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 set 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, it is not a hair amiss yet: he may keep it still as a face-royal, for a barber shall never earn sixpence out of it; and yet he will be crowing, as if he had writ ma ever since his father was a bachelor. He may keep his own grace, but he is almost out of mine, I can assure him.What said master Dunibleton about the satin for my short cloak, and slops? Page. He said, Sir, you should procure him better assurance than Bardolph: he would not take his bond and yours; he liked not the security. Ful. Let him be damned like a glutton! may 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 thorought 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 he 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 lantern to light him.- Where's Bardolph? Puge. He's gone into Smithfield, to buy your worship a horse. Fal. 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 an AT TENDANT. Page. Sir, here comes the nobleman that committed the prince or stricking him about Bardolph. Ful. Wait close, I will not see him, Ch. Just. What's he that goes there? Atten. Falstaff, an't please your lordship. Ch Just. He that was in question for the robbery? Atten. He, my lord: but he hath since done good service at Shrewsbury; and, as 1 hear, is now going with some charge to the lord John of Lancaster. Ch. Just. What, to York? Call him back again. Atten. Sir John Falstaff! Fal. Boy, tell him, I am deaf. deaf. 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. Atten. You mistake me, Sir. Ful. 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. Atten. I pray you, Sir, then set your knighthood and your 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. Ful. I give thee leave to tell me so! I lay aside that which grows to me! If thou get'st any leave of me, hang me: if thou takest leave, thou wert better be hanged: You hunt-counter,+ hence! avaunt! Atten. Sir, my lord would speak with you. Ch. Just. Sir John Falstall, a word with you. Fal. My good lord!-God give your le uship good time of day. I am glad to see you, 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 most humbly beseech your lordship, to have a reverend care of your health. Ch. Just. Sir John, I sent for you before your expedition to Shrewsbury. Ful. An't please your lordship, 1 hear, his majesty is returned with some discomfort from Wales. Ch. Just. I talk not of his majesty:- You would not come when I sent for you. Ful. And I hear moreover, his highness is fallen into this same whoreson apoplexy. Ch. Just. Well, heaven mend him! I pray let me speak with you. Fal. 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. Ch. Just. What tell you me of it? be it as it is. Ful. It hath its original from much grief; from study, and perturbation of the brain: Í have read the cause of his effects in Galen; it is a kind of deafness. Ch. Just. I think, you are fallen into the disease; for you hear not what I say to you. Fal. 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. Ch. Just. To punish you by the heels, would amend the attention of your ears; and I care not, if I do become your physician. Fal. 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 I should be your patient to follow your prescriptions, the wise may make some dram of a scruple, or, indeed, a scruple itself. Fal. He that buckles him in my belt, cannot live in less. Ch. Just. Your means are very slender, and your waste is great. Ful. I would it were otherwise; I would my means were greater, and my waist slenderer. Ch. Just. You have misled the youthful prince. and Prince Harry: I hear, you are going with lord John of Lancaster, against the archbishop, and the earl of Northumberland. Fal. 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 Fal. The young prince hath misled me: I am extraordinarily: it it be a hot day, an I branthe fellow with the great belly, and he my dog. dish any thing but my bottle, I would I might Ch. Just. Well, I am loath to gall a new- never spit white again. There is not a danhealed wound your day's service at Shrews-gerous action can peep out his head, but I am bury hath a little gilded over your night's ex- thrust upon it: Well, I cannot last ever: But ploit on Gads-hill: you may thank the unquiet it was always yet the trick of our English natime for your quiet o'er-posting that action. tion, if they have a good thing, to make it too Fal. My lord? common. If you 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 rust, than to be scoured to nothing with perpetual motion. Ch. Just. But since all is well, keep it so: wake not a sleeping wolf. Fal. To wake a wolf, is as bad as to smell a fox. Ch. Just. What! you are as a candle, the better part burnt out. Fal. A wassel* candle, my lord; all tallow: if I did say of wax, my growth would approve the truth. Ch. Just. There is not a white hair on your face, but should have his effect of gravity. Fal. His effect of gravy, gravy, gravy. Ch. Just. You follow the young prince up and down, like his ill angel. Ch. Just. Well, be honest, be honest; And God bless your expedition! Fal. Will your lordship lend me a thousand pound, to furnish me forth? Ch. Just. 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 ATTENDANT. Fal. If I do, fillip me with a three-man Fal. What money is in my purse? Fal. Not so, my lord; your ill angelt 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 bearherd: Pregnancy is made a tapster, and hath his quick wit wasted in giving reckonings: all the other gifts appertinent to man, as the ma- Fal. I can get no remedy against this conlice of this age shapes them, are not worth a sumption of the purse: borrowing only lingers gooseberry. You, that are old, consider not and lingers it out, but the disease is incurable. the capacities of us that are young: you mea--Go bear this letter to my lord of Lancaster; sure 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. 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 Ch. Just. Do you set down your name in the the first white hair on my chin: About it; you scroll of youth, that are written down old with know where to find me. [Exit PAGE.] A pox all the characters of age? Have you not a of this gout! or, a gout of this pox! for the one, moist eye? a dry hand? a yellow cheek? a or the other, plays the rogue with my great white beard? a decreasing leg? an increasing toe. It is no matter, if I do halt; I have the belly? Is not your voice broken? your wind wars for my colour, and my pension shall seem short? your chin double? your wit single?¶ the more reasonable: A good wit will make and every part about you blasted with anti-use of any thing; I will turn diseases to comquity? and will you yet call yourself young? Fie, fie, fie, Sir John! Fal. 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 hollaing, and singing of anthems. To approve my youth further, I will not: the truth is, I am only old in judgement 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 o'the ear that the prince gave you, he gave it like a rude prince, and you took it like a sensible lord. I have checked him for it; and the young lion repents: marry, not in ashes, and sackcloth; but in new silk, and old sack. Ch. Just. Well, heaven send the prince a better companion! Fal. Heaven send the companion a better A large candle for a feast. Small, 6 Readiness. modity. [Exit. SCENE III.-York.-A Room in the Arch- Enter the ARCHBISHOP OF YORK, the Lords HAST- Arch. Thus have you heard our cause, and known our means; And, my most noble friends, I pray you all, Hast. Our present musters grow upon the file A large wooden hammer so heavy as to require three Bard. The question then, lord Hastings, standeth thus: Whether our present five and twenty thousand May hold up head without Northumberland. Hast. With him, we may. Bard. Ay, marry, there's the point: But if without him we be thought too feeble, My judgement is, we should not step too far Till we had his assistance by the hand: For, in a theme so bloody-fac'd as this, Conjecture, expectation, and surmise Of aids uncertain, should not be admitted. Arch. "Tis very true, lord Bardolph; for, indeed, It was young Hotspur's case at Shrewsbury. Bard. It was, my lord; who lin'd himself with hope, Eating the air on promise of supply, To lay down likelihoods, and forms of hope. [work, We first survey the plot, then draw the model; Gives o'er, and leaves his part created cost Hast. Grant, that our hopes (yet likely for fair birth,) [sess'd Should be still-born, and that we now pos- Hast. To us, no more; nay, not so much, For his divisions, as the times do brawl, And one against Glendower; perforce, a third Arch. That he should draw his several strengths together, And come against us in full puissance, • Agree Arch. Let us on; And publish the occasion of our arms. Hath he, that buildeth on the vulgar heart. broke, [be? Before he was what thou would'st have him And being now trimm'dt in thine own desires, Thou, beastly feeder, art so full of him, That thou provok'st thyself to cast him up. So, so, thou common dog, didst thou disgorge Thy glutton bosom of the royal Richard; And now thou would'st eat thy dead vomit up, And howl'st to find it. What trust is in these times? They that, when Richard liv'd, 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 After the admired heels of Bolingbroke, [on Cry'st now, O earth, yield us that king again, And take thou this! O thoughts of men accurst' Past, and to come, seem best; things present, worst. staff. Host. Yea, good master Snare; I have entered him and all. Snare. It may chance cost some of us our lives, for he will stab. stabbed me in mine own house, and that most Host. Alas the day! take heed of him; he beastly in good faith, a' cares not what mischief he doth, if his weapon be out: he will foing like any devil; he will spare neither man, woman, nor child. Fang. If I can close with him, I care not for his thrust. Host. No, nor I neither: I'll be at your elbow. Fang. An I but fist him once; an a' com but within my vice ; Host. 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. He comes connuantly to Pie-corner, (saving your manhoods,) to buy a saddle; and he's indited to dinner to the lubbar'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 loan 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.Enter Sir JOHN FALSTAFF, PAGE, and BAR DOLPH. to enforce a poor widow to so rough a course to come by her own? Fal. What is the gross sum that I owe thee? Host. 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 seacoal tire, upon Wednesday in Whitsun-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 Yonder he comes; and that arrant malmsey-familiarity with such poor people; saying, that nose knave, Bardolph, with him. Do your offices, do your offices, master Fang, and inaster Snare; do me, do me, do me your offices. Fal. How now? whose mare's dead? what's the matter? Fang. Sir John, I arrest you at the suit of mistress Quickly. Fal. Away, varlets!-Draw, Bardolph; cut me off the villain's head; throw the quean in the channel. Host. Throw me in the channel? I'll throw thee in the channel. Wilt thou? wilt thou? thou bastardly rogue!-Murder, murder! O thou honey-suckle villain! wilt thou kill God's officers, and the king's? O thou honey-seedt rogue! thou art a honey-seed; a man-queller, and a woman-queller. Fal. Keep them off, Bardolph. Host. Good people, bring a rescue or two.— Thou wo't, wo't thou? thou wo't, wo't thou? do, do, thou rogue! do, thou hemp-seed! Ful. Away, you scullion! you rampallian! you fustilarian! I'll tickle your catastrophe. Enter the Lord CHIEF JUSTICE, attended. Ch. Just. What's the matter? keep the peace here, ho! Host. Good my lord, be good to me! I beseech you, stand to me! Ch. Just. How now, Sir John? what, are you brawling here? Doth this become your place, your time, and business? [York. You should have been well on your way to Stand from him, fellow; Wherefore hang'st thou on him? Host. O my most worshipful lord, an't please your grace, I am a poor widow of Eastcheap, and he is arrested at my suit. Ch. Just. For what sum? Host. 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'll ride thee o'nights, like the mare. 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 bookoath; deny it, if thou canst. Fal. 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. Ch. Just. 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 person Host. Yea, in troth, my lord. Ch. Just. Pr'ythee, peace:-Pay her the debt you owe her, and unpay the villany you have done with her; the one you may do with sterling money, and the other with current repent ance. Fal. My lord, I will not undergo this sneapt without reply. You call honourable boldness, impudent sauciness: if a man will make court'sy, and say nothing, he is virtuous: No, my lord, my humble duty remembered, I will not be your suitor; I say to you, do desire deliverance from these oflicers, being upon hasty employment in the king's affairs. Ch. Just. You speak as having power to do wrong: but answer in the effect of your reputation, and satisfy the poor woman Fal. Come hither, hostess. [Taking her aside. Enter GoWER. Ch. Just. Now, master Gower; What news? Gew. The king, my lord, and Harry prince of Wales Are near at hand: the rest the paper tells. Host. Nay, you said so before. Ful. As I am a gentleman;-Come, no more words of it. Host. By this heavenly ground I tread on, 1 must be fain to pawn both my plate, and the tapestry of my dining-chambers. Ful. Glasses, glasses, is the only drinking · * and for thy walls,-a pretty slight drollery, or | princely got; for, by my troth, I do now re the story of the prodigal, or the German hunt. member the poor creature, small beer. But, ing in water-work, is worth a thousand of indeed, these humble considerations make me these bed-hangings, and these fly-bitten tapes-out of love with my greatness. What a distries. Let it be ten pound, if thou canst. grace is it to me, to remember thy name? or to Come, an it were not for thy humours, there is know thy face to-morrow? or to take note how not a better wench in England. Go, wash thy many pair of silk stockings thou hast; viz. face, and 'draw thy action: Come, thou must these, and those that were the peach-colour'd not be in this humour with me; dost not know ones? or to bear the inventory of thy shirts; as, me? Come, come, I know thou wast set on to one for superfluity, and one other for use?-but this. 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 lowcountries 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. Host. Pray thee, Sir John, let it be but twenty nobles; i'faith I am loath to pawn my plate, in good earnest, la. Fal. Let it alone; I'll make other shift: you'll be a fool still. Host. Well, you shall have it, though I pawn my gown. I hope, you'll come to supper: You'll pay me all together? Fal. Will I live?-Go, with her, with her; [To BARDOLPH.] hook on, hook on. Host. Will you have Doll Tear-sheet meet you at supper? Fal. No more words; let's have her. [Exeunt HOSTESS, BARDOLPH, Officers, Ch. Just. I have heard better news. Fal. I hope, my lord, all's well: What's the news, my lord? Ch. Just. Come all his forces back? Are march'd up to my lord of Lancaster, Ch. Just. You shall have letters of me presently: Come, go along with me, good master Gower. Fal. My lord! Ch. Just. What's the matter? Fal. Master Gower, shall I entreat you with me to dinner? Gow. I must wait upon my good lord here: I thank you, good Sir John. Ch. Just. Sir John, you loiter here too long, seeing you are to take soldiers up in counties as you go. Fal. Will you sup with me, master Gower? Ch. Just. What foolish master taught you these manners, Sir John? Fal. 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. Ch. Just. Now the Lord lighten thee! thou art a great fool. [Exeunt. SCENE 11-The same.-Another Street. Enter Prince HENRY and POINS. P. Hen. Trust me, I am exceeding weary. Poins. Is it come to that? I had thought, weariness durst not have attached one of so high blood. P. Hen. '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? Puins. Why, a prince should not be so loosely studied, as to remember so weak a composition. P. Hen. Belike then, my appetite was not Withdraw. 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? P. Hen. Shall I tell thee one thing, Poins? Poins. Yes; and let it be an excellent good thing. P. Hen. It will serve among wits of no higher breeding than thine. Poins. Go to; I stand the push of your one thing that you will tell. P. Hen. Why, I tell thee,-it is not meet that 1 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. P. Hen. By this hand, thou think'st 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 keep ing such vile company as thou art, hath in rea son taken from me all ostentation of sorrow. Poins. The reason? P. Hen. What would'st thou think of me, if I should weep? Poins. I would think thee a most princely hypocrite. P. Hen. 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 a 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. P. Hen. And to thee. Poins. By this light, I am well spoken of, 1 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 can not help. By the mass, here comes Bardolph. P. Hen. And the boy that I gave Falstaff: he had him from me Christian; and look, if the fat villain hath not transformed him ape. Enter BARDOLPH and PAGE. P. Hen. And yours, most noble Bardolph! * Children wrapped up in h's old sh****. |