Book Read Free

Henry IV, Part 2

Page 8

by William Shakespeare


  HOSTESS QUICKLY All victuallers do so. What is a joint of mutton

  or two in a whole Lent?

  PRINCE HENRY You, gentlewoman—

  To Doll

  DOLL TEARSHEET What says your grace?

  FALSTAFF His grace says that which his flesh

  rebels against.

  Knocking within

  HOSTESS QUICKLY Who knocks so loud at door? Look to the door

  there, Francis.

  Enter Peto

  PRINCE HENRY Peto, how now? What news?

  PETO The king your father is at Westminster,

  And there are twenty weak and wearied posts

  Come from the north, and as I came along,

  I met and overtook a dozen captains,

  Bare-headed, sweating, knocking at the taverns,

  And asking every one for Sir John Falstaff.

  PRINCE HENRY By heaven, Poins, I feel me much to blame,

  So idly to profane 332 profane i.e. misuse the precious time,

  When tempest of commotion, like the south

  Borne with black vapour, doth begin to melt

  And drop upon our bare unarmèd heads.—

  Give me my sword and cloak.— Falstaff, goodnight.

  Exeunt [Prince Henry, Poins and Peto]

  FALSTAFF Now comes in the sweetest morsel of the night, and

  we must hence and leave it unpicked. More knocking at the

  door? How now? What’s the matter?

  Knocking within

  Bardolph goes to the door

  BARDOLPH You must away to court, sir, presently.

  A dozen captains stay at door for you.

  FALSTAFF Pay the musicians, sirrah.— Farewell,

  To the Page

  hostess.— Farewell, Doll. You see, my good wenches, how

  men of merit are sought after. The 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 TEARSHEET I cannot speak. If my heart be not ready to

  burst—well, sweet Jack, have a care of thyself.

  FALSTAFF Farewell, farewell.

  Exeunt [Falstaff, Bardolph and Page]

  HOSTESS QUICKLY 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 Mistress Tearsheet!

  Within

  HOSTESS QUICKLY What’s the matter?

  BARDOLPH Bid Mistress Tearsheet come to my master.

  Within

  HOSTESS QUICKLY O, run, Doll, run. Run, good Doll!

  Exeunt

  Act 3 Scene 1

  running scene 8

  Location: the royal court

  Enter the King, with a Page

  KING HENRY IV Go call the Earls of Surrey and of

  Warwick.

  Gives letters

  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,

  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

  And hushed with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber,

  Than in the perfumed chambers of the great,

  Under the canopies of costly state,

  And lulled with sounds of sweetest melody?

  O thou dull god, why liest thou with the vile

  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

  And in the visitation of the winds,

  Who take the ruffian billows by the top,

  Curling their monstrous heads and hanging them

  With deaf’ning clamours in the slipp’ry clouds,

  That, with the hurly, death itself awakes?

  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!

  Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.

  Enter Warwick and Surrey

  WARWICK Many good morrows to your majesty!

  KING HENRY IV Is it good morrow, lords?

  WARWICK ’Tis one o’clock, and past.

  KING HENRY IV Why then, good morrow to you all, my lords.

  Have you read o’er the letters that I sent you?

  WARWICK We have, my liege.

  KING HENRY IV 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?

  WARWICK It is but as a body yet distempered,

  Which to his former strength may be restored

  With good advice and little medicine:

  My lord Northumberland will soon be cooled.

  KING HENRY IV O, heaven! That one might read the book of fate,

  And see the revolution of the times

  Make mountains level, and the continent,

  Weary of solid firmness, melt itself

  Into the sea. And other times, to see

  The beachy girdle of the ocean

  Too wide for Neptune’s hips; how chance’s mocks

  And changes fill the cup of alteration

  With divers liquors! ’Tis not ten years gone

  Since Richard and Northumberland, great friends,

  Did feast together, and in two years after

  Were they at wars. It is but eight years since

  This Percy was the man nearest my soul,

  Who like a brother toiled in my affairs

  And laid his love and life under my foot,

  Yea, for my sake, even to the eyes of Richard

  Gave him defiance. But which of you was by—

  You, cousin Neville, as I may remember—

  To Warwick

  When Richard, with his eye brimful of tears,

  Then checked and rated by Northumberland,

  Did speak these words, now proved a prophecy?

  ‘Northumberland, thou ladder by the which

  My cousin Bullingbrook ascends my throne’ —

  Though then, heaven knows, I had no such intent,

  But that necessity so bowed the state

  That I and greatness were compelled to kiss—

  ‘The time shall come’, thus did he follow it,

  ‘The time will come that foul sin, gathering head,

  Shall break into corruption.’ So went on,

  Foretelling this same time’s condition

  And the division of our amity.

  WARWICK There is a history in all men’s lives,

  Figuring the nature of the times deceased,

  The which observed, a man may prophesy,

  With a near aim, of the main chance of things

  As yet not come to life, which in their seeds

  And weak beginnings lie intreasurèd.

  Such things become the hatch and brood of time;

  And by the necessary form of this,

  King Richard might create a perfect guess

  That great Northumberland, then false to him,

  Would of that seed grow to a greater falseness,

  Which should not find a ground to root upon,

  Unless on you.

  KING HENRY IV Are these things then necessities?

  Then let us meet them
like necessities;

  And that same word even now cries out on us.

  They say the bishop and Northumberland

  Are fifty thousand strong.

  WARWICK It cannot be, my lord.

  Rumour doth double, like the voice and echo,

  The numbers of the feared. Please it your grace

  To go to bed. Upon my life, my lord,

  The powers that you already have sent forth

  Shall bring this prize in very easily.

  To comfort you the more, I have received

  A certain instance that Glendower is dead.

  Your majesty hath been this fortnight ill,

  And these unseasoned hours perforce must add

  Unto your sickness.

  KING HENRY IV I will take your counsel.

  And were these inward wars once out of hand,

  We would, dear lords, unto the Holy Land.

  Exeunt

  Act 3 Scene 2

  running scene 9

  Enter Shallow and Silence, with Mouldy, Shadow, Wart, Feeble, Bullcalf [and Servants]

  SHALLOW Come on, come on, come on. Give me your hand,

  sir; give me your hand, sir. An early stirrer, by the rood ! And

  how doth my good cousin Silence?

  SILENCE Good morrow, good cousin Shallow.

  SHALLOW And how doth my cousin, your bedfellow ? And your

  fairest daughter and mine, my goddaughter Ellen?

  SILENCE Alas, a black ouzel, cousin Shallow!

  SHALLOW By yea and nay, sir. I dare say my cousin William is

  become a good scholar: he is at Oxford still, is he not?

  SILENCE Indeed, sir, to my cost.

  SHALLOW He must then to the Inns Inns of Court of Court shortly. I was

  once of Clement’s ’s Inn, where I think they will talk of mad

  Shallow yet.

  SILENCE You were called ‘lusty Shallow’ then, cousin.

  SHALLOW I was called anything, and I would have done

  anything indeed too, and roundly too. There was I, and little

  John Doit of Staffordshire, and black George Bare, and

  Francis Pickbone and Will Squele a Cotswold , man. You had

  not four such swinge-bucklers in all the Inns of Court again.

  And I may say to you, we knew where the bona-robas were

  and had the best of them all at commandment. Then was

  Jack Falstaff, now Sir John, a boy, and page to Thomas

  Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk.

  SILENCE This Sir John, cousin, that comes hither anon about

  soldiers?

  SHALLOW The same Sir John, the very same. I saw him break

  Scoggin’s head at the court-gate , when he was a crack not

  thus high. And the very same day did I fight with one

  Sampson Stockfish , a fruiterer, behind Gray’s Inn . O, the

  mad days that I have spent! And to see how many of mine

  old acquaintance are dead!

  SILENCE We shall all follow, cousin.

  SHALLOW Certain, ’tis certain, very sure, very sure: death is

  certain to all, all shall die. How a good yoke of bullocks at

  Stamford Fair?

  SILENCE Truly, cousin, I was not there.

  SHALLOW Death is certain. Is old Double of your town living

  yet?

  SILENCE Dead, sir.

  SHALLOW Dead? See, see, he drew a good bow , and dead? He

  shot a fine shoot. John of Gaunt loved him well, and betted

  much money on his head. Dead? He would have clapped in

  the clout at twelvescore, and carried you a forehand shaft at

  fourteen and fourteen and a half , that it would have done a

  man’s heart good to see. How a score of ewes now?

  SILENCE Thereafter as they be : a score of good ewes may be

  worth ten pounds.

  SHALLOW And is old Double dead?

  Enter Bardolph and his Boy [Falstaff’s Page]

  SILENCE Here come two of Sir John Falstaff’s men, as I think.

  SHALLOW Good morrow, honest gentlemen.

  BARDOLPH I beseech you, which is Justice Shallow?

  SHALLOW I am Robert Shallow, sir, a poor esquire of this

  county, and one of the king’s justices of the peace . What is

  your good pleasure with me?

  BARDOLPH My captain, sir, commends him to you—my captain,

  Sir John Falstaff, a tall gentleman, and a most gallant leader.

  SHALLOW He greets me well, sir. I knew him a good backsword

  man. How doth the good knight? May I ask how my lady his

  wife doth?

  BARDOLPH Sir, pardon. A soldier is better accommodated than

  with a wife.

  SHALLOW It is well said, sir; and it is well said indeed too.

  Better accommodated! It is good, yea, indeed, is it. Good

  phrases are surely, and everywhere, very commendable.

  Accommodated! It comes of accommodo . Very good, a good

  phrase .

  BARDOLPH Pardon, sir, I have heard the word. Phrase call you

  it? By this day, I know not the phrase, but I will maintain the

  word with my sword to be a soldier-like word, and a word of

  exceeding good command. ‘Accommodated’, that is when a

  man is, as they say, accommodated, or when a man is being

  whereby he thought to be accommodated, which is an

  excellent thing.

  Enter Falstaff

  SHALLOW It is very just . Look, here comes good Sir John. Give

  me your good hand, give me your worship’s good hand.

  Trust me, you look well and bear your years very well.

  Welcome, good Sir John.

  FALSTAFF I am glad to see you well, good Master Robert

  Shallow.— Master Surecard, as I think?

  SHALLOW No, Sir John, it is my cousin Silence, in commission

  with me.

  FALSTAFF Good Master Silence, it well befits you should be

  of the peace .

  SILENCE Your good worship is welcome.

  FALSTAFF Fie, this is hot weather, gentlemen. Have you

  provided me here half a dozen of sufficient men?

  SHALLOW Marry, have we, sir. Will you sit?

  FALSTAFF Let me see them, I beseech you.

  They sit

  SHALLOW Where’s the roll? Where’s the roll? Where’s the roll?

  Let me see, let me see, let me see. So, so, so, so. Yea, marry,

  sir.— Ralph Mouldy! Let them appear as I call, let them do so,

  let them do so. Let me see, where is Mouldy?

  MOULDY Here, if it please you.

  SHALLOW What think you, Sir John? A good-limbed fellow:

  young, strong, and of good friends .

  FALSTAFF Is thy name Mouldy?

  MOULDY Yea, if it please you.

  FALSTAFF ’Tis the more time thou wert used.

  SHALLOW Ha, ha, ha! Most excellent! Things that are mouldy

  lack use: very singular good. Well said, Sir John, very well

  said.

  FALSTAFF Prick him.

  MOULDY I was pricked well enough before, if you could have

  let me alone. My old dame will be undone now for one to

  do her husbandry and her drudgery; you need not to have

  pricked me. There are other men fitter to go out than I.

  FALSTAFF Go to. Peace, Mouldy, you shall go. Mouldy, it is time

  you were spent .

  MOULDY Spent?

  SHALLOW Peace, fellow, peace; stand aside. Know you where

  you are?— For the other, Sir John, let me see.— Simon

  Shadow?

  FALSTAFF Ay, marry, let me have him to sit under: he’s like to

  be a cold soldier.

  SHALLOW Where’s Shadow?

  SHADOW Here, sir.

  FALSTAFF
Shadow, whose son art thou?

  SHADOW My mother’s son, sir.

  FALSTAFF Thy mother’s son! Like enough, and thy father’s

  shadow . So the son of the female is the shadow of the male.

  It is often so, indeed, but not of the father’s substance !

  SHALLOW Do you like him, Sir John?

  FALSTAFF Shadow will serve for summer. Prick him,— for we

  have a number of shadows to fill up the muster book.

  Aside

  SHALLOW Thomas Wart?

  FALSTAFF Where’s he?

  WART Here, sir.

  FALSTAFF Is thy name Wart?

  WART Yea, sir.

  FALSTAFF Thou art a very ragged wart.

  SHALLOW Shall I prick him down, Sir John?

  FALSTAFF It were superfluous, for his apparel is built upon his

  back, and the whole frame stands upon pins. Prick him no

  more.

  SHALLOW Ha, ha, ha! You can do it, sir, you can do it. I

  commend you well.— Francis Feeble?

  FEEBLE Here, sir.

  FALSTAFF What trade art thou, Feeble?

  FEEBLE A woman’s tailor , sir.

  SHALLOW Shall I prick him, sir?

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

  would have pricked you. Wilt thou make as many holes in an

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

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

  next?

  SHALLOW Peter Bullcalf of the green ?

  FALSTAFF Yea, marry, let us see Bullcalf.

  BULLCALF Here, sir.

  FALSTAFF Trust me, a likely fellow! Come, prick me Bullcalf till

  he roar again .

  BULLCALF O, good my lord captain—

  FALSTAFF What, dost thou roar before th’art pricked?

  BULLCALF O, sir! I am a diseased man.

 

‹ Prev