Alarum. Excursions. Enter Falstaff ⟨and Colevile.⟩FALSTAFF What’s your name, sir? Of what condition are you, and of what place, ⟨I pray⟩?COLEVILE I am a knight, sir, and my name is Colevile of the Dale.FALSTAFF 5Well then, Colevile is your name, a knight is your degree, and your place the Dale. Colevile shall be still your name, a traitor your degree, and the dungeon your place, a place deep enough so shall you be still Colevile of the Dale.COLEVILE 10Are not you Sir John Falstaff?FALSTAFF As good a man as he, sir, whoe’er I am. Do you yield, sir, or shall I sweat for you? If I do sweat, they are the drops of thy lovers and they weep for thy death. Therefore rouse up fear and trembling,15 and do observance to my mercy.COLEVILE I think you are Sir John Falstaff, and in that thought yield me.
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FALSTAFF I have a whole school of tongues in this belly of mine, and not a tongue of them all speaks any20 other word but my name. An I had but a belly of any indifferency, I were simply the most active fellow in Europe. My womb, my womb, my womb undoes me. Here comes our general.Enter John, Westmoreland, and the rest.JOHN OF LANCASTER The heat is past. Follow no further now.25 Call in the powers, good cousin Westmoreland.⌜Westmoreland exits.⌝ Retreat ⌜is sounded.⌝ Now, Falstaff, where have you been all this while? When everything is ended, then you come. These tardy tricks of yours will, on my life, One time or other break some gallows’ back.FALSTAFF 30I would be sorry, my lord, but it should be thus. I never knew yet but rebuke and check was the reward of valor. Do you think me a swallow, an arrow, or a bullet? Have I in my poor and old motion the expedition of thought? I have speeded35 hither with the very extremest inch of possibility. I have foundered ninescore and odd posts, and here, travel-tainted as I am, have in my pure and immaculate valor taken Sir John Colevile of the Dale, a most furious knight and valorous enemy. But what of40 that? He saw me and yielded, that I may justly say, with the hook-nosed fellow of Rome, “There, cousin, I came, saw, and overcame.”JOHN OF LANCASTER It was more of his courtesy than your deserving.FALSTAFF 45I know not. Here he is, and here I yield him. And I beseech your Grace let it be booked with the rest of this day’s deeds, or, by the Lord, I will have it in a particular ballad else, with mine own picture on the top on ’t, Colevile kissing my foot; to the
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50 which course if I be enforced, if you do not all show like gilt twopences to me, and I in the clear sky of fame o’ershine you as much as the full moon doth the cinders of the element (which show like pins’ heads to her), believe not the word of the noble.55 Therefore let me have right, and let desert mount.JOHN OF LANCASTER Thine’s too heavy to mount.FALSTAFF Let it shine, then.JOHN OF LANCASTER Thine’s too thick to shine.FALSTAFF Let it do something, my good lord, that may60 do me good, and call it what you will.JOHN OF LANCASTER Is thy name Colevile?COLEVILE It is, my lord.JOHN OF LANCASTER A famous rebel art thou, Colevile.FALSTAFF 65And a famous true subject took him.COLEVILE I am, my lord, but as my betters are That led me hither. Had they been ruled by me, You should have won them dearer than you have.FALSTAFF I know not how they sold themselves, but70 thou, like a kind fellow, gavest thyself away gratis, and I thank thee for thee.Enter Westmoreland.JOHN OF LANCASTER Now, have you left pursuit?WESTMORELAND Retreat is made and execution stayed.JOHN OF LANCASTER Send Colevile with his confederates75 To York, to present execution.— Blunt, lead him hence, and see you guard him sure.⌜Blunt⌝ ⟨exits with Colevile.⟩ And now dispatch we toward the court, my lords. I hear the King my father is sore sick.
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Our news shall go before us to his Majesty,80 ⌜To Westmoreland.⌝ Which, cousin, you shall bear to comfort him, And we with sober speed will follow you.FALSTAFF My lord, I beseech you give me leave to go through Gloucestershire, and, when you come to85 court, stand my good lord, ⟨pray,⟩ in your good report.JOHN OF LANCASTER Fare you well, Falstaff. I, in my condition, Shall better speak of you than you deserve.⌜All but Falstaff⌝ ⟨exit.⟩FALSTAFF I would you had ⟨but⟩ the wit; ’twere better90 than your dukedom. Good faith, this same young sober-blooded boy doth not love me, nor a man cannot make him laugh. But that’s no marvel; he drinks no wine. There’s never none of these demure boys come to any proof, for thin drink doth so95 overcool their blood, and making many fish meals, that they fall into a kind of male green-sickness, and then, when they marry, they get wenches. They are generally fools and cowards, which some of us should be too, but for inflammation. A good sherris100 sack hath a two-fold operation in it. It ascends me into the brain, dries me there all the foolish and dull and crudy vapors which environ it, makes it apprehensive, quick, forgetive, full of nimble, fiery, and delectable shapes, which, delivered o’er to the105 voice, the tongue, which is the birth, becomes excellent wit. The second property of your excellent sherris is the warming of the blood, which, before cold and settled, left the liver white and pale, which is the badge of pusillanimity and cowardice.110 But the sherris warms it and makes it course from the inwards to the parts’ extremes. It illumineth the
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face, which as a beacon gives warning to all the rest of this little kingdom, man, to arm; and then the vital commoners and inland petty spirits muster me115 all to their captain, the heart, who, great and puffed up with this retinue, doth any deed of courage, and this valor comes of sherris. So that skill in the weapon is nothing without sack, for that sets it a-work; and learning a mere hoard of gold kept120 by a devil till sack commences it and sets it in act and use. Hereof comes it that Prince Harry is valiant, for the cold blood he did naturally inherit of his father he hath, like lean, sterile, and bare land, manured, husbanded, and tilled with excellent125 endeavor of drinking good and good store of fertile sherris, that he is become very hot and valiant. If I had a thousand sons, the first human principle I would teach them should be to forswear thin potations and to addict themselves to sack.Enter Bardolph.130 How now, Bardolph?BARDOLPH The army is discharged all and gone.FALSTAFF Let them go. I’ll through Gloucestershire, and there will I visit Master Robert Shallow, Esquire. I have him already temp’ring between my135 finger and my thumb, and shortly will I seal with him. Come away.⟨They exit.⟩
Henry IV, Part 2
