The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works
Page 162
And your unthought-of Harry chance to meet.
For every honour sitting on his helm,
Would they were multitudes, and on my head
My shames redoubled! For the time will come
That I shall make this northern youth exchange
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His glorious deeds for my indignities.
Percy is but my factor, good my lord,
To engross up glorious deeds on my behalf,
And I will call him to so strict account
That he shall render every glory up,
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Yea, even the slightest worship of his time,
Or I will tear the reckoning from his heart.
This in the name of God I promise here,
The which if He be pleas’d I shall perform,
I do beseech your Majesty may salve
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The long-grown wounds of my intemperance:
If not, the end of life cancels all bands,
And I will die a hundred thousand deaths
Ere break the smallest parcel of this vow.
KING A hundred thousand rebels die in this –
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Thou shalt have charge and sovereign trust herein.
Enter BLUNT.
How now, good Blunt? Thy looks are full of speed.
BLUNT So hath the business that I come to speak of.
Lord Mortimer of Scotland hath sent word
That Douglas and the English rebels met
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The eleventh of this month at Shrewsbury.
A mighty and a fearful head they are,
If promises be kept on every hand,
As ever offer’d foul play in a state.
KING The Earl of Westmoreland set forth today,
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With him my son, Lord John of Lancaster,
For this advertisement is five days old.
On Wednesday next, Harry, you shall set forward,
On Thursday we ourselves will march.
Our meeting is Bridgnorth, and, Harry, you
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Shall march through Gloucestershire, by which account,
Our business valued, some twelve days hence
Our general forces at Bridgnorth shall meet.
Our hands are full of business, let’s away,
Advantage feeds him fat while men delay. Exeunt.
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3.3 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 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
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out of heart shortly, and then I shall have no strength
to repent. And 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.
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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;
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diced not above seven times – a week; went to a
bawdy-house not above once in a quarter – of an hour;
paid money that I borrowed – three or four times;
lived well, and in good compass; and now I live out of
all order, out of all compass.
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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
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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.
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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
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altogether given over; and wert indeed, but for the
light in thy face, the son of utter darkness. When thou
ran’st up Gad’s Hill 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
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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
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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
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heartburnt.
Enter Hostess.
How now, dame Partlet the hen, have you enquired 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
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searched, I have enquired, 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:
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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
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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; they have made bolters of them.
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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.
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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, I’ll not pay a denier. What, will you make a
younker of me? Shall I not take mine ease in mine inn
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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 that ring was copper.
FALSTAFF How? the Prince is a Jack, a sneak-up.
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‘Sblood, and he were here I would c
udgel him like a
dog if he would say so.
Enter the PRINCE marching, with PETO, and FALSTAFF meets him, playing upon his truncheon like a fife.
How now, lad? Is the wind in that door, i’faith, must
we all march?
BARDOLPH Yea, two and two, Newgate fashion.
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HOSTESS My lord, I pray you hear me.
PRINCE What say’st 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.
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PRINCE What say’st 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?
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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 eightpenny matter.
HOSTESS So I told him, my lord, and I said I heard your
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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
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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,
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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
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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?
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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
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any man knows where to have me, thou knave, thou.
PRINCE Thou say’st 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.
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PRINCE Sirrah, do I owe you a thousand pound?
FALSTAFF A thousand pound, Hal? 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.
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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?
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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 the lion’s whelp.
PRINCE And why not as the lion?
FALSTAFF The King himself is to be feared as the lion:
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dost thou think I’ll fear thee as I fear thy father? Nay,
and 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
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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
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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 it, you will not pocket up wrong! Art
thou not ashamed?
FALSTAFF Dost thou hear, Hal? Thou knowest in the
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state of innocency Adam fell, and what should poor
Jack Falstaff do in the days of villainy? 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.
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FALSTAFF Hostess, I forgive thee, go make ready
breakfast, love thy husband, look to thy servants,