SCENE I. London. A street.
Enter Hostess with two officers, FANG and SNARE.
HOSTESS Master Fang, have you ent’red the action?
FANG It is ent’red.
HOSTESS Where’s your yeoman? Is’t a lusty yeoman? Will ’a stand to’t?
[5]
FANG Sirrah, where’s Snare?
HOSTESS O Lord, ay! good Master Snare.
SNARE Here, here.
FANG Snare, we must arrest Sir John Falstaff.
[10]
HOSTESS Yea, good Master Snare; I have ent’red him and all.
SNARE It may chance cost some of us our lives, for he will stab.
[17]
HOSTESS Alas the day! take heed of him; he stabb’d me in mine own house, and that most beastly. In good faith, ’a 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.
HOSTESS No, nor I neither; I’ll be at your elbow.
[21]
FANG An I but fist him once; an ’a come but within my vice!
[36]
HOSTESS 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 Piecomer – 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 you, since my exion is ent’red, 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 fubb’d off, and fubb’d off, and fubb’d 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.
Enter SIR JOHN FALSTAFF, Page, and BARDOLPH.
[39]
Yonder he comes; and that arrant 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.
FALSTAFF How now! whose mare’s dead?
What’s the matter?
FANG Sir John, I arrest you at the suit of Mistress Quickly.
[45]
FALSTAFF Away, varlets! Draw, Bardolph. Cut me off the villain’s head. Throw the quean in the channel.
HOSTESS 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
[51]
woman-queller.
FALSTAFF Keep them off, Bardolph.
FANG A rescue! a rescue!
HOSTESS Good people, bring a rescue or two.
Thou wot, wot thou! thou wot, wot ta? Do, do, thou rogue! do, thou hemp-seed!
PAGE Away, you scullion! you rampallian! you
[55]
fustilarian! I’ll tickle your catastrophe.
Enter the LORD CHIEF JUSTICE and his Men.
CHIEF JUSTICE What is the matter? Keep the peace here, ho!
[61]
HOSTESS Good my lord, be good to me. I beseech you, stand to me.
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.
[65]
Stand from him, fellow; wherefore hang’st thou upon him?
HOSTESS O my most worshipful lord, an’t please your Grace, I am a poor widow of Eastcheap, and he is arrested at my suit.
[69]
CHIEF JUSTICE For what sum?
[74]
HOSTESS 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 a 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.
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?
[81]
FALSTAFF What is the gross sum that I owe thee?
[99]
HOSTESS 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.
[104]
FALSTAFF My lord, this is a poor mad soul, and she says up and down the town that her 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.
[112]
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, practis’d upon the easy yielding spirit of this woman, and made her serve your uses both in purse and in person.
HOSTESS Yea, in truth, my lord.
[117]
CHIEF JUSTICE Pray thee, peace. Pay her the debt you owe her, and unpay the villainy you have done with her; the one you may do with sterling money, and the other with current repentance.
[124]
FALSTAFF My lord, I will not undergo this sneap without reply. You call honourable boldness impudent sauciness; if a man will make curtsy and say nothing, he is virtuous. No, my lord, my humble duty rememb’red, 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.
CHIEF JUSTICE You speak as having power to do wrong; but answer in th’ effect of your reputation, and satisfy the poor woman.
[128]
FALSTAFF Come hither hostess.
Enter GOWER
CHIEF JUSTICE Now, Master Gower, what news?
[130]
GOWER The King, my lord, and Harry Prince of Wales
Are near at hand. The rest the paper tells.
[Gives a letter.
FALSTAFF As I am a gentleman!
HOSTESS Faith, you said so before.
[135]
FALSTAFF As I am a gentleman! Come, no more words of it.
[138]
HOSTESS By this heavenly ground I tread on, I must be fain to pawn both my plate and the tapestry of my dining-chambers.
[147]
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-hangers 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.
HOSTESS Pray thee, Sir John, let it be but twenty nobles; i’ faith, I am loath to pawn my plate, so God save me, la!
[151]
FALSTAFF Let it alone; I’ll make other shift. You’ll be a fool still.
HOSTESS Well, you shall have it, though I pawn my gown. I hope you’ll come to supper. You’ll pay me all together?
[156]
FALSTAFF Will I live? [To Bardolph] Go, with her, with her; hook on, hook on.
HOSTESS Will you have Doll Tearsheet meet you at supper?
FALSTAFF No more words; let’s have her.
[Exeunt Hostess, Bardolph, and Officers.
[160]
CHIEF JUSTICE ! have heard better news.
FALSTAFF What’s the news, my lord?
CHIEF JUSTICE Where lay the King to-night?
GOWER At Basingstoke, my lord.
[165]
FALSTAFF I hope, my lord, all’s well. What is the news, my lord?
CHIEF JUSTICE Come all his forces back?
GOWER No; fifteen hundred foot, five hundred horse,
Are march’d up to my Lord of Lacaster,
Against Northumberland and the Archbishop.
[170]
FALSTAFF Comes the King back from Wales, my noble lord?
CHIEF JUSTICE You shall have letters of me presently.
Come, go along with me, good Master Gower.
FALSTAFF My lord!
CHIEF JUSTICE What’s the matter?
[176]
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.
[180]
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?
CHIEF JUSTICE What foolish master taught you these manners. Sir John?
[186]
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.
CHIEF JUSTICE Now, the Lord lighten thee!
Thou art a great fool.
[Exeunt.
SCENE II. London. Another street.
Enter PRINCE HENRY and POINS.
PRINCE Before God, I am exceeding weary.
POINS Is’t come to that? I had thought weariness durst not have attach’d one of so high blood.
[6]
PRINCE 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.
[26]
PRINCE 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-colour’d 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.
[30]
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 Shall I tell thee one thing, Poins?
POINS Yes, faith; and let it be an excellent good thing.
PRINCE It shall serve among wits of no higher breeding than thine.
[36]
POINS Go to; I stand the push of your one thing that you will tell.
PRINCE Many, I tell thee it is not meet that I should be sad, now my father is sick; albeit I could tell to 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.
[47]
PRINCE 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?
[50]
PRINCE What wouldst thou think of me if I should weep?
POINS I would think thee a most princely hypocrite.
[57]
PRINCE 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 engrafted to Falstaff.
[60]
PRINCE And to thee.
[66]
POINS By this light, I am well spoke on; I can hear it with mine 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 And the boy that I gave Falstaff. ’A had him from me Christian; and look if the fat villain have not transform’d him ape.
[70]
BARDOLPH God save your Grace!
PRINCE And yours, most noble Bardolph!
[75]
POINS 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?
[80]
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 alewife’s new petticoat, and so peep’d through.
PRINCE Has not the boy profited?
BARDOLPH Away, you whoreson upright rabbit, away!
PAGE Away, you rascally Althaea’s dream, away!
[84]
PRINCE Instruct us, boy; what dream, boy?
[87]
PAGE Marry, my lord, Althaea dreamt she was delivered of a fire-brand; and therefore I call him her dream.
PRINCE A crown’s worth of good interpretation.
There ’tis, boy. [Giving a crown.
POINS O that this blossom could be kept from cankers! Well, there is sixpence to preserve thee.
BARDOLPH An you do not make him be hang’d among you, the gallows shall have wrong.
[94]
PRINCE 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 Deliver’d with good respect And how doth the martlemas, your master?
[99]
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.
[104]
PRINCE I do allow this wen to be as familiar with me as my dog; and he holds his place, for look you how he writes.
[111]
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 Nay, they will be kin to us, or they will fetch it from Japhet. But the letter: [Reads] ‘Sir John Falstaff, knight, to the son of the King nearest his father, Harry Prince of Wales, greeting’.
[116]
POINS Why, this is a certificate.
PRINCE Peace! [Reads] ‘I will imitate the honourable Romans in brevity.’ –
POINS He sure means brevity in breath, short-winded.
[123]
PRINCE [Reads] ‘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 mayst, 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.’
[129]
POINS My lord, I’ll steep this letter in sack and make him eat it.
PRINCE That’s to make him eat twenty o his words. But do you use me thus, Ned? Must I marry your sister?
[134]
POINS God send the wench no worse fortune. But I never said so.
PRINCE 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 Where sups he? Doth the old boar feed in
[140]
the old frank?
BARDOLPH At the old place, my lord, in Eastcheap.
PRINCE What company?
PAGE Ephesians, my lord, of the old church.
[144]
PRINCE Sup any women with him?
PAGE None, my lord, but old Mistress Quickly and Mistress Doll Tearsheet.
PRINCE What pagan may that be?
[149]
PAGE A proper gentlewoman, sir, and a kinswoman of my master’s.
PRINCE 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 Sirrah, you boy, and Bardolph, no word to your master that I am yet come to town.
[156]
There’s for your silence.
BARDOLPH I have no tongue, sir.
PAGE And for mine, sir, I will govern it.
PRINCE Fare you well; go.
[Exeunt Bardolph and Page]
[160]
This Doll Tearsheet should be some road.
POINS I warrant you, as common as the way between Saint Albans and London.
PRINCE 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,
[166]
and wait upon him at his table as drawers.
PRINCE From a god to a bull? A heavy descension! It was Jove’s case. From a prince to a prentice? A low transformation! That shall be mine; for in everything the purpose must weigh with the folly. Follow me, Ned.
[Exeunt.
SCENE III. 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.
[5]
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!
[10]
The time was, father, that you broke your word,
When you were more endear’d 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?
[16]
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
[20]
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 practis’d not his gait;
And speaking thick, which nature made his blemish,
[25]
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,
[30]
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 –
[35]
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
[40]
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.
[45]
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.
[50]
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,
[55]
To make strength stronger; but, for all our loves,
First let them try themselves. So did your son;
He was so suff’red; so came I a widow;
And never shall have length of life enough
To rain upon remembrance with mine eyes,
[60]
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.
[65]
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.
SCENE IV. London. The Boar’s Head Tavern in Eastcheap.
Enter FRANCIS and another Drawer.
[3]
FRANCIS What the devil hast thou brought there – apple-johns? Thou knowest Sir John cannot endure an apple-john.
2 DRAWER Mass, thou say’st 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 ang’red him to the heart; but he hath forgot that.
FRANCIS Why, then, cover and set them down; and see if thou canst find out Sneak’s noise; Mistress Tearsheet would fain hear some music.
Enter third Drawer.
[14]
3 DRAWER Dispatch! The room where they supp’d is too hot; they’ll come in straight.
FRANCIS 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.
[20]
3 DRAWER By the mass, here will be old utis; it will be an excellent stratagem.
2 DRAWER I’ll see if I can find out Sneak.
[Exeunt second and third Drawers.
Enter Hostess and DOLL TEARSHEET.
HOSTESS 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?
[30]
DOLL Better than I was – hem.
HOSTESS Why, that’s well said; a good heart’s worth gold. Lo, here comes Sir John.
Enter FALSTAFF.
[35]
FALSTAFF [Singing] ‘When Arthur first in court’ – Empty the Jordan. [Exit Francis] – [Singing] ‘And was a worthy king’ – How now, Mistress Doll!
HOSTESS Sick of a calm; yea, good faith.
FALSTAFF So is all her sect; an they be once in a calm, they are sick.
[40]
DOLL A pox damn you, you muddy rascal! Is that all the comfort you give me?
FALSTAFF You make fat rascals, Mistress Doll.
DOLL I make them! Gluttony and diseases make them: I make them not.
[46]
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 Yea, joy, our chains and our jewels.
[51]
FALSTAFF ‘Your brooches, 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 charg’d chambers bravely –
DOLL Hang yourself, you muddy conger, hang yourself!
[58]
HOSTESS 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.
[64]
DOLL 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 stuff’d 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 FRANCIS.
FRANCIS Sir, Ancient Pistol’s below and would speak with you.
[68]
DOLL Hang him, swaggering rascal! Let him not come hither; it is the foulmouth’dst rogue in England.
HOSTESS 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 liv’d all this while to have swaggering now. Shut the door, I pray you.
[75]
FALSTAFF Dost thou hear, hostess?
HOSTESS Pray ye, pacify yourself, Sir John; there comes no swaggerers here.
FALSTAFF Dost thou hear? It is mine ancient.
HOSTESS Tilly-fally, Sir John, ne’er tell me; and your ancient swagg’rer 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.
[91]
No, I’ll no swagg’rers.
FALSTAFF He’s no swagg’rer, 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 Francis.
HOSTESS 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,
[100]
how I shake; look you, I warrant you.
DOLL So you do, hostess.
HOSTESS Do I? Yea, in very truth, do I, an ’twere an aspen leaf. I cannot abide swagg’rers.
Enter PISTOL, BARDOLPH, and PAGE.
[104]
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.
[109]
PISTOL I will discharge upon her, Sir John, with two bullets.
FALSTAFF She is pistol-proof, sir; you shall not hardly offend her.
[113]
HOSTESS 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 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.
[119]
PISTOL I know you, Mistress Dorothy.
[125]
DOLL 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.
[129]
FALSTAFF No more, Pistol; I would not have you go off here. Discharge yourself of our company, Pistol.
HOSTESS No, good Captain Pistol; not here, sweet captain.
[141]
DOLL Captain! Thou abominable damn’d 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 earn’d them. You a captain! you slave, for what? For tearing a poor whore’s ruff in a bawdy-house? He a captain! hang him, rouge! He lives upon mouldy stew’d 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.
[145]
PISTOL Not I! I tell thee what, Corporal Bardolph, I could tear her; I’ll be reveng’d of her.
PAGE Pray thee go down.
[151]
PISTOL I’ll see her damn’d first; to Pluto’s damn’d lake, by this hand, to th’ infernal deep, with Erebus and tortures vile also. Hold hook and line, say I. Down, down, dogs! down, faitors! Have we not Hiren here?
HOSTESS Good Captain Peesel, be quiet; ’tis very late, i’ faith; I beseek you now, aggravate your choler.
PISTOL These be good humours, indeed! Shall packhorses,
[155]
And hollow pamper’d jades of Asia,
Which cannot go but thirty mile a day,
Compare with Caesars, and with Cannibals,
And Troiant Greeks? Nay, rather damn them with
King Cerberus; and let the welkin roar.
[160]
Shall we fall foul for toys?
HOSTESS By my troth, Captain, these are very bitter words.
BARDOLPH Be gone, good ancient; this will grow to a brawl anon.
[165]
PISTOL Die men like dogs! Give crowns like pins! Have we not Hiren here?
HOSTESS 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.
[170]
PISTOL Then feed and be fat, my fair Calipolis. Come, give 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 nothings?
[175]
FALSTAFF Pistol, I would be quiet.
PISTOL Sweet knight, I kiss thy neaf. What! we have seen the seven stars.
DOLL For God’s sake thrust him down stairs; I cannot endure such a fustian rascal.
PISTOL Thrust him down stairs! Know we not
[181]
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.
[185]
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!
[190]
HOSTESS Here’s goodly stuff toward!
FALSTAFF Give me my rapier, boy.
DOLL I pray thee, Jack, I pray thee, do not draw.
FALSTAFF Get you down stairs.
[Drawing and driving Pistol out.
[197]
HOST 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 I pray thee, Jack, be quiet; the rascal’s gone.
Ah, you whoreson little valiant villain, you!
HOSTESS Are you not hurt i’ th’ groin?
[201]
Methought ’a made a shrewd thrust at your belly.
Re-enter BARDOLPH.
FALSTAFF Have you turn’d him out a doors?
BARDOLPH Yea, sir. The rascal’s drunk. You have hurt him, sir, i’ th’ shoulder.
[205]
FALSTAFF A rascal! to brave me!
[211]
DOLL Ah, you sweet little rogue, you! Alas, poor ape, how thou sweat’st! 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.
[215]
DOLL Do, an thou dar’st for thy heart. An thou dost, I’ll canvass thee between a pair of sheets.
Enter Musicians.
PAGE The music is come, sir.
[219]
FALSTAFF Let them play. Play, sirs. Sit on my knee, Doll. A rascal bragging slave! The rogue fled from me like quicksilver.
[223]
DOLL I’ faith, and thou follow’dst him like a church. Thou whoreson little tidy Bartholomew boar-pig, when wilt thou leave fighting a days and foining a nights, and begin to patch up thine old body for heaven?
Enter, behind, PRINCE HENRY and POINS disguised as drawers.
[225]
FALSTAFF Peace, good Doll! Do not speak like a death’s-head; do not bid me remember mine end.
DOLL Sirrah, what humour’s the Prince of?
FALSTAFF A good shallow young fellow. ’A would have made a good pander; ’a would ha’ chipp’d bread well.
[229]
DOLL 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.
[233]
DOLL Why does the Prince love him so, then?
[244]
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 join’d-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 Would not this nave of a wheel have his ears cut off?
POINS Let’s beat him before his whore.
[249]
PRINCE Look whe’er the wither’d elder hath not his poll claw’d like a parrot.
POINS Is it not strange that desire should so many years outlive performance?
FALSTAFF Kiss me, Doll.
[254]
PRINCE Saturn and Venus this year in conjunction! What says th’ almanac to that?
[257]
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.
[260]
DOLL By my troth, I kiss thee with a most constant heart.
FALSTAFF I am old, I am old.
DOLL I love thee better than I love e’er a scurvy young boy of them all.
[267]
FALSTAFF What stuff wilt have a kirtle of? I shall receive money a Thursday. Shalt have a cap to-morrow. A merry song, come. ’A grows late; we’ll to bed. Thou’t forget me when I am gone.
[270]
DOLL By my troth, thou’t set me a-weeping, an thou say’st so. Prove that ever I dress myself handsome till thy return. Well, hearken a’ th’ end.
FALSTAFF Some sack, Francis.
PRINCE, POINS Anon, anon, sir. [Advancing
FALSTAFF Ha! a bastard son of the King’s? And art thou not Poins his brother?
[276]
PRINCE 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.
[280]
PRINCE Very true, sir, and I come to draw you out by the ears.
HOSTESS O, the Lord preserve thy Grace! By my troth, welcome to London. How the Lord bless that sweet face of thine! O Jesu, are you come from Wales?
[285]
FALSTAFF Thou whoreson mad compound of majesty, by this light flesh and corrupt blood, thou art welcome. [Leaning his hand upon Doll.
DOLL 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.
[291]
PRINCE You whoreson candle-mine, you, how vilely did you speak of me even now before this honest, virtuous, civil gentlewoman!
HOSTESS God’s blessing of your good heart! and so she is, by my troth.
FALSTAFF Didst thou hear me?
[297]
PRINCE Yea; and you knew me, as you did when you ran away by Gadshill. 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.
[301]
PRINCE 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 Not – to dispraise me, and call me pander, and bread-chipper, and I know not what!
[305]
FALSTAFF No abuse, Hal.
PCINS No abuse!
[312]
FALSTAFF No abuse Ned, i’ th’ world; honest Ned, none. I disprais’d him before the wicked – that the wicked might not fall in love with thee; 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.
[318]
PRINCE 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 bums in his nose, of the wicked?
POINS Answer, thou dead elm, answer.
FALSTAFF The fiend hath prick’d 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.
[325]
PRINCE For the women?
FALSTAFF For one of them – she’s in hell already, and burns poor souls. For th’ other – I owe her money; and whether she be damn’d for that, I know not.
[329]
HOSTESS No, I warrant you.
FALSTAFF No. I think thou art not; I think thou are 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.
[335]
HOSTESS All vict’lers do so. What’s a joint of mutton or two in a whole Lent?
PRINCE You, gentlewoman –
DOLL What says your Grace?
FALSTAFF His Grace says that which his flesh rebels against. [Knocking within.
[340]
HOSTESS Who knocks so loud at door? Look to th’ door there, Francis.
Enter PETO.
PRINCE 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
[345]
I met and overtook a dozen captains,
Bare-headed, sweating, knocking at the taverns,
And asking every one for Sir John Falstaff.
PRINCE By heaven, Poins, I feel me much to blame
So idly to profane the precious time,
[350]
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, Poins, Peto, and Bardolph.
[356]
FALSTAFF Now comes in the sweetest morsel of the night, and we must hence, and leave it unpick’d. [Knocking within] More knocking at the door!
Re-enter BARDOLPH.
How now! What’s the matter?
[359]
BARDOLPH You must away to court, sir, presently;
A dozen captains stay at door for you.
[365]
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 underserver may sleep, when the man of action is call’d on. Farewell, good wenches. If I be not sent away post, I will see you again ere I go.
DOLL I cannot speak. If my heart be not be ready to burst! Well, sweet Jack, have a care of thyself.
FALSTAFF Farewell, farewell.
[Exeunt Falstaff and Bardolph.
[371]
HOSTESS Well, fare thee well. I have known thee these twenty-nine years, come peascodtime; but an honester and truer-hearted man – well, fare thee well.
BARDOLPH [Within] Mistress Tearsheet!
HOSTESS What’s the matter?
[375]
BARDOLPH [Within] Bid Mistress Tearsheet come to my master.
HOSTESS O, run Doll, run, run, good Doll. Come.
[To Bardolph] She comes blubber’d. – Yea, will you come, Doll?
[Exeunt.