Blunt. So is the business that I come to speak of. A mighty and a fearful head they are, As ever offer'd foul play in a state. • salamander of yours with fire any time this two and thirty years: God reward me for it! Bard. 'Sblood! I would my face were in your belly. Fal. God-a-mercy! so should I be sure to be heartburned. Enter Hostess. How now, dame Partlet the hen? have you inquired K. Hen. The carl of Westmoreland set forth to-day, yet who picked my pocket ?. On Wednesday next, Harry, you shall set forward ; Enter FALSTAFF and BARDOLPH. Fal. Bardolph, am I not fallen away vilely since this last action? do I not bate? do I not dwindle ?Why, my skin hangs about me like an old lady's loose gown: I am wither'd like an old apple-John. Well, I'll repent, and that suddenly, while I am in some liking2; I shall be out of heart shortly, and then I shall have no strength to repent. An I have not forgotten what the inside of a church is made of, I am a pepper-corn, a brewer's horse. The inside of a church! Company, villainous company, hath been the spoil of me. Bard. Sir John, you are so fretful, you cannot live long. Fal. Why, there is it.-Come, sing me a bawdy song; make me merry. I was as virtuously given as a gentleman need to be; virtuous enough: swore little ; diced not above seven times a week; went to a bawdy-house not above once in a quarter-of an hour; paid money that I borrowed three or four times; lived well, and in good compass; and now I live out of all order, out of all compass. Bard. Why, you are so fat, sir John, that you must needs be out of all compass; out of all reasonable compass, sir John. Fal. Do thou amend thy face, and I'll amend my life. Thou art our admiral, thou bearest the lantern not3 in the poop,-but 't is in the nose of thee: thou art the knight of the burning lamp. Bard. Why, sir John, my face does you no harm. Fal. No; I'll be sworn, I make as good use of it as many a man doth of a death's head, or a memento mori : I never see thy face, but I think upon hell-fire, and Dives that lived in purple; for there he is in his robes, burning, burning. If thou wert any way given to virtue, I would swear by thy face: my oath should be, By this fire, that's God's angel: but thou art altogether given over, and wert, indeed, but for the light in thy face, the son of utter darkness. When thou ran'st up Gadshill in the night to catch my horse, if I did not think thou hadst been an ignis fatuus, or a ball of wild-fire, there's no purchase in money. O! thou art a perpetual triumph. an everlasting bonfire-light. Thou hast saved me a thousand marks in links and torches, walking with thee in the night betwixt tavern and tavern: but the sack that thou hast drunk me, would have bought me lights as good cheap, at the dearest chandler's in Europe. I have maintained that 1 hath in f. e. 2 In good flesh. Host. Why, sir John, what do you think, sir John? Do you think I keep thieves in my house? I have searched, I have inquired, so has my husband, man by man, boy by boy, servant by servant: the tithe of a hair was never lost in my house before. Fal. You lie, hostess: Bardolph was shaved, and lost many a hair; and I'll be sworn, my pocket was picked. Go to, you are a woman; go. Host Who I? No. I defy thee: God's light! I was never called so in mine own house before. Fal. Go to; I know you well enough. Host. No, sir John; you do not know me, sir John : I know you, sir John: you owe me money, sir John, and now you pick a quarrel to beguile me of it. Í bought you a dozen of shirts to your back. Fal. Dowlas, filthy dowlas: I have given them away to bakers' wives, and they have made bolters of them. Host. Now, as I am a true woman, holland of eight shillings an ell. You owe money here besides, sir John, for your diet, and by-drinkings, and money lent you, four and twenty pound. Fal. He had his part of it: let him pay. Host He? alas! he is poor: he hath nothing. Fal. How! poor? look upon his face; what call you rich? let them coin his nose, let them coin his cheeks. I'll not pay a denier. What, will you make a younker of me? shall I not take mine ease in mine inn, but I shall have my pocket picked? I have lost a seal-ring of my grandfather's, worth forty mark. Host. O Jesu! I have heard the prince tell him, I know not how oft, that that ring was copper. Fal. How the prince is a Jack, a sneak-cup; 'Sblood! and he were here, I would cudgel him like a dog, if he would say so. Enter Prince HENRY and POINS*, marching. FALSTAFF Bard. Yea, two and two, Newgate-fashion? P. Hen. What sayest thou, mistress Quickly? How does thy husband? I love him well: he is an honest man. Host. Good my lord, hear me. Fal. Pr'ythee let her alone, and list to me. Fal. The other night I fell asleep, here, behind the arras, and had my pocket picked this house is turned bawdy-house; they pick pockets. P. Hen. What didst thou lose, Jack? Fal. Wilt thou believe me. Hal? three or four bonds of forty pound a-piece, and a seal ring of my grandfather's. P. Hen. A trifle: some eight-penny matter. Host. So I told him, my lord; and I said I heard your grace say so: and, my lord, he speaks most vilely of you, like a foul-mouthed man as he is, and said, he would cudgel you. P. Hen. What! he did not? Host. There's neither faith, truth, nor womanhood in me else. Fal. There's no more faith in thee than in a stewed prune; nor no more truth in thee, than in a drawn fox: and for womanhood, maid Marian1 may be the deputy's wife of the ward to thee. Go, you thing, go. Host. Say, what thing? what thing? Fal. What thing? why, a thing to thank God on. Host. I am nothing to thank God on, I would thou shouldst know it: I am an honest man's wife; and, setting thy knighthood aside, thou art a knave to call me so. Fal. Setting thy womanhood aside, thou art a beast to say otherwise. Host. Say, what beast, thou knave thou? P. Hen. An otter, sir John: why an otter? Host. Thou art an unjust man in saying so: thou or any man knows where to have me, thou knave thou! P. Hen. Thou sayest true, hostess; and he slanders thee most grossly. Host. So he doth you, my lord; and said this other day, you ought him a thousand pound. P. Hen. Sirrah! do I owe you a thousand pound? Fal. A thousand pound, Hal! a million: thy love is worth a million; thou owest me thy love. Host. Nay, my lord, he called you Jack, and said he would cudgel you. Fal. Did I, Bardolph ? Bard. Indeed, sir John, you said so. Fal. Yea; if he said my ring was copper. P. Hen. I say, 't is copper: darest thou be as good as thy word now? Fal. Why, Hal, thou knowest, as thou art but man, I dare; but as thou art prince, I fear thee, as I fear the roaring of the lion's whelp. P. Hen. And why not, as the lion. Fal. The king himself is to be feared as the lion. Dost thou think I'll fear thee as I fear thy father? nay, an I do, I pray God, my girdle break! with any other injuries but these, I am a villain; and yet you will stand to it; you will not pocket up wrong. Art thou not ashamed? Fal. Dost thou hear, Hal? thou knowest in the state of innocence, Adam fell; and what should poor Jack Falstaff do, in the days of villainy? Thou seest I have more flesh than another man, and therefore more frailty. You confess, then, you picked my pocket? P. Hen. It appears so by the story. Fal. Hostess, I forgive thee. Go, make ready breakfast; love thy husband, look to thy servants, cherish thy guests: thou shalt find me tractable to any honest reason: thou seest, I am pacified.-Still ?-Nay, pr'ythee begone. [Exit Hostess.] Now, Hal, to the news at court for the robbery, lad,-how is that answered? P. Hen. O! my sweet beef, I must still be good angel to thee.-The money is paid back again. Fal. O! I do not like that paying back; 't is a double labour. P. Hen. I am good friends with my father, and may do any thing. Fal. Rob me the exchequer the first thing thou dost, and do it with unwashed hands too. P. Hen. Go bear this letter to lord John of Lancaster, P. Hen. O! if it should, how would thy guts fall [Exeunt Prince, POINS, and Bardolph. Fal. Rare words! brave world!-Hostess, my breakfast; come. [Exit. ACT IV. SCENE I.—The Rebel Camp near Shrewsbury. The tongues of soothers; but a braver place No man so potent breathes upon the ground, But I will beard him. Do so, and 't is well.- Mess. His letters bear his mind, not I, my lord. 1 Robin Hood's companion-she was often introduced as a character in Morris dances. He was much fear'd by his physicians. Wor. I would the state of time had first been whole, Ere he by sickness had been visited : His health was never better worth than now. Is marching hitherwards; with him, prince John. And farther, I have learn'd, Hot. Sick now! droop now! this sickness doth infect Or hitherwards intendeth speedily, The very life-blood of our enterprise : 'Tis catching hither, even to our camp. And that his friends by deputation could not That with our small conjunction we should on, Wor. Your father's sickness is a maim to us. Doug. 'Faith, and so we should, A comfort of retirement lives in this. Hot. A rendezvous, a home to fly unto, If that the devil and mischance look big Upon the maidenhead of our-affairs. Wor. But yet, I would your father had been here. By some, that know not why he is away, Of our proceedings, kept the earl from hence. And stop all sight-holes, every loop from whence We should o'erturn it topsy-turvy down.- With strong and mighty preparation. Hot. He shall be welcome too. Where is his son, The nimble-footed mad-cap prince of Wales, And his comrades, that daff'd the world aside, And bid it pass ? Ver. All furnish'd, all in arms, All plum'd like estridges, that wing the wind, And witch the world with noble horsemanship. Hot. No more, no more: worse than the sun in March, And yet not ours.-Come, let me taste3 my horse, Against the bosom of the prince of Wales: Harry to Harry shall, hot horse to horse, Meet, and ne'er part, till one drop down a corse.— There is more news: My father and Glendower being both away, Doug. Talk not of dying: I am out of fear Of death, or death's hand, for this one half year. [Exeunt. SCENE II.—A public Road, near Coventry. Enter FALSTAFF and BARDolph. Fal. Bardolph, get thee before to Coventry: fill me a bottle of sack. Our soldiers shall march through ; we 'll to Sutton-Colfield to-night. Bard. Will you give me money, captain? Fal. Lay out, lay out. Bard. This bottle makes an angel. Fal. An if it do, take it for thy labour; and if it Doug. As heart can think: there is not such a word make twenty, take them all, I'll answer the coinage. Spoke of in Scotland as this term3 of fear. Enter Sir RICHARD VERNON. Hot. My cousin Vernon! welcome, by my soul. Ver. Pray God my news be worth a welcome, lord. The earl of Westmoreland, seven thousand strong, Bid my lieutenant Peto meet me at the town's end. Bard. I will, captain: farewell. [Exit. Fal. If I be not ashamed of my soldiers, I am a soused gurnet. I have misused the king's press damnably. I have got, in exchange of a hundred and fifty 1 This word is not in f. e. 2 Complexion, character. 3 dream in folio. 4 A term of archery, to beat the air. 5 Try. The two later quartos and folio, read: take; which Knight follows. 6 A fish of the piper kind.-Verplanck. SCENE III-The Rebel Camp near Shrewsbury. It may not be. Hot. You do not counsel well. soldiers, three hundred and odd pounds. I pressed me none but good householders, yeomen's sons: inquired me out contracted bachelors, such as had been Enter HOTSPUR, WORCESTER, DOUGLAS, and VERNON, asked twice on the bans; such a commodity of warm Hot. We'll fight with him to-night. slaves, as had as lief hear the devil as a drum; such as Wor. fear the report of a caliver, worse than a struck fowl, or a hurt wild-duck. I pressed me none but such toasts and butter,' with hearts in their bellies no bigger than pins' heads, and they have bought out their services; and now my whole charge consists of ancients, corporals, lieutenants, gentlemen of companies, slaves as ragged as Lazarus in the painted cloth, where the glutton's dogs licked his sores; and such as, indeed, were never soldiers, but discarded unjust serving men, younger sons to younger brothers, revolted tapsters, and ostlers trade-fallen; the cankers of a calm world, and a long peace; ten times more dishonourable ragged than an old pieced3 ancient and such have I, to fill up the rooms of them that have bought out their services, that you would think that I had a hundred and fifty tattered prodigals, lately come from swine-keeping, from eating draff and husks. A mad fellow met me on the way, and told me I had unloaded all the gibbets, and pressed the dead bodies. No eye hath seen such scarecrows. I'll not march through Coventry with them, that's flat-nay, and the villains march wide betwixt the legs, as if they had gyves on; for, indeed, I had the most of them out of prison. There's but a shirt and a half in all my company and the half shirit is two napkins, tacked together, and thrown over the shoulders like a herald's coat without sleeves; and the shirt, to say the truth, stolen from my host at St. Albans, or the red-nosed inn-keeper of Daventry. But that's all one; they 'll find linen enough on every hedge. Enter Prince HENRY and WESTMORELAND. P. Hen. How now, blown Jack! how now, quilt! Fal. What, Hal! how now, mad wag! what a devil dost thou in Warwickshire ?-My good lord of Westmoreland, I cry you mercy: I thought your honour had already been at Shrewsbury. West. 'Faith, sir John, 't is more than time that I were there and you too; but my powers are there already. The king, I can tell you, looks for us all: we must away all night. Fal. Tut. never fear me: I am as vigilant as a cat to steal cream. P. Hen. I think, to steal cream indeed for thy theft hath already made thee butter. But tell me, Jack; whose fellows are these that come after ? Fal. Mine, Hal, mine. P. Hen. I did never see such pitiful rascals. Fal. Tut, tut! good enough to toss"; food for powder, food for powder; they'll fill a pit, as well as better: tush, man, mortal men, mortal men. West. Ay, but, sir John, methinks they are exceeding poor and bare; too beggarly. Fal. 'Faith, for their poverty, I know not where they had that and for their bareness, I am sure, they never learned that of me. P. Hen. No, I'll be sworn; unless you call three fingers on the ribs, bare. But, sirrah, make haste: Percy is already in the field. Fal. What, is the king encamped? West. He is, sir John: I fear we shall stay too long. To the latter end of a fray, and the beginning of a feast, [Exeunt. Yea, or to-night. Hot. To-night, say I. I wonder much, Content. Come, come, it may not be. Being men of such great leading as you are, Hot. So are the horses of the enemy, Wor. The number of the king exceedeth ours: [The Trumpet sounds a parley. Hot. Welcome, sir Walter Blunt; and would to God Some of us love you well; and even those some Blunt. And God defend but still I should stand so, Hot. The king is kind; and, well we know, the king 8 2 Used 1 According to Fynes Morison's Itinerary (1617), Londoners, were "in reproach" called Cockneys, and eaters of buttered toasts. for covering walls. 3 faced in f. e. 4 Old copies: not; mod. eds.: but. 5 So the quartos; folio: to-night. 6 Toss on a pike. 7 that this day lives: in f. e. 8 and in f. e. And when he was not six-and-twenty strong, Laid gifts before him, proffer'd him their oaths, Made to my father, while his blood was poor, Blunt. Tut! I came not to hear this. Then, to the point. Too indirect for long-continuance. Blunt. Shall I return this answer to the king? Go to the king; and let there be impawn'd 'Pray God you do! [Exeunt. SCENE IV.----York. A Room in the Archbishop's House. Enter the Archbishop of YORK, and Sir MICHAEL. Arch. Hie, good sir Michael; bear this sealed brief, With winged haste to the lord marshal: This to my cousin Scroop; and all the rest To whom they are directed. If you knew How much they do import, you would make haste. Sir M. My good lord, I guess their tenour. Arch. The king, with mighty and quick-raised power, 5 I fear, the power of Percy is too weak To wage an instant trial with the king. Sir M. Why, my good lord, you need not fear; There is Douglas, and lord Mortimer. Arch. No, Mortimer is not there. [Percy. Sir M. But there is Mordake, Vernon, lord Harry And there's my lord of Worcester; and a head Of gallant warriors, noble gentlemen. Arch. And so there is; but yet the king hath drawn The special head of all the land together: The prince of Wales, lord John of Lancaster, The noble Westmoreland, and warlike Blunt, And many more corrivals, and dear men Sir M. Doubt not, my lord, they shall be well oppos'd. And 't is but wisdom to make strong against him: To other friends; and so farewell, sir Michael. [Exeunt. |