The Illustrated Works of Shakespeare/Illustrated Works of Shakespeare, The (1990)(Animated Pixels)[!][CDTV-PC].iso/shakes/text/08/03_03

Text File | 1991-04-10 | 10KB | 277 lines

Eastcheap. A Room in the Boar's Head Tavern.
 Enter FALSTAFF and BARDOLPH.

Falstaff    Bardolph, am I not fall'n 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 apple-john. 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. And I have not forgotten what the inside of a
    church is made of, I am a peppercorn, a brewer's horse.
    The inside of a 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 bawdy 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
    four 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 needs be out
    of all compass, out of all reasonable compass, Sir John.

Falstaff    Do 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    No, 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 hell-fire and Dives that lived in
    purple; for there he is in his robes, burning, burning. If
    thou wert any way given 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 rann'st up Gad's Hill in the night to
    catch my 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 the 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 me for it!

Bardolph    'Sblood, I would my face were in your belly!

Falstaff    God-a-mercy! So should I be sure to be heart-burned.

                              Enter HOSTESS.

    How now, dame Partlet the hen, have you enquired yet who
    picked my pocket?

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, man by man, boy by boy,
    servant by servant. The tithe of a hair was never lost in
    my house before.

Falstaff    Ye lie, hostess: Bardolph was shaved and lost many a hair,
    and I'll be sworn my pocket was 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. 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; they have made bolters of 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.

Falstaff    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 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    O Jesu, 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-up. 'Sblood, and he
    were here I would cudgel him like a dog if he would say
    so.

                   Enter the PRINCE and PETO, marching;
     and FALSTAFF meets them, playing upon his truncheon like a fife.

    How now, lad! Is the wind in that door, i'faith? Must we
    all march?

Bardolph    Yea, two and two, Newgate fashion.

Hostess    My lord, I pray you hear me.

Prince Henry    What sayst thou, Mistress Quickly? How doth 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 Henry    What sayst 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 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, and said he would cudgel you.

Prince Henry    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 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 thing, go!

Hostess    Say, what thing? What thing?

Falstaff    What thing? Why, a thing to thank God on.

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    Setting thy womanhood aside, thou art a beast to say
    otherwise.

Hostess    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    Thou art an unjust man in saying so. Thou or any man knows
    where to have me, thou knave, thou.

Prince Henry    Thou sayst true, hostess, and he slanders thee most
    grossly.

Hostess    So he doth you, my lord, and said this other day you ought
    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 owest me thy love.

Hostess    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; darest thou be as good as thy word now?

Falstaff    Why, Hal, thou knowest, as thou art but man, I dare; but
    as thou art 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, and I do,
    I pray God 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 reckonings, memorandums
    of bawdy-houses, and one poor pennyworth 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 knowest 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, 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 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 Henry    Bardolph!

Bardolph    My lord?

Prince Henry    Go bear this letter to Lord John of Lancaster,
    To my brother John; this to my Lord of Westmoreland.
                                                [Exit BARDOLPH.
    Go, Peto, to horse, to horse, for thou and I
    Have thirty 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 we or they must lower lie.
                                                [Exit.

Falstaff    Rare words! Brave world! Hostess, my breakfast, come.
    O, I could wish this tavern were my drum!
                                                [Exit.