a hair; and I’ll be sworn my pocket was picked. Go to, you are
a woman, go.
HOSTESS QUICKLY Who, I? I defy thee. I was never called so in
mine own house before.
FALSTAFF Go to, I know you well enough.
HOSTESS QUICKLY No, Sir John, you do not know me, Sir John. I
know you, Sir John: you owe me money, Sir John, and now
you pick a quarrel to beguile me of it. I bought you a dozen
of shirts to your back.
FALSTAFF Dowlas, filthy dowlas: I have given them away to
bakers’ wives, and they have made bolters of them.
HOSTESS QUICKLY Now, as I am a true woman, holland of eight
shillings an ell. You owe money here besides, Sir John, for
your diet and by-drinkings, and money lent you, four and
twenty pounds.
FALSTAFF He had his part of it, let him pay.
Points to Bardolph
HOSTESS QUICKLY He? Alas, he is poor, he hath nothing.
FALSTAFF How? Poor? Look upon his face. What call you rich?
Let them coin his nose, let them coin his cheeks. I’ll not pay
a denier. What, will you make a younker of me? Shall I not
take mine ease in mine inn but I shall have my pocket picked?
I have lost a seal-ring of my grandfather’s worth forty mark.
HOSTESS QUICKLY I have heard the prince tell him, I know not
how oft, that that ring was copper!
FALSTAFF How? The prince is a jack, a sneak-cup. An if he
were here, I would cudgel him like a dog, if he would say so.
Enter the Prince marching [with Peto], and Falstaff meets him playing
on his truncheon like a fife
How now, lad? Is the wind in that door? Must we all march?
BARDOLPH Yea, two and two, Newgate fashion.
HOSTESS QUICKLY My lord, I pray you hear me.
PRINCE HENRY What say’st thou, Mistress Quickly? How does
thy husband? I love him well. He is an honest man.
HOSTESS QUICKLY Good my lord, hear me.
FALSTAFF Prithee let her alone, and list to me.
PRINCE HENRY What say’st thou, Jack?
FALSTAFF The other night I fell asleep here behind the arras
and had my pocket picked. This house is turned bawdy-
house: they pick pockets.
PRINCE HENRY What didst thou lose, Jack?
FALSTAFF Wilt thou believe me, Hal, three or four bonds of
forty pound apiece, and a seal-ring of my grandfather’s?
PRINCE HENRY A trifle, some eight-penny matter.
HOSTESS QUICKLY So I told him, my lord; and I said I heard your
grace say so. And, my lord, he speaks most vilely of you, like
a foul-mouthed man as he is, and said he would cudgel you.
PRINCE HENRY What? He did not?
HOSTESS QUICKLY There’s neither faith, truth, nor womanhood
in me else.
FALSTAFF There’s no more faith in thee than a stewed prune,
nor no more truth in thee than in a drawn fox. And for
womanhood, Maid Marian may be the deputy’s wife of the
ward to thee. Go, you nothing, go.
HOSTESS QUICKLY Say, what thing? What thing?
FALSTAFF What thing? Why, a thing to thank heaven on.
HOSTESS QUICKLY I am no thing to thank heaven on, I would
thou shouldst know it. I am an honest man’s wife, and,
setting thy knighthood aside, thou art a knave to call me so.
FALSTAFF Setting thy womanhood aside, thou art a beast to
say otherwise.
HOSTESS QUICKLY Say, what beast, thou knave, thou?
FALSTAFF What beast? Why, an otter.
PRINCE HENRY An otter, Sir John? Why an otter?
FALSTAFF Why? She’s neither fish nor flesh; a man knows not
where to have her.
HOSTESS QUICKLY Thou art an unjust man in saying so; thou or
any man knows where to have me, thou knave, thou!
PRINCE HENRY Thou say’st true, hostess, and he slanders thee
most grossly.
HOSTESS QUICKLY So he doth you, my lord, and said this other
day you owed him a thousand pound.
PRINCE HENRY Sirrah, do I owe you a thousand pound?
FALSTAFF A thousand pound, Hal? A million. Thy love is
worth a million: thou ow’st me thy love.
HOSTESS QUICKLY Nay, my lord, he called you Jack,
and said he would cudgel you.
FALSTAFF Did I, Bardolph?
BARDOLPH Indeed, Sir John, you said so.
FALSTAFF Yea, if he said my ring was copper.
PRINCE HENRY I say ’tis copper. Dar’st thou be as good as thy
word now?
FALSTAFF Why, Hal, thou know’st, as thou art but a man, I
dare, but as thou art a prince, I fear thee as I fear the roaring
of the lion’s whelp.
PRINCE HENRY And why not as the lion?
FALSTAFF The king himself is to be feared as the lion: dost
thou think I’ll fear thee as I fear thy father? Nay, if I do, let my
girdle break.
PRINCE HENRY O, if it should, how would thy guts fall about thy
knees! But, sirrah, there’s no room for faith, truth, nor
honesty in this bosom of thine: it is all filled up with guts and
midriff. Charge an honest woman with picking thy pocket?
Why, thou whoreson, impudent, embossed rascal, if there
were anything in thy pocket but tavern-reck’nings,
memorandums of bawdy-houses, and one poor penny-
worth of sugar-candy to make thee long-winded: if thy
pocket were enriched with any other injuries but these, I am
a villain. And yet you will stand to it, you will not pocket up
wrong. Art thou not ashamed?
FALSTAFF Dost thou hear, Hal? Thou know’st in the state of
innocency Adam fell, and what should poor Jack Falstaff do
in the days of villainy? Thou seest I have more flesh than
another man, and therefore more frailty. You confess then,
you picked my pocket?
PRINCE HENRY It appears so by the story.
FALSTAFF Hostess, I forgive thee. Go, make ready breakfast,
love thy husband, look to thy servants and cherish thy guests.
Thou shalt find me tractable to any honest reason: thou seest
I am pacified still. Nay, prithee be gone.—
Exit Hostess
Now Hal, to the news at court: for the robbery, lad, how is
that answered?
PRINCE HENRY O, my sweet beef, I must still be good angel to
thee. The money is paid back again.
FALSTAFF O, I do not like that paying back, ’tis a double labour.
PRINCE HENRY I am good friends with my father and may do
anything.
FALSTAFF Rob me the exchequer the first thing thou dost, and
do it with unwashed hands too.
BARDOLPH Do, my lord.
PRINCE HENRY I have procured thee, Jack, a charge of foot.
FALSTAFF I would it had been of horse. Where shall I find one
that can steal well? O, for a fine thief, of two-and-twenty or
thereabout! I am heinously unprovided. Well, God be
thanked for these rebels, they offend none but the virtuous. I
laud them, I praise them.
PRINCE HENRY Bardolph.
BARDOLPH My lord?
PRINCE HENRY Go bear this letter to Lord John of
Lancaster,
Gives letters
To my brother John. This to my lord of Westmorland.—
[Exit Bardolph]
Go, Peto, to horse, for thou and I
Have t
hirty miles to ride yet ere dinner time.—
[Exit Peto]
Jack, meet me tomorrow in the Temple hall
At two o’clock in the afternoon.
There shalt thou know thy charge and there receive
Money and order for their furniture.
The land is burning, Percy stands on high,
And either they or we must lower lie.
[Exit Prince Henry]
FALSTAFF Rare words! Brave world! Hostess, my breakfast,
come!
O, I could wish this tavern were my drum!
Exit
Act 4 Scene 1
running scene 11
Location: the rebel camp near Shrewsbury
Enter Harry Hotspur, Worcester and Douglas
HOTSPUR Well said, my noble Scot. If speaking truth
In this fine age were not thought flattery,
Such attribution should the Douglas have,
As not a soldier of this season’s stamp
Should go so general current through the world.
By heaven, I cannot flatter: I defy
The tongues of soothers. But a braver place
In my heart’s love hath no man than yourself.
Nay, task me to my word, approve me, lord.
DOUGLAS Thou art the king of honour:
No man so potent breathes upon the ground
But I will beard him.
Enter a Messenger
With letters
HOTSPUR Do so, and ’tis well.—
What letters hast there? — I can but thank you.
MESSENGER These letters come from your father.
HOTSPUR Letters from him? Why comes he not himself?
MESSENGER He cannot come, my lord, he is grievous sick.
HOTSPUR How? Has he the leisure to be sick now
In such a jostling time? Who leads his power?
Under whose government come they along?
MESSENGER His letters bears his mind, not I his mind.
WORCESTER I prithee tell me, doth he keep his bed?
MESSENGER He did, my lord, four days ere I set forth,
And at the time of my departure thence
He was much feared by his physician.
WORCESTER I would the state of time had first been whole
Ere he by sickness had been visited:
His health was never better worth than now.
HOTSPUR Sick now? Droop now? This sickness doth infect
The very life-blood of our enterprise,
’Tis catching hither, even to our camp.
He writes me here that inward sickness —
And that his friends by deputation could not
So soon be drawn, nor did he think it meet
To lay so dangerous and dear a trust
On any soul removed but on his own.
Yet doth he give us bold advertisement,
That with our small conjunction we should on,
To see how fortune is disposed to us,
For, as he writes, there is no quailing now,
Because the king is certainly possessed
Of all our purposes. What say you to it?
WORCESTER Your father’s sickness is a maim to us.
HOTSPUR A perilous gash, a very limb lopped off:
And yet, in faith, it is not. His present want
Seems more than we shall find it. Were it good
To set the exact wealth of all our states
All at one cast? To set so rich a main
On the nice hazard of one doubtful hour?
It were not good, for therein should we read
The very bottom and the soul of hope,
The very list, the very utmost bound
Of all our fortunes.
DOUGLAS ’Faith, and so we should,
Where now remains a sweet reversion,
We may boldly spend upon the hope of what
Is to come in.
A comfort of retirement lives in this.
HOTSPUR A rendezvous, a home to fly unto,
If that the devil and mischance look big
Upon the maidenhead of our affairs.
WORCESTER But yet I would your father had been here.
The quality and hair of our attempt
Brooks no division: it will be thought
By some, that know not why he is away,
That wisdom, loyalty and mere dislike
Of our proceedings kept the earl from hence.
And think how such an apprehension
May turn the tide of fearful faction
And breed a kind of question in our cause,
For well you know, we of the off’ring side
Must keep aloof from strict arbitrement,
And stop all sight-holes, every loop from whence
The eye of reason may pry in upon us:
This absence of your father draws a curtain,
That shows the ignorant a kind of fear
Before not dreamt of.
HOTSPUR You strain too far.
I rather of his absence make this use:
It lends a lustre and more great opinion,
A larger dare to our great enterprise,
Than if the earl were here, for men must think,
If we without his help can make a head
To push against the kingdom, with his help
We shall o’erturn it topsy-turvy down.
Yet all goes well, yet all our joints are whole.
DOUGLAS As heart can think. There is not such a word
Spoke of in Scotland as this dream of fear.
Enter Sir Richard Vernon
HOTSPUR My cousin Vernon, welcome, by my soul.
VERNON Pray God my news be worth a welcome, lord.
The Earl of Westmorland, seven thousand strong,
Is marching hitherwards, with him Prince John.
HOTSPUR No harm: what more?
VERNON And further, I have learned,
The king himself in person hath set forth,
With strong and mighty preparation.
HOTSPUR He shall be welcome too. Where is his son,
The nimble-footed madcap Prince of Wales,
And his comrades that daffed the world aside
And bid it pass?
VERNON All furnished, all in arms,
All plumed like estridges that with the wind
Bated like eagles having lately bathed,
Glittering in golden coats like images,
As full of spirit as the month of May,
And gorgeous as the sun at midsummer,
Wanton as youthful goats, wild as young bulls.
I saw young Harry with his beaver on,
His cuisses on his thighs, gallantly armed,
Rise from the ground like feathered Mercury,
And vaulted with such ease into his seat,
As if an angel dropped down from the clouds,
To turn and wind a fiery Pegasus
And witch the world with noble horsemanship.
HOTSPUR No more, no more. Worse than the sun in March,
This praise doth nourish agues. Let them come.
They come like sacrifices in their trim,
And to the fire-eyed maid of smoky war
All hot and bleeding will we offer them:
The mailèd Mars shall on his altar sit
Up to the ears in blood. I am on fire
To hear this rich reprisal is so nigh
And yet not ours. Come, let me take my horse,
Who is to bear me like a thunderbolt
Against the bosom of the Prince of Wales.
Harry to Harry, shall hot horse to horse
Meet and ne’er part till one drop down a corpse!
O, that Glendower were come!
VERNON There is more news:
I learned in Worcester, as I rode along,
He cannot draw his power this fourteen days.
DOUGLAS That’s the
worst tidings that I hear of yet.
WORCESTER Ay, by my faith, that bears a frosty sound.
HOTSPUR What may the king’s whole battle reach unto?
VERNON To thirty thousand.
HOTSPUR Forty let it be.
My father and Glendower being both away,
The powers of us may serve so great a day.
Come, let us take a muster speedily:
Doomsday is near; die all, die merrily.
DOUGLAS Talk not of dying. I am out of fear
Of death or death’s hand for this one-half year.
Exeunt
Act 4 Scene 2
running scene 12
Location: the road (they are traveling, probably along the Roman road Watling Street from London to Shrewsbury via Coventry, a Midlands town near Stratford-upon-Avon)
Enter Falstaff and Bardolph
FALSTAFF Bardolph, get thee before to Coventry. Fill me a
bottle of sack. Our soldiers shall march through, we’ll to
Sutton Coldfield tonight.
BARDOLPH Will you give me money, captain?
FALSTAFF Lay out, lay out.
BARDOLPH This bottle makes an angel.
FALSTAFF An if it do, take it for thy labour. And if it make
twenty, take them all, I’ll answer the coinage. Bid my
lieutenant Peto meet me at the town’s end.
BARDOLPH I will, captain. Farewell.
Exit
FALSTAFF If I be not ashamed of my soldiers, I am a soused
gurnet. I have misused the king’s press damnably. I have got,
in exchange of a hundred and fifty soldiers, three hundred
and odd pounds. I press me none but good householders,
yeoman’s sons, inquire me out contracted bachelors, such
as had been asked twice on the banns, such a commodity
of warm slaves as had as lieve hear the devil as a drum;
such as fear the report of a caliver worse than a struck fowl
or a hurt wild duck. I pressed me none but such toasts-and-butter,
with hearts in their bellies no bigger than pins’
heads, and they have bought out their services. And now my
whole charge consists of ancients, corporals, lieutenants,
gentlemen of companies, slaves as ragged as Lazarus in the
painted cloth, where the glutton’s dogs licked his sores; and
such as indeed were never soldiers, but discarded unjust
servingmen, younger sons to younger brothers, revolted
tapsters and ostlers trade-fallen, the cankers of a calm world