The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works

by William Shakespeare

  LORD CHIEF JUSTICE There is not a white hair in your face but should have his effect of gravity.

  SIR JOHN His effect of gravy, gravy, gravy.

  LORD CHIEF JUSTICE You follow the young Prince up and down like his ill angel.

  SIR JOHN 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 costermongers’ times that true valour is turned bearherd; pregnancy is made a tapster, and his quick wit wasted in giving reckonings; all the other gifts appertinent 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 vanguard of our youth, I must confess, are wags too.

  LORD CHIEF JUSTICE 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 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 yet call yourself young? Fie, fie, fie, Sir John!

  SIR JOHN 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 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 th’ear that the Prince gave you, he gave it like a rude prince, and you took it like a sensible lord. I have checked him for it, and the young lion repents—⌈aside⌉ marry, not in ashes and sackcloth, but in new silk and old sack.

  LORD CHIEF JUSTICE Well, God send the Prince a better companion!

  SIR JOHN God send the companion a better prince! I cannot rid my hands of him.

  LORD CHIEF JUSTICE Well, the King hath severed you and Prince Harry. I hear you are going with Lord John of Lancaster against the Archbishop and the Earl of Northumberland.

  SIR JOHN Yea, I thank your pretty sweet wit for it. But 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 my bottle, 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 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 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.

  LORD CHIEF JUSTICE Well, be honest, be honest, and God bless your expedition.

  SIR JOHN Will your lordship lend me a thousand pound to furnish me forth?

  LORD CHIEF JUSTICE Not a penny, not a penny. You are too impatient to bear crosses. Fare you well. Commend me to my cousin Westmorland.

  Exeunt Lord Chief Justice and his Servant

  SIR JOHN 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 both the degrees prevent my curses. Boy!

  PAGE Sir.

  SIR JOHN What money is in my purse?

  PAGE Seven groats and two pence.

  SIR JOHN I can get no remedy against this consumption of the purse. Borrowing only lingers and lingers it out, but the disease is incurable. (Giving letters) 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 sworn to marry since I perceived the first white hair of my chin. About it. You know where to find me. ⌈Exit Pagel⌉ 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 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 the Earl Marshal, Lord Hastings, and Lord Bardolph

  ARCHBISHOP OF YORK

  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,

  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

  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:

  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

  Till we had his assistance by the hand;

  For in a theme so bloody-faced as this,

  Conjecture, expectation, and surmise

  Of aids uncertain should not be admitted.

  ARCHBISHOP OF YORK

  ’Tis very true, Lord Bardolph, for indeed

  It was young Hotspur’s case at Shrewsbury.

  LORD BARDOLPH

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

  Eating the air on promise of supply,

  Flatt’ring himself with project of a power

  Much smaller than the smallest of his thoughts;

  And so, with great imagination

  Proper to madmen, led his powers to death,

  And winking leapt into destruction.

  HASTINGS

  But by your leave, it never yet did hurt

  To lay down likelihoods and forms of hope.

  LORD BARDOLPH

  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 th‘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 must we rate the cost of the erection,

  Which if we find outweighs ability,

  What do we 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 an house

  Beyond his power to build it, who, half-through,

  Gives o’er, and leaves his part-created cost

  A naked subject to the weeping clouds,

  And waste for c
hurlish winter’s tyranny.

  HASTINGS

  Grant that our hopes, yet likely of fair birth,

  Should be stillborn, and that we now possessed

  The utmost man of expectation,

  I think we are a body strong enough,

  Even as we are, to equal with the King.

  LORD BARDOLPH

  What, is the King but five-and-twenty thousand?

  HASTINGS

  To us no more, nay, not so much, Lord Bardolph;

  For his divisions, as the times do brawl,

  Are in three heads: one power against the French,

  And one against Glyndwr, perforce a third

  Must take up us. So is the unfirm King

  In three divided, and his coffers sound

  With hollow poverty and emptiness.

  ARCHBISHOP OF YORK

  That he should draw his several strengths together

  And come against us in full puissance

  Need not be dreaded.

  HASTINGS If he should do so,

  He leaves his back unarmed, the French and Welsh

  Baying him at the heels. Never fear that.

  LORD BARDOLPH

  Who is it like should lead his forces hither?

  HASTINGS

  The Duke of Lancaster and Westmorland;

  Against the Welsh, himself and Harry Monmouth;

  But who is substituted ’gainst the French

  I have no certain notice.

  ARCHBISHOP OF YORK Let us on,

  And publish the occasion of our arms.

  The commonwealth is sick of their own choice;

  Their over-greedy love hath surfeited.

  An 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 Bolingbroke,

  Before he was what thou wouldst have him be I

  And being now trimmed in thine own desires,

  Thou, beastly feeder, art so full of him

  That thou provok‘st 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 howl’st to find it. What trust is in these times ?

  They that when Richard lived would have him die

  Are now become enamoured on his grave.

  Thou that threw‘st dust upon his goodly head,

  When through proud London he came sighing on

  After th’admired heels of Bolingbroke,

  Cri’st 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.

  ⌈MOWBRAY⌉

  Shall we go draw our numbers and set on?

  HASTINGS

  We are time’s subjects, and time bids be gone.

  Exeunt

  2.1 Enter Mistress Quickly (the hostess of a tavern), and an officer, Fang ⌈followed at a distance by⌉ another officer, Snare

  MISTRESS QUICKLY Master Fang, have you entered the action ?

  FANG It is entered.

  MISTRESS QUICKLY Where’s your yeoman? Is’t a lusty yeoman? Will a stand to’t?

  FANG Sirrah!—Where’s Snare?

  MISTRESS QUICKLY O Lord, ay, good Master Snare.

  SNARE ⌈coming forward⌉ Here, here.

  FANG Snare, we must arrest Sir John Falstaff.

  MISTRESS QUICKLY Yea, good Master Snare, I have entered him and all.

  SNARE It may chance cost some of us our lives, for he will stab.

  MISTRESS QUICKLY Alas the day, take heed of him; he stabbed me in mine own house, most beastly, in good faith. A 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.

  FANG If I can close with him, I care not for his thrust. MISTRESS QUICKLY No, nor I neither. I’ll be at your elbow. FANG An I but fist him once, an a come but within my vice—

  MISTRESS QUICKLY 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 scape. A comes continuantly to Pie Corner—saving your manhoods—to buy a saddle, and he is indited to dinner to the Lubber’s Head in Lombard Street, to Master Smooth’s the silkman. I pray you, since my exion is entered, and my case so openly known to the world, let him be brought in to 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 fobbed off, and fobbed off, and fobbed 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, Bardolph, and the Page

  Yonder he comes, and that arrant malmsey-nose knave Bardolph with him. Do your offices, do your offices, Master Fang and Master Snare; do me, do me, do me your offices.

  SIR JOHN How now, whose mare’s dead? What’s the matter ?

  FANG Sir John, I arrest you at the suit of Mistress Quickly.

  SIR JOHN ⌈drawing⌉ Away, varlets! Draw, Bardolph! Cut me off the villain’s head! Throw the quean in the channel!

  ⌈Bardolph draws⌉

  MISTRESS QUICKLY Throw me in the channel? I’ll throw thee in the channel!

  A brawl

  Wilt thou, wilt thou, thou bastardly rogue? Murder, murder! Ah, thou honeysuckle villain, wilt thou kill God’s officers, and the King’s? Ah, thou honeyseed rogue! Thou art a honeyseed, a man-queller, and a woman-queller.

  SIR JOHN Keep them off, Bardolph !

  FANG A rescue, a rescue!

  MISTRESS QUICKLY Good people, bring a rescue or two. Thou wot, wot thou? Thou wot, wot’a? Do, do, thou rogue, do, thou hempseed!

  PAGE Away, you scullion, you rampallian, you fustilarian! I’ll tickle your catastrophe!

  Enter the Lord Chief Justice and his men

  LORD CHIEF JUSTICE

  What is the matter? Keep the peace here, ho!

  Brawl ends. ⌈Fang⌉ seizes Sir John

  MISTRESS QUICKLY Good my lord, be good to me; I beseech you, stand to me.

  LORD CHIEF JUSTICE

  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 York.

  ⌈To Fang⌉ Stand from him, fellow. Wherefore hang’st

  thou upon him?

  MISTRESS QUICKLY O my most worshipful lord, an’t please your grace, I am a poor widow of Eastcheap, and he is arrested at my suit.

  LORD CHIEF JUSTICE For what sum?

  MISTRESS QUICKLY 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; (to Sir John) but I will have some of it out again, or I will ride thee a-nights like the mare.

  SIR JOHN I think I am as like to ride the mare, if I have any vantage of ground to get up.

  LORD CHIEF JUSTICE 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?

  SIR JOHN (to the Hostess) What is the gross sum that I owe thee?

  MISTRESS QUICKLY Marry, if thou wert an honest man, thyself, and the money too. Thou didst swear to me upon a parcel-gilt goblet, sitting in my Dolphin chamber, at the round table, by a sea-coal fire, upon Wednesday in Wheeson week, when the Prince broke thy head for liking his father to a singing-man 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 goodwife 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 a 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 thee thirty shillings? I put thee now to thy book-oath; deny it if thou canst.

  ⌈She weeps⌉

  SIR JOHN 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.

  LORD CHIEF JUSTICE Sir John, Sir John, I am well acquainted with your manner of wrenching the true cause 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-yielding spirit of this woman, and made her serve your uses both in purse and in person.

  MISTRESS QUICKLY Yea, in truth, my lord.

  LORD CHIEF JUSTICE Pray thee, peace. (To Sir John) 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.

  SIR JOHN My lord, I will not undergo this sneap 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.

  LORD CHIEF JUSTICE You speak as having power to do wrong; but answer in th’effect of your reputation, and satisfy the poor woman.

  SIR JOHN (drawing apart) Come hither, hostess.

  She goes to him.

  Enter Master Gower, a messenger

  LORD CHIEF JUSTICE Now, Master Gower, what news?

  GOWER

  The King, my lord, and Harry Prince of Wales

  Are near at hand; the rest the paper tells.

  ⌈Lord Chief Justice reads the paper, and converses apart with Gower⌉