| [Enter MISTRESS QUICKLY, FANG and his Boy with her,
and SNARE following. | |
| MISTRESS QUICKLY | Master Fang, have you entered the action? |
| FANG | It is entered. |
| MISTRESS QUICKLY | Where's your yeoman? Is't a lusty yeoman? will a'
stand to 't? |
| FANG | Sirrah, where's Snare? |
| MISTRESS QUICKLY | O Lord, ay! good Master Snare. |
| SNARE | Here, here. |
| FANG | Snare, we must arrest Sir John Falstaff. |
| MISTRESS QUICKLY | Yea, good Master Snare; I have entered him and all. |
| SNARE | It may chance cost some of us our lives, for he will stab. |
| MISTRESS QUICKLY | Alas the day! take heed of him; he stabbed me in
mine own house, and that most beastly: in good faith, he cares not what mischief he does. If his weapon be out: he will foin like any devil; he will spare neither man, woman, nor child. |
| FANG | If I can close with him, I care not for his thrust. |
| MISTRESS QUICKLY | No, nor I neither: I'll be at your elbow. |
| FANG | An I but fist him once; an a' come but within my vice,-- |
| MISTRESS QUICKLY | I am undone by his going; I warrant you, he's an
infinitive thing upon my score. Good Master Fang, hold him sure: good Master Snare, let him not 'scape. A' comes continuantly to Pie-corner--saving your manhoods--to buy a saddle; and he is indited to dinner to the Lubber's-head in Lumbert street, to Master Smooth's the silkman: I pray ye, since my exion is entered and my case so openly known to the world, let him be brought in to his answer. A hundred mark is a long one for a poor lone woman to bear: and I have borne, and borne, and borne, and have been fubbed off, and fubbed off, and fubbed off, from this day to that day, that it is a shame to be thought on. There is no honesty in such dealing; unless a woman should be made an ass and a beast, to bear every knave's wrong. Yonder he comes; and that errant malmsey-nose knave, Bardolph, with him. Do your offices, do your offices: Master Fang and Master Snare, do me, do me, do me your offices. |
| [Enter FALSTAFF, Page, and BARDOLPH] | |
| FALSTAFF | How now! whose mare's dead? what's the matter? |
| FANG | Sir John, I arrest you at the suit of Mistress Quickly. |
| FALSTAFF | Away, varlets! Draw, Bardolph: cut me off the
villain's head: throw the quean in the channel. |
| MISTRESS QUICKLY | Throw me in the channel! I'll throw thee in the
channel. Wilt thou? wilt thou? thou bastardly rogue! Murder, murder! Ah, thou honeysuckle villain! wilt thou kill God's officers and the king's? Ah, thou honey-seed rogue! thou art a honey-seed, a man-queller, and a woman-queller. |
| FALSTAFF | Keep them off, Bardolph. |
| FANG | A rescue! a rescue! |
| MISTRESS QUICKLY | Good people, bring a rescue or two. Thou wo't, wo't
thou? Thou wo't, wo't ta? do, do, thou rogue! do, thou hemp-seed! |
| FALSTAFF | Away, you scullion! you rampallion! You
fustilarian! I'll tickle your catastrophe. |
| [Enter the Lord Chief-Justice, and his men] | |
| Lord Chief-Justice | What is the matter? keep the peace here, ho! |
| MISTRESS QUICKLY | Good my lord, be good to me. I beseech you, stand to me. |
| Lord Chief-Justice | How now, Sir John! what are you brawling here?
Doth this become your place, your time and business? You should have been well on your way to York. Stand from him, fellow: wherefore hang'st upon him? |
| MISTRESS QUICKLY | O most worshipful lord, an't please your grace, I am
a poor widow of Eastcheap, and he is arrested at my suit. |
| Lord Chief-Justice | For what sum? |
| MISTRESS QUICKLY | It is more than for some, my lord; it is for all,
all I have. He hath eaten me out of house and home; he hath put all my substance into that fat belly of his: but I will have some of it out again, or I will ride thee o' nights like the mare. |
| FALSTAFF | I think I am as like to ride the mare, if I have
any vantage of ground to get up. |
| Lord Chief-Justice | How comes this, Sir John? Fie! what man of good
temper would endure this tempest of exclamation? Are you not ashamed to enforce a poor widow to so rough a course to come by her own? |
| FALSTAFF | What is the gross sum that I owe thee? |
| MISTRESS QUICKLY | Marry, if thou wert an honest man, thyself and the
money too. Thou didst swear to me upon a parcel-gilt goblet, sitting in my Dolphin-chamber, at the round table, by a sea-coal fire, upon Wednesday in Wheeson week, when the prince broke thy head for liking his father to a singing-man of Windsor, thou didst swear to me then, as I was washing thy wound, to marry me and make me my lady thy wife. Canst thou deny it? Did not goodwife Keech, the butcher's wife, come in then and call me gossip Quickly? coming in to borrow a mess of vinegar; telling us she had a good dish of prawns; whereby thou didst desire to eat some; whereby I told thee they were ill for a green wound? And didst thou not, when she was gone down stairs, desire me to be no more so familiarity with such poor people; saying that ere long they should call me madam? And didst thou not kiss me and bid me fetch thee thirty shillings? I put thee now to thy book-oath: deny it, if thou canst. |
| FALSTAFF | My lord, this is a poor mad soul; and she says up
and down the town that the eldest son is like you: she hath been in good case, and the truth is, poverty hath distracted her. But for these foolish officers, I beseech you I may have redress against them. |
| Lord Chief-Justice | Sir John, Sir John, I am well acquainted with your
manner of wrenching the true cause the false way. It is not a confident brow, nor the throng of words that come with such more than impudent sauciness from you, can thrust me from a level consideration: you have, as it appears to me, practised upon the easy-yielding spirit of this woman, and made her serve your uses both in purse and in person. |
| MISTRESS QUICKLY | Yea, in truth, my lord. |
| Lord Chief-Justice | Pray thee, peace. Pay her the debt you owe her, and
unpay the villany you have done her: the one you may do with sterling money, and the other with current repentance. |
| FALSTAFF | My lord, I will not undergo this sneap without
reply. You call honourable boldness impudent sauciness: if a man will make courtesy and say nothing, he is virtuous: no, my lord, my humble duty remembered, I will not be your suitor. I say to you, I do desire deliverance from these officers, being upon hasty employment in the king's affairs. |
| Lord Chief-Justice | You speak as having power to do wrong: but answer
in the effect of your reputation, and satisfy this poor woman. |
| FALSTAFF | Come hither, hostess. |
| [Enter GOWER] | |
| Lord Chief-Justice | Now, Master Gower, what news? |
| GOWER | The king, my lord, and Harry Prince of Wales
Are near at hand: the rest the paper tells. |
| FALSTAFF | As I am a gentleman. |
| MISTRESS QUICKLY | Faith, you said so before. |
| FALSTAFF | As I am a gentleman. Come, no more words of it. |
| MISTRESS QUICKLY | By this heavenly ground I tread on, I must be fain
to pawn both my plate and the tapestry of my dining-chambers. |
| FALSTAFF | Glasses, glasses is the only drinking: and for thy
walls, a pretty slight drollery, or the story of the Prodigal, or the German hunting in water-work, is worth a thousand of these bed-hangings and these fly-bitten tapestries. Let it be ten pound, if thou canst. Come, an 'twere not for thy humours, there's not a better wench in England. Go, wash thy face, and draw the action. Come, thou must not be in this humour with me; dost not know me? come, come, I know thou wast set on to this. |
| MISTRESS QUICKLY | Pray thee, Sir John, let it be but twenty nobles: i'
faith, I am loath to pawn my plate, so God save me, la! |
| FALSTAFF | Let it alone; I'll make other shift: you'll be a
fool still. |
| MISTRESS QUICKLY | Well, you shall have it, though I pawn my gown. I
hope you'll come to supper. You'll pay me all together? |
| FALSTAFF | Will I live? |
| [To BARDOLPH] | |
| Go, with her, with her; hook on, hook on. | |
| MISTRESS QUICKLY | Will you have Doll Tearsheet meet you at supper? |
| FALSTAFF | No more words; let's have her. |
| [Exeunt MISTRESS QUICKLY, BARDOLPH, Officers and Boy] | |
| Lord Chief-Justice | I have heard better news. |
| FALSTAFF | What's the news, my lord? |
| Lord Chief-Justice | Where lay the king last night? |
| GOWER | At Basingstoke, my lord. |
| FALSTAFF | I hope, my lord, all's well: what is the news, my lord? |
| Lord Chief-Justice | Come all his forces back? |
| GOWER | No; fifteen hundred foot, five hundred horse,
Are marched up to my lord of Lancaster, Against Northumberland and the Archbishop. |
| FALSTAFF | Comes the king back from Wales, my noble lord? |
| Lord Chief-Justice | You shall have letters of me presently:
Come, go along with me, good Master Gower. |
| FALSTAFF | My lord! |
| Lord Chief-Justice | What's the matter? |
| FALSTAFF | Master Gower, shall I entreat you with me to dinner? |
| GOWER | I must wait upon my good lord here; I thank you,
good Sir John. |
| Lord Chief-Justice | Sir John, you loiter here too long, being you are to
take soldiers up in counties as you go. |
| FALSTAFF | Will you sup with me, Master Gower? |
| Lord Chief-Justice | What foolish master taught you these manners, Sir John? |
| FALSTAFF | Master Gower, if they become me not, he was a fool
that taught them me. This is the right fencing grace, my lord; tap for tap, and so part fair. |
| Lord Chief-Justice | Now the Lord lighten thee! thou art a great fool. |
| [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] |
| [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 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] |