The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works

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The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 169

by William Shakespeare


  185

  Come, we will all put forth, body and goods.

  MORTON

  ’Tis more than time. And, my most noble lord,

  I hear for certain, and dare speak the truth,

  The gentle Archbishop of York is up

  With well-appointed pow’rs. He is a man

  190

  Who with a double surety binds his followers.

  My lord your son had only but the corpse,

  But shadows and the shows of men, to fight;

  For that same word ‘rebellion’ did divide

  The action of their bodies from their souls,

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  And they did fight with queasiness, constrain’d,

  As men drink potions, that their weapons only

  Seem’d on our side; but, for their spirits and souls,

  This word ‘rebellion’ – it had froze them up,

  As fish are in a pond. But now the Bishop

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  Turns insurrection to religion;

  Suppos’d sincere and holy in his thoughts,

  He’s follow’d both with body and with mind,

  And doth enlarge his rising with the blood

  Of fair King Richard, scrap’d from Pomfret stones;

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  Derives from heaven his quarrel and his cause;

  Tells them he doth bestride a bleeding land,

  Gasping for life under great Bolingbroke;

  And more and less do flock to follow him.

  NORTHUMBERLAND

  I knew of this before, but, to speak truth,

  210

  This present grief had wip’d it from my mind.

  Go in with me, and counsel every man

  The aptest way for safety and revenge:

  Get posts and letters, and make friends with speed:

  Never so few, and never yet more need. Exeunt.

  215

  1.2 Enter SIR JOHN FALSTAFF, with his Page bearing his sword and buckler.

  FALSTAFF Sirrah, you giant, what says the doctor to my water?

  PAGE He said, sir, the water itself was a good healthy

  water; but, for the party that owed it, he might have

  moe diseases than he knew for.

  5

  FALSTAFF Men of all sorts take a pride to gird at me.

  The brain of this foolish-compounded clay, man, is

  not able to invent anything that intends to laughter

  more than I invent, or is invented on me; I am not only

  witty in myself, but the cause that wit is in other men.

  10

  I do here walk before thee like a sow that hath

  overwhelmed all her litter but one. If the Prince put

  thee into my service for any other reason than to set

  me off, why then I have no judgment. Thou whoreson

  mandrake, thou art fitter to be worn in my cap than to

  15

  wait at my heels. I was never manned with an agate till

  now, but I will inset you, neither in gold nor silver, but

  in vile apparel, and send you back again to your master

  for a jewel, – the juvenal the Prince your master,

  whose chin is not yet fledge. I will sooner have a beard

  20

  grow in the palm of my hand than he shall get one off

  his cheek; and yet he will not stick to say his face is a

  face-royal. God may finish it when He will, ’tis not a

  hair amiss yet. He may keep it still at a face-royal, for

  a barber shall never earn sixpence out of it. And yet

  25

  he’ll be crowing as if he had writ man ever since his

  father was a bachelor. He may keep his own grace, but

  he’s almost out of mine, I can assure him. What said

  Master Dommelton about the satin for my short cloak

  and my slops?

  30

  PAGE He said, sir, you should procure him better

  assurance than Bardolph: he would not take his bond

  and yours, he liked not the security.

  FALSTAFF Let him be damned like the glutton! Pray

  God his tongue be hotter! A whoreson Achitophel!

  35

  A rascally yea-forsooth knave, to bear a gentleman in

  hand, and then stand upon security! The whoreson

  smooth-pates do now wear nothing but high shoes and

  bunches of keys at their girdles; and if a man is

  through with them in honest taking up, then they

  40

  must stand upon security. I had as lief they would put

  ratsbane in my mouth as offer to stop it with security.

  I looked a should have sent me two and twenty yards

  of satin, as I am a true knight, and he sends me

  ‘security’! Well, he may sleep in security, for he hath

  45

  the horn of abundance, and the lightness of his wife

  shines through it; and yet cannot he see, though he

  have his own lanthorn to light him. Where’s

  Bardolph?

  PAGE He’s gone into Smithfield to buy your worship a horse.

  50

  FALSTAFF I bought him in Paul’s, and he’ll buy me a

  horse in Smithfield. And I could get me but a wife in

  the stews, I were manned, horsed, and wived.

  Enter Lord Chief Justice and Servant.

  PAGE Sir, here comes the nobleman that committed the

  55

  Prince for striking him about Bardolph.

  FALSTAFF Wait close, I will not see him.

  CHIEF JUSTICE What’s he that goes there?

  SERVANT Falstaff, and’t please your lordship.

  CHIEF JUSTICE He that was in question for the robbery?

  60

  SERVANT He, my lord: but he hath since done good

  service at Shrewsbury, and, as I hear, is now going

  with some charge to the Lord John of Lancaster.

  CHIEF JUSTICE What, to York? Call him back again.

  SERVANT Sir John Falstaff!

  65

  FALSTAFF Boy, tell him I am deaf.

  PAGE You must speak louder, my master is deaf.

  CHIEF JUSTICE I am sure he is, to the hearing of

  anything good. Go pluck him by the elbow, I must

  speak with him.

  70

  SERVANT Sir John!

  FALSTAFF What! A young knave, and begging! Is there

  not wars? Is there not employment? Doth not the

  King lack subjects? Do not the rebels need soldiers?

  Though it be a shame to be on any side but one, it is

  75

  worse shame to beg than to be on the worst side, were

  it worse than the name of rebellion can tell how to

  make it.

  SERVANT You mistake me, sir.

  FALSTAFF Why, sir, did I say you were an honest man?

  80

  Setting my knighthood and my soldiership aside, I had

  lied in my throat if I had said so.

  SERVANT I pray you, sir, then set your knighthood and

  your soldiership aside, and give me leave to tell you

  you lie in your throat, if you say I am any other than

  85

  an honest man.

  FALSTAFF I give thee leave to tell me so? I lay aside that

  which grows to me? If thou get’st any leave of me,

  hang me. If thou tak’st leave, thou wert better be

  hanged. You hunt counter. Hence! Avaunt!

  90

  SERVANT Sir, my lord would speak with you.

  CHIEF JUSTICE Sir John Falstaff, a word with you.

  FALSTAFF My good lord! God give your lordship good

  time of day. I am glad to see your lordship abroad, I

  heard say your lordship was sick. I hope your lordship

  95
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  goes abroad by advice; your lordship, though not clean

  past your youth, have yet some smack of age in you,

  some relish of the saltness of time; and I most humbly

  beseech your lordship to have a reverend care of your

  health.

  100

  CHIEF JUSTICE Sir John, I sent for you before your

  expedition to Shrewsbury.

  FALSTAFF And’t please your lordship, I hear his

  Majesty is returned with some discomfort from Wales.

  CHIEF JUSTICE I talk not of his Majesty. You would not

  105

  come when I sent for you.

  FALSTAFF And I hear, moreover, his Highness is fallen

  into this same whoreson apoplexy.

  CHIEF JUSTICE Well, God mend him! I pray you let me

  speak with you.

  110

  FALSTAFF This apoplexy, as I take it, is a kind of

  lethargy, and’t please your lordship, a kind of sleeping

  in the blood, a whoreson tingling.

  CHIEF JUSTICE What tell you me of it? Be it as it is.

  FALSTAFF It hath it original from much grief, from

  115

  study, and perturbation of the brain; I have read the

  cause of his effects in Galen, it is a kind of deafness.

  CHIEF JUSTICE I think you are fallen into the disease, for

  you hear not what I say to you.

  FALSTAFF Very well, my lord, very well. Rather, and’t

  120

  please you, it is the disease of not listening, the malady

  of not marking, that I am troubled withal.

  CHIEF JUSTICE To punish you by the heels would

  amend the attention of your ears, and I care not if I do

  become your physician.

  125

  FALSTAFF I am as poor as Job, my lord, but not so

  patient. Your lordship may minister the potion of

  imprisonment to me in respect of poverty; but how I

  should be your patient to follow your prescriptions,

  the wise may make some dram of a scruple, or indeed

  130

  a scruple itself.

  CHIEF JUSTICE I sent for you when there were matters

  against you for your life, to come speak with me.

  FALSTAFF As I was then advised by my learned counsel

  in the laws of this land-service, I did not come.

  135

  CHIEF JUSTICE Well, the truth is, Sir John, you live in

  great infamy.

  FALSTAFF He that buckles himself in my belt cannot

  live in less.

  CHIEF JUSTICE Your means are very slender, and your

  140

  waste is great.

  FALSTAFF I would it were otherwise, I would my means

  were greater and my waist slenderer.

  CHIEF JUSTICE You have misled the youthful Prince.

  FALSTAFF The young Prince hath misled me. I am the

  145

  fellow with the great belly, and he my dog.

  CHIEF JUSTICE Well, I am loath to gall a new-healed

  wound. Your day’s service at Shrewsbury hath a little

  gilded over your night’s exploit on Gad’s Hill. You

  may thank th’unquiet time for your quiet o’er-posting

  150

  that action.

  FALSTAFF My lord! –

  CHIEF JUSTICE But since all is well, keep it so: wake not

  a sleeping wolf.

  FALSTAFF To wake a wolf is as bad as smell a fox.

  155

  CHIEF JUSTICE What! You are as a candle, the better

  part burnt out.

  FALSTAFF A wassail candle, my lord, all tallow – if I did

  say of wax, my growth would approve the truth.

  CHIEF JUSTICE There is not a white hair in your face but

  160

  should have his effect of gravity.

  FALSTAFF His effect of gravy, gravy, gravy.

  CHIEF JUSTICE You follow the young Prince up and

  down, like his ill angel.

  FALSTAFF Not so, my lord, your ill angel is light, but I

  165

  hope he that looks upon me will take me without

  weighing. And yet in some respects, I grant, I cannot

  go. I cannot tell – virtue is of so little regard in these

  costermongers’ times that true valour is turned

  bearherd; pregnancy is made a tapster, and his quick

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  wit wasted in giving reckonings; all the other gifts

  appertinent to man, as the malice of this age shapes

  them, are not worth a gooseberry. You that are old

  consider not the capacities of us that are young; you do

  measure the heat of our livers with the bitterness of

  175

  your galls; and we that are in the vaward of our youth,

  I must confess, are wags too.

  CHIEF JUSTICE Do you set down your name in the scroll

  of youth, that are written down old with all the

  characters of age? Have you not a moist eye, a dry

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