The First Part Of King Henry The Fourth

1 Enter Falstaff and Bardolph.
2 FALSTAFF.
3 Bardolph, am I not fallen away vilely since this last action? Do I not
4 bate? Do I not dwindle? Why, my skin hangs about me like an old lady’s
5 loose gown. I am withered like an old apple-john. Well, I’ll repent,
6 and that suddenly, while I am in some liking. I shall be out of heart
7 shortly, and then I shall have no strength to repent. An I have not
8 forgotten what the inside of a church is made of, I am a peppercorn, a
9 brewer’s horse. The inside of a church! Company, villainous company,
10 hath been the spoil of me.
11 BARDOLPH.
12 Sir John, you are so fretful, you cannot live long.
13 FALSTAFF.
14 Why, there is it. Come, sing me a song, make me merry. I was as
15 virtuously given as a gentleman need to be, virtuous enough; swore
16 little; diced not above seven times—a week; went to a bawdy house not
17 above once in a quarter—in an hour; paid money that I borrowed—three or
18 four times; lived well and in good compass; and now I live out of all
19 order, out of all compass.
20 BARDOLPH.
21 Why, you are so fat, Sir John, that you must needs be out of all
22 compass, out of all reasonable compass, Sir John.
23 FALSTAFF.
24 Do thou amend thy face, and I’ll amend my life. Thou art our admiral,
25 thou bearest the lantern in the poop, but ’tis in the nose of thee.
26 Thou art the Knight of the Burning Lamp.
27 BARDOLPH.
28 Why, Sir John, my face does you no harm.
29 FALSTAFF.
30 No, I’ll be sworn, I make as good use of it as many a man doth of a
31 death’s-head or a _memento mori_. I never see thy face but I think upon
32 hell-fire, and Dives that lived in purple, for there he is in his
33 robes, burning, burning. If thou wert any way given to virtue, I would
34 swear by thy face. My oath should be, “By this fire, that’s God’s
35 angel.” But thou art altogether given over; and wert indeed, but for
36 the light in thy face, the son of utter darkness. When thou ran’st up
37 Gad’s Hill in the night to catch my horse, if I did not think thou
38 hadst been an _ignis fatuus_ or a ball of wildfire, there’s no purchase
39 in money. O, thou art a perpetual triumph, an everlasting
40 bonfire-light! Thou hast saved me a thousand marks in links and
41 torches, walking with thee in the night betwixt tavern and tavern: but
42 the sack that thou hast drunk me would have bought me lights as good
43 cheap at the dearest chandler’s in Europe. I have maintained that
44 salamander of yours with fire any time this two-and-thirty years, God
45 reward me for it!
46 BARDOLPH.
47 ’Sblood, I would my face were in your belly!
48 FALSTAFF.
49 God-a-mercy! so should I be sure to be heartburnt.
50 Enter the Hostess.
51 How now, Dame Partlet the hen, have you enquired yet who picked my
52 pocket?
53 HOSTESS.
54 Why, Sir John, what do you think, Sir John, do you think I keep thieves
55 in my house? I have searched, I have enquired, so has my husband, man
56 by man, boy by boy, servant by servant. The tithe of a hair was never
57 lost in my house before.
58 FALSTAFF.
59 Ye lie, hostess. Bardolph was shaved and lost many a hair, and I’ll be
60 sworn my pocket was picked. Go to, you are a woman, go.
61 HOSTESS.
62 Who, I? No; I defy thee: God’s light, I was never called so in mine own
63 house before.
64 FALSTAFF.
65 Go to, I know you well enough.
66 HOSTESS.
67 No, Sir John, you do not know me, Sir John. I know you, Sir John, you
68 owe me money, Sir John, and now you pick a quarrel to beguile me of it.
69 I bought you a dozen of shirts to your back.
70 FALSTAFF.
71 Dowlas, filthy dowlas. I have given them away to bakers’ wives; and
72 they have made bolters of them.
73 HOSTESS.
74 Now, as I am a true woman, holland of eight shillings an ell. You owe
75 money here besides, Sir John, for your diet and by-drinkings, and money
76 lent you, four-and-twenty pound.
77 FALSTAFF.
78 He had his part of it, let him pay.
79 HOSTESS.
80 He? Alas, he is poor, he hath nothing.
81 FALSTAFF.
82 How? Poor? Look upon his face. What call you rich? Let them coin his
83 nose, let them coin his cheeks. I’ll not pay a denier. What, will you
84 make a younker of me? Shall I not take mine ease in mine inn but I
85 shall have my pocket picked? I have lost a seal-ring of my
86 grandfather’s worth forty mark.
87 HOSTESS.
88 O Jesu, I have heard the Prince tell him, I know not how oft, that that
89 ring was copper.
90 FALSTAFF.
91 How? The Prince is a Jack, a sneak-up. ’Sblood, an he were here, I
92 would cudgel him like a dog if he would say so.
93 Enter Prince Henry with Peto, marching. Falstaff meets him, playing on
94 his truncheon like a fife.
95 How now, lad? Is the wind in that door, i’faith? Must we all march?
96 BARDOLPH.
97 Yea, two and two, Newgate fashion.
98 HOSTESS.
99 My lord, I pray you, hear me.
100 PRINCE.
101 What say’st thou, Mistress Quickly? How doth thy husband? I love him
102 well; he is an honest man.
103 HOSTESS.
104 Good my lord, hear me.
105 FALSTAFF.
106 Prithee, let her alone, and list to me.
107 PRINCE.
108 What say’st thou, Jack?
109 FALSTAFF.
110 The other night I fell asleep here, behind the arras, and had my pocket
111 picked. This house is turned bawdy-house; they pick pockets.
112 PRINCE.
113 What didst thou lose, Jack?
114 FALSTAFF.
115 Wilt thou believe me, Hal, three or four bonds of forty pound apiece
116 and a seal-ring of my grandfather’s.
117 PRINCE.
118 A trifle, some eightpenny matter.
119 HOSTESS.
120 So I told him, my lord, and I said I heard your Grace say so. And, my
121 lord, he speaks most vilely of you, like a foul-mouthed man as he is,
122 and said he would cudgel you.
123 PRINCE.
124 What! he did not?
125 HOSTESS.
126 There’s neither faith, truth, nor womanhood in me else.
127 FALSTAFF.
128 There’s no more faith in thee than in a stewed prune, nor no more truth
129 in thee than in a drawn fox; and, for woman-hood, Maid Marian may be
130 the deputy’s wife of the ward to thee. Go, you thing, go.
131 HOSTESS.
132 Say, what thing, what thing?
133 FALSTAFF.
134 What thing? Why, a thing to thank God on.
135 HOSTESS.
136 I am no thing to thank God on, I would thou shouldst know it! I am an
137 honest man’s wife, and, setting thy knighthood aside, thou art a knave
138 to call me so.
139 FALSTAFF.
140 Setting thy womanhood aside, thou art a beast to say otherwise.
141 HOSTESS.
142 Say, what beast, thou knave, thou?
143 FALSTAFF.
144 What beast? Why, an otter.
145 PRINCE.
146 An otter, Sir John? Why an otter?
147 FALSTAFF.
148 Why, she’s neither fish nor flesh; a man knows not where to have her.
149 HOSTESS.
150 Thou art an unjust man in saying so, thou or any man knows where to
151 have me, thou knave, thou.
152 PRINCE.
153 Thou say’st true, hostess, and he slanders thee most grossly.
154 HOSTESS.
155 So he doth you, my lord, and said this other day you ought him a
156 thousand pound.
157 PRINCE.
158 Sirrah, do I owe you a thousand pound?
159 FALSTAFF.
160 A thousand pound, Hal? A million. Thy love is worth a million; thou
161 owest me thy love.
162 HOSTESS.
163 Nay, my lord, he call’d you Jack, and said he would cudgel you.
164 FALSTAFF.
165 Did I, Bardolph?
166 BARDOLPH.
167 Indeed, Sir John, you said so.
168 FALSTAFF.
169 Yea, if he said my ring was copper.
170 PRINCE.
171 I say ’tis copper. Darest thou be as good as thy word now?
172 FALSTAFF.
173 Why, Hal, thou knowest, as thou art but man, I dare, but as thou art
174 prince, I fear thee as I fear the roaring of the lion’s whelp.
175 PRINCE.
176 And why not as the lion?
177 FALSTAFF.
178 The King himself is to be feared as the lion. Dost thou think I’ll fear
179 thee as I fear thy father? Nay, an I do, I pray God my girdle break.
180 PRINCE.
181 O, if it should, how would thy guts fall about thy knees! But, sirrah,
182 there’s no room for faith, truth, nor honesty in this bosom of thine;
183 it is all filled up with midriff. Charge an honest woman with picking
184 thy pocket! Why, thou whoreson, impudent, embossed rascal, if there
185 were anything in thy pocket but tavern reckonings, memorandums of bawdy
186 houses, and one poor pennyworth of sugar-candy to make thee
187 long-winded, if thy pocket were enriched with any other injuries but
188 these, I am a villain. And yet you will stand to it, you will not
189 pocket up wrong. Art thou not ashamed!
190 FALSTAFF.
191 Dost thou hear, Hal? Thou knowest in the state of innocency Adam fell,
192 and what should poor Jack Falstaff do in the days of villainy? Thou
193 seest I have more flesh than another man and therefore more frailty.
194 You confess, then, you picked my pocket?
195 PRINCE.
196 It appears so by the story.
197 FALSTAFF.
198 Hostess, I forgive thee. Go make ready breakfast, love thy husband,
199 look to thy servants, cherish thy guests. Thou shalt find me tractable
200 to any honest reason. Thou seest I am pacified still. Nay, prithee, be
201 gone.
202 [_Exit Hostess._]
203 Now, Hal, to the news at court. For the robbery, lad, how is that
204 answered?
205 PRINCE.
206 O, my sweet beef, I must still be good angel to thee. The money is paid
207 back again.
208 FALSTAFF.
209 O, I do not like that paying back, ’tis a double labour.
210 PRINCE.
211 I am good friends with my father, and may do anything.
212 FALSTAFF.
213 Rob me the exchequer the first thing thou dost, and do it with unwashed
214 hands too.
215 BARDOLPH.
216 Do, my lord.
217 PRINCE.
218 I have procured thee, Jack, a charge of foot.
219 FALSTAFF.
220 I would it had been of horse. Where shall I find one that can steal
221 well? O, for a fine thief, of the age of two-and-twenty or thereabouts!
222 I am heinously unprovided. Well, God be thanked for these rebels; they
223 offend none but the virtuous. I laud them, I praise them.
224 PRINCE.
225 Bardolph!
226 BARDOLPH.
227 My lord?
228 PRINCE.
229 Go bear this letter to Lord John of Lancaster,
230 To my brother John; this to my Lord of Westmoreland.
231 [_Exit Bardolph._]
232 Go, Peto, to horse, to horse, for thou and I
233 Have thirty miles to ride yet ere dinner-time.
234 [_Exit Peto._]
235 Jack, meet me tomorrow in the Temple hall
236 At two o’clock in the afternoon;
237 There shalt thou know thy charge, and there receive
238 Money and order for their furniture.
239 The land is burning, Percy stands on high,
240 And either we or they must lower lie.
241 [_Exit._]
242 FALSTAFF.
243 Rare words! Brave world!—Hostess, my breakfast, come.—
244 O, I could wish this tavern were my drum.
245 [_Exit._]