William Shakespeare - William Shakespeare - Complete Works

HOSTESS.

Nay, my lord, he call’d you Jack, and said he would cudgel you.

FALSTAFF.

Did I, Bardolph?

BARDOLPH.

Indeed, Sir John, you said so.

FALSTAFF.

Yea, if he said my ring was copper.

PRINCE.

I say ’tis copper: darest thou be as good as thy word now?

FALSTAFF.

Why, Hal, thou know’st, as thou art but man, I dare; but as thou art prince, I fear thee as I fear the roaring of the lion’s whelp.

PRINCE.

And why not as the lion?

FALSTAFF.

The King himself is to be feared as the lion: dost thou think I’ll fear thee as I fear thy father? nay, an I do, I pray God my girdle break.

PRINCE.

Sirrah, there’s no room for faith, truth, nor honesty in this bosom of thine; it is all fill’d up with midriff. Charge an honest woman with picking thy pocket! why, thou whoreson, impudent, emboss’d rascal, if there were anything in thy pocket but tavern-reckonings, and one poor pennyworth of sugar-candy to make thee long-winded,—if thy pocket were enrich’d with any other injuries but these, I am a villain: and yet you will stand to it; you will not pocket-up wrong. Art thou not ashamed!

FALSTAFF.

Dost thou hear, Hal? thou know’st, in the state of innocency Adam fell; and what should poor Jack Falstaff do in the days of villainy? Thou see’st I have more flesh than another man; and therefore more frailty. You confess, then, you pick’d my pocket?

PRINCE.

It appears so by the story.

FALSTAFF.

Hostess, I forgive thee: go, make ready breakfast; love thy husband, look to thy servants, cherish thy guests: thou shalt find me tractable to any honest reason; thou see’st I am pacified.—Still? Nay, pr’ythee, be gone.

[Exit Hostess.]

Now, Hal, to the news at Court: for the robbery, lad, how is that answered?

PRINCE.

O, my sweet beef, I must still be good angel to thee: the money is paid back again.

FALSTAFF.

O, I do not like that paying back; ’tis a double labour.

PRINCE.

I am good friends with my father, and may do any thing.

FALSTAFF.

Rob me the exchequer the first thing thou doest, and do it with unwash’d hands too.

BARDOLPH.

Do, my lord.

PRINCE.

I have procured thee, Jack, a charge of Foot.

FALSTAFF.

I would it had been of Horse. Where shall I find one that can steal well? O, for a fine thief, of the age of two-and-twenty or thereabouts! I am heinously unprovided. Well, God be thanked for these rebels; they offend none but the virtuous: I laud them, I praise them.

PRINCE.

Bardolph,—

BARDOLPH.

My lord?

PRINCE.

Go bear this letter to Lord John of Lancaster,

To my brother John; this to my Lord of Westmoreland.—

[Exit Bardolph.]

Go, Poins, to horse, to horse; for thou and I

Have thirty miles to ride yet ere dinner-time.—

[Exit Poins.]

Meet me to-morrow, Jack, i’ the Temple-hall

At two o’clock in th’ afternoon:

There shalt thou know thy charge; and there receive

Money and order for their furniture.

The land is burning; Percy stands on high;

And either they or we must lower lie.

[Exit.]

FALSTAFF.

Rare words! brave world!—Hostess, my breakfast; come:—

O, I could wish this tavern were my drum!

[Exit.]

ACT IV

SCENE I. The Rebel Camp near Shrewsbury.

[Enter Hotspur, Worcester, and Douglas.]

HOTSPUR.

Well said, my noble Scot: if speaking truth

In this fine age were not thought flattery,

Such attribution should the Douglas have,

As not a soldier of this season’s stamp

Should go so general-current through the world.

By God, I cannot flatter; I defy

The tongues of soothers; but a braver place

In my heart’s love hath no man than yourself:

Nay, task me to my word; approve me, lord.

DOUGLAS.

Thou art the king of honour:

No man so potent breathes upon the ground

But I will beard him.

HOTSPUR.

Do so, and ’tis well.—

[Enter a Messenger with letters.]

What letters hast thou there?—I can but thank you.

MESSENGER.

These letters come from your father.

HOTSPUR.

Letters from him! why comes he not himself?

MESSENGER.

He cannot come, my lord; he’s grievous sick.

HOTSPUR.

Zwounds! how has he the leisure to be sick

In such a justling time? Who leads his power?

Under whose government come they along?

MESSENGER.

His letters bears his mind, not I, my lord.

WORCESTER.

I pr’ythee, tell me, doth he keep his bed?

MESSENGER.

He did, my lord, four days ere I set forth,

And at the time of my departure thence

He was much fear’d by his physicians.

WORCESTER.

I would the state of time had first been whole

Ere he by sickness had been visited:

His health was never better worth than now.

HOTSPUR.

Sick now! droop now! this sickness doth infect

The very life-blood of our enterprise;

’Tis catching hither, even to our camp.

He writes me here, that inward sickness,—

And that his friends by deputation could not

So soon be drawn; no did he think it meet

To lay so dangerous and dear a trust

On any soul removed, but on his own.

Yet doth he give us bold advertisement,

That with our small conjunction we should on,

To see how fortune is disposed to us;

For, as he writes, there is no quailing now,

Because the King is certainly possess’d

Of all our purposes. What say you to it?

WORCESTER.

Your father’s sickness is a maim to us.

HOTSPUR.

A perilous gash, a very limb lopp’d off:—

And yet, in faith, ’tis not; his present want

Seems more than we shall find it. Were it good

To set the exact wealth of all our states

All at one cast? to set so rich a main

On the nice hazard of one doubtful hour?

It were not good; for therein should we read

The very bottom and the soul of hope,

The very list, the very utmost bound

Of all our fortunes.

DOUGLAS.

Faith, and so we should;

Where now remains a sweet reversion;

And we may boldly spend upon the hope

Of what is to come in:

A comfort of retirement lives in this.

HOTSPUR.

A rendezvous, a home to fly unto,

If that the Devil and mischance look big

Upon the maidenhead of our affairs.

WORCESTER.

But yet I would your father had been here.

The quality and hair of our attempt

Brooks no division: it will be thought

By some, that know not why he is away,

That wisdom, loyalty, and mere dislike

Of our proceedings, kept the earl from hence:

And think how such an apprehension

May turn the tide of fearful faction,

And breed a kind of question in our cause;

For well you know we of the offering side

Must keep aloof from strict arbitrement,

And stop all sight-holes, every loop from whence

The eye of reason may pry in upon us.

This absence of your father’s draws a curtain,

That shows the ignorant a kind of fear

Before not dreamt of.

HOTSPUR.

Nay, you strain too far.

I, rather, of his absence make this use:

It lends a lustre and more great opinion,

A larger dare to our great enterprise,

Than if the earl were here; for men must think,

If we, without his help, can make a head

To push against the kingdom, with his help

We shall o’erturn it topsy-turvy down.

Yet all goes well, yet all our joints are whole.

DOUGLAS.

As heart can think: there is not such a word

Spoke in Scotland as this term of fear.

[Enter Sir Richard Vernon.]