תמונות בעמוד
PDF
ePub
[blocks in formation]

Fal. What, a young knave, and beg! Is there not wars? Is there not employment? Doth not the king lack subjects? Do not the rebels need soldiers? Though it be a shame to be on any side but one, it is worse shame to beg than to be on the worst side, were it worse than the name of rebellion can tell how to make it.

Atten. You mistake me, sir. Fal. Why, sir, did I say you were an honest man? Setting my knighthood my soldiership aside, I had lied in throat, if I had said so.

and

my

Atten. I pray you, sir, then set your knighthood and your soldiership aside; and give me leave to tell you, you lie in your throat, if you say I am any other than an honest man.

Fal. I give thee leave to tell me so! I lay aside that which grows to me! If thou get'st any leave of me, hang me; if thou takest leave, thou wert better be hanged: You hunt-counter, hence! avaunt!

Atten. Sir, my lord would speak with you.

Chief J. Sir John Falstaff, a word with you.

Chief J. Well, heaven mend him!-I pray, let me speak with you.

Fal. This apoplexy is, as I take it, a kind of lethargy, an't please your lordship, a kind of sleeping in the blood, a whoreson tingling.

Chief J. What tell you me of it? be it as it is.

Fal. It hath its original from much grief; from study, and perturbation of the brain: I have read the cause of his effects in Galen; it is a kind of deafness.

Chief J. I think you are fallen into the disease, for you hear not what I say to you.

Fal. Very well, my lord, very well: rather, an't please you, it is the disease of not listening, the malady of not marking, that I am troubled withal.

Chief J. To punish you by the heels, would amend the attention of your ears; and I care not, if I do become your physician.

Fal. I am as poor as Job, my lord, but not so patient: your lordship may administer the potion of imprisonment to me, in respect of poverty; but how I should be your patient to follow your prescriptions, the wise may make some dram of a scruple, or, indeed, a scruple itself.

Chief J. I sent for you when there were matters against you for your life, to come to speak with me.

Fal. As I was then advised by my learned counsel in the laws of this landservice, I did not come.

Chief J. Well, the truth is, Sir John, you live in great infamy.

Fal. He that buckles him in my belt, cannot live in less.

Chief J. Your means are very slender, and your waste is great.

Fal. I would it were otherwise; I would my means were greater, and my waist slen derer.

Fal. My good lord! God give your lordship good time of day. I am glad to see your lordship abroad: I heard say, your lordship was sick; I hope your lordship goes abroad by advice. Your lordship, though not clean past your youth, hath yet some smack of age in you, some relish of prince. the saltness of time; and I most humbly Fal. The young prince hath misled me. beseech your lordship to have a reverend I am the fellow with the great belly and he care of your health.

Chief J. Sir John, I sent for you before your expedition to Shrewsbury.

Fal. An't please your lordship, I hear his majesty is return'd with some discomfort from Wales.

Chief J. I talk not of his majesty :would not come when I sent for you.

:-you

Fal. And I hear, moreover, his highness is fallen into this same whoreson apoplexy.

Chief J. You have misled the youthful

my dog.

Chief J. Well, I am loath to gall a newhealed wound; your day's service at Shrewsbury hath a little gilded over your night's exploit on Gads-hill: you may thank the unquiet time for your quiet o'er-posting that

[blocks in formation]

Fal. To wake a wolf, is as bad as to smell a fox.

Chief J. What! you are as a candle, the better part burnt out.

Fal. A wassel candle, my lord; all tallow if I did say of wax, my growth would approve the truth.

Chief J. There is not a white hair on your face, but should have his effect of gravity.

Fal. His effect of gravy, gravy, gravy. Chief J. You follow the young prince up and down, like his ill angel.

Fal. Not so, my lord; your ill angel' is light; but, I hope, he that looks upon me, will take me without weighing; and yet, in some respects, I grant, I cannot go, I can not tell : Virtue is of so little regard in these costermongers' times, that true valor is turned bear-herd: pregnancy is made a tapster, and hath his quick wit wasted in giving reckonings: all the other gifts appertinent to man, as the malice of this age shapes them, are not worth a gooseberry. You that are old, consider not the capacities of us that are young; you measure the heat of our livers with the bitterness of your galls; and we that are in the vanward of our youth, I must confess, are wags, too.

Chief J. Do you set down your name in the scroll of youth, that are written down old with all the characters of age? Have you not a moist eye? a dry hand? a yellow cheek? a white beard? a decreasing leg? an increasing belly? Is not your voice broken? your wind short? your chin double? your wit single? and every part about you blasted with antiquity? And will you yet call yourself young? Fie, fie, fie, Sir John!

Fal. My lord, I was born about three of the clock in the afternoon, with a white head, and something a round belly. For my voice-I have lost it with hollaing and singing of anthems. To approve my youth further, I will not: the truth is, I am only old in judgment and understanding; and he that will caper with me for a thousand marks, let him lend me the money, and have at him. For the box of the ear that the prince gave you-he gave it like a rude prince, and you took it like a sensible lord. I have checked him for it, and the young

1 Falstaff evades the point of the Chief Justice's remark, by alluding to the coin called an angel, which was frequently made light by the process of clipping.

* Readiness, ability.

VOL. I.-W. H.

lion repents; marry, not in ashes and sackcloth, but in new silk and old sack.

Chief J. Well, God send the prince a better companion!

Fal. God send the companion a better prince! I cannot rid my hands of him.

Chief J. Well, the king hath severed you and prince Harry: I hear you are going with Lord John of Lancaster, against the Archbishop, and the Earl of Northumber land.

Fal. Yea; I thank your pretty sweet wit for it. But look you pray, all you that kiss my lady peace at home, that our armies join not in a hot day; for, by the Lord, I take but two shirts out with me, and I mean not to sweat extraordinarily if it be a hot day, and I brandish anything but my bottle, would I might never spit white again.1— There is not a dangerous action can peep out his head, but I am thrust upon it. Well, I cannot last ever: but it was always yet the trick of our English nation, if they have a good thing, to make it too common. If ye will needs say, I am an old man, you should give me rest. I would to God my name were not so terrible to the enemy as it is! I were better to be eaten to death with rust, than to be scour'd to nothing with perpetual motion.

Chief J. Well, be honest, be honest; and God bless your expedition!

Fal. Will your lordship lend me a thousand pound, to furnish me forth?

Chief J. Not a penny, not a penny; you are too impatient to bear crosses. Fare you well.-Commend me to my cousin Westmoreland.

[Exeunt Chief Justice and Attendant. Fal. If I do, fillip me with a three-man beetle.2-A man can no more separate age and covetousness, than he can part young limbs and lechery: but the gout galls the one, and the pox pinches the other; and so both the degrees prevent my curses.—Boy! Page. Sir?

Fal. What money is in my purse? Page. Seven groats and two-pence. Fal. I can get no remedy against this consumption of the purse: borrowing only lingers and lingers it out, but the disease is incurable.-Go, bear this letter to my Lord of Lancaster; this to the Prince; this to the Earl of Westmoreland; and this to

1 May I never be thirsty again.

2A hammer so heavy as to require three men to wield it.

17

old Mistress Ursula, whom I have weekly | borne and borne; and have been fubbed off, sworn to marry, since I perceived the first and fubbed off, and fubbed off, from this white hair on my chin.-About it; you day to that day, that it is a shame to be know where to find me. [Exit Page.] A pox of this gout! or, a gout of this pox! for the one or the other plays the rogue with my great toe. 'Tis no matter if I do halt; I have the wars for my color, and my pension shall seem the more reasonable. A good wit will make use of anything; I will turn diseases to commodity. [Exit.

[blocks in formation]

Hos. Where's your yeoman? Is it a lusty yeoman? will a' stand to 't?

Fang. Sirrah, where's Snare?

Hos. O Lord, ay; good Master Snare.
Snare. Here, here.

Fang. Snare, we must arrest Sir John
Falstaff.

Hos. Yea, good Master Snare; I have entered him and all.

Snare. It may chance cost some of us our lives, for he will stab.

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, Master Fang
and Master Snare; do me, do me, do me
your offices.

Enter SIR JOHN FALSTAFF, PAGE, and
BARDOLPH.

Fal. How now? whose mare's dead ?-
What's the matter?

Fang. Sir John, I arrest you at the suit of Mistress Quickly.

Fal. Away varlets!-Draw, Bardolph! Cut me off the villain's head, throw the quean in the channel.

Hos. Throw me in the channel? I'll throw thee in the channel. Wilt thou? wilt thou? thou bastardly rogue!—Murder! murder! O, thou honey-suckle villain! wilt thou kill God's officers, and the king's? Oh, thou honey-seed' rogue! thou art a honey-seed; a man-queller, and a womanqueller.

Fal. Keep them off, Bardolph.
Fang. A rescue! a rescue!

Hos. Good people, bring a rescue or two.

Hos. Alas the day! take heed of him:-Thou wo't, wo't thou?-Thou wo't, wo't he stabbed me in mine own house, and that thou ?-Do, do, thou rogue ! do, thou hempmost beastly in good faith, a' cares not seed! what mischief he doth, 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.

Hos. No, nor I neither; I'll be at your elbow.

Fang. An I but fist him once; an a' come but within my vice ;

Hos. I am undone by his going; I warrant he's an infinitive thing upon my you, score:-good Master Fang, hold him sure; -good Master Snare, let him not 'scape. A' comes continuantly to Pye 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 ye, since my exion is entered, and my case so openly 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

Fal. Away, you scullion! you rampallian! you fustilarian! I'll tickle your catastrophe.

[blocks in formation]

please your grace, I am a poor widow of Eastcheap, and he is arrested at my suit.

Chief J. For what sum ?

Hos. It is more than for some, my lord; it is for all, all I have: he hath eaten me out of house and home; he hath put all my substance into that fat belly of his but I will have some of it out again, or I'll ride thee o' nights, like the mare.

Fal. I think I am as like to ride the if I have any vantage ground to get

mare, up.

Chief J. How comes this, Sir John? Fie! What man of good temper would endure this tempest of exclamation? Are you not ashamed to enforce a poor widow to so rough a course to come by her own?

Fal. What is the gross sum that I owe thee?

Hos. Marry, if thou wert an honest man, thyself, and the money too. Thou didst swear to me upon a parcel-gilt goblet, sitting in my Dolphin chamber, at the round table, by a sea-coal fire, upon Wednesday in Whitsun-week, when the prince broke thy head for liking his father to a singingman at Windsor-thou didst swear to me then, as I was washing thy 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; whereby 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 down stairs, desire me to be no more so familiarity with such poor people saying, that ere long they should call me madam? And didst thou not kiss me, and bid me fetch thee thirty shillings? -I put thee now to thy book-oath; deny it if thou canst.

Fal. My lord, this is a poor mad soul; and she says, up and down the town, that her eldest son is like 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 J. Sir John, Sir John, I am well acquainted 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, practised upon the easy-yielding spirit

of this woman, and made her serve your uses both in purse and person.

Hos. Yea, in troth, my lord.

Chief J. Pr'ythee, peace :-Pay her the debt you owe her, and unpay the villany you have done with her: the one you may do with sterling money, and the other with current repentance.

Fal. My lord, I will not undergo this sneap without reply. You call honorable boldness impudent sauciness: if a man will make courts'y, and say nothing, he is virtuous: no, my lord, my humble duty remembered, I will not be your suitor; to you, I do desire deliverance from these officers, being upon hasty employment in the king's affairs.

say

Chief J. You speak as having power to do wrong but answer in the effect of your reputation, and satisfy the poor woman. Fal. Come hither, hostess.

[Taking her aside.

Enter GOWER.

Chief J. Now, Master Gower, what news? Gower. The king, my lord, and Henry

Prince of Wales,

Are near at hand; the rest the paper tells.
Fal. As I am a gentleman;-
Hos. Nay, you said so before.

Fal. As I am a gentleman;-come, no more words of it.

Hos. By this heavenly ground I tread on, I must be fain to pawn both my plate and the tapestry of my dining chambers.

Fal. Glasses, glasses, is the only drinking; and for thy walls, a pretty slight drollery, or the story of the prodigal, or the German hunting in water-work, is worth a thousand of these bed-hangings, and these flybitten tapestries. Let it be ten pound, if thou canst. Come, an it were not for thy humors, there is not a better wench in England. Go, wash thy face, and 'draw thy 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.

Hos. Pray thee, Sir John, let it be but twenty nobles: i'faith I am loath to pawn my plate, in good earnest, la.

Fal. Let it alone; I'll make other shift: you'll be a fool still.

Hos. Well, you shall have it, though I pawn my gown. I hope you'll come to supper. You'll pay me all together?

Fal. Will I live? Go with her, with her; [To Bardolph.] Hook on, hook on.

Hos. Will you have Doll Tear-sheet meet you at supper?

Fal. No more words-let's have her. [Exeunt Hostess, Bardolph, Fang, Snare, and Boy.

Chief J. I have heard better news. Fal. What's the news, my good lord? Chief J. Where lay the king last night? Gower. At Basingstoke, my lord. Fal. I hope, my lord, all's well. What is the news, my lord?

Chief J. Come all his forces back? Gower. No; fifteen hundred foot, five hundred horse,

Are marched up to my Lord of Lancaster, Against Northumberland and the Arch

bishop.

[blocks in formation]

SCENE 2.-London. Another street.

Enter PRINCE HENRY and POINS. P. Hen. Trust me, I am exceeding weary. Poins. Is it come to that? I had thought, weariness durst not have attached one of so high blood.

P. Hen. Faith, it does me; though it discolors the complexion of my greatness to acknowledge it. Doth it not show vilely in me, to desire small beer?

Poins. Why, a prince should not be so loosely studied, as to remember so weak a composition.

now

P. Hen. Belike then, my appetite was not princely got; for, by my troth, I do remember the poor creature, small beer. But, indeed, these humble considerations make me out of love with my greatness. What a disgrace is it to me, to remember thy name, or to know thy face to-morrow, or to take note how many pair of silk stockings thou hast; viz. these, and those that were thy peach-colored ones? or to bear the inventory of thy shirts; as, one for superfluity, and one other for use?-but that, the tennis-court keeper knows better than I; for it is a low ebb of linen with thee, when thou keepest not racket there; as thou hast not done a great while, because the rest of thy low-countries have made a shift to eat up thy holland: and God knows, whether those that bawl out the ruins of thy linen shall inherit his kingdom; but the midwives say, the children are not in the fault; whereupon the world increases, and kindreds are mightily strengthened.

Poins. How ill it follows, after you have labored so hard, you should talk so idly! Tell me, how many good young princes would do so, their fathers being so sick as yours at this time is?

P. Hen. Shall I tell thee one thing, Poins? Poins. Yes; and let it be an excellent good thing.

P. Hen. It shall serve among wits of no higher breeding than thine.

Poins. Go to I stand the push of your one thing that you will tell.

P. Hen. Why, I tell thee,—it is not meet that I should be sad, now my father is sick; albeit I could tell to thee (as to one it pleases me, for fault of a better, to call my friend), I could be sad, and sad indeed, too.

Poins. Very hardly, upon such a subject. P. Hen. By this hand, thou think'st me as far in the devil's book as thou and Falstaff, for obduracy and persistency: let the end try the man. But, I tell thee, my heart bleeds inwardly that my father is so sick; and keeping such vile company as thou art, hath in reason taken from me all ostentation of sorrow.

Poins. The reason?

P. Hen. What wouldst thou think of me, if I should weep?

Poins. I would think thee a most princely hypocrite.

P. Hen. It would be every man's thought: and thou art a blessed fellow to think as

1 Children wrapped in thy old shirts.

« הקודםהמשך »