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
305
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
325
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.
5
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
10
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
15
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,
20
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?
25
MOWBRAY I think it is my Lord of Westmoreland.
WESTMORELAND
Health and fair greeting from our general,
The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 176