The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works

by William Shakespeare

Enter Sir John Falstaff, Shallow, and Silence

  SIR JOHN Come, sir, which men shall I have?

  SHALLOW Four of which you please.

  BARDOLPH (to Sir John) Sir, a word with you. (Aside to him)

  I have three pound to free Mouldy and Bullcalf.

  SIR JOHN Go to, well.

  SHALLOW Come, Sir John, which four will you have?

  SIR JOHN Do you choose for me.

  SHALLOW Marry, then: Mouldy, Bullcalf, Feeble, and Shadow.

  SIR JOHN Mouldy and Bullcalf. For you, Mouldy, stay at home till you are past service; and for your part, Bullcalf, grow till you come unto it. I will none of you.

  ⌈Exeunt Bullcalf and Mouldy⌉

  SHALLOW Sir John, Sir John, do not yourself wrong. They are your likeliest men, and I would have you served with the best.

  SIR JOHN Will you tell me, Master Shallow, how to choose a man? Care I for the limb, the thews, the stature, bulk, and big assemblance of a man? Give me the spirit, Master Shallow. Here’s Wart; you see what a ragged appearance it is? A shall charge you and discharge you with the motion of a pewterer’s hammer, come off and on swifter than he that gibbets on the brewer’s bucket. And this same half-faced fellow Shadow; give me this man. He presents no mark to the enemy; the foeman may with as great aim level at the edge of a penknife. And for a retreat, how swiftly will this Feeble the woman’s tailor run off! O, give me the spare men, and spare me the great ones.—Put me a caliver into Wart’s hand, Bardolph.

  BARDOLPH (giving Wart a caliver) Hold, Wart. Traverse—thas, thas, thas! 269

  ⌈Wart marches⌉

  SIR JOHN (to Wart) Come, manage me your caliver. So; very well. Go to, very good, exceeding good. O, give me always a little, lean, old, chapped, bald shot! Well said, i‘faith, Wart; thou’rt a good scab. Hold; (giving a coin) there’s a tester for thee.

  SHALLOW He is not his craft’s master; he doth not do it right. I remember at Mile-End Green, when I lay at Clement’s Inn—I was then Sir Dagonet in Arthur’s show—there was a little quiver fellow, and a would manage you his piece thus, and a would about and about, and come you in and come you in. ‘Ra-ta-ta!’ would a say; ‘Bounce!’ would a say; and away again would a go; and again would a come. I shall ne’er see such a fellow.

  SIR JOHN These fellows will do well, Master Shallow. God keep you, Master Silence; I will not use many words with you. Fare you well, gentlemen both; I thank you. I must a dozen mile tonight.—Bardolph, give the soldiers coats.

  SHALLOW Sir John, the Lord bless you; God prosper your affairs! God send us peace! As you return, visit my house; let our old acquaintance be renewed. Peradventure I will with ye to the court.

  SIR JOHN Fore God, would you would!

  SHALLOW Go to, I have spoke at a word. God keep you!

  SIR JOHN Fare you well, gentle gentlemen. 295

  Exeunt Shallow and Silence

  On, Bardolph, lead the men away.

  Exeunt Bardolph, Wart, Shadow, and Feeble

  As I return, I will fetch off these justices. I do see the bottom of Justice Shallow. Lord, Lord, how subject we old men are to this vice of lying! This same starved justice hath done nothing but prate to me of the wildness of his youth and the feats he hath done about Turnbull Street; and every third word a lie, duer paid to the hearer than the Turk’s tribute. I do remember him at Clement’s Inn, like a man made after supper of a cheese paring. When a was naked, he was for all the world like a forked radish, with a head fantastically carved upon it with a knife. A was so forlorn that his dimensions, to any thick sight, were invisible. A was the very genius of famine. And now is this Vice’s dagger become a squire, and talks as familiarly of John o’ Gaunt as if he had been sworn brother to him, and I’ll be sworn a ne’er saw him but once, in the Tilt-yard, and then he burst his head for crowding among the marshal’s men. I saw it, and told John o’ Gaunt he beat his own name; for you might have trussed him and all his apparel into an eel-skin. The case of a treble hautboy was a mansion for him, a court. And now has he land and beeves. Well, I’ll be acquainted with him if I return; and’t shall go hard but I’ll make him a philosopher’s two stones to me. If the young dace be a bait for the old pike, I see no reason in the law of nature but I may snap at him. Let time shape, and there an end. Exit

  4.1 Enter ⌈in arms⌉ the Archbishop of York, Thomas Mowbray, Lord Hastings, and ⌈Coleville⌉, within the Forest of Gaultres

  ARCHBISHOP OF YORK What is this forest called?

  HASTINGS

  ’Tis Gaultres Forest, an’t shall please your grace.

  ARCHBISHOP OF YORK

  Here stand, my lords, and send discoverers forth

  To know the numbers of our enemies.

  HASTINGS

  We have sent forth already.

  ARCHBISHOP OF YORK ’Tis well done.

  My friends and brethren in these great affairs,

  I must acquaint you that I have received

  New-dated letters from Northumberland,

  Their cold intent, tenor, and substance, thus:

  Here doth he wish his person, with such powers

  As might hold sortance with his quality,

  The which he could not levy; whereupon

  He is retired to ripe his growing fortunes

  To Scotland, and concludes in hearty prayers

  That your attempts may overlive the hazard 15

  And fearful meeting of their opposite.

  MOWBRAY

  Thus do the hopes we have in him touch ground

  And dash themselves to pieces.

  Enter a Messenger

  HASTINGS Now, what news?

  MESSENGER

  West of this forest, scarcely off a mile,

  In goodly form comes on the enemy;

  And, by the ground they hide, I judge their number

  Upon or near the rate of thirty thousand.

  MOWBRAY

  The just proportion that we gave them out.

  Let us sway on, and face them in the field.

  Enter the Earl of Westmorland

  ARCHBISHOP OF YORK

  What well-appointed leader fronts us here?

  MOWBRAY

  I think it is my lord of Westmorland.

  WESTMORLAND

  Health and fair greeting from our general,

  The Prince, Lord John and Duke of Lancaster.

  ARCHBISHOP OF YORK

  Say on, my lord of Westmorland, in peace,

  What doth concern your coming.

  WESTMORLAND Then, my lord,

  Unto your grace do I in chief address

  The substance of my speech. If that rebellion

  Came like itself, in base and abject routs,

  Led on by bloody youth, guarded with rags,

  And countenanced by boys and beggary;

  I say, if damned commotion so appeared

  In his true native and most proper shape,

  You, reverend father, and these noble lords

  Had not been here to dress the ugly form

  Of base and bloody insurrection

  With your fair honours. You, Lord Archbishop,

  Whose see is by a civil peace maintained,

  Whose beard the silver hand of peace hath touched,

  Whose learning and good letters peace hath tutored,

  Whose white investments figure innocence,

  The dove and very blessed spirit of peace,

  Wherefore do you so ill translate yourself

  Out of the speech of peace that bears such grace

  Into the harsh and boist’rous tongue of war,

  Turning your books to graves, your ink to blood,

  Your pens to lances, and your tongue divine

  To a loud trumpet and a point of war?

  ARCHBISHOP OF YORK

  Wherefore do I this? So the question stands.

  Briefly, to this end: we are all diseased,

  And with our surfeiting and wanton hours

  Have brought ourselves into a burning fever
,

  And we must bleed for it—of which disease

  Our late King Richard, being infected, died.

  But, my most noble lord of Westmorland,

  I take not on me here as a physician,

  Nor do I as an enemy to peace

  Troop in the throngs of military men;

  But rather show a while like fearful war

  To diet rank minds, sick of happiness,

  And purge th’obstructions which begin to stop

  Our very veins of life. Hear me more plainly.

  I have in equal balance justly weighed

  What wrongs our arms may do, what wrongs we suffer,

  And find our griefs heavier than our offences.

  We see which way the stream of time doth run,

  And are enforced from our most quiet shore

  By the rough torrent of occasion;

  And have the summary of all our griefs,

  When time shall serve, to show in articles,

  Which long ere this we offered to the King,

  And might by no suit gain our audience.

  When we are wronged, and would unfold our griefs,

  We are denied access unto his person

  Even by those men that most have done us wrong.

  The dangers of the days but newly gone, 80

  Whose memory is written on the earth

  With yet appearing blood, and the examples

  Of every minute’s instance, present now,

  Hath put us in these ill-beseeming arms,

  Not to break peace, or any branch of it,

  But to establish here a peace indeed,

  Concurring both in name and quality.

  WESTMORLAND

  Whenever yet was your appeal denied?

  Wherein have you been gallèd by the King?

  What peer hath been suborned to grate on you,

  That you should seal this lawless bloody book

  Of forged rebellion with a seal divine?

  ARCHBISHOP OF YORK

  My brother general, the commonwealth

  I make my quarrel in particular.

  WESTMORLAND

  There is no need of any such redress;

  Or if there were, it not belongs to you.

  MOWBRAY

  Why not to him in part, and to us all

  That feel the bruises of the days before,

  And suffer the condition of these times

  To lay a heavy and unequal hand

  Upon our honours?

  WESTMORLAND O my good Lord Mowbray,

  Construe the times to their necessities,

  And you shall say indeed it is the time,

  And not the King, that doth you injuries.

  Yet for your part, it not appears to me, 105

  Either from the King or in the present time,

  That you should have an inch of any ground

  To build a grief on. Were you not restored

  To all the Duke of Norfolk’s signories,

  Your noble and right well-remembered father’s? 110

  MOWBRAY

  What thing in honour had my father lost

  That need to be revived and breathed in me?

  The King that loved him, as the state stood then,

  Was force perforce compelled to banish him;

  And then that Henry Bolingbroke and he, 115

  Being mounted and both roused in their seats,

  Their neighing coursers daring of the spur,

  Their armed staves in charge, their beavers down,

  Their eyes of fire sparkling through sights of steel,

  And the loud trumpet blowing them together,

  Then, then, when there was nothing could have stayed

  My father from the breast of Bolingbroke—

  O, when the King did throw his warder down,

  His own life hung upon the staff he threw;

  Then threw he down himself and all their lives 125

  That by indictment and by dint of sword

  Have since miscarried under Bolingbroke.

  WESTMORLAND

  You speak, Lord Mowbray, now you know not what.

  The Earl of Hereford was reputed then

  In England the most valiant gentleman.

  Who knows on whom fortune would then have

  smiled?

  But if your father had been victor there,

  He ne’er had borne it out of Coventry;

  For all the country in a general voice

  Cried hate upon him, and all their prayers and love

  Were set on Hereford, whom they doted on

  And blessed and graced, indeed, more than the King.

  But this is mere digression from my purpose.

  Here come I from our princely general

  To know your griefs, to tell you from his grace

  That he will give you audience; and wherein

  It shall appear that your demands are just,

  You shall enjoy them, everything set off

  That might so much as think you enemies.

  MOWBRAY

  But he hath forced us to compel this offer,

  And it proceeds from policy, not love.

  WESTMORLAND

  Mowbray, you overween to take it so.

  This offer comes from mercy, not from fear;

  For lo, within a ken our army lies,

  Upon mine honour, all too confident

  To give admittance to a thought of fear.

  Our battle is more full of names than yours,

  Our men more perfect in the use of arms,

  Our armour all as strong, our cause the best.

  Then reason will our hearts should be as good.

  Say you not then our offer is compelled.

  MOWBRAY

  Well, by my will we shall admit no parley.

  WESTMORLAND

  That argues but the shame of your offence.

  A rotten case abides no handling.

  HASTINGS

  Hath the Prince John a full commission,

  In very ample virtue of his father,

  To hear and absolutely to determine

  Of what conditions we shall stand upon?

  WESTMORLAND

  That is intended in the general’s name.

  I muse you make so slight a question.

  ARCHBISHOP OF YORK

  Then take, my lord of Westmorland, this schedule;

  For this contains our general grievances.

  Each several article herein redressed,

  All members of our cause, both here and hence,

  That are ensinewed to this action

  Acquitted by a true substantial form,

  And present execution of our wills

  To us and to our purposes consigned,

  We come within our awe-full banks again,

  And knit our powers to the arm of peace.

  WESTMORLAND (taking the schedule)

  This will I show the general. Please you, lords,

  In sight of both our battles we may meet,

  And either end in peace—which God so frame—

  Or to the place of diff’rence call the swords

  Which must decide it.

  ARCHBISHOP OF YORK My lord, we will do so. 180

  Exit Westmorland

  MOWBRAY

  There is a thing within my bosom tells me

  That no conditions of our peace can stand.

  HASTINGS

  Fear you not that. If we can make our peace

  Upon such large terms and so absolute

  As our conditions shall consist upon,

  Our peace shall stand as firm as rocky mountains.

  MOWBRAY

  Yea, but our valuation shall be such

  That every slight and false-derivèd cause,

  Yea, every idle, nice, and wanton reason,

  Shall to the King taste of this action,

  That, were our royal faiths martyrs in love,

  We shall be winnowed with so rough a wi
nd

  That even our corn shall seem as light as chaff,

  And good from bad find no partition.

  ARCHBISHOP OF YORK

  No, no, my lord; note this. The King is weary

  Of dainty and such picking grievances,

  For he hath found to end one doubt by death

  Revives two greater in the heirs of life;

  And therefore will he wipe his tables clean,

  And keep no tell-tale to his memory

  That may repeat and history his loss

  To new remembrance; for full well he knows

  He cannot so precisely weed this land

  As his misdoubts present occasion.

  His foes are so enrooted with his friends

  That, plucking to unfix an enemy,

  He doth unfasten so and shake a friend;

  So that this land, like an offensive wife

  That hath enraged him on to offer strokes,

  As he is striking, holds his infant up, 210

  And hangs resolved correction in the arm

  That was upreared to execution.

  HASTINGS

  Besides, the King hath wasted all his rods

  On late offenders, that he now doth lack

  The very instruments of chastisement;

  So that his power, like to a fangless lion,

  May offer, but not hold.

  ARCHBISHOP OF YORK ’Tis very true.

  And therefore be assured, my good Lord Marshal,

  If we do now make our atonement well,

  Our peace will, like a broken limb united,

  Grow stronger for the breaking.

  MOWBRAY Be it so.

  Enter Westmorland

  Here is returned my lord of Westmorland.

  WESTMORLAND

  The Prince is here at hand. Pleaseth your lordship

  To meet his grace just distance ’tween our armies?

  MOWBRAY

  Your grace of York, in God’s name then set forward.

  ARCHBISHOP OF YORK

  Before, and greet his grace!—My lord, we come.

  ⌈They march over the stage.⌉

  Enter Prince John ⌈with one or more soldiers

  carrying wind⌉

  PRINCE JOHN

  You are well encountered here, my cousin Mowbray.

  Good day to you, gentle lord Archbishop;

  And so to you, Lord Hastings, and to all.

  My lord of York, it better showed with you

  When that your flock, assembled by the bell,