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Henry IV, Part 2

Page 6

by William Shakespeare


  GOWER The king, my lord, and Henry Prince of Wales

  Are near at hand: the rest the paper tells.

  Gives a paper

  FALSTAFF As I am a gentleman.

  HOSTESS QUICKLY Nay, you said so before.

  FALSTAFF As I am a gentleman. Come, no more words of it.

  HOSTESS QUICKLY By this heavenly ground I tread on, I must be

  fain to pawn both my plate and the tapestry of my dining

  chambers.

  FALSTAFF 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 water-work is worth a thousand of

  these bed-hangings and these fly-bitten tapestries. Let it be

  ten pound, if thou canst. Come, if it were not for thy

  humours, there is not a better wench in England. Go, wash

  thy face, and draw thy action. Come, thou must not be in this

  humour with me. Come, I know thou wast set on to this.

  HOSTESS QUICKLY Prithee, Sir John, let it be but twenty nobles. I

  loath to pawn my plate, in good earnest, la.

  FALSTAFF Let it alone. I’ll make other shift. You’ll be a fool still.

  HOSTESS QUICKLY Well, you shall have it, although I pawn my

  gown. I hope you’ll come to supper. You’ll pay me all

  together?

  FALSTAFF Will I live?— Go, with her, with her—

  To Bardolph

  hook on, hook on.

  HOSTESS QUICKLY Will you have Doll Tearsheet meet you at

  supper?

  FALSTAFF No more words. Let’s have her.

  [Exeunt Quickly, Bardolph, Fang and others]

  LORD CHIEF JUSTICE I have heard bitter news.

  FALSTAFF What’s the news, my good lord?

  LORD CHIEF JUSTICE Where lay the king last night?

  GOWER At Basingstoke, my lord.

  FALSTAFF I hope, my lord, all’s well. What is the news, my lord?

  LORD CHIEF JUSTICE 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.

  FALSTAFF Comes the king back from Wales, my noble lord?

  LORD CHIEF JUSTICE You shall have letters of me presently. Come,

  go along with me, good Master Gower.

  FALSTAFF My lord!

  LORD CHIEF JUSTICE What’s the matter?

  FALSTAFF 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.

  FALSTAFF Will you sup with me, Master Gower?

  LORD CHIEF JUSTICE What foolish master taught you these

  manners, Sir John?

  FALSTAFF Master Gower, if they become me not, he was a fool

  that taught them me. 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

  Act 2 Scene 2

  running scene 5

  Location: in London but unspecified—either the prince’s apartments or the same street location as the previous scene

  Enter Prince Henry and Poins

  PRINCE HENRY Trust me, I am exceeding weary.

  POINS Is it come to that? I had thought weariness durst not

  have attached one of so high blood.

  PRINCE HENRY It doth 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 HENRY Belike then my appetite was not princely got, for,

  in 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 one other

  for use? But that the tennis-court-keeper knows better than

  I, for it is a low ebb of linen with thee when thou kept’st 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 HENRY Shall I tell thee one thing, Poins?

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

  PRINCE HENRY 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 HENRY Why, 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 HENRY Thou think’st 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 HENRY What wouldst thou think of me, if I should weep?

  POINS I would think thee a most princely hypocrite.

  PRINCE HENRY 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

  engraffed to Falstaff.

  PRINCE HENRY And to thee.

  POINS Nay, I am well spoken of. 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. Look, look,

  here comes Bardolph.

  PRINCE HENRY And the boy that I gave Falstaff. He had him from

  me Christian, and see if the fat villain have not transformed

  him ape.

  Enter Bardolph [and Falstaff’s Page]

  BARDOLPH Save your grace.

  PRINCE HENRY And yours, most noble Bardolph.

  POINS Come, you pernicious ass, you bashful

  To Bardolph

  fool, must you be blushing? Wherefore blush you now? What

  a maidenly man-at-arms are you become! Is it such a matter

  to get a pottle-pot’s maidenhead?

  PAGE He called me even 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 peeped

  through.

  PRINCE HENRY Hath not the boy profited?

  To Poins

&nb
sp; BARDOLPH Away, you whoreson upright rabbit, away!

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

  PRINCE HENRY Instruct us, boy. What dream, boy?

  PAGE Marry, my lord, Althaea dreamed she was delivered

  of a fire-brand, and therefore I call him her dream.

  PRINCE HENRY A crown’s worth of good interpretation.— There

  it is, boy.

  Gives Page money

  POINS O, that this good blossom could be kept

  from cankers!— Well, there is sixpence to preserve

  thee.

  Gives Page money

  BARDOLPH If you do not make him be hanged among you, the

  gallows shall be wronged.

  PRINCE HENRY 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.

  Gives a letter

  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

  that moves not him: though that be sick, it dies not.

  PRINCE HENRY I do allow this wen to be as familiar with me as my

  dog, and he holds his place, for look you he writes.

  POINS

  (Letter) Reads

  ‘John Falstaff, knight.’—Every man must know that, as oft

  as he hath occasion to name himself, even like those that are

  kin to the king, for they never prick their finger but they say,

  ‘There is 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 HENRY Nay, they will be kin to us, but they will fetch it

  from Japhet. But to the letter: ‘Sir John Falstaff,

  Reads

  knight, to the son of the king, nearest his father, Harry

  Prince of Wales, greeting.’

  POINS Why, this is a certificate.

  PRINCE HENRY Peace! ‘I will imitate the honourable

  Reads

  Romans in brevity.’

  POINS Sure he means brevity in breath,

  Takes the letter and reads

  short-winded. ‘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 sister, and Sir John with all Europe.’ My

  lord, I will steep this letter in sack and make him eat it.

  PRINCE HENRY That’s to make him eat twenty of his words. But

  do you use me thus, Ned? Must I marry your sister?

  POINS May the wench have no worse fortune! But I never

  said so.

  PRINCE HENRY 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 Yes, my lord.

  PRINCE HENRY Where sups he? Doth the old boar feed in the old

  frank?

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

  PRINCE HENRY What company?

  PAGE Ephesians, my lord, of the old church.

  PRINCE HENRY Sup any women with him?

  PAGE None, my lord, but old Mistress Quickly and Mistress

  Doll Tearsheet.

  PRINCE HENRY What pagan may that be?

  PAGE A proper gentlewoman, sir, and a kinswoman of my

  master’s.

  PRINCE HENRY Even such kin as the parish heifers are to the town

  bull.— Shall we steal upon them, Ned, at supper?

  To Poins

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

  PRINCE HENRY Sirrah, you boy, and Bardolph, no word to your

  master that I am yet in town. There’s for your

  Gives money

  silence.

  BARDOLPH I have no tongue, sir.

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

  PRINCE HENRY Fare ye well. Go.

  [Exeunt Bardolph and Page]

  This Doll Tearsheet should be some road.

  POINS I warrant you, as common as the way between St

  Albans and London.

  PRINCE HENRY 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 HENRY 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

  Act 2 Scene 3

  running scene 6

  Location: Warkworth Castle, Northumberland

  Enter Northumberland and his Lady, and Harry Percy’s Lady

  NORTHUMBERLAND I prithee, loving wife and gentle daughter,

  Give an 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 heaven’s sake, go not to these wars!

  The time was, father, when you broke your word,

  When you were more endeared to it than now,

  When your own Percy, when my heart-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, may heavenly glory 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,

  Fa
ir 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 armèd 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

  Act 2 Scene 4

  running scene 7

  Location: Quickly’s tavern in Eastcheap, London

  Enter two Drawers

  FIRST DRAWER What hast thou brought there? Apple-johns?

  Thou know’st Sir John cannot endure an apple-john.

  SECOND DRAWER Thou say’st 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 Why then, cover and set them down, and see if

  thou canst find out Sneak’s noise; Mistress Tearsheet would

  fain have some music.

  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 Then here will be old Utis: it will be an excellent

  stratagem.

  SECOND DRAWER I’ll see if I can find out Sneak.

 

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