The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works

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The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 156

by William Shakespeare


  thee, I am a very villain. Come, and be hanged! Hast

  no faith in thee?

  30

  Enter GADSHILL.

  GADSHILL Good morrow, carriers, what’s o’clock?

  1 CARRIER I think it be two o’clock.

  GADSHILL I prithee lend me thy lantern, to see my

  gelding in the stable.

  1 CARRIER Nay, by God, soft! I know a trick worth two

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  of that, i’faith.

  GADSHILL I pray thee lend me thine.

  2 CARRIER Ay, when? Canst tell? Lend me thy lantern,

  quoth he! Marry I’ll see thee hanged first.

  GADSHILL Sirrah carrier, what time do you mean to

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  come to London?

  2 CARRIER Time enough to go to bed with a candle, I

  warrant thee; come, neighbour Mugs, we’ll call up the

  gentlemen, they will along with company, for they

  have great charge. Exeunt Carriers.

  45

  GADSHILL What ho! Chamberlain!

  Enter CHAMBERLAIN.

  CHAMBERLAIN ‘At hand, quoth pick-purse.’

  GADSHILL That’s even as fair as ‘At hand, quoth the

  chamberlain’: for thou variest no more from picking of

  purses than giving direction doth from labouring;

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  thou layest the plot how.

  CHAMBERLAIN Good morrow, master Gadshill. It holds

  current that I told you yesternight: there’s a franklin

  in the Wild of Kent hath brought three hundred

  marks with him in gold, I heard him tell it to one of his

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  company last night at supper, a kind of auditor, one

  that hath abundance of charge too, God knows what;

  they are up already, and call for eggs and butter – they

  will away presently.

  GADSHILL Sirrah, if they meet not with Saint Nicholas’

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  clerks, I’ll give thee this neck.

  CHAMBERLAIN No, I’ll none of it, I pray thee keep that

  for the hangman, for I know thou worshippest Saint

  Nicholas, as truly as a man of falsehood may.

  GADSHILL What talkest thou to me of the hangman? If

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  I hang, I’ll make a fat pair of gallows: for if I hang, old

  Sir John hangs with me, and thou knowest he is no

  starveling. Tut, there are other Troyans that thou

  dream’st not of, the which for sport sake are content to

  do the profession some grace, that would (if matters

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  should be looked into) for their own credit sake

  make all whole. I am joined with no foot-landrakers,

  no long-staff sixpenny strikers, none of these mad

  mustachio purple-hued maltworms, but with nobility

  and tranquillity, burgomasters and great onyers, such

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  as can hold in, such as will strike sooner than speak,

  and speak sooner than drink, and drink sooner than

  pray – and yet, ‘zounds, I lie, for they pray continually

  to their saint the commonwealth, or rather not pray to

  her, but prey on her, for they ride up and down on her,

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  and make her their boots.

  CHAMBERLAIN What, the commonwealth their boots?

  Will she hold out water in foul way?

  GADSHILL She will, she will, justice hath liquored her:

  we steal as in a castle, cock-sure: we have the receipt of

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  fern-seed, we walk invisible.

  CHAMBERLAIN Nay, by my faith, I think you are more

  beholding to the night than to fern-seed for your

  walking invisible.

  GADSHILL Give me thy hand, thou shalt have a share in

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  our purchase, as I am a true man.

  CHAMBERLAIN Nay, rather let me have it, as you are a

  false thief.

  GADSHILL Go to, homo is a common name to all men:

  bid the ostler bring my gelding out of the stable.

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  Farewell, you muddy knave. Exeunt.

  2.2 Enter PRINCE, POINS and PETO.

  POINS Come, shelter, shelter! I have removed Falstaff ‘s

  horse, and he frets like a gummed velvet.

  PRINCE Stand close! [They retire.]

  Enter FALSTAFF.

  FALSTAFF Poins! Poins, and be hanged! Poins!

  PRINCE [coming forward] Peace, ye fat-kidneyed rascal,

  5

  what a brawling dost thou keep!

  FALSTAFF Where’s Poins, Hal?

  PRINCE He is walked up to the top of the hill; I’ll go seek

  him. [Retires.]

  FALSTAFF I am accursed to rob in that thief ‘s company;

  10

  the rascal hath removed my horse and tied him I know

  not where. If I travel but four foot by the squier

  further afoot, I shall break my wind. Well, I doubt not

  but to die a fair death for all this, if I scape hanging for

  killing that rogue. I have forsworn his company hourly

  15

  any time this two and twenty years, and yet I am

  bewitched with the rogue’s company. If the rascal have

  not given me medicines to make me love him, I’ll be

  hanged. It could not be else, I have drunk medicines.

  Poins! Hal! A plague upon you both! Bardolph! Peto!

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  I’ll starve ere I’ll rob a foot further – and ’twere not as

  good a deed as drink to turn true man, and to leave

  these rogues, I am the veriest varlet that ever chewed

  with a tooth; eight yards of uneven ground is

  threescore and ten miles afoot with me, and the stony-

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  hearted villains know it well enough. A plague upon it

  when thieves cannot be true one to another!

  [They whistle.] Whew! A plague upon you all, give me

  my horse, you rogues, give me my horse and be

  hanged!

  30

  PRINCE [coming forward] Peace, ye fat guts, lie down, lay

  thine ear close to the ground, and list if thou canst

  hear the tread of travellers.

  FALSTAFF Have you any levers to lift me up again, being

  down? ‘Sblood, I’ll not bear my own flesh so far afoot

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  again for all the coin in thy father’s exchequer. What a

  plague mean ye to colt me thus?

  PRINCE Thou liest, thou art not colted, thou art

  uncolted.

  FALSTAFF I prithee good Prince Hal, help me to my

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  horse, good king’s son.

  PRINCE Out, ye rogue, shall I be your ostler?

  FALSTAFF Hang thyself in thine own heir-apparent

  garters! If I be ta’en, I’ll peach for this: and I have not

  ballads made on you all, and sung to filthy tunes, let a

  45

  cup of sack be my poison – when a jest is so forward,

  and afoot too! I hate it.

  Enter GADSHILL and BARDOLPH.

  GADSHILL Stand!

  FALSTAFF So I do, against my will.

  POINS O, ’tis our setter, I know his voice. [coming

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  forward with Peto] Bardolph, what news?

  BARDOLPH Case ye, case ye, on with your vizards,

  there’s money of the King’s coming down the hill, ’tis

  going to the King’s exchequer.

  FALSTAFF You lie, ye rogue, ’tis going to the King’s

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  tavern.

  GADSHILL There’s enough to make us all.

  FALSTAFF To be hanged.

  PRINCE Sirs, you four shal
l front them in the narrow

  lane: Ned Poins and I will walk lower – if they scape

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  from your encounter, then they light on us.

  PETO How many be there of them?

  GADSHILL Some eight or ten.

  FALSTAFF ‘Zounds, will they not rob us?

  PRINCE What, a coward, Sir John Paunch?

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  FALSTAFF Indeed, I am not John of Gaunt your

  grandfather, but yet no coward, Hal.

  PRINCE Well, we leave that to the proof.

  POINS Sirrah Jack, thy horse stands behind the hedge;

  when thou need’st him, there thou shalt find him.

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  Farewell, and stand fast.

  FALSTAFF Now cannot I strike him, if I should be

  hanged.

  PRINCE Ned, where are our disguises?

  POINS Here, hard by, stand close.

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  Exeunt Prince and Poins.

  FALSTAFF Now, my masters, happy man be his dole, say

  I – every man to his business.

  Enter the Travellers.

  1 TRAVELLER Come, neighbour, the boy shall lead our

  horses down the hill; we’ll walk afoot awhile and ease

  our legs.

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  THIEVES Stand!

  2 TRAVELLER Jesus bless us!

  FALSTAFF Strike, down with them, cut the villains’

  throats! Ah, whoreson caterpillars, bacon-fed knaves,

  they hate us youth! Down with them, fleece them!

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  1 TRAVELLER O, we are undone, both we and ours for

  ever!

  FALSTAFF Hang ye, gorbellied knaves, are ye undone?

  No, ye fat chuffs, I would your store were here! On,

  bacons, on! What, ye knaves! young men must live.

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  You are grandjurors, are ye? We’ll jure ye, faith.

  [Here they rob them and bind them.] Exeunt.

  Re-enter the PRINCE and POINS, disguised.

  PRINCE The thieves have bound the true men; now

  could thou and I rob the thieves, and go merrily to

  London, it would be argument for a week, laughter for

  a month, and a good jest for ever.

  95

  POINS Stand close, I hear them coming. [They retire.]

  Enter the Thieves again.

  FALSTAFF Come, my masters, let us share, and then to

  horse before day; and the Prince and Poins be not two

  arrant cowards there’s no equity stirring; there’s no

  more valour in that Poins than in a wild duck.

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  [As they are sharing the PRINCE and POINS set upon

  them.]

  PRINCE Your money!

  POINS Villains!

  They all run away, and Falstaff after a blow or two

  runs away too, leaving the booty behind them.

  PRINCE Got with much ease. Now merrily to horse:

  The thieves are all scatter’d and possess’d with fear

  So strongly that they dare not meet each other;

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  Each takes his fellow for an officer!

  Away, good Ned – Falstaff sweats to death,

  And lards the lean earth as he walks along.

  Were’t not for laughing I should pity him.

  POINS How the fat rogue roared. Exeunt.

  110

  2.3 Enter HOTSPUR alone, reading a letter.

  HOTSPUR But, for mine own part, my lord, I could be well

  contented to be there, in respect of the love I bear your

  house. He could be contented: why is he not then? In

  respect of the love he bears our house: he shows in

  this, he loves his own barn better than he loves our

  5

  house. Let me see some more. The purpose you

  undertake is dangerous– Why, that’s certain; ’tis

  dangerous to take a cold, to sleep, to drink; but I tell

  you, my lord fool, out of this nettle, danger, we pluck

  this flower, safety. The purpose you undertake is

  10

  dangerous, the friends you have named uncertain, the time

  itself unsorted, and your whole plot too light, for the

  counterpoise of so great an opposition. Say you so, say

  you so? I say unto you again, you are a shallow

  cowardly hind, and you lie: what a lack-brain is this!

  15

  By the Lord, our plot is a good plot, as ever was laid,

  our friends true and constant: a good plot, good

  friends, and full of expectation: an excellent plot, very

  good friends; what a frosty-spirited rogue is this! Why,

  my Lord of York commends the plot, and the general

  20

  course of the action. ‘Zounds, and I were now by this

  rascal I could brain him with his lady’s fan. Is there

  not my father, my uncle, and myself? Lord Edmund

  Mortimer, my Lord of York, and Owen Glendower? Is

 

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