 The second part of Henry IV, Dramatis Parsone. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings were in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The second part of Henry IV by William Shakespeare. Dramatis Parsone. Rumored the presenter at Lady Percy, Cecilia Pryor. King Henry IV, Mark F. Smith. Henry, Prince of Wales, afterwards King Henry V, Max Porter Zasada. Prince John of Lancaster, Brian Edwards. Prince Humphrey of Gloucester, Simon Leroy. Thomas, Duke of Clarence, Aletheia. Earl of Northumberland, Lisa Wilson. Scroop Archbishop of York, Vin Riley. Lord Moebray, Ellis Christof. Lord Hastings, Hephid. Lord Bardolf, David Leeson. Sir John Colville, Silence, Second Drawer, and Porter, Silence. Travers, Shadow, and Bullcalf, Daniel Hutton. Morton and Shallow, David Nickel. Earl of Warwick, Erin Elliott and M.B. Earl of Westmoreland, Larissa Jaworski. Gower, Miriam Esther Goldman. Harcourt, Jennifer Stearns. Lord Chief Justice and First Groom, Lars Rolander. Bardolf and Servant, David Lawrence. Sir John Falstaff, John Leader. Edward Poins, Bologna Times. Pistol, Laurel Anderson. Pato, Matthew Ward. Page and Dancer, a blog. Laurie Ann Walden. Davy, Moldy, and Fang, Father Richard Zeile. Snare, Anna Simon. Thomas Wart, Lucy Perry. Francis Feeble, Corey Samuel. Francis, a Drawer, Second and Third Grooms, Barry Eads. Lady Northumberland, Brianna Bird. Hostess Quickly, Rosalind Wills. Doll, Tearsheet, Philippa. First Beatle, Ellie. Third Drawer and Messenger, Niru Ayer. Stage Directions, Kalinda. Audio Edited by David Lawrence. End of Dramatis Parsone. Act 1 of the second part of King Henry IV. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings were in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The second part of Henry IV. By William Shakespeare. Induction. Scene, England. Walkworth. Before Northumberland's castle. Enter rumour, painted full of tongues. Open your ears. For which of you will stop the vent of hearing when a loud rumour speaks? I, from the Orient, to the drooping west, seeing the wind my poster still unfold the acts commenced on this ball of earth. Upon my tongue's continual slanders ride the witch in every language I pronounce stuffing the ears of men with false reports. I speak of peace, while covert enmity and the smile of safety wounds the world. And who but rumour? Who but only I make fearful musters and prepared defence? And with some other grief is thought with child by the stern tyrant war in no such matter. Rumour is a pipe blown by surmises, jealousies, conjectures, and of so easy and so plain a stop that the blunt monster with uncounted heads, the still discordant wavering multitude can play upon it. But what need I thus my well-known body to anatomise among my household? Why is rumour here? I run before King Harry's victory, who, in a bloody field by Shrewsbury, have beaten down young Hotspur and his troops, quenching the flame of bold rebellion even with the rebels' blood. But what may I to speak so true at first? My office is to noise abroad that Harry Monmouth fell under the wrath of noble Hotspur's sword, and that the king before the Douglas rage whooped his anointed head as low as death. This have I rumoured through the peasant towns between that royal field of Shrewsbury and this worm-eaten hold of ragged stone, where Hotspur's father, old Northumberland, lies crafty sick. The posts come tiring on, and not a man of them brings other news that they have learnt of me. From rumours, tongues, they bring smooth comforts, false, and true wrongs. Exit. Scene one. Walkworth, before Northumberland's castle. Enter Lord Bardolf. Who keeps the gate here? Ho! The porter opens the gate. Where is the Earl? What shall I say you are? Tell thou the Earl that the Lord Bardolf doth attend him here. His lordship is walked forth into the orchard. Please it your honour, knock but at the gate, and he himself will answer. Enter Northumberland. Here comes the Earl. Exit porter. What news, Lord Bardolf, every minute now should be the father of some stratagem. The times are wild, contention like a horse, full of high feeding. Madly hath broke loose and bears down all before him. Noble Earl, I bring you certain news from Shrewsbury. Good in God will. As good as heart can wish, the king is almost wounded to the death, and in the fortune of my lord your son, Prince Harry slain outright, and both the blunts killed by the hand of Douglas. Young Prince John and Westmoreland and Stafford fled the field, and Harry Monmouth's brawn, the Hulk Sir John, is prisoner to your son. Oh, such a day, so fought, so followed, and so fairly won, came not till now to dignify the times since Caesar's fortunes. How is this derived? Saw you the field? Came you from Shrewsbury? I spake with one my lord that came from thence, a gentleman well bred and of good name, that freely rendered me these news for true. Enter Travers. Here comes my servant, Travers, whom I sent on Tuesday last to listen after news. My lord, I overrode him on the way, and he is furnished with no certainties more than he happily may retail from me. Now, Travers, what good tidings comes with you? My lord, Sir John unfrevelled termly back with joyful tidings, and being better horsed outrode me. After him came sparing harder gentlemen, almost forespent with speed, that stopped by me to breathe his bloodied horse. He asked the way to Chester, and if him I did demand one news from Shrewsbury. He told me that rebellion had bad luck, and that young Harry Percy's spur was cold. With that he gave his able horse the head, and, bending forward, struck his armoured heels against the panting size of his poor jade up to the rowl-head, and starting so he seemed in running to devour the way, staying no longer questioned. Huh, again? Said he young Harry Percy's spur was cold, of hot spur, cold spur, and rebellion hath met ill luck. My lord, I'll tell you what, if my young lord your son have not the day, upon mine honour, for a silken point, I'll give my barony, never talk of it. Why should that gentleman that rode by Travers give then such instances of laws? Who, he? He was some hilding fellow that had stolen the horse he rode on, and upon my life spoke out of venture. Look, here comes more news. Enter Morton. Yea, this man's brow, like to a tidal leaf, foretells the nature of a tragic volume, so looks the strand whereon the imperious flood hath left a witnessed usurpation. Say Morton, didst thou come from Shrewsbury? I ran from Shrewsbury, my noble lord, where hateful death puts on his ugliest mask to fright our party. How doth my son and brother thou trimlest, and the whiteness in thy cheek is after than thy tongue to tell thy errand. Even such a man, so faint, so spiritless, so dull, so dreading, look so woe-begone, drew Priam's curtain in the dead of night, and would have told him hath his Troy was burnt. But Priam found the fire ere he his tongue, and I, my Percy's death, ere thou reports did. This thou would say, your son did thus and thus, your brother thus, so fought the noble Douglas, stopping my greedy ear with their bold deeds. But in the end, to stop my ear indeed, thou hast aside to blow away this praise, ending with brother, son, and all are dead. Douglas is living. And your brother yet, but for my lord your son, By he is dead, see what a ready tongue suspicion hath. He that but fears the thing he would not know, hath by instinct knowledge from other's eyes, that what he feared is chanced. Yet speak, Morton, tell thou an earl his divination lies, and I will take it as a sweet disgrace, and make thee rich for doing me such wrong. You are too great to be by me, Gaines said. Your spirit is too true. Your fears too certain. Yet for all this say not that Percy's dead. I see a strange confession in thine eye. Thou shakes to thy head, and holds stead in fear or sin to speak a truth. If ye be slain, say so. The tongue offends not that reports his death, and he doth sin that doth belie the dead, not he which says the dead is not alive. Yet the first bringer of unwelcome news, hath but a losing office, and his tongue, sounds ever after as a sullen bell, remembered tolling a departing friend. I cannot think my lord your son is dead. I'm sorry I should force you to believe that which I would to God I have not seen. But these mine eyes saw him in bloody state, rendering faint quittance, weary and outbreathed to Harry Monmouth, whose swift wrath beat down the never-daunted Percy to the earth. From whence with life he never more sprang up. In few his death, whose spirit lent a fire even to the dullest peasant in his camp, unbreweted once took fire and heat away from the best-tempered courage in his troops. For from his metal was his party steeled, which once in him abated, and the rest turned on themselves, like dull and heavy lead. And as the thing that's heavy in itself upon enforcement flies with greatest speed, so did our men, heavy in Hotspur's loss, lend to this weight such lightness with their fear that arrows fled not swifter toward their aim than did our soldiers, aiming at their safety, fly from the field. Then was that noble Worcester soon taken prisoner, and that furious Scott, the bloody Douglas, whose well-labouring sword had three times slain the appearance of the king, can veil his stomach and did grace the shame of those that turned their backs. And in his flight, stumbling in fear, was took. The sum of all is that the king hath won, and hath sent out a speedy power to encounter you, my lord, under the conduct of young Lancaster and Westmoreland. This is the news at full. For this I shall have time enough to mourn. In poison there is physics, and these news having been well that would have made me sick, being sick having some measure made me well. And as the wretch whose fever weakened joints like strengthless hinges buckle under life, impatient of his fit breaks like a fire out of his keeper's arms, even so my limbs weakened with grief, being now enraged with grief, are thrice themselves. Hence, therefore, thou nice crutch, a scaly gauntlet now with joints of steel must glove this hand, and hence thou sickly quaff, thou art a guard too wantom for the head which princes fleshed with conquest aim to hit. Now bind my brows with iron and approach the raggedest hour that time and spite dare bring to frown upon the enraged Northumberland. Let heaven kiss earth. Now let not nature's hand keep the wild flood confined, let order die, and let this world no longer be a stage to feed contention in a lingering act, but let one spirit of the first born cane reign in all bosoms, that each heart being set on bloody courses the rude scene may end and darkness be the barrier of the dead. This strained passion doth you wrong, my lord. Sweet Earl, divorce not wisdom from your honour. The lives of all your loving complices lean on your health, the which, if you give o'er to stormy passion, must perforce decay. You cast the event of war, my noble lord, and summed the account of chance before you said, Let us make head. It was your presom eyes that in the dole of blows your son might drop. You knew he walked o'er perils on an edge more likely to fall in than to get o'er. You were advised his flesh was capable of wounds and scars, and that his forward spirit would lift him where most trade of danger ranged. Yet did you say, Go forth? And none of this, though strongly apprehended, could restrain the stiff-born action. What have then befallen, or what have this bold enterprise brought forth, more than that being which was like to be? We all that are engaged to this loss knew that we ventured on such dangerous seas that if we wrought out life was ten to one, and yet we ventured for the gain proposed choked the respect of likely peril feared, and since we are o'er set, venture again. Come, we will put forth body and goods. It is more than time. And, my most noble lord, I hear for certain and dare speak the truth. The gentle archbishop of York is up with well-appointed powers. He is a man who with a double surety binds his followers. My lord, your son had only but the corpse, but shadows and the shows of men to fight. For that same word, rebellion, did divide the action of their bodies from their souls. And they did fight with queasiness, constrained as men drink potions. That their weapons only seemed on our side but for their spirits and souls, this word rebellion, it had froze them up as fish are in a pond. But now the bishop turns insurrection to religion. Suppose sincere and holy in his thoughts he's followed both with body and with mind, and doth enlarge his rising with the blood of fair King Richard scraped from pomfret stones, derives from heaven his quarrel and his cause, tells them he doth bestride a bleeding land gasping for life under great bolling-brook, and more and less do you flock to follow him. I knew of this before, but to speak truth, this present grief hath wiped it from my mind. Go in with me and counsel every man the aptest way for safety and revenge. Get posts and letters and make friends with speed, never so few and never yet more need. Exant, scene two, London, a street. Enter Sir John Falstaff with his page bearing his sword and buckler. Sir, you giant, what says the doctor to my water? He said, Sir, the water itself was a good healthy water. But for the party that owed it he might have more diseases than he knew for. Men of all sorts take a pride to gird at me. The brain of this foolish compounded clay man is not able to invent anything that intends to laughter more than I invent or is invented on me. I am not only witty in myself, but the cause that wit is in other men. I do here walk before thee like a saw that hith overwhelmed on her litter but one. If the prince put thee into my service for any other reason than to set me off, why then I have no judgment? Thou horse-un-mandrake, thou art fitter to be worn in my cap than to wait at my heels. I was never manned with an agate till now, but I will inset you neither in gold nor silver, but in vile apparel, and send you back again to your master for a jewel, the juvenile, the prince, your master, whose chin is not yet fledged. I will sooner have a beard grow in the palm of my hand than he shall get one off his cheek, and yet he will not stick to say his face is a face royal. God may finish it when he will. It is not a hair or miss yet. He may keep it still at a face royal, for a barber shall never earn six pence out of it, and yet he'll be crowing as if he had writ man ever since his father was a bachelor. He may keep his own grace, but he's almost out of mine, I can assure him. What said Master Dommelton about the satin for my short cloak and my slops? He said, sir, you should procure him better assurance than Vardoff. Do not take his band and yours. He liked not the security. Let him be damned, like the glutton, break guard his tongue be hotter, or horse-un a-kittafell, rascal ye forsooth-nave, to bear a gentleman in hand, and then stand upon security. The horse-un smooth-pates do now wear nothing but high shoes and bunches of keys at their girdles, and if man is through with them in honest taking up, then they must stand upon security. I had as leaf they would put rat-spane in my mouth as offered to stop it with security. I looked as should have sent me two and twenty yards of satin, as I am a true knight, that he sends me security. Well, he may sleep in security, for he hath the horn of abundance, and the lightness of his wife shines through it. And yet cannot he see that we have his own lantern to light him. Where's Bardolf? He's gone into Smithfield to buy your worship horse. I bought him in Paul's, and he'll buy me a horse in Smithfield, and I could get me but a wife in the stews, I were manned, horsed, and wived. Enter the Lord Chief Justice and Servant. Sir, here comes the nobleman that committed the Prince for striking him about Bardolf. Wait close, I will not see him. What sea that goes there? Fallstaff, and please your lordship. He that was in the question for the robbery? He, my lord, but he hath since done good service at Shrewsbury, and as I hear, is now going with some charge to the Lord John of Lancaster. What? To joke? Call him back again. Sir John Fallstaff. Boy, tell him I am deaf. You must speak louder. My master is deaf. I am sure he's to the hearing of anything good. Go pluck him by the elbow. I must speak with him. Sir John. What? A young nave and begging? Is there not wars? Is there not employment? Doth not the king lack subjects? Do not the rebels need soldiers? There would be a shame to be on any side, but one, it is worse shame to beg than to be on the worst side. Were it worse than the name of rebellion can tell how to make it. You mistake me, sir. Why, sir, did I say you were an honest man? Setting my knighthood and my soldiership aside, I had lied in my throat if I had said so. I pray you, sir, then set your knighthood and your soldiership aside, and give me leave to tell you, you in your throat, if you say that I am any other than an honest man. I give thee leave to tell me so. I lay aside that which grows to me. If thou getst any leave of me, hang me. If thou takest leave, thou art better be hanged. You hunt counter, hence avort. Sir, my lord would speak with you. Sir John, fault of a word with you. My good lord, God give your lordship good time of day. I am glad to see your lordship abroad. I heard say your lordship was sick. I hope your lordship goes abroad by advice. Your lordship, though not clean past your youth, hath yet some smack of age in you, some relish of the saltiness of time, and I most humbly beseech your lordship to have a reverent care of your health. Sir John, I send for you before your expedition to Shrewsbury. And please your lordship, I hear his majesty is returned with some discomfort from Wales. I talk not of his majesty. You would not come when I sent for you. And I hear moreover his hideous is falling into this same horse and apoplexy. Well, God mend him. I pray you let me speak with you. This apoplexy, as I take it, is a kind of lethargy. And please your lordship, a kind of sleeping in the blood, a wholesome tingling. What tell you me of it? Be it as it is. It hath it original from much grief, from study, and perturbation of the brain. I have read the cause of his effects in Galen. It is a kind of deafness. I think you are falling into the disease. For you hear not what I say to you. Very well, my lord, very well. Rather, and please you, it is the disease of not listening, the malady of not marking, that I am troubled with all. To punish you by the heaths would amend the attention of your heirs. And I care not if I do become your physician. I am as poor as Job, my lord, but not so patient. Your lordship may minister the potion of imprisonment to me in respective poverty. But how I should be your patient to follow your prescriptions, otherwise may make some dram of a scruple, or indeed a scruple itself. I sent for you when there were matters against you for your life, to come speak with me. As I was then advised by my learned counsel in the laws of this land service, I did not come. While the truth is, Sir John, you live in great infamy. He that buckles himself in my belt cannot live in less. Your means are very slender, and your waste is great. I would it were otherwise. I would my means were greater, and my waste slenderer. You have misled the youthful prince. The young prince hath misled me. I am the fellow with the great belly, and he my dog. Well, I am loath to call a new healed wound. Your day service at truth-free hath a little gilded over your nights exploit on Gladshill. You may thank the unique time for your quiet overisposting that action. My lord. But since all is well, keep it so. Wake not a sleeping wolf. To wake a wolf is as bad as smell a fox. What you are as a candle, the better part burnt out. A wassel candle, my lord, all tallow. If I did say of wax, my growth would approve the truth. There is not a white hair in your face but should have his effect of gravity. His effect of gravy, gravy. You follow the young prince up and down like his ill angel. Not so, my lord. Your ill angel is light, but hope he that looks upon me will take me without weighing. And yet, in some respects, I grant I cannot go. I cannot tell. The virtue is of so little regard, and these cost among us times that true valor is turned barad. Pregnancy is made a tapster and is quick wit wasted in giving reckonings. All the other gifts, a pertinent to man, as the malice of this age shapes them, are not worth a gooseberry. You that are old, consider not the capacities of us that are young. You do measure the heat of our livers with the bitterness of your galls. And we that are in the vey word of our youth must confess our wags too. Do you set down your name in the scroll of youth that are written down old with all the characters of age? Have you not a moist eye, a dry hand, a jello cheek, a white beard, a decreasing leg, and increasing belly? Is not your voice broken, your wind short, your chin double, your wit single, and every part about your blasted with antiquity? And will you yet call yourself young? Five, five, sir John. My lord, I was born about three o'clock in the afternoon with a white head and something round the belly. For my voice I have lost it with hallowing and singing of anthems. To approve my youth further I will not. The truth is, I am only old in judgment and understanding, and he that will caper with me for a thousand marks, let him lend me the money and have at him. For the box of the ear that the prince gave you, he gave it like a rude prince, and you took it like a sensible lord. I have chapped him for it, and the young lion repents, marry not in ashes and sackcloth, but in new silk and old sack. Well, God send the prince a better companion. God send the companion a better prince, I cannot rid my hands of him. Well, the king has served you. I hear you are going with Lord John of Lancaster against the Archbishop and the Earl of Northumberland. Yeah, I think you're pretty sweet-wit for it. But look, you pray, all you that kiss my lady-piece at home, that our armies join not in a hot day. For by the lord I take but two shirts out with me, and I mean not to sweat extraordinarily if it be a hot day, that I branish anything but a bottle. I would, I might never spit white again. There is not a dangerous action can peep out his head, but I am thrust upon it. Well, I cannot last ever. But it was always yet the trick of our English nation, if they have a good thing, to make it too common. If he will need say, I am an old man. You should give me rest. I would to God my name were not so terrible to the enemy as it is. I were better to be eaten to death with a rust than to be scoured to nothing with perpetual motion. Well, be honest, be honest, and God bless your expedition. Will your lord ship lend me a thousand pounds to furnish me forth? Not a penny, not a penny, you are too impatient to bear crosses. Fare you well, commend me to my cousin Westmoreland. Exant chief justice and servant. If I do, fill up me with a three-man beetle. A man can no more separate age and covetousness than it can part young limbs and luxury. But the gout galls the one, and the pox pinches the other. And so both the degrees prevent my curses. Boy! Sir? What money is in my purse? Seven grotes and tuppence. I can get no remedy against this consumption of the purse. Borrowing only lingers and lingers it out, but the disease is incurable. Go bear this letter to my lord of Lancaster, this to the prince, this to the Earl of Westmoreland, and this to old Mistress Ursula, whom I have weakly sworn to marry since I perceived the first white hair of my chin. About it you know where to find me. Exit page. A pox of this gout. Nor a gout of this pox, for the one or the other plays the rogue with my great toe. It is no matter if I do halt. I have the wars for my color, and my penchant shall seem the more reasonable. A good wit would make use of anything. I will turn diseases to commodity. Exit. Scene three. York. The Archbishop's Palace. Enter the Archbishop, Thomas Malbraith the Earl-Marshall, Lord Hastings, and Lord Bardolf. Have you heard our cause and known our means, and my most noble friends, I pray you all, speak plainly your opinions of our hopes, and first, Lord Marshal, what say you to it? I will allow the occasion of our arms, but gladly would be better satisfied how, in our means, we should advance ourselves to look with forehead-bold and big enough upon the power and poisons of the king. The present musters grow upon the file to five and twenty thousand men of choice, and our supplies live largely in the hope of great Northumberland, whose bosom burns with an insensitive fire of injuries. The question, then, Lord Hastings, standeth thus, whether our present five and twenty thousand may hold up head without Northumberland. With him we may. Sorry, there's the point, but if without him we be thought too feeble, my judgment is we should not step too far till we had his assistance by the hand. For, in a theme so bloody-faced as this, conjecture, expectation, and surmise of aides in certain should not be admitted. It is very true, Lord Bardolf, for indeed it was Young Hotspur's case at Shrewsbury. It was, my Lord, who lined himself with hope, eating the air and promise of supply, flattering himself in project of a power much smaller than the smallest of his thoughts, and so, with great imagination proper to mad men, led his powers to death, and winking leapt into destruction. But by your leave it never yet did hurt to lay down likelihoods and forms of hope? Yes, if this present quality of war, indeed, the instant action, a cause on foot, lives so in hope as in an early spring we see the appearing buds which, to prove fruit, hope gives not so much warrant as despair that frosts will bite them. When we mean to build, we first survey the plot, then draw the model, and when we see the figure of the house, then we must rate the cost of the erection, which, if we find out ways' ability, what do we do then but draw anew the model in fewer offices, or at least desist to build at all? Much more, in this great work, which is almost to pluck a kingdom down and set another up, should we survey the plot of situation and the model, consent upon a sure foundation, question surveyors, know our own estate, how able such a work to undergo, to weigh against his opposite, or else, we fortify in paper and in figures, using the names of men instead of men, like one that draws the model of a house beyond his power to build it, who, half through, gives ore, and leaves his part created cost a naked subject to the weeping clouds and waste for churlish winter's tyranny. I regret that our hopes, yet likely a fair birth, should be still born, and that we now possess the utmost man of expectation. I think we are a body strong enough, even as we are, to equal with the king. What is the king but five and twenty thousand? To us no more, nay, not so much, Lord Bardolf, for his divisions, as the times do brawl, are in three heads, one power against the French, and one against Glendauer, perforce a third must take up us, so is the unfirm king, in three divided, and his coffers sound with hollow poverty and emptiness. That he should draw his several strengths together and come against us in full puissance, need not be dreaded. If he should do so, he leaves his back unarmed, the French and Welsh baying him at the heels, never fear that. Who is it like should lead his forces hither? The Duke of Lancaster and Westmoreland, against the Welsh himself, and Harry Monmouth, but who is substituted against the French, I have no certain notice. Let us on, and publish the occasion of our arms. The common wealth is sick of their own choice. Their overgreedy love hath surfeted, and habitation giddy and unsure hath he that buildeth on the vulgar heart. O thou fond many, with what loud applause didst thou beat heaven with blessing bowling-brook, before he was what thou wouldst have him be. And being now trimmed in thine own desires, thou beastly feeder, art so full of him, that thou provokest thyself to cast him up. So, so, thou common dog, didst thou disgorge thy glutton bosom of the royal Richard, and now thou wouldst eat thy dead vomit up, and howlst to find it. Who art trust is in these times? They, that when Richard lived, would have him die, are now becoming enamoured on his grave. Thou that threwst dust upon his goodly head, when through proud London he came sighing on, after the admired heels of bowling-brook, cryest now, O earth, yield us that king again, and take thou this. O thoughts of men accursed, past and to come seems best, things present, worst. Shall we go draw our numbers, and set on? We are time subjects, and time bids be gone. Exant. End of Act 1. Act 2 of the second part of Henry IV. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The second part of Henry IV by William Shakespeare. Act 2. Scene 1. London, a street. Enter Hostess with two officers, Fang and Snare. Master Fang, have you entered the action? It is entered. Where's your yeoman? Is the lusty yeoman? Will I stand to it? Sirah, where's Snare? O Lord, I, good master Snare. Here, here. Snare, we must arrest Sir John Falstaff. Yay, good master Snare, I have entered him and all. It may trans-cost some of our lives, for he will stab. Alas, the day, take heed of him. He stabbed me in my own house, and that most beastly. In good faith, it cares not what mischief he does if his weapon be out. He will foin like any devil, he will spare neither man, woman, nor child. If I can close with him, I care not for his thrust. No, nor I, neither. I'll be at your elbow. And I but fist him once, and I come but within my vice. I am undone by his going. I warrant you he's an infinitive thing upon my score. Good master Fang, hold him sure. Good master Snare, let him not escape. It comes continually to pie-corner, saving your manhoods, to buy a saddle, and he is indicted to dinner to the lubber's head in Lumbered Street to master smooths the silkman. I pray you, since my egzian has entered and my case so openly known to the world, let him be brought into his answer. A hundred mark is a long one for a poor lone woman to bear, and I have borne and borne and borne and have been fubbed off and fubbed off and fubbed off from this day to that day that it is a shame to be thought on. There is no honesty in such dealing, unless a woman should be made an ass and a beast to bear every knave's wrong. Enter Sir John Falstaff, Page and Bardolf. Yonder he comes, and that errant momsy-nose-nave Bardolf with him. Do your offices, do your offices, master Fang and master Snare. Do me, do me, do me your offices. How now? Whose mare's dead? What's the matter? Sir John, I arrest you at the suit of Mistress Quickly. Away, violets! Draw, Bardolf! Cut me off the villain's head. Throw the quane in the channel. Throw me in the channel. I'll throw thee in the channel. Wilt thou, wilt thou thou bastardly rogue? Murder, murder! Thou honey-suckled villain, wilt thou kill God's officers and the kings? Thou honey-seed rogue, thou art a honey-seed, a man-queller and a woman-queller. Keep them off, Bardolf! Arresque you! Arresque you! Good people bring a rescue or two. Thou what, what thou? Thou what, what the? Do, do thou rogue? Do thou hemp-seed? Away, you scullion, you rampalion, you fuss-delarian. I'll tickle your catastrophe. Enter the Lord Chief Justice and his men. What is the matter? Keep the peace here? Who? Good my lord, be good to me. I beseech you. Stand to me. How now, sir John? What are you brawling here? Doth this become your place, your time and business? You should have been well on your way to jok. Stand from him, fellow, wherefore hangst thou upon him? O my most worshipful lord, and please your grace, I am a poor widow of East Cheap, and he is arrested at my suit. For what sum? It is more than for some, my lord, it is for all. All I have. He hath eaten me out of house and home, he hath put all my substance into that fat belly of his. But I will have some of it out again, or I will ride thee at nights like a mare. I think I am as like to ride the mare if I have any vantage of ground to get up. How comes this, sir John? Fie, what man of good temper would endure this tempest of exclamation? Are you not ashamed to enforce a poor widow to so rough a course to come by her own? What is the gross sum that I owe thee? Mary, if thou art an honest man, thyself and the money, too. Thou didst swear to me upon a parcel-guilt goblet sitting in my dolphin chamber at the round table by a sea-cold fire upon Wednesday and Wiesen week when the prince broke thy head for liking his father to singing round of Windsor. Thou didst swear to me, then, as I was washing thy wound, to marry me and make me my lady thy wife. Canst thou deny it? Did not good wife Keech, the butcher's wife, come in then and call me gossip quickly, coming in to borrow a mess of vinegar, telling us she had a good dish of prawns, whereby thou didst desire to eat some, whereby I told thee they were ill for green wound? And didst thou not, when she was gone downstairs, desire me to be no more so familiarity with such poor people, saying that ere long they should call me madam? And didst thou not kiss me and bid me fetch the thirty shillings? I put thee now to thy book oath, deny it if thou canst. My lord, this is a poor mad soul, and she says up and down the town that her eldest son is like you. She hath been in good case, and the truth is, poverty hath distracted her. But for these foolish officers, I beseech you I may have redress against them. Sir John, sir John, I am well acquainted with your manner of wrenching the true cough the false way. It is not a confident brow, nor the throng of words that come with such more than impudent sauciness from you can thrust me from a level consideration. You have, as it appears to me, practised upon the easy-jeeling spirit of this woman, and made her serve your uses both in purse and in person. Yea, in truth, my lord. Pray thee peace, pay her the debt you owe her, and unpay the villainy you have done with her, the one you may do with sterling money, and the other with current repentance. My lord, I will not undergo this sleep without reply. You call honourable boldness impudent sauciness. If a man will make curtsy and say nothing, he is virtuous. No, my lord, my humble duty remembered. I will not be your suitor. I say to you, I do desire deliverance from these officers, being upon hasty employment in the king's affairs. You speak as having power to do wrong, but answer in the effect of your reputation and satisfy the poor woman. Come here, there, hostess. Enter Gower. Now, master Gower, what news? The king, my lord, and Harry-prince of Wales are near at hand. The rest the paper tells. Gives a letter. As I am a gentleman. Faith, you said so before. As I am a gentleman, come. No more words of it. By this heavenly ground I trod on, I must be feigned to pawn both my plate and the tapestry of my dining chambers. Glasses, glasses, is the only drinking, and for thy walls a pretty slight drawlory, or the story of the prodigal, the German hunting in Waterwork is worth a thousand of these bed-hangers and these fly-biton tapestries. Let it be ten pound if thou canst. Come, and were not for thy humours, there's not a better wench in England. Go, wash thy face, and draw the action. Come, thou must not be in this humour with me, and dost not know me. Come, come. I know thou wasst set on to this. Pray thee, Sir John, let it be but twenty nobles if faith I am loath to pawn my plate, so God save me, la. Let it alone. I'll make other shift. You'll be a fool still. Well, you shall have it, though I pawn my gown. I hope you'll come to supper. You'll pay me altogether. Will I live? Tabardov. Go, with her, with her. Hook on, hook on. I'll have Doll Tearsheet meet you at supper. No more words. Let's have her. Exant Hostess, Bardolf, and Officers. I have heard better news. What's the news, my lord? Where lay the king tonight? At Basingstoke, my lord. I hope my lord all's well. What is the news, my lord? Come all his forces back? No. fifteen hundred foot, five hundred horse are marched up to my lord of Lancaster, against Northumberland and the Archbishop. Comes the king back from Wales, my noble lord? You shall have letters of me presently. Come, go along with me, good Master Gower. My lord. What's the matter? Master Gower, shall I entreat you with me to dinner? I must wait upon my good lord here. I thank you, good Sir John. Sir John, you loiter here too long, being you are to take soldiers up in the Countess as you go. Will you sup with me, Master Gower? What foolish master taught you these manners, sir John? 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. Now the lord lighten thee, thou art a great fool. Exent. Scene two. London. Another street. Enter Prince Henry and points. Before God, I am exceeding weary. Is it come to that? I had thought weariness durst not have attached one of so high blood. Faith it does me. Though it discolors the complexion of my greatness to acknowledge it. Does it not show vile in me to desire small beer? Why, a prince should not be so loosely studied as to remember so weak a composition. The like then. My appetite was not princely gaunt. For by my truth 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 it is to me to remember thy name or to know thy face tomorrow. Or to take note how many pair of silk stockings thou hast these and those that were thy peach colored ones. Or to bear the inventory of thy shirts as one for superfluity and another for use. But that the tennis courtkeeper knows better than I. For it is a low ebb of linen with thee when thou keepest 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 hullend. And God knows whether those at ball out of the ruins of thy linen shall inherit his kingdom. But the midwives say the children are not in the fault. Whereupon the world increases and kindreds are muddily strengthened. How ill it follows after you have labored so hard you should talk so idly. Tell me how many good young princes would do so. Their father is being so sick as yours at this time is. Shall I tell thee one thing, points? Yes, faith, and let it be an excellent good then. It shall serve among wits of no higher-breeding than thine. Go to. I stand the push of your one thing that you will tell. Mary, I tell thee. It is not neat that I should be sad. Now my father is sick. Albeit I could tell to thee as to want it please is me for a fault of a better to call my friend. I could be sad and sad indeed too. Very hardly upon such a subject. By this hand thou thinkest me as far in the devil's book as thou and false staff for obduracy and persistency. Let the end try the men. But I tell thee my heart bleeds inwardly that my father is so sick in keeping such vile company as thou art, half in reason taking from me all ostentation of sorrow. The reason? What would thou think of me if I should weep? I would think thee a most princely hypocrite. 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 nine. Every man would think me an hypocrite indeed. And what excites your most worshipful thought to think so? Why, because you have been so lewd and so much engraft of all staff. And to thee. By this light I am well spoke on. I can hear it with my 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. By the mass here comes Bardolf. Enter Bardolf and Page. And the boy that I gave false staff. I had him from me Christian. If the fat villain had not transformed him in ape. God save your grace. And yours, most noble Bardolf. Come, you virtuous ass. You bashful 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 pot-o-pot's maiden head? I calls me in 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, methawp, he had made two holes in the ale-wife's new petticoat and so peaked through. Has not the boy profited? Away, you worsen, upright rabbit. Away. Away, you rascally Althea's dream. Away. Instruct us, boy. What dream, boy? Marry, my lord. Althea dreamt she was delivered of a fire-brand and therefore I call him her dream. A crown's worth of good interpretation. There it is, boy. Oh, that this blossom could be kept from cankers. Well, there's sixpence to preserve thee. And you do not make him be hanged among you? The gallows shall have wrong. And how doth thy master bottle? Well, my lord. He heard of your graces coming to town. Here's a letter for you. Delivered with good respect. And how doth the mortal mass, your master? In bodily health, sir. To marry the immortal part needs a physician. But that moves not him. Though that be sick, it dies not. I do allow this well to be as familiar with me as my dog. And he holds his place for, look you, how he writes. Reads. John Falstaff. Night. Every man must know that as oft as he has occasion to name himself, even like those that are kin to the king, for they never prick their finger, but they say, there's 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. Nay, they will be kin to us, or they will fetch it from Yafet. But the letter. Reads. Sir John Falstaff. Night. To the son of the king nearest his father, Harry Prince of Wales. Greeting. Why, this is a certificate. Peace. Reads. I will imitate the honourable Romans in brevity. He sure means brevity in breath, short-winded. Reads. I commend me to thee, I commend thee, and I leave thee. Be not too familiar with points, for he misuses thy favours so much that he swears thou art to marry his sister, Nell. Repented idle times as thou mist, and so farewell. Thine by ye an know, which is as much to say as thou usest him, Jack Falstaff with my familiars, John with my brothers and sisters, and Sir John with all Europe. My lord, I'll steep this letter and sack, and make him eat it. That's to make him eat twenty of his words. But do you use me thus, Ned? Must I marry your sister? God send the winch no worse fortune, but I never said so. Well, thus we play the fools with the time, and the spirits of the wise sit in the clouds and mock us. Is there a master here in London? Yea, my lord. Where's Supsie? Duffy old boar feed in the old Frank? At the old place, my lord, in East Cheep. What company? Ephesians, my lord, of the old church. Sups any women with him? None, my lord, but old Mistress Quicly and Mistress Doll Tearsheet. What pagan may that be? A proper gentlewoman, sir, and a kin's woman of my masters. Even such kin as the parish hyphers are to the town bull. Shall we still upon them, Ned? At supper? I am your shadow, my lord. I'll follow you. Sirah, you boy, and Bardolf. No word to your master that I am yet to come to town. There's for your silence. I have no tongue, sir. And for mine, sir, I will govern it. Fare you well. Go. Exant Bardolf and Page. This Doll Tearsheet should be some road. I warrant you as common as the way between St. Albans and London. I might receive false staff bestow himself to night in his true colours, and not ourselves be seen. Put on two leathern jerkens and aprons, and wait upon him at his table as drawers. From a god to a bull? A heavy dissension. It was Job's case. From a prince to apprentice? A low transformation? That shall be mine. For in everything the purpose must weigh with the folly. Follow me, Ned. Exant. Scene three. Workworth. Before the castle. Enter Northumberland, Lady Northumberland, and Lady Percy. I pray the loving wife and gentle daughter. Give even way unto my rough affairs. Put not you on the visage of the times, and be like them to Percy Troubleson. I have given other. I will speak no more. Do what you will. Your wisdom be your guide. Alas, sweet wife. My honour is at pawn, and but my going, nothing can redeem it. Oh, yet for God'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, your own Percy, when my heart, dear Harry, through many a north, would 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 sons. For yours, the God of heaven brightened it. For his, it stuck upon him like the sun in the gray 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, oh wondrous him, oh 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 afield where nothing but the sound of hopsper's name did seem defensible. So you left him. Never, oh 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 hopsper's neck, have talked of mollusk grave. Be shrew your heart, fair 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. Oh, fly to Scotland, till that the knurples in the armed commons have of their presence made a little taste. If they get ground in 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 reign upon remembrance with mine eyes, that may grow and sprout as high as heaven for recordation to my noble husband. Come, come go in with me, tears with my mind, as with the tide swelled up into 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. Exant. Scene four. London. The boar's head tavern in East Tube. Enter Francis and another drawer. What the devil has thou brought there? Applejohns? Thou knowest sir John cannot endure an applejohn. Mass, thou say'st true. The prince once set a dish of applejohns before him and told him there were five more sirjohns. 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. Why, then, cover and set them down and see if thou canst find out Sneak's noise. Mistress Tearsheet would vain hear some music. Enter Third drawer. Dispatch. The room where they sucked is too hot. They'll come in straight. Sirah, here will be the prince and master points anon and they will put on two of our jirkins and aprons. And sir John must not know of it. Bardoff hath brought word. By the mass, here will be old arts. It will be an excellent stratagem. I'll see if I can find out Sneak. Exant Second and Third drawers. Enter Hostess and Doll Tearsheet. If faith, sweetheart, me thinks you are an excellent good temporality. Your pulsage beats as extraordinarily as heart would desire in your colour I warrant you as red as any rose, a good truth, la. But if faith, you have drunk too much canaries and that's a marvellous searching wine and it perfumes the blood air one can say, what's this? How do you know? Better than I was. Well, that's well said. A good heart's worth gold. Lo, here comes Sir John. Enter Falstaff. When art the first in court. Empty the Jordan. Exit Francis. Because I'm worthy king. How now, Mistress Doll? Sick of a calm, yay in good faith. So is all her sacked and they be once in a calm. They are sick. A pox damn you, you muddy rascal. Is that all the comfort you give me? You make fat rascals, Mistress Doll. I make them. Gluttony and diseases make them. I make them not. If the crook help to make the gluttony, you help to make the diseases, doll. We catch of you, doll. We catch of you. Grat that, my poor virtue. Grat that. Yay, joy, our chains and our jewels. Your brooches, pearls and ouches. For to serve bravely is to come halting off. You know, to come off the breach with his pike bent bravely and to surgery bravely. To venture upon the charged chambers bravely. Hang yourself, you muddy conger, hang yourself. By my truth this is the old fashion. You two never meet, but you fall to some discord. You are both the good truth as rheumatic as two dry toasts. You cannot bear with another's confirmities. What the good year one must bear and that must be you. You are the weaker vessel, as they say, the emptier vessel. Can a weak empty vessel bear such a huge full hog's head? There's old merchant's venture of bordeaux stuff in him. You've not seen a hulk but a stuffed in the old. Come, I'll be friends with thee, Jack. Thou art going to the wars and whether I shall ever see thee again or know there is nobody cares. Reenter, Francis. Sir, ancient pistols below and would speak with you. Hang him, swaggering rascal. Let him not come, either. It's the foulmouth's rogue in England. If he's swagger, let him not come here. Know by my faith I must live among my neighbours. I'll know, swaggerers, I am in good name and fame with the very best. Shut the door, there comes no swaggerers here. I have not lived all this while to have swaggering now. Shut the door, I pray you. Does thou hear, hostess? Pray ye pacify yourself, Sir John. There comes no swaggerers here. Does thou hear? It is mine ancient. Till he felling, Sir John, there tell me and your ancient swaggerer comes not in my doors. I was before Master Tizek, the deputy, the other day and as he said to me it was no longer ago than Wednesday last a good faith. Neighbour quickly, says he. Master Dumbi, our minister, was by then. Neighbour quickly, says he. Receive those that are civil for, said he. You are in an ill name. Now I said so. I can tell whereupon. For, says he, you are an honest woman and well thought on, therefore take heed what guests you receive. Receive, says he, no swaggering companions. There comes none here. You would bless you to hear what he said. He's no swaggerer, hostess. Attain cheater a faith. You may stroke him as gently as a puppy greyhound. You'll not swagger with a barberry hen if our feathers turn back in any show of resistance. Call him up, drawer. Cheater, call you him. I will bar no honest man my house nor no cheater, but I do not love swaggering by my truth. I am the worst when one says swagger. Feel, masters, how I shake, look you, I warrant you. So you do, or sis? Do I, yea, in very truth, do I, and for an aspen leaf? I cannot abide, swaggerers. Enter pistol, bardoff and page. God save you, sir John. Welcome, ancient pistol. Here, pistol, I charge you with a cup of sack. Do you discharge upon my hostess? I will discharge upon her, sir John, with two bullets. Oh, is she his pistol proof, sir? You shall not hardly offend her. Come, I'll drink no proofs nor no bullets. I'll drink no more than will do me good for no man's pleasure I. Then to you, Mistress Dorothy, I will charge you. Charge me. I scorn you, scurvy companion. What you poor, base, rascally, cheating, lacklending mate. Away, you mouldy rogue, away, I am meat for your master. I know you, Mistress Dorothy. Away, you cut-puss rascal, you filthy bung-away. By this wine I'll thrust my knife in your mouldy chaps, and you play the saucy cuddle with me. Away, you bot-lail rascal, your basket-hilt stale juggler you. Since when I pray you, sir? God's light with two points on your shoulder, much. God, let me not live, but I will murder your wrath for this. No more pistol. I would not have you go off here. Discharge yourself of our company, pistol. No, good captain pistol, lot here, sweet captain. Captain? Thou abominable damn cheater, are thou not ashamed to be called captain? And captains were of my mind, though trunching you out for taking their names upon you before you've earned them. You were captain. You slave for what? For tearing a poor oar was rough in a body-house. He, a captain, hang him, rogue. He lives upon mouldy stewed prunes and dried cakes. A captain. God's light these villains will make the word as odious as the word occupy, which was an excellent good word before it was all sorted. Therefore captains would need look to it. Pray thee go down, good ancient. How could we hear thee, Mistress Doll? Not I. I tell thee what corporal bottle if I could tear her, I'll be revenged of her. Pray thee go down. I'll see her damned first to Pluto's damned lake, by this hand to the infernal deep, with arabus and torches viles also. Hold hook and line, say I, down, down, dogs, down, fatas. Have we not hire in here? Good captain peas will be quiet, is very late of faith. I beseek you now, aggravate your collar. These be good humors indeed shall pack horses and hollow pampered jades of Asia, which can all go but thirty mile a day, compare with caesars and with cannibals and trojan Greeks. Nay, rather damn them with king Cerberus and let the rocon roar. Shall we fall foul for toys? By my truth, captain, these are very bitter words. Be gone, good ancient. This will grow into a brawlin' on. Die, men like dogs! Give crowns like pins! Have we not hire in here? My word, captain, there's none such here. What the good year do you think I would deny her? For God's sake, be quiet. Then feed and be fat, my fair Calypillus. Come, give us some sack. See, Fortuna me tormentes, Perato me contento. Fear we broadsides, no. Let the fiend give fire. Give me some sack, and sweet heart lie thou there. Laying down his sword. Come, wait a full points here, and our etcetera's nothings. Pistol, I would be quiet. Sweet knight, I kiss thy nape. What, we have seen the seven stars. For God's sake, thrust him down the stairs. I cannot endure such a frosty and rascal. Thrust him down stairs. No, we not Galloway nags. Quiet him down, Bardoff, like a shove-grote chilling. Nay, and he do nothing but speak nothing. There shall be nothing here. Come, get you down stairs. What, shall we have incision? Shall we imbrew? Snatching up his sword. Then death rocked me asleep, abridged my doful days, Where they let grievous ghastly gaping wounds Untwine the sisters three. Come, atropos, I say! Here's goodly stuffed ward. Give me my rapier boy. I pray thee, Jack, I pray thee do not draw. Get you down stairs. Drawing and driving pistol out. Here's a goodly tumult, I'll for swear keeping house Before I'll be in these turrets and frights. So murder, I warned. Now alas, alas, put up your naked weapons. Put up your naked weapons. Exant pistol and bardov. I pray thee, Jack, be quiet. The rascals gone. Oh, you wholesome little valiant villain youth. Are you not heard in the groin? My thoughts emit a shrewd thrust at your belly. Re-enter bardov. Have you turned them out of doors? Yea, sir, the rascals drunk. You have hurt him, sir, in the shoulder. Of rascal, to brave me. Oh, you sweet rogue you. Alas, poor ape, how thou sweatest. Come, let me wipe thy face. Come on, you wholesome chops. Oh, rogue. O faith, I love thee. Thou art as valorous as extra of Troy, worth five of Agamem, none in ten times better than the nine worthies. Oh, villain. A rascally sneer. I will toss the rogue in a blanket. Do and thou dearest with thy heart. And thou dust our canvassee between a pair of sheets. Enter musicians. The music is come, sir. Let them play. Play, sirs. Sit on my knee, doll. A rascal bragging slave. The rogue fled from me like Quicksilver. Thou faith, and thou follow'st him like a church. Thou wholesome little tidy-buff, folly-mew-baw-pig. When will thou leave fighting the days and foining the nights, and begin to patch up thy old body for ever? Enter behind Prince Henry and Poins disguised as drawers. Peace, good doll. Do not speak like a death-sad. Do not bid me remember mine end. Cyril, what humours the Prince of? A good, shallow young fellow. He would have made a good pantler. He would have chipped bread well. They say Poins has a good wit. He? A good wit? Eh, him, baboon! His wit's as thick as Tuxbury Mustard. There's no more concede in him than is in a mallet. Why does the Prince love him so, then? Because their legs are both of a bigness, and their plays at Quiteswell, and eats conger and fennel, and drinks off candles-ends for flap-dragons, and rides the wild mare with the boys, and jumps upon joined stools and swears with a good grace, and wears his boots very smooth, like unto the sign of the leg, and breeds no bait with telling of discreet stories, and such other gamble faculties a has that show a weak mind in an able body, for the which the Prince admits him. For the Prince himself is such another. A weight of a hair will turn the scales between their avid the poise. Would not this nave of a wheel have his ears cut off? Let's beat him before his whore. Look where the withered elder hath on his pole clawed like a parent. Is it not strange that desire should so many years outlive performance? Kiss me, dog! Saturn in Venus this year in conjunction. What says the Almanac to that? And look whether the fiery trigon, his man, be not lisping to his master's old tables, but look, his book-book, his council-keeper. Thou dost give me flattering buses. By my trove I kiss thee with a most constant heart. I am old. I am old. I love thee, but in an I love ere a scurvy young boy evermore. What stuff will have a curdle of? I shall receive money a Thursday. I shall have a cap tomorrow. A merry song come. A gross late will to bed. Thou dost forget me when I am gone. By my trove, thou dost set me a weeping in thou, says so. Prove that ever I'd dress myself handsome till thy return. Well, harken at the end. Some sack, Francis. And on and on, sir. Advancing. Ha! A bastard son of the kings? And hark thou not points, his brother? Why, thou globe of sinful continents, what a life dost thou lead? A better than thou. I am a gentleman. Thou art a drawer. Very true, sir. And I come to draw you out by the ears. Oh, the Lord preserve thy grace. By my trove, welcome to London. Now, the Lord bless that sweet face of thine. Oh, yesu, are you come from Wales? Thou horse and mad compound of majesty. By this light flesh and corrupt blood thou art welcome. Leaning his band upon Dahl. How you fat fool, I'll scorn you. My Lord, he will drive you out of your revenge and turn all to a merriment, if you take not the heat. You, horse-son candle-mind. You, how vilely did you speak of me even now before this honest, virtuous, civil, gentle woman? God's blessing are your good heart, and so she is by my trove. Didst thou hear me? Yea, and you knew me as you did when you ran away by Gas Hill. You knew I was at your back and spoke it on purpose to try my patience. No, no, no, not so. I did not think thou was within hearing. I shall drive you then to confess the willful abuse, and then I know how to handle you. No abuse, Hal. My honor, no abuse. Not to dispraise me, and calmly pander in bread-chipper, and I know not what. No abuse, Hal. No abuse. No abuse, Ned. The world honest, Ned. None. I dispraised him before the wicked, that the wicked might not fall in love with thee, in which doing I have done the part of a careful friend and a true subject, and thy father is to give me thanks for it. No abuse, Hal. None, Ned. None. No faith, boys. None. See now, whether pure fear and entire cowardice doth not make me wrong, this virtuous gentleman to close with us? Is she of the wicked? Is thine hostess here of the wicked? Or is thy boy of the wicked? Or honest Bardoff, whose zeal burns in his nose of the wicked? Answer, thou dead elm. Answer. The fiend hath pricked down Bardoff your recoverable, and his face is Lucifer's privy kitchen, where he doth nothing but roast mortworms. For the boy, there is a good angel about him, but the devil outbids him too. For the women? For one of them. She's in hell already, and burns poor souls. For the other. I owe her money, and whether she be damned for that, I know not. No, I warrant you. No, I think thou ought not. I think thou ought quit for that. Mary, there is another indictment upon thee for suffering flesh to be eaten in thy house, contrary to the law, for the which I think thou wilt howl. All victlers do so. What's a joint of mutton or two and a whole lent? You, gentlewoman. What says your grace? His grace says that which is flesh rebels against. Knocking within. Who knocks so loud a door? Look to the door there, Francis. Enter Pato. Pato, how now? What news? The king your father is at Westminster, and there are twenty weak and weary 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 everyone for Sir John Forstuff. By heaven points, I feel me much to blame. So idly to profane the precious time, and tempests of commotion like the south born with black vapor that begin to melt and drop upon our bare unarmed heads. Give me my sword and cloak. Falstaff, good night. Exant prints, points, Pato and Bardolf. Now comes the sweetest morsel of the night, and we must hence and leave it unpicked. Knocking within. More knocking at the door. Re-enter Bardolf. How now? What's the matter? You must await a court, sir, presently. A dozen captains stay at door for you. To the page. Pay the musicians, sir. Farewell, hostess. Farewell, doll. You see, my good wenches, how many 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. I cannot speak. If my art be not ready to burst, well, sweet Jack, have a care of thyself. Farewell! Farewell! A dozen fallstaff and Bardolf. Well, fare thee well. I have known thee these twenty-nine years come peace, God-time, but an honester and truer-hearted man, well, fare thee well. Within. Mistress Teresheet. What's the matter? Within. Bid Mistress Teresheet come to my master. Oh, run, doll, run, run, good, come. To Bardolf. She comes, blubbered. Yea, will you come, doll? Exant. End of Act Two. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Henry IV, Part Two. By William Shakespeare. Act Three. Scene One. Westminster. The Palace. Enter the king in his nightgown with a page. Go call the Earls of Surrey. Go call the Earls of Surrey and of Warwick. But ere they come, bid them or 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. Oh, sleep. Oh, 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 nightflies to thy slumber than in the perfume chambers of the great, under the canopies of costly state and lulled with sound of sweetest melody? Oh, thou dull god, why liest thou with the vial in loathsome beds and leavest the kingly couch, a watch-case or a common laurambel? Well, 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 deafening clamour in the slippery clouds, that with the hurly death itself awakes? Tense 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, lo, lie down. Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown. Enter Warwick and Surrey. Many good morrows to your majesty. Is it, good morrow, lords? Tis one o'clock and past. Why, then, good morrow to you all, my lords, have you read o'er the letters that I sent you? We have, my liege. 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. 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. O God, 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 chances mock and changes fill a cup of alteration with diver's liquors. O, if this were seen, the happiest youth, viewing his progress through, what perils past, what crosses to ensue, would shut the Book and sit him down and die. 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? To Warwick. You cousin Neville, as I may remember, when Richard with his eye brimful of tears, then checked and rated by Northumberland, speak these words now proved a prophecy, Northumberland, thou latter by the which my cousin Bollingbroke ascends my throne. Though then, God 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 the same time's condition and the division of our amity. There is a history in all men's lives figuring the natures of the times deceased, the which observed a man may prophecy with a near aim of the main chance of things as yet not come to life, who in their seeds and weak beginning lie in treasured. 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. 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 in Northumberland are fifty thousand strong. It cannot be, my lord, Rumer Doth double like the voice and echo, the numbers of the feared. Please it, your grace, to go to bed. Upon my soul, 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 Glendauer is dead. Your Majesty hath been this fortnight ill, and these unseasoned hours per force must add unto your sickness. I will take your counsel, and were these inward wars once out of hand, we would, dear lords, unto the Holy Land. Exent. Scene two. Glastisher before Justice Shallow's house. Enter Shallow in silence, meeting. Moldy, shadow, wart, feeble, bullcalf, and servants behind. Come on, come on, come on! Give me your hand, sir, give me your hand, sir. An early stirrow by the rude, and how doth my good cousin silence? Good morrow, good cousin Shallow. And how doth my cousin, your bed-fellow, and your fairest daughter and mine, my God-daughter, Ellen? Alas, a black oozle, cousin Shallow. By ye and no, sir. I daresay my cousin William has become a good scholar. He is at Oxford still, is he not? Indeed, sir, to my cost. He must then, too, the ends are caught shortly. I was once of Clements Inn, where I think they will talk of mad Shallow yet. You were called Lusty Shallow, then cousin. By the mass 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 John Barnes, and Francis Pickbone, and Will Squeal, a Cotswold man. You had not fore such swinge-bucklers in all the ends of court again. And I may say to you, we knew where the boner robers were, and had the best of them all at commandment. Then was Jack Fowlstaff, now Sir John, boy and page to Thomas Mowbury Duke of Norfolk. This Sir John cousin that comes hither and on about soldiers? The same Sir John, the very same. I see him break Skoggin's head at the court gate when he was a crack not thus high. And the very same day did I fight with one Samson Stockfish, a fruiterer, behind Grey's Inn. Jesus, Jesus, the mad days that I have spent, and to see how many of my old acquaintance are dead. We shall all follow, cousin. Certain, it is certain. Sure, very sure. Death, as the psalmist sayeth, is certain to all. All shall die. How a good yoke of bullocks at Stamford Fair! By my truth I was not there. Death is certain. Is old double of your town living yet? Dead, sir. Jesus, Jesus. Dead, drew a good bow, and dead. He shot a fine shoot. John and Gaunt loved him well, and betted much money on his head. Dead. He would have clapped to the cloud at twelve score, and carried you a forehand shot of fourteen and fourteen half. That would have done a man's heart good to see. How a score of use now? Thereafter as they be, a score of good use may be worth ten pounds. And his old double? Dead. Enter Bardolf, and one with him. Here come two officer John Falstaff's men, as I think. Good morrow, honest gentleman! I beseech you, which is Justice 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? My captain, sir, commend him to you. My captain, Sir John Falstaff. A tall gentleman by heaven, and a most gallant leader. He greets me well, sir. I knew him. A good back-sword man. How doth the good night? May I ask how my lady, his wife, does? Sir, pardon. A soldier is better accommodated than with a wife. It is well said in faith, sir. And it is well said indeed, too. Better accommodated. It is good. Ye, indeed, is it. Good phrases are surely and ever were very commendable. Accommodated. It comes of a commodore. Very good. A good phrase. Pardon, sir. I have heard the word. Phrase, you call 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 by heaven. Accommodated, that is, when a man is, as they say, accommodated, or when a man is being, whereby a may be thought to be accommodated, which is an excellent thing. Enter Falstaff. It is very just. Look! Here comes good, sir John. Give me your good hand. Give me your worship's good hand. By my truth, you like well and bear your years very well. Welcome. Good, sir John. I am glad to see you well, good master Robert Shallow. Master Shirkard, as I think. No, sir John. It is my cousin, Silence, in commission with me. Good master Silence. It will be fits. You should be of the peace. Your good worship is welcome. Aye, this is hot weather. Gentlemen, have you provided me here half a dozen sufficient men? Mary, have we, sir? Will you sit? Let me see them, I beseech you. 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, so, so. Mary, sir. Rafe, Mouldy, let them appear as I call. Let them do so. Let them do so. Let me see. Where is Mouldy? Here, and please you. What, thank you, sir John. A good, limped fellow, young, strong, and of good friends. Is thy name Mouldy? Yea, and please you. It is the more time thou art used. Most excellent faith. Friends that are Mouldy, lack use, very singular good. In faith well said, sir John, very well said. Prick him. I was pricked well enough before, and 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. Go to, peace, Mouldy. You shall go. It is time you were spent. Spent? Peace, fellow, peace. Stand aside. Know you where you are. For the other. Sir John, let me see. Simon? Shadow. Yea, Mary. Let me have him to sit under. He's like to be a cold soldier. Where's Shadow? Here, sir. Shadow? Whose son art thou? My mother's son, sir. 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 much of the father's substance. Do you like him, sir John? Shadow will serve for summer. Prick him, for we have a number of shadows fill up the muster brook. Thomas? What? Where's he? Here, sir. Is thy name Watt? Yes, sir. Thou art a very ragged Watt. Shall I prick him, sir John? It was superfluous, for his apparel is built upon his back, and the whole frame stands upon pins. Prick him no more. You can do it, sir. You can do it. I commend you well. Francis? Feeble? Here, sir. What trade art thou, Feeble? A woman's tailor, sir. Shall I prick him, sir? You may, but if he had been a man's tailor, he'd have pricked you. What thou make is many holes in an enemy's battle as thou hast done in a woman's petticoat. I will do my good will, sir. You can have no more. Well said, good woman's tailor. Well said, courageous Feeble. Thou wilt be as valiant as the raffled dove, or most magnanimous mouse. Prick the woman's tailor. Well, Master Shallow, deep Master Shallow. I would what might have gone, sir? I would thou what 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. It shall suffice, sir. I am bound to the reverent Feeble who is next. Peter, bull calf of the green. Yay, Mary, let's see bull calf. Here, sir. For God, a likely fellow, come prick me bull calf till he roar again. O Lord, good my Lord Captain. What? Does thou roar before thou art pricked? O Lord, sir, I am a diseased man. What disease hast thou? A horse and cold, sir, a cough, sir, which I caught with ringing in the king's affairs upon his coronation day, sir. Come, thou shalt go to the wards in a gown. We will have away thy cold, and I will take such order that thy friend shall ring for thee. Is here all? Here is two more called than your number. You must have but four here, sir, and so I pray you go in with me to dinner. Come, I will go drink with you, but I cannot tarry dinner. I am glad to see you by my troth, Master Shallow. O, sir John, do you remember since we lay all night in the windmill in St. George's field? No more of that, Master Shallow, no more of that. Ha! It was a merry night. And is Jane Nightwork alive? She lives, Master Shallow. She could never away with me. Never, never. She would always say she could not abide, Master Shallow. By the mass I could anger her to the heart. She was then a boner over. Does she hold her own well? Old, old, Master Shallow. Well, nay, she must be old. She cannot choose but be old. Certain she's old. And had Robin Nightwork by old Nightwork before I came to Clementson. That's fifty-five year ago. Cousin, silence, that thou had seen that this night and I had seen. Ha! Sir John said I well. We have heard the chimes at midnight, Master Shallow. That we have. That we have. That we have. In faith, Sir John, we have. Our watchword was Hem Boys. Come, let's to dinner. Come, let's to dinner, Jesus, the days that we have seen. Come, come. Eggs and Falstaff and the Justices. Good Master Corporate Bardolf, stand, my friend, and here's four Harry Ten Shillings in French crowns for you. In very truth, sir, I had as leaf be hanged, sir, as go, and yet for my own part, sir, I do not care, but rather because I am unwilling and for my own part have a desire to stay with my friends. As, sir, I did not care for my own part so much. Go to stand aside. And, good Master Corporal Captain, for my old dame's sake, stand, my friend, she has nobody to do anything about her when I am gone, and she is old and cannot help herself. You shall have forty, sir. Go to stand aside. By my truth I care not. A man can die but once we owe God a death. I'll ne'er bear a base mind. And it be my destiny so, and it be not so. No man's too good to serve his prince, and let it go which way it will. He that dies this year is quit for the next. Well said. Thou art a good fellow. Faith, I'll bear no base mind. Re-enter Falstaff and the Justices. Come, sir, which men shall I have? Four of which you please. Sir, a word with you. I have three pounds to free Moldy and Bulkath. Go to, well. Come, sir John, which four will you have? Do you choose for me? Marry then Moldy, Bulkath, Thebel, and Shadow. Moldy and Bulkath. For you, Moldy, stay at home till you are past service, and for your part, Bulkath, grow you come unto it. I will none of you. Sir John, sir John, do not yourself wrong. They are your likeliest men, and I would have you served with the best. Will you tell me, Master Shallow, how to choose a man? Care I for the limb, the thues, the stature? Bulk and big assemblance of a man? Give me the spirit, Master Shallow. Here's what. You see what a ragged appearance it is? It shall charge you and discharge you with the motion of a pewterer's hammer. Come off and on, swifter than he that giveth on the brewer's bucket. And this same half-faced fellow, Shadow, give me this man. He presents no mark to the enemy. The foeman may, with his great aim, level at the edge of a pen-knife. And for a retreat, how swiftly will this feeble the woman's tailor run off? Oh, give me the spare men, and spare me the great ones. Put me a caliver into what's hand, Bardolf. Hold wart, traverse, thus, thus, thus. Come, manage me your caliver. So, very well. Good, too. Very good. Exceeding good. Oh, give me always a little lean old chopped bald-shot. We'll set a faith what, that a good scab. Hold. There's a taster for thee. He is not his craft's master. He doth not do it right. I remember at mile-end green when I lay at Clements Inn. I was then so stagnated Arthur's show. There was a little quiver-fellow, and he would manage you his peace thus, and he would about, and about, and come you in, and come you in. Rattata, he would say. Bounce, he would say, and away again would he go, and again would he come. I shall never see such a fellow. These fellows will do well. Master Shallow, God keep you. Master Silence. I will not use many words with you. Fare you well. Gentlemen, both I thank you. I must a dozen mile to-night. Bardoth, give the soldiers coats. Sir John, the Lord bless you. God prosper your affairs. God set his peace. At your return visit our house. Let our old acquaintance be renewed. Perventure I will with you to the court. For God would you word. Go to. I have spoke at a word. God keep you. Fare you well, gentle gentlemen. Exant Justices. On Bardoth lead the men away. Exant Albert Falstaff. As I return I will fetch off these Justices. I do see the bottom of Justice Shallow. Lord Lord, how subject we old men are to this vice of lying. This same starved Justice hath done nothing but pray to me of the wildness of his youth and the feats he hath done about Turnbull Street. And every third word a lie. Doer paid to the hearer than the Turk's tribute. I do remember him at Clementson, like a man made after supper of a cheese-paring. When he was naked he was for all the world like a forked radish, with a head fantastically carved upon it with a knife. He was so forlorn that his dimensions to any thick sight were invisible. He was the very genius of famine, yet lecherous as a monkey, and the whores called him Mandrake. He came ever in the rearward of the fashion, and sung those tunes to the overscratched housewives that he heard the Carmen whistle, and swear they were his fancies or his good-nights. And now is this vices dagger become a squire, and talks as familiarly of John Agante as if he had been sworn brother to him. And I'll be sworn, I never saw him but once in the tilt-yard, and then he burst his head for crowding among the marshal's men. I saw it, and told John Agante he beat his own name, for you might have thrust him and all his apparel into an eelskin. The case of a treble-hot boy was a mansion for him, a court, and now has he land into beaves. Well, I'll be equated with him if I return, and it shall go hard, but I'll make him a philosopher's two stones to me. If the young dace be of eight for the old pike, I see no reason in the law of nature but I may snap at him. Let time shape, and there an end.