thee, I am a very villain. Come, and be hanged! Hast
no faith in thee?
30
Enter GADSHILL.
GADSHILL Good morrow, carriers, what’s o’clock?
1 CARRIER I think it be two o’clock.
GADSHILL I prithee lend me thy lantern, to see my
gelding in the stable.
1 CARRIER Nay, by God, soft! I know a trick worth two
35
of that, i’faith.
GADSHILL I pray thee lend me thine.
2 CARRIER Ay, when? Canst tell? Lend me thy lantern,
quoth he! Marry I’ll see thee hanged first.
GADSHILL Sirrah carrier, what time do you mean to
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come to London?
2 CARRIER Time enough to go to bed with a candle, I
warrant thee; come, neighbour Mugs, we’ll call up the
gentlemen, they will along with company, for they
have great charge. Exeunt Carriers.
45
GADSHILL What ho! Chamberlain!
Enter CHAMBERLAIN.
CHAMBERLAIN ‘At hand, quoth pick-purse.’
GADSHILL That’s even as fair as ‘At hand, quoth the
chamberlain’: for thou variest no more from picking of
purses than giving direction doth from labouring;
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thou layest the plot how.
CHAMBERLAIN Good morrow, master Gadshill. It holds
current that I told you yesternight: there’s a franklin
in the Wild of Kent hath brought three hundred
marks with him in gold, I heard him tell it to one of his
55
company last night at supper, a kind of auditor, one
that hath abundance of charge too, God knows what;
they are up already, and call for eggs and butter – they
will away presently.
GADSHILL Sirrah, if they meet not with Saint Nicholas’
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clerks, I’ll give thee this neck.
CHAMBERLAIN No, I’ll none of it, I pray thee keep that
for the hangman, for I know thou worshippest Saint
Nicholas, as truly as a man of falsehood may.
GADSHILL What talkest thou to me of the hangman? If
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I hang, I’ll make a fat pair of gallows: for if I hang, old
Sir John hangs with me, and thou knowest he is no
starveling. Tut, there are other Troyans that thou
dream’st not of, the which for sport sake are content to
do the profession some grace, that would (if matters
70
should be looked into) for their own credit sake
make all whole. I am joined with no foot-landrakers,
no long-staff sixpenny strikers, none of these mad
mustachio purple-hued maltworms, but with nobility
and tranquillity, burgomasters and great onyers, such
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as can hold in, such as will strike sooner than speak,
and speak sooner than drink, and drink sooner than
pray – and yet, ‘zounds, I lie, for they pray continually
to their saint the commonwealth, or rather not pray to
her, but prey on her, for they ride up and down on her,
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and make her their boots.
CHAMBERLAIN What, the commonwealth their boots?
Will she hold out water in foul way?
GADSHILL She will, she will, justice hath liquored her:
we steal as in a castle, cock-sure: we have the receipt of
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fern-seed, we walk invisible.
CHAMBERLAIN Nay, by my faith, I think you are more
beholding to the night than to fern-seed for your
walking invisible.
GADSHILL Give me thy hand, thou shalt have a share in
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our purchase, as I am a true man.
CHAMBERLAIN Nay, rather let me have it, as you are a
false thief.
GADSHILL Go to, homo is a common name to all men:
bid the ostler bring my gelding out of the stable.
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Farewell, you muddy knave. Exeunt.
2.2 Enter PRINCE, POINS and PETO.
POINS Come, shelter, shelter! I have removed Falstaff ‘s
horse, and he frets like a gummed velvet.
PRINCE Stand close! [They retire.]
Enter FALSTAFF.
FALSTAFF Poins! Poins, and be hanged! Poins!
PRINCE [coming forward] Peace, ye fat-kidneyed rascal,
5
what a brawling dost thou keep!
FALSTAFF Where’s Poins, Hal?
PRINCE He is walked up to the top of the hill; I’ll go seek
him. [Retires.]
FALSTAFF I am accursed to rob in that thief ‘s company;
10
the rascal hath removed my horse and tied him I know
not where. If I travel but four foot by the squier
further afoot, I shall break my wind. Well, I doubt not
but to die a fair death for all this, if I scape hanging for
killing that rogue. I have forsworn his company hourly
15
any time this two and twenty years, and yet I am
bewitched with the rogue’s company. If the rascal have
not given me medicines to make me love him, I’ll be
hanged. It could not be else, I have drunk medicines.
Poins! Hal! A plague upon you both! Bardolph! Peto!
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I’ll starve ere I’ll rob a foot further – and ’twere not as
good a deed as drink to turn true man, and to leave
these rogues, I am the veriest varlet that ever chewed
with a tooth; eight yards of uneven ground is
threescore and ten miles afoot with me, and the stony-
25
hearted villains know it well enough. A plague upon it
when thieves cannot be true one to another!
[They whistle.] Whew! A plague upon you all, give me
my horse, you rogues, give me my horse and be
hanged!
30
PRINCE [coming forward] Peace, ye fat guts, lie down, lay
thine ear close to the ground, and list if thou canst
hear the tread of travellers.
FALSTAFF Have you any levers to lift me up again, being
down? ‘Sblood, I’ll not bear my own flesh so far afoot
35
again for all the coin in thy father’s exchequer. What a
plague mean ye to colt me thus?
PRINCE Thou liest, thou art not colted, thou art
uncolted.
FALSTAFF I prithee good Prince Hal, help me to my
40
horse, good king’s son.
PRINCE Out, ye rogue, shall I be your ostler?
FALSTAFF Hang thyself in thine own heir-apparent
garters! If I be ta’en, I’ll peach for this: and I have not
ballads made on you all, and sung to filthy tunes, let a
45
cup of sack be my poison – when a jest is so forward,
and afoot too! I hate it.
Enter GADSHILL and BARDOLPH.
GADSHILL Stand!
FALSTAFF So I do, against my will.
POINS O, ’tis our setter, I know his voice. [coming
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forward with Peto] Bardolph, what news?
BARDOLPH Case ye, case ye, on with your vizards,
there’s money of the King’s coming down the hill, ’tis
going to the King’s exchequer.
FALSTAFF You lie, ye rogue, ’tis going to the King’s
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tavern.
GADSHILL There’s enough to make us all.
FALSTAFF To be hanged.
PRINCE Sirs, you four shal
l front them in the narrow
lane: Ned Poins and I will walk lower – if they scape
60
from your encounter, then they light on us.
PETO How many be there of them?
GADSHILL Some eight or ten.
FALSTAFF ‘Zounds, will they not rob us?
PRINCE What, a coward, Sir John Paunch?
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FALSTAFF Indeed, I am not John of Gaunt your
grandfather, but yet no coward, Hal.
PRINCE Well, we leave that to the proof.
POINS Sirrah Jack, thy horse stands behind the hedge;
when thou need’st him, there thou shalt find him.
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Farewell, and stand fast.
FALSTAFF Now cannot I strike him, if I should be
hanged.
PRINCE Ned, where are our disguises?
POINS Here, hard by, stand close.
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Exeunt Prince and Poins.
FALSTAFF Now, my masters, happy man be his dole, say
I – every man to his business.
Enter the Travellers.
1 TRAVELLER Come, neighbour, the boy shall lead our
horses down the hill; we’ll walk afoot awhile and ease
our legs.
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THIEVES Stand!
2 TRAVELLER Jesus bless us!
FALSTAFF Strike, down with them, cut the villains’
throats! Ah, whoreson caterpillars, bacon-fed knaves,
they hate us youth! Down with them, fleece them!
85
1 TRAVELLER O, we are undone, both we and ours for
ever!
FALSTAFF Hang ye, gorbellied knaves, are ye undone?
No, ye fat chuffs, I would your store were here! On,
bacons, on! What, ye knaves! young men must live.
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You are grandjurors, are ye? We’ll jure ye, faith.
[Here they rob them and bind them.] Exeunt.
Re-enter the PRINCE and POINS, disguised.
PRINCE The thieves have bound the true men; now
could thou and I rob the thieves, and go merrily to
London, it would be argument for a week, laughter for
a month, and a good jest for ever.
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POINS Stand close, I hear them coming. [They retire.]
Enter the Thieves again.
FALSTAFF Come, my masters, let us share, and then to
horse before day; and the Prince and Poins be not two
arrant cowards there’s no equity stirring; there’s no
more valour in that Poins than in a wild duck.
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[As they are sharing the PRINCE and POINS set upon
them.]
PRINCE Your money!
POINS Villains!
They all run away, and Falstaff after a blow or two
runs away too, leaving the booty behind them.
PRINCE Got with much ease. Now merrily to horse:
The thieves are all scatter’d and possess’d with fear
So strongly that they dare not meet each other;
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Each takes his fellow for an officer!
Away, good Ned – Falstaff sweats to death,
And lards the lean earth as he walks along.
Were’t not for laughing I should pity him.
POINS How the fat rogue roared. Exeunt.
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2.3 Enter HOTSPUR alone, reading a letter.
HOTSPUR But, for mine own part, my lord, I could be well
contented to be there, in respect of the love I bear your
house. He could be contented: why is he not then? In
respect of the love he bears our house: he shows in
this, he loves his own barn better than he loves our
5
house. Let me see some more. The purpose you
undertake is dangerous– Why, that’s certain; ’tis
dangerous to take a cold, to sleep, to drink; but I tell
you, my lord fool, out of this nettle, danger, we pluck
this flower, safety. The purpose you undertake is
10
dangerous, the friends you have named uncertain, the time
itself unsorted, and your whole plot too light, for the
counterpoise of so great an opposition. Say you so, say
you so? I say unto you again, you are a shallow
cowardly hind, and you lie: what a lack-brain is this!
15
By the Lord, our plot is a good plot, as ever was laid,
our friends true and constant: a good plot, good
friends, and full of expectation: an excellent plot, very
good friends; what a frosty-spirited rogue is this! Why,
my Lord of York commends the plot, and the general
20
course of the action. ‘Zounds, and I were now by this
rascal I could brain him with his lady’s fan. Is there
not my father, my uncle, and myself? Lord Edmund
Mortimer, my Lord of York, and Owen Glendower? Is
The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 156
