# The Complete Works of William Shakespeare ## Part 54 Book page: https://www.cyberlibrary.org/en/books/the-complete-works-of-william-shakespeare-100/index.md SERVANT. 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. CHIEF JUSTICE. What, to York? Call him back again. SERVANT. Sir John Falstaff! FALSTAFF. Boy, tell him I am deaf. PAGE. You must speak louder, my master is deaf. CHIEF JUSTICE. I am sure he is, to the hearing of anything good. Go pluck him by the elbow, I must speak with him. SERVANT. Sir John! FALSTAFF. What! A young knave, and begging! 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. SERVANT. You mistake me, sir. FALSTAFF. 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. SERVANT. 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. FALSTAFF. 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 tak’st leave, thou wert better be hanged. You hunt counter. Hence! Avaunt! SERVANT. Sir, my lord would speak with you. CHIEF JUSTICE. Sir John Falstaff, a word with you. FALSTAFF. 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, hath yet some smack of age in you, some relish of the saltness of time; and I most humbly beseech your lordship to have a reverend care of your health. CHIEF JUSTICE. Sir John, I sent for you before your expedition to Shrewsbury. FALSTAFF. An ’t please your lordship, I hear his Majesty is returned with some discomfort from Wales. CHIEF JUSTICE. I talk not of his Majesty. You would not come when I sent for you. FALSTAFF. And I hear, moreover, his Highness is fallen into this same whoreson apoplexy. CHIEF JUSTICE. Well, God mend him! I pray you let me speak with you. FALSTAFF. This apoplexy, as I take it, is a kind of lethargy, an ’t please your lordship, a kind of sleeping in the blood, a whoreson tingling. CHIEF JUSTICE. What tell you me of it? Be it as it is. FALSTAFF. It hath it original from much grief, from study and perturbation of the brain. I have read the cause of his effects in Galen. It is a kind of deafness. CHIEF JUSTICE. I think you are fallen into the disease, for you hear not what I say to you. FALSTAFF. 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. CHIEF JUSTICE. To punish you by the heels would amend the attention of your ears, and I care not if I do become your physician. FALSTAFF. 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. CHIEF JUSTICE. I sent for you, when there were matters against you for your life, to come speak with me. FALSTAFF. As I was then advised by my learned counsel in the laws of this land-service, I did not come. CHIEF JUSTICE. Well, the truth is, Sir John, you live in great infamy. FALSTAFF. He that buckles himself in my belt cannot live in less. CHIEF JUSTICE. Your means are very slender, and your waste is great. FALSTAFF. I would it were otherwise, I would my means were greater and my waist slenderer. CHIEF JUSTICE. You have misled the youthful prince. FALSTAFF. The young prince hath misled me. I am the fellow with the great belly, and he my dog. CHIEF JUSTICE. Well, I am loath to gall a new-healed wound. Your day’s service at Shrewsbury hath a little gilded over your night’s exploit on Gad’s Hill. You may thank th’ unquiet time for your quiet o’er-posting that action. FALSTAFF. My lord! CHIEF JUSTICE. But since all is well, keep it so: wake not a sleeping wolf. FALSTAFF. To wake a wolf is as bad as smell a fox. CHIEF JUSTICE. What! You are as a candle, the better part burnt out. FALSTAFF. A wassail candle, my lord, all tallow. If I did say of wax, my growth would approve the truth. CHIEF JUSTICE. There is not a white hair in your face but should have his effect of gravity. FALSTAFF. His effect of gravy, gravy, gravy. CHIEF JUSTICE. You follow the young prince up and down, like his ill angel. FALSTAFF. Not so, my lord, your ill angel is 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 costermongers’ times that true valour is turned bearherd; 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 gooseberry. You that are old consider not the capacities of us that are young; you do 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. CHIEF JUSTICE. 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, fie, fie, Sir John! FALSTAFF. 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. To approve my youth further, I will not. The truth is, I am only old in judgement 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 of the ear that the Prince gave you, he gave it like a rude prince, and you took it like a sensible lord. I have checked him for it, and the young lion repents. Marry, not in ashes and sackcloth, but in new silk and old sack. CHIEF JUSTICE. Well, God send the Prince a better companion! FALSTAFF. God send the companion a better prince! I cannot rid my hands of him. CHIEF JUSTICE. Well, the King hath severed you and Prince Harry. I hear you are going with Lord John of Lancaster against the Archbishop and the Earl of Northumberland. FALSTAFF. 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, and I brandish anything but a 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 alway yet the trick of our English nation, if they have a good thing, to make it too common. If ye will needs say I am an old man, you should give me rest. I would to God my name were not so terrible to the enemy as it is. I were better to be eaten to death with a rust than to be scoured to nothing with perpetual motion. CHIEF JUSTICE. Well, be honest, be honest, and God bless your expedition! FALSTAFF. Will your lordship lend me a thousand pound to furnish me forth? CHIEF JUSTICE. 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 Servant._] FALSTAFF. If I do, fillip me with a three-man beetle. A man can no more separate age and covetousness than he can part young limbs and lechery: but the gout galls the one, and the pox pinches the other; and so both the degrees prevent my curses. Boy! PAGE. Sir? FALSTAFF. What money is in my purse? PAGE. Seven groats and two pence. FALSTAFF. I can get no remedy against this consumption of the purse. Borrowing only lingers and lingers it out, but the disease is incurable. 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 of 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. ’Tis 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 anything. I will turn diseases to commodity. [_Exit._] SCENE III. York. The Archbishop’s palace. Enter the Archbishop, the Lords Hastings, Mowbray and Bardolph. ARCHBISHOP. Thus have you heard our cause and known our means, And, my most noble friends, I pray you all Speak plainly your opinions of our hopes. And first, Lord Marshal, what say you to it? MOWBRAY. I well allow the occasion of our arms, But gladly would be better satisfied How in our means we should advance ourselves To look with forehead bold and big enough Upon the power and puissance of the King. HASTINGS. Our present musters grow upon the file To five and twenty thousand men of choice; And our supplies live largely in the hope Of great Northumberland, whose bosom burns With an incensed fire of injuries. LORD BARDOLPH. The question then, Lord Hastings, standeth thus: Whether our present five and twenty thousand May hold up head without Northumberland. HASTINGS. With him we may. LORD BARDOLPH. Yea, marry, there’s the point: But if without him we be thought too feeble, My judgement is, we should not step too far Till we had his assistance by the hand; For in a theme so bloody-faced as this Conjecture, expectation, and surmise Of aids incertain should not be admitted. ARCHBISHOP. ’Tis very true, Lord Bardolph, for indeed It was young Hotspur’s case at Shrewsbury. LORD BARDOLPH. It was, my lord; who lined himself with hope, Eating the air on promise of supply, Flatt’ring himself in project of a power Much smaller than the smallest of his thoughts, And so, with great imagination Proper to madmen, led his powers to death And winking leap’d into destruction. HASTINGS. But, by your leave, it never yet did hurt To lay down likelihoods and forms of hope. LORD BARDOLPH. Yes, if this present quality of war— Indeed the instant action, a cause on foot— Lives so in hope, as in an early spring We see th’ appearing buds; which to prove fruit Hope gives not so much warrant as despair That frosts will bite them. When we mean to build, We first survey the plot, then draw the model, And when we see the figure of the house, Then we must rate the cost of the erection, Which if we find outweighs ability, What do we then but draw anew the model In fewer offices, or at least desist To build at all? Much more, in this great work, Which is almost to pluck a kingdom down And set another up, should we survey The plot of situation and the model, Consent upon a sure foundation, Question surveyors, know our own estate, How able such a work to undergo, To weigh against his opposite; or else We fortify in paper and in figures, Using the names of men instead of men, Like one that draws the model of a house Beyond his power to build it, who, half through, Gives o’er and leaves his part-created cost A naked subject to the weeping clouds And waste for churlish winter’s tyranny. HASTINGS. Grant that our hopes, yet likely of fair birth, Should be still-born, and that we now possess’d The utmost man of expectation, I think we are a body strong enough, Even as we are, to equal with the King. LORD BARDOLPH. What, is the King but five and twenty thousand? HASTINGS. To us no more; nay, not so much, Lord Bardolph; For his divisions, as the times do brawl, Are in three heads: one power against the French, And one against Glendower; perforce a third Must take up us. So is the unfirm king In three divided, and his coffers sound With hollow poverty and emptiness. ARCHBISHOP. That he should draw his several strengths together And come against us in full puissance Need not be dreaded. HASTINGS. If he should do so, He leaves his back unarm’d, the French and Welsh Baying him at the heels: never fear that. LORD BARDOLPH. Who is it like should lead his forces hither? HASTINGS. The Duke of Lancaster and Westmoreland; Against the Welsh, himself and Harry Monmouth; But who is substituted ’gainst the French I have no certain notice. ARCHBISHOP. Let us on, And publish the occasion of our arms. The commonwealth is sick of their own choice; Their over-greedy love hath surfeited. An habitation giddy and unsure Hath he that buildeth on the vulgar heart. O thou fond many, with what loud applause Didst thou beat heaven with blessing Bolingbroke, Before he was what thou wouldst have him be! And being now trimm’d in thine own desires, Thou, beastly feeder, art so full of him That thou provok’st thyself to cast him up. So, so, thou common dog, didst thou disgorge Thy glutton bosom of the royal Richard; And now thou wouldst eat thy dead vomit up, And howl’st to find it. What trust is in these times? They that, when Richard lived, would have him die Are now become enamour’d on his grave. Thou that threw’st dust upon his goodly head When through proud London he came sighing on After th’ admired heels of Bolingbroke, Criest now “O earth, yield us that king again, And take thou this!” O thoughts of men accursed! Past and to come seems best; things present, worst. MOWBRAY. Shall we go draw our numbers, and set on? HASTINGS. We are time’s subjects, and time bids be gone. [_Exeunt._] ACT II SCENE I. London. A street. Enter Hostess with two Officers, Fang and Snare, following. HOSTESS. Master Fang, have you entered the action? FANG. It is entered. HOSTESS. Where’s your yeoman? Is ’t a lusty yeoman? Will he stand to ’t? FANG. Sirrah, where’s Snare? HOSTESS. O Lord, ay! Good Master Snare. SNARE. Here, here. FANG. Snare, we must arrest Sir John Falstaff. HOSTESS. Yea, good Master Snare, I have entered him and all. SNARE. It may chance cost some of our lives, for he will stab. HOSTESS. Alas the day, take heed of him. He stabbed me in mine own house, and that most beastly, in good faith. He cares not what mischief he does, if his weapon be out, he will foin like any devil. He will spare neither man, woman, nor child. FANG. If I can close with him, I care not for his thrust. HOSTESS. No, nor I neither. I’ll be at your elbow. FANG. An I but fist him once, an he come but within my vice,— HOSTESS. I am undone by his going, I warrant you, he’s an infinitive thing upon my score. Good Master Fang, hold him sure. Good Master Snare, let him not ’scape. He comes continuantly to Pie Corner—saving your manhoods—to buy a saddle, and he is indited to dinner to the Lubber’s Head in Lumbert Street, to Master Smooth’s the silkman. I pray you, 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 one for a poor lone woman to bear, and I have borne, and borne, and borne, and have been fubbed off, and fubbed off, and fubbed off, from this day to that day, that it is a shame to be thought on. There is no honesty in such dealing, unless a woman should be made an ass and a beast, to bear every knave’s wrong. Yonder he comes, and that arrant malmsey-nose knave, Bardolph, with him. Do your offices, do your offices, Master Fang and Master Snare, do me, do me, do me your offices. Enter Falstaff, Bardolph and Page. FALSTAFF. How now, whose mare’s dead? What’s the matter? FANG. Sir John, I arrest you at the suit of Mistress Quickly. FALSTAFF. Away, varlets! Draw, Bardolph! Cut me off the villain’s head. Throw the quean in the channel. HOSTESS. Throw me in the channel? I’ll throw thee in the channel. Wilt thou, wilt thou, thou bastardly rogue? Murder, murder! Ah, thou honeysuckle villain, wilt thou kill God’s officers and the King’s? Ah, thou honeyseed rogue, thou art a honeyseed, a man-queller, and a woman-queller. FALSTAFF. Keep them off, Bardolph. FANG. A rescue! A rescue! HOSTESS. Good people, bring a rescue or two. Thou wo’t, wo’t thou? Thou wo’t, wo’t ta? Do, do, thou rogue! Do, thou hempseed! PAGE. Away, you scullion! you rampallian! you fustilarian! I’ll tickle your catastrophe. Enter the Lord Chief Justice and his men. CHIEF JUSTICE. What is the matter? Keep the peace here, ho! HOSTESS. Good my lord, be good to me. I beseech you stand to me. CHIEF JUSTICE. How now, Sir John? What are you brawling here? Doth this become your place, your time and business? You should have been well on your way to York. Stand from him, fellow. Wherefore hang’st thou upon him? HOSTESS. O my most worshipful lord, an’t please your Grace, I am a poor widow of Eastcheap, and he is arrested at my suit. CHIEF JUSTICE. For what sum? HOSTESS. 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 will ride thee o’ nights like the mare. FALSTAFF. I think I am as like to ride the mare if I have any vantage of ground to get up. CHIEF JUSTICE. 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? FALSTAFF. What is the gross sum that I owe thee? HOSTESS. Marry, if thou wert an honest man, thyself and the money too. Thou didst swear to me upon a parcel-gilt goblet, sitting in my Dolphin chamber, at the round table, by a sea-coal fire, upon Wednesday in Wheeson 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 prawns, whereby thou didst desire to eat some, whereby I told thee they were ill for green wound? And didst thou not, when she was gone downstairs, desire me to be no more so familiarity with such poor people, saying that ere long they should call me madam? And didst thou not kiss me, and bid me fetch thee thirty shillings? I put thee now to thy book-oath. Deny it, if thou canst. FALSTAFF. My lord, this is a poor mad soul, and she says up and down the town that her eldest son is like you. She hath been in good case, and the truth is, poverty hath distracted her. But for these foolish officers, I beseech you I may have redress against them. CHIEF JUSTICE. Sir John, Sir John, I am well acquainted with your manner of wrenching the true cause the false way. It is not a confident brow, nor the throng of words that come with such more than impudent sauciness from you, can thrust me from a level consideration. You have, as it appears to me, practised upon the easy-yielding spirit of this woman, and made her serve your uses both in purse and in person. HOSTESS. Yea, in truth, my lord. CHIEF JUSTICE. Pray thee, peace. Pay her the debt you owe her, and unpay the villany you have done with her. The one you may do with sterling money, and the other with current repentance. FALSTAFF. My lord, I will not undergo this sneap without reply. You call honourable boldness impudent sauciness; if a man will make curtsy 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. CHIEF JUSTICE. You speak as having power to do wrong; but answer in th’ effect of your reputation, and satisfy the poor woman. FALSTAFF. Come hither, hostess. Enter Gower. CHIEF JUSTICE. Now, Master Gower, what news? GOWER. The King, my lord, and Harry Prince of Wales Are near at hand: the rest the paper tells. FALSTAFF. As I am a gentleman. HOSTESS. Faith, you said so before. FALSTAFF. As I am a gentleman. Come, no more words of it. HOSTESS. By this heavenly ground I tread on, I must be fain to pawn both my plate and the tapestry of my dining-chambers. FALSTAFF. Glasses, glasses, is the only drinking. And for thy walls, a pretty slight drollery, or the story of the Prodigal, or the German hunting in waterwork, is worth a thousand of these bed-hangers and these fly-bitten tapestries. Let it be ten pound, if thou canst. Come, an ’twere not for thy humours, there’s not a better wench in England. Go, wash thy face, and draw the 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. HOSTESS. Pray thee, Sir John, let it be but twenty nobles. I’ faith, I am loath to pawn my plate, so God save me, la! FALSTAFF. Let it alone, I’ll make other shift: you’ll be a fool still. HOSTESS. Well, you shall have it, though I pawn my gown. I hope you’ll come to supper. You’ll pay me all together? FALSTAFF. Will I live? [_To Bardolph_.] Go, with her, with her. Hook on, hook on. HOSTESS. Will you have Doll Tearsheet meet you at supper? FALSTAFF. No more words, let’s have her. [_Exeunt Hostess, Fang, Snare, Bardolph and Page._] CHIEF JUSTICE. I have heard better news. FALSTAFF. What’s the news, my lord? CHIEF JUSTICE. Where lay the King tonight? GOWER. At Basingstoke, my lord. FALSTAFF. I hope, my lord, all’s well. What is the news, my lord? CHIEF JUSTICE. Come all his forces back? GOWER. No, fifteen hundred foot, five hundred horse Are march’d up to my Lord of Lancaster, Against Northumberland and the Archbishop. FALSTAFF. Comes the King back from Wales, my noble lord? CHIEF JUSTICE. You shall have letters of me presently. Come, go along with me, good Master Gower. FALSTAFF. My lord! CHIEF JUSTICE. What’s the matter? FALSTAFF. Master Gower, shall I entreat you with me to dinner? GOWER. I must wait upon my good lord here, I thank you, good Sir John. CHIEF JUSTICE. Sir John, you loiter here too long, being you are to take soldiers up in counties as you go. FALSTAFF. Will you sup with me, Master Gower? CHIEF JUSTICE. What foolish master taught you these manners, Sir John? FALSTAFF. Master Gower, if they become me not, he was a fool that taught them me. This is the right fencing grace, my lord; tap for tap, and so part fair. CHIEF JUSTICE. Now the Lord lighten thee, thou art a great fool. [_Exeunt._] SCENE II. London. Another street. Enter Prince Henry and Poins. PRINCE. Before God, I am exceeding weary. POINS. Is ’t come to that? I had thought weariness durst not have attached one of so high blood. PRINCE. Faith, it does me, though it discolours the complexion of my greatness to acknowledge it. Doth it not show vilely in me to desire small beer? POINS. Why, a prince should not be so loosely studied as to remember so weak a composition.