The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works

by William Shakespeare

  SIR JOHN As I am a gentleman!

  MISTRESS QUICKLY Faith, you said so before.

  SIR JOHN As I am a gentleman! Come, no more words of it.

  MISTRESS QUICKLY By this heavenly ground I tread on, I must be fain to pawn both my plate and the tapestry of my dining-chambers.

  SIR JOHN Glasses, glasses, is the only drinking; and for thy walls, a pretty slight drollery, or the story of the Prodigal, or the German hunting in waterwork, is worth a thousand of these bed-hangers and these fly-bitten tapestries. Let it be ten pound if thou canst. Come, an ’twere not for thy humours, there’s not a better wench in England. Go, wash thy face, and draw the action. Come, thou must not be in this humour with me. Dost not know me? Come, I know thou wast set on to this.

  MISTRESS QUICKLY Pray thee, Sir John, let it be but twenty nobles. I’faith, I am loath to pawn my plate, so God save me, la!

  SIR JOHN Let it alone; I’ll make other shift. You’ll be a fool still.

  MISTRESS QUICKLY Well, you shall have it, though I pawn my gown. I hope you’ll come to supper. You’ll pay me altogether?

  SIR JOHN Will I live? ⌈To Bardolph and the Page⌉ Go with her, with her. Hook on, hook on!

  MISTRESS QUICKLY, Will you have Doll Tearsheet meet you at supper?

  SIR JOHN No more words; let’s have her.

  Exeunt Mistress Quickly, Bardolph, the Page, Fang and Snare

  LORD CHIEF JUSTICE (to Gower) I have heard better news.

  SIR JOHN What’s the news, my good lord?

  LORD CHIEF JUSTICE (to Gower) Where lay the King tonight?

  GOWER At Basingstoke, my lord.

  SIR JOHN (to Lord Chief Justice) I hope, my lord, all’s well.

  What is the news, my lord?

  LORD CHIEF JUSTICE (to Gower) Come all his forces back?

  GOWER

  No; fifteen hundred foot, five hundred horse,

  Are marched up to my lord of Lancaster

  Against Northumberland and the Archbishop.

  SIR JOHN (to Lord Chief Justice)

  Comes the King back from Wales, my noble lord?

  LORD CHIEF JUSTICE (to Gower)

  You shall have letters of me presently.

  Come, go along with me, good Master Gower.

  They are going

  SIR JOHN My lord!

  LORD CHIEF JUSTICE What’s the matter?

  SIR JOHN Master Gower, shall I entreat you with me to dinner?

  GOWER I must wait upon my good lord here, I thank you, good Sir John.

  LORD CHIEF JUSTICE Sir John, you loiter here too long, being you are to take soldiers up in counties as you go.

  SIR JOHN Will you sup with me, Master Gower?

  LORD CHIEF JUSTICE What foolish master taught you these manners, Sir John?

  SIR JOHN Master Gower, if they become me not, he was a fool that taught them me. (To Lord Chief Justice) This is the right fencing grace, my lord—tap for tap, and so part fair.

  LORD CHIEF JUSTICE Now the Lord lighten thee; thou art a great fool. Exeunt ⌈Lord Chief Justice and Gower at one door, Sir John at another⌉

  2.2 Enter Prince Harry and Poins

  PRINCE HARRY Before God, I am exceeding weary.

  POINS Is’t come to that? I had thought weariness durst not have attached one of so high blood.

  PRINCE HARRY Faith, it does me, though it discolours the complexion of my greatness to acknowledge it. Doth it not show vilely in me to desire small beer?

  POINS Why, a prince should not be so loosely studied as to remember so weak a composition.

  PRINCE HARRY Belike then my appetite was not princely got; for, by my troth, I do now remember the poor creature small beer. But indeed, these humble considerations make me out of love with my greatness. What a disgrace is it to me to remember thy name! Or to know thy face tomorrow! Or to take note how many pair of silk stockings thou hast—videlicet these, and those that were thy peach-coloured ones! Or to bear the inventory of thy shirts—as one for superfluity, and another for use. But that the tennis-court keeper knows better than I, for it is a low ebb of linen with thee when thou keepest not racket there; as thou hast not done a great while, because the rest of thy low countries have made a shift to eat up thy holland.

  POINS How ill it follows, after you have laboured so hard, you should talk so idly! Tell me, how many good young princes would do so, their fathers lying so sick as yours is?

  PRINCE HARRY Shall I tell thee one thing, Poins?

  POINS Yes, faith, and let it be an excellent good thing.

  PRINCE HARRY It shall serve among wits of no higher breeding than thine.

  POINS Go to, I stand the push of your one thing that you’ll tell.

  PRINCE HARRY Marry, I tell thee, it is not meet that I should be sad now my father is sick; albeit I could tell to thee, as to one it pleases me, for fault of a better, to call my friend, I could be sad; and sad indeed too.

  POINS Very hardly, upon such a subject.

  PRINCE HARRY 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, 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 HARRY What wouldst thou think of me if I should weep?

  POINS I would think thee a most princely hypocrite.

  PRINCE HARRY 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 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 engrafted to Falstaff.

  PRINCE HARRY 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 cannot help.

  Enter Bardolph ⌈followed by⌉ the Page

  By the mass, here comes Bardolph.

  PRINCE HARRY 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!

  PRINCE HARRY 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 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 red petticoat, and so peeped through.

  PRINCE HARRY (to Poins) Has not the boy profited?

  BARDOLPH (to the Page) Away, you whoreson upright rabbit, away!

  PAGE Away, you rascally Althea’s dream, away!

  PRINCE HARRY Instruct us, boy; what dream, boy?

  PAGE Marry, my lord, Althea dreamt she was delivered of a firebrand, and therefore I call him her dream.

  PRINCE HARRY (giving him money) A crown‘s-worth of good interpretation! There ’tis, boy.

  POINS O, that this good blossom could be kept from cankers! (Giving the Page money) Well, there is sixpence to preserve thee.

  BARDOLPH An you do not make him hanged among you, the gallows shall be wronged.

  PRINCE HARRY And how doth thy master, Bardolph?

  BARDOLPH Well, my good lord. He heard of your grace’s 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.

  Prince Harry reads the letter

  POINS Marry, the immortal part needs a physician, but that moves not him. Though that be sick, it dies not.

  PRINCE HARRY 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.

  ⌈He gives Poins the letter⌉

  POINS ‘John Falstaff, knight’.—Every man must know that, as oft as he has 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: ‘I am the King’s poor cousin, sir.’

  PRINCE HARRY Nay, they will be kin to us, or they will fetch it from Japhet. (Taking the letter) But the letter. ’Sir John Falstaff, knight, to the son of the King nearest his father, Harry Prince of Wales, greeting.’

  POINS Why, this is a certificate!

  PRINCE HARRY Peace!—‘I will imitate the honourable Romans in brevity.’

  POINS (taking the letter) Sure he means brevity in breath, short winded. (Reads) ’I commend me to thee, I commend thee, and I leave 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 with my brothers and sisters, and Sir John with all Europe.’

  My lord, I’ll steep this letter in sack and make him eat it.

  PRINCE HARRY That’s to make him eat twenty of his words. 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 HARRY Well, thus we play the fools with the time, and the spirits of the wise sit in the clouds and mock us. (To Bardolph) Is your master here in London?

  BARDOLPH Yea, my lord.

  PRINCE HARRY Where sups he? Doth the old boar feed in the old frank?

  BARDOLPH At the old place, my lord, in Eastcheap.

  PRINCE HARRY What company?

  PAGE Ephesians, my lord, of the old church.

  PRINCE HARRY Sup any women with him?

  PAGE None, my lord, but old Mistress Quickly and Mistress Doll Tearsheet.

  PRINCE HARRY What pagan may that be?

  PAGE A proper gentlewoman, sir, and a kinswoman of my master’s.

  PRINCE HARRY Even such kin as the parish heifers are to the town bull. Shall we steal upon them, Ned, at supper?

  POINS I am your shadow, my lord; I’ll follow you.

  PRINCE HARRY Sirrah, you, boy, and Bardolph, no word to your master that I am yet come to town. (Giving money) There’s for your silence.

  BARDOLPH I have no tongue, sir.

  PAGE And for mine, sir, I will govern it.

  PRINCE HARRY Fare you well; go.

  Exeunt Bardolph and the Page

  This Doll Tearsheet should be some road.

  POINS I warrant you, as common as the way between Saint Albans and London.

  PRINCE HARRY 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 upon him at his table like drawers.

  PRINCE HARRY From a god to a bull—a heavy declension—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, Ned.

  Exeunt

  2.3 Enter the Earl of Northumberland, Lady Northumberland, and Lady Percy

  NORTHUMBERLAND

  I pray thee, loving wife and gentle daughter,

  Give even way unto my rough affairs.

  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.

  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

  When you were more endeared 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?

  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

  To do brave acts. He was indeed the glass

  Wherein the noble youth did dress themselves.

  He had no legs that practised not his gait;

  And speaking thick, which nature made his blemish,

  Became the accents of the valiant;

  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,

  He was the mark and glass, copy and book,

  That fashioned 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

  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

  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 talked of Monmouth’s grave.

  NORTHUMBERLAND Beshrew your heart,

  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,

  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,

  First let them try themselves. So did your son.

  He was so suffered. 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

  For recordation to my noble husband.

  NORTHUMBERLAND

  Come, come, go in with me. ’Tis with my mind

  As with the tide swelled up unto his height,

  That makes a still stand, running neither way.

  Fain would I go to meet the Archbishop,

  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 ⌈A table and chairs set forth.⌉ Enter a Drawer ⌈With wind⌉ and another Drawer ⌈With a dish of apple-johns⌉

  ⌈FIRST DRAWER⌉ What the devil hast thou brought there—apple-johns? Thou knowest Sir John cannot endure an apple-john.

  ⌈SECOND 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 ‘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.

  ⌈FIRST DRAWER⌉ W
hy then, cover, and set them down; and see if thou canst find out Sneak’s noise. Mistress Tearsheet would fain hear some music.

  ⌈Exit the Second Drawer⌉

  ⌈The First Drawer covers the table.⌉

  ⌈Enter the Second Drawer⌉

  ⌈SECOND DRAWER⌉ Sirrah, here will be the Prince and Master Poins anon, and they will put on two of our jerkins and aprons, and Sir John must not know of it. Bardolph hath brought word.

  ⌈FIRST DRAWER⌉ By the mass, here will be old utis! It will be an excellent stratagem.

  ⌈SECOND DRAWER⌉ I’ll see if I can find out Sneak. Exeunt Enter Mistress Quickly and Doll Tearsheet, drunk

  MISTRESS QUICKLY I‘faith, sweetheart, methinks now you are in an excellent good temperality. Your pulsidge beats as extraordinarily as heart would desire, and your colour, I warrant you, is as red as any rose, in good truth, la; but i’faith, you have drunk too much canaries, and that’s a marvellous searching wine, and it perfumes the blood ere we can say ‘What’s this?’ How do you now?

  DOLL TEARSHEET Better than I was.—Hem!

  MISTRESS QUICKLY Why, that’s well said! A good heart’s worth gold.

  Enter Sir John Falstaff

  Lo, here comes Sir John.

  SIR JOHN (sings) ‘When Arthur first in court’—⌈Calls⌉ Empty the jordan!—(Sings) ‘And was a worthy king’—How now, Mistress Doll?

  MISTRESS QUICKLY Sick of a qualm, yea, good faith.

  SIR JOHN So is all her sect; an they be once in a calm, they are sick.

  DOLL TEARSHEET A pox damn you, you muddy rascal! Is that all the comfort you give me?

  SIR JOHN You make fat rascals, Mistress Doll.

  DOLL TEARSHEET I make them? Gluttony and diseases make them; I make them not.

  SIR JOHN If the cook help to make the gluttony, you help to make the diseases, Doll. We catch of you, Doll, we catch of you; grant that, my poor virtue, grant that.

  DOLL TEARSHEET Yea, Jesu, our chains and our jewels.

  SIR JOHN ’Your brooches, pearls, and ouches’—for to serve bravely is to come halting off, you know; to come off the breach with his pike bent bravely, and to surgery bravely; to venture upon the charged chambers bravely.