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