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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.

Ch. Just. 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.

Ch. Just. 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.

Ch. Just. 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 minister 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.

Ch. Just. I sent for you, when there were matters against you for your life, to come speak with

ine.

Fal. As I was then advised by my learned counsel in the laws of this land-service, I did not come. Ch. Just. Well, the truth is, sir John, you live in great infamy.

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

Ch. Just. 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 slenderer.

Ch. Just. You have misled the youthful prince. Fal. The young prince hath misled me: I am the fellow with the great belly, and he my dog.

Ch. Just. Well, I am loath to gall a new-healed wound. Your day's service at Shrewsbury hath a little gilded over your night's exploit on Gadshill: you may thank the unquiet time for your quiet o'er-posting that action.

Fal. My lord—

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

Ch. Just. Well, God send the prince a better companion!

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

Ch. Just. 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 Northumberland.

:

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 any thing but my bottle, 1 would I might never spit white again. There is not a dangerous action can peep out his head, but I am thrust upon it: well, I cannot last ever. it was always yet the trick of our English nation, if they have a good thing, to make it too common. If you 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 scoured to

Ch. Just. But since all is well, keep it so: wake nothing with perpetual motion.] not a sleeping wolf.

Fal. To wake a wolf, is as bad as to smell a fox. Ch. Just. 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. Ch. Just. There is not a white hair on your face, but should have his effect of gravity.

Fal. His effect of gravy, gravy, gravy. Ch. Just. 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 cannot tell. Virtue is of so little regard in these coster-monger times, that true valour 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 vaward of our youth, I must confess, are wags too.

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Ch. Just. Well, be honest, be honest; and God bless your expedition.

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

Ch. Just. 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. 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 old mistress Ursula, whom I have weekly sworn to marry since I perceived the first white hair of my chin. About it: you know where to find me. [Exit Page.]—A pox of this gout! or, a gout of

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And, my most noble friends, I pray you all,
Speak plainly your opinions of our hopes.-
And first, lord marshal, what say you to it?

Moub. I well allow the occasion of our arms;
But gladly would be better satisfied,
How, in our means, we should advance ourselves
To look with forehead bold and big enough
Upon the power and puissance of the king.

Hast. Our present musters grow upon the file To five and twenty thousand men of choice; And our supplies live largely in the hope Of great Northumberland, whose bosom burns With an incensed fire of injuries.

Bard. The question then, lord Hastings, standeth thus:

Whether our present five and twenty thousand
May hold up head without Northumberland.
Hast. With him, we may.
Bard.
Ay, marry, there's the point:
But if without him we be thought too feeble,
My judgment is, we should not step too far,
Till we had his assistance by the hand;
For in a theme so bloody-fac'd as this,
Conjecture, expectation, and surmise
Of aids incertain should not be admitted.

Arch. 'Tis very true, lord Bardolph; for, indeed,
It was young Hotspur's case at Shrewsbury.
Bard. It was, my lord; who lin'd himself with
hope,

Eating the air on promise of supply,
Flattering himself with project of a power
Much smaller than the smallest of his thoughts;
And so, with great imagination,

Proper to madmen, led his powers to death,
And winking leap'd into destruction.

Hast. But, by your leave, it never yet did hurt, To lay down likelihoods, and forms of hope.

Bard. Yes, in this present quality of war,Indeed the instant action, a cause on foot,Lives so in hope, as in an early spring We see th' appearing buds; which, to prove fruit, Hope gives not so much warrant, as despair

That frosts will bite them. When we mean to build,

We first survey the plot, then draw the model,
And, when we see the figure of the house,
Then must we rate the cost of the erection;
Which if we find outweighs ability,

What do we then, but draw anew the model
In fewer offices, or, at least, desist

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To build at all? Much more, in this great work,
(Which is, almost, to pluck a kingdom down,
And set another up,) should we survey
The plot of situation, and the model;
Consent upon a sure foundation;
Question surveyors, know our own estate,

How able such a work to undergo,
To weigh against his opposite; or else,
We fortify in paper, and in figures,
Using the names of men, instead of men:
Like one that draws the model of a house
Beyond his power to build it; who, half through,
Gives o'er, and leaves his part-created cost
A naked subject to the weeping clouds,
And waste for churlish winter's tyranny.

Hast. Grant, that our hopes, yet likely of fair birth,

Should be still-born, and that we now possess'd
The utmost man of expectation,

I think we are a body strong enough,
Even as we are, to equal with the king.

Bard. What is the king but five-and-twenty thousand?

Hast. To us, no more; nay, not so much, lord Bardolph.

For his divisions, as the times do brawl,

Are in three heads: one power against the French,
And one against Glendower; perforce, a third
Must take up us. So is the unfirm king

In three divided, and his coffers sound
With hollow poverty and emptiness.

Arch. That he should draw his several strengths together,

And come against us in full puissance,
Need not be dreaded.

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Let us on,

And publish the occasion of our arms.
The commonwealth is sick of their own choice;
Their over-greedy love hath surfeited:
An habitation giddy and unsure

Hath he, that buildeth on the vulgar heart.
O thou fond many! with what loud applause
Didst thou beat heaven with blessing Bolingbroke,
Before he was what thou would'st have him be;
And being now trimm'd in thine own desires,
Thou, beastly feeder, art so full of him,
That thou provok'st thyself to cast him up.
So, so, thou common dog, didst thou disgorge
Thy glutton bosom of the royal Richard,
And now thou would'st eat thy dead vomit up,
And howl'st to find it. What trust is in these
times?

They that, when Richard liv'd, would have him die,

Are now become enamour'd on his grave:
Thou, that threw'st dust upon his goodly head,
When through proud London he came sighing on
After th' admired heels of Bolingbroke,
Cry'st now, "O earth, yield us that king again,
And take thou this!" Ö, thoughts of men accurst!
Past, and to come, seem best; things present,

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Host. Master Fang, have you entered the action? Fang. It is entered.

Host. Where's your yeoman? Is't a lusty yeoman? will he stand to't?

Fang. Sirrah, where's Snare?

Host. O lord! ay: good master Snare.
Snare. Here, here.

Fang. Snare, we must arrest sir John Falstaff. Host. Yea, good master Snare; I have entered him and all.

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

Host. Alas the day! take heed of him: he stabbed me in mine own house, and that most beastly. In good faith, he cares not 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.

Host. No, nor I neither: I'll be at your elbow. Fang. An I but fist him once; an he come but within my vice;

Host. I am undone by his going; I warrant you, he's an infinitive thing upon my score.-Good master Fang, hold him sure:-good master Snare, let him not 'scape. He comes continually to Pie-corner, (saving your manhoods,) to buy a saddle; and he's indited to dinner to the lubbar'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 borne, and borne; and have been fubbed off, and fubbed off, and fubbed off, from this day to that day, that it is 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.

Enter Sir JOHN FALSTAFF, Page, and BARDOLPH. 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.

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.

Host. Throw me in the channel? I'll throw thee in the channel. Wilt thou? wilt thou? thou bastardly rogue!-Murder, murder! O, thou honeysuckle villain! wilt thou kill God's. officers, and the king's? O, thou honey-seed rogue! thou art a honey-seed; a man-queller, and a woman-queller. Fal. Keep them off, Bardolph.

Fang. A rescue! a rescue!

Host. Good people, bring a rescue or two.Thou wilt not? thou wilt not? do, do, thou rogue! do, thou hemp-seed!

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

Enter the Lord Chief Justice, attended.

Ch. Just. What is the matter? keep the peace here, ho!

Host. Good my lord, be good to me! I beseech you, stand to me!

Ch. Just. 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 on him?

Host. O! my most worshipful lord, an't please your grace, I am a poor widow of Eastcheap, and he is arrested at my suit.

Ch. Just. For what sum?

Host. 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 will ride thee o' nights, like the mare.

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

Ch. Just. How comes this, sir John? Fie! what man of good temper would endure this tempest of exclamation? Are you not ashamed to en

force a poor widow to so rough a course to come by her own?

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

Host. 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 Dolphinchamber, at the round table, by a sea-coal fire, upon Wednesday in Whitsun week, when the prince broke thy head for likening his father to a singing-man of 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.

Ch. Just. 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 practised upon the easy-yielding spirit of this woman, and made her serve your uses both in purse and person.

to me,

Host. Yes, in troth, my lord.

Ch. Just. Pr'ythee, peace.-Pay her the debt you 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.

Fal. My lord, I will not undergo this sneap without reply. You call honourable boldness, impudent sauciness: if a man will make court'sy, and say nothing, he is virtuous. No, my lord, my humble duty remember'd, 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.

Ch. Just. 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.

Ch. Just. Now, master Gower! what news?
Gow. The king, my lord, and Henry prince of
Wales

Are near at hand: the rest the paper tells.
Fal. As I am a gentleman.

Host. Faith, you said so before.

Fal. As I am a gentleman. Come, no more words of it.

Host. 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 waterwork, is worth a thousand of these bed hangings, and these fly bitten tapestries. Let it be ten pound, if thou canst. Come, an it were not for thy humours, there is not a better wench in England. Go, wash thy face, and draw thy action. Come, thou must not be in this humour with me; dost not know me? Come, come, I know thou wast set on to this.

Host. 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.

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

Fal. Will I live?-Go, with her, with her; hook on, hook on.

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

Fal. No more words: let's have her.

[Exeunt Hostess, BARDOLPH, Officers, and
Page.

Ch. Just. I have heard better news.
Fal. What's the news, my good lord?
Ch. Just. Where lay the king last night?
Gow. At Basingstoke, my lord.

Fal. I hope, my lord, all's well: what is the news, my lord?

Ch. Just. Come all his forces back?

Gow. No; fifteen hundred foot, five hundred horse,

Are march'd up to my lord of Lancaster,
Against Northumberland, and the archbishop.

Fal. Comes the king back from Wales, my noble lord?

Ch. Just. You shall have letters of me presently: come, go along with me, good master Gower. Fal. My lord!

Ch. Just. What's the matter? Fal. Master Gower, shall I entreat you to dinner?

with me

Gow. I must wait upon my good lord here: 1 thank you, good sir John.

Ch. Just. Sir John, you loiter here too long, being you are to take soldiers up in counties as you go. Fal. Will you sup with me, master Gower?

Ch. Just. What foolish master taught you these manners, sir John?

Fal. Master Gower, if they become me not, he was a fool that taught them me.—This is the right fencing grace, my lord; tap for tap, and so part fair. Ch. Just. Now, the Lord lighten thee! thou art a great fool. [Exeunt.

SCENE II.-The Same. 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 discolours 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.

P. Hen. Belike then, my appetite was not princely got; for, by my troth, I do now 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 colour'd 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 lowcountries 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 laboured 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, faith, 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. Marry, 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 would'st 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 every man thinks: never a man's thought in the world keeps the road-way better than thine: every man would think me an hypocrite indeed. And what accites your most worshipful thought to think so?

Poins. Why, because you have been so lewd, and so much engraffed to Falstaff.

P. Hen. And to thee.

Poins. By this light, I am well spoken on; I can hear it with mine own ears: the worst that they can say of me is, that I am a second brother, and that I am a proper fellow of my hands, and those two things, I confess, I cannot help. By the mass, here comes Bardolph.

P. Hen. And the boy that I gave Falstaff: he had him from me christian; and look, if the fat villain have not transformed him ape.

Enter BARDOLPH, and Page.

Bard. God save your grace.

P. Hen. And yours, most noble Bardolph. Bard. Come, you virtuous ass,-[To the Page.] you bashful fool, must you be blushing? wherefore blush you now? What a maidenly man at arms

are you become? Is it such a matter to get a pot tlepot's maidenhead ?

Page. He called me even now, my lord, through a red lattice, and I could discern no part of his face from the window: at last, I spied his eyes; and, methought, he had made two holes in the ale-wife's new petticoat, and peeped through.

P. Hen. Hath not the boy profited?

Bard. Away, you whoreson upright rabbit, away! Page. Away, you rascally Althea's dream, away! P. Hen. Instruct us, boy: what dream, boy? Page. Marry, my lord, Althea dreamed she was delivered of a fire-brand, and therefore I call him her dream.

P. Hen. A crown's worth of good interpretation.There it is, boy. [Gives him money.

Poins. O, that this good blossom could be kept from cankers!-Well, there is sixpence to preserve thee.

Bard. An you do not make him be hanged among you, the gallows shall have wrong.

P. Hen. And how doth thy master, Bardolph? Bard. Well, my lord. He heard of your grace's coming to town: there's a letter for you.

Poins. Delivered with good respect.-And how doth the martlemas, your master?

Bard. In bodily health, sir.

Poins. Marry, the immortal part needs a physician; but that moves not him: though that be sick, it dies not.

P. Hen. I do allow this wen to be as familiar with me as my dog; and he holds his place, for look you how he writes.

Poins. [Reads.] "John Falstaff, knight," every man must know that, as oft as he has occasion to name himself; even like those that are kin to the king, for they never prick their finger, but they say, "There is some of the King's blood spilt:""How comes that?" says he, that takes upon him not to conceive: the answer is as ready as a borrower's cap; "I am the king's poor cousin, sir."

P. Hen. Nay, they will be kin to us, or they will fetch it from Japhet. But to the letter:—

Poins. "Sir John Falstaff, knight, to the son of the king, nearest his father, Harry Prince of Wales, greeting."-Why, this is a certificate.

P. Hen. Peace!

Poins. "I will imitate the honourable Romans in brevity:"-he sure means brevity in breath, short-winded.-"I commend me to thee, I commend thee, and I leave thee. Be not too familiar with Poins; for he misuses thy favours so much, that he swears, thou art to marry his sister Nell. Repent at idle times as thou may'st, and so farewell. Thine, by yea and no, (which is as much as to say, as thou usest him,) Jack Falstaff, with my familiars; John, with my brothers and sisters; and sir John with all Europe."

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My lord, I will steep this letter in sack, and make him eat it.

P. Hen. That's to make him eat twenty of his words. But do you use me thus, Ned? must 1 marry your sister?

Poins. God send the wench no worse fortune! but I never said so.

P. Hen. Well, thus we play the fools with the time, and the spirits of the wise sit in the clouds, and mock us.-Is your master here in London ?

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