The Second Part Of King Henry The Fourth

1 Enter Hostess with two Officers, Fang and Snare, following.
2 HOSTESS.
3 Master Fang, have you entered the action?
4 FANG.
5 It is entered.
6 HOSTESS.
7 Where’s your yeoman? Is ’t a lusty yeoman? Will he stand to ’t?
8 FANG.
9 Sirrah, where’s Snare?
10 HOSTESS.
11 O Lord, ay! Good Master Snare.
12 SNARE.
13 Here, here.
14 FANG.
15 Snare, we must arrest Sir John Falstaff.
16 HOSTESS.
17 Yea, good Master Snare, I have entered him and all.
18 SNARE.
19 It may chance cost some of our lives, for he will stab.
20 HOSTESS.
21 Alas the day, take heed of him. He stabbed me in mine own house, and
22 that most beastly, in good faith. He cares not what mischief he does,
23 if his weapon be out, he will foin like any devil. He will spare
24 neither man, woman, nor child.
25 FANG.
26 If I can close with him, I care not for his thrust.
27 HOSTESS.
28 No, nor I neither. I’ll be at your elbow.
29 FANG.
30 An I but fist him once, an he come but within my vice,—
31 HOSTESS.
32 I am undone by his going, I warrant you, he’s an infinitive thing upon
33 my score. Good Master Fang, hold him sure. Good Master Snare, let him
34 not ’scape. He comes continuantly to Pie Corner—saving your manhoods—to
35 buy a saddle, and he is indited to dinner to the Lubber’s Head in
36 Lumbert Street, to Master Smooth’s the silkman. I pray you, since my
37 exion is entered, and my case so openly known to the world, let him be
38 brought in to his answer. A hundred mark is a long one for a poor lone
39 woman to bear, and I have borne, and borne, and borne, and have been
40 fubbed off, and fubbed off, and fubbed off, from this day to that day,
41 that it is a shame to be thought on. There is no honesty in such
42 dealing, unless a woman should be made an ass and a beast, to bear
43 every knave’s wrong. Yonder he comes, and that arrant malmsey-nose
44 knave, Bardolph, with him. Do your offices, do your offices, Master
45 Fang and Master Snare, do me, do me, do me your offices.
46 Enter Falstaff, Bardolph and Page.
47 FALSTAFF.
48 How now, whose mare’s dead? What’s the matter?
49 FANG.
50 Sir John, I arrest you at the suit of Mistress Quickly.
51 FALSTAFF.
52 Away, varlets! Draw, Bardolph! Cut me off the villain’s head. Throw the
53 quean in the channel.
54 HOSTESS.
55 Throw me in the channel? I’ll throw thee in the channel. Wilt thou,
56 wilt thou, thou bastardly rogue? Murder, murder! Ah, thou honeysuckle
57 villain, wilt thou kill God’s officers and the King’s? Ah, thou
58 honeyseed rogue, thou art a honeyseed, a man-queller, and a
59 woman-queller.
60 FALSTAFF.
61 Keep them off, Bardolph.
62 FANG.
63 A rescue! A rescue!
64 HOSTESS.
65 Good people, bring a rescue or two. Thou wo’t, wo’t thou? Thou wo’t,
66 wo’t ta? Do, do, thou rogue! Do, thou hempseed!
67 PAGE.
68 Away, you scullion! you rampallian! you fustilarian! I’ll tickle your
69 catastrophe.
70 Enter the Lord Chief Justice and his men.
71 CHIEF JUSTICE.
72 What is the matter? Keep the peace here, ho!
73 HOSTESS.
74 Good my lord, be good to me. I beseech you stand to me.
75 CHIEF JUSTICE.
76 How now, Sir John? What are you brawling here?
77 Doth this become your place, your time and business?
78 You should have been well on your way to York.
79 Stand from him, fellow. Wherefore hang’st thou upon him?
80 HOSTESS.
81 O my most worshipful lord, an’t please your Grace, I am a poor widow of
82 Eastcheap, and he is arrested at my suit.
83 CHIEF JUSTICE.
84 For what sum?
85 HOSTESS.
86 It is more than for some, my lord; it is for all, all I have. He hath
87 eaten me out of house and home. He hath put all my substance into that
88 fat belly of his: but I will have some of it out again, or I will ride
89 thee o’ nights like the mare.
90 FALSTAFF.
91 I think I am as like to ride the mare if I have any vantage of ground
92 to get up.
93 CHIEF JUSTICE.
94 How comes this, Sir John? Fie! what man of good temper would endure
95 this tempest of exclamation? Are you not ashamed to enforce a poor
96 widow to so rough a course to come by her own?
97 FALSTAFF.
98 What is the gross sum that I owe thee?
99 HOSTESS.
100 Marry, if thou wert an honest man, thyself and the money too. Thou
101 didst swear to me upon a parcel-gilt goblet, sitting in my Dolphin
102 chamber, at the round table, by a sea-coal fire, upon Wednesday in
103 Wheeson week, when the Prince broke thy head for liking his father to a
104 singing-man of Windsor, thou didst swear to me then, as I was washing
105 thy wound, to marry me and make me my lady thy wife. Canst thou deny
106 it? Did not goodwife Keech, the butcher’s wife, come in then and call
107 me gossip Quickly? coming in to borrow a mess of vinegar, telling us
108 she had a good dish of prawns, whereby thou didst desire to eat some,
109 whereby I told thee they were ill for green wound? And didst thou not,
110 when she was gone downstairs, desire me to be no more so familiarity
111 with such poor people, saying that ere long they should call me madam?
112 And didst thou not kiss me, and bid me fetch thee thirty shillings? I
113 put thee now to thy book-oath. Deny it, if thou canst.
114 FALSTAFF.
115 My lord, this is a poor mad soul, and she says up and down the town
116 that her eldest son is like you. She hath been in good case, and the
117 truth is, poverty hath distracted her. But for these foolish officers,
118 I beseech you I may have redress against them.
119 CHIEF JUSTICE.
120 Sir John, Sir John, I am well acquainted with your manner of wrenching
121 the true cause the false way. It is not a confident brow, nor the
122 throng of words that come with such more than impudent sauciness from
123 you, can thrust me from a level consideration. You have, as it appears
124 to me, practised upon the easy-yielding spirit of this woman, and made
125 her serve your uses both in purse and in person.
126 HOSTESS.
127 Yea, in truth, my lord.
128 CHIEF JUSTICE.
129 Pray thee, peace. Pay her the debt you owe her, and unpay the villany
130 you have done with her. The one you may do with sterling money, and the
131 other with current repentance.
132 FALSTAFF.
133 My lord, I will not undergo this sneap without reply. You call
134 honourable boldness impudent sauciness; if a man will make curtsy and
135 say nothing, he is virtuous. No, my lord, my humble duty remembered, I
136 will not be your suitor. I say to you, I do desire deliverance from
137 these officers, being upon hasty employment in the King’s affairs.
138 CHIEF JUSTICE.
139 You speak as having power to do wrong; but answer in th’ effect of your
140 reputation, and satisfy the poor woman.
141 FALSTAFF.
142 Come hither, hostess.
143 Enter Gower.
144 CHIEF JUSTICE.
145 Now, Master Gower, what news?
146 GOWER.
147 The King, my lord, and Harry Prince of Wales
148 Are near at hand: the rest the paper tells.
149 FALSTAFF.
150 As I am a gentleman.
151 HOSTESS.
152 Faith, you said so before.
153 FALSTAFF.
154 As I am a gentleman. Come, no more words of it.
155 HOSTESS.
156 By this heavenly ground I tread on, I must be fain to pawn both my
157 plate and the tapestry of my dining-chambers.
158 FALSTAFF.
159 Glasses, glasses, is the only drinking. And for thy walls, a pretty
160 slight drollery, or the story of the Prodigal, or the German hunting in
161 waterwork, is worth a thousand of these bed-hangers and these
162 fly-bitten tapestries. Let it be ten pound, if thou canst. Come, an
163 ’twere not for thy humours, there’s not a better wench in England. Go,
164 wash thy face, and draw the action. Come, thou must not be in this
165 humour with me; dost not know me? Come, come, I know thou wast set on
166 to this.
167 HOSTESS.
168 Pray thee, Sir John, let it be but twenty nobles. I’ faith, I am loath
169 to pawn my plate, so God save me, la!
170 FALSTAFF.
171 Let it alone, I’ll make other shift: you’ll be a fool still.
172 HOSTESS.
173 Well, you shall have it, though I pawn my gown. I hope you’ll come to
174 supper. You’ll pay me all together?
175 FALSTAFF.
176 Will I live? [_To Bardolph_.] Go, with her, with her. Hook on, hook on.
177 HOSTESS.
178 Will you have Doll Tearsheet meet you at supper?
179 FALSTAFF.
180 No more words, let’s have her.
181 [_Exeunt Hostess, Fang, Snare, Bardolph and Page._]
182 CHIEF JUSTICE.
183 I have heard better news.
184 FALSTAFF.
185 What’s the news, my lord?
186 CHIEF JUSTICE.
187 Where lay the King tonight?
188 GOWER.
189 At Basingstoke, my lord.
190 FALSTAFF.
191 I hope, my lord, all’s well. What is the news, my lord?
192 CHIEF JUSTICE.
193 Come all his forces back?
194 GOWER.
195 No, fifteen hundred foot, five hundred horse
196 Are march’d up to my Lord of Lancaster,
197 Against Northumberland and the Archbishop.
198 FALSTAFF.
199 Comes the King back from Wales, my noble lord?
200 CHIEF JUSTICE.
201 You shall have letters of me presently.
202 Come, go along with me, good Master Gower.
203 FALSTAFF.
204 My lord!
205 CHIEF JUSTICE.
206 What’s the matter?
207 FALSTAFF.
208 Master Gower, shall I entreat you with me to dinner?
209 GOWER.
210 I must wait upon my good lord here, I thank you, good Sir John.
211 CHIEF JUSTICE.
212 Sir John, you loiter here too long, being you are to take soldiers up
213 in counties as you go.
214 FALSTAFF.
215 Will you sup with me, Master Gower?
216 CHIEF JUSTICE.
217 What foolish master taught you these manners, Sir John?
218 FALSTAFF.
219 Master Gower, if they become me not, he was a fool that taught them me.
220 This is the right fencing grace, my lord; tap for tap, and so part
221 fair.
222 CHIEF JUSTICE.
223 Now the Lord lighten thee, thou art a great fool.
224 [_Exeunt._]