With good advice and little medicine.
My Lord Northumberland will soon be cool’d.
KING O God, that one might read the book of fate,
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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
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Too wide for Neptune’s hips; how chance’s mocks
And changes fill the cup of alteration
With divers liquors! O, if this were seen,
The happiest youth, viewing his progress through,
What perils past, what crosses to ensue,
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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,
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This Percy was the man nearest my soul;
Who like a brother toil’d 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 –
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[to Warwick] You, cousin Nevil, as I may remember –
When Richard, with his eye brimful of tears,
Then check’d and rated by Northumberland,
Did speak these words, now prov’d a prophecy?
‘Northumberland, thou ladder by the which
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My cousin Bolingbroke ascends my throne’
(Though then, God knows, I had no such intent
But that necessity so bow’d the state
That I and greatness were compell’d to kiss)
‘The time shall come’ – thus did he follow it –
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‘The time will come, that foul sin, gathering head,
Shall break into corruption’ – so went on,
Foretelling this same time’s condition,
And the division of our amity.
WARWICK There is a history in all men’s lives
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Figuring the nature of the times deceas’d;
The which observ’d, a man may prophesy,
With a near aim, of the main chance of things
As yet not come to life, who in their seeds
And weak beginnings lie intreasured.
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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,
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Which should not find a ground to root upon
Unless on you.
KING 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 and Northumberland
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Are fifty thousand strong.
WARWICK It cannot be, my lord.
Rumour 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
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Shall bring this prize in very easily.
To comfort you the more, I have receiv’d
A certain instance that Glendower is dead.
Your Majesty hath been this fortnight ill,
And these unseason’d hours perforce must add
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Unto your sickness.
KING I will take your counsel.
And were these inward wars once out of hand,
We would, dear lords, unto the Holy Land. Exeunt.
3.2 Enter Justice SHALLOW and Justice SILENCE, with MOULDY, SHADOW, WART, FEEBLE, BULLCALF and servants, behind.
SHALLOW Come on, come on, come on: give me your
hand, sir, give me your hand, sir; an early stirrer, by
the rood! And how doth my good cousin Silence?
SILENCE Good morrow, good cousin Shallow.
SHALLOW And how doth my cousin your bedfellow?
5
and your fairest daughter and mine, my god-daughter
Ellen?
SILENCE Alas, a black woosel, cousin Shallow!
SHALLOW By yea and no, sir: I dare say my cousin
William is become a good scholar; he is at Oxford still,
10
is he not?
SILENCE Indeed, sir, to my cost.
SHALLOW A must then to the Inns o’Court shortly:
I was once of Clement’s Inn, where I think they will
talk of mad Shallow yet.
15
SILENCE You were called ‘lusty Shallow’ then, cousin.
SHALLOW 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 George Barnes, and Francis Pickbone, and
20
Will Squele, a Cotsole man – you had not four such
swinge-bucklers in all the Inns o’Court again; and I
may say to you, we knew where the bona-robas were,
and had the best of them all at commandment. Then
was Jack Falstaff, now Sir John, a boy, and page to
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Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk.
SILENCE This Sir John, cousin, that comes hither anon
about soldiers?
SHALLOW The same Sir John, the very same. I see him
break Scoggin’s head at the court gate, when a was a
30
crack, not thus high; and the very same day did I fight
with one Samson Stockfish a fruiterer, behind
Gray’s Inn. Jesu, Jesu, the mad days that I have spent!
And to see how many of my old acquaintance
are dead!
35
SILENCE We shall all follow, cousin.
SHALLOW Certain, ’tis certain, very sure, very sure.
Death, as the Psalmist saith, is certain to all, all shall
die. How a good yoke of bullocks at Stamford fair?
SILENCE By my troth, I was not there.
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SHALLOW Death is certain. Is old Double of your town
living yet?
SILENCE Dead, sir.
SHALLOW Jesu, Jesu, dead! A drew a good bow, and
dead! A shot a fine shoot. John a Gaunt loved him
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well, and betted much money on his head. Dead! A
would have clapped i’th’ clout at twelve score, and
carried you a forehand shaft a fourteen and fourteen
and a half, that it would have done a man’s heart good
to see. How a score of ewes now?
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SILENCE Thereafter as they be; a score of good ewes
may be worth ten pounds.
SHALLOW And is old Double dead?
SILENCE Here come two of Sir John Falstaff’s men, as I
think.
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Enter BARDOLPH and one with him.
SHALLOW Good morrow, honest gentlemen.
BARDOLPH I beseech you, which is Justice Shallow?
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?
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BARDOLPH My captain, sir, commends him to you, my
captain Sir John Falstaff, a tall gentleman, by heaven,
and a most gallant leader.
SHALLOW He greets me well, sir; I knew
him a good
backsword man. How doth the good knight? May I ask
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how my lady his wife doth?
BARDOLPH Sir, pardon: a soldier is better accom-
modated than with a wife.
SHALLOW It is well said, in faith, sir, and it is well said
indeed, too. ‘Better accommodated’! It is good, yea
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indeed is it; good phrases are surely, and ever were,
very commendable. ‘Accommodated’ – it comes of
‘accommodo’; very good, a good phrase.
BARDOLPH Pardon, sir, I have heard the word – phrase
call you it? By this day, I know not the phrase, but I
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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
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excellent thing.
SHALLOW It is very just.
Enter FALSTAFF.
Look, here comes good Sir John. Give me your good
hand, give me your worship’s good hand. By my troth,
you like well, and bear your years very well. Welcome,
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good Sir John.
FALSTAFF I am glad to see you well, good Master
Robert Shallow. Master Surecard, as I think?
SHALLOW No, Sir John, it is my cousin Silence, in
commission with me.
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FALSTAFF Good Master Silence, it well befits you
should be of the peace.
SILENCE Your good worship is welcome.
FALSTAFF Fie, this is hot weather, gentlemen. Have you
provided me here half a dozen sufficient men?
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SHALLOW Marry have we, sir. Will you sit?
FALSTAFF Let me see them, I beseech you.
SHALLOW 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, so. Yea, marry, sir: Rafe Mouldy! Let them
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appear as I call; let them do so, let them do so. Let me
see; where is Mouldy?
MOULDY Here, and’t please you.
SHALLOW What think you, Sir John? A good-limbed
fellow, young, strong, and of good friends.
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FALSTAFF Is thy name Mouldy?
MOULDY Yea, and’t please you.
FALSTAFF ’Tis the more time thou wert used.
SHALLOW Ha, ha, ha! most excellent, i’faith, things that
are mouldy lack use: very singular good, in faith, well
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said, Sir John, very well said.
FALSTAFF Prick him.
MOULDY 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.
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You need not to have pricked me, there are other men
fitter to go out than I.
FALSTAFF Go to; peace, Mouldy; you shall go, Mouldy;
it is time you were spent.
MOULDY Spent?
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SHALLOW Peace, fellow, peace – stand aside; know you
where you are? For th’other, Sir John – let me see:
Simon Shadow!
FALSTAFF Yea, marry, let me have him to sit under. He’s
like to be a cold soldier.
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SHALLOW Where’s Shadow?
SHADOW Here, sir.
FALSTAFF Shadow, whose son art thou?
SHADOW My mother’s son, sir.
FALSTAFF Thy mother’s son! Like enough, and thy
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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!
SHALLOW Do you like him, Sir John?
FALSTAFF Shadow will serve for summer. Prick him, for
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we have a number of shadows fill up the muster-book.
SHALLOW Thomas Wart!
FALSTAFF Where’s he?
WART Here, sir.
FALSTAFF Is thy name Wart?
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WART Yea, sir.
FALSTAFF Thou art a very ragged Wart.
SHALLOW Shall I prick him, Sir John?
FALSTAFF It were superfluous, for his apparel is built
upon his back, and the whole frame stands upon pins:
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prick him no more.
SHALLOW Ha, ha, ha! you can do it, sir, you can do it, I
commend you well. Francis Feeble!
FEEBLE Here, sir.
FALSTAFF What trade art thou, Feeble?
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FEEBLE A woman’s tailor, sir.
The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 175
