Part 55

PRINCE. Belike then my appetite was not princely got, for, by my troth, I do now remember the poor creature small beer. But indeed, these humble considerations make me out of love with my greatness. What a disgrace is it to me to remember thy name! or to know thy face tomorrow! or to take note how many pair of silk stockings thou hast—viz. these, and those that were thy peach-coloured ones! or to bear the inventory of thy shirts, as, one for superfluity, and another for use! But that the tennis-court keeper knows better than I, for it is a low ebb of linen with thee when thou keepest not racket there; as thou hast not done a great while, because the rest of thy low countries have made a shift to eat up thy holland. And God knows whether those that bawl out of the ruins of thy linen shall inherit his kingdom: but the midwives say the children are not in the fault; whereupon the world increases, and kindreds are mightily strengthened.

POINS. How ill it follows, after you have laboured so hard, you should talk so idly! Tell me, how many good young princes would do so, their fathers being so sick as yours at this time is?

PRINCE. Shall I tell thee one thing, Poins?

POINS. Yes, faith, and let it be an excellent good thing.

PRINCE. It shall serve among wits of no higher breeding than thine.

POINS. Go to, I stand the push of your one thing that you will tell.

PRINCE. Marry, I tell thee it is not meet that I should be sad, now my father is sick; albeit I could tell to thee, as to one it pleases me, for fault of a better, to call my friend, I could be sad, and sad indeed too.

POINS. Very hardly upon such a subject.

PRINCE. By this hand, thou thinkest me as far in the devil’s book as thou and Falstaff for obduracy and persistency. Let the end try the man. But I tell thee, my heart bleeds inwardly that my father is so sick; and keeping such vile company as thou art hath in reason taken from me all ostentation of sorrow.

POINS. The reason?

PRINCE. What wouldst thou think of me if I should weep?

POINS. I would think thee a most princely hypocrite.

PRINCE. It would be every man’s thought; and thou art a blessed fellow to think as every man thinks. Never a man’s thought in the world keeps the roadway better than thine: every man would think me an hypocrite indeed. And what accites your most worshipful thought to think so?

POINS. Why, because you have been so lewd and so much engraffed to Falstaff.

PRINCE. And to thee.

POINS. By this light, I am well spoke on; I can hear it with mine own ears. The worst that they can say of me is that I am a second brother, and that I am a proper fellow of my hands; and those two things, I confess, I cannot help. By the mass, here comes Bardolph.

Enter Bardolph and Page.

PRINCE. And the boy that I gave Falstaff. He had him from me Christian, and look if the fat villain have not transformed him ape.

BARDOLPH. God save your Grace!

PRINCE. And yours, most noble Bardolph!

POINS. Come, you virtuous ass, you bashful fool, must you be blushing? Wherefore blush you now? What a maidenly man-at-arms are you become! Is ’t such a matter to get a pottle-pot’s maidenhead?

PAGE. He calls me e’en now, my lord, through a red lattice, and I could discern no part of his face from the window. At last I spied his eyes, and methought he had made two holes in the ale-wife’s new petticoat and so peeped through.

PRINCE. Has not the boy profited?

BARDOLPH. Away, you whoreson upright rabbit, away!

PAGE. Away, you rascally Althaea’s dream, away!

PRINCE. Instruct us, boy; what dream, boy?

PAGE. Marry, my lord, Althaea dreamt she was delivered of a firebrand; and therefore I call him her dream.

PRINCE. A crown’s worth of good interpretation. There ’tis, boy.

POINS. O, that this blossom could be kept from cankers! Well, there is sixpence to preserve thee.

BARDOLPH. An you do not make him be hanged among you, the gallows shall have wrong.

PRINCE. And how doth thy master, Bardolph?

BARDOLPH. Well, my lord. He heard of your Grace’s coming to town. There’s a letter for you.

POINS. Delivered with good respect. And how doth the martlemas, your master?

BARDOLPH. In bodily health, sir.

POINS. Marry, the immortal part needs a physician, but that moves not him. Though that be sick, it dies not.

PRINCE. I do allow this wen to be as familiar with me as my dog, and he holds his place, for look you how he writes.

POINS. [_Reads_.] “John Falstaff, knight,” Every man must know that, as oft as he has occasion to name himself: even like those that are kin to the King, for they never prick their finger but they say, “There’s some of the King’s blood spilt.” “How comes that?” says he that takes upon him not to conceive. The answer is as ready as a borrower’s cap, “I am the King’s poor cousin, sir.”

PRINCE. Nay, they will be kin to us, or they will fetch it from Japhet. But to the letter: “Sir John Falstaff, knight, to the son of the King, nearest his father, Harry Prince of Wales, greeting.”

POINS. Why, this is a certificate.

PRINCE. Peace! “I will imitate the honourable Romans in brevity.”

POINS. He sure means brevity in breath, short-winded.

PRINCE. “I commend me to thee, I commend thee, and I leave thee. Be not too familiar with Poins, for he misuses thy favours so much that he swears thou art to marry his sister Nell. Repent at idle times as thou mayst, 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.”

POINS. My lord, I’ll steep this letter in sack and make him eat it.

PRINCE. That’s to make him eat twenty of his words. But do you use me thus, Ned? Must I marry your sister?

POINS. God send the wench no worse fortune! But I never said so.

PRINCE. Well, thus we play the fools with the time, and the spirits of the wise sit in the clouds and mock us. Is your master here in London?

BARDOLPH. Yea, my lord.

PRINCE. Where sups he? Doth the old boar feed in the old frank?

BARDOLPH. At the old place, my lord, in Eastcheap.

PRINCE. What company?

PAGE. Ephesians, my lord, of the old church.

PRINCE. Sup any women with him?

PAGE. None, my lord, but old Mistress Quickly and Mistress Doll Tearsheet.

PRINCE. What pagan may that be?

PAGE. A proper gentlewoman, sir, and a kinswoman of my master’s.

PRINCE. Even such kin as the parish heifers are to the town bull. Shall we steal upon them, Ned, at supper?

POINS. I am your shadow, my lord, I’ll follow you.

PRINCE. Sirrah, you boy, and Bardolph, no word to your master that I am yet come to town. There’s for your silence.

BARDOLPH. I have no tongue, sir.

PAGE. And for mine, sir, I will govern it.

PRINCE. Fare you well; go.

[_Exeunt Bardolph and Page._]

This Doll Tearsheet should be some road.

POINS. I warrant you, as common as the way between Saint Albans and London.

PRINCE. How might we see Falstaff bestow himself tonight in his true colours, and not ourselves be seen?

POINS. Put on two leathern jerkins and aprons, and wait upon him at his table as drawers.

PRINCE. From a god to a bull? A heavy descension! It was Jove’s case. From a prince to a ’prentice? A low transformation that shall be mine, for in everything the purpose must weigh with the folly. Follow me, Ned.

[_Exeunt._]

SCENE III. Warkworth. Before the castle.

Enter Northumberland, Lady Northumberland and Lady Percy.

NORTHUMBERLAND. I pray thee, loving wife, and gentle daughter, Give even way unto my rough affairs; Put not you on the visage of the times And be like them to Percy troublesome.

LADY NORTHUMBERLAND. I have given over, I will speak no more. Do what you will; your wisdom be your guide.

NORTHUMBERLAND. Alas, sweet wife, my honour is at pawn, And, but my going, nothing can redeem it.

LADY PERCY. O yet, for God’s sake, go not to these wars! The time was, father, that you broke your word, When you were more endear’d to it than now; When your own Percy, when my heart’s dear Harry, Threw many a northward look to see his father Bring up his powers; but he did long in vain. Who then persuaded you to stay at home? There were two honours lost, yours and your son’s. For yours, the God of heaven brighten it! For his, it stuck upon him as the sun In the grey vault of heaven, and by his light Did all the chivalry of England move To do brave acts. He was indeed the glass Wherein the noble youth did dress themselves. He had no legs that practis’d not his gait; And speaking thick, which nature made his blemish, Became the accents of the valiant; For those who could speak low and tardily Would turn their own perfection to abuse, To seem like him. So that in speech, in gait, In diet, in affections of delight, In military rules, humours of blood, He was the mark and glass, copy and book, That fashion’d others. And him—O wondrous him! O miracle of men!—him did you leave, Second to none, unseconded by you, To look upon the hideous god of war In disadvantage, to abide a field Where nothing but the sound of Hotspur’s name Did seem defensible: so you left him. Never, O never, do his ghost the wrong To hold your honour more precise and nice With others than with him! Let them alone. The Marshal and the Archbishop are strong: Had my sweet Harry had but half their numbers, Today might I, hanging on Hotspur’s neck, Have talk’d of Monmouth’s grave.

NORTHUMBERLAND. Beshrew your heart, Fair daughter, you do draw my spirits from me With new lamenting ancient oversights. But I must go and meet with danger there, Or it will seek me in another place, And find me worse provided.

LADY NORTHUMBERLAND. O, fly to Scotland, Till that the nobles and the armed commons Have of their puissance made a little taste.

LADY PERCY. If they get ground and vantage of the King, Then join you with them like a rib of steel, To make strength stronger; but, for all our loves, First let them try themselves. So did your son; He was so suffer’d. So came I a widow, And never shall have length of life enough To rain upon remembrance with mine eyes, That it may grow and sprout as high as heaven For recordation to my noble husband.

NORTHUMBERLAND. Come, come, go in with me. ’Tis with my mind As with the tide swell’d up unto his height, That makes a still-stand, running neither way. Fain would I go to meet the Archbishop, But many thousand reasons hold me back. I will resolve for Scotland. There am I, Till time and vantage crave my company.

[_Exeunt._]

SCENE IV. London. The Boar’s head Tavern in Eastcheap.

Enter two Drawers.

FIRST DRAWER. What the devil hast thou brought there—applejohns? Thou knowest Sir John cannot endure an applejohn.

SECOND DRAWER. Mass, thou sayest true. The Prince once set a dish of applejohns before him, and told him there were five more Sir Johns, and, putting off his hat, said “I will now take my leave of these six dry, round, old, withered knights.” It angered him to the heart. But he hath forgot that.

FIRST DRAWER. Why then, cover, and set them down, and see if thou canst find out Sneak’s noise. Mistress Tearsheet would fain hear some music. Dispatch. The room where they supped is too hot, they’ll come in straight.

SECOND DRAWER. Sirrah, here will be the Prince and Master Poins anon, and they will put on two of our jerkins and aprons, and Sir John must not know of it. Bardolph hath brought word.

FIRST DRAWER. By the mass, here will be old utis. It will be an excellent stratagem.

SECOND DRAWER. I’ll see if I can find out Sneak.

[_Exit._]

Enter Hostess and Doll Tearsheet.

HOSTESS. I’ faith, sweetheart, methinks now you are in an excellent good temperality. Your pulsidge beats as extraordinarily as heart would desire, and your colour, I warrant you, is as red as any rose, in good truth, la! But, i’ faith, you have drunk too much canaries, and that’s a marvellous searching wine, and it perfumes the blood ere one can say “What’s this?” How do you now?

DOLL. Better than I was. Hem!

HOSTESS. Why, that’s well said. A good heart’s worth gold. Lo, here comes Sir John.

Enter Falstaff.

FALSTAFF. [_Singing_.] “When Arthur first in court”—Empty the jordan. [_Exit First Drawer_.]—[_Singing_.] “And was a worthy king.” How now, Mistress Doll!

HOSTESS. Sick of a calm, yea, good faith.

FALSTAFF. So is all her sect; an they be once in a calm, they are sick.

DOLL. A pox damn you, you muddy rascal, is that all the comfort you give me?

FALSTAFF. You make fat rascals, Mistress Doll.

DOLL. I make them? Gluttony and diseases make them; I make them not.

FALSTAFF. If the cook help to make the gluttony, you help to make the diseases, Doll: we catch of you, Doll. We catch of you; grant that, my poor virtue, grant that.

DOLL. Yea, joy, our chains and our jewels.

FALSTAFF. “Your brooches, pearls, and ouches:”—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—

DOLL. Hang yourself, you muddy conger, hang yourself!

HOSTESS. By my troth, this is the old fashion; you two never meet but you fall to some discord. You are both, i’ good truth, as rheumatic as two dry toasts. You cannot one bear with another’s confirmities. What the good-year! One must bear, and that must be you. You are the weaker vessel, as as they say, the emptier vessel.

DOLL. Can a weak empty vessel bear such a huge full hogshead? There’s a whole merchant’s venture of Bourdeaux stuff in him; you have not seen a hulk better stuffed in the hold. Come, I’ll be friends with thee, Jack. Thou art going to the wars, and whether I shall ever see thee again or no, there is nobody cares.

Enter First Drawer.

FIRST DRAWER. Sir, Ancient Pistol’s below, and would speak with you.

DOLL. Hang him, swaggering rascal! Let him not come hither: it is the foul-mouthed’st rogue in England.

HOSTESS. If he swagger, let him not come here. No, by my faith, I must live among my neighbours. I’ll no swaggerers. I am in good name and fame with the very best. Shut the door, there comes no swaggerers here. I have not lived all this while to have swaggering now. Shut the door, I pray you.

FALSTAFF. Dost thou hear, hostess?

HOSTESS. Pray ye pacify yourself, Sir John. There comes no swaggerers here.

FALSTAFF. Dost thou hear? It is mine ancient.

HOSTESS. Tilly-fally, Sir John, ne’er tell me. And our ancient swaggerer comes not in my doors. I was before Master Tisick, the debuty t’other day, and, as he said to me,—’twas no longer ago than Wednesday last, i’ good faith,—“Neighbour Quickly,” says he—Master Dumb, our minister, was by then—“Neighbour Quickly,” says he, “receive those that are civil, for,” said he “you are in an ill name.” Now he said so, I can tell whereupon. “For,” says he, “you are an honest woman, and well thought on. Therefore take heed what guests you receive. Receive,” says he, “no swaggering companions.” There comes none here. You would bless you to hear what he said. No, I’ll no swaggerers.

FALSTAFF. He’s no swaggerer, hostess; a tame cheater, i’ faith, you may stroke him as gently as a puppy greyhound. He’ll not swagger with a Barbary hen, if her feathers turn back in any show of resistance. Call him up, drawer.

[_Exit First Drawer._]

HOSTESS. Cheater, call you him? I will bar no honest man my house, nor no cheater, but I do not love swaggering, by my troth, I am the worse when one says “swagger.” Feel, masters, how I shake; look you, I warrant you.

DOLL. So you do, hostess.

HOSTESS. Do I? Yea, in very truth, do I, an ’twere an aspen leaf. I cannot abide swaggerers.

Enter Pistol, Bardolph and Page.

PISTOL. God save you, Sir John!

FALSTAFF. Welcome, Ancient Pistol. Here, Pistol, I charge you with a cup of sack. Do you discharge upon mine hostess.

PISTOL. I will discharge upon her, Sir John, with two bullets.

FALSTAFF. She is pistol-proof, sir; you shall not hardly offend her.

HOSTESS. Come, I’ll drink no proofs nor no bullets. I’ll drink no more than will do me good, for no man’s pleasure, I.

PISTOL. Then to you, Mistress Dorothy! I will charge you.

DOLL. Charge me! I scorn you, scurvy companion. What, you poor, base, rascally, cheating, lack-linen mate! Away, you mouldy rogue, away! I am meat for your master.

PISTOL. I know you, Mistress Dorothy.

DOLL. Away, you cut-purse rascal, you filthy bung, away! By this wine, I’ll thrust my knife in your mouldy chaps an you play the saucy cuttle with me. Away, you bottle-ale rascal, you basket-hilt stale juggler, you! Since when, I pray you, sir? God’s light, with two points on your shoulder? Much!

PISTOL. God let me not live, but I will murder your ruff for this.

FALSTAFF. No more, Pistol! I would not have you go off here. Discharge yourself of our company, Pistol.

HOSTESS. No, good Captain Pistol, not here, sweet captain.

DOLL. Captain! Thou abominable damned cheater, art thou not ashamed to be called captain? An captains were of my mind, they would truncheon you out, for taking their names upon you before you have earned them. You a captain? You slave, for what? For tearing a poor whore’s ruff in a bawdy-house? He a captain! Hang him, rogue, he lives upon mouldy stewed prunes and dried cakes. A captain? God’s light, these villains will make the word as odious as the word “occupy,” which was an excellent good word before it was ill sorted. Therefore captains had need look to’t.

BARDOLPH. Pray thee go down, good ancient.

FALSTAFF. Hark thee hither, Mistress Doll.

PISTOL. Not I. I tell thee what, Corporal Bardolph, I could tear her. I’ll be revenged of her.

PAGE. Pray thee go down.

PISTOL. I’ll see her damned first to Pluto’s damned lake, by this hand, to th’ infernal deep, with Erebus and tortures vile also. Hold hook and line, say I. Down, down, dogs! Down, faitors! Have we not Hiren here?

HOSTESS. Good Captain Peesel, be quiet, ’tis very late, i’ faith. I beseek you now, aggravate your choler.

PISTOL. These be good humours, indeed! Shall packhorses And hollow pamper’d jades of Asia, Which cannot go but thirty mile a day, Compare with Caesars and with Cannibals, And Trojant Greeks? Nay, rather damn them with King Cerberus; and let the welkin roar. Shall we fall foul for toys?

HOSTESS. By my troth, captain, these are very bitter words.

BARDOLPH. Be gone, good ancient. This will grow to a brawl anon.

PISTOL. Die men like dogs! Give crowns like pins! Have we not Hiren here?

HOSTESS. O’ my word, captain, there’s none such here. What the good-year, do you think I would deny her? For God’s sake, be quiet.

PISTOL. Then feed and be fat, my fair Calipolis. Come, give ’s some sack. _Si fortune me tormente, sperato me contento._ Fear we broadsides? No, let the fiend give fire. Give me some sack; and, sweetheart, lie thou there.

[_Laying down his sword._]

Come we to full points here? And are etceteras nothings?

FALSTAFF. Pistol, I would be quiet.

PISTOL. Sweet knight, I kiss thy neaf. What! we have seen the seven stars.

DOLL. For God’s sake, thrust him downstairs. I cannot endure such a fustian rascal.

PISTOL. Thrust him downstairs? Know we not Galloway nags?

FALSTAFF. Quoit him down, Bardolph, like a shove-groat shilling. Nay, an he do nothing but speak nothing, he shall be nothing here.

BARDOLPH. Come, get you downstairs.

PISTOL. What! shall we have incision? Shall we imbrue?

[_Snatching up his sword._]

Then death rock me asleep, abridge my doleful days! Why then, let grievous, ghastly, gaping wounds Untwind the Sisters Three! Come, Atropos, I say!

HOSTESS. Here’s goodly stuff toward!

FALSTAFF. Give me my rapier, boy.

DOLL. I pray thee, Jack, I pray thee, do not draw.

FALSTAFF. Get you downstairs.

[_Drawing, and driving Pistol out._]

HOSTESS. Here’s a goodly tumult! I’ll forswear keeping house, afore I’ll be in these tirrits and frights. So, murder, I warrant now. Alas, alas, put up your naked weapons, put up your naked weapons.

[_Exeunt Bardolph and Pistol._]

DOLL. I pray thee, Jack, be quiet. The rascal’s gone. Ah, you whoreson little valiant villain, you!

HOSTESS. Are you not hurt i’ th’ groin? Methought he made a shrewd thrust at your belly.

Enter Bardolph.

FALSTAFF. Have you turned him out o’ doors?

BARDOLPH. Yea, sir. The rascal’s drunk. You have hurt him, sir, i’ th’ shoulder.

FALSTAFF. A rascal, to brave me!

DOLL. Ah, you sweet little rogue, you! Alas, poor ape, how thou sweat’st! Come, let me wipe thy face. Come on, you whoreson chops. Ah, rogue! i’ faith, I love thee. Thou art as valorous as Hector of Troy, worth five of Agamemnon, and ten times better than the Nine Worthies. Ah, villain!

FALSTAFF. A rascally slave! I will toss the rogue in a blanket.

DOLL. Do, an thou darest for thy heart. An thou dost, I’ll canvass thee between a pair of sheets.

Enter Music.

PAGE. The music is come, sir.

FALSTAFF. Let them play. Play, sirs. Sit on my knee, Doll. A rascal bragging slave! The rogue fled from me like quicksilver.

DOLL. I’ faith, and thou followedst him like a church. Thou whoreson little tidy Bartholomew boar-pig, when wilt thou leave fighting a-days and foining a-nights, and begin to patch up thine old body for heaven?

Enter, behind, Prince Henry and Poins, disguised as drawers.

FALSTAFF. Peace, good Doll, do not speak like a death’s-head; do not bid me remember mine end.

DOLL. Sirrah, what humour ’s the Prince of?

FALSTAFF. A good shallow young fellow; he would have made a good pantler; he would ha’ chipped bread well.

DOLL. They say Poins has a good wit.

FALSTAFF. He a good wit? Hang him, baboon! His wit’s as thick as Tewksbury mustard; there’s no more conceit in him than is in a mallet.

DOLL. Why does the Prince love him so, then?

FALSTAFF. Because their legs are both of a bigness, and he plays at quoits well, and eats conger and fennel, and drinks off candles’ ends for flap-dragons, and rides the wild mare with the boys, and jumps upon joint stools, and swears with a good grace, and wears his boots very smooth like unto the sign of the Leg, and breeds no bate with telling of discreet stories, and such other gambol faculties he has that show a weak mind and an able body, for the which the Prince admits him: for the Prince himself is such another. The weight of a hair will turn the scales between their avoirdupois.

PRINCE. Would not this nave of a wheel have his ears cut off?

POINS. Let’s beat him before his whore.

PRINCE. Look whe’er the withered elder hath not his poll clawed like a parrot.

POINS. Is it not strange that desire should so many years outlive performance?

FALSTAFF. Kiss me, Doll.

PRINCE. Saturn and Venus this year in conjunction! What says th’ almanac to that?

POINS. And look whether the fiery Trigon, his man, be not lisping to his master’s old tables, his note-book, his counsel-keeper.

FALSTAFF. Thou dost give me flattering busses.

DOLL. By my troth, I kiss thee with a most constant heart.

FALSTAFF. I am old, I am old.

DOLL. I love thee better than I love e’er a scurvy young boy of them all.

FALSTAFF. What stuff wilt have a kirtle of? I shall receive money o’ Thursday; shalt have a cap tomorrow. A merry song! Come, it grows late, we’ll to bed. Thou’lt forget me when I am gone.

DOLL. By my troth, thou’lt set me a-weeping an thou sayest so. Prove that ever I dress myself handsome till thy return. Well, hearken a’ th’ end.

FALSTAFF. Some sack, Francis.

PRINCE & POINS. Anon, anon, sir.

[_Coming forward._]

FALSTAFF. Ha! A bastard son of the King’s? And art thou not Poins his brother?

PRINCE. Why, thou globe of sinful continents, what a life dost thou lead!

FALSTAFF. A better than thou. I am a gentleman, thou art a drawer.

PRINCE. Very true, sir, and I come to draw you out by the ears.

HOSTESS. O, the Lord preserve thy Grace! By my troth, welcome to London. Now, the Lord bless that sweet face of thine! O Jesu, are you come from Wales?

FALSTAFF. Thou whoreson mad compound of majesty, by this light flesh and corrupt blood, thou art welcome.

DOLL. How? You fat fool, I scorn you.