The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works
Page 174
FALSTAFF A rascally slave! I will toss the rogue in a
blanket.
DOLL Do, and thou dar’st for thy heart. And thou dost,
I’ll canvass thee between a pair of sheets.
Enter musicians.
PAGE The music is come, sir.
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FALSTAFF Let them play. Play, sirs! [Music.]
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,
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when wilt thou leave fighting a-days, and foining a-
nights, and begin to patch up thine old body for
heaven?
Enter, behind, the PRINCE and POINS disguised as drawers.
FALSTAFF Peace, good Doll, do not speak like a death’s-
head, do not bid me remember mine end.
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DOLL Sirrah, what humour’s the Prince of?
FALSTAFF A good shallow young fellow; a would have
made a good pantler, a would ha’ chipped bread well.
DOLL They say Poins has a good wit.
FALSTAFF He a good wit? Hang him, baboon! His wit’s
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as thick as Tewkesbury 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
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drinks off candles’ ends for flap-dragons, and rides the
wild mare with the boys, and jumps upon joint-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
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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
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off?
POINS Let’s beat him before his whore.
PRINCE Look whe’er the withered elder hath not his
poll clawed like a parrot.
POINS Is it not strange that desire should so many years
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outlive performance?
FALSTAFF Kiss me, Doll.
PRINCE Saturn and Venus this year in conjunction!
What says th’almanac to that?
POINS And look whether the fiery Trigon his man be
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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.
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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 a-Thursday, shalt have a cap tomorrow.
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A merry song! Come, it grows late, we’ll to bed.
Thou’t forget me when I am gone.
DOLL By my troth, thou’t set me a-weeping and thou
sayst so. Prove that ever I dress myself handsome till
thy return, – Well, hearken a’th’ end.
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FALSTAFF Some sack, Francis.
PRINCE POINS [coming forward] Anon, anon, sir.
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
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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.
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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 [leaning his hand
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upon Doll], 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
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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?
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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.
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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?
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FALSTAFF No abuse, Hal.
POINS No abuse?
FALSTAFF No abuse, Ned, i’th’ world, honest Ned,
none. I dispraised him before the wicked [Turns to the
Prince.] that the wicked might not fall in love with
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thee: 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
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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?
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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
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attends him too.
PRINCE For the women?
FALSTAFF For one of them, she’s in hell already, and
burns poor souls. For th’other, I owe her money, and
whether she be damned for that I know not.
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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.
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HOSTESS All vict’lers 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
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against. [Peto knocks at door.]
HOSTESS Who knocks so loud at door? Look to th’ door
there, Francis.
Enter PETO.
PRINCE Peto, how now, what news?
PETO The King your father is at Westminster,
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And there are twenty weak and wearied posts
Come from the north; and as I came along
I met and overtook a dozen captains,
Bareheaded, sweating, knocking at the taverns,
And asking every one for Sir John Falstaff.
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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.
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Give me my sword and cloak. Falstaff, good night.
Exeunt Prince and Poins.
FALSTAFF Now comes in the sweetest morsel of the
night, and we must hence and leave it unpicked.
Knocking within. Exit Bardolph.
More knocking at the door?
Enter BARDOLPH.
How now, what’s the matter?
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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
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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 ready to burst
– Well, sweet Jack, have a care of thyself.
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FALSTAFF Farewell, farewell.
Exit with Bardolph, Peto, Page and musicians.
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 [at the door] Mistress Tearsheet!
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HOSTESS What’s the matter?
BARDOLPH Bid Mistress Tearsheet come to my master.
HOSTESS O, run Doll, run; run good Doll; come. She
comes blubbered. [to Doll] Yea, will you come, Doll?
Exeunt.
3.1 Enter the KING in his nightgown, with a page.
KING Go call the Earls of Surrey and of Warwick;
But ere they come, bid them o’er-read these letters
And well consider of them. Make good speed.
Exit page.
How many thousand of my poorest subjects
Are at this hour asleep! O sleep, O gentle sleep,
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Nature’s soft nurse, how have I frighted thee,
That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down,
And steep my senses in forgetfulness?
Why rather, sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs,
Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee,
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And husht with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber,
Than in the perfum’d chambers of the great,
Under the canopies of costly state,
And lull’d with sound of sweetest melody?
O thou dull god, why li’st thou with the vile
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In loathsome beds, and leav’st the kingly couch
A watch-case, or a common ’larum-bell?
Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast
Seal up the ship-boy’s eyes, and rock his brains
In cradle of the rude imperious surge,
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And in the visitation of the winds,
Who take the ruffian billows by the top,
Curling their monstrous heads, and hanging them
With deafing clamour in the slippery clouds,
That with the hurly death itself awakes?
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Canst thou, O partial sleep, give thy repose
To the wet sea-boy in an hour so rude,
And in the calmest and most stillest night,
With all appliances and means to boot,
Deny it to a King? Then happy low, lie down!
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Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.
Enter WARWICK and SURREY.
WARWICK Many good morrows to your Majesty!
KING Is it good morrow, lords?
WARWICK ’Tis one o’clock, and past.
KING Why then, good morrow to you all, my lords.
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Have you read o’er the letters that I sent you?
WARWICK We have, my liege.
KING Then you perceive the body of our kingdom
How foul it is, what rank diseases grow,
And with what danger, near the heart of it.
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WARWICK It is but as a body yet distemper’d,
Which to his former strength may be restor’d