Henry IV, Part 2

William Shakespeare

Published: 1599

Categorie(s): Non-Fiction, History, Fiction, Drama

Source: http://shakespeare.mit.edu/

Introduction

Warkworth. Before the castle

Enter RUMOUR, painted full of tongues

RUMOUR

Open your ears; for which of you will stop
The vent of hearing when loud Rumour speaks?
I, from the orient to the drooping west,
Making the wind my post-horse, still unfold
The acts commenced on this ball of earth:
Upon my tongues continual slanders ride,
The which in every language I pronounce,
Stuffing the ears of men with false reports.
I speak of peace, while covert enmity
Under the smile of safety wounds the world:
And who but Rumour, who but only I,
Make fearful musters and prepared defence,
Whiles the big year, swoln with some other grief,
Is thought with child by the stern tyrant war,
And no such matter? Rumour is a pipe
Blown by surmises, jealousies, conjectures
And of so easy and so plain a stop
That the blunt monster with uncounted heads,
The still-discordant wavering multitude,
Can play upon it. But what need I thus
My well-known body to anatomize
Among my household? Why is Rumour here?
I run before King Harry's victory;
Who in a bloody field by Shrewsbury
Hath beaten down young Hotspur and his troops,
Quenching the flame of bold rebellion
Even with the rebel's blood. But what mean I
To speak so true at first? my office is
To noise abroad that Harry Monmouth fell
Under the wrath of noble Hotspur's sword,
And that the king before the Douglas' rage
Stoop'd his anointed head as low as death.
This have I rumour'd through the peasant towns
Between that royal field of Shrewsbury
And this worm-eaten hold of ragged stone,
Where Hotspur's father, old Northumberland,
Lies crafty-sick: the posts come tiring on,
And not a man of them brings other news
Than they have learn'd of me: from Rumour's tongues
They bring smooth comforts false, worse than
true wrongs.

Exit

Act I

SCENE I. The same.

Enter LORD BARDOLPH

LORD BARDOLPH

Who keeps the gate here, ho?

The Porter opens the gate

Where is the earl?

Porter

What shall I say you are?

LORD BARDOLPH

Tell thou the earl
That the Lord Bardolph doth attend him here.

Porter

His lordship is walk'd forth into the orchard;
Please it your honour, knock but at the gate,
And he himself wilt answer.

Enter NORTHUMBERLAND

LORD BARDOLPH

Here comes the earl.

Exit Porter

NORTHUMBERLAND

What news, Lord Bardolph? every minute now
Should be the father of some stratagem:
The times are wild: contention, like a horse
Full of high feeding, madly hath broke loose
And bears down all before him.

LORD BARDOLPH

Noble earl,
I bring you certain news from Shrewsbury.

NORTHUMBERLAND

Good, an God will!

LORD BARDOLPH

As good as heart can wish:
The king is almost wounded to the death;
And, in the fortune of my lord your son,
Prince Harry slain outright; and both the Blunts
Kill'd by the hand of Douglas; young Prince John
And Westmoreland and Stafford fled the field;
And Harry Monmouth's brawn, the hulk Sir John,
Is prisoner to your son: O, such a day,
So fought, so follow'd and so fairly won,
Came not till now to dignify the times,
Since Caesar's fortunes!

NORTHUMBERLAND

How is this derived?
Saw you the field? came you from Shrewsbury?

LORD BARDOLPH

I spake with one, my lord, that came from thence,
A gentleman well bred and of good name,
That freely render'd me these news for true.

NORTHUMBERLAND

Here comes my servant Travers, whom I sent
On Tuesday last to listen after news.

Enter TRAVERS

LORD BARDOLPH

My lord, I over-rode him on the way;
And he is furnish'd with no certainties
More than he haply may retail from me.

NORTHUMBERLAND

Now, Travers, what good tidings comes with you?

TRAVERS

My lord, Sir John Umfrevile turn'd me back
With joyful tidings; and, being better horsed,
Out-rode me. After him came spurring hard
A gentleman, almost forspent with speed,
That stopp'd by me to breathe his bloodied horse.
He ask'd the way to Chester; and of him
I did demand what news from Shrewsbury:
He told me that rebellion had bad luck
And that young Harry Percy's spur was cold.
With that, he gave his able horse the head,
And bending forward struck his armed heels
Against the panting sides of his poor jade
Up to the rowel-head, and starting so
He seem'd in running to devour the way,
Staying no longer question.

NORTHUMBERLAND

Ha! Again:
Said he young Harry Percy's spur was cold?
Of Hotspur Coldspur? that rebellion
Had met ill luck?

LORD BARDOLPH

My lord, I'll tell you what;
If my young lord your son have not the day,
Upon mine honour, for a silken point
I'll give my barony: never talk of it.

NORTHUMBERLAND

Why should that gentleman that rode by Travers
Give then such instances of loss?

LORD BARDOLPH

Who, he?
He was some hilding fellow that had stolen
The horse he rode on, and, upon my life,
Spoke at a venture. Look, here comes more news.

Enter MORTON

NORTHUMBERLAND

Yea, this man's brow, like to a title-leaf,
Foretells the nature of a tragic volume:
So looks the strand whereon the imperious flood
Hath left a witness'd usurpation.
Say, Morton, didst thou come from Shrewsbury?

MORTON

I ran from Shrewsbury, my noble lord;
Where hateful death put on his ugliest mask
To fright our party.

NORTHUMBERLAND

How doth my son and brother?
Thou tremblest; and the whiteness in thy cheek
Is apter than thy tongue to tell thy errand.
Even such a man, so faint, so spiritless,
So dull, so dead in look, so woe-begone,
Drew Priam's curtain in the dead of night,
And would have told him half his Troy was burnt;
But Priam found the fire ere he his tongue,
And I my Percy's death ere thou report'st it.
This thou wouldst say, 'Your son did thus and thus;
Your brother thus: so fought the noble Douglas:'
Stopping my greedy ear with their bold deeds:
But in the end, to stop my ear indeed,
Thou hast a sigh to blow away this praise,
Ending with 'Brother, son, and all are dead.'

MORTON

Douglas is living, and your brother, yet;
But, for my lord your son—

NORTHUMBERLAND

Why, he is dead.
See what a ready tongue suspicion hath!
He that but fears the thing he would not know
Hath by instinct knowledge from others' eyes
That what he fear'd is chanced. Yet speak, Morton;
Tell thou an earl his divination lies,
And I will take it as a sweet disgrace
And make thee rich for doing me such wrong.

MORTON

You are too great to be by me gainsaid:
Your spirit is too true, your fears too certain.

NORTHUMBERLAND

Yet, for all this, say not that Percy's dead.
I see a strange confession in thine eye:
Thou shakest thy head and hold'st it fear or sin
To speak a truth. If he be slain, say so;
The tongue offends not that reports his death:
And he doth sin that doth belie the dead,
Not he which says the dead is not alive.
Yet the first bringer of unwelcome news
Hath but a losing office, and his tongue
Sounds ever after as a sullen bell,
Remember'd tolling a departing friend.

LORD BARDOLPH

I cannot think, my lord, your son is dead.

MORTON

I am sorry I should force you to believe
That which I would to God I had not seen;
But these mine eyes saw him in bloody state,
Rendering faint quittance, wearied and out-breathed,
To Harry Monmouth; whose swift wrath beat down
The never-daunted Percy to the earth,
From whence with life he never more sprung up.
In few, his death, whose spirit lent a fire
Even to the dullest peasant in his camp,
Being bruited once, took fire and heat away
From the best temper'd courage in his troops;
For from his metal was his party steel'd;
Which once in him abated, all the rest
Turn'd on themselves, like dull and heavy lead:
And as the thing that's heavy in itself,
Upon enforcement flies with greatest speed,
So did our men, heavy in Hotspur's loss,
Lend to this weight such lightness with their fear
That arrows fled not swifter toward their aim
Than did our soldiers, aiming at their safety,
Fly from the field. Then was the noble Worcester
Too soon ta'en prisoner; and that furious Scot,
The bloody Douglas, whose well-labouring sword
Had three times slain the appearance of the king,
'Gan vail his stomach and did grace the shame
Of those that turn'd their backs, and in his flight,
Stumbling in fear, was took. The sum of all
Is that the king hath won, and hath sent out
A speedy power to encounter you, my lord,
Under the conduct of young Lancaster
And Westmoreland. This is the news at full.

NORTHUMBERLAND

For this I shall have time enough to mourn.
In poison there is physic; and these news,
Having been well, that would have made me sick,
Being sick, have in some measure made me well:
And as the wretch, whose fever-weaken'd joints,
Like strengthless hinges, buckle under life,
Impatient of his fit, breaks like a fire
Out of his keeper's arms, even so my limbs,
Weaken'd with grief, being now enraged with grief,
Are thrice themselves. Hence, therefore, thou nice crutch!
A scaly gauntlet now with joints of steel
Must glove this hand: and hence, thou sickly quoif!
Thou art a guard too wanton for the head
Which princes, flesh'd with conquest, aim to hit.
Now bind my brows with iron; and approach
The ragged'st hour that time and spite dare bring
To frown upon the enraged Northumberland!
Let heaven kiss earth! now let not Nature's hand
Keep the wild flood confined! let order die!
And let this world no longer be a stage
To feed contention in a lingering act;
But let one spirit of the first-born Cain
Reign in all bosoms, that, each heart being set
On bloody courses, the rude scene may end,
And darkness be the burier of the dead!

TRAVERS

This strained passion doth you wrong, my lord.

LORD BARDOLPH

Sweet earl, divorce not wisdom from your honour.

MORTON

The lives of all your loving complices
Lean on your health; the which, if you give o'er
To stormy passion, must perforce decay.
You cast the event of war, my noble lord,
And summ'd the account of chance, before you said
'Let us make head.' It was your presurmise,
That, in the dole of blows, your son might drop:
You knew he walk'd o'er perils, on an edge,
More likely to fall in than to get o'er;
You were advised his flesh was capable
Of wounds and scars and that his forward spirit
Would lift him where most trade of danger ranged:
Yet did you say 'Go forth;' and none of this,
Though strongly apprehended, could restrain
The stiff-borne action: what hath then befallen,
Or what hath this bold enterprise brought forth,
More than that being which was like to be?

LORD BARDOLPH

We all that are engaged to this loss
Knew that we ventured on such dangerous seas
That if we wrought our life 'twas ten to one;
And yet we ventured, for the gain proposed
Choked the respect of likely peril fear'd;
And since we are o'erset, venture again.
Come, we will all put forth, body and goods.

MORTON

'Tis more than time: and, my most noble lord,
I hear for certain, and do speak the truth,
The gentle Archbishop of York is up
With well-appointed powers: he is a man
Who with a double surety binds his followers.
My lord your son had only but the corpse,
But shadows and the shows of men, to fight;
For that same word, rebellion, did divide
The action of their bodies from their souls;
And they did fight with queasiness, constrain'd,
As men drink potions, that their weapons only
Seem'd on our side; but, for their spirits and souls,
This word, rebellion, it had froze them up,
As fish are in a pond. But now the bishop
Turns insurrection to religion:
Supposed sincere and holy in his thoughts,
He's followed both with body and with mind;
And doth enlarge his rising with the blood
Of fair King Richard, scraped from Pomfret stones;
Derives from heaven his quarrel and his cause;
Tells them he doth bestride a bleeding land,
Gasping for life under great Bolingbroke;
And more and less do flock to follow him.

NORTHUMBERLAND

I knew of this before; but, to speak truth,
This present grief had wiped it from my mind.
Go in with me; and counsel every man
The aptest way for safety and revenge:
Get posts and letters, and make friends with speed:
Never so few, and never yet more need.

Exeunt

SCENE II. London. A street.

Enter FALSTAFF, with his Page bearing his sword and buckler

FALSTAFF

Sirrah, you giant, what says the doctor to my water?

Page

He said, sir, the water itself was a good healthy
water; but, for the party that owed it, he might
have more diseases than he knew for.

FALSTAFF

Men of all sorts take a pride to gird at me: the
brain of this foolish-compounded clay, man, is not
able to invent anything that tends to laughter, more
than I invent or is invented on me: I am not only
witty in myself, but the cause that wit is in other
men. I do here walk before thee like a sow that
hath overwhelmed all her litter but one. If the
prince put thee into my service for any other reason
than to set me off, why then I have no judgment.
Thou whoreson mandrake, thou art fitter to be worn
in my cap than to wait at my heels. I was never
manned with an agate till now: but I will inset you
neither in gold nor silver, but in vile apparel, and
send you back again to your master, for a jewel,—
the juvenal, the prince your master, whose chin is
not yet fledged. I will sooner have a beard grow in
the palm of my hand than he shall get one on his
cheek; and yet he will not stick to say his face is
a face-royal: God may finish it when he will, 'tis
not a hair amiss yet: he may keep it still at a
face-royal, for a barber shall never earn sixpence
out of it; and yet he'll be crowing as if he had
writ man ever since his father was a bachelor. He
may keep his own grace, but he's almost out of mine,
I can assure him. What said Master Dombledon about
the satin for my short cloak and my slops?

Page

He said, sir, you should procure him better
assurance than Bardolph: he would not take his
band and yours; he liked not the security.

FALSTAFF

Let him be damned, like the glutton! pray God his
tongue be hotter! A whoreson Achitophel! a rascally
yea-forsooth knave! to bear a gentleman in hand,
and then stand upon security! The whoreson
smooth-pates do now wear nothing but high shoes, and
bunches of keys at their girdles; and if a man is
through with them in honest taking up, then they
must stand upon security. I had as lief they would
put ratsbane in my mouth as offer to stop it with
security. I looked a' should have sent me two and
twenty yards of satin, as I am a true knight, and he
sends me security. Well, he may sleep in security;
for he hath the horn of abundance, and the lightness
of his wife shines through it: and yet cannot he
see, though he have his own lanthorn to light him.
Where's Bardolph?

Page

He's gone into Smithfield to buy your worship a horse.

FALSTAFF

I bought him in Paul's, and he'll buy me a horse in
Smithfield: an I could get me but a wife in the
stews, I were manned, horsed, and wived.

Enter the Lord Chief-Justice and Servant

Page

Sir, here comes the nobleman that committed the
Prince for striking him about Bardolph.

FALSTAFF

Wait, close; I will not see him.
Lord Chief-Justice What's he that goes there?

Servant

Falstaff, an't please your lordship.
Lord Chief-Justice He that was in question for the robbery?

Servant

He, my lord: but he hath since done good service at
Shrewsbury; and, as I hear, is now going with some
charge to the Lord John of Lancaster.
Lord Chief-Justice What, to York? Call him back again.

Servant

Sir John Falstaff!

FALSTAFF

Boy, tell him I am deaf.

Page

You must speak louder; my master is deaf.
Lord Chief-Justice I am sure he is, to the hearing of any thing good.
Go, pluck him by the elbow; I must speak with him.

Servant

Sir John!

FALSTAFF

What! a young knave, and begging! Is there not
wars? is there not employment? doth not the king
lack subjects? do not the rebels need soldiers?
Though it be a shame to be on any side but one, it
is worse shame to beg than to be on the worst side,
were it worse than the name of rebellion can tell
how to make it.

Servant

You mistake me, sir.

FALSTAFF

Why, sir, did I say you were an honest man? setting
my knighthood and my soldiership aside, I had lied
in my throat, if I had said so.

Servant

I pray you, sir, then set your knighthood and our
soldiership aside; and give me leave to tell you,
you lie in your throat, if you say I am any other
than an honest man.

FALSTAFF

I give thee leave to tell me so! I lay aside that
which grows to me! if thou gettest any leave of me,
hang me; if thou takest leave, thou wert better be
hanged. You hunt counter: hence! avaunt!

Servant

Sir, my lord would speak with you.
Lord Chief-Justice Sir John Falstaff, a word with you.

FALSTAFF

My good lord! God give your lordship good time of
day. I am glad to see your lordship abroad: I heard
say your lordship was sick: I hope your lordship
goes abroad by advice. Your lordship, though not
clean past your youth, hath yet some smack of age in
you, some relish of the saltness of time; and I must
humbly beseech your lordship to have a reverent care
of your health.
Lord Chief-Justice Sir John, I sent for you before your expedition to
Shrewsbury.

FALSTAFF

An't please your lordship, I hear his majesty is
returned with some discomfort from Wales.
Lord Chief-Justice I talk not of his majesty: you would not come when
I sent for you.

FALSTAFF

And I hear, moreover, his highness is fallen into
this same whoreson apoplexy.
Lord Chief-Justice Well, God mend him! I pray you, let me speak with
you.

FALSTAFF

This apoplexy is, as I take it, a kind of lethargy,
an't please your lordship; a kind of sleeping in the
blood, a whoreson tingling.
Lord Chief-Justice What tell you me of it? be it as it is.

FALSTAFF

It hath its original from much grief, from study and
perturbation of the brain: I have read the cause of
his effects in Galen: it is a kind of deafness.
Lord Chief-Justice I think you are fallen into the disease; for you
hear not what I say to you.

FALSTAFF

Very well, my lord, very well: rather, an't please
you, it is the disease of not listening, the malady
of not marking, that I am troubled withal.
Lord Chief-Justice To punish you by the heels would amend the
attention of your ears; and I care not if I do
become your physician.

FALSTAFF

I am as poor as Job, my lord, but not so patient:
your lordship may minister the potion of
imprisonment to me in respect of poverty; but how
should I be your patient to follow your
prescriptions, the wise may make some dram of a
scruple, or indeed a scruple itself.
Lord Chief-Justice I sent for you, when there were matters against you
for your life, to come speak with me.

FALSTAFF

As I was then advised by my learned counsel in the
laws of this land-service, I did not come.
Lord Chief-Justice Well, the truth is, Sir John, you live in great infamy.

FALSTAFF

He that buckles him in my belt cannot live in less.
Lord Chief-Justice Your means are very slender, and your waste is great.

FALSTAFF

I would it were otherwise; I would my means were
greater, and my waist slenderer.
Lord Chief-Justice You have misled the youthful prince.

FALSTAFF

The young prince hath misled me: I am the fellow
with the great belly, and he my dog.
Lord Chief-Justice Well, I am loath to gall a new-healed wound: your
day's service at Shrewsbury hath a little gilded
over your night's exploit on Gad's-hill: you may
thank the unquiet time for your quiet o'er-posting
that action.

FALSTAFF

My lord?
Lord Chief-Justice But since all is well, keep it so: wake not a
sleeping wolf.

FALSTAFF

To wake a wolf is as bad as to smell a fox.
Lord Chief-Justice What! you are as a candle, the better part burnt
out.

FALSTAFF

A wassail candle, my lord, all tallow: if I did say
of wax, my growth would approve the truth.
Lord Chief-Justice There is not a white hair on your face but should
have his effect of gravity.

FALSTAFF

His effect of gravy, gravy, gravy.
Lord Chief-Justice You follow the young prince up and down, like his
ill angel.

FALSTAFF

Not so, my lord; your ill angel is light; but I hope
he that looks upon me will take me without weighing:
and yet, in some respects, I grant, I cannot go: I
cannot tell. Virtue is of so little regard in these
costermonger times that true valour is turned
bear-herd: pregnancy is made a tapster, and hath
his quick wit wasted in giving reckonings: all the
other gifts appertinent to man, as the malice of
this age shapes them, are not worth a gooseberry.
You that are old consider not the capacities of us
that are young; you do measure the heat of our
livers with the bitterness of your galls: and we
that are in the vaward of our youth, I must confess,
are wags too.
Lord Chief-Justice Do you set down your name in the scroll of youth,
that are written down old with all the characters of
age? Have you not a moist eye? a dry hand? a
yellow cheek? a white beard? a decreasing leg? an
increasing belly? is not your voice broken? your
wind short? your chin double? your wit single? and
every part about you blasted with antiquity? and
will you yet call yourself young? Fie, fie, fie, Sir John!

FALSTAFF

My lord, I was born about three of the clock in the
afternoon, with a white head and something a round
belly. For my voice, I have lost it with halloing
and singing of anthems. To approve my youth
further, I will not: the truth is, I am only old in
judgment and understanding; and he that will caper
with me for a thousand marks, let him lend me the
money, and have at him! For the box of the ear that
the prince gave you, he gave it like a rude prince,
and you took it like a sensible lord. I have
chequed him for it, and the young lion repents;
marry, not in ashes and sackcloth, but in new silk
and old sack.
Lord Chief-Justice Well, God send the prince a better companion!

FALSTAFF

God send the companion a better prince! I cannot
rid my hands of him.
Lord Chief-Justice Well, the king hath severed you and Prince Harry: I
hear you are going with Lord John of Lancaster
against the Archbishop and the Earl of
Northumberland.

FALSTAFF

Yea; I thank your pretty sweet wit for it. But look
you pray, all you that kiss my lady Peace at home,
that our armies join not in a hot day; for, by the
Lord, I take but two shirts out with me, and I mean
not to sweat extraordinarily: if it be a hot day,
and I brandish any thing but a bottle, I would I
might never spit white again. There is not a
dangerous action can peep out his head but I am
thrust upon it: well, I cannot last ever: but it
was alway yet the trick of our English nation, if
they have a good thing, to make it too common. If
ye will needs say I am an old man, you should give
me rest. I would to God my name were not so
terrible to the enemy as it is: I were better to be
eaten to death with a rust than to be scoured to
nothing with perpetual motion.
Lord Chief-Justice Well, be honest, be honest; and God bless your
expedition!

FALSTAFF

Will your lordship lend me a thousand pound to
furnish me forth?
Lord Chief-Justice Not a penny, not a penny; you are too impatient to
bear crosses. Fare you well: commend me to my
cousin Westmoreland.

Exeunt Chief-Justice and Servant

FALSTAFF

If I do, fillip me with a three-man beetle. A man
can no more separate age and covetousness than a'
can part young limbs and lechery: but the gout
galls the one, and the pox pinches the other; and
so both the degrees prevent my curses. Boy!

Page

Sir?

FALSTAFF

What money is in my purse?

Page

Seven groats and two pence.

FALSTAFF

I can get no remedy against this consumption of the
purse: borrowing only lingers and lingers it out,
but the disease is incurable. Go bear this letter
to my Lord of Lancaster; this to the prince; this
to the Earl of Westmoreland; and this to old
Mistress Ursula, whom I have weekly sworn to marry
since I perceived the first white hair on my chin.
About it: you know where to find me.

Exit Page

A pox of this gout! or, a gout of this pox! for
the one or the other plays the rogue with my great
toe. 'Tis no matter if I do halt; I have the wars
for my colour, and my pension shall seem the more
reasonable. A good wit will make use of any thing:
I will turn diseases to commodity.

Exit

SCENE III. York. The Archbishop's palace.

Enter the ARCHBISHOP OF YORK, the Lords HASTINGS, MOWBRAY, and BARDOLPH

ARCHBISHOP OF YORK

Thus have you heard our cause and known our means;
And, my most noble friends, I pray you all,
Speak plainly your opinions of our hopes:
And first, lord marshal, what say you to it?

MOWBRAY

I well allow the occasion of our arms;
But gladly would be better satisfied
How in our means we should advance ourselves
To look with forehead bold and big enough
Upon the power and puissance of the king.

HASTINGS

Our present musters grow upon the file
To five and twenty thousand men of choice;
And our supplies live largely in the hope
Of great Northumberland, whose bosom burns
With an incensed fire of injuries.

LORD BARDOLPH

The question then, Lord Hastings, standeth thus;
Whether our present five and twenty thousand
May hold up head without Northumberland?

HASTINGS

With him, we may.

LORD BARDOLPH

Yea, marry, there's the point:
But if without him we be thought too feeble,
My judgment is, we should not step too far
Till we had his assistance by the hand;
For in a theme so bloody-faced as this
Conjecture, expectation, and surmise
Of aids incertain should not be admitted.

ARCHBISHOP OF YORK

'Tis very true, Lord Bardolph; for indeed
It was young Hotspur's case at Shrewsbury.

LORD BARDOLPH

It was, my lord; who lined himself with hope,
Eating the air on promise of supply,
Flattering himself in project of a power
Much smaller than the smallest of his thoughts:
And so, with great imagination
Proper to madmen, led his powers to death
And winking leap'd into destruction.

HASTINGS

But, by your leave, it never yet did hurt
To lay down likelihoods and forms of hope.

LORD BARDOLPH

Yes, if this present quality of war,
Indeed the instant action: a cause on foot
Lives so in hope as in an early spring
We see the appearing buds; which to prove fruit,
Hope gives not so much warrant as despair
That frosts will bite them. When we mean to build,
We first survey the plot, then draw the model;
And when we see the figure of the house,
Then must we rate the cost of the erection;
Which if we find outweighs ability,
What do we then but draw anew the model
In fewer offices, or at last desist
To build at all? Much more, in this great work,
Which is almost to pluck a kingdom down
And set another up, should we survey
The plot of situation and the model,
Consent upon a sure foundation,
Question surveyors, know our own estate,
How able such a work to undergo,
To weigh against his opposite; or else
We fortify in paper and in figures,
Using the names of men instead of men:
Like one that draws the model of a house
Beyond his power to build it; who, half through,
Gives o'er and leaves his part-created cost
A naked subject to the weeping clouds
And waste for churlish winter's tyranny.

HASTINGS

Grant that our hopes, yet likely of fair birth,
Should be still-born, and that we now possess'd
The utmost man of expectation,
I think we are a body strong enough,
Even as we are, to equal with the king.

LORD BARDOLPH

What, is the king but five and twenty thousand?

HASTINGS

To us no more; nay, not so much, Lord Bardolph.
For his divisions, as the times do brawl,
Are in three heads: one power against the French,
And one against Glendower; perforce a third
Must take up us: so is the unfirm king
In three divided; and his coffers sound
With hollow poverty and emptiness.

ARCHBISHOP OF YORK

That he should draw his several strengths together
And come against us in full puissance,
Need not be dreaded.

HASTINGS

If he should do so,
He leaves his back unarm'd, the French and Welsh
Baying him at the heels: never fear that.

LORD BARDOLPH

Who is it like should lead his forces hither?

HASTINGS

The Duke of Lancaster and Westmoreland;
Against the Welsh, himself and Harry Monmouth:
But who is substituted 'gainst the French,
I have no certain notice.

ARCHBISHOP OF YORK

Let us on,
And publish the occasion of our arms.
The commonwealth is sick of their own choice;
Their over-greedy love hath surfeited:
An habitation giddy and unsure
Hath he that buildeth on the vulgar heart.
O thou fond many, with what loud applause
Didst thou beat heaven with blessing Bolingbroke,
Before he was what thou wouldst have him be!
And being now trimm'd in thine own desires,
Thou, beastly feeder, art so full of him,
That thou provokest thyself to cast him up.
So, so, thou common dog, didst thou disgorge
Thy glutton bosom of the royal Richard;
And now thou wouldst eat thy dead vomit up,
And howl'st to find it. What trust is in
these times?
They that, when Richard lived, would have him die,
Are now become enamour'd on his grave:
Thou, that threw'st dust upon his goodly head
When through proud London he came sighing on
After the admired heels of Bolingbroke,
Criest now 'O earth, yield us that king again,
And take thou this!' O thoughts of men accursed!
Past and to come seems best; things present worst.

MOWBRAY

Shall we go draw our numbers and set on?

HASTINGS

We are time's subjects, and time bids be gone.

Exeunt

Act II

SCENE I. London. A street.

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

SCENE II. 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

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.
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

SCENE IV. 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

Act III

SCENE I. 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