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
, where’s Snare?
HOSTESS
O Lord, ay! Good Master Snare.
SNARE
Here, here.
FANG
Snare, we must arrest Sir John Falstaff.
HOSTESS
Yea, good Master Snare, I have entered him and all.
SNARE
It may chance cost some of 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 good 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
An I but fist him once, an he come but within my vice,—
HOSTESS
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 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 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. Yonder he comes, and that arrant malmsey-nose , Bardolph, with him. Do your offices, do your offices, Master Fang and Master Snare, do me, do me, do me your offices.
FALSTAFF
How now, whose mare’s dead? What’s the matter?
FANG
Sir John, I arrest you at the suit of Mistress Quickly.
FALSTAFF
Away, varlets! Draw, Bardolph! Cut me off the villain’s head. Throw the quean in the channel.
HOSTESS
Throw me in the channel? I’ll throw in the channel. Wilt , wilt , bastardly rogue? Murder, murder! Ah, honeysuckle villain, wilt kill God’s officers and the King’s? Ah, honeyseed rogue, art a honeyseed, a man-queller, and a woman-queller.
FALSTAFF
Keep them off, Bardolph.
FANG
A rescue! A rescue!
HOSTESS
Good people, bring a rescue or two. wo’t, wo’t ? wo’t, wo’t ta? Do, do, rogue! Do, hempseed!
PAGE
Away, you scullion! you rampallian! you fustilarian! I’ll tickle your catastrophe.
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
How now, Sir John? What are you brawling here?
this become your place, your time and business?
You should have been well on your way to York.
Stand from him, fellow. hang’st 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
It is more than for some, my lord; it is for all, all I have. He eaten me out of house and home. He put all my substance into that fat belly of his: but I will have some of it out again, or I will ride o’ nights like the mare.
FALSTAFF
I 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 a poor widow to so rough a course to come by her own?
FALSTAFF
What is the gross sum that I owe ?
HOSTESS
Marry, if wert an honest man, thyself and the money too. 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 Wheeson week, when the Prince broke head for liking his father to a singing-man of Windsor, swear to me then, as I was washing wound, to marry me and make me my lady wife. Canst 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 desire to eat some, whereby I told they were ill for green wound? And not, when she was gone downstairs, desire me to be no more so familiarity with such poor people, saying that long they should call me madam? And not kiss me, and bid me fetch thirty shillings? I put now to book-oath. Deny it, if canst.
FALSTAFF
My lord, this is a poor mad soul, and she says up and down the town that her eldest son is like you. She been in good case, and the truth is, poverty 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 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 in person.
HOSTESS
Yea, in truth, my lord.
CHIEF JUSTICE
Pray , 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.
FALSTAFF
My lord, I will not undergo this sneap without reply. You call honourable boldness impudent 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
You speak as having power to do wrong; but answer in th’ effect of your reputation, and satisfy the poor woman.
FALSTAFF
Come , hostess.
CHIEF JUSTICE
Now, Master Gower, what news?
GOWER
The King, my lord, and Harry Prince of Wales
Are near at hand: the rest the paper tells.
FALSTAFF
As I am a gentleman.
HOSTESS
Faith, you said so before.
FALSTAFF
As I am a gentleman. Come, no more words of it.
HOSTESS
By this heavenly ground I tread on, I must be to pawn both my plate and the tapestry of my dining-chambers.
FALSTAFF
Glasses, glasses, is the only drinking. And for 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 fly-bitten tapestries. Let it be ten pound, if canst. Come, an ’twere not for humours, there’s not a better in England. Go, wash face, and draw the action. Come, must not be in this with me; not know me? Come, come, I know wast set on to this.
HOSTESS
Pray , Sir John, let it be but twenty 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 my gown. I hope you’ll come to supper. You’ll pay me all together?
FALSTAFF
Will I live? Go, with her, with her. Hook on, hook on.
HOSTESS
Will you have Doll Tearsheet meet you at supper?
FALSTAFF
No more words, let’s have her.
CHIEF JUSTICE
I have heard better news.
FALSTAFF
What’s the news, my lord?
CHIEF JUSTICE
Where lay the King tonight?
GOWER
At Basingstoke, my lord.
FALSTAFF
I hope, my lord, all’s well. What is the news, my lord?
CHIEF JUSTICE
Come all his forces back?
GOWER
No, fifteen hundred foot, five hundred horse
Are march’d up to my Lord of Lancaster,
Against Northumberland and the Archbishop.
FALSTAFF
Comes the King back from Wales, my noble lord?
CHIEF JUSTICE
You shall have letters of me .
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 to 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
Will 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 right fencing grace, my lord; tap for tap, and so part fair.
CHIEF JUSTICE
Now the Lord lighten , art a great fool.