Act III

SCENE I. Westminster. The palace.

Enter KING HENRY IV in his nightgown, with a Page

KING HENRY IV

Go call the Earls of Surrey and of Warwick;
But, ere they come, bid them o’er-read these letters,
And well consider of them; make good speed.

Exit Page

How many thousand of my poorest subjects
Are at this hour asleep! O sleep, O gentle sleep,
Nature’s soft nurse, how have I frighted thee,
That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down
And steep my senses in forgetfulness?
Why rather, sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs,
Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee
And hush’d with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber,
Than in the perfumed chambers of the great,
Under the canopies of costly state,
And lull’d with sound of sweetest melody?
O thou dull god, why liest thou with the vile
In loathsome beds, and leavest the kingly couch
A watch-case or a common ‘larum-bell?
Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast
Seal up the ship-boy’s eyes, and rock his brains
In cradle of the rude imperious surge
And in the visitation of the winds,
Who take the ruffian billows by the top,
Curling their monstrous heads and hanging them
With deafening clamour in the slippery clouds,
That, with the hurly, death itself awakes?
Canst thou, O partial sleep, give thy repose
To the wet sea-boy in an hour so rude,
And in the calmest and most stillest night,
With all appliances and means to boot,
Deny it to a king? Then happy low, lie down!
Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.

Enter WARWICK and SURREY

WARWICK

Many good morrows to your majesty!

KING HENRY IV

Is it good morrow, lords?

WARWICK

‘Tis one o’clock, and past.

KING HENRY IV

Why, then, good morrow to you all, my lords.
Have you read o’er the letters that I sent you?

WARWICK

We have, my liege.

KING HENRY IV

Then you perceive the body of our kingdom
How foul it is; what rank diseases grow
And with what danger, near the heart of it.

WARWICK

It is but as a body yet distemper’d;
Which to his former strength may be restored
With good advice and little medicine:
My Lord Northumberland will soon be cool’d.

KING HENRY IV

O God! that one might read the book of fate,
And see the revolution of the times
Make mountains level, and the continent,
Weary of solid firmness, melt itself
Into the sea! and, other times, to see
The beachy girdle of the ocean
Too wide for Neptune’s hips; how chances mock,
And changes fill the cup of alteration
With divers liquors! O, if this were seen,
The happiest youth, viewing his progress through,
What perils past, what crosses to ensue,
Would shut the book, and sit him down and die.
‘Tis not ‘ten years gone
Since Richard and Northumberland, great friends,
Did feast together, and in two years after
Were they at wars: it is but eight years since
This Percy was the man nearest my soul,
Who like a brother toil’d in my affairs
And laid his love and life under my foot,
Yea, for my sake, even to the eyes of Richard
Gave him defiance. But which of you was by—
You, cousin Nevil, as I may remember—

To WARWICK

When Richard, with his eye brimful of tears,
Then cheque’d and rated by Northumberland,
Did speak these words, now proved a prophecy?
‘Northumberland, thou ladder by the which
My cousin Bolingbroke ascends my throne;’
Though then, God knows, I had no such intent,
But that necessity so bow’d the state
That I and greatness were compell’d to kiss:
‘The time shall come,’ thus did he follow it,
‘The time will come, that foul sin, gathering head,
Shall break into corruption:’ so went on,
Foretelling this same time’s condition
And the division of our amity.

WARWICK

There is a history in all men’s lives,
Figuring the nature of the times deceased;
The which observed, a man may prophesy,
With a near aim, of the main chance of things
As yet not come to life, which in their seeds
And weak beginnings lie intreasured.
Such things become the hatch and brood of time;
And by the necessary form of this
King Richard might create a perfect guess
That great Northumberland, then false to him,
Would of that seed grow to a greater falseness;
Which should not find a ground to root upon,
Unless on you.

KING HENRY IV

Are these things then necessities?
Then let us meet them like necessities:
And that same word even now cries out on us:
They say the bishop and Northumberland
Are fifty thousand strong.

WARWICK

It cannot be, my lord;
Rumour doth double, like the voice and echo,
The numbers of the fear’d. Please it your grace
To go to bed. Upon my soul, my lord,
The powers that you already have sent forth
Shall bring this prize in very easily.
To comfort you the more, I have received
A certain instance that Glendower is dead.
Your majesty hath been this fortnight ill,
And these unseason’d hours perforce must add
Unto your sickness.

KING HENRY IV

I will take your counsel:
And were these inward wars once out of hand,
We would, dear lords, unto the Holy Land.

Exeunt

SCENE II. Gloucestershire. Before SHALLOW’S house.

Enter SHALLOW and SILENCE, meeting; MOULDY, SHADOW, WART, FEEBLE, BULLCALF, a Servant or two with them

SHALLOW

Come on, come on, come on, sir; give me your hand,
sir, give me your hand, sir: an early stirrer, by
the rood! And how doth my good cousin Silence?

SILENCE

Good morrow, good cousin Shallow.

SHALLOW

And how doth my cousin, your bedfellow? and your
fairest daughter and mine, my god-daughter Ellen?

SILENCE

Alas, a black ousel, cousin Shallow!

SHALLOW

By yea and nay, sir, I dare say my cousin William is
become a good scholar: he is at Oxford still, is he not?

SILENCE

Indeed, sir, to my cost.

SHALLOW

A’ must, then, to the inns o’ court shortly. I was
once of Clement’s Inn, where I think they will
talk of mad Shallow yet.

SILENCE

You were called ‘lusty Shallow’ then, cousin.

SHALLOW

By the mass, I was called any thing; and I would
have done any thing indeed too, and roundly too.
There was I, and little John Doit of Staffordshire,
and black George Barnes, and Francis Pickbone, and
Will Squele, a Cotswold man; you had not four such
swinge-bucklers in all the inns o’ court again: and
I may say to you, we knew where the bona-robas 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 Norfolk.

SILENCE

This Sir John, cousin, that comes hither anon about soldiers?

SHALLOW

The same Sir John, the very same. I see him break
Skogan’s head at the court-gate, when a’ was a
crack not thus high: and the very same day did I
fight with one Sampson Stockfish, a fruiterer,
behind Gray’s Inn. Jesu, Jesu, the mad days that I
have spent! and to see how many of my old
acquaintance are dead!

SILENCE

We shall all follow, cousin.

SHADOW

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?

SILENCE

By my troth, I was not there.

SHALLOW

Death is certain. Is old Double of your town living
yet?

SILENCE

Dead, sir.

SHALLOW

Jesu, Jesu, dead! a’ drew a good bow; and dead! a’
shot a fine shoot: John a Gaunt loved him well, and
betted much money on his head. Dead! a’ would have
clapped i’ the clout at twelve score; and carried
you a forehand shaft a fourteen and fourteen and a
half, that it would have done a man’s heart good to
see. How a score of ewes now?

SILENCE

Thereafter as they be: a score of good ewes may be
worth ten pounds.

SHALLOW

And is old Double dead?

SILENCE

Here come two of Sir John Falstaff’s men, as I think.

Enter BARDOLPH and one with him

BARDOLPH

Good morrow, honest gentlemen: I beseech you, which
is Justice Shallow?

SHALLOW

I am Robert Shallow, sir; a poor esquire of this
county, and one of the king’s justices of th e peace:
What is your good pleasure with me?

BARDOLPH

My captain, sir, commends him to you; my captain,
Sir John Falstaff, a tall gentleman, by heaven, and
a most gallant leader.

SHALLOW

He greets me well, sir. I knew him a good backsword
man. How doth the good knight? may I ask how my
lady his wife doth?

BARDOLPH

Sir, pardon; a soldier is better accommodated than
with a wife.

SHALLOW

It is well said, in faith, sir; and it is well said
indeed too. Better accommodated! it is good; yea,
indeed, is it: good phrases are surely, and ever
were, very commendable. Accommodated! it comes of
‘accommodo’ very good; a good phrase.

BARDOLPH

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, by heaven. Accommodated; that is, when a
man is, as they say, accommodated; or when a man is,
being, whereby a’ may be thought to be accommodated;
which is an excellent thing.

SHALLOW

It is very just.

Enter FALSTAFF

Look, here comes good Sir John. Give me your good
hand, give me your worship’s good hand: by my
troth, you like well and bear your years very well:
welcome, good Sir John.

FALSTAFF

I am glad to see you well, good Master Robert
Shallow: Master Surecard, as I think?

SHALLOW

No, Sir John; it is my cousin Silence, in commission with me.

FALSTAFF

Good Master Silence, it well befits you should be of
the peace.

SILENCE

Your good-worship is welcome.

FALSTAFF

Fie! this is hot weather, gentlemen. Have you
provided me here half a dozen sufficient men?

SHALLOW

Marry, have we, sir. Will you sit?

FALSTAFF

Let me see them, I beseech you.

SHALLOW

Where’s the roll? where’s the roll? where’s the
roll? Let me see, let me see, let me see. So, so:
yea, marry, sir: Ralph Mouldy! Let them appear as
I call; let them do so, let them do so. Let me
see; where is Mouldy?

MOULDY

Here, an’t please you.

SHALLOW

What think you, Sir John? a good-limbed fellow;
young, strong, and of good friends.

FALSTAFF

Is thy name Mouldy?

MOULDY

Yea, an’t please you.

FALSTAFF

‘Tis the more time thou wert used.

SHALLOW

Ha, ha, ha! most excellent, i’ faith! Things that
are mouldy lack use: very singular good! in faith,
well said, Sir John, very well said.

FALSTAFF

Prick him.

MOULDY

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 husbandry and her drudgery: you need
not to have pricked me; there are other men fitter
to go out than I.

FALSTAFF

Go to: peace, Mouldy; you shall go. Mouldy, it is
time you were spent.

MOULDY

Spent!

SHALLOW

Peace, fellow, peace; stand aside: know you where
you are? For the other, Sir John: let me see:
Simon Shadow!

FALSTAFF

Yea, marry, let me have him to sit under: he’s like
to be a cold soldier.

SHALLOW

Where’s Shadow?

SHADOW

Here, sir.

FALSTAFF

Shadow, whose son art thou?

SHADOW

My mother’s son, sir.

FALSTAFF

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 much of the
father’s substance!

SHALLOW

Do you like him, Sir John?

FALSTAFF

Shadow will serve for summer; prick him, for we have
a number of shadows to fill up the muster-book.

SHALLOW

Thomas Wart!

FALSTAFF

Where’s he?

WART

Here, sir.

FALSTAFF

Is thy name Wart?

WART

Yea, sir.

FALSTAFF

Thou art a very ragged wart.

SHALLOW

Shall I prick him down, Sir John?

FALSTAFF

It were superfluous; for his apparel is built upon
his back and the whole frame stands upon pins:
prick him no more.

SHALLOW

Ha, ha, ha! you can do it, sir; you can do it: I
commend you well. Francis Feeble!

FEEBLE

Here, sir.

FALSTAFF

What trade art thou, Feeble?

FEEBLE

A woman’s tailor, sir.

SHALLOW

Shall I prick him, sir?

FALSTAFF

You may: but if he had been a man’s tailor, he’ld
ha’ pricked you. Wilt thou make as many holes in
an enemy’s battle as thou hast done in a woman’s petticoat?

FEEBLE

I will do my good will, sir; you can have no more.

FALSTAFF

Well said, good woman’s tailor! well said,
courageous Feeble! thou wilt be as valiant as the
wrathful dove or most magnanimous mouse. Prick the
woman’s tailor: well, Master Shallow; deep, Master Shallow.

FEEBLE

I would Wart might have gone, sir.

FALSTAFF

I would thou wert a man’s tailor, that thou mightst
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 suffice, most forcible Feeble.

FEEBLE

It shall suffice, sir.

FALSTAFF

I am bound to thee, reverend Feeble. Who is next?

SHALLOW

Peter Bullcalf o’ the green!

FALSTAFF

Yea, marry, let’s see Bullcalf.

BULLCALF

Here, sir.

FALSTAFF

‘Fore God, a likely fellow! Come, prick me Bullcalf
till he roar again.

BULLCALF

O Lord! good my lord captain,—

FALSTAFF

What, dost thou roar before thou art pricked?

BULLCALF

O Lord, sir! I am a diseased man.

FALSTAFF

What disease hast thou?

BULLCALF

A whoreson cold, sir, a cough, sir, which I caught
with ringing in the king’s affairs upon his
coronation-day, sir.

FALSTAFF

Come, thou shalt go to the wars in a gown; we wilt
have away thy cold; and I will take such order that
my friends shall ring for thee. Is here all?

SHALLOW

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.

FALSTAFF

Come, I will go drink with you, but I cannot tarry
dinner. I am glad to see you, by my troth, Master Shallow.

SHALLOW

O, Sir John, do you remember since we lay all night
in the windmill in Saint George’s field?

FALSTAFF

No more of that, good Master Shallow, no more of that.

SHALLOW

Ha! ’twas a merry night. And is Jane Nightwork alive?

FALSTAFF

She lives, Master Shallow.

SHALLOW

She never could away with me.

FALSTAFF

Never, never; she would always say she could not
abide Master Shallow.

SHALLOW

By the mass, I could anger her to the heart. She
was then a bona-roba. Doth she hold her own well?

FALSTAFF

Old, old, Master Shallow.

SHALLOW

Nay, she must be old; she cannot choose but be old;
certain she’s old; and had Robin Nightwork by old
Nightwork before I came to Clement’s Inn.

SILENCE

That’s fifty-five year ago.

SHALLOW

Ha, cousin Silence, that thou hadst seen that that
this knight and I have seen! Ha, Sir John, said I well?

FALSTAFF

We have heard the chimes at midnight, Master Shallow.

SHALLOW

That we have, that we have, that we have; in faith,
Sir John, we have: our watch-word was ‘Hem boys!’
Come, let’s to dinner; come, let’s to dinner:
Jesus, the days that we have seen! Come, come.

Exeunt FALSTAFF and Justices

BULLCALF

Good Master Corporate Bardolph, stand my friend;
and here’s four Harry ten shillings in French crowns
for you. In very truth, sir, I had 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.

BARDOLPH

Go to; stand aside.

MOULDY

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: You shall have forty, sir.

BARDOLPH

Go to; stand aside.

FEEBLE

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; an’t be not, so: no man is
too good to serve’s prince; and let it go which way
it will, he that dies this year is quit for the next.

BARDOLPH

Well said; thou’rt a good fellow.

FEEBLE

Faith, I’ll bear no base mind.

Re-enter FALSTAFF and the Justices

FALSTAFF

Come, sir, which men shall I have?

SHALLOW

Four of which you please.

BARDOLPH

Sir, a word with you: I have three pound to free
Mouldy and Bullcalf.

FALSTAFF

Go to; well.

SHALLOW

Come, Sir John, which four will you have?

FALSTAFF

Do you choose for me.

SHALLOW

Marry, then, Mouldy, Bullcalf, Feeble and Shadow.

FALSTAFF

Mouldy and Bullcalf: for you, Mouldy, stay at home
till you are past service: and for your part,
Bullcalf, grow till you come unto it: I will none of you.

SHALLOW

Sir John, Sir John, do not yourself wrong: they are
your likeliest men, and I would have you served with the best.

FALSTAFF

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; a’ 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-faced
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! O, give me the spare men, and spare me the
great ones. Put me a caliver into Wart’s hand, Bardolph.

BARDOLPH

Hold, Wart, traverse; thus, thus, thus.

FALSTAFF

Come, manage me your caliver. So: very well: go
to: very good, exceeding good. O, give me always a
little, lean, old, chapt, bald shot. Well said, i’
faith, Wart; thou’rt a good scab: hold, there’s a
tester for thee.

SHALLOW

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 ne’er see such a fellow.

FALSTAFF

These fellows will do well, Master Shallow. God
keep you, Master Silence: I will not use many words
with you. Fare you well, gentlemen both: I thank
you: I must a dozen mile to-night. Bardolph, give
the soldiers coats.

SHALLOW

Sir John, the Lord bless you! God prosper your
affairs! God send us peace! At your return visit
our house; let our old acquaintance be renewed;
peradventure I will with ye to the court.

FALSTAFF

‘Fore God, I would you would, Master Shallow.

SHALLOW

Go to; I have spoke at a word. God keep you.

FALSTAFF

Fare you well, gentle gentlemen.

Exeunt Justices

On, Bardolph; lead the men away.

Exeunt 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
me of the wildness of his youth, and the feats he
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 a’
was naked, he was, for all the world, like a forked
radish, with a head fantastically carved upon it
with a knife: a’ was so forlorn, that his
dimensions to any thick sight were invincible: a’
was the very genius of famine; yet lecherous as a
monkey, and the whores called him mandrake: a’ came
ever in the rearward of the fashion, and sung those
tunes to the overscutched huswives that he heard the
carmen whistle, and swear they were his fancies or
his good-nights. And now is this Vice’s dagger
become a squire, and talks as familiarly of John a
Gaunt as if he had been sworn brother to him; and
I’ll be sworn a’ ne’er saw him but once in the
Tilt-yard; and then he burst his head for crowding
among the marshal’s men. I saw it, and told John a
Gaunt he beat his own name; for you might have
thrust him and all his apparel into an eel-skin; the
case of a treble hautboy was a mansion for him, a
court: and now has he land and beefs. Well, I’ll
be acquainted with him, if I return; and it shall
go hard but I will make him a philosopher’s two
stones to me: if the young dace be a bait for the
old pike, I see no reason in the law of nature but I
may snap at him. Let time shape, and there an end.

Exit