The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works

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by William Shakespeare


  SHALLOW Shall I prick him, sir?

  FALSTAFF You may; but if he had been a man’s tailor

  he’d ha’ pricked you. Wilt thou make as many holes in

  an enemy’s battle as thou hast done in a woman’s

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  petticoat?

  FEEBLE I will do my good will, sir, you can have no

  more.

  FALSTAFF Well said, good woman’s tailor! Well said,

  courageous Feeble! Thou wilt be as valiant as the

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  wrathful dove, or most magnanimous mouse. Prick

  the woman’s tailor: well, Master Shallow; deep,

  Master Shallow.

  FEEBLE I would Wart might have gone, sir.

  FALSTAFF I would thou wert a man’s tailor, that thou

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  mightst mend him and make him fit to go. I cannot

  put him to a private soldier, that is the leader of so

  many thousands. Let that suffice, most forcible Feeble.

  FEEBLE It shall suffice, sir.

  FALSTAFF I am bound to thee, reverend Feeble. Who is

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  next?

  SHALLOW Peter Bullcalf o’th’ green!

  FALSTAFF Yea, marry, let’s see Bullcalf.

  BULLCALF Here, sir.

  FALSTAFF Fore God, a likely fellow! Come, prick me

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  Bullcalf till he roar again.

  BULLCALF O Lord, good my lord captain –

  FALSTAFF What, dost thou roar before thou art pricked?

  BULLCALF O Lord, sir, I am a diseased man.

  FALSTAFF What disease hast thou?

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  BULLCALF A whoreson cold, sir, a cough, sir, which I

  caught with ringing in the King’s affairs upon his

  coronation day, sir.

  FALSTAFF Come, thou shalt go to the wars in a gown;

  we will have away thy cold, and I will take such order

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  that thy friends shall ring for thee. Is here all?

  SHALLOW Here is two more called than your number;

  you must have but four here, sir: and so, I pray you, go

  in with me to dinner.

  FALSTAFF Come, I will go drink with you, but I cannot

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  tarry dinner. I am glad to see you, by my troth, Master

  Shallow.

  SHALLOW O, Sir John, do you remember since we lay all

  night in the Windmill in Saint George’s Field?

  FALSTAFF No more of that, good Master Shallow, no

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  more of that.

  SHALLOW Ha, ’twas a merry night! And is Jane

  Nightwork alive?

  FALSTAFF She lives, Master Shallow.

  SHALLOW She never could away with me.

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  FALSTAFF Never, never; she would always say she could

  not abide Master Shallow.

  SHALLOW By the mass, I could anger her to th’heart.

  She was then a bona-roba. Doth she hold her own

  well?

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  FALSTAFF Old, old, Master Shallow.

  SHALLOW Nay, she must be old, she cannot choose but

  be old, certain she’s old, and had Robin Nightwork by

  old Nightwork before I came to Clement’s Inn.

  SILENCE That’s fifty-five year ago.

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  SHALLOW Ha, cousin Silence, that thou hadst seen that

  that this knight and I have seen! Ha, Sir John, said I

  well?

  FALSTAFF We have heard the chimes at midnight,

  Master Shallow.

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  SHALLOW That we have, that we have, that we have; in

  faith, Sir John, we have; our watchword was ‘Hem,

  boys!’ – Come, let’s to dinner; come, let’s to dinner.

  Jesus, the days that we have seen! Come, come.

  Exeunt Falstaff, Shallow and Silence.

  BULLCALF Good Master Corporate Bardolph, stand my

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  friend; and here’s four Harry ten shillings in French

  crowns for you. In very truth, sir, I had as lief be

  hanged, sir, as go. And yet for mine own part, sir, I do

  not care; but rather because I am unwilling, and, for

  mine own part, have a desire to stay with my friends;

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  else, sir, I did not care, for mine own part, so much.

  BARDOLPH Go to, stand aside.

  MOULDY And, good Master Corporal Captain, for my

  old dame’s sake stand my friend. She has nobody to do

  anything about her when I am gone, and she is old and

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  cannot help herself. You shall have forty, sir.

  BARDOLPH Go to, stand aside.

  FEEBLE By my troth I care not, a man can die but once,

  we owe God a death. I’ll ne’er bear a base mind – and’t

  be my destiny, so; and’t be not, so. No man’s too good

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  to serve’s prince, and let it go which way it will, he that

  dies this year is quit for the next.

  BARDOLPH Well said, th’art a good fellow.

  FEEBLE Faith, I’ll bear no base mind.

  Enter FALSTAFF and the Justices.

  FALSTAFF Come, sir, which men shall I have?

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  SHALLOW Four of which you please.

  BARDOLPH Sir, a word with you. I have three pound to

  free Mouldy and Bullcalf.

  FALSTAFF Go to, well.

  SHALLOW Come, Sir John, which four will you have?

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  FALSTAFF Do you choose for me.

  SHALLOW Marry then, Mouldy, Bullcalf, Feeble, and

  Shadow.

  FALSTAFF Mouldy and Bullcalf: for you, Mouldy, stay

  at home till you are past service; and for your part,

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  Bullcalf, grow till you come unto it. I will none of you.

  SHALLOW Sir John, Sir John, do not yourself wrong,

  they are your likeliest men, and I would have you

  served with the best.

  FALSTAFF Will you tell me, Master Shallow, how to

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  choose a man? Care I for the limb, the thews, the

  stature, bulk, and big assemblance of a man? Give me

  the spirit, Master Shallow. Here’s Wart; you see what

  a ragged appearance it is – a shall charge you, and

  discharge you, with the motion of a pewterer’s

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  hammer, come off and on swifter than he that gibbets

  on the brewer’s bucket. And this same half-faced

  fellow Shadow; give me this man, he presents no mark

  to the enemy – the foeman may with as great aim level

  at the edge of a penknife. And for a retreat, how

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  swiftly will this Feeble the woman’s tailor run off! O,

  give me the spare men, and spare me the great ones.

  Put me a caliver into Wart’s hand, Bardolph.

  BARDOLPH Hold, Wart, traverse – thas! thas! thas!

  FALSTAFF Come, manage me your caliver. So, very well!

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  Go to, very good! Exceeding good! O, give me always

  a little, lean, old, chopt, bald shot. Well said, i’ faith,

  Wart, th’art a good scab. Hold, there’s a tester for thee.

  SHALLOW He is not his craft’s master, he doth not do it

  right. I remember at Mile-End Green, when I lay at

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  Clement’s Inn – I was then Sir Dagonet in Arthur’s

  show – there was a little quiver fellow, and a would

  manage you his piece thus, and a would about, and

  about, and come you in, and come you in. ‘Rah, tah,

  tah’, would a say; ‘Bounce’, would a say; and away

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  again would a go, and again would a come: I shall ne’er

  see such a fellow.

  FALSTAFF These fellows will do well, Master Shallow.

  God keep you, Master Silence: I will not use many

  words with you. Fare you well, gentlemen both; I

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  thank you. I must a dozen mile tonight. Bardolph, give

  the soldiers coats.

  SHALLOW Sir John, the Lord bless you! God prosper

  your affairs! God send us peace! At your return, visit

  our house, let our old acquaintance be renewed.

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  Peradventure I will with ye to the court.

  FALSTAFF Fore God, I would you would, Master

  Shallow.

  SHALLOW Go to, I have spoke at a word. God keep you!

  FALSTAFF Fare you well, gentle gentlemen.

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  Exeunt Justices.

  On Bardolph, lead the men away.

  Exeunt Bardolph and recruits.

  As I return, I will fetch off these justices. I do see the

  bottom of Justice Shallow. Lord, Lord, how subject we

  old men are to this vice of lying! This same starved

  justice hath done nothing but prate to me of the

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  wildness of his youth, and the feats he hath done about

  Turnbull Street, and every third word a lie, duer paid

  to the hearer than the Turk’s tribute. I do remember

  him at Clement’s Inn, like a man made after supper of

  a cheese-paring. When a was naked, he was for all the

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  world like a forked radish, with a head fantastically

  carved upon it with a knife. A was so forlorn, that his

  dimensions to any thick sight were invisible; a was the

  very genius of famine, yet lecherous as a monkey, and

  the whores called him mandrake. A came ever in the

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  rearward of the fashion, and sung those tunes to the

  overscutched housewives that he heard the carmen

  whistle, and sware they were his fancies or his good-

  nights. And now is this Vice’s dagger become a squire,

  and talks as familiarly of John a Gaunt as if he had

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  been sworn brother to him, and I’ll be sworn a ne’er

  saw him but once in the tilt-yard, and then he burst his

  head for crowding among the marshal’s men. I saw it

  and told John a Gaunt he beat his own name, for you

  might have thrust him and all his apparel into an eel-

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  skin – the case of a treble hautboy was a mansion for

  him, a court; and now has he land and beefs. Well, I’ll

  be acquainted with him if I return, and’t shall go hard

  but I’ll make him a philosopher’s two stones to me. If

  the young dace be a bait for the old pike, I see no

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  reason in the law of nature but I may snap at him: let

  time shape, and there an end. Exit.

  4.1 Enter the Archbishop, MOWBRAY, HASTINGS and others.

  ARCHBISHOP What is this forest call’d?

  HASTINGS

  ’Tis Gaultree Forest, and’t shall please your Grace.

  ARCHBISHOP

  Here stand, my lords, and send discoverers forth

  To know the numbers of our enemies.

  HASTINGS We have sent forth already.

  ARCHBISHOP ’Tis well done.

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  My friends and brethren in these great affairs,

  I must acquaint you that I have receiv’d

  New-dated letters from Northumberland,

  Their cold intent, tenor, and substance, thus:

  Here doth he wish his person, with such powers

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  As might hold sortance with his quality,

  The which he could not levy; whereupon

  He is retir’d to ripe his growing fortunes

  To Scotland, and concludes in hearty prayers

  That your attempts may overlive the hazard

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  And fearful meeting of their opposite.

  MOWBRAY

  Thus do the hopes we have in him touch ground

  And dash themselves to pieces.

  Enter Messenger.

  HASTINGS Now, what news?

  MESSENGER West of this forest, scarcely off a mile,

  In goodly form comes on the enemy,

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  And, by the ground they hide, I judge their number

  Upon or near the rate of thirty thousand.

  MOWBRAY The just proportion that we gave them out.

  Let us sway on and face them in the field.

  Enter WESTMORELAND.

  ARCHBISHOP

  What well-appointed leader fronts us here?

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  MOWBRAY I think it is my Lord of Westmoreland.

  WESTMORELAND

  Health and fair greeting from our general,

 

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