captain? If captains were of my mind, they keeping house, afore I'll be in these tirrits and would truncheon you out, for taking their frights. So; murder, I warrant now.--Alas, names upon you before you have earned them. aias! put up your naked weapons, put up your You a captain, you slave! for what? for tearing naked weapons. a poor whore's ruff in a bawdy-house ?-He a [Exeunt PISTOL and BARDOLPH. captain! Hang him, rogue! He lives upon Dol. I pray thee, Jack, be quiet; the rascal mouldy stewed prunes, and dried cakes. A is gone. Ah! your whoreson little valiant vilcaptain! these villains will make the word cap.lain, you. tain as odious as the word occupy; which was an Host. Are you not hurt i'the groin? meexcellent good word before it was ill-sorted; thought, he made a shrewd thrust at your belly. therefore captains had need look to it. Page. Pray thee, go down. Re-enter BARDOLPH. Fal. Have you turned him out of doors? Bard. Yes, Sir. The rascal's drunk: you have hurt him, Sir, in the shoulder. Ful. A rascal to brave me ! Dol. Ah! you sweet little rogue, you! Alas, Pist. I'll see her damned first;-to Pluto's poor ape, how thou sweat'st! Come, let me damned lake, to the infernal deep, with Erebus wipe thy face;-come on, you whoreson chops : and tortures vile also. Hold hook and line, say-Ah, rogue! i'faith, I love thee. Thou art as I. Down, down, dogs! down faitors! Have valorous as Hector of Troy, worth five of Agamemnon, and ten times better than the nine worthies. Ah villain! we not Hiren here!* Host. Good captain Peesel, be quiet; it is very late, i'faith: I beseek you now, aggravate your choler. Pist. These be good humours, indeed! Shall And hollow pamper'd jades of Asia, King Cerberus; and let the welkin roar. Host. By my troth, captain, these are very bitter words. Bard. Be gone, good ancient: this will grow to a brawl anon. Pist. Die men, like dogs; give crowns like pins; Have we not Hiren here? Host. 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. Pist. Then feed, and be fat, my fair Calipolis: Come, give's some sack. Fal. A rascally slave! I will toss the rogue in a blanket. Dol. Do, if thou darest for thy heart: if thou dost, I'll canvas thee between a pair of sheets. Enter Music. Page. The music is come, Sir. Fal. Let them play ;- Play, Sirs.-Sit on my knee, Doll. A rascal bragging slave! the rogue fled from me like quicksilver. church. Thou whoreson little tidy Bartholomew Dol. I'faith, and thou followedst him like a and fotning o'nights, and begin to patch up boar-pig, when wilt thou leave fighting o'days, thine old body for heaven? Enter behind Prince HENRY and POINS, disguised like Drawers. Fal. Peace, good Doll! do not speak like a death's head: do not bid me remember mine end. Del. Sirrab, what humour is the prince of? Si fortuna me tormenta, sperato me have made a good pantler, he would have contenta.- 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 et cetera's nothing? Fal. Pistol, I would be quiet. Pist. Sweet knight, I kiss thy neif: § What ! we have seen the seven stars. Dol. Thrust him down stairs; I cannot endure such a fustian rascal. Pist. Thrust him down stairs! knew we not Galloway nags? || Fal. Quoit him down, Bardolph, like a shove-great shilling: nay, if he do nothing but speak nothing, be shall be nothing here. Bard. Come, get you down stairs. Pist. 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! Host. Here's goodly stuff toward ! Fal. Give me my rapier, boy. Dol. They say Poins has a good wit. Fal. He a good wit? hang him, baboon ! his wit is as thick as Tewksbury mustard; there is no more conceit in him, than is in a mallet. Dol. Why does the prince love him so then! Fal. Because their legs are both of a bigness: and he 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 joint stools; and swears with a good grace; and wears his boot very smooth, like unto the sign of the leg; and breeds no bate with telling of discreet stories, and such other gambol faculties he bath, 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. P. Hen. Would not this nave of a wheel have his ears cut off? Poins. Let's beat him before his whore. P. Hen. Look, if the withered elder hath not his poll clawed like a parrot. Poins. Is it not strange, that desire should sc Dol. I pray thee, Jack, I pray thee, do not many years outlive performance? draw. Fal. Kiss me, Doll. P. Hen. Saturn and Venus this year in con junction! what says the almanack to that? Poins. And, look, whether the fiery Trigon, his man, be not lisping to his master's old ta bles; his note-book, his counsel-keeper. Ful. Thou dost give me flattering busses. • An astronomical term. Dol. Nay, truly; I kiss thee with a most [ ber money; and whether she be damned for that, I know not. Constant heart. Fal. I am old, I am old. Dol. I love thee better than I love e'er a Scurvy young boy of them all. Fal. What stuff wilt have a kirtle of? I shall receive money on Thursday: thou shalt have a cap to-morrow. A merry song, come: it grows late, we'll to bed. Thou'lt forget me, when I [Advancing. Fal. Ha! a bastard son of the king's ?-And art not thou Poins his brother? P. Hen. Why, thou globe of sinful continents, what a life dost thou lead? Fal. A better than thou: I am a gentleman, thou art a drawer. P. Hen. Very true, Sir; and I come to draw you out by the ears. Host. 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? Fal. Thou whoreson mad compound of majesty, by this light flesh and corrupt blood, thou art welcome. [Leaning his hand upon DOLL. Dol. 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. P. Hen. You whoreson candle-mine, you; how vilely did you speak of me even now, before this honest, virtuous, civil gentlewoman? Host. 'Blessing o'your good heart! and so she is, by my troth. Fal. Didst thou hear me? P. Hen. Yes; 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. Fal. No, no, no; not so; I did not think thou wast within hearing. P. Hen. I shall drive you then to confess the wilful abuse; and then I know how to handle you. Host. No, I warrant you. Fal. No, I think thou art not; I think thoa art quit for that: Marry, there is another indict. ment upon thee, for suffering flesh to be eaten in thy house, contrary to the law; for the which I think, thou wilt howl. Host. All victuallers do so: What's a joint Fal. His grace says that which his flesh rebels against. Host. Who knocks so loud at door? look to the door there, Francis. Re-enter BARDOLPH. How now? what's the matter? Bard. You must away to court, Sir, presently; a dozen captains stay at door for you. Fal. Pay the musicians, sirrab. [To the PAGE.]- Farewell, hostess ;-farewell, Doll.You see, iny 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 Fal. No abuse, Hal, on mine honour; no see you again ere I go. abuse. Dol. I cannot speak ;-If my heart be not P. Hen. Not! to dispraise me; and call me-ready to burst:-Well, sweet Jack, have a care pantler, and bread-chipper; and I know not of thyself. what? Fal. No abuse, Hal. Fal. No abuse, Ned, in 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, boys, none. P. Hen. 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 bere of the wicked? Or is the boy of the wicked? Or honest Bardolph, whose zeal burns in his nose, of the wicked? Poins. Answer, thou dead elm, answer. Fal. The fiend hath pricked down Bardolph irrecoverable and his face is Lucifer's privy kitchen, where he doth nothing but roast maltworms. For the boy,-there is a good angel about him; but the devil outbids him too. P. Hen. For the women, Fal. For one of them,-she is in hell already, and burns, poor soul! For the other,-- owe A short cloak Fal. Farewell, farewell. [Exeunt FALSTAFF and BARDOLPH. Host. 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. Bard. [Within.] Mistress Tear-sheet,—— Bard. [Within.] Bid Mistress Tear-sheet come to my master. Host. O run, Doll, run; run, good Doll. ACT III. SCENE 1.-A Room in the Palace. Enter King HENRY in his Night-gown, with a PAGE. K. Hen. Go, call the earls of Surrey and of But, ere they come, bid them o'er-read these And well consider of them: Make good speed How many thousand of my poorest subjects And hush'd with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber; Than in the perfum'd chambers of the great, And lull'd with sounds of sweetest melody? A watch-case, or a common 'larum bell? But that necessity so bow'd the state, Shall break into corruption :-so went on, War. There is a history in all men's lives, Such things become the hatch and brood of time; And by the necessary form of this, Seal up the ship-boy's eyes, and rock his King Richard might create a perfect guess, brains In cradle of the rude imperious surge, And in the visitation of the winds, With deaf'ning clamours in the slippery clouds, Enter WARWICK and SURREY. K. Hen. Why then, good morrow to you all, my lords, Have you read o'er the letters that I sent you? War. We have, my liege. K. Hen. Then you perceive, the body of our kingdom How foul it is; what rank diseases grow, War. It is but as a body, yet, distemper'd ; And see the revolution of the times The beachy girdle of the ocean Too wide for Neptune's hips: how chances mock, And changes fill the cup of alteration What perils past, what crosses to ensue,- Since Richard and Northumberland, friends, [die. great Did feast together, and in two years after, [To WARWICK. When Richard, with his eye brimfull of tears, Then check'd and rated by Northumberland, Did speak these words, now prov'd a prophecy? Northumberland, thou ladder, by the which My cousin Bolingbroke ascends my throne; Though then, heaven knows, I had no such intent; That great Northumberland, then false to him, Would, of that seed, grow to a greater false ness; Which should not find a ground to root upon, Unless on you. K. Hen. 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. War. 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 life, my lord, K. Hen. I will take your counsel: [Exeunt. SCENE II.-Court before Justice SHALLOW's House in Glostershire. Enter SHALLOW and SILENCE, meeting, MOULDY, SHADOW, WART, FEEBLE, BULLCALF, and Servants, behind. Shal. Come on, come on, come on; give me your band, Sir, give me your hand, Sir: an early stirrer, by the rood. And how doth my good cousin Silence ? Sil. Good morrow, good cousin Shallow. Shal. And how doth my cousin, your bedfellow? and your fairest daughter, and mine, my god-daughter Ellen ? Sil. Alas, a black ouzel, cousin Shallow. Shal. By yea and nay, Sir, I dare say my cousin William is become a good scholar: He is at Oxford still, is he not? Sil. Indeed, Sir; to my cost. Shal. He must then to the inns of court shortly: I was once of Clement's-inn; where I think, they will talk of mad Shallow yet. Sil. You were called-lusty Shallow, then, cousin. Shal. By the mass, I was called any thing; and I would have done any thing, indeed, aud roundly too. There was 1, and little John Doit of Staffordshire, and black George Bare, and Francis Pickbone, and Will Squele, a Cotswold nan, you had not four such swinge-bucklers in all the inns of court again: and, I may say to you, we knew where the bona-robas 9 were; and had the best of them all at commandment. Then was Jack Falstaff, now Sir John, a boy : and page to Thomas Mowbray duke of Nor. folk. Sil. This Sir John, cousin, that comes hither anon about soldiers? Shal. The same Sir John, the very same. saw him break Skogan's head at the court gate, when he was a crack, not thus high; and the very same day did I fight with one Sampson O Stockfish, a fruiterer, behind Gray's-inn. the mad days that I have spent! and to see how many of mine old acquaintance are dead! Sil. We shall all follow, cousin. Shal. Certain, 'tis certain; very sure, very sure: death, as the Psalmist saith, is certain to all; all shall die. How a good yoke of bullocks at Stamford fair? Sil. Truly, cousin, I was not there. Will you sit ? Shal. Marry, have we, Sir. Fal. Let me see them, I beseech you. Shal. Where's the roll? where's the roll? Sc where's the roll?-Let me see, let me see. 50, so, so: Yea, marry, Sir:-Ralph Mouldy :Et them appear as I call; let them do so, let them do so.--Let me see; Where is Mouldy ? Moul. Here, an't please you. Shal. What think you, Sir John? a goo limbed fellow: young, strong, and of good friends. Fal. Is thy name Mouldy ? Fal. 'Tis the more time thou wert used. Shal. Death is certain.-Is old Double of things that are mouldy Ick use: Very singular your town living yet? Sil. Dead, Sir. Shat. Dead!-See, see!-he drew a good bow;-And dead ;-he shot a fine shoot:John of Gaunt loved him well, and betted Dead!-he would much money on his head. have clapped the clout at twelve score; and carried you a forehand shaft a fourteen and fourteeen and a half, that it would have done a man's heart good to see.--How a score of ewes now ? Sil. Thereafter as they be a score of good ewes may be worth ten pounds. Shal. And is old Double dead ! Enter BARDOLPH, and one with him. Sil. Here come two of Sir John Falstaff's men, as I think. Bard. Good morrow, honest gentlemen: 1 beseech you, which is justice Shallow? Shat. I am Robert Shallow, Sir; a poor esquire of this county, and one of the king's justices of the peace: What is your good pleasure with me? Bard. My captain, Sir, commends him to you my captain, Sir John Falstaff: a tall a most gallant gentleman, by heaven, and leader. Shal. He greets me well, Sir; I knew him a How doth the good good backsword man : knight? may I ask how my lady his wife doth ? Bard. Sir, pardon; a soldier is better accommodated than with a wife. Shal. It is well said, in faith, Sir; and it is well said indeed too. Better accommodated! -it is good; yea, indeed, it is: good phrases are surely, and ever were, very commendable. Accommodated!-it comes from accommodo: very good a good phrase. Ac Bard. Pardon me, Sir: I have heard the word. Phrase, call you it? By this good day, I know not the phrase: but I will maintain the word with my sword, to be a soldier-like word, and a word of exceeding good command. commodated; That is, when a man is, as they say, accommodated: or, when a man is,-being, -whereby, he may be thought to be accommodated; which is an excellent thing. Enter FALSTAFF. Shal. It is very just :-Look, here comes good Sir John.-Give me your hand, give me your worship's good hand: By my troth, you look well, and bear your years very well: welcome, good Sir John. Ful. I am glad to see you well, good master Robert Shallow :-Master Sure-card, as think. Shal. No, Sir John; it is my cousin Silence, in commission with me. Fal. Good master Silence, it well befits you should be of the peace. Sil. Your good worship is welcome. Fal. Fie! this is hot weather.-Gentlemen, have you provided me here half a dozen sufficient men? good!-lu faith, well said, Sir John: very well said. Fal. Prick him. [To SHALLOW. Moul. I was pricked well enough before, an you could have let me alone: my old dame will be undone now, for one to do her busbaudry, and her drudgery: you need not to have pricked me; there are other men fitter to go out than 1. Fal. Go to; peace, Mouldy, you shall go. Mouldy, it is time you were spent. Moul. Spent ! Shul. Peace, fellow, peace; stand aside; Know you where you are ?-For the other, Sir Jobu-let me see ;-Simon Shadow! Fat. Ay marry, let me have him to sit under ; he's like to be a cold soldier. Shal. Where's Shadow ? Shad. Here Sir. Fal. Shadow, whose son art thou? Fal. Thy mother's son! like enough; and thy father's shadow: so the son of the female is the shadow of the male: It is often so, indeed; but not much of the father's substance. Shal. Do you like him, Sir John? Fal. Shadow will serve for summer,-prick him;-for we have a number of shadows to fill up the muster-book. Shal. Thomas Wart! Fal. Thou art a very ragged wart. Fal. It were superfluous; for his apparel is built upon his back, and the whole frame stands upon pins prick him no more. can Shal. Ha, ha, ha!-you can do it, Sir; you Fal. What trade art thou, Feeble? Shal. Shall I prick him, Sir? Fal. You may: but if he had been a man's tailor, he would have pricked you.-Wilt thou make as many holes in an enemy's battle, as thou hast done in a woman's petticoat? Fee. I will do my good will, Sir; you can have no more. Fal. Well said, good woman's tailor! well said, courageous Feeble! Thou wilt he as vaiiant as the wrathful dove, or most magnanimous mouse.-Prick the woman's tailor well master Shallow; deep, master Shaflow. Fee. I would, Wart might have gone, Sir. Fal. I would, thou wert a man's tailor; that thou might'st mend him, and make him fit to go. I cannot put him to a private soldier, that is the leader of so many thousands: Let that suflice, most forcible Feeble: Fee. It shall suffice, Sir. Fal. I am bound to thee, reverend Feeble.Who is next? Shal Peter Bull-calf of the green! Bull. A whoreson cold, Sir; a cough, Sir; which I caught with ringing in the king's affairs, upon his coronation day, Sir. Fal. Come, thou shalt go to the wars in a gown; we will have away thy cold; and I will take such order, that thy friends shall ring for thee. Is here all ? Shal. Here is two more called than your number; you must have but four here, Sir ;and so, I pray you, go in with me to dinner. Fal. Come, I will go drink with you, but I cannot tarry dinner. I am glad to see you, in good troth, master Shallow. Shal. O Sir John, do you remember since we lay all night in the windmill in St. George's fields. Fal. No more of that, good master Shallow, no more of that. Skal. Ha, it was a merry night. And is Jane Night-work alive? Fal. She lives, master Shallow. Shal. She never could away with me. Fal. Never, never: she would always say, she could not abide master Shallow. Shal. By the mass, I could anger ber to the heart. She was then a bona-roba. Doth she hold her own well? Fal. Old, old, master Shallow. Shal. Nay, she must be old; she cannot choose but be old certain, she's old; and had Robin Night-work by old Night-work, before I came to Clement's-inn. Sil. That's fifty-five year ago. Shal. Ha, cousin Silence, that thou hadst seen that that this knight and I have seen!Ha, Sir John, said I well? Fal. We have heard the chimes at midnight, master Shallow. Shal. Marry then,-Mouldy, Bull-calf, Feeble, and Shadow. Fal. Mouldy, and Bull-calf;-For you, Mouldy, stay at home still; you are past service :and, for your part, Bull-calf,-grow till you come unto it; I will none of you. Shal. Sir John, Sir John, do not yourself wrong; they are your likeliest men, and i would have you served with the best. Fal. Will you tell me, master Shallow, how to choose a man? Care I for the limb, the thewes, the stature, bulk, and big assemblance of a man ! Give me the spirit, master Shallow. Here's Wart; you see what a ragged appearance it is: he shall charge you, and discharge you, with the motion of a pewterer's hammer; come off, and on, swifter than he that gibbets-on the brewer's bucket. And this same half-fac'd fellow, Shadow,-give me this man; he presents no mark to the enemy; the foeman may with as great aim level at the edge of a penknife: And, for a retreat,-how swiftly will this Feeble, the woman's tailor, run off? Oh! give me the spare men, and spare me the great ones.-Put me a caliver into Wart's hand, Bardolph. Bard. Hold, Wart, traverse, thus, thus, thus. Fal. Come, manage me your caliver. So :very well :-go to-very good :-exceeding good.-O give me always a little, lean, old chapped, bald shot.-Well said, 'faith Wart; thour't a good scab: hold, there's a tester for thee. Shal. He is not his craft's-master, he doth not do it right. I remember at Mile-end green, (when I lay at Clement's inn,-I was then Sir Dagonet in Arthur's show,) there was a little quiver fellow, and 'a would manage you his piece thus: and 'a would about, and about, and come you in, and come you in: rah, tah, tah, would 'a say; bounce, would 'a say, and away again would 'a go, and again would 'a come :-I shall never see such a fellow. Fal. These fellows will do well, master Shallow.-God keep you, master Silence; I will not use many words with you --Fare you well, Shal. That we have, that we have, that we gentlemen both: I thank you: I must a dozen have; in faith, Sir John, we have; our watch-mile to night.-Bardolph, give the soldiers word was, Hem, boys !—Come, let's to dinner; come, let's to dinner :-O the days that we have seen-Come, come. [Exeunt FALSTAFF, SHALLOW, and SILENCE. Bull. Good master corporate Bardolph, stand my friend; and here is four Harry ten shillings in French crowns for you. In very truth, Sir, I bad as lief be hanged, Sir, as go and yet, for mine own part, Sir, I do not care; but, rather, because I am unwilling, and, for mine own part, have a desire to stay with my friends; else, Sir, I did not care, for mine own part, so much. Bard. Go to; stand aside. coats. Shal. Sir John, heaven bless you, and prosper your affairs, and send us peace! As you return, visit my house; let our old acquaintance be renewed: peradventure I will with you to the court. Fal. I would you would, master Shallow. Shal. Go to: I have spoke at a word. Fare you well. [Exeunt SHALLOW and SILENCE. Fal. Fare you well, gentle gentlemen. On, Bardolph; lead the men away. [Excunt BARDOLPH, Recruits, &c.] As I return, I will fetch off these justices: I do see the bottom of justice Shallow. Lord, lord, how subject we old men are to this vice of lying -This same starved justice hath done nothing but prate to Moul. And good master corporal captain, for my old dame's sake, stand my friend: she has nobody to do any thing about her, when I am gone and she is old, and cannot help herself:me of the wildness of his youth, and the feats he you shall have forty, Sir. Bard. Go to: stand aside. Fee. By my troth I care not;-a man can die but once; we owe God a death;-I'll ne'er bear a base mind;-an't be my destiny, so; au't be not, so: No man's too good to serve his prince; and, let it go which way it will, he that dies this year, is quit for the next. Bard. Well said; thou'rt a good fellow. Re-enter FALSTAFF, and Justices. Shal. Come, Sir John, which ur will you bave. Fal. Do you choose for me. hath done about Turnbull-street; and every third word a lie, duer paid to the hearer than the Turk's tribute. I do remember him at Clement's-inn, like a man made after supper of a cheese-paring when he was naked, he was, for all the world like a forked radish, with a head fantastically carved upon it with a knife: he was so forlorn, that his dimensions to any thick sight were invisible he was the very Genius of famine; yet lecherous as a monkey, and the whores called him mandrake; he came ever in the rear-ward of the fashion and sung those tunes to the over-scutched huswives that' he heard the carmen whistle, and sware-they were his fancies, or his good-nights. And now is this Vice's dagger become a squire; and talks as familiarly of John of Gaunt, as if he had • Clerkenwell. + Titles of little poems. A wooden dagger like that used by the modera Harlequin. |