Like strengthless hinges, buckle under life Out of his keeper's arms; even so my limbs, crutch; A scaly gauntlet now, with joints of steel, Derives from heaven his quarrel, and his cause; North. I knew of this before; but, to speak trufn, Fal. Sirrah, you giant, what says the doctor to my water? Page. He said, sir, the water itself was a good healthy water: but, for the party that owed it, he might have more diseases than he knew for. Tra. This strained passion doth you wrong, my lord. Bard. Sweet earl, divorce not wisdom from your honour. Mor. The lives of all your loving complices Lean on your health; the which, if you give o'er To stormy passion, must perforce decay. You cast the event of war, my noble lord, Fal. Men of all sorts take a pride to gird at me; The brain of this foolish-compounded clay, man, is not able to vent any thing that tends to laughter, more than I invent, or is invented on me: I am not only witty in myself, but the cause that wit is in other men. I do here walk before thee, like a sow, that hath o'erwhelmed all her litter but one. If the prince put thee into my service for any other reason than to set me off, why then I have no judgment. Thou whoreson mandrake, thou art fitter to be And summ'd the account of chance, before you worn in my cap, than to wait at my heels. I was Ch. Just. I think, you are fallen into the disease; for you hear not what I say to you. said, Let us make head. It was your presurmise, That in the dole of blows your son might drop: You knew, he walk'd o'er perils, on an edge, More likely to fall in, than to get o'er: You were advis'd, his flesh was capable Of wounds, and scars; and that his forward spirits Bard. We all, that are engaged to this loss, Mor. 'Tis more than time: And, my most noble lord, Suppos'd sincere and holy in his thoughts, Of fair king Richard, scrap'd from Pomfret stones; never manned with an agate1o till now: but I will set you neither in gold nor silver, but in vile apparel, and send you back again to your master, for a jewel; the juvenal, the prince your master, whose chin is not yet fledged. I will sooner have a beard grow in the palm of my hand, than he shall get one on his cheek; and yet he will not stick to say, his face is a face royal: God may finish it when he will, it is not a hair amiss yet: he may keep it still as a face-royal, for a barber shall never earn sixpence out of it; and yet he will be crowing, as if he had writ man ever since his father was a bachelor. He may keep his own grace, but he is almost out of mine, I can assure him. What said master Dumbleton about the satin, for my short cloak, and slops? Page. He said, sir, you should procure him better assurance than Bardolph he would not take his bond and yours; he liked not the security. Fal. Let him be damned like a glutton! may his tongue be hotter! -A whoreson Achitophel! a rascally yea-forsooth knave! to bear a gentleman in hand, and then stand upon security!-The whoreson smooth-pates do now wear nothing but high shoes, and bunches of keys at their girdles; and if a man is thorough" with them in honest taking up, then they must stand upon security. I had as lief they would put ratsbane in my mouth, as offer to stop it with security. I looked he should have sent me two and twenty yards of satin, as I am a true knight, and he sends me security. Well, he may sleep in security; for he hath the horn of abundance, and the lightness of his wife shines through it and yet cannot he see, though he have his own lantern to light him. Where's Bardolph? Page. He's gone into Smithfield, to buy your worship a horse. Fal. I bought him in Paul's, and he'll buy me a horse in Smithfield: an I could get me but a wife (9) A root supposed to have the shape of a man, (10) A little figure cut in an agate, (11) In their debt, Fal. Very well, my lord, very well: rather, an't please you, it is the disease of not listening, the malady of not marking, that I am troubled withal. in the stews, I were manned, horsed, and wived. Enter the Lord Chief Justice, and an attendant. Page. Sir, here comes the nobleman that committed the prince for striking him about Bardolph. Fal. Wait close; I will not see him. Ch. Just. What's he that goes there? Atten. Falstaff, an't please your lordship. Ch. Just. He that was in question for the robbery? Fal. I am as poor as Job, my lord; but not so Atten. He, my lord: but he hath since done patient: your lordship may minister the potion of good service at Shrewsbury; and, as I hear, is imprisonment to me, in respect of poverty; but now going with some charge to the lord John of how I should be your patient to follow your pre Lancaster. Ch. Just. To punish you by the heels, would amend the attention of your ears; and I care not, if I become your physician. scriptions, the wise may make some dram of a Ch. Just. What, to York? Call him back again. scruple, or, indeed, a scruple itself. Atten. Sir John Falstaff! Fal. Boy, tell him, I am deaf. Page. You must speak louder, my master is deaf. Ch. Just. I am sure, he is, to the hearing of any thing good.-Go, pluck him by the elbow; I must speak with him. Atten. Sir John,- Ful. What! a young knave, and beg! Is there not wars? is there not employment? Doth not the king lack subjects? do not the rebels need soldiers? Though it be a shame to be on any side but one, it is worse shame to beg than to be on the worst side, were it worse than the name of rebellion can tell how to make it. Atten. You mistake me, sir. Fal. Why, sir, did I say you were an honest man? setting my knighthood and my soldiership aside, I had lied in my throat if I had said so. Atten. I pray you, sir, then set your knighthood and your soldiership aside; and give me leave to tell you, you lie in your throat, if you say I am any other than an honest man. Fal. I give thee leave to tell me so! I lay aside that which grows to me! If thou gett'st any leave of me, hang me; if thou takest leave, thou wert better be hanged: You hunt-counter, hence! avaunt! Allen. Sir, my lord would speak with you. Ch. Just. I sent for you, when there were matters against you for your life, to come speak with me. Fal. As I was then advised by my learned coun sel in the laws of this land-service, I did not come. Ch. Just. Well, the truth is, sir John, you live in great infamy. Fal. He that buckles him in my belt, cannot live in less. Ch. Just. Your means are very slender, and your waste is great. Fal. I would it were otherwise; I would my means were greater, and my waist slenderer. Ch. Just. You have misled the youthful prince. Fal. The young prince hath misled me: I am the fellow with the great belly, and he my dog. Ch. Just. Well, I am loath to gall a new-healed wound; your day's service at Shrewsbury hath a little gilded over your night's exploit on Gads-hill: you may thank the unquiet time for your quiet o'erposting that action. Fal. My lord? Ch. Just. But since all is well, keep it so: wake not a sleeping wolf. Fal. To wake a wolf, is as bad as to smell a fox. Ch. Just. What! you are as a candle, the better part burnt out. Fal. A wassel candle, my lord; all tallow: if I did say of wax, my growth would approve the truth. Ch. Just. There is not a white hair on your face, but should have his effect of gravity. Fal. His effect of gravy, gravy, gravy. Ch. Just. You follow the young prince up and down, like his ill angel. Fal. My good lord!-God give your lordship good time of day. I am glad to see your lordship abroad: I heard say, your lordship was sick: 1 hope your lordship goes abroad by advice. Your lordship, though not clean past your youth, hath yet some smack of age in you, some relish of the saltness of time; and I most humbly beseech your Fal. Not so, my lord; your ill angel is light; lordship, to have a reverend care of your health. but, I hope, he that looks upon me, will take me Ch. Just. Sir John, I sent for you before your without weighing: and yet, in some respects, I expedition to Shrewsbury. grant, I cannot go, I cannet tell: Virtue is of so Fal. An't please your lordship, I hear, his ma- little regard in these coster-monger times, that true nesty is returned with some discomfort from Wales. valour is turned bear-herd: Pregnancy is made a Ch. Just. I talk not of his majesty:-You would tapster, and hath his quick wit wasted in giving not come when I sent for you. reckonings: all the other gifts appertinent to man, Fal. And I hear moreover, his highness is fallen as the malice of this age shapes them, are not into this same whoreson apoplexy. worth a gooseberry. You, that are old, consider Ch. Just. Well, heaven mend him! I pray, let not the capacities of us that are young: you me speak with you. measure the heat of our livers with the bitterness of Fal. This apoplexy is, as I take it, a kind of your galls: and we that are in the vaward' of our lethargy, an't please your lordship; a kind of sleep-youth, I must confess, are wags too. ing in the blood, a whoreson tingling. Ch. Just. Do you set down your name in the Ch. Just. What tell you me of it? be it as it is. scroll of youth, that are written down old with all Fal. It hath its original from much grief; from the characters of age? Have you not a moist eve? study, and perturbation of the brain: I have read a dry hand? a yellow cheek? a white beard? a the cause of his effects in Galen; it is a kind of decreasing leg? an increasing belly? Is not your deafness. (1) Alluding to an old proverb: Who goes to Westminster for a wife, to St. Paul's for a man, and to Smithfield for a horse, may meet with a whore, a knave, and a jade. voice broken? your wind short? your chin double? (2) A catch-pole or bum-bailiff. your wit single?1 and every part about you blasted wit will make use of any thing; I will turn_dis. with antiquity? and will you yet call yourself eases to commodity. young? Fie, fie, fie, sir John! [Exit. Fal. My lord, I was born about three of the SCENE III.-York. A room in the archbishop's our means; clock in the afternoon, with a white head, and palace. Enter the archbishop of York, the lords something a round belly. For my voice, I have Hastings, Mowbray, and Bardolph. lost it with hollaing, and singing of anthems. To Arch. Thus have you heard our cause, and known approve my youth further, I will not: the truth is, I am only old in judgment and understanding And, my most noble friends, I pray you all, and he that will caper with me for a thousand Speak plainly your opinions of our hopes:marks, let him lend me the money, and have at And first, lord marshal, what say you to it? him. For the box o'the ear that the prince gave Mowb. I well allow the occasion of our arms : you, he gave it like a rude prince, and you took But gladly would be better satisfied, it like a sensible lord. I have check'd him for it; How, in our means, we should advance ourselves and the young lion repents: marry, not in ashes, To look with forehead bold and big enough and sackcloth; but in new silk, and old sack. Ch. Just. Well, heaven send the prince a better companion! Fal. Heaven send the companion a better prince! I cannot rid my hands of him. Ch. Just. Well, the king hath severed you and prince Harry: I hear, you are going with lord John of Lancaster, against the archbishop, and the earl of Northumberland. Upon the power and puissance of the king. Bard. The question then, lord Hastings, stand- Whether our present five and twenty thousand Bard. 1 Ay, marry, there's the point : Fal. Yea; I thank your pretty sweet wit for it. But look you pray, all you that kiss my lady peace at home, that our armies join not in a hot day! for, by the Lord, I take but two shirts out with me, But, if without him we be thought too feeble, and I mean not to sweat extraordinarily: if it be My judgment is, we should not step too far a hot day, an I brandish any thing but my bottle, Till we had his assistance by the hand: I would I might never spit white again. There is For, in a theme so bloody-fac'd as this, not a dangerous action can peep out his head, but Conjecture, expectation, and surmise I am thrust upon it: Well, I cannot last ever: Of aids uncertain, should not be admitted. But it was always yet the trick of our English na Arch. 'Tis very true, lord Bardolph; for, indeed, Bard. It was, my lord; who lin'd himself with hope, tion, if they have a good thing, to make it too com- It was young Hotspur's case at Shrewsbury. mon. If you will needs say, I am an old man, you should give me rest. I would to God, my name were not so terrible to the enemy as it is. I were better to be eaten to death with rust, than to be scoured to nothing with perpetual motion. Eating the air on promise of supply, Ch. Just. Well, be honest, be honest; And God And so, with great imagination, bless your expedition! Fal. Will your lordship lend me a thousand pound, to furnish me forth? Ch. Just. Not a penny, not a penny; you are too impatient to bear crosses. Fare you well: Commend me to my cousin Westmoreland. [Exeunt Chief Justice and Attendant. And, winking, leap'd into destruction. Hast. But, by your leave it never yet did hurt, Fal. If I do, fillip me with a three-man beetle. We see the appearing buds; which, to prove fruit, A man can no more separate age and covetous-Hope gives not so much warrant, as despair, ness, than he can part young limbs and lechery: That frosts will bite them. When we mean to build, but the gout galls the one, and the pox pinches the We first survey the plot, then draw the model; other; and so both the degrees prevent my And when we see the figure of the house, curses.-Boy! Page. Sir? Fal. What money is in my purse? Page. Seven groats and two-pence. Then must we rate the cost of the erection: What do we then, but draw anew the model Fal. I can get no remedy against this consump- To build at all? Much more, in this great work tion of the purse borrowing only lingers and (Which is, almost, to pluck a kingdom down, lingers it out, but the disease is incurable. Go, And set another up,) should we survey bear this letter to my lord of Lancaster; this to The plot of situation, and the model; the prince; this to the earl of Westmoreland; and Consents upon a sure foundation; this to old mistress Ursula, whom I have weekly Question surveyors; know our own estate, sworn to marry since I perceived the first white How able such a work to undergo, hair on my chín: About it; you know where to To weigh against his opposite; or else, find me. (Exit Page.] A pox of this gout! or, a We fortify in paper, and in figures, gout of this pox! for the one, or the other, plays Using the names of men, instead of men: the rogue with my great toe. It is no matter, if I Like one, that draws the model of a house do halt; I have the wars for my colour, and my Beyond his power to build it; who, half through, pensions shall seem the more reasonable: A good Gives o'er, and leaves his part-created cost A naked subject to the weeping clouds, Hast. Grant that our hopes (yet likely for fair birth,) Should be still-born, and that we now possess'd The utmost man of expectation; I think, we are a body strong enough, Even as we are, to equal with the king. Bard. What! is the king but five and twenty thousand? Hast. To us, no more; nay, not so much, lord For his divisions, as the times do brawl, With hollow poverty and emptiness. Snare. Here, here. Fang. Snare, we must arrest sir John Falstaff. Host. Yea, good master Snare; I have entered him and all. Snare. It may chance cost some of us our lives, for he will stab. Host. Alas the day! take heed of him; he stabbed me in mine own house, and that most beastly in good faith, a' cares not what mischief he doth, if his weapon be out: he will foint like any devil; he will spare neither man, woman, nor child. Fang. If I can close with him, I care not for his thrust. Host. No, nor I neither: I'll be at your elbow. Fang. An I but fist him once; an a' come but Arch. That he should draw his several strengths within my vice; together, And come against us in full puissance, Need not be dreaded. Arch. Let us on; A habitation giddy and unsure Hath he, that buildeth on the vulgar heart. ACT 11. SCENE 1.-London. A street. Enter Hostess; Host. I am undone by his going; I warrant you, he's an infinitive thing upon my score:-Good master Fang, hold him sure;-good master Snare, let him not 'scape. He comes continually to Piecorner, (saving your manhoods,) to buy a saddle; and he's indited to dinner to the lubbar's head in Lumbert-street, to master Smooth's the silkman: I pray ye, since my exion is entered, and my case so openly known to the world, let him be brought in to his answer. A hundred mark is a long loan for a poor lone woman to bear: And I have borne, and borne, and borne; and have been fubbed off, and fubbed off, and fubbed off, from this day to that day, that it is a shame to be thought on. There is no honesty in such dealing; unless a woman should be made an ass, and a beast, to bear every knave's wrong. Enter Sir John Falstaff, Page, and Bardolph. Yonder he comes; and that arrant 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. Fal. How now? whose mare's dead? what's the matter? Fang. Sir John, I arrest you at the suit of mistress Quickly. Fal. Away, varlets!-Draw, Bardolph; cut me off the villain's head; throw the quean in the channel. Host. Throw me in the channel? I'll throw thee in the channel. Wilt thou? wilt thou ? thou bastardly rogue!-Murder, murder! O thou honeysuckle villain! wilt thou kill God's officers, and the king's? O thou honey-secd" rogue! thou art a honey-seed; a man-queller, and a woman-queller. Fal. Keep them off, Bardolph. Fang. A rescue! a rescue! Host. Good people, bring a rescue or two.Thou wo't, wo't thou? thou wo't, wo't thou? do, do, thou rogue! do, thou hemp-seed! Fal. Away, you scullion! you rampallion! you fustilarian! I'll tickle your catastrophe. Enter the Lord Chief Justice, attended. Ch. Just. What's the matter? keep the peace Fang, and his boy, with her; and Snare follow- here. ho! Host. Master Fang, have you entered the action? Host. Where is your yeoman? Is it a lusty yeo man? will a' stand to't? Fang. Sirrah, where's Snare? Host. O lord, ay: good master Snare. Host. Good my lord, be good to me! I beseech you, stand to me! Ch. Just. How now, sir John? what, are you brawling here? Doth this become your place, your time, and business? You should have been well on your way to York.Stand from him, fellow; Wherefore hang'st thou on him? Host. O my most worshipful lord, an't please your grace, I am a poor widow of Eastcheap, and he is arrested at my suit. Ch. Just. For what sum? Host. It is more than for some, my lord; it is for all, all I have: he hath eaten me out of house and home; he hath put all my substance into that fat belly of his: but I will have some of it out again, or I'll ride thee o'nights, like the mare. Fal. I think, I am as like to ride the mare, if I have any vantage of ground to get up. Ch. Just. 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? words of it. Host. By this heavenly ground I tread on, I must be fain to pawn both my plate, and the tapestry of my dining-chambers. Fal. 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 waterwork, is worth a thousand of these bed-hangings, and these fly-bitten tapestries. Let it be ten pound, if thou canst. Come, an it were not for thy hu Fal. What is the gross sum that I owe thee? mours, there is not a better wench in England. Go, Host. Marry, if thou wert an honest man, thy-wash thy face, and draw thy action: Come, thou self, and the money too. Thou didst swear to me must not be in this humour with me; dost not know upon a parcel-gilti goblet, sitting in my Dolphin me? Come, come, I know thou wast set on to this. chamber, at the round table, by a sea-coal fire, Host. Pray thee, sir Jokn, let it be but twenty upon Wednesday in Whitsun week, when the prince nobles; i'faith, I am loath to pawn my plate, in broke thy head for liking his father to a singing- good earnest, la. Fal. Let it alone; I'll make other shift: you'll Host. Well, you shall have it, though I pawn my gown. I hope, you'll come to supper: You'll pay me all together? man of Windsor; thou didst swear to me then, as canst. Fal. My lord, this is a poor mad soul; and she says, up and down the town, that her eldest son is like you: she hath been in good case, and, the truth is, poverty hath distracted her. But for these foolish officers, I beseech you, I may have redress against them. Ch. Just. Sir John, sir John, I am well acquainted with your manner of wrenching the true cause the false way. It is not a confident brow, nor the throng of words that come with such more than impudent sauciness from you, can thrust me from a level consideration; you have, as it appears to me, practised upon the easy-yielding spirit of this woman, and made her serve your uses both in purse and person. Host. Yea, in troth, my lord. Ch. Just. Pr'ythee, peace:-Pay her the debt you owe her, and unpay the villany you have done with her; the one you may do with sterling money, and the other with current repentance. Fal. Will I live?-Go, with her, with her; [To Bardolph.] hook on, hook on. Host. Will you have Doll Tear-sheet meet you at supper? Fal. No more words; let's have her. [Exeunt Host. Bard. officers, and page. Ch. Just. I have heard better news. Fal. I hope, my lord, all's well: What's the news, my lord? Ch. Just. Come all his forces back? Gow. No; fifteen hundred foot, five hundred horse, Are march'd up to my lord of Lancaster, Ch. Just. You shall have letters of me presently: Come, go along with me, good master Gower. Fal. My lord! Ch. Just. What's the matter? Fal. Master Gower, shall I entreat you with me to dinner? Gow. I must wait upon my good lord here: I thank you, good sir John. Ch. Just. Sir John, you loiter here too long, being you are to take soldiers up in counties as you go. Fal. Will you sup with me, master Gower? Ch. Just. What foolish master taught you these manners, sir John ? Fal. My lord, I will not undergo this sneap without reply. You call honourable boldness, impudent sauciness: if a man will make court'sy, and say nothing, he is virtuous: No, my lord, my humble duty remembered, I will not be your suitor; I say to you, I do desire deliverance from these officers, being upon hasty employment in the king's affairs. Ch. Just. Now the Lord lighten thee! thou art Ch. Just. You speak as having power to do wrong: but answer in the effect of your reputation, and satisfy the poor woman. Fal. Come hither, hostess. (Taking her aside. Enter Gower. Ch. Just. Now, master Gower; What news? (1) Partly gilt, (2) Snub, check, Fal. Master Gower, if they become me not, he was a fool that taught them me. This is the right fencing grace, my lord; tap for tap, and so part fair. a great fool. [Exeunt. SCENE II.--The same. Another street. Enter Prince Henry and Poins. P. Hen. Trust me, I am exceeding weary. Poins. Is it come to that? I had thought weariness durst not have attached one of so high blood. (3) Suitable to your character, (4) Withdraw SG |