Enter Hostess ⌜Quickly⌝ of the tavern ⟨with two Officers,
Fang and Snare,⟩ ⌜who lags behind.⌝HOSTESS Master Fang, have you entered the action?FANG It is entered.HOSTESS Where’s your yeoman? Is ’t a lusty yeoman? Will he stand to ’t?FANG, ⌜calling⌝ 5Sirrah! Where’s Snare?HOSTESS O Lord, ay, good Master Snare.SNARE, ⌜catching up to them⌝ Here, here.FANG Snare, we must arrest Sir John Falstaff.HOSTESS Yea, good Master Snare, I have entered him10 and all.SNARE It may chance cost some of us our lives, for he will stab.HOSTESS Alas the day, take heed of him. He stabbed me in mine own house, ⟨and that⟩ most beastly, in good15 faith. He 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.HOSTESS No, nor I neither. I’ll be at your elbow.FANG 20An I but fist him once, an he come but within my view—HOSTESS I am undone by his going. I warrant you, he’s
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an infinitive thing upon my score. Good Master Fang, hold him sure. Good Master Snare, let him25 not ’scape. He comes ⟨continuantly⟩ to Pie Corner, saving your manhoods, to buy a saddle, and he is indited to dinner to the Lubber’s Head in Lumbert Street, to Master Smooth’s the silkman. I pray you, since my exion is entered, and my case so openly30 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 fubbed off, and fubbed off, and fubbed off from this day to that day, that it is35 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. Yonder he comes, and that arrant malmsey-nose knave, Bardolph, with him. Do your offices, do your offices,40 Master Fang and Master Snare, do me, do me, do me your offices.Enter Sir John ⟨Falstaff⟩ and Bardolph, and the ⌜Page.⌝FALSTAFF How now, whose mare’s dead? What’s the matter?FANG ⟨Sir John,⟩ I arrest you at the suit of Mistress45 Quickly.FALSTAFF Away, varlets!—Draw, Bardolph. Cut me off the villain’s head. Throw the quean in the channel.⌜They draw.⌝HOSTESS Throw me in the channel? I’ll throw thee in50 the channel. 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.FALSTAFF 55Keep them off, Bardolph.
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OFFICERS A rescue, a rescue!HOSTESS Good people, bring a rescue or two.—Thou wot, wot thou? Thou wot, wot ta? Do, do, thou rogue. Do, thou hempseed.PAGE 60Away, you scullion, you rampallian, you fustilarian! I’ll tickle your catastrophe.Enter Lord Chief Justice and his Men.CHIEF JUSTICE What is the matter? Keep the peace here, ho!HOSTESS Good my lord, be good to me. I beseech you stand to me.CHIEF JUSTICE 65 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.— Stand from him, fellow. Wherefore hang’st thou70 upon him?HOSTESS O my most worshipful lord, an ’t please your Grace, I am a poor widow of Eastcheap, and he is arrested at my suit.CHIEF JUSTICE For what sum?HOSTESS 75It is more than for some, my lord; it is for 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 Falstaff.⌝ But I will have some of it out again, or I will ride thee o’ nights like the mare.FALSTAFF 80I think I am as like to ride the mare if I have any vantage of ground to get up.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 a85 poor widow to so rough a course to come by her own?
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FALSTAFF What is the gross sum that I owe thee?HOSTESS Marry, if thou wert an honest man, thyself and the money too. Thou didst swear to me upon a90 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 thy95 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, whereby100 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 didst105 thou not kiss me and bid me fetch thee thirty shillings? I put thee now to thy book-oath. Deny it if thou canst.FALSTAFF My lord, this is a poor mad soul, and she says up and down the town that her eldest son is like110 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.CHIEF JUSTICE Sir John, Sir John, I am well acquainted115 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, practiced120 upon the easy-yielding spirit of this woman, [and made her serve your uses both in purse and in person.]
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HOSTESS Yea, in truth, my lord.CHIEF JUSTICE Pray thee, peace.—Pay her the debt you125 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.FALSTAFF My lord, I will not undergo this sneap without reply. You call honorable boldness “impudent130 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.CHIEF JUSTICE 135You speak as having power to do wrong; but answer in th’ effect of your reputation, and satisfy the poor woman.FALSTAFF Come hither, hostess.⌜He speaks aside to the Hostess.⌝Enter a Messenger, ⟨Master Gower.⟩CHIEF JUSTICE Now, Master Gower, what news?GOWER 140 The King, my lord, and Harry Prince of Wales Are near at hand. The rest the paper tells.⌜He gives the Chief Justice a paper to read.⌝FALSTAFF, ⌜to the Hostess⌝ As I am a gentleman!HOSTESS Faith, you said so before.FALSTAFF As I am a gentleman. Come. No more words145 of it.HOSTESS By this heavenly ground I tread on, I must be fain to pawn both my plate and the tapestry of my dining chambers.FALSTAFF Glasses, glasses, is the only drinking. And for150 thy walls, a pretty slight drollery, or the story of the Prodigal or the German hunting in waterwork is worth a thousand of these bed-hangers and these
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fly-bitten ⟨tapestries.⟩ Let it be ten pound, if thou canst. Come, an ’twere not for thy humors, there’s155 not a better wench in England. Go wash thy face, and draw the action. Come, thou must not be in this humor with me. Dost not know me? Come, come. I know thou wast set on to this.HOSTESS Pray thee, Sir John, let it be but twenty160 nobles. I’ faith, I am loath to pawn my plate, so God save me, la.FALSTAFF Let it alone. I’ll make other shift. You’ll be a fool still.HOSTESS Well, you shall have it, though I pawn my165 gown. I hope you’ll come to supper. You’ll pay me all together?FALSTAFF Will I live? ⌜Aside to Bardolph.⌝ Go with her, with her. Hook on, hook on.HOSTESS Will you have Doll Tearsheet meet you at170 supper?FALSTAFF No more words. Let’s have her.Hostess, ⌜Fang, Snare, Bardolph, Page,
and others⌝ exit.CHIEF JUSTICE, ⌜to Gower⌝ I have heard better news.FALSTAFF, ⌜to Chief Justice⌝ What’s the news, my ⟨good⟩ lord?CHIEF JUSTICE, ⌜to Gower⌝ 175Where lay the King tonight?GOWER At ⟨Basingstoke,⟩ my lord.FALSTAFF, ⌜to Chief Justice⌝ I hope, my lord, all’s well. What is the news, my lord?CHIEF JUSTICE, ⌜to Gower⌝ 180Come all his forces back?GOWER No. Fifteen hundred foot, five hundred horse Are marched up to my Lord of Lancaster Against Northumberland and the Archbishop.
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FALSTAFF, ⌜to Chief Justice⌝ Comes the King back from Wales, my noble lord?CHIEF JUSTICE, ⌜to Gower⌝ 185 You shall have letters of me presently. Come. Go along with me, good Master Gower.FALSTAFF My lord!CHIEF JUSTICE What’s the matter?FALSTAFF Master Gower, shall I entreat you with me to190 dinner?GOWER I must wait upon my good lord here. I thank you, good Sir John.CHIEF JUSTICE Sir John, you loiter here too long, being you are to take soldiers up in counties as you go.FALSTAFF 195Will you sup with me, Master Gower?CHIEF JUSTICE What foolish master taught you these manners, Sir John?FALSTAFF Master Gower, if they become me not, he was a fool that taught them me.—This is the right200 fencing grace, my lord: tap for tap, and so part fair.CHIEF JUSTICE Now the Lord lighten thee. Thou art a great fool.⟨They ⌜separate and⌝ exit.⟩
Henry IV, Part 2
