rascal – yea forsooth knave – to bear a gentleman

  in hand and then stand upon ‘security’. The whoreson

  smoothy-pates do now wear nothing but high shoes

  and bunches of keys at their girdles; and if a man is

  40

  through with them in honest taking up, then they

  must stand upon security. I had as lief they would put

  ratsbane in my mouth as offer to stop it with security.

  I looked ’a should have sent me two and twenty

  yards of satin, as I am a true knight, and he sends

  45

  me ‘security’! Well he may sleep in security, for he

  hath the horn of abundance, and the lightness of his

  wife shines through it – where’s Bardolph? – and yet

  cannot he see, though he have his own lanthorn to

  light him.

  50

  PAGE He’s gone in Smithfield to buy your worship a

  horse.

  FALSTAFF I bought him in Paul’s, and he’ll buy me a

  horse in Smithfield. An I could get me but a wife in

  the stews, I were manned, horsed and wived.

  55

  Enter Lord Chief JUSTICE Fand ServantF.

  PAGE Sir, here comes the nobleman that committed the

  Prince for striking him about Bardolph.

  FALSTAFF Wait close, I will not see him.

  JUSTICE What’s he that goes there?

  SERVANT Falstaff, an’t please your lordship.

  60

  JUSTICE He that was in question for the robbery?

  SERVANT 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.

  JUSTICE What, to York? Call him back again.

  65

  SERVANT Sir John Falstaff!

  FALSTAFF Boy, tell him I am deaf.

  PAGE You must speak louder; my master is deaf.

  JUSTICE I am sure he is, to the hearing of anything good.

  [to Servant] Go pluck him by the elbow; I must speak

  70

  with him.

  SERVANT Sir John?

  FALSTAFF What, a young knave and begging? Is there

  not wars? Is there not employment? Doth not the

  King lack subjects? Do not the rebels need soldiers?

  75

  Though it 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.

  SERVANT You mistake me, sir.

  80

  FALSTAFF 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.

  SERVANT I pray you, sir, then set your knighthood and

  your soldiership aside and give me leave to tell you,

  85

  you lie in your throat if you say I am any other than

  an honest man.

  FALSTAFF I give thee leave to tell me so? I lay aside that

  which grows to me? If thou get’st any leave of me,

  hang me; if thou tak’st leave, thou wert better be

  90

  hanged. You hunt counter. Hence! Avaunt!

  SERVANT Sir, my lord would speak with you.

  JUSTICE Sir John Falstaff, a word with you.

  FALSTAFF My good lord, God give your lordship good

  time of day. I am glad to see your lordship abroad.

  95

  I heard say your lordship was sick: I hope your

  lordship goes abroad by advice. Your lordship, though

  not clean past your youth, have yet some smack of

  an ague in you, some relish of the saltness of time

  in you, and I most humbly beseech your lordship to

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  have a reverend care of your health.

  JUSTICE Sir John, I sent for you before your expedition

  to Shrewsbury.

  FALSTAFF An’t please your lordship, I hear his majesty

  is returned with some discomfort from Wales.

  105

  JUSTICE I talk not of his majesty. You would not come

  when I sent for you.

  FALSTAFF And I hear moreover his highness is fallen

  into this same whoreson apoplexy.

  JUSTICE Well, God mend him. I pray you let me speak

  110

  with you.

  FALSTAFF This apoplexy, as I take it, is a kind of lethargy,

  an’t please your lordship, a kind of sleeping in the

  blood, a whoreson tingling.

  JUSTICE What tell you me of it? Be it as it is.

  115

  FALSTAFF 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.

  JUSTICE I think you are fallen into the disease, for you

  hear not what I say to you.

  120

  FFALSTAFFF Very well, my lord, very well; rather, an’t

  please you, it is the disease of not listening, the

  malady of not marking, that I am troubled withal.

  JUSTICE To punish you by the heels would amend the

  attention of your ears, and I care not if I do become

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  your physician.

  FALSTAFF I am as poor as Job, my lord, but not so

  patient. Your lordship may minister the potion of

  imprisonment to me in respect of poverty; but how

  I should be your patient to follow your prescriptions,

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  the wise may make some dram of a scruple or indeed

  a scruple itself.

  JUSTICE I sent for you, when there were matters against

  you for your life, to come speak with me.

  FALSTAFF As I was then advised by my learned counsel

  135

  in the laws of this land-service, I did not come.

  JUSTICE Well, the truth is, Sir John, you live in great

  infamy.

  FALSTAFF He that buckles himself in my belt cannot

  live in less.

  140

  JUSTICE Your means are very slender, and your waste

  is great.

  FALSTAFF I would it were otherwise; I would my means

  were greater and my waist slender.

  JUSTICE You have misled the youthful Prince.

  145

  FALSTAFF The young Prince hath misled me. I am the

  fellow with the great belly, and he my dog.

  JUSTICE Well, I am loath to gall a new-healed wound.

  Your day’s service at Shrewsbury hath a little gilded

  over your night’s exploit on Gad’s Hill. You may

  150

  thank th’unquiet time for your quiet o’erposting that

  action.

  FALSTAFF My lord –

  JUSTICE But since all is well, keep it so: wake not a

  sleeping wolf.

  155

  FALSTAFF To wake a wolf is as bad as smell a fox.

  JUSTICE What? You are as a candle, the better part

  burnt out.

  FALSTAFF A wassail candle, my lord, all tallow: if I did

  say of wax, my growth would approve the truth.

  160

  JUSTICE There is not a white hair in your face but should

  have his effect of gravity.

  FALSTAFF His effect of gravy, gravy, gravy.

  JUSTICE You follow the young Prince up and down like

  his ill angel.

  165

  FALSTAFF Not so, my lord. Your ill angel is light, but

  I hope he that looks upon me will take me without

  weighing; and yet in some respects I grant I cannot

  go. I cannot tell. Virtue is of so little regard in

  these coster-mongers’ times that true valour is turned

  170

  FbearherdF, pregnancy is made a tapster, and his

  quick wit wasted in giving reckonings. All the other

  gifts appertinent to man, as the malice of his age

  shapes Fthem, areF not worth a gooseberry. You that

  are old consider not the capacities of us that are

  175

  young. You do measure the heat of our livers with the

  bitterness of your galls; and we that are in the vaward

  of our youth, I must confess, are wags too.

  JUSTICE Do you set down your name in the scroll of

  youth, that are written down old with all the characters

  180

  of age? Have you not a moist eye, a dry hand, a

  yellow cheek, a white beard, a decreasing leg, an

  increasing belly? Is not your voice broken, your wind

  short, your chin double, your wit single, and every

  part about you blasted with antiquity? And will you

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  yet call yourself young? Fie, fie, fie, Sir ohn!

  FALSTAFF My lord, I was born about three of the clock

  in the afternoon, with a white head and something

  a round belly. For my voice, I have lost it with

  hallowing and singing of anthems. To approve my

  190

  youth further, I will not. The truth is, I am only old in

  judgement 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 FearF that

  the Prince gave you, he gave it like a rude prince, and

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  you took it like a sensible lord: I have checked him

  for it, and the young lion repents – marry, not in

  ashes and sackcloth, but in new silk and old sack.

  JUSTICE Well, God send the Prince a better companion.

  FALSTAFF God send the companion a better prince;

  200

  I cannot rid my hands of him.

  JUSTICE Well, the King hath severed you: I hear you

  are going with Lord John of Lancaster against the

  Archbishop and the Earl of Northumberland.

  FALSTAFF Yea, I thank your pretty sweet wit for it. But

  205

  look you pray, all you that kiss my lady Peace 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,

  and I brandish anything but a bottle, I would I might

  210

  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 alway yet the

  trick of our English nation, if they have a good thing,

  to make it too common. If ye will needs say I am

  215

  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.

  JUSTICE Well, be honest, be honest, and God bless your

  220

  expedition.

  FALSTAFF Will your lordship lend me a thousand pound

  to furnish me forth?

  JUSTICE Not a penny, not a penny. You are too impatient

  to bear crosses. Fare you well; commend me to my

  225

  cousin Westmorland.

  [Exeunt Lord Chief Justice and Servant.]

  FALSTAFF If I do, fillip me with a three-man beetle. A

  man can no more separate age and covetousness than

  ’a can part young limbs and lechery; but the gout

  galls the one and the pox pinches the other, and so

  230

  both the degrees prevent my curses. – Boy?

  PAGE Sir?

  FALSTAFF What money is in my purse?

  PAGE Seven groats and two pence.

  FALSTAFF I can get no remedy against this consumption

  235

  of the purse. Borrowing only lingers and lingers it

  out, but the disease is incurable. [Hands letters to

  Page.] Go bear this letter to my Lord of Lancaster,

  this to the Prince, this to the Earl of Westmorland,

  and this to old mistress Ursula, whom I have weekly

  240

  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, or a gout of this pox, for the one

  or the other plays the rogue with my great toe. ’Tis no

  matter if I do halt: I have the wars for my colour, and

  245

  my pension shall seem the more reasonable. A good

  wit will make use of anything. I will turn diseases

  to commodity [Exit.]

  1[.3]

  Enter the ARCHBISHOP [of York], Thomas MOWBRAY

  (Earl Marshal), the Lord HASTINGS and

  FLORDF BARDOLPH.

  ARCHBISHOP

  Thus 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?

  MOWBRAY

  I well allow the occasion of our arms

  5

  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 puissance of the King.

  HASTINGS

  Our present musters grow upon the file

  10

  To five and twenty thousand men of choice,

  And our supplies live largely in the hope

  Of great Northumberland, whose bosom burns

  With an incensed fire of injuries.

  LORD BARDOLPH

  The question then, Lord Hastings, standeth thus:

  15

  Whether our present five and twenty thousand

  May hold up head without Northumberland.

  HASTINGS

  With him we may.

  LORD BARDOLPH Yea, marry, there’s the point.

  But if without him we be thought too feeble,

  My judgement is we should not step too far

  20

  FTill we had his assistance by the hand;

  For in a theme so bloody-faced as this,

  Conjecture, expectation and surmise

  Of aids incertain should not be admitted.F

  ARCHBISHOP

  ’Tis very true, Lord Bardolph, for indeed

  25

  It was young Hotspur’s cause at Shrewsbury.

  LORD BARDOLPH

  It was, my lord, who lined himself with hope,