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,
45
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
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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 roadway better
55
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.
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PRINCE And to thee.
POINS By this light, I am well spoke on; I can hear it
with mine 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
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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!
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PRINCE And yours, most noble Bardolph!
POINS [to 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
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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
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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?
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PAGE Marry, my lord, Althaea dreamt she was delivered
of a firebrand; and therefore I call him her dream.
PRINCE A crown’s-worth of good interpretation! There
’tis, boy.
POINS O, that this blossom could be kept from cankers!
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Well, there is sixpence to preserve thee.
BARDOLPH And you do not make him be 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
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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
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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 he
writes – [Reads.] John Falstaff, Knight.
POINS Every man must know that, as oft as he has
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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 –
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‘I am the King’s poor cousin, sir’.
PRINCE Nay, they will be kin to us, or they will fetch it
from Japhet. But the letter: – Sir John Falstaff, Knight,
to the son of the King nearest his father, Harry Prince of
Wales, greeting.
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POINS Why, this is a certificate!
PRINCE Peace! I will imitate the honourable Romans in
brevity.
POINS He sure means brevity in breath, short-winded.
PRINCE I commend me to thee, I commend thee, and I leave
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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 mayst, 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
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with my brothers and sisters, and Sir John with all
Europe.
POINS 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.
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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
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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?
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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
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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
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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
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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.
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POINS I warrant you, as common as the way between
Saint Albans and London.
PRINCE How might we see Falstaff bestow himself
tonight in his true colours, and not ourselves be seen?
POINS Put on two leathern jerkins and aprons, and wait
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upon him at his table as drawers.
PRINCE From a god to a bull? A heavy descension! It
was Jove’s case. From a prince to a prentice? A low
transformation, that shall be mine, for in everything
the purpose must weigh with the folly. Follow me,
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Ned. Exeunt.
2.3 Enter NORTHUMBERLAND, LADY NORTHUMBERLAND and LADY PERCY.
NORTHUMBERLAND
I pray thee, loving wife and gentle daughter,
Give even way unto my rough affair
s;
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.
5
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
10
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?
15
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
20
To do brave acts. He was indeed the glass
Wherein the noble youth did dress themselves.
He had no legs that practis’d not his gait;
And speaking thick, which nature made his blemish,
Became the accents of the valiant;
25
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,
30
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
35
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
40
With others than with him! Let them alone.
The Marshal and the Archbishop are strong:
Had my sweet Harry had but half their numbers,
Today might I, hanging on Hotspur’s neck,
Have talk’d of Monmouth’s grave.
NORTHUMBERLAND Beshrew your heart,
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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,
50
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,
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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
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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,
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But many thousand reasons hold me back.
I will resolve for Scotland. There am I,
Till time and vantage crave my company. Exeunt.
2.4 Enter two Drawers, FRANCIS and another.
FRANCIS
What the devil hast thou brought there – apple-johns?
Thou knowest Sir John cannot endure an apple-john.
2 DRAWER Mass, thou sayst 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,
5
‘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.
FRANCIS Why then, cover, and set them down, and see
if thou canst find out Sneak’s noise. Mistress
10
Tearsheet would fain hear some music.
Enter Third Drawer.
3 DRAWER Dispatch! The room where they supped is
The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 172