William Shakespeare - William Shakespeare - Complete Works

[Enter Sir Walter Blunt.]

How now, good Blunt! thy looks are full of speed.

BLUNT.

So is the business that I come to speak of.

Lord Mortimer of Scotland hath sent word

That Douglas and the English rebels met

Th’ eleventh of this month at Shrewsbury:

A mighty and a fearful head they are,

If promises be kept on every hand,

As ever offer’d foul play in a State.

KING.

The Earl of Westmoreland set forth to-day;

With him my son, Lord John of Lancaster;

For this advertisement is five days old.

On Wednesday next you, Harry, shall set forward;

On Thursday we ourselves will march:

Our meeting is Bridgenorth: and, Harry, you

Shall march through Glostershire; by which account,

Our business valued, some twelve days hence

Our general forces at Bridgenorth shall meet.

Our hands are full of business: let’s away;

Advantage feeds him fat, while men delay.

[Exeunt.]

SCENE III. Eastcheap. A Room in the Boar’s-Head Tavern.

[Enter Falstaff and Bardolph.]

FALSTAFF.

Bardolph, am I not fallen away vilely since this last action? do I not bate? do I not dwindle? Why, my skin hangs about me like an old lady’s loose gown; I am withered like an old apple-John. Well, I’ll repent, and that suddenly, while I am in some liking; I shall be out of heart shortly, and then I shall have no strength to repent. An I have not forgotten what the inside of a church is made of, I am a peppercorn, a brewer’s horse: the inside of a church! Company, villainous company, hath been the spoil of me.

BARDOLPH.

Sir John, you are so fretful, you cannot live long.

FALSTAFF.

Why, there is it: come, sing me a song; make me merry. I was as virtuously given as a gentleman need to be; virtuous enough; swore little; diced not above seven times a week; paid money that I borrowed —three or four times; lived well, and in good compass: and now I live out of all order, out of all compass.

BARDOLPH.

Why, you are so fat, Sir John, that you must needs be out of all compass, —out of all reasonable compass, Sir John.

FALSTAFF.

Do thou amend thy face, and I’ll amend my life: thou art our admiral, thou bearest the lantern in the poop,—but ’tis in the nose of thee; thou art the Knight of the Burning Lamp.

BARDOLPH.

Why, Sir John, my face does you no harm.

FALSTAFF.

No, I’ll be sworn; I make as good use of it as many a man doth of a death’s-head or a memento mori: I never see thy face but I think upon hell-fire, and Dives that lived in purple; for there he is in his robes, burning, burning. If thou wert any way given to virtue, I would swear by thy face; my oath should be, By this fire, that’s God’s angel: but thou art altogether given over; and wert indeed, but for the light in thy face, the son of utter darkness. When thou rann’st up Gad’s-hill in the night to catch my horse, if I did not think thou hadst been an ignis fatuus or a ball of wildfire, there’s no purchase in money. O, thou art a perpetual triumph, an everlasting bonfire-light! Thou hast saved me a thousand marks in links and torches, walking with thee in the night betwixt tavern and tavern: but the sack that thou hast drunk me would have bought me lights as good cheap at the dearest chandler’s in Europe. I have maintain’d that salamander of yours with fire any time this two-and-thirty years; God reward me for it!

BARDOLPH.

’Sblood, I would my face were in your stomach!

FALSTAFF.

God-a-mercy! so should I be sure to be heart-burn’d.—

[Enter the Hostess.]

How now, Dame Partlet the hen! have you enquir’d yet who pick’d my pocket?

HOSTESS.

Why, Sir John, what do you think, Sir John? do you think I keep thieves in my house? I have search’d, I have inquired, so has my husband, man by man, boy by boy, servant by servant: the tithe of a hair was never lost in my house before.

FALSTAFF.

Ye lie, hostess: Bardolph was shaved, and lost many a hair; and

I’ll be sworn my pocket was pick’d. Go to, you are a woman, go.

HOSTESS.

Who, I? no; I defy thee: God’s light, I was never call’d so in mine own house before.

FALSTAFF.

Go to, I know you well enough.

HOSTESS.

No, Sir John; you do not know me, Sir John. I know you, Sir John: you owe me money, Sir John; and now you pick a quarrel to beguile me of it: I bought you a dozen of shirts to your back.

FALSTAFF.

Dowlas, filthy dowlas: I have given them away to bakers’ wives, and they have made bolters of them.

HOSTESS.

Now, as I am a true woman, holland of eight shillings an ell.

You owe money here besides, Sir John, for your diet and by-drinkings,

and money lent you, four-and-twenty pound.

FALSTAFF.

He had his part of it; let him pay.

HOSTESS.

He? alas, he is poor; he hath nothing.

FALSTAFF.

How! poor? look upon his face; what call you rich? let them coin his nose, let them coin his cheeks: I’ll not pay a denier. What, will you make a younker of me? shall I not take mine ease in mine inn, but I shall have my pocket pick’d? I have lost a seal-ring of my grandfather’s worth forty mark.

HOSTESS.

O Jesu, I have heard the Prince tell him, I know not how oft, that that ring was copper!

FALSTAFF.

How! the Prince is a Jack, a sneak-cup: ’sblood, an he were here, I would cudgel him like a dog, if he would say so.—

[Enter Prince Henry and Poins, marching. Falstaff meets them, playing on his truncheon like a fife.]

How now, lad? is the wind in that door, i’faith? must we all march?

BARDOLPH.

Yea, two-and-two, Newgate-fashion.

HOSTESS.

My lord, I pray you, hear me.

PRINCE.

What say’st thou, Mistress Quickly? How doth thy husband? I love him well; he is an honest man.

HOSTESS.

Good my lord, hear me.

FALSTAFF.

Pr’ythee, let her alone, and list to me.

PRINCE.

What say’st thou, Jack?

FALSTAFF.

The other night I fell asleep here behind the arras, and had my pocket pick’d: this house is turn’d bawdy-house; they pick pockets.

PRINCE.

What didst thou lose, Jack?

FALSTAFF.

Wilt thou believe me, Hal? three or four bonds of forty pound a-piece and a seal-ring of my grandfather’s.

PRINCE.

A trifle, some eight-penny matter.

HOSTESS.

So I told him, my lord; and I said I heard your Grace say so; and, my lord, he speaks most vilely of you, like a foul-mouth’d man as he is; and said he would cudgel you.

PRINCE.

What! he did not?

HOSTESS.

There’s neither faith, truth, nor womanhood in me else.

FALSTAFF.

There’s no more faith in thee than in a stew’d prune; nor no more truth in thee than in a drawn fox; and, for woman-hood, Maid Marian may be the deputy’s wife of the ward to thee. Go, you thing, go.

HOSTESS.

Say, what thing? what thing? I am an honest man’s wife: and, setting thy knighthood aside, thou art a knave to call me so.

FALSTAFF.

Setting thy womanhood aside, thou art a beast to say otherwise.

HOSTESS.

Say, what beast, thou knave, thou?

FALSTAFF.

What beast! why, an otter.

PRINCE.

An otter, Sir John, why an otter?

FALSTAFF.

Why, she’s neither fish nor flesh; a man knows not where to have her.

HOSTESS.

Thou art an unjust man in saying so; thou or any man knows where to have me, thou knave, thou!

PRINCE.

Thou say’st true, hostess; and he slanders thee most grossly.

HOSTESS.

So he doth you, my lord; and said this other day you ought him a thousand pound.

PRINCE.

Sirrah, do I owe you a thousand pound?

FALSTAFF.

A thousand pound, Hal! a million: thy love is worth a million; thou owest me thy love.