155

  a fool still.

  HOSTESS Well, you shall have it, though I pawn my

  gown. I hope you’ll come to supper. You’ll pay me

  all together?

  FALSTAFF Will I live? [to Bardolph] Go with her. With

  160

  her! Hook on, hook on.

  HOSTESS Will you have Doll Tearsheet meet you at supper?

  FALSTAFF No more words; let’s have her.

  Exeunt Hostess and Sergeant [Fang with Snare,

  Bardolph and Page].

  JUSTICE [to Gower] I have heard better news.

  165

  FALSTAFF What’s the news, my lord?

  JUSTICE [to Gower] Where lay the King tonight?

  GOWER At FBasingstokeF, my lord.

  FALSTAFF I hope, my lord, all’s well. What is the news,

  my lord?

  170

  JUSTICE [to Gower] Come all his forces back?

  GOWER

  No; fifteen hundred foot, five hundred horse

  Are marched up to my lord of Lancaster

  Against Northumberland and the Archbishop.

  FALSTAFF

  Comes the King back from Wales, my noble lord?

  175

  JUSTICE [to Gower]

  You shall have letters of me presently.

  Come, go along with me, good Master Gower.

  FALSTAFF My lord!

  JUSTICE What’s the matter?

  FALSTAFF Master Gower, shall I entreat you with me to

  180

  dinner?

  GOWER I must wait upon my good lord here. I thank

  you, good Sir John.

  JUSTICE Sir John, you loiter here too long, being you

  are to take soldiers up in counties as you go.

  185

  FALSTAFF Will you sup with me, Master Gower?

  JUSTICE What foolish master taught you these manners,

  Sir John?

  FALSTAFF Master Gower, if they become me not, he

  was a fool that taught them me. – This is the right

  190

  fencing grace, my lord: tap for tap, and so part fair.

  JUSTICE Now the Lord lighten thee, thou art a great fool.

  FExeuntF [at separate doors].

  2.2

  Enter PRINCE [Henry and] POINS.

  PRINCE Before God, I am exceeding weary.

  POINS Is’t come to that? I had thought weariness durst

  not have attached one of so high blood.

  PRINCE Faith, it does me, though it discolours the

  complexion of my greatness to acknowledge it. Doth

  5

  it not show vilely in me to desire small beer?

  POINS Why, a prince should not be so loosely studied as

  to remember so weak a composition.

  PRINCE Belike, then, my appetite was not princely got,

  for, by my troth, I do now remember the poor creature

  10

  small beer. But indeed, these humble considerations

  make me out of love with my greatness. What a

  disgrace is it to me to remember thy name, or to

  know thy face tomorrow! Or to take note how many

  pair of silk stockings thou hast, with these and those

  15

  that were thy peach-coloured once; or to bear the

  inventory of thy shirts, as: one for superfluity and

  another for use. But that the tennis-court keeper

  knows better than I; for it is a low ebb of linen with

  thee when thou keepest not racket there, as thou hast

  20

  not done a great while, because the rest of the low

  countries have Fmade a shift toF eat up thy holland.

  And God knows whether those that bawl out the

  ruins of thy linen shall inherit His kingdom, but

  the midwives say the children are not in the fault

  25

  whereupon the world increases and kindreds are

  mightily strengthened.

  POINS How ill it follows, after you have laboured so

  hard, you should talk so idly! Tell me, how many

  good young princes would do so, their fathers being

  30

  so sick as yours at this time is?

  PRINCE Shall I tell thee one thing, Poins?

  POINS Yes, faith, and let it be an excellent good thing.

  PRINCE It shall serve among wits of no higher breeding

  than thine.

  35

  POINS Go to, I stand the push of your one thing that you

  will tell.

  PRINCE Marry, I tell thee it is not meet that I should be

  sad now my father is sick, albeit I could tell to thee,

  as to one it pleases me for fault of a better to call my

  40

  friend, I could be sad, and sad indeed, too.

  POINS Very hardly, upon such a subject.

  PRINCE By this hand, thou thinkest me as far in the

  devil’s book as thou and Falstaff for obduracy and

  persistency. Let the end try the man. But I tell thee,

  45

  my heart bleeds inwardly that my father is so sick;

  and keeping such vile company as thou art hath in

  reason taken from me all ostentation of sorrow.

  POINS The reason?

  PRINCE What wouldst thou think of me if I should

  50

  weep?

  POINS I would think thee a most princely hypocrite.

  PRINCE 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

  55

  than thine. Every man would think me an hypocrite

  indeed. And what accites your most worshipful

  thought to think so?

  POINS Why, because you have been so lewd and so

  much engraffed to Falstaff.

  60

  PRINCE And to thee.

  POINS By this light, I am well spoke on: I can hear it

  with mine 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

  65

  I cannot help. By the mass, here comes Bardolph.

  Enter BARDOLPH and Boy [PAGE].

  PRINCE And the boy that I gave Falstaff. ’A had him

  from me Christian, and look if the fat villain have not

  transformed him ape.

  BARDOLPH God save your grace.

  70

  PRINCE And yours, most noble Bardolph.

  POINS [to Bardolph] 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’t such a matter to get a pottle-pot’s

  75

  maidenhead?

  PAGE ’A calls me e’en 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 methought

  he had made two holes in the ale-wife’s petticoat and

  80

  so peeped through.

  PRINCE [to Poins] Has not the boy profited?

  BARDOLPH [to Page] Away, you whoreson upright

  FrabbitF! Away!

  PAGE [to Bardolph] Away, you rascally Althaea’s dream!

  85

  Away!

  PRINCE Instruct us, boy: what dream, boy?

  PAGE Marry, my lord, Althaea dreamt she was delivered

  of a firebrand, and therefore I call him her dream.

  PRINCE A crown’s worth of good interpretation; there

  90

  ’tis, boy. [Gives him a coin.]

  POINS O, that this blossom could be kept from cankers!

  Well, there is sixpence to preserve thee. [Gives him a coin.]

  BARDOLPH An you do not make him hanged among

  you, the gallows shall have wrong.

  95

  PRINCE And how doth thy master, Bardolph?

  BARDOLPH Well, my lord. He heard of your grace’s

  coming to town. There’s a letter for you. [Hands letter to Prince.]

  POINS Delivered with good respect. And how doth the

  Martlemas your master?

  100

  BARDOLPH In bodily health, sir.

  POINS Marry, the immortal part needs a physician, but

  that moves not him: though that be sick, it dies not.

  PRINCE I do allow this wen to be as familiar with me as

  my dog; and he holds his place, for look you how he

  105

  writes. [Shows Poins the letter.]

  POINS [Reads.] John Falstaff, Knight. – 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

  110

  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!’

  PRINCE Nay, they will be kin to us, or they will fetch

  115

  it from Japheth. But the letter: [Reads.] Sir John

  Falstaff, Knight, to the son of the King nearest his

  father, Harry, Prince of Wales, greeting.

  POINS Why, this is a certificate.

  PRINCE Peace! [Reads.] I will imitate the honourable

  120

  Romans in brevity.

  POINS He sure means brevity in breath: short-winded.

  [PRINCE] [Reads.] I commend me to thee, I commend

  thee, and I leave thee. Be not too familiar with Poins,

  for he misuses thy favours so much that he swears

  125

  thou art to marry his sister Nell. Repent at idle times

  as thou mayst, and so farewell.

  Thine by yea and no – which is as much as to

  say, as thou usest him – Jack Falstaff with my

  family, John with my brothers and sisters, and

  130

  Sir John with all Europe.

  POINS My lord, I’ll steep this letter in sack and make

  him eat it!

  PRINCE That’s to make him eat twenty of his words. But

  do you use me thus, Ned? Must I marry your sister?

  135

  POINS God send the wench no worse fortune, but I

  never said so.

  PRINCE Well, thus we play the fools with time, and the

  spirits of the wise sit in the clouds and mock us. – Is

  your master here in London?

  140

  BARDOLPH Yea, my lord.

  PRINCE Where sups he? Doth the old boar feed in the

  old frank?

  BARDOLPH At the old place, my lord, in Eastcheap.

  PRINCE What company?

  145

  PAGE Ephesians, my lord, of the old church.

  PRINCE Sup any women with him?

  PAGE None, my lord, but old Mistress Quickly and

  Mistress Doll Tearsheet.

  PRINCE What pagan may that be?

  150

  PAGE A proper gentlewoman, sir, and a kinswoman of

  my master’s.

  PRINCE Even such kin as the parish heifers are to the

  town bull. – Shall we steal upon them, Ned, at

  supper?

  155

  POINS I am your shadow, my lord; I’ll follow you.

  PRINCE Sirrah – you boy, and Bardolph – no word to

  your master that I am yet come to town. There’s for

  your silence. [Gives them coins.]

  BARDOLPH I have no tongue, sir.

  160

  PAGE And for mine, sir, I will govern it.

  PRINCE Fare you well. Go. [Exeunt Bardolph and Page.]

  This Doll Tearsheet should be some road.

  POINS I warrant you, as common as the way between

  Saint Albans and London.

  165

  PRINCE How might we see Falstaff bestow himself

  tonight in his true colours and not ourselves be seen?

  POINS Put on two leathern jerkins and aprons, and wait

  upon him at his table as drawers.

  PRINCE From a god to a bull? A heavy descension: it

  170

  was Jove’s case. From a prince to a prentice? A low

  transformation: that shall be mine, for in everything

  the purpose must weigh with the folly. Follow me, Ned.

  Exeunt.

  2.3

  Enter [the Earl of] NORTHUMBERLAND,

  his wife[, LADY NORTHUMBERLAND], and the

  wife to Harry Percy[, LADY PERCY].

  NORTHUMBERLAND

  I pray thee, 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, troublesome.

  LADY NORTHUMBERLAND

  I have given over. I will speak no more.

  5

  Do what you will; your wisdom be your guide.

  NORTHUMBERLAND

  Alas, sweet wife, my honour is at pawn,

  And but my going, nothing can redeem it.

  LADY PERCY

  O yet, for God’s sake, go not to these wars.

  The time was, father, that you broke your word,

  10

  When you were more FendearedF to it than now –

  When your own Percy, when my heart’s dear Harry,

  Threw many a northward look to see his father

  Bring up his powers; but he did long in vain.

  Who then persuaded you to stay at home?

  15

  There were two honours lost: yours and your son’s.

  For yours, the God of heaven brighten it!

  For his, it stuck upon him as the sun

  In the grey vault of heaven, and by his light

  Did all the chivalry of England move

  20

  To do brave acts. He was indeed the glass

  Wherein the noble youth did dress themselves.

  FHe had no legs that practised not his gait;

  And speaking thick, which nature made his blemish,

  Became the accents of the valiant,

  25

  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,

  30

  He was the mark and glass, copy and book,

  That fashioned others. And him – O wondrous him!

  O miracle of men! – him did you leave,