Enter Falstaff and Bardolph.FALSTAFF Bardolph, am I not fallen away vilely since this last action? Do I not bate? Do I not dwindle? Why, my skin hangs about me like an old lady’s loose gown. I am withered like an old applejohn.5 Well, I’ll repent, and that suddenly, while I am in some liking. I shall be out of heart shortly, and then I shall have no strength to repent. An I have not forgotten what the inside of a church is made of, I am a peppercorn, a brewer’s horse. The inside of a10 church! Company, villainous company, hath been the spoil of me.BARDOLPH Sir John, you are so fretful you cannot live long.FALSTAFF Why, there is it. Come, sing me a bawdy15 song, make me merry. I was as virtuously given as a gentleman need to be, virtuous enough: swore little; diced not above seven times—a week; went to a bawdy house not above once in a quarter—of an hour; paid money that I borrowed—three or four20 times; lived well and in good compass; and now I live out of all order, out of all compass.BARDOLPH Why, you are so fat, Sir John, that you must
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needs be out of all compass, out of all reasonable compass, Sir John.FALSTAFF 25Do thou amend thy face, and I’ll amend my life. Thou art our admiral, thou bearest the lantern in the poop, but ’tis in the nose of thee. Thou art the Knight of the Burning Lamp.BARDOLPH Why, Sir John, my face does you no harm.FALSTAFF 30No, I’ll be sworn, I make as good use of it as many a man doth of a death’s-head or a memento
mori. I never see thy face but I think upon hellfire and Dives that lived in purple, for there he is in his robes, burning, burning. If thou wert any way given35 to virtue, I would swear by thy face. My oath should be “By this fire, ⌜that’s⌝ God’s angel.” But thou art altogether given over, and wert indeed, but for the light in thy face, the son of utter darkness. When thou ran’st up Gad’s Hill in the night to catch my40 horse, if I did not think thou hadst been an ignis
fatuus, or a ball of wildfire, there’s no purchase in money. O, thou art a perpetual triumph, an everlasting bonfire-light. Thou hast saved me a thousand marks in links and torches, walking with thee in the45 night betwixt tavern and tavern, but the sack that thou hast drunk me would have bought me lights as good cheap at the dearest chandler’s in Europe. I have maintained that salamander of yours with fire any time this two-and-thirty years, God reward me50 for it.BARDOLPH ’Sblood, I would my face were in your belly!FALSTAFF Godamercy, so should I be sure to be heartburned! Enter Hostess.55 How now, Dame Partlet the hen, have you enquired yet who picked my pocket?
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HOSTESS Why, Sir John, what do you think, Sir John, do you think I keep thieves in my house? I have searched, I have enquired, so has my husband,60 man by man, boy by boy, servant by servant. The ⌜tithe⌝ of a hair was never lost in my house before.FALSTAFF You lie, hostess. Bardolph was shaved and lost many a hair, and I’ll be sworn my pocket was65 picked. Go to, you are a woman, go.HOSTESS Who, I? No, I defy thee! God’s light, I was never called so in mine own house before.FALSTAFF Go to, I know you well enough.HOSTESS No, Sir John, you do not know me, Sir John. I70 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; they have made bolters of75 them.HOSTESS 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 pound.FALSTAFF80, ⌜pointing to Bardolph⌝ He had his part of it. Let him pay.HOSTESS 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 his85 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, ⌜to Bardolph⌝ O Jesu, I have heard the Prince90 tell him, I know not how oft, that that ring was copper.FALSTAFF How? The Prince is a jack, a sneak-up.
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’Sblood, an 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 upon his truncheon like a fife.95 How now, lad, is the wind in that door, i’ faith? Must we all march?BARDOLPH Yea, two and two, Newgate fashion.HOSTESS, ⌜to Prince⌝ My lord, I pray you, hear me.PRINCE What say’st thou, Mistress Quickly? How doth100 thy husband? I love him well; he is an honest man.HOSTESS Good my lord, hear me.FALSTAFF Prithee, let her alone, and list to me.PRINCE What say’st thou, Jack?FALSTAFF The other night I fell asleep here, behind the105 arras, and had my pocket picked. This house is turned bawdy house; they pick pockets.PRINCE What didst thou lose, Jack?FALSTAFF Wilt thou believe me, Hal, three or four bonds of forty pound apiece, and a seal ring of my110 grandfather’s.PRINCE A trifle, some eightpenny matter.HOSTESS 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, and115 said he would cudgel you.PRINCE What, he did not!HOSTESS There’s neither faith, truth, nor womanhood in me else.FALSTAFF There’s no more faith in thee than in a120 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 thing, go.HOSTESS Say, what thing, what thing?FALSTAFF 125What thing? Why, a thing to thank God on.
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HOSTESS I am no thing to thank God 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 130Setting thy womanhood aside, thou art a beast to say otherwise.HOSTESS Say, what beast, thou knave, thou?FALSTAFF What beast? Why, an otter.PRINCE An otter, Sir John. Why an otter?FALSTAFF 135Why, she’s neither fish nor flesh; a man knows not where to have her.HOSTESS Thou art an unjust man in saying so. Thou or any man knows where to have me, thou knave, thou.PRINCE 140Thou sayst true, hostess, and he slanders thee most grossly.HOSTESS So he doth you, my lord, and said this other day you owed him a thousand pound.PRINCE Sirrah, do I owe you a thousand pound?FALSTAFF 145A thousand pound, Hal? A million. Thy love is worth a million; thou owest me thy love.HOSTESS Nay, my lord, he called you “jack,” and said he would cudgel you.FALSTAFF Did I, Bardolph?BARDOLPH 150Indeed, Sir John, you said so.FALSTAFF Yea, if he said my ring was copper.PRINCE I say ’tis copper. Darest thou be as good as thy word now?FALSTAFF Why, Hal, thou knowest, as thou art but155 man, I dare, but as thou art prince, I fear thee as I fear the roaring of the lion’s whelp.PRINCE 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?160 Nay, an I do, I pray God my girdle break.PRINCE O, if it should, how would thy guts fall about
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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 honest165 woman with picking thy pocket? Why, thou whoreson, impudent, embossed rascal, if there were anything in thy pocket but tavern reckonings, memorandums of bawdy houses, and one poor pennyworth of sugar candy to make thee long-winded,170 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 knowest in the175 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 180It appears so by the story.FALSTAFF Hostess, I forgive thee. Go make ready breakfast, love thy husband, look to thy servants, cherish thy ⌜guests.⌝ Thou shalt find me tractable to any honest reason. Thou seest I am pacified still.185 Nay, prithee, begone. (Hostess exits.) Now, Hal, to the news at court. For the robbery, lad, how is that answered?PRINCE O, my sweet beef, I must still be good angel to thee. The money is paid back again.FALSTAFF 190O, I do not like that paying back. ’Tis a double labor.PRINCE I am good friends with my father and may do anything.FALSTAFF Rob me the Exchequer the first thing thou195 dost, and do it with unwashed hands too.BARDOLPH Do, my lord.PRINCE I have procured thee, Jack, a charge of foot.
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FALSTAFF I would it had been of horse. Where shall I find one that can steal well? O, for a fine thief of200 the age of two-and-twenty or thereabouts! I am heinously unprovided. Well, God be thanked for these rebels. They offend none but the virtuous. I laud them; I praise them.PRINCE Bardolph.BARDOLPH 205My lord.PRINCE , ⌜handing Bardolph papers⌝ Go, bear this letter to Lord John of Lancaster, To my brother John; this to my Lord of Westmoreland. ⌜Bardolph exits.⌝ Go, Peto, to horse, to horse, for thou and I210 Have thirty miles to ride yet ere dinner time. ⌜Peto exits.⌝ 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.215 The land is burning. Percy stands on high, And either we or they must lower lie. ⌜He exits.⌝FALSTAFF Rare words, brave world!—Hostess, my breakfast, come.— O, I could wish this tavern were my drum. ⌜He exits.⌝