Jesus, the days that we have seen!
Do you remember since we lay all night in the windmill in St. George's field?
No more of that, Master Shallow.
Ah! It was a merry night!
And is Jane Nightwork alive?
She lives, Master Shallow.
- Doth she hold her own well? - Old.
Old, Master 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.
Jesus, the days that we have seen!
Sir John, said l well?
We have heard the chimes at midnight, Master Robert Shallow.
That we have! That we have! That we have!
In faith, Sir John, we have.
Jesus, the days that we have seen!
King Richard II, was murdered,
some say at the command of the Duke Henry Bolingbroke,
in Pomford castle, on February 14th, 1400.
Before this, the Duke Henry had been crowned king,
though the true heir for the realm was Edmund Mortimer,
who was held prisoner by the Welsh rebels.
The new king was not hasty to purchase his deliverance,
and to prove this, Mortimer's cousins, the Percys, came to the king
under Windsor.
There came Northumberland, his son Henry Percy, called "Hotspur",
and Worcester, whose purpose was ever to procure malice and set things in a broil.
Shall our coffers then be emptied to redeem a traitor home?
- My liege! - No, on the barren mountains let him starve,
for I shall never hold that man my friend
whose tongue shall ask me for one penny cost to ransom home revolted Mortimer.
Revolted Mortimer! He never did fall off, my sovereign liege, but by the chance of war.
My blood hath been too cold and temperate, unapt to stir at these indignities,
and you have found me, for accordingly you tread upon my patience.
Our house, my sovereign liege,
little deserves the scourge of greatness to be used on it,
and that same greatness too which our own hands have helped to make so portly.
Worcester, get thee gone,
for I do see danger and disobedience in thine eye.
- My lord! - Henceforth let me not hear you speak of Mortimer,
or you shall hear in such a kind from me as will displease you.
- My good lord, hear me! - My lord Northumberland,
we license your departure,
with your son.
Speak of Mortimer! 'Zounds, I will speak of him, and let my soul want mercy, if I do not join with him.
Hear you, cousin, a word.
Hear, you uncle. Did not King Richard then proclaim my brother Edmund Mortimer heir to the crown?
He did; myself did hear it.
Nay, then I cannot blame his cousin king, that wished him on the barren mountains starve.
Shall it for shame be spoken in these days, or fill up chronicles in time to come,
that men of your nobility and power did gage them both in an unjust behalf.
As both of you, God pardon it, have done,
to put down Richard, that sweet lovely rose,
and plant this thorn, this canker, Bolingbroke?
By heaven, methinks it were an easy leap to pluck bright honour from the pale-faced moon,
or dive into the bottom of the deep, where fathom line could never touch the ground,
and pluck up drowned honour by the locks. But out upon this half-faced fellowship!
Farewell, kinsman. I'll talk to you when you are better tempered to attend.
Why, look you, I am whipped and scourged with rods, nettled and stung with pismires,
when I hear of this vile politician, Bolingbroke.
In Richard's time, what do you call the place,
where I first bowed my knee unto this king of smiles, this Bolingbroke.
'Sblood, when you and he came back from Ravenspurgh.
- At Berkley Castle. - You say true.
Why, what a candy deal of courtesy this fawning greyhound then did proffer me:
"Look gentle Harry Percy," and "kind cousin."
O, the devil take such cozeners!
God forgive me! Good uncle, tell your tale, for I have done.
Nay, if you have not, to it again. We will stay your leisure. - I have done, i' faith.
You, my lord, shall secretly into the bosom creep of that same noble prelate,
well beloved, the Archbishop. - Of York, is it not?
I smell it. Upon my life, it will do well. And then the powers of Scotland and of York
to join with MortimerŐs? - And so they shall.
Brother, farewell. No further go in this than I by letters shall direct our course.
Farewell, good brother. We shall thrive, I trust.
All studies here I solemnly defy, save how to gall and pinch this Bolingbroke.
And that same sword-and-buckler Prince of Wales.
But that I think his father loves him not, and would be glad he met with some mischance.
I would have him poisoned with a pot of ale.
- Where is Falstaff? - Fast asleep.
And snorting like a horse.
- I've picked his pocket. - What hast thou found?
Nothing but this, my lord.
Go to hell! What time of day is it, lad?
What a devil hast thou to do with the time of day?
Unless hours were cups of sack, clocks the tongues of bawds,
dials the signs of leaping-houses, and the blessed sun himself a fair hot wench in flame-colored taffeta,
I see no reason why thou shouldst be so superfluous to demand the time of the day.
Indeed, you come near me now, Hal,
for we that take purses go by the moon -
Hell, no! Who picked me pocket? Hostess!
Hostess!
- Sir John? - I fell asleep and had my pocket picked!
Do you think I keep thieves in my house? My lord, I pray you, hear me.
- Go to, I know you well enough. - I know you, Sir John!
You owe me money, Sir John; and now you pick a quarrel with me to beguile me of it.
This house is turned bawdy-house!
- Bawdy-house? - They pick pockets!
We cannot lodge and board a dozen or fourteen gentlewomen who live honestly
by the prick of their needles, but it will be thought we keep a bawdy-house!
Shall I not take mine ease in mine inn, but I shall have my pocket picked?
You owe me money, Sir John!
What didst thou lose, Jack?
- Wilt thou believe me, Hal, some forty pounds. - What?
And a gold seal ring of my grandfather's was some forty mark.
You owe mine hostess money, Jack! You lost the reckoning!
Item, a capon, two shillings and tuppence.
Item, sauce, four pence. Item, sack, two gallons, five shillings and eightpence.
Anchovies and sack after supper, two and sixpence.
- Item, bread, eightpence. - O monstrous!
Hostess! Come, thou must not be in this humour with me.
I forgive thee. Fetch me a quart of sack!
Thou hast done much harm upon me, Hal; God forgive me for it.
Before I knew thee, Hal, I knew nothing, and now am I,
if a man should speak truly, little better than one of the wicked.
I was as virtuously given as a gentleman need to be, virtuous enough,
swore little; diced not above seven times - a week,
went to a bawdy house not above once in a quarter - of an hour.
Villainous company, hath been the spoil of me.
And I have not forgotten what the inside of a church is made of.
Call me a pepper-corn, a brewer's horse!
Well, I'll repent.
- Where shall we take a purse tomorrow, Jack? - Where thou wilt; I'll make one.
I see a good amendment of life in him; from praying to purse-taking.
Why, Hal, 'tis my vocation, Hal; 'tis no sin for a man to labour in his vocation.
My lads, my lads,
tomorrow morning, early at Gad's Hill,
there are pilgrims going to Canterbury with rich offerings,
and traders riding to London with fat purses.
- Hal, wilt thou make one? - Who, I rob? I a thief? Not I, by my faith.
There's neither manhood, honesty nor good fellowship in thee,
nor cam'st thou not of the royal blood, if thou darest not stand for ten shillings.
I'll tarry at home.
- I'll be a traitor then when thou art king. - I care not!
Ride with us, my lord. I have a jest, a jest I cannot execute alone.
O, my sweet honey lord! Come ride with us tomorrow.
I'll go with thee.
We can stuff our purses full of crowns.
Well then, provide us with all things necessary.
- Farewell, my lord. - Meet me here in Eastcheap.
- Farewell. - Hal, when thou art king, let not us that are squires of the night's body
be called thieves of the day's beauty. Let us be Diana's foresters,
gentlemen of the shade, minions of the moon.
Men of good government, being governed, as the sea is, by our noble and chaste mistress the moon,
under whose countenance we steal.
I know you all, and will awhile uphold the unyoked humour of your idleness.
Yet herein will I imitate the sun,
who doth permit the base contagious clouds to smother up his beauty from the world,
that, when he please again to be himself, being wanted, he may be more wondered at.
If all the year were playing holidays, to sport would be as tedious as to work,
But when they seldom come, they wished for come,
So when this loose behaviour I throw off and pay the debt
I never promised,
My reformation, glitt'ring o'er my fault,
shall show more goodly and attract more eyes
than that which hath no foil to set it off.
I'll so offend to make offense a skill,
redeeming time when men think least I will.
I prithee, sweet wag, shall there be gallows standing in England when thou art king?
Do not thou, when thou art king, hang a thief.
No! Thou shalt have the hanging of the thieves and so become a rare hangman.
"The purpose you undertake is dangerous."
Why, that's certain. 'Tis dangerous to take a cold, to sleep, to drink! - Harry!
But I tell you this, my lord fool, out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
- Harry! - "The purpose you undertake is dangerous,"
"the friends you have named uncertain,"
"the time itself unsorted, and the whole plot too light."
Say you so? I say unto you again,
you are a shallow, cowardly hind, and you lie.
By the Lord, our plot is a good plot as ever was laid,
our friends true and constant.
A good plot, good friends, and full of expectation; an excellent plot, very good friends.
- Leave us. - I must leave you, Kate.
O what a frosty-spirited rogue is this!
"I could be well contented to be with you, in the respect of the love of your house."
He shows in this he loves his own barn better than he loves our house.
What, ho! Hath Butler brought those horses from the sheriff?
- What horse, my lord? - A roan, a crop-ear, is it not?
- It is, my lord. - That roan shall be my throne.
What news? - From your father! - Letters from him! Why comes he not himself?
It seems he is grievous sick.
Zounds, how has he got the leisure to be sick in such a justling time?
Ha! You shall see now in very sincerity of fear and cold heart,
will he to the king and lay open all our proceedings.
Well, hang him, let him tell the king.
For what offence have I this fortnight been, a banish'd woman from my husband's bed?
- What, o! - My lord? - In thy faint slumbers I by thee have watch'd,
and heard thee murmur tales of iron wars;
speak terms of manage to thy bounding steed;
cry "Courage! To the field!"
And thou hast talk'd of sallies and retires, of trenches, tents,
of palisadoes, frontiers, parapets, of basilisks, of cannon, culverin,
of prisoners' ransom and of soldiers slain - hear you, my lord!
My lord! - What say'st thou, my lady?
- What is it carries you away? - Why, my horse, my love, my horse.
Out, you mad-headed ape! I'll know your business, Harry. If you go -
So far afoot, I shall be weary, love.
In faith, I'll break thy little finger, Harry, an if thou wilt not tell me all things true.
Away, away, you trifler!
Love! I love thee not, I care not for thee, Kate.
This is no world to play with mammets and to tilt with lips.
We must have bloody noses and crack'd crowns.
God's me, my horse!
Do you not love me? Do you not, indeed?
Nay, tell me if you speak in jest or no.
Come, wilt thou see me ride?
And when I am on horseback, I will swear I love thee infinitely.
But hark you, Kate; I know you wise,
but yet no farther wise than Harry Percy's wife.
Constant you are,
but yet a woman.
And for secrecy, no lady closer,
for I well believe thou wilt not utter what thou dost not know;
and so far will I trust thee, gentle Kate.
- How! So far? - Not an inch further.
But hark you, Kate: whither I go, thither shall you go too.
- Will this content you, Kate? - It must of force.
How long is it Jack since thou saw'st thine own knee?
Mine own knee?
When I was about thy years, Hal, I was not an eagle's talon in the waist.
A plague of sighing and grief! It blows a man up like a bladder.
There's money of the King's coming!
'Tis going to the King's Exchequer. We may do it as secure as sleep.
- Sh, they come! You four shall front them there. - We four? How many be there of them?
- A, some eight or ten. - Zounds, will they not rob us?
Give me my horse, my masters. Every man to his business.
If they escape from your encounter, they shall light on ours.
- Shelter, shelter! - Hmm.. eight yards of uneven ground is three score and ten mile afoot with me.
I've removed Falstaff's horse.
If I go four foot further afoot, I shall break me wind.
I'll starve ere I'll rob a foot further.
Peace, you fat guts! What a brawling dost thou keep! Lie down!
Lie down?
Lay thine ear close to the ground, and list if thou canst hear the tread of travellers.
Have you any levers to lift me up again, being down?
They come, they come!
I prithee, good prince Hal, help me to my horse, good king's son.
Shall I be your ostler?
Go hang thyself in their own heir-apparent garters!
Now, lads, come.
Come, neighbour; the boy shall lead our horses.
We'll walk afoot while and ease our legs.
- Cut the villains' throats! - Down with them!
- Where are the disguises? - Here! - Young men must live!
Come! Come!
Come, my masters, let us share.
And the prince and Poins be not two arrant cowards, there's no equity stirring.
There's no more valour in that Poins than in a wild duck.
Your money!
The thieves are scattered!
- Each takes his fellow for an officer. - Away, good Ned.
Falstaff sweats to death and lards the lean earth as he walks along.
- How the fat rogue roared! - Were not for laughing, I should pity him.
Can no man tell me of my unthrifty son?
'Tis full three months since I did see him last. - My liege!
- Have you read o'er the letters that I sent you? - I have, my liege.
Then you perceive the body of our kingdom, how foul it is, what rank diseases grow.
They say young Percy and Lord Worcester are fifty thousand strong.
Here is Sir Walter Blunt, new lighted from his horse. - My liege, Northumberland lies sick.
But a great power of English and of Scots follow young Henry Percy.
Yea, there thou make's me sad,
and make's me sin in envy that my Lord Northumberland should be the father to so blest a son.
A son that is the theme of honour's tongue!
While I, in looking on to praise of him,
see riot and disorder stain the brow of my young Harry.
O, that it could be proved that some night-tripping fairy
had exchanged in cradle clothes our children where they lay.
Then would I have his Harry and he mine.
Where is the Prince of Wales? - We do not know, my lord.
I would to God, my lords, he could be found.
Inquire at London, 'mongst the taverns there,
for there, they say, he daily doth frequent
with unrestrained loose companions.
Even such, they say, as stand in narrow lanes, and beat our watch and rob our passengers,
with he, young wanton and effeminate boy,
takes on to the point of honour to support so dissolute a crew.
Got with much ease!
The virtue of this jest will be the incomprehensible lies
this same fat rogue will tell us now,
how thirty at least he fought with, what wards, what blows,
what extremities he endured!
A plague on all cowards!
A plague on all cowards still say I. And a vengeance, too.
Give me a cup of sack.
- How now, Jack, where hast thou been? - A plague on all cowards!
Go thy ways, old Jack, die when thou wilt,
if manhood, good manhood, be not forgot upon the face of the earth, then I'm a shotten herring.
There lives not three good men unchanged in England,
and one of them is fat, and grows old. God help the while!
How now, woolsack?
A king's son!
If I do not beat thee out of thy kingdom with a dagger or lath
and drive all the subjects of thee like a flock of wild geese,
I'll never wear hair on my face more. You, Prince of Wales?
- Why, you whoreson round man - - You fat guts -
What's the matter?
Are you not a coward? Answer that! And Poins there?
Call me coward? You fat paunch!
I call thee coward? I'll see thee damned ere I call thee coward,
but I would give a thousand pound if I could run as fasts as thou canst. - What's the matter?
What's the matter? There be four of us here have ta'en a thousand pound this morning.
- A thousand pound? Where is it? - Where is it, Jack?
Where is it? Taken from us, it is.
A hundred upon poor four of us. - What, a hundred, man?
I was at half-sword with a dozen of them two hours together. I have escaped by a miracle.
I am eight times thrust through the doublet, four through the hose,
my buckler cut through and through, my sword hacked like a handsaw. Ecce signum!
Let them speak! - We four set upon some dozen - - Sixteen at least!
And bound them! And as we were sharing, some six or seven fresh men set upon us.
- What, fought you with them all? - All? I know not what you call all,
but I fought not with fifty of them, I am not a bunch of radish.
If there were not fifty upon poor old Jack, then am I no two-legged creature.
Pray God you have not murdered some of them.
Nay, that's past praying for.
I have peppered two of them. Two I am sure I've paid for,
two rogues in buckram cloaks.
I tell thee, what, Hal. I tell thee a lie, spit in my face, call me a horse.
Thus I bore me point. Four rogues in buckram cloaks let drive at me.
- Four? - Four? Thou saidst but two even now.
Four, Hal. I told thee four. These four came front and mainly thrust at me.
I made me no more ado but took all seven of their points in me target, thus.
Seven?
Why there were but four even now.
- Er, in buckram? - Ay, four, in buckram cloaks.
Seven, by these hilts, or I am a villain else.
Let him alone. We shall have more anon.
- Dost thou hear me, Hal? - Ay, and mark thee too, Jack.
Do so, for it is worth the list'ning to.
These nine in buckram that I told thee of - - Two more already.
began to give me ground; I followed me close, came in, foot and hand,
and with a thought, seven of the eleven I paid.
O monstrous! Eleven buckram men grown out of two.
But, as the devil would have it, three misbegotten knaves in Kendal green came at me back
and let drive at me for it was so dark, Hal, that thou couldst not see thy hand.
These lies are like their father that begets them.
Why thou clay-brained guts,
thou nitty-pated fool, thou whoreson obscene greasy tallow-couch -
What, art thou mad? Is not the truth the truth?
Why, how couldst thou know these men in Kendal green,
when it was so dark thou couldst not see thy hand?
Come, tell us your reason. What sayest thou? - Come, your reason, Jack, your reason.
Upon compulsion? Zounds, and I were at the strappado,
all the racks in the world, I would not tell you on compulsion.
I'll be no longer guilty of this sin. This sanguine coward,
this horseback-breaker, this huge hill of flesh -
'Sblood, you starveling,
you eel-skin, you dried neat's tongue, you stockfish!
O for breath to utter what is like to thee! You tailor's yardstick,
you sheath, you bowcase, you vile standing tuck!
Well, breathe while, and then to it again.
Yet hear me speak but this. We two saw you four set on four.
Mark now how a plain tale shall put you down.
And Falstaff, you carried yourself away as nimbly, with as quick dexterity,
and roared for mercy, and still run and roared, as ever I heard a bullcalf.
What a slave to hack thy sword and say it was in fight! What trick, what device,
what starting hole canst thou now find out to hide thee from this open and apparent shame?
Come, Jack, let's hear. What trick hast thou now?
By the Lord, lads, I knew ye as well as he that made ye.
Was it for me to kill the heir apparent? Should I turn upon the true prince?
Thou knowest I am as valiant as Hercules, but beware instinct.
The lion will not touch the true prince. I was now a coward upon instinct.
By the Lord, lads, I'm glad you have the money.
My lord the prince!
There's a nobleman of the court at the door! He would speak with you.
- How now, my lady hostess? - He says he comes from your father.
Give him as much as will make him a royal man, and send him back again to my mother.
- What manner of man is he? - An old man.
What does gravity out of his bed at midnight?
- Shall I give him his answer? - Prithee do, Ned.
Clap to the doors. Watch tonight, pray tomorrow.
Gallants, lads, boys! Hearts of gold! What shall we be merry?
Shall we have a play extempore? - A play? - Thou wilt be horribly chid,
when thou comest to thy father in the morning. An thou loves me, practice an answer.
- Do thou stand for my father? - Content.
This chair shall be me state, this cushion my crown.
Here was Sir Thomas Bracy from your father. There's villainous news abroad.
That same mad fellow of the North - - Percy?
He that killed me some six or seven dozen of Scots at a breakfast,
washes his hands and says to his wife, "Fie upon this quiet life! I want work."
Hal, could the world pick you out such as enemy again as that fiend Percy, the Hotspur of North?
Does not thy blood thrill at it? Art thou not horribly afeared?
Not a whit, i'faith. I lack some of thy instinct.
Give me a cup of sack to make my eyes look red,
that it may be thought I have wept; for I must speak in a passion.
Harry!
I do not only marvel where thou spendest thy time,
but also how thou art accompanied.
He doth it just like one of these harlotry players, as ever I see!
Peace, good pint pot. Peace, good tickle-brain.
That thou art my son, I have partly thy mother's word,
partly mine own opinion, but chiefly a villainous trick in thine eye
and a foolish hanging of thy nether lip that does warrant me.
If then thou be a son to me,
here lies the point, why, being son to me, art thou so pointed at?
There is a thing, Harry, which thou hast heard of, by the name of pitch.
Pitch doth defile; so doth the company thou keepest.
And yet there is a virtuous man whom I have often noted
in thy company, but I know not his name.
What manner of man, and it like your Majesty?
A goodly portly man i'faith, and a corpulent of a cheerful look,
a pleasing eye, and a most noble carriage,
and, as I think, his age some fifty, or, by'r Lady, inclining to threescore;
and now I remember me, his name -
Falstaff!
If that man should be lewdly given, he deceiveth me;
for, Harry, I see virtue in his looks. Him keep with!
The rest, banish! - Dost thou speak like a king?
Do thou stand for me.
I'll play my father. - Depose me?
- Here I am set. - And here I stand.
- Now, Harry, whence come you? - My noble lord, from Eastcheap.
The complaints I hear of thee are grievous.
'Sblood, my lord, they are false. Nay, I'll tickle ye for a young prince.
There is a devil haunts thee in the likeness of an old fat man,
a tun of man is thy companion.
Why dost thou converse with that trunk of humours,
that bolting-hutch of beastliness,
that swoll'n parcel of dropsies, that huge bombard of sack,
that stuffed cloak bag, that roasted Manningtree ox,
that reverend vice, that gray iniquity,
that father ruffian, that vanity in years?
Wherein is he good, but to taste sack and drink it?
Wherein neat and cleanly, but to carve a capon and eat it?
Wherein cunning, but in craft? Wherein crafty, but in villainy?
Wherein villainous, but in all things? Wherein worthy, but in nothing?
I would your Grace would take me with you. Whom means your Grace?
That villainous abominable misleader of youth -
Falstaff!
That old white-bearded Satan.
- My lord, the man I know. - I know thou dost.
But to say I know more harm in him than I know in myself is to say more than I know.
That he is old, the more's the pity, his white hairs do witness it;
but that he is, saving your reverence, an old Satan,
that I utterly deny!
If sack and sugar be a fault, then God help the wicked!
If to be old and merry be a sin, then many an old host I know is damned.
And if to be fat is to be hated, then Pharaoh's lean kine are to be loved.
No, my good lord; banish Peto, banish Bardolph,
banish Poins, but for sweet Jack Falstaff
kind Jack Falstaff, true Jack Falstaff,
valiant Jack Falstaff,
and therefore more valiant, being, as he is, old Jack Falstaff,
banish not him thy Harry's company, banish not him thy Harry's company:
banish plump Jack, and banish all the world.
I do,
I will.
- O Jesu, my lord, my lord! - What's the matter?
The sheriff and all the watch are at the door!
Play out the play, play out the play: I have much to say in the behalf of that Falstaff.
Go hide thee, Jack! Now, my masters, for a true face and good conscience.
Both of which I have had, but their date is out; and therefore I'll hide me.
Now, master sheriff, what is your will with me?
Pardon me, my lord. A hue and cry hath follow'd certain men unto this house.
- What men? - One of them is well known, my gracious lord, a gross fat man.
As fat as butter.
The man, I do assure you, is not here.
And so let me entreat you leave the house.
I will, my lord.
There are two gentlemen have in this robbery lost three hundred marks.
If he have robb'd these men, he shall be answerable.
And so farewell. - Good night, my noble lord.
I'll to the court in the morning. We must all to the wars.
Good night, my noble lord.
I think it be good morrow, is it not?
Indeed, my lord,
I think it be two o'clock.
We must all to the wars, eh lad?
Hostess, my breakfast. - You owe me money, Sir John.
And money lent you! More than 20 pounds! - Go, you thing.
What thing! I am no thing! I am an honest man's wife,
and, setting thy knighthood aside, thou art a knave to call me so.
Setting thy womanhood aside, thou art a beast to say otherwise.
- Say, what beast, thou knave, thou? - What beast?
Why, an otter. - An otter, Sir John. Why an otter?
O, she's neither fish nor flesh; a man knows not where to have her.
Thou art an unjust man for saying so.
Thou or any man knows where to have me, thou knave, thou.
Thou sayest true, hostess, and he slanders thee most grossly.
So he doth you, my lord, and said you owed him a thousand pounds.
- Jack! Do I owe thee a thousand pound? - A thousand pounds, Hal? A million.
Thy love is worth a million;
thou owest me thy love.
Well, my sweet beef, I must still be good angel to thee.
My lord, he called you a jack, and a sneak-cup and said he would cudgel you.
Darest thou be as good as thy word now?
Why, Hal, as a man, I dare, but as a prince, I fear thee as I fear the roaring of a lion's whelp.
- And why not as the lion? - The King itself is to be feared as the lion.
Dost thou think that I'll fear thee as I fear thy father?
The money shall be paid back again with advantage.
O, I do not like that paying back; 'tis a double labour.
Thou whoreson little tidy Bartholomew boar-pig,
come! I'll be friends with thee, Jack:
thou art going to the wars; and whether I shall ever see thee again or not,
there is nobody cares.
- Hal! - Farewell, blown Jack!
Farewell, all-hallown summer!
Percy, Northumberland, the Archbishop's Grace of York, Douglas, Mortimer,
capitulate against us and are up.
But wherefore do I tell these news to thee?
Thou that art like enough, through vassal fear, base inclination, and the start of spleen,
to fight against me under Percy's pay,
to dog his heels, and curtsy at his frowns,
to show how much thou art degenerate.
Lords, give us leave.
The Prince of Wales and I must have some needful conference alone.
I know not whether God will have it so,
That, in his secret doom,
out of my blood, he'll breed revengement,
and a scourge for me to punish my mistreadings.
Tell me else,
could such inordinate and low desires,
such barren pleasures, rude society,
accompany the greatness of thy blood. - So please your Majesty!
Had I so lavish of my presence been,
so stale and cheap to vulgar company,
opinion, that did help me to the crown, left me in reputeless banishment.
The skipping King, he ambled up and down with shallow jesters and rash bavin wits,
mingled his royalty with cap'ring fools, grew a companion to the common streets,
So, when he had occasion to be seen,
he was but as the cuckoo is in June, heard, not regarded;
seen, but with such eyes as, sick and blunted with community,
Afford no extraordinary gaze such as is bent on sunlike majesty.
And in that very line, Harry, standest thou,
For thou has lost thy princely privilege with vile participation.
Not an eye but is aweary of thy common sight,
save mine, which hath desired to see thee more.
I shall hereafter, my thrice gracious lord, be more myself.
Harry, for all the world as thou art to this hour was Richard then,
when I from France set foot at Ravenspurgh,
And even as I was then is Percy now.
Now, by my scepter, and my soul to boot,
he hath more worthy interest to the state than thou. - Do not think so!
You shall not find it so.
I will redeem all this on Percy's head,
and, in the closing of some glorious day, be bold to tell you that I am your son,
and that shall be the day, whene'er it lights,
that this same child of honour and renown, this gallant Hotspur,
this all-praised knight,
and your unthought-of Harry chance to meet.
Then I will make this northern youth exchange his glorious deeds for my indignities.
This in the name of God!
I promise here! - The Earl of Westmoreland sets forth today.
On Wednesday next, Harry, you shall set forth.
Our hands are full of business, let's away.
- Pish! - Pish for thee, thou prick-ear'd cur of Iceland!
Why the devil should we keep knives to cut one another's throats?
O viper vile! Now Pistol's cock is up, and flashing fire will follow.
Pistol, pay me the eight shillings I won of you at betting!
- Base is the slave that pays. - Shog off!
What's he that goes there?
- Falstaff, an't please your Lordship. - He that was in question for the robb'ry?
Jack!
My lord Chief Justice!
I heard say your lordship was sick; I 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 must humbly beseech your lordship to have a reverent care of your health.
Oh, my Lord Westmoreland!
I heard say your lordship had already been at Shrewsbury.
- Tis more than time I were there, and you too. - What, the king encamped?
He is, Sir John: I fear we shall stay too long.
Sir John, methinks your soldiers are exceeding poor and bare,
No eye hath seen such scarecrows.
If I am not ashamed of my soldiers, I am a soused gurnet.
I have misused the King's press damnably.
I pressed me none but good householders. They have bought out their services;
and now my whole charge consists of younger sons to younger brothers,
revolted tapsters and ostlers trade-fall'n;
the cankers of a calm world and a long peace.
- We must away all night, Falstaff. - The king, I can tell you, looks for us all.
- Goes the prince with you? - The prince! You follow him up and down like his ill angel.
Falstaff, you have misled the youthful prince.
The young Prince hath misled me.
The truth is, you live in great infamy. Your means are very slender, and your waste is great.
I would it were otherwise. I would my means were greater and my waist slender.
There is not a white hair on your face but should have his effect on gravity.
His effect on gravy, gravy, gravy.
My lords, you that are old consider not the capacities of us that are young.
- Falstaff! - You do measure the heat of our livers with the bitterness of your galls.
- Do you set down your name in the scroll of youth? - That are written down old with all the characters of age?
Have you not a moist eye? A dry hand? A yellow cheek?
- A white beard? - A decreasing leg? - An increasing belly? - Is not your voice broken? Your wind short?
- Your chin double? - Your wit single? - And every part about you blasted with antiquity?
And will you yet call yourself young?
My lord, I was born about three of the clock in the afternoon, with a white head and something a round belly.
For my voice, I have lost it with halloing and singing of anthems.
Sir John! Sir John, you loiter here too long!
Being us with to take more soldiers in counties as we go. - Come on, corporal Nym.
Well, be honest, be honest; and God bless your expedition!
Will your Grace lend me a thousand pound to furnish me forth?
Not a penny, not a penny. Fare you well.
- My lord? - Not a penny!
Bardolph, go fetch me a bottle of sack.
Will you give me money, captain?
Well, God send the prince a better companion!
Ha, God send the companion a better prince!
How now?
The Earl of Westmoreland, seven thousand strong, is marching hitherwards;
with him Prince John. - No harm: what more?
- And further, I have learn'd, the king himself in person is set forth. - He shall be welcome too.
Where is his son, the nimble-footed madcap Prince of Wales,
and his comrades, that daff'd the world aside, and bid it pass?
All furnish'd, all in arms. For God's sake, cousin, stay till all come in.
O gentlemen, the time of life is short!
To spend that shortness basely were too long, if life did ride upon a dial's point,
still ending at the arrival of an hour.
An if we live, we live to tread on kings;
if die, brave death, when princes die with us!
- Justice Shallow? - I am Robert Shallow, Sir;
a poor esquire of this county, and one of the king's justices of the peace.
My captain commends him to me; my captain, Sir John Falstaff,
a tall gentleman, by heaven, and a most gallant leader.
He greets me well, Sir! He greets me well, Sir!
Davy? - Peace, come hither -
Let me see, let me see. Where's the roll?
The soldiers! Use his men well, Davy;
for they are arrant knaves and will backbite.
No worse than they are backbitten, Sir; for they have marvellous foul linen.
O well conceited, Davy! Look, look! Here come Sir John! About thy business, Davy.
Give me your good hand, give me your worship's good hand!
Welcome, good Sir John. - Good Master Robin Shallow!
Glad to see you well. 'Fore God, you have here a goodly dwelling, and a rich.
Barren, barren, barren! Nay, you shall see mine orchard, where, in an arbour,
we will eat a last year's pippin of my own grafting, with a dish of caraways.
Have you provided me here with a half a dozen sufficient men?
We have! We have, Sir!
Come, Sir. Will you sit? Let me see, let me see! Where's the roll?
Davy!
Robert Shallow -
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 the very genius of famine, yet lecherous as a monkey.
And now is this Vice's dagger become a squire,
and now has he land and beefs.
Well, I'll be acquainted with him.
I will use him well, Davy. For a friend in the court is better than a penny in the purse.
Let me see, let me see!
Let them appear as you call, cousin.
Master Surecard, as I think?
Silence!
O Sir John; it is my cousin Silence, in commission with me.
Master Silence, it well befits you should be of the peace.
The same, Sir John. The very same.
Your - good - worship is -
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.
O Jesu, Jesu, the mad days that I have seen!
Master Silence, let me see a man, Master Silence.
Let them appear as you call, cousin. Let them do so, let them do so.
Molvedine.
- Mouldy? - Here, Sir.
'Tis the more time thou wert used.
Haha -
Things that are mouldy lack use.
Ay, Sir John? - Prick him.
- You could have let me alone! - O prick him!
My old dame will be undone now for one to do her husbandry and her drudgery.
- Prick him. - Prick him. - O prick him. - P-prick him.
- Thomas Wart! - Here, Sir.
- There are other men fitter to go out than I. - Stand aside, Mouldy.
Shall I prick Wart, Sir? - It were superfluous; the whole frame stands upon frames:
prick him no more. Who's next?
- Simon Shadow! - Shadow? Let me have him to sit under.
You can do it, Sir, you can do it.
Prick him.
Who's next?
Francis Feeble!
- What trade art thou, Feeble? - A woman's tailor, Sir.
Wilt thou make as many holes in an enemy's battle as thou hast done in a woman's petticoat?
- I will do my good will, Sir; you can have no more. - Well said, good woman's tailor!
Well said, courageous Feeble!
Thou wilt be as valiant as the wrathful dove or most magnanimous mouse.
Prick me the woman's tailor: well, Master Silence;
deep, Master Silence.
Who's next? - Peter Bullcalf o' the green! - O Lord! Good my lord captain -
What, dost thou roar before thou art pricked?
- O Lord, Sir! I am a diseased man. - What disease hast thou?
A cold, Sir, a cough, Sir, which I caught with ringing in the king's affairs upon his coronation-day.
We wilt have away thy cold; and I will take such orders thy friends shall ring for thee.
Prick him.
Is here all? - Here is more called than your number, Sir.
- Good master corporal captain, Sir. - Go to!
I had as lief be hanged, Sir, as go to the wars.
Good master captain,
four Harry ten shillings in French crowns for you. - Outside!
You shall have forty, Sir, for my old dame's sake, she has nobody to do any thing about her when I am gone;
and she is old, and cannot help herself. - Stand aside. - Let it go which way it will.
He that dies this year is quit of the next.
Sir, a word with you: I have three pounds to free Mouldy and Bullcalf. - Mouldy, stay at home till you are past service.
Bullcalf, grow till you come unto it: I will none of you. - Sir John, they are your likeliest men.
Will you tell me, Master Shallow, how to choose a man?
Now here's Wart; a' shall charge you and discharge you with the motion of a pewterer's hammer.
And this same half-faced fellow - - Shadow!
give me this fellow: he presents no mark to the enemy.
And for a retreat; how swiftly will this Feeble, this woman's tailor run off!
O, give me the spare men, and spare me the great ones.
Fare you well, gentle gentlemen. And thank you!
- Sir John! God keep you! - Farewell!
Bardolph, give the soldiers coats.
- How? - Tis no matter, they'll find linen enough on every hedge.
- Sir John! - Farewell, Master Shallow! - Lord bless you!
God prosper your affairs!
God send us peace!
How now, my Lord of Worcester! 'tis not well that you and I should meet upon such terms.
You have deceived our trust,
and made us doff our easy robes of peace,
to crush our old limbs in ungentle steel.
This is not well, my lord. - My liege, I do protest. I have not sought the day of this dislike.
You have not sought it, Sir! How comes it, then?
- Rebellion lay in his way, and he found it. - Peace, chewet, peace!
Go tell your nephew, the Prince of Wales doth join with all the world in praise of Henry Percy.
I do not think a braver gentleman, more daring or more bold, is now alive.
For my part, I may speak it to my shame, I have a truant been to chivalry.
Yet this before my father's Majesty,
I will, to save the blood on either side, try fortune with him in a single fight.
No, we love our people well; even those we love that are misled upon your cousin's part;
and, will they take the offer of our grace,
both he and they and you, every man shall be my friend again and I'll be his.
We offer fair;
take it advisedly.
It will not be accepted, on my life.
Then God befriend us,
as our cause is just.
Good cousin, let not Harry know in any case the offer of the king.
Uncle, what news?
There is no seeming mercy in the king.
He calls us rebels, traitors, and will scourge with haughty arms this hateful name in us.
Arm, arm with speed!
And fellows, soldiers, friends,
let each man do his best.
And here draw I a sword, whose temper I intend to stain with the best blood that I can meet withal.
The Prince of Wales stepped forth before the king,
and, nephew, challenged you to single fight.
No, by my soul. O, would the quarrel lay upon our heads,
and that no man might draw short breath today,
but I and Harry Monmouth!
- I would 'twere bed-time, Hal, and all well. - Why, thou owest God a death.
Tis not due yet. I would be loath to pay Him before His day.
What need I be so forward with Him that calls not on me?
Well, no matter.
Honour pricks me on.
Yea, but how if honour prick me off when I come on? How then?
Can honour set to a leg? No. Or an arm? No.
Or take away the grief of a wound? No. Honour hath no skill in surgery, then? No.
What is honour?
Air. A trim reckoning. Who has it?
He that died o' Wednesday. Doth he feel it? No.
'Tis insensible, then? Yea, to the dead. But will it not live with the living?
No. Why?
Detraction will not suffer it. Therefore, I'll none of it.
Honour is a mere scutcheon. And so ends my catechism.
Come, let me taste my horse,
who is to bear me like a thunderbolt against the bosom of the Prince of Wales.
Harry to Harry shall, hot horse to horse,
meet and ne'er part till one drop down a corse.
- What, stand'st thou idle here? - O Hal, I prithee, give me leave to breathe awhile.
Turk Gregory never did such deeds in arms as I have done this day.
I have paid Percy; I have made him sure.
He is indeed, and living to kill thee.
If I mistake not, thou art Harry Monmouth.
Thou speak'st as if I would deny my name.
- My name is Harry Percy. - Two stars keep not their motion in one sphere;
nor can one England brook a double reign, of Harry Percy and the Prince of Wales.
Nor shall it, Harry; for the hour is come to end the one of us.
To it! Hal, to it!
Here's no boys' play, I warrant you.
Oh, Harry,
thou hast robb'd me of my youth!
I better brook the loss of brittle life than these proud titles thou hast won of me;
They wound my thoughts worse than my sword my flesh:
but thought's the slave of life,
and life time's fool;
and time, that makes survey of all the world,
must have a stop.
O, I could prophesy,
but that the earthy and cold hand of death lies on my tongue:
No, Percy,
thou art dust and food for -
For worms, brave Percy:
fare thee well, great heart.
Ill-weaved ambition, how much art thou shrunk.
When that this body did contain a spirit, a kingdom for it was too small a bound;
but now two paces of the vilest earth is room enough:
this earth that bears thee dead bears not alive so stout a gentleman.
Adieu.
What, old acquaintance!
Could not all this flesh keep in a little life?
Poor Jack, farewell.
I could have better spared a better man.
Embowell'd will I see thee by and by.
Embowell'd?
If thou embowel me today, I'll give you leave to powder me and eat me too tomorrow.
'twas time to counterfeit.
The better part of valour is discretion;
in the which better part I have saved my life.
'Zounds, this gunpowder Percy.
I'll swear I killed him.
The trumpet sounds retreat!
The day is ours!
Thus ever did rebellion find rebuke.
Ill-spirited Worcester,
did not we send grace, pardon, and terms of love to all of you?
- What I have done my safety urged me to. - Bear Worcester to the death.
Other offenders we will pause upon.
Come, brother, let us to the highest of the field, to see what friends are living, who are dead.
There's your Percy.
If your father will do me any honour, so; if not, let him kill the next Percy himself.
- Why, Percy I killed, - Didst thou? - and saw thee dead.
Lord, Lord, how this world is given to lying!
I grant you I was down and out of breath;
and so was he: but we rose both at an instant and fought a long hour by Shrewsbury clock.
I look to be either earl or duke, I assure you.
Father!
Rebellion in this land shall lose its sway,
meeting the check of such another day!
Falstaff, you are going with prince John of Lancaster against Northumberland.
There is not a dangerous action could peep out his head but I am thrust upon it:
well, I cannot last ever:
but it was alway the trick of our English nation, if they have a good thing, to make it too common.
Well, Falstaff, the king hath severed you and Prince Harry.
Yes, I thank your pretty wit for it.
Prince John of Lancaster! Good faith, this same sober-blooded boy doth not love me,
nor a man cannot make him laugh.
But that's no marvel; he drinks no wine.
There's never any of these demure boys come to any proof,
for thin drink doth so overcool their blood,
that they are generally fools and cowards,
which some of us should be too, but for inflammation.
A good sherris sack hath a two-fold operation in it.
It ascends me into the brain, dries me there all the foolish
and dull and crury vapors which environ it,
makes it apprehensive, quick, forgetive, full of nimble, fiery, and delectable shapes,
which, delivered o'er to the voice, the tongue, which is the birth, becomes excellent wit.
The second property of your excellent sherris is the warming of the blood,
But the sherris warms it and makes it course from the inwards to the parts' extremes.
And hereof comes it that prince Harry is valiant,
for the cold blood he did naturally inherit of his father,
he hath, like lean, sterile, and bare land,
manured, husbanded, and tilled
with excellent endeavor of drinking good and good store of fertile sherris,
that he is become very hot and valiant.
If I had a thousand sons, the first human principle I would teach them would be this:
to forswear thin potations and to addict themselves -
to sack!
From the first, king Henry's reign was troubled with rebellion.
But in the year of our Lord 1408, the last of his enemies had been vanquished.
The king held his Christmas this year at London,
being sore vexed with sickness.
Many good morrows to your Majesty!
- Is it good morrow, lords? - 'Tis one o'clock, and past.
Why, then, good morrow to you all, my lords.
The Prince of Wales - - My lord? - Where is he?
Is he not with his brother, John of Lancaster?
- No, my good lord. He isn't present here. - Please it your grace to go to bed.
Your Majesty hath been this fortnight ill,
And these unseason'd hours perforce must add unto your sickness.
- What would my lord and father? - Why art thou not at Windsor with the prince?
He is not there today; he dines in London.
And how accompanied? Canst thou tell me that?
With Poins and other his continual followers.
Most subject is the fattest soil to weeds,
and he, the noble image of my youth, is overspread with them;
therefore my grief stretches itself beyond the hour of death.
The blood weeps from my heart,
when I do shape, in forms imaginary,
th' unguided days and rotten times that you shall look upon,
when I am sleeping with my ancestors.
My gracious lord, you look beyond him quite.
The Prince of Wales will, in the perfectness of time, cast off his followers.
'Tis seldom when the bee doth leave her comb in the dead carrion.
Be patient, lords! You do know these fits are with his Highness very ordinary.
No, no, he cannot long hold out these pangs.
Th' incessant care and labor of his mind -
hath wrought the mure that should confine it in so thin -
that life looks through and will break out.
The crown!
Set me the crown upon my pillow here.
Let there be no noise, my gentle friends;
unless some dull and favourable hand will whisper music to my weary spirit.
Call for the music in the other room.
The people fear me, for they do observe unfathered heirs and loathly births of nature.
The seasons change their manners,
as the year had found some months asleep and leapt them over.
The river hath thrice flowed, no ebb between,
and the old folk, time's doting chronicles,
say it did so a little time before that our great-grandsire, Edward, sicked and died.
How many thousands of my poorest subjects are at this hour asleep.
O sleep, O gentle sleep, nature's soft nurse,
how have I frightened thee, that thou no more will 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 perfum'd 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 leav'st 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 brain in cradle of the rude imperious surge,
and in the visitation of the winds, which take the ruffian billows by the top,
curling their monstrous heads, and hanging them with deafing clamour in the slippery shrouds,
that with the hurly death itself awakes?
And 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.
Before God,
I am exceeding weary.
Is 't come to that?
I had thought weariness durst not have attached itself to one of so high blood.
Faith, it does me; though it discolors the complexion of my greatness to acknowledge it.
- God save your Grace! - And yours, most noble Bardolph!
How doth thy master? - In bodily health, Sir.
"John Falstaff, knight,"
"to the son of the king, nearest his father, Harry Prince of Wales, greeting."
"Be not too familiar with -"
You allow this wen to be as familiar with me as your dog?
"Be not too familiar with Poins; for he misuses thy favours so much, that he swears thou art to -"
"marry his sister." - My lord, I'll steep this letter in sack and make him eat it.
"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." Is he in London?
Yes, Sir. With Mistress Doll Tearsheet.
Shall we steal upon them, Ned, at supper?
You boy, and Bardolph, no word to your master that I am yet come to town.
There's for your silence. - I have no tongue, Sir.
And for mine, Sir, I will govern it.
Doth it not show very vilely in me to desire small beer?
Tell me, how many good young princes would do so,
their fathers being so sick as yours at this time is?
What a disgrace is it to me to remember thy name! Or to know thy face tomorrow!
Do you use me thus, Ned? Must I marry your sister?
God send the wench no worse fortune! But I never said so.
- Come, Ned. - I am your shadow, my lord;
I'll follow you.
'Sblood,
I am as melancholy as a gib cat or a lugged bear.
Sir John, you are so fat, you cannot live long!
Well, there it is.
I will tell you what I am about. - Two yards, and more.
Indeed, I am in the waist two yards about;
but I am now about no waste; I am about thrift.
I must turn away some of my followers.
- There is no remedy. - I will employ Bardolph, he shall draw here for me.
A tapster is a good trade.
Lads, I'm -
almost out at heels.
Hello, Doll.
Is that all the comfort you give me?
Who knocks so loud at door?
- That muddy rascal. - You make fat rascals, Doll.
I make them! Gluttony and diseases make them.
If the cook help to make the gluttony,
you help to make the diseases: we catch of you.
We catch of you; 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. - You muddy conger!
Hang yourself! - You two never meet but you fall to some discord:
you are both, i' good truth, as rheumatic as two dry toasts;
But, i' faith, sweetheart, you have drunk too much canaries;
How do you now? - Better than I was.
Why, that's well said; a good heart's better than gold.
What the good-year! One must bear, and that must be you.
- Sir, it's Pistol! 's to speak with you! - Pistol?
The foulest mouth rogue in England! Hang him swaggering rascal!
- Swagger? - Empty the jordan.
- If he swagger, let him not come here. - He's no swaggerer, hostess.
A tame cheater, i' faith;
you may stroke him as gently as a puppy greyhound:
Pistol! - God save you, Sir John!
Pistol, I charge you with a cup of sack: do you discharge upon mine hostess.
I will discharge upon her, Sir John, with two bullets.
She is Pistol-proof, Sir; you shall hardly offend her.
Then to you, Mistress Dorothy; I will charge you.
- Charge me! You filthy bung! - Get me my rapier, Bardolph.
I'll thrust my knife in your mouldy chaps, an you play the saucy cuttle with me.
God let me not live, but I will murder your ruff for this.
- Pistol, I would not have you go off here. - Not here, sweet captain.
- Captain? - Pray thee, go down, good - - You a captain?
For what? For tearing a poor whore's ruff in a bawdy-house?
And hollow pamper'd jades of Asia, compare with Caesars,
and with Cannibals,
and Trojan Greeks?
Come.
Get here a judge!
What! Shall we have incision? Shall we imbrue?
Why, then, let grievous, ghastly, gaping wounds untwine the Sisters Three!
Come, Atropos, I say!
Jack!
Are you not hurt i' the groin?
I thought a' made a shrewd thrust at your belly.
A rascally slave!
- O you sweet little rogue. - A rascal bragging slave -
You whoreson little valiant villain, you!
Poor ape, how you sweating.
The rogue fled from me like quicksilver.
Come, let me wipe thy face; come on, you whoreson chops:
O rogue! i'faith, I love you. - I will toss the rogue in a blanket.
Do, an thou darest for thy heart: an thou dost, I'll canvass thee between a pair of sheets.
- The music is come, Sir. - Let them play.
Play, Sirs!
What stuff will have a kirtle of? I shall receive money o' Thursday;
shalt have a cap tomorrow.
Come sing me a bawdy song! Make me merry.
Thou'lt forget me,
when I am gone.
You start me weeping, if you say so.
Kiss me, Doll.
Is it not strange that desire should so many years outlive performance?
Thou dost give me -
flattering busses.
I kiss thee with a most constant heart.
I am old,
I am old.
I love thee better than I love e'er a scurvy young boy of them all.
Jack?
What humour's the prince made of?
- The Prince of Wales? - Mm.
- A good shallow young fellow. - Would not this nave have his ears cut off?
- They say Poins has a good wit. - Poins? A good wit?
Let's beat him before his whore.
The prince himself is such another;
the weight of a hair will turn the scales between their avoirdupois.
Ha! A bastard son of the king!
And art not thou Poins, his brother?
My lord, he will drive you out of your revenge, if you take not the heat.
What, a hodge-pudding? A bag of flax?
- No abuse, Hal. - Old, cold, withered and of intolerable entrails?
Thou and art indeed the rascaliest, sweet young Prince.
How vilely did you speak of me even now before this honest, virtuous, civil gentlewoman!
Why, Hal? I did not think thou wast within hearing.
Ay, and you knew me as you did when you ran away at the robbery.
You spoke it on purpose to try my patience!
I dispraised thee before the wicked, that the wicked might not fall in love with thee,
which thy father is to thank me.
See now, whether pure and entire cowardice doth not make thee wrong this virtuous gentlewoman?
Is she of the wicked? - Is thine hostess of the wicked?
Or honest Bardolph, whose zeal burns in his nose, of the wicked?
The fiend hath pricked down Bardolph irrecoverable;
for the women, one of them 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.
Hal, am I not falling away vilely,
when my skin hangs about me like an like an old lady's loose gown.
Sirrah, you, giant! What says the doctor to my water?
He said, Sir, the water itself was a good water;
but, for the party that owed it, he might have more diseases than he knew for.
Men of all sorts take a pride to gird at me:
the brain of this foolish-compounded clay man,
is not able to invent anything 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 feel me much to blame, so idly to profane the precious time,
But I tell thee, my heart bleeds inwardly that my father is so sick.
Shall I tell thee one thing, Poins? - And let it be an excellent good thing.
It shall serve among wits of no higher breeding than thine.
Go to -
I shall stand the push of your one thing that you shall tell.
I could tell thee, as to one for fault of a better, it pleases me to call friend,
I could be sad,
and sad indeed too.
Very hardly upon such a subject.
Thou thinkest me as far in the devil's book as thou and Falstaff.
An old lord of the council rated me the other day in the street about you, Sir,
but I marked him not, and yet he talked very wisely, and in the street, too.
Thou didst well, for wisdom cries out in the street and no man regards it.
It is certain that either wise bearing or ignorant carriage is caught,
as men take diseases, one of another:
- Ned. - Yes, my lord? - Let men take heed of their company.
What wouldst thou think of me, if I should weep?
I would think thee a most princely hypocrite.
I have forsworn his company hourly any time -
this two-and-twenty years -
- Every man would think me an hypocrite indeed. - I am bewitched with the rogue's company.
Ha, if the rascal hath not given me medicines to make me love him, I'll be hanged.
- Let the end try the man. - It could not be else: I have drunk medicines.
My lord!
O a pox of this gout! Or, a gout of this pox!
For the one or the other plays the rogue with my great toe.
Well 'tis no matter; I have the wars for my colour. Hey, lad!
And my pension shall seem the more reasonable.
A good wit will make use of any thing: I shall turn diseases to commodity.
Falstaff!
Good night!
Now comes in the sweetest morsel of the night,
and we must hence and leave it unpicked.
Come, boy! We'll through Gloucestershire to visit Master Robert Shallow, esquire.
I have him already temp'ring between my finger and my thumb, and shortly -
will I seal with him. - Jack!
When wilt thou leave fighting o' days and foining o' nights,
and begin to patch up thine old body for heaven?
Peace, Doll! Do not speak like a death's-head;
do not bid me remember mine end.
Farewell, Doll! - Farewell, sweet Jack!
- Farewell! - Have a care of thyself.
- Who saw the Duke of Lancaster? - I am here, brother,
full of heaviness. - How now!
Rain within doors, and none abroad?
How doth the King? - Exceeding ill.
Why doth the crown lie there upon his pillow,
being so troublesome a bedfellow?
O Majesty, when thou dost pinch thy bearer,
thou dost sit like a rich armour worn in heat of day, that scald'st with safety.
My gracious lord!
My father!
This is a sleep,
that from this golden rigol hath divorced so many English kings.
Thy due from me is tears -
and heavy sorrows of the blood, which nature, love, and filial tenderness, shall,
O dear father,
pay thee plenteously:
My due from thee is this imperial crown,
which God shall guard:
and put the world's whole strength into one giant arm,
it shall not force this lineal honour from me:
Ha, cousin Silence, that thou hadst seen that this knight and I have seen!
Ha, Sir John, said I well?
We have heard the chimes at midnight, Master Robert Shallow.
That we have, that we have, that we have;
in faith, Sir John, we have:
Jesu, Jesu, the mad days that I have seen!
And to think how many of my old acquaintances are dead.
- We shall all f-foll - - Certain, 'tis certain;
death, as the Psalmist saith, is certain to all;
all shall die.
How a good yoke of bullocks at Stamford fair? - A good yoke of -
And is old Double of your town living yet?
- D-De - - Dead? 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. - D-de - - Dead.
How a score of ewes now?
- A score of good e-ew - - And is old Double dead? - Dead.
My lords!
- Lancaster, Westmoreland! - Doth the king call? - What would your Majesty?
- Why did you leave me here alone? - We left the prince my brother here, my liege,
The Prince of Wales?
- He is not here. - He undertook to sit and watch by you.
Where is the crown? Who took it from my pillow?
What! Canst thou not forbear me half an hour?
Then get thee gone and dig my grave thyself,
And let the merry bells ring to thine ear that thou art crowned, not that I am dead.
Pluck down my officers, break my decrees;
For now a time is come to mock at form:
Harry the Fifth is crown'd: up, vanity!
Down, royal state! All you sage counsellors, hence!
And to the English court assemble now, from every region, apes of idleness!
Now, neighbour confines, purge you of your scum:
Have you a ruffian that will swear, drink, dance,
revel the night, rob, murder, and commit the oldest sins the newest kind of ways?
Be happy, he will trouble you no more;
England shall give him office, honour, might;
for the fifth Harry from curb'd licence plucks the muzzle of restraint,
and the wild dog shall flesh his tooth on every innocent.
I never thought to hear you speak again.
Thy wish was father, Harry, to that thought:
I stay too long by thee, I weary thee.
O, pardon me, my liege!
But wherefore did you take away the crown?
God witness with me, when I found no course of breath within your Majesty.
How cold it struck my heart! I spake unto this crown as having sense,
and thus upbraided it:
"The care on thee depending hath fed upon the body of my father;"
"Therefore, thou best of gold art worst of gold:"
"Other, less fine in carat, are more precious,"
"but thou, most fine, most honour'd: most renown'd, hast eat thy bearer up."
Thus, my most royal liege, accusing it, I put it on my head,
to try with it, as with an enemy that had before my face murder'd my father,
the quarrel of a true inheritor.
O my son,
God put it in thy mind to take it hence,
that thou mightst win the more thy father's love,
pleading so wisely in excuse of it.
And hear, I think, the very latest counsel that ever I shall breathe.
God knows, my son, by what by-paths and indirect crook'd ways I met this crown.
For all my reign hath been but as a scene acting that argument:
and now my death changes the mode;
for what in me was purchased, falls upon thee in a more fairer sort.
Yet, though thou stand'st more firm than I could do,
thou art not firm enough, since griefs are green;
and all my friends, which thou must make thy friends,
have but their stings and teeth newly ta'en out;
by whose fell working I was first advanced
and by whose power I well might lodge a fear to be again displaced:
Therefore, my Harry, be it thy course to busy giddy minds with foreign quarrels;
that action, hence borne out,
may waste the memory of the former days.
More would I,
but my lungs are wasted so
that strength of speech is utterly denied me.
How I came by the crown,
O God forgive;
and grant it may with thee in true peace live!
How doth the king?
He lives no more.
God save your Majesty!
You all look strangely on me:
I shall convert those tears by number into hours of happiness.
We hope no other from your Majesty.
The tide of blood in me hath proudly flow'd in vanity till now:
Now doth it turn and ebb back to the sea,
where it shall mingle with the state of floods and flow henceforth in formal majesty.
Now call we our high parliament!
I was once of Clement's Inn, where I think they will talk of mad Shallow yet.
You were called 'lusty Shallow' then.
By the mass, I was called any thing;
and I would have done any thing indeed too, and roundly too.
Then was Jack Falstaff a boy,
now Sir John, and page to Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk.
Ay, Sir John?
O by the mass, I have packed whole much sack. - We shall be merry now,
now comes in the sweet o' the night.
Davy!
Oh Jesus, the days that I have seen!
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 every third word a lie.
- Sir John! - I come, Master Shallow!
I come!
I will devise matter enough out of this Shallow
to keep Prince Harry in continual laughter the wearing out of six fashions.
O you shall see him laugh!
Sir!
Your worship! There's one Pistol come from the court with news. - From the court?
Sir John, I am thy Pistol and thy friend,
and helter-skelter have I rode to thee,
and tidings do I bring and lucky joys and golden times
and happy news of price.
Pistol, what wind blew you hither?
Not the ill wind which blows no man to good. Sweet knight,
thou art now one of the greatest men in this realm.
Give me pardon, Sir,
if, Sir, you come with news from the court, I am, Sir, under the king, in some authority.
Under which king, Besonian? Speak, or die.
- Under king Harry. - Harry the Fourth? Or Fifth? - Harry the Fourth.
A foutre for thine office!
Sir John, thy tender lambkin now is king; Harry the Fifth's the man.
What, is the old king -
dead? - As nail in door!
Away!
Saddle my horse! I know the young king is sick for me.
Master Shallow, choose what office thou wilt in the land, 'tis thine.
- Pistol! - Si? - I will double-charge thee with dignities.
Master Silence! My lord Silence! Be what thou wilt!
I am fortune's steward!
Come, Pistol, utter more to me; and withal devise something to do thyself good.
Let us take any man's horses; the laws of England are at my commandment.
Blessed are they that have been my friends; and woe to my lord Chief Justice!
There roared the sea, and trumpet-clangor sounds.
Come with me, Master Robert Shallow, I will make the king do you grace:
I will leer upon him as a' comes by; and do but mark the countenance that he will give me.
O, if I had had time to have made new liveries,
I would have bestowed the thousand pounds I borrowed of you.
But 'tis no matter; this poor show doth better:
this doth infer the zeal I had to see him.
- It doth so! - It shows my earnestness of affection.
- It doth so! - My devotion! - It doth, it doth, it doth!
As it were, to ride day and night; and not to deliberate, not to remember,
not to have patience to shift me,
but to stand stained with travel, and sweating with desire to see him;
thinking of nothing else, putting all affairs else in oblivion,
as if there were nothing else to be done but to see him.
God save thee, my sweet boy!
Have you your wits? Know you what 'tis to speak?
My king! My Jove!
I speak to thee, my heart!
I know thee not, old man: fall to thy prayers;
How ill white hairs become a fool and jester!
I have long dream'd of such a kind of man,
so surfeit-swell'd, so old and so profane;
but, being awaked, I do despise my dream.
Make less thy body hence, and more thy grace;
leave gormandizing;
know the grave doth gape for thee thrice wider than for other men.
Reply not to me with a fool-born jest:
Presume not that I am the thing I was;
For God doth know, so shall the world perceive,
that I have turn'd away my former self;
so will I those that kept me company.
When thou dost hear I am as I have been, approach me,
and thou shalt be as thou wast, the tutor and the feeder of my riots:
till then, I banish thee, on pain of death,
as I have done the rest of my misleaders,
not to come near our person -
by ten mile.
For competence of life I will allow you,
that lack of means enforce you not to evil:
and, as we hear you do reform yourselves,
we will, according to your strength and qualities, give you advancement.
Be it your charge, my lord, to see perform'd the tenor of our word.
Master Shallow,
I owe you a thousand pound. - Yes, Sir John,
which I beseech you to let me have home. - That can hardly be, Master Shallow.
Do not you grieve at this;
look you, he must seem thus to the world:
I shall be sent for in private to him:
fear not your advancements;
I shall be the man yet -
that shall make you great. - I cannot well perceive how,
unless you should give me your doublet and stuff me out with straw.
I beseech you, Sir John,
let me have five hundred of my thousand. - Sir -
I will be as good -
as my word,
this that you've seen was but a colour. - A colour that I fear you will die in.
Fear no colours:
come, go with me to dinner.
I shall be sent for soon -
at night.
- I like this fair proceeding of the king's. - But all are banish'd!
Until their conversations appear more wise and modest to the world.
He hath intent his wonted followers shall all be very well provided for.
Thou damned tripe-visaged rascal! Jack! Jack Falstaff!
Go, carry Sir John Falstaff to the Fleet:
- The fleet? - Come quickly! You must come to my master!
O poor heart, sweet man, come to me! He is very sick!
The king is a good king,
but it must be as it may.
Now, lords, for France. We doubt not of a fair and lucky war,
Then forth, dear countrymen! - The signs of war advance!
No king of England, if not king of France.
My lord Chief Justice, enlarge the man committed yesterday.
- Falstaff? - Let him be punished, sovereign,
lest example breed, by his sufferance, more of such a kind.
If little faults proceeding on distemper shall not be winked at,
how shall we stretch our eye when capital crimes,
chewed, swallowed, and digested, appear before us?
We consider it was excess of wine that set him on.
Falstaff?
Falstaff is dead.
The king has killed his heart.
Would I were with him, wheresome'er he is,
either in heaven or in hell. - Nay, sure, he's not in hell!
He's in Arthur's bosom, if ever man went to Arthur's bosom.
He made a finer end,
and went away an it had been any christom child.
He parted ev'n just between twelve and one,
ev'n at the turning o' th' tide;
for after I saw him fumble with the sheets and play with flowers
and smile upon his finger's end, I knew there was but one way,
for his nose was as sharp as a pen, and he babbled of green fields.
"How now, Sir John?" quoth I. "What, man, be o' good cheer!"
So he cried out "God, God, God!" -
three or four times.
Now I, to comfort him, bid him he should not think of God.
I hoped there was no need to trouble himself with any such thoughts yet.
So he bade me lay more clothes on his feet.
I put my hand into the bed and felt them,
and they were as cold as any stone.
Then I felt to his knees, and they were cold as any stone,
and so upward and upward,
and all was as cold as any stone.
- They say he cried out of sack. - And of woman.
Nay, that he did not.
He said once the devil would have him about women.
He did in some sort, indeed, handle women.
Do you not remember he saw a flea once stick upon Bardolph's nose,
and he said it was a black soul burning in hell's fire?
Well, the fuel is gone that maintained that fire.
That's all the riches I got in his service.
The new king, even at first appointing,
determined to put on him the shape of a new man.
This Henry was a captain of such prudence and such policy,
that he never enterprised anything before it forecast the main chances that it might happen.
So humane withal, he left no offence unpunished,
nor friendship unrewarded.
For conclusion,
a Majesty was he that both lived and died a pattern in princehood,
a lodestar in honour, and famous to the world alway.