Act III
Scene I
Bangor. The Archdeacon’s house.
Enter Hotspur, Worcester, Mortimer, and Glendower. | |
Mortimer |
These promises are fair, the parties sure,
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Hotspur |
Lord Mortimer, and cousin Glendower,
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Glendower |
No, here it is.
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Hotspur | And you in hell, as oft as he hears Owen Glendower spoke of. |
Glendower |
I cannot blame him: at my nativity
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Hotspur | Why, so it would have done at the same season, if your mother’s cat had but kittened, though yourself had never been born. |
Glendower | I say the earth did shake when I was born. |
Hotspur |
And I say the earth was not of my mind,
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Glendower | The heavens were all on fire, the earth did tremble. |
Hotspur |
O, then the earth shook to see the heavens on fire,
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Glendower |
Cousin, of many men
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Hotspur | I think there’s no man speaks better Welsh. I’ll to dinner. |
Mortimer | Peace, cousin Percy; you will make him mad. |
Glendower | I can call spirits from the vasty deep. |
Hotspur |
Why, so can I, or so can any man;
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Glendower |
Why, I can teach you, cousin, to command
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Hotspur |
And I can teach thee, coz, to shame the devil
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Mortimer | Come, come, no more of this unprofitable chat. |
Glendower |
Three times hath Henry Bolingbroke made head
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Hotspur |
Home without boots, and in foul weather too!
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Glendower |
Come, here’s the map: shall we divide our right
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Mortimer |
The archdeacon hath divided it
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Glendower |
A shorter time shall send me to you, lords:
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Hotspur |
Methinks my moiety, north from Burton here,
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Glendower | Not wind? it shall, it must; you see it doth. |
Mortimer |
Yea, but
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Worcester |
Yea, but a little charge will trench him here
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Hotspur | I’ll have it so: a little charge will do it. |
Glendower | I’ll not have it alter’d. |
Hotspur | Will not you? |
Glendower | No, nor you shall not. |
Hotspur | Who shall say me nay? |
Glendower | Why, that will I. |
Hotspur | Let me not understand you, then; speak it in Welsh. |
Glendower |
I can speak English, lord, as well as you;
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Hotspur |
Marry,
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Glendower | Come, you shall have Trent turn’d. |
Hotspur |
I do not care: I’ll give thrice so much land
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Glendower |
The moon shines fair; you may away by night:
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Mortimer | Fie, cousin Percy! how you cross my father! |
Hotspur |
I cannot choose: sometime he angers me
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Mortimer |
In faith, he is a worthy gentleman,
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Worcester |
In faith, my lord, you are too wilful-blame;
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Hotspur |
Well, I am school’d: good manners be your speed!
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Re-enter Glendower with the ladies. | |
Mortimer |
This is the deadly spite that angers me;
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Glendower |
My daughter weeps: she will not part with you;
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Mortimer |
Good father, tell her that she and my aunt Percy
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Glendower | She is desperate here; a peevish self-will’d harlotry, one that no persuasion can do good upon. The lady speaks in Welsh. |
Mortimer |
I understand thy looks: that pretty Welsh
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Glendower | Nay, if you melt, then will she run mad.The lady speaks again in Welsh. |
Mortimer | O, I am ignorance itself in this! |
Glendower |
She bids you on the wanton rushes lay you down
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Mortimer |
With all my heart I’ll sit and hear her sing:
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Glendower |
Do so;
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Hotspur | Come, Kate, thou art perfect in lying down: come, quick, quick, that I may lay my head in thy lap. |
Lady Percy | Go, ye giddy goose.The music plays. |
Hotspur |
Now I perceive the devil understands Welsh;
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Lady Percy | Then should you be nothing but musical for you are altogether governed by humours. Lie still, ye thief, and hear the lady sing in Welsh. |
Hotspur | I had rather hear Lady, my brach, howl in Irish. |
Lady Percy | Wouldst thou have thy head broken? |
Hotspur | No. |
Lady Percy | Then be still. |
Hotspur | Neither; ’tis a woman’s fault. |
Lady Percy | Now God help thee! |
Hotspur | To the Welsh lady’s bed. |
Lady Percy | What’s that? |
Hotspur | Peace! she sings. Here the lady sings a Welsh song. |
Hotspur | Come, Kate, I’ll have your song too. |
Lady Percy | Not mine, in good sooth. |
Hotspur |
Not yours, in good sooth! Heart! you swear like a comfit-maker’s wife. “Not you, in good sooth,” and “as true as I live,” and “as God shall mend me,” and “as sure as day,”
And givest such sarcenet surety for thy oaths,
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Lady Percy | I will not sing. |
Hotspur | ’Tis the next way to turn tailor, or be red-breast teacher. An the indentures be drawn, I’ll away within these two hours; and so, come in when ye will. Exit. |
Glendower |
Come, come, Lord Mortimer; you are as slow
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Mortimer | With all my heart. Exeunt. |
Scene II
London. The palace.
Enter the King, Prince of Wales, and others. | |
King |
Lords, give us leave; the Prince of Wales and I
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Prince |
So please your majesty, I would I could
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King |
God pardon thee! yet let me wonder, Harry,
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Prince |
I shall hereafter, my thrice gracious lord,
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King |
For all the world
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Prince |
Do not think so; you shall not find it so:
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King |
A hundred thousand rebels die in this:
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Enter Blunt. | |
How now, good Blunt? thy looks are full of speed. | |
Blunt |
So hath the business that I come to speak of.
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King |
The Earl of Westmoreland set forth to-day;
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Scene III
Eastcheap. 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 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 bawdy 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; went to a bawdy-house once in a quarter—of an hour; paid money that I borrowed, three of 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 rannest up Gadshill 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 maintained 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 belly! |
Falstaff | God-a-mercy! so should I be sure to be heart-burned. |
Enter Hostess. | |
How now, Dame Partlet the hen! have you inquired yet who picked my pocket? | |
Hostess | Why, Sir John, what do you think, Sir John? do you think I keep thieves in my house? I have searched, 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 picked. Go to, you are a woman, go. |
Hostess | Who, I? no; I defy thee: God’s light, I was never called 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: Ill not pay a denier. What, will you make a younker of me? shall I not take mine case in mine inn but I shall have my pocket picked? 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 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 the Prince and Peto, marching, and Falstaff meets them playing on his truncheon like a life. | |
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 sayest thou, Mistress Quickly? How doth thy husband? I love him well; he is an honest man. |
Hostess | Good my lord, hear me. |
Falstaff | Prithee, let her alone, and list to me. |
Prince | What sayest thou, Jack? |
Falstaff | The other night I fell asleep here behind the arras and had my pocket picked: this house is turned bawdy-house; they pick pockets. |
Prince | What didst thou lose, Jack? |
Falstaff | Wilt thou believe me, Hal? three or four bonds of forty pound apiece, 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-mouthed 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 stewed prune; nor no more truth in thee than in a drawn fox; and for womanhood, Maid Marian may be the deputy’s wife of the ward to thee. Go, you thing, go. |
Hostess | Say, what thing? what thing? |
Falstaff | What thing! why, a thing to thank God on. |
Hostess | I am no thing to thank God on, I would thou shouldst know it; 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 sayest 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, Ha! a million: thy love is worth a million: thou owest me thy love. |
Hostess | Nay, my lord, he called 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 knowest, as thou art but man, I dare: but as thou art prince, I fear thee as I fear the roaring of a lion’s whelp. |
Prince | And why not as the lion? |
Falstaff | The king 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 | O, if it should, how would thy guts fall about thy knees! But, sirrah, there’s no room for faith, truth, nor honesty in this bosom of thine; it is all filled up with guts and midriff. Charge an honest woman with picking thy pocket! why, thou whoreson, impudent, embossed rascal, if there were anything in thy pocket but tavern-reckonings, memorandums of bawdy-houses, and one poor pennyworth of sugar-candy to make thee long-winded, if thy pocket were enriched with any other injuries but these, I am a villain: and yet you will stand to if; you will not pocket up wrong: art thou not ashamed? |
Falstaff | Dost thou hear, Hal? thou knowest in the state of innocency Adam fell; and what should poor Jack Falstaff do in the days of villany? Thou seest I have more flesh than another man, and therefore more frailty. You confess then, you picked 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 seest I am pacified still. Nay, prithee, 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 unwashed 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, Peto, to horse, to horse; for thou and I have thirty miles to ride yet ere dinner time. Exit Peto. Jack, meet me to-morrow in the temple hall at two o’clock in the afternoon.
There shalt thou know thy charge; and there receive
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Falstaff |
Rare words! brave world! Hostess, my breakfast, come!
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