Henry IV, Part II

Act II

Scene I

London. A street.

	Enter Hostess, Fang* and his Boy with her, 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 a’ 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 us 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 a’ 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. A’ 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 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 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 errant 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, Page, and Bardolph.
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 honey-suckle villain! wilt thou kill God’s officers and the king’s? Ah, thou honey-seed rogue! thou art a honey-seed, 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 hemp-seed!
Falstaff	Away, you scullion! you rampallion! 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 upon him?
Hostess	O 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 a green 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 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 the 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 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 courtesy 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 the effect of your reputation, and satisfy this 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 water-work, is worth a thousand of these bed-hangings 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, Bardolph, Officers and Boy.
Chief-Justice	I have heard better news.
Falstaff	What’s the news, my lord?
Chief-Justice	Where lay the king last night?
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.
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 to-morrow! 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 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 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 road-way 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 my 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: a’ 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!
Bardolph	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	A’ 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 dreamed she was delivered of a fire-brand; and therefore I call him her dream.
Prince	A crown’s worth of good interpretation: there ’tis, boy.
Poins	O, that this good blossom could be kept from cankers! Well, there is sixpence to preserve thee.
Bardolph	An you do not make him 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 be 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.
Poins	Reads. “Sir John Falstaff, knight, to the son of the king, nearest his father, Harry Prince of Wales, greeting.” Why, this is a certificate.
Prince	Peace!
Poins	Reads. “I will imitate the honourable Romans in brevity:” he sure means brevity in breath, short-winded. “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 mayest; 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.” 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 Alban’s and London.
Prince	How might we see Falstaff bestow himself to-night 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 decension! it was Jove’s case. From a prince to a prentice? a low transformation! that shall be mine; for in every thing 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 practised not his gait; And speaking thick, which nature made his blemish, Became the accents of the valiant; For those that 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, To-day 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? apple-johns? thou knowest Sir John cannot endure an apple-john.
Second Drawer	Mass, thou sayest true. The prince once set a dish of apple-johns 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	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 broaches, 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 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.
	Reenter 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: your 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 Dumbe, our minister, was by then; “neighbour Quickly,” says he, “receive those that are civil; for,” said he, “you are in an ill name:” now a’ 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 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 the 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 pack-horses And hollow pamper’d jades of Asia, Which cannot go but thirty mile a-day, Compare with Caesars, and with Cannibals, And Trojan 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 abrawl anon.
Pistol	Die men like dogs! give crowns like pins! Have we not Heren 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 nothing?
Falstaff	Pistol, I would be quiet.
Pistol	Sweet knight, I kiss thy neif: what! we have seen the seven stars.
Doll	For God’s sake, thrust him down stairs: I cannot endure such a fustian rascal.
Pistol	Thrust him down stairs! know we not Galloway nags?
Falstaff	Quoit him down, Bardolph, like a shove-groat shilling: nay, an a’ do nothing but speak nothing, a’ shall be nothing here.
Bardolph	Come, get you down stairs.
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 Untwine 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 down stairs. 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 Pistol* and Bardolph.*
Doll	I pray thee, Jack, be quiet; the rascal’s gone. Ah, you whoreson little valiant villain, you!
Hostess	He you not hurt i’ the groin? methought a’ made a shrewd thrust at your belly.
	Reenter Bardolph.
Falstaff	Have you turned him out o’ doors?
Bardolph	Yea, sir. The rascal’s drunk: you have hurt him, sir, i’ the shoulder.
Falstaff	A rascal! to brave me!
Doll	Ah, you sweet little rogue, you! alas, poor ape, how thou sweatest! 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 o’ days and foining o’ nights, and begin to patch up thine old body for heaven?
	Enter, behind, Prince Henry* and Poins, disguised.*
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: a’ would have made a good pantler, a’ would ha’ chipp’d 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 a’ 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 joined-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 a’ 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, whether 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 the 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 to-morrow. 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, harken at the end.
Falstaff	Some sack, Francis.
Prince Henry Poins	Anon, anon, sir. Coming forward.
Falstaff	Ha! a bastard son of the king’s? And art not thou 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 good 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.
Poins	My lord, he will drive you out of your revenge and turn all to a merriment, if you take not the heat.
Prince	You whoreson candle-mine, you, how vilely did you speak of me even now before this honest, virtuous, civil gentlewoman!
Hostess	God’s blessing of your good heart! and so she is, by my troth.
Falstaff	Didst thou hear me?
Prince	Yea, and you knew me, as you did when you ran away by Gad’s-hill: you knew I was at your back, and spoke it on purpose to try my patience.
Falstaff	No, no, no; not so; I did not think thou wast within hearing.
Prince	I shall drive you then to confess the wilful abuse; and then I know how to handle you.
Falstaff	No abuse, Hal, o’ mine honour; no abuse.
Prince	Not to dispraise me, and call me pantler and bread-chipper and I know not what?
Falstaff	No abuse, Hal.
Poins	No abuse?
Falstaff	No abuse, Ned, i’ the world; honest Ned, none. I dispraised him before the wicked, that the wicked might not fall in love with him; in which doing, I have done the part of a careful friend and a true subject, and thy father is to give me thanks for it. No abuse, Hal: none, Ned, none: no, faith, boys, none.
Prince	See now, whether pure fear and entire cowardice doth not make thee wrong this virtuous gentlewoman to close with us? is she of the wicked? is thine hostess here of the wicked? or is thy boy of the wicked? or honest Bardolph, whose zeal burns in his nose, of the wicked?
Poins	Answer, thou dead elm, answer.
Falstaff	The fiend hath pricked down Bardolph irrecoverable; and his face is Lucifer’s privy-kitchen, where he doth nothing but roast malt-worms. For the boy, there is a good angel about him; but the devil outbids him too.
Prince	For the women?
Falstaff	For one of them, she is in hell already, and burns poor souls. For the other, I owe her money, and whether she be damned for that, I know not.
Hostess	No, I warrant you.
Falstaff	No, I think thou art not; I think thou art quit for that. Marry, there is another indictment upon thee, for suffering flesh to be eaten in thy house, contrary to the law; for the which I think thou wilt howl.
Hostess	All victuallers do so; what’s a joint of mutton or two in a whole Lent?
Prince	You, gentlewoman⁠—
Doll	What says your grace?
Falstaff	His grace says that which his flesh rebels against. Knocking within.
Hostess	Who knocks so loud at door? Look to the door there, Francis.
	Enter Peto.
Prince	Peto, how now! what news?
Peto	The king your father is at Westminster; And there are twenty weak and wearied posts Come from the north: and, as I came along, I met and overtook a dozen captains, Bare-headed, sweating, knocking at the taverns, And asking every one for Sir John Falstaff.
Prince	By heaven, Poins, I feel me much to blame, So idly to profane the precious time, When tempest of commotion, like the south Borne with black vapour, doth begin to melt And drop upon our bare unarmed heads. Give me my sword and cloak. Falstaff, good night. Exeunt Prince Henry, Poins, Peto, and Bardolph.
Falstaff	Now comes in the sweetest morsel of the night, and we must hence and leave it unpicked. Knocking within. More knocking at the door!
	Reenter Bardolph.
	How now! what’s the matter?
Bardolph	You must away to court, sir, presently; a dozen captains stay at door for you.
Falstaff	To the Page. Pay the musicians, sirrah. Farewell, hostess; farewell, Doll. You see, my good wenches, how men of merit are sought after: the undeserver may sleep, when the man of action is called on. Farewell good wenches: if I be not sent away post, I will see you again ere I go.
Doll	I cannot speak; if my heart be not read to burst⁠—well, sweet Jack, have a care of thyself.
Falstaff	Farewell, farewell. Exeunt Falstaff* and Bardolph.*
Hostess	Well, fare thee well: I have known thee these twenty-nine years, come peascod-time; but an honester and truer-hearted man⁠—well, fare thee well.
Bardolph	Within. Mistress Tearsheet!
Hostess	What’s the matter?
Bardolph	Within. Bid Mistress Tearsheet come to my master.
Hostess	O, run, Doll, run; run, good Doll: come. She comes blubbered. Yea, will you come, Doll? Exeunt.