the visage of the times
And be like them to Percy troublesome.
LADY
NORTHUMBERLAND
I have given over, I will speak no more:
Do what you will; your wisdom be your guide.
NORTHUMBERLAND
Alas, sweet wife, my honour is at pawn;
And, but my going, nothing can redeem it.
LADY PERCY
O yet, for God's sake, go not to these wars!
The time was, father, that you broke your word,
When you were more endeared to it than now;
When your own Percy, when my heart's dear Harry,
Threw many a northward look to see his father
Bring up his powers; but he did long in vain.
Who then persuaded you to stay at home?
There were two honours lost, yours and your son's.
For yours, the God of heaven brighten it!
For his, it stuck upon him as the sun
In the grey vault of heaven, and by his light
Did all the chivalry of England move
To do brave acts: he was indeed the glass
Wherein the noble youth did dress themselves:
He had no legs that practised not his gait;
And speaking thick, which nature made his blemish,
Became the accents of the valiant;
For those that could speak low and tardily
Would turn their own perfection to abuse,
To seem like him: so that in speech, in gait,
In diet, in affections of delight,
In military rules, humours of blood,
He was the mark and glass, copy and book,
That fashion'd others. And him, O wondrous him!
O miracle of men! him did you leave,
Second to none, unseconded by you,
To look upon the hideous god of war
In disadvantage; to abide a field
Where nothing but the sound of Hotspur's name
Did seem defensible: so you left him.
Never, O never, do his ghost the wrong
To hold your honour more precise and nice
With others than with him! let them alone:
The marshal and the archbishop are strong:
Had my sweet Harry had but half their numbers,
To-day might I, hanging on Hotspur's neck,
Have talk'd of Monmouth's grave.
NORTHUMBERLAND
Beshrew your heart,
Fair daughter, you do draw my spirits from me
With new lamenting ancient oversights.
But I must go and meet with danger there,
Or it will seek me in another place
And find me worse provided.
LADY
NORTHUMBERLAND
O, fly to Scotland,
Till that the nobles and the armed commons
Have of their puissance made a little taste.
LADY PERCY
If they get ground and vantage of the king,
Then join you with them, like a rib of steel,
To make strength stronger; but, for all our loves,
First let them try themselves. So did your son;
He was so suffer'd: so came I a widow;
And never shall have length of life enough
To rain upon remembrance with mine eyes,
That it may grow and sprout as high as heaven,
For recordation to my noble husband.
NORTHUMBERLAND
Come, come, go in with me. 'Tis with my mind
As with the tide swell'd up unto his height,
That makes a still-stand, running neither way:
Fain would I go to meet the archbishop,
But many thousand reasons hold me back.
I will resolve for Scotland: there am I,
Till time and vantage crave my company.
Exeunt
Enter NORTHUMBERLAND, LADY NORTHUMBERLAND, and LADY PERCY
NORTHUMBERLAND
I pray thee, loving wife, and gentle daughter,
Give even way unto my rough affairs:
Put not you on the visage of the times
And be like them to Percy troublesome.
LADY
NORTHUMBERLAND
I have given over, I will speak no more:
Do what you will; your wisdom be your guide.
NORTHUMBERLAND
Alas, sweet wife, my honour is at pawn;
And, but my going, nothing can redeem it.
LADY PERCY
O yet, for God's sake, go not to these wars!
The time was, father, that you broke your word,
When you were more endeared to it than now;
When your own Percy, when my heart's dear Harry,
Threw many a northward look to see his father
Bring up his powers; but he did long in vain.
Who then persuaded you to stay at home?
There were two honours lost, yours and your son's.
For yours, the God of heaven brighten it!
For his, it stuck upon him as the sun
In the grey vault of heaven, and by his light
Did all the chivalry of England move
To do brave acts: he was indeed the glass
Wherein the noble youth did dress themselves:
He had no legs that practised not his gait;
And speaking thick, which nature made his blemish,
Became the accents of the valiant;
For those that could speak low and tardily
Would turn their own perfection to abuse,
To seem like him: so that in speech, in gait,
In diet, in affections of delight,
In military rules, humours of blood,
He was the mark and glass, copy and book,
That fashion'd others. And him, O wondrous him!
O miracle of men! him did you leave,
Second to none, unseconded by you,
To look upon the hideous god of war
In disadvantage; to abide a field
Where nothing but the sound of Hotspur's name
Did seem defensible: so you left him.
Never, O never, do his ghost the wrong
To hold your honour more precise and nice
With others than with him! let them alone:
The marshal and the archbishop are strong:
Had my sweet Harry had but half their numbers,
To-day might I, hanging on Hotspur's neck,
Have talk'd of Monmouth's grave.
NORTHUMBERLAND
Beshrew your heart,
Fair daughter, you do draw my spirits from me
With new lamenting ancient oversights.
But I must go and meet with danger there,
Or it will seek me in another place
And find me worse provided.
LADY
NORTHUMBERLAND
O, fly to Scotland,
Till that the nobles and the armed commons
Have of their puissance made a little taste.
LADY PERCY
If they get ground and vantage of the king,
Then join you with them, like a rib of steel,
To make strength stronger; but, for all our loves,
First let them try themselves. So did your son;
He was so suffer'd: so came I a widow;
And never shall have length of life enough
To rain upon remembrance with mine eyes,
That it may grow and sprout as high as heaven,
For recordation to my noble husband.
NORTHUMBERLAND
Come, come, go in with me. 'Tis with my mind
As with the tide swell'd up unto his height,
That makes a still-stand, running neither way:
Fain would I go to meet the archbishop,
But many thousand reasons hold me back.
I will resolve for Scotland: there am I,
Till time and vantage crave my company.
Exeunt
Henry IV Part 2, Act 2, Scene 2
London. Another street.
Enter PRINCE HENRY and POINS
PRINCE HENRY
Before God, I am exceeding weary.
POINS
Is't come to that? I had thought weariness durst not
have attached one of so high blood.
PRINCE HENRY
Faith, it does me; though it discolours the
complexion of my greatness to acknowledge it. Doth
it not show vilely in me to desire small beer?
POINS
Why, a prince should not be so loosely studied as
to remember so weak a composition.
PRINCE HENRY
Belike then my appetite was not princely got; for,
by my troth, I do now remember the poor creature,
small beer. But, indeed, these humble
considerations make me out of love with my
greatness. What a disgrace is it to me to remember
thy name! or to know thy face to-morrow! or to
take note how many pair of silk stockings thou
hast, viz. these, and those that were thy
peach-coloured ones! or to bear the inventory of thy
shirts, as, one for superfluity, and another for
use! But that the tennis-court-keeper knows better
than I; for it is a low ebb of linen with thee when
thou keepest not racket there; as thou hast not done
a great while, because the rest of thy low
countries have made a shift to eat up thy holland:
and God knows, whether those that bawl out the ruins
of thy linen shall inherit his kingdom: but the
midwives say the children are not in the fault;
whereupon the world increases, and kindreds are
mightily strengthened.
POINS
How ill it follows, after you have laboured so hard,
you should talk so idly! Tell me, how many good
young princes would do so, their fathers being so
sick as yours at this time is?
PRINCE HENRY
Shall I tell thee one thing, Poins?
POINS
Yes, faith; and let it be an excellent good thing.
PRINCE HENRY
It shall serve among wits of no higher breeding than thine.
POINS
Go to; I stand the push of your one thing that you
will tell.
PRINCE HENRY
Marry, I tell thee, it is not meet that I should be
sad, now my father is sick: albeit I could tell
thee, as to one it pleases me, for fault of a
better, to call my friend, I could be sad, and sad
indeed too.
POINS
Very hardly upon such a subject.
PRINCE HENRY
By this hand thou thinkest me as far in the devil's
book as thou and Falstaff for obduracy and
persistency: let the end try the man. But I tell
thee, my heart bleeds inwardly that my father is so
sick: and keeping such vile company as thou art
hath in reason taken from me all ostentation of sorrow.
POINS
The reason?
PRINCE HENRY
What wouldst thou think of me, if I should weep?
POINS
I would think thee a most princely hypocrite.
PRINCE HENRY
It would be every man's thought; and thou art a
blessed fellow to think as every man thinks: never
a man's thought in the world keeps the road-way
better than thine: every man would think me an
hypocrite indeed. And what accites your most
worshipful thought to think so?
POINS
Why, because you have been so lewd and so much
engraffed to Falstaff.
PRINCE HENRY
And to thee.
POINS
By this light, I am well spoke on; I can hear it
with my own ears: the worst that they can say of
me is that I am a second brother and that I am a
proper fellow of my hands; and those two things, I
confess, I cannot help. By the mass, here comes Bardolph.
Enter BARDOLPH and Page
PRINCE HENRY
And the boy that I gave Falstaff: a' had him from
me Christian; and look, if the fat villain have not
transformed him ape.
BARDOLPH
God save your grace!
PRINCE HENRY
And yours, most noble Bardolph!
BARDOLPH
Come, you virtuous ass, you bashful fool, must you
be blushing? wherefore blush you now? What a
maidenly man-at-arms are you become! Is't such a
matter to get a pottle-pot's maidenhead?
Page
A' calls me e'en now, my lord, through a red
lattice, and I could discern no part of his face
from the window: at last I spied his eyes, and
methought he had made two holes in the ale-wife's
new petticoat and so peeped through.
PRINCE HENRY
Has not the boy profited?
BARDOLPH
Away, you whoreson upright rabbit, away!
Page
Away, you rascally Althaea's dream, away!
PRINCE HENRY
Instruct us, boy; what dream, boy?
Page
Marry, my lord, Althaea dreamed she was delivered
of a fire-brand; and therefore I call him her dream.
PRINCE HENRY
A crown's worth of good interpretation: there 'tis,
boy.
POINS
O, that this good blossom could be kept from
cankers! Well, there is sixpence to preserve thee.
BARDOLPH
An you do not make him hanged among you, the
gallows shall have wrong.
PRINCE HENRY
And how doth thy master, Bardolph?
BARDOLPH
Well, my lord. He heard of your grace's coming to
town: there's a letter for you.
POINS
Delivered with good respect. And how doth the
martlemas, your master?
BARDOLPH
In bodily health, sir.
POINS
Marry, the immortal part needs a physician; but
that moves not him: though that be sick, it dies
not.
PRINCE HENRY
I do allow this wen to be as familiar with me as my
dog; and he holds his place; for look you how be writes.
POINS
[Reads] 'John Falstaff, knight,'--every man must
know that, as oft as he has occasion to name
himself: even like those that are kin to the king;
for they never prick their finger but they say,
'There's some of the king's blood spilt.' 'How
comes that?' says he, that takes upon him not to
conceive. The answer is as ready as a borrower's
cap, 'I am the king's poor cousin, sir.'
PRINCE HENRY
Nay, they will be kin to us, or they will fetch it
from Japhet. But to the letter.
POINS
[Reads] 'Sir John Falstaff, knight, to the son of
the king, nearest his father, Harry Prince of
Wales, greeting.' Why, this is a certificate.
PRINCE HENRY
Peace!
POINS
[Reads] 'I will imitate the honourable Romans in
brevity:' he sure means brevity in breath,
short-winded. 'I commend me to thee, I commend
thee, and I leave thee. Be not too familiar with
Poins; for he misuses thy favours so much, that he
swears thou art to marry his sister Nell. Repent
at idle times as thou mayest; and so, farewell.
Thine, by yea and no, which is as much as to
say, as thou usest him, JACK FALSTAFF with my
familiars, JOHN with my brothers and sisters,
and SIR JOHN with all Europe.'
My lord, I'll steep this letter in sack and make him eat it.
PRINCE HENRY
That's to make him eat twenty of his words. But do
you use me thus, Ned? must I marry your sister?
POINS
God send the wench no worse fortune! But I never said so.
PRINCE HENRY
Well, thus we play the fools with the time, and the
spirits of the wise sit in the clouds and mock us.
Is your master here in London?
BARDOLPH
Yea, my lord.
PRINCE HENRY
Where sups he? doth the old boar feed in the old frank?
BARDOLPH
At the old place, my lord, in Eastcheap.
PRINCE HENRY
What company?
Page
Ephesians, my lord, of the old church.
PRINCE HENRY
Sup any women with him?
Page
None, my lord, but old Mistress Quickly and
Mistress Doll Tearsheet.
PRINCE HENRY
What pagan may that be?
Page
A proper gentlewoman, sir, and a kinswoman of my master's.
PRINCE HENRY
Even such kin as the parish heifers are to the town
bull. Shall we steal upon them, Ned, at supper?
POINS
I am your shadow, my lord; I'll follow you.
PRINCE HENRY
Sirrah, you boy, and Bardolph, no word to your
master that I am yet come to town: there's for
your silence.
BARDOLPH
I have no tongue, sir.
Page
And for mine, sir, I will govern it.
PRINCE HENRY
Fare you well; go.
Exeunt BARDOLPH and Page
This Doll Tearsheet should be some road.
POINS
I warrant you, as common as the way between Saint
Alban's and London.
PRINCE HENRY
How might we see Falstaff bestow himself to-night
in his true colours, and not ourselves be seen?
POINS
Put on two leathern jerkins and aprons, and wait
upon him at his table as drawers.
PRINCE HENRY
From a God to a bull? a heavy decension! it was
Jove's case. From a prince to a prentice? a low
transformation! that shall be mine; for in every
thing the purpose must weigh with the folly.
Follow me, Ned.
Exeunt
Enter PRINCE HENRY and POINS
PRINCE HENRY
Before God, I am exceeding weary.
POINS
Is't come to that? I had thought weariness durst not
have attached one of so high blood.
PRINCE HENRY
Faith, it does me; though it discolours the
complexion of my greatness to acknowledge it. Doth
it not show vilely in me to desire small beer?
POINS
Why, a prince should not be so loosely studied as
to remember so weak a composition.
PRINCE HENRY
Belike then my appetite was not princely got; for,
by my troth, I do now remember the poor creature,
small beer. But, indeed, these humble
considerations make me out of love with my
greatness. What a disgrace is it to me to remember
thy name! or to know thy face to-morrow! or to
take note how many pair of silk stockings thou
hast, viz. these, and those that were thy
peach-coloured ones! or to bear the inventory of thy
shirts, as, one for superfluity, and another for
use! But that the tennis-court-keeper knows better
than I; for it is a low ebb of linen with thee when
thou keepest not racket there; as thou hast not done
a great while, because the rest of thy low
countries have made a shift to eat up thy holland:
and God knows, whether those that bawl out the ruins
of thy linen shall inherit his kingdom: but the
midwives say the children are not in the fault;
whereupon the world increases, and kindreds are
mightily strengthened.
POINS
How ill it follows, after you have laboured so hard,
you should talk so idly! Tell me, how many good
young princes would do so, their fathers being so
sick as yours at this time is?
PRINCE HENRY
Shall I tell thee one thing, Poins?
POINS
Yes, faith; and let it be an excellent good thing.
PRINCE HENRY
It shall serve among wits of no higher breeding than thine.
POINS
Go to; I stand the push of your one thing that you
will tell.
PRINCE HENRY
Marry, I tell thee, it is not meet that I should be
sad, now my father is sick: albeit I could tell
thee, as to one it pleases me, for fault of a
better, to call my friend, I could be sad, and sad
indeed too.
POINS
Very hardly upon such a subject.
PRINCE HENRY
By this hand thou thinkest me as far in the devil's
book as thou and Falstaff for obduracy and
persistency: let the end try the man. But I tell
thee, my heart bleeds inwardly that my father is so
sick: and keeping such vile company as thou art
hath in reason taken from me all ostentation of sorrow.
POINS
The reason?
PRINCE HENRY
What wouldst thou think of me, if I should weep?
POINS
I would think thee a most princely hypocrite.
PRINCE HENRY
It would be every man's thought; and thou art a
blessed fellow to think as every man thinks: never
a man's thought in the world keeps the road-way
better than thine: every man would think me an
hypocrite indeed. And what accites your most
worshipful thought to think so?
POINS
Why, because you have been so lewd and so much
engraffed to Falstaff.
PRINCE HENRY
And to thee.
POINS
By this light, I am well spoke on; I can hear it
with my own ears: the worst that they can say of
me is that I am a second brother and that I am a
proper fellow of my hands; and those two things, I
confess, I cannot help. By the mass, here comes Bardolph.
Enter BARDOLPH and Page
PRINCE HENRY
And the boy that I gave Falstaff: a' had him from
me Christian; and look, if the fat villain have not
transformed him ape.
BARDOLPH
God save your grace!
PRINCE HENRY
And yours, most noble Bardolph!
BARDOLPH
Come, you virtuous ass, you bashful fool, must you
be blushing? wherefore blush you now? What a
maidenly man-at-arms are you become! Is't such a
matter to get a pottle-pot's maidenhead?
Page
A' calls me e'en now, my lord, through a red
lattice, and I could discern no part of his face
from the window: at last I spied his eyes, and
methought he had made two holes in the ale-wife's
new petticoat and so peeped through.
PRINCE HENRY
Has not the boy profited?
BARDOLPH
Away, you whoreson upright rabbit, away!
Page
Away, you rascally Althaea's dream, away!
PRINCE HENRY
Instruct us, boy; what dream, boy?
Page
Marry, my lord, Althaea dreamed she was delivered
of a fire-brand; and therefore I call him her dream.
PRINCE HENRY
A crown's worth of good interpretation: there 'tis,
boy.
POINS
O, that this good blossom could be kept from
cankers! Well, there is sixpence to preserve thee.
BARDOLPH
An you do not make him hanged among you, the
gallows shall have wrong.
PRINCE HENRY
And how doth thy master, Bardolph?
BARDOLPH
Well, my lord. He heard of your grace's coming to
town: there's a letter for you.
POINS
Delivered with good respect. And how doth the
martlemas, your master?
BARDOLPH
In bodily health, sir.
POINS
Marry, the immortal part needs a physician; but
that moves not him: though that be sick, it dies
not.
PRINCE HENRY
I do allow this wen to be as familiar with me as my
dog; and he holds his place; for look you how be writes.
POINS
[Reads] 'John Falstaff, knight,'--every man must
know that, as oft as he has occasion to name
himself: even like those that are kin to the king;
for they never prick their finger but they say,
'There's some of the king's blood spilt.' 'How
comes that?' says he, that takes upon him not to
conceive. The answer is as ready as a borrower's
cap, 'I am the king's poor cousin, sir.'
PRINCE HENRY
Nay, they will be kin to us, or they will fetch it
from Japhet. But to the letter.
POINS
[Reads] 'Sir John Falstaff, knight, to the son of
the king, nearest his father, Harry Prince of
Wales, greeting.' Why, this is a certificate.
PRINCE HENRY
Peace!
POINS
[Reads] 'I will imitate the honourable Romans in
brevity:' he sure means brevity in breath,
short-winded. 'I commend me to thee, I commend
thee, and I leave thee. Be not too familiar with
Poins; for he misuses thy favours so much, that he
swears thou art to marry his sister Nell. Repent
at idle times as thou mayest; and so, farewell.
Thine, by yea and no, which is as much as to
say, as thou usest him, JACK FALSTAFF with my
familiars, JOHN with my brothers and sisters,
and SIR JOHN with all Europe.'
My lord, I'll steep this letter in sack and make him eat it.
PRINCE HENRY
That's to make him eat twenty of his words. But do
you use me thus, Ned? must I marry your sister?
POINS
God send the wench no worse fortune! But I never said so.
PRINCE HENRY
Well, thus we play the fools with the time, and the
spirits of the wise sit in the clouds and mock us.
Is your master here in London?
BARDOLPH
Yea, my lord.
PRINCE HENRY
Where sups he? doth the old boar feed in the old frank?
BARDOLPH
At the old place, my lord, in Eastcheap.
PRINCE HENRY
What company?
Page
Ephesians, my lord, of the old church.
PRINCE HENRY
Sup any women with him?
Page
None, my lord, but old Mistress Quickly and
Mistress Doll Tearsheet.
PRINCE HENRY
What pagan may that be?
Page
A proper gentlewoman, sir, and a kinswoman of my master's.
PRINCE HENRY
Even such kin as the parish heifers are to the town
bull. Shall we steal upon them, Ned, at supper?
POINS
I am your shadow, my lord; I'll follow you.
PRINCE HENRY
Sirrah, you boy, and Bardolph, no word to your
master that I am yet come to town: there's for
your silence.
BARDOLPH
I have no tongue, sir.
Page
And for mine, sir, I will govern it.
PRINCE HENRY
Fare you well; go.
Exeunt BARDOLPH and Page
This Doll Tearsheet should be some road.
POINS
I warrant you, as common as the way between Saint
Alban's and London.
PRINCE HENRY
How might we see Falstaff bestow himself to-night
in his true colours, and not ourselves be seen?
POINS
Put on two leathern jerkins and aprons, and wait
upon him at his table as drawers.
PRINCE HENRY
From a God to a bull? a heavy decension! it was
Jove's case. From a prince to a prentice? a low
transformation! that shall be mine; for in every
thing the purpose must weigh with the folly.
Follow me, Ned.
Exeunt
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