The Second Part Of King Henry The Fourth

1 Enter two Drawers.
2 FIRST DRAWER.
3 What the devil hast thou brought there—applejohns? Thou knowest Sir
4 John cannot endure an applejohn.
5 SECOND DRAWER.
6 Mass, thou sayest true. The Prince once set a dish of applejohns before
7 him, and told him there were five more Sir Johns, and, putting off his
8 hat, said “I will now take my leave of these six dry, round, old,
9 withered knights.” It angered him to the heart. But he hath forgot
10 that.
11 FIRST DRAWER.
12 Why then, cover, and set them down, and see if thou canst find out
13 Sneak’s noise. Mistress Tearsheet would fain hear some music. Dispatch.
14 The room where they supped is too hot, they’ll come in straight.
15 SECOND DRAWER.
16 Sirrah, here will be the Prince and Master Poins anon, and they will
17 put on two of our jerkins and aprons, and Sir John must not know of it.
18 Bardolph hath brought word.
19 FIRST DRAWER.
20 By the mass, here will be old utis. It will be an excellent stratagem.
21 SECOND DRAWER.
22 I’ll see if I can find out Sneak.
23 [_Exit._]
24 Enter Hostess and Doll Tearsheet.
25 HOSTESS.
26 I’ faith, sweetheart, methinks now you are in an excellent good
27 temperality. Your pulsidge beats as extraordinarily as heart would
28 desire, and your colour, I warrant you, is as red as any rose, in good
29 truth, la! But, i’ faith, you have drunk too much canaries, and that’s
30 a marvellous searching wine, and it perfumes the blood ere one can say
31 “What’s this?” How do you now?
32 DOLL.
33 Better than I was. Hem!
34 HOSTESS.
35 Why, that’s well said. A good heart’s worth gold. Lo, here comes Sir
36 John.
37 Enter Falstaff.
38 FALSTAFF.
39 [_Singing_.] “When Arthur first in court”—Empty the jordan.
40 [_Exit First Drawer_.]—[_Singing_.] “And was a worthy king.”
41 How now, Mistress Doll!
42 HOSTESS.
43 Sick of a calm, yea, good faith.
44 FALSTAFF.
45 So is all her sect; an they be once in a calm, they are sick.
46 DOLL.
47 A pox damn you, you muddy rascal, is that all the comfort you give me?
48 FALSTAFF.
49 You make fat rascals, Mistress Doll.
50 DOLL.
51 I make them? Gluttony and diseases make them; I make them not.
52 FALSTAFF.
53 If the cook help to make the gluttony, you help to make the diseases,
54 Doll: we catch of you, Doll. We catch of you; grant that, my poor
55 virtue, grant that.
56 DOLL.
57 Yea, joy, our chains and our jewels.
58 FALSTAFF.
59 “Your brooches, pearls, and ouches:”—for to serve bravely is to come
60 halting off, you know; to come off the breach with his pike bent
61 bravely, and to surgery bravely; to venture upon the charged chambers
62 bravely—
63 DOLL.
64 Hang yourself, you muddy conger, hang yourself!
65 HOSTESS.
66 By my troth, this is the old fashion; you two never meet but you fall
67 to some discord. You are both, i’ good truth, as rheumatic as two dry
68 toasts. You cannot one bear with another’s confirmities. What the
69 good-year! One must bear, and that must be you. You are the weaker
70 vessel, as as they say, the emptier vessel.
71 DOLL.
72 Can a weak empty vessel bear such a huge full hogshead? There’s a whole
73 merchant’s venture of Bourdeaux stuff in him; you have not seen a hulk
74 better stuffed in the hold. Come, I’ll be friends with thee, Jack. Thou
75 art going to the wars, and whether I shall ever see thee again or no,
76 there is nobody cares.
77 Enter First Drawer.
78 FIRST DRAWER.
79 Sir, Ancient Pistol’s below, and would speak with you.
80 DOLL.
81 Hang him, swaggering rascal! Let him not come hither: it is the
82 foul-mouthed’st rogue in England.
83 HOSTESS.
84 If he swagger, let him not come here. No, by my faith, I must live
85 among my neighbours. I’ll no swaggerers. I am in good name and fame
86 with the very best. Shut the door, there comes no swaggerers here. I
87 have not lived all this while to have swaggering now. Shut the door, I
88 pray you.
89 FALSTAFF.
90 Dost thou hear, hostess?
91 HOSTESS.
92 Pray ye pacify yourself, Sir John. There comes no swaggerers here.
93 FALSTAFF.
94 Dost thou hear? It is mine ancient.
95 HOSTESS.
96 Tilly-fally, Sir John, ne’er tell me. And our ancient swaggerer comes
97 not in my doors. I was before Master Tisick, the debuty t’other day,
98 and, as he said to me,—’twas no longer ago than Wednesday last, i’ good
99 faith,—“Neighbour Quickly,” says he—Master Dumb, our minister, was by
100 then—“Neighbour Quickly,” says he, “receive those that are civil, for,”
101 said he “you are in an ill name.” Now he said so, I can tell whereupon.
102 “For,” says he, “you are an honest woman, and well thought on.
103 Therefore take heed what guests you receive. Receive,” says he, “no
104 swaggering companions.” There comes none here. You would bless you to
105 hear what he said. No, I’ll no swaggerers.
106 FALSTAFF.
107 He’s no swaggerer, hostess; a tame cheater, i’ faith, you may stroke
108 him as gently as a puppy greyhound. He’ll not swagger with a Barbary
109 hen, if her feathers turn back in any show of resistance. Call him up,
110 drawer.
111 [_Exit First Drawer._]
112 HOSTESS.
113 Cheater, call you him? I will bar no honest man my house, nor no
114 cheater, but I do not love swaggering, by my troth, I am the worse when
115 one says “swagger.” Feel, masters, how I shake; look you, I warrant
116 you.
117 DOLL.
118 So you do, hostess.
119 HOSTESS.
120 Do I? Yea, in very truth, do I, an ’twere an aspen leaf. I cannot abide
121 swaggerers.
122 Enter Pistol, Bardolph and Page.
123 PISTOL.
124 God save you, Sir John!
125 FALSTAFF.
126 Welcome, Ancient Pistol. Here, Pistol, I charge you with a cup of sack.
127 Do you discharge upon mine hostess.
128 PISTOL.
129 I will discharge upon her, Sir John, with two bullets.
130 FALSTAFF.
131 She is pistol-proof, sir; you shall not hardly offend her.
132 HOSTESS.
133 Come, I’ll drink no proofs nor no bullets. I’ll drink no more than will
134 do me good, for no man’s pleasure, I.
135 PISTOL.
136 Then to you, Mistress Dorothy! I will charge you.
137 DOLL.
138 Charge me! I scorn you, scurvy companion. What, you poor, base,
139 rascally, cheating, lack-linen mate! Away, you mouldy rogue, away! I am
140 meat for your master.
141 PISTOL.
142 I know you, Mistress Dorothy.
143 DOLL.
144 Away, you cut-purse rascal, you filthy bung, away! By this wine, I’ll
145 thrust my knife in your mouldy chaps an you play the saucy cuttle with
146 me. Away, you bottle-ale rascal, you basket-hilt stale juggler, you!
147 Since when, I pray you, sir? God’s light, with two points on your
148 shoulder? Much!
149 PISTOL.
150 God let me not live, but I will murder your ruff for this.
151 FALSTAFF.
152 No more, Pistol! I would not have you go off here. Discharge yourself
153 of our company, Pistol.
154 HOSTESS.
155 No, good Captain Pistol, not here, sweet captain.
156 DOLL.
157 Captain! Thou abominable damned cheater, art thou not ashamed to be
158 called captain? An captains were of my mind, they would truncheon you
159 out, for taking their names upon you before you have earned them. You a
160 captain? You slave, for what? For tearing a poor whore’s ruff in a
161 bawdy-house? He a captain! Hang him, rogue, he lives upon mouldy stewed
162 prunes and dried cakes. A captain? God’s light, these villains will
163 make the word as odious as the word “occupy,” which was an excellent
164 good word before it was ill sorted. Therefore captains had need look
165 to’t.
166 BARDOLPH.
167 Pray thee go down, good ancient.
168 FALSTAFF.
169 Hark thee hither, Mistress Doll.
170 PISTOL.
171 Not I. I tell thee what, Corporal Bardolph, I could tear her. I’ll be
172 revenged of her.
173 PAGE.
174 Pray thee go down.
175 PISTOL.
176 I’ll see her damned first to Pluto’s damned lake, by this hand, to th’
177 infernal deep, with Erebus and tortures vile also. Hold hook and line,
178 say I. Down, down, dogs! Down, faitors! Have we not Hiren here?
179 HOSTESS.
180 Good Captain Peesel, be quiet, ’tis very late, i’ faith. I beseek you
181 now, aggravate your choler.
182 PISTOL.
183 These be good humours, indeed! Shall packhorses
184 And hollow pamper’d jades of Asia,
185 Which cannot go but thirty mile a day,
186 Compare with Caesars and with Cannibals,
187 And Trojant Greeks? Nay, rather damn them with
188 King Cerberus; and let the welkin roar.
189 Shall we fall foul for toys?
190 HOSTESS.
191 By my troth, captain, these are very bitter words.
192 BARDOLPH.
193 Be gone, good ancient. This will grow to a brawl anon.
194 PISTOL.
195 Die men like dogs! Give crowns like pins! Have we not Hiren here?
196 HOSTESS.
197 O’ my word, captain, there’s none such here. What the good-year, do you
198 think I would deny her? For God’s sake, be quiet.
199 PISTOL.
200 Then feed and be fat, my fair Calipolis.
201 Come, give ’s some sack.
202 _Si fortune me tormente, sperato me contento._
203 Fear we broadsides? No, let the fiend give fire.
204 Give me some sack; and, sweetheart, lie thou there.
205 [_Laying down his sword._]
206 Come we to full points here? And are etceteras nothings?
207 FALSTAFF.
208 Pistol, I would be quiet.
209 PISTOL.
210 Sweet knight, I kiss thy neaf. What! we have seen the seven stars.
211 DOLL.
212 For God’s sake, thrust him downstairs. I cannot endure such a fustian
213 rascal.
214 PISTOL.
215 Thrust him downstairs? Know we not Galloway nags?
216 FALSTAFF.
217 Quoit him down, Bardolph, like a shove-groat shilling. Nay, an he do
218 nothing but speak nothing, he shall be nothing here.
219 BARDOLPH.
220 Come, get you downstairs.
221 PISTOL.
222 What! shall we have incision? Shall we imbrue?
223 [_Snatching up his sword._]
224 Then death rock me asleep, abridge my doleful days!
225 Why then, let grievous, ghastly, gaping wounds
226 Untwind the Sisters Three! Come, Atropos, I say!
227 HOSTESS.
228 Here’s goodly stuff toward!
229 FALSTAFF.
230 Give me my rapier, boy.
231 DOLL.
232 I pray thee, Jack, I pray thee, do not draw.
233 FALSTAFF.
234 Get you downstairs.
235 [_Drawing, and driving Pistol out._]
236 HOSTESS.
237 Here’s a goodly tumult! I’ll forswear keeping house, afore I’ll be in
238 these tirrits and frights. So, murder, I warrant now. Alas, alas, put
239 up your naked weapons, put up your naked weapons.
240 [_Exeunt Bardolph and Pistol._]
241 DOLL.
242 I pray thee, Jack, be quiet. The rascal’s gone. Ah, you whoreson little
243 valiant villain, you!
244 HOSTESS.
245 Are you not hurt i’ th’ groin? Methought he made a shrewd thrust at
246 your belly.
247 Enter Bardolph.
248 FALSTAFF.
249 Have you turned him out o’ doors?
250 BARDOLPH.
251 Yea, sir. The rascal’s drunk. You have hurt him, sir, i’ th’ shoulder.
252 FALSTAFF.
253 A rascal, to brave me!
254 DOLL.
255 Ah, you sweet little rogue, you! Alas, poor ape, how thou sweat’st!
256 Come, let me wipe thy face. Come on, you whoreson chops. Ah, rogue! i’
257 faith, I love thee. Thou art as valorous as Hector of Troy, worth five
258 of Agamemnon, and ten times better than the Nine Worthies. Ah, villain!
259 FALSTAFF.
260 A rascally slave! I will toss the rogue in a blanket.
261 DOLL.
262 Do, an thou darest for thy heart. An thou dost, I’ll canvass thee
263 between a pair of sheets.
264 Enter Music.
265 PAGE.
266 The music is come, sir.
267 FALSTAFF.
268 Let them play. Play, sirs. Sit on my knee, Doll. A rascal bragging
269 slave! The rogue fled from me like quicksilver.
270 DOLL.
271 I’ faith, and thou followedst him like a church. Thou whoreson little
272 tidy Bartholomew boar-pig, when wilt thou leave fighting a-days and
273 foining a-nights, and begin to patch up thine old body for heaven?
274 Enter, behind, Prince Henry and Poins, disguised as drawers.
275 FALSTAFF.
276 Peace, good Doll, do not speak like a death’s-head; do not bid me
277 remember mine end.
278 DOLL.
279 Sirrah, what humour ’s the Prince of?
280 FALSTAFF.
281 A good shallow young fellow; he would have made a good pantler; he
282 would ha’ chipped bread well.
283 DOLL.
284 They say Poins has a good wit.
285 FALSTAFF.
286 He a good wit? Hang him, baboon! His wit’s as thick as Tewksbury
287 mustard; there’s no more conceit in him than is in a mallet.
288 DOLL.
289 Why does the Prince love him so, then?
290 FALSTAFF.
291 Because their legs are both of a bigness, and he plays at quoits well,
292 and eats conger and fennel, and drinks off candles’ ends for
293 flap-dragons, and rides the wild mare with the boys, and jumps upon
294 joint stools, and swears with a good grace, and wears his boots very
295 smooth like unto the sign of the Leg, and breeds no bate with telling
296 of discreet stories, and such other gambol faculties he has that show a
297 weak mind and an able body, for the which the Prince admits him: for
298 the Prince himself is such another. The weight of a hair will turn the
299 scales between their avoirdupois.
300 PRINCE.
301 Would not this nave of a wheel have his ears cut off?
302 POINS.
303 Let’s beat him before his whore.
304 PRINCE.
305 Look whe’er the withered elder hath not his poll clawed like a parrot.
306 POINS.
307 Is it not strange that desire should so many years outlive performance?
308 FALSTAFF.
309 Kiss me, Doll.
310 PRINCE.
311 Saturn and Venus this year in conjunction! What says th’ almanac to
312 that?
313 POINS.
314 And look whether the fiery Trigon, his man, be not lisping to his
315 master’s old tables, his note-book, his counsel-keeper.
316 FALSTAFF.
317 Thou dost give me flattering busses.
318 DOLL.
319 By my troth, I kiss thee with a most constant heart.
320 FALSTAFF.
321 I am old, I am old.
322 DOLL.
323 I love thee better than I love e’er a scurvy young boy of them all.
324 FALSTAFF.
325 What stuff wilt have a kirtle of? I shall receive money o’ Thursday;
326 shalt have a cap tomorrow. A merry song! Come, it grows late, we’ll to
327 bed. Thou’lt forget me when I am gone.
328 DOLL.
329 By my troth, thou’lt set me a-weeping an thou sayest so. Prove that
330 ever I dress myself handsome till thy return. Well, hearken a’ th’ end.
331 FALSTAFF.
332 Some sack, Francis.
333 PRINCE & POINS.
334 Anon, anon, sir.
335 [_Coming forward._]
336 FALSTAFF.
337 Ha! A bastard son of the King’s? And art thou not Poins his brother?
338 PRINCE.
339 Why, thou globe of sinful continents, what a life dost thou lead!
340 FALSTAFF.
341 A better than thou. I am a gentleman, thou art a drawer.
342 PRINCE.
343 Very true, sir, and I come to draw you out by the ears.
344 HOSTESS.
345 O, the Lord preserve thy Grace! By my troth, welcome to London. Now,
346 the Lord bless that sweet face of thine! O Jesu, are you come from
347 Wales?
348 FALSTAFF.
349 Thou whoreson mad compound of majesty, by this light flesh and corrupt
350 blood, thou art welcome.
351 DOLL.
352 How? You fat fool, I scorn you.
353 POINS.
354 My lord, he will drive you out of your revenge and turn all to a
355 merriment, if you take not the heat.
356 PRINCE.
357 You whoreson candle-mine, you, how vilely did you speak of me even now
358 before this honest, virtuous, civil gentlewoman!
359 HOSTESS.
360 God’s blessing of your good heart! and so she is, by my troth.
361 FALSTAFF.
362 Didst thou hear me?
363 PRINCE.
364 Yea, and you knew me, as you did when you ran away by Gad’s Hill. You
365 knew I was at your back, and spoke it on purpose to try my patience.
366 FALSTAFF.
367 No, no, no, not so; I did not think thou wast within hearing.
368 PRINCE.
369 I shall drive you then to confess the wilful abuse, and then I know how
370 to handle you.
371 FALSTAFF.
372 No abuse, Hal, o’ mine honour, no abuse.
373 PRINCE.
374 Not to dispraise me, and call me pantler and bread-chipper and I know
375 not what?
376 FALSTAFF.
377 No abuse, Hal.
378 POINS.
379 No abuse?
380 FALSTAFF.
381 No abuse, Ned, i’ th’ world, honest Ned, none. I dispraised him before
382 the wicked, that the wicked might not fall in love with thee; in which
383 doing, I have done the part of a careful friend and a true subject, and
384 thy father is to give me thanks for it. No abuse, Hal; none, Ned, none;
385 no, faith, boys, none.
386 PRINCE.
387 See now whether pure fear and entire cowardice doth not make thee wrong
388 this virtuous gentlewoman to close with us. Is she of the wicked? Is
389 thine hostess here of the wicked? Or is thy boy of the wicked? Or
390 honest Bardolph, whose zeal burns in his nose, of the wicked?
391 POINS.
392 Answer, thou dead elm, answer.
393 FALSTAFF.
394 The fiend hath pricked down Bardolph irrecoverable, and his face is
395 Lucifer’s privy-kitchen, where he doth nothing but roast malt-worms.
396 For the boy, there is a good angel about him, but the devil outbids him
397 too.
398 PRINCE.
399 For the women?
400 FALSTAFF.
401 For one of them, she’s in hell already, and burns poor souls. For th’
402 other, I owe her money, and whether she be damned for that I know not.
403 HOSTESS.
404 No, I warrant you.
405 FALSTAFF.
406 No, I think thou art not, I think thou art quit for that. Marry, there
407 is another indictment upon thee, for suffering flesh to be eaten in thy
408 house, contrary to the law, for the which I think thou wilt howl.
409 HOSTESS.
410 All victuallers do so. What’s a joint of mutton or two in a whole Lent?
411 PRINCE.
412 You, gentlewoman.
413 DOLL.
414 What says your Grace?
415 FALSTAFF.
416 His grace says that which his flesh rebels against.
417 [Peto _knocks at door._]
418 HOSTESS.
419 Who knocks so loud at door? Look to th’ door there, Francis.
420 Enter Peto.
421 PRINCE.
422 Peto, how now, what news?
423 PETO.
424 The King your father is at Westminster,
425 And there are twenty weak and wearied posts
426 Come from the north: and as I came along,
427 I met and overtook a dozen captains,
428 Bareheaded, sweating, knocking at the taverns,
429 And asking everyone for Sir John Falstaff.
430 PRINCE.
431 By heaven, Poins, I feel me much to blame,
432 So idly to profane the precious time,
433 When tempest of commotion, like the south
434 Borne with black vapour, doth begin to melt
435 And drop upon our bare unarmed heads.
436 Give me my sword and cloak. Falstaff, good night.
437 [_Exeunt Prince, Poins, Peto and Bardolph._]
438 FALSTAFF.
439 Now comes in the sweetest morsel of the night, and we must hence and
440 leave it unpicked.
441 [_Knocking within_.] More knocking at the door?
442 Enter Bardolph.
443 How now, what’s the matter?
444 BARDOLPH.
445 You must away to court, sir, presently.
446 A dozen captains stay at door for you.
447 FALSTAFF.
448 [_To the Page_.] Pay the musicians, sirrah. Farewell, hostess;
449 farewell, Doll. You see, my good wenches, how men of merit are sought
450 after. The undeserver may sleep, when the man of action is called on.
451 Farewell, good wenches. If I be not sent away post, I will see you
452 again ere I go.
453 DOLL.
454 I cannot speak; if my heart be not ready to burst—well, sweet Jack,
455 have a care of thyself.
456 FALSTAFF.
457 Farewell, farewell.
458 [_Exeunt Falstaff and Bardolph._]
459 HOSTESS.
460 Well, fare thee well. I have known thee these twenty-nine years, come
461 peascod-time; but an honester and truer-hearted man—well, fare thee
462 well.
463 BARDOLPH.
464 [_Within_.] Mistress Tearsheet!
465 HOSTESS.
466 What’s the matter?
467 BARDOLPH.
468 [_Within_.] Bid Mistress Tearsheet come to my master.
469 HOSTESS.
470 O, run, Doll, run; run, good Doll; come. She comes blubbered. Yea, will
471 you come, Doll?
472 [_Exeunt._]