And I will take it as a sweet disgrace, And make thee rich for doing me such wrong. The ragged'st hour that time and spite dare bring, Mor. You are too great to be by me gain-To said: Your spirit is too true, your fears too certain. North. Yet, for all this, say not that Percy's dead. I see a strange confession in thine eye : frown upon the enrag'd Northumberland ! Let heaven kiss earth! Now let not nature's hand Keep the wild flood confin'd! let order die ! Thou shak'st thy head, and hold'st it fear or sin, But let one spirit of the first-born Cain To speak a truth. If he be slain, say so: The tongue offends not, that reports his death: Bard. I cannot think, my lord, your son is dead. Reign in all bosoms, that each heart being set 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 Mor. I am sorry I should force you to be-To storiny passion, must perforce decay. lieve That, which I would to heaven I had not seen: But these mine eyes saw him in bloody state, Rend'ring faint quittance, wearied and outbreath'd To Harry Monmouth: whose swift wrath beat down The never-daunted Percy to the earth, From whence with life he never more sprung up. In few, his death (whose spirit lent a fire You cast the event of war, my noble lord, You knew he walk'd o'er perils, on an edge, Would lift him where most trade of danger rang'd; Yet did you say,-Go forth; and none of this, seas, That arrows fled not swifter toward their aim, That, if we wrought out life, 'twas ten to one: I hear for certain, and do speak the truth,- SCENE 11.-London.-A Street. Enter Sir JOHN FALSTAFF, with his PAGE bearing his Sword and Buckler. 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. 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 overwhelmed all her litter bat 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 worn in my cap, than to wait at my heels. I was never manned with an agate 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 your's; he liked not the security. Atten. He, my lord: but he hath since done good service at Shrewsbury; and as I hear, is now going with some charge to the lord John of Lancaster. Ch. Just. What, to York? Call him back again. Attend. 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. Attend. Sir John, Fal. 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 get'st any leave of me, hang me: if thou takest leave, thou wert better be hanged: You hunt-counter, hence! avaunt! Atten. Sir, my lord would speak with you. Ch. Just. Sir John Falstaff, a word with you. 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; I hope your lordship goes abroad by advice. Your lordship, though not clean past your youth, of the saltness of time; and I most humbly behath yet some smack of age in you, some relish Fa. Ant please your lordship, I hear his majesty is returned with some discomfort from Wales. Fal. Let him be damned like a glutton! may his tongue be hotter !-A whoreson Achitophel! a rascally yea-forsooth knave! to bear a gen-seech your lordship, to have a reverend care of tleman in hand, and then stand upon security! your health. -The whoreson smooth-pates do now wear Ch. Just. Sir John, I sent for you before your nothing but high shoes, and bunches of keys expedition to Shrewsbury. 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. Ch. Just. I talk not of his majesty :-You would not come when I sent for you. Fal. And I hear moreover, his highness is fallen into this same whoreson apoplexy. Ch. Just. Well, heaven mend him! I pray, let me speak with you. Fal. This apoplexy is, as I take it, a kind of lethargy, an't please your lordship; a kind of sleeping in the blood, a whoreson tingling. Ch. Just. What tell you me of it? be it as it is. Fal. I bought him in Paul's, and he'll buy from study, and perturbation of the brain: 1 Fal. It hath its original from much grief: me a horse in Smithfield: an I could get me have read the cause of his effects in Galen; it but a wife in the stews, I were manned, horsed, is a kind of deafness. and wived. Ch. Just. I think, you are fallen into the Enter the LORD CHIEF JUSTICE ¶ and an disease; for you hear not what I say to you. ATTENDANT. 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. Ch. Just. To punish you by the heels, would amend the attention of your ears; and I care not, if I do become your physician. Fal. I am as poor as Job, my lord, but not so patient your lordship may minister the potion of imprisonment to me, in respect of poverty; but how I should be your patient to follow your prescriptions, the wise may make some dram of a scruple, or, indeed, a scruple itself. bailiff. Ch. Just. I sent for you, when there were | John of Lancaster, against the archbishop and matters against you for your life, to come speak the earl of Northumberland. with me. Fal. As I was then advised by my learned counsel 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 gail a newhealed 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'er-posting 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. 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, and I mean not to sweat extraordinarily: if it be a hot day, an I brandish any thing but my bottle, I would I might never spit white again. There is not a dangerous action can peep out his head, but I am thrust upon it: Well, I cannot last ever: But it was always yet the trick of our English nation, if they have a good thing, to make it too common. If you will needs say, I am an old man, you should give me rest. ́Í 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. Ch. Just. Well, be honest, be honest; And God 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. Fal. If I do, fillip me with a three-man beetle. A man can no more separate age and Ch. Just. What! you are as a candle, the bet-covetousness, than he can part young limbs and ter 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 and down, like his ill angel. up lechery: but the gout galls the one, and the pox Fal. What money is in my purse? Fal. I can get no remedy against this consumption of the purse: borrowing only lingers and lingers it out, but the disease is incurable. is-Go, bear this letter to my lord of Lancaster; this to the prince; this to the earl of Westmoreland; and this to old mistress Ursula, whom I have weekly sworn to marry since I perceived the first white hair on my chin: About it; you know where to find me. [Exit PAGE.] A pox of this gout! or, a gout of this pox! for the one or the other plays the rogue with my great toe. It is no matter, if I do halt; I have the wars for my colour, and my pension shall seem the more reasonable: A good wit will make use of any thing; I will turn diseases to commodity. Fal. Not so, my lord; your ill angel light; but, I hope, he that looks upon me, will take me without weighing and yet, in some respects, I grant, I cannot go, I cannot tell: Virtue is of so little regard in these costermonger times, that true valour is turned bear-herd: Pregnancy is made a tapster, and hath his quick wit wasted in giving reckonings: all the other gifts appertinent to man, as the malice of this age shapes them, are not worth a goose berry. You, that are old, consider not the capacities of us that are young you measure the heat of our livers with the bitterness of your galls and we that are in the vaward of our youth, I must confess, are wags too. Ch. Just. 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? Fie, fle, fie, Sir John! Fal. 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 hollaing, and singing of anthems. To approve my youth further, I will not: the truth is, I am only old in judgment and understanding; and he that will caper with me for a thousand marks, let him lend me the money, and have at him. For the box o'the ear that the prince gave you, he gave it like a rude prince, and you took it like a sensible lord. have checked him for it; and the young lion repents: marry, not in ashes 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 [Exit. Bard. Ay, marry, there's the point: It was young Hotspur's case at Shrewsbury. Eating the air ou promise of supply, Hast. But, by your leave, it never yet To lay down likelihoods, and forms of hope. war ; did of Indeed the instant action, (a cause on foot,) Hope gives not so much warrant, as despair, We first survey the plot, then draw the model; What do we then, but draw anew the model To build at all? Much more, in this great (Which is, almost, to pluck a kingdom down, We fortify in paper, and in figures, Using the names of men, instead of men: through, Gives o'er, and leaves his part created cost But who is substituted 'gainst the French, I have no certain notice. Arch. Let us on; And publish the occasion of our arms. Hath he, that buildeth on the vulgar heart. Before he was what thou wouldst have him be? They that, when Richard liv'd, would have him Are now become enamour'd on his grave; Hast. Grant that our hopes (yet likely for staff. fair birth,) Should be still-born, and that we now sess'd The atmost man of expectation; Host. Yea, good master Snare; I have enpos-tered him and all. I think we are a body strong enough, Hast. To us, no more; nay, not so much, For bis divisious, as the times do brawl, French, And one against Glendower; perforce, a third And come against us in full puissance, Hast. If he should do so, 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 dotb, if his weapon be out: he will foin t 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 within my vice : Hos. I am undone by his going; I warrant several you, he's an infinite thing upon my score:Good master Fang, hold him sure;-good master Snare, let me not scape. He comes continuantly to Pie-corner, (saving your manhoods,) to buy a saddle; and he's indited to He leaves his back unarm'd, the French and dinner to the lubbar's head in Lumbert-street, Welsh 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 wound? And didst thou not, when she was gone down stairs, desire me to be no more so familiarity with such poor people; saying, that ere long they should call me inadam? And didst thou not kiss me, and bid me fetch thee thirty shillings? I put thee now to thy book-oath; deny loan for a poor lone woman to bear and I have DOLPH. Ful. My lord, this is a poor mad soul; and she says, up and down the town, that her eldest sou is like you: she hath been in good case, and the Yonder he comes; and that arrant malmsey-truth is, poverty hath distracted her. But for nose knave, Bardolph, with him. Do your these foolish officers, I beseech you, I may have offices, do your offices, master Fang, and mas- redress against them. ter 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 thee channel. Wilt thou? wilt thou? thou bastardly rogue !-Murder, murder! O thou honey-suckle villain! wilt thou kill God's officers, and the king's? O thoa honey-seed rogue! thou art a honey-seed; a man-queller, and a woman-queller. Fal. Keep them off, Bardolph. 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 rampallian! you fustilarian! I'll tickle your catastrophe. Enter the Lord CHIEF JUSTICE, attended. Ch. Just. What's the matter? keep the peace here, ho! 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 bang'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? Fal. What is the gross sum that I owe thee? Host. Marry, if thou wert an honest man, thyself and the money too. Thou didst swear to me upon a parcel-gilt t goblet, sitting in my Dolphin chamber, at the round table, by a seacoal fire, upon Wednesday in Whitsun-week, when the prince broke thy head for liking his father to a singing-man of Windsor: thou didst swear to me then, as I was washing thy wound, to marry me, and make me my lady thy wife. Canst thou deny it? Did not goodwife Keech, the butcher's wife, come in then, and call me gossip Quickly? coming in to borrow a mess of vinegar; telling us, she had a good dish of prawus whereby thou didst desire to eat some; whereby I told thee, they were ill for a green + Homicide • Homicidal. ✰ Party gik. 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 sanciness 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 Eer 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 villainy you have done with her: the one you may do with sterling money, and the other with current repentance. Fal. My lord, I will not undergo this sneap withont 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. 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? Are near at hand the rest the paper tells. Host. Nay, you said so before. Fal. As I am a gentleman;--Come, no more 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 water-work, is worth a thousand of these bed-bangings, and these fly-bitten tapestries. Let it be ten pound, if thou canst. Come, an it were not for thy humours, there is not a better wench in England. Go, wash thy face, and 'draw thy action: Come, thou must not be in this humour with me; dost not know me? Come, come, I know thou wast set on to this. Host. Pray thee, Sir John, let it be but twenty nobles; i'faith I am loath to pawn iny plate, in good earnest, la. Fal. Let it alone; I'll make other shift: you'll be a fool still. Host. Well, you shall have it, though I pawn my gown. I hope you'll come to supper: You'll pay me all together? Fal. Will I live?-Go, with her, with her; [To BARDOLPH.] hook on, hook on. Host. Will you have Doll Tear-sheet meet yon at supper? Fal. No more words; let's have her. [Exeunt HOSTESS, BARDOLPH, Oficers, Ch. Just. I have heard better news. |