FIRST DRAWER
What the devil brought there—applejohns? knowest Sir John cannot endure an applejohn.
SECOND DRAWER
Mass, sayest true. The Prince once set a dish of applejohns before him, and told him there were five more Sir Johns, and, putting off his hat, said “I will now take my leave of these six dry, round, old, withered knights.” It angered him to the heart. But he forgot that.
FIRST DRAWER
Why then, cover, and set them down, and see if canst find out Sneak’s noise. Mistress Tearsheet would hear some music. Dispatch. The room where they supped is too hot, they’ll come in straight.
SECOND DRAWER
, here will be the Prince and Master Poins , and they will put on two of our jerkins and aprons, and Sir John must not know of it. Bardolph brought word.
FIRST DRAWER
By the mass, here will be old utis. It will be an excellent stratagem.
SECOND DRAWER
I’ll see if I can find out Sneak.
HOSTESS
I’ faith, sweetheart, now you are in an excellent good temperality. Your pulsidge beats as extraordinarily as heart would desire, and your colour, I warrant you, is as red as any rose, in good truth, la! But, i’ faith, you have drunk too much canaries, and that’s a marvellous searching wine, and it perfumes the blood one can say “What’s this?” How do you now?
DOLL
Better than I was. Hem!
HOSTESS
Why, that’s well said. A good heart’s worth gold. Lo, here comes Sir John.
FALSTAFF
“When Arthur first in court”—Empty the jordan.
— “And was a worthy king.”
How now, Mistress Doll!
HOSTESS
Sick of a calm, yea, good faith.
FALSTAFF
So is all her sect; an they be once in a calm, they are sick.
DOLL
A pox damn you, you muddy rascal, is that all the comfort you give me?
FALSTAFF
You make fat rascals, Mistress Doll.
DOLL
I make them? Gluttony and diseases make them; I make them not.
FALSTAFF
If the cook help to make the gluttony, you help to make the diseases, Doll: we catch of you, Doll. We catch of you; grant that, my poor virtue, grant that.
DOLL
Yea, joy, our chains and our jewels.
FALSTAFF
“Your brooches, pearls, and ouches:”—for to serve bravely is to come halting off, you know; to come off the breach with his pike bent bravely, and to surgery bravely; to venture upon the charged chambers bravely—
DOLL
Hang yourself, you muddy conger, hang yourself!
HOSTESS
By my troth, this is the old fashion; you two never meet but you fall to some discord. You are both, i’ good truth, as rheumatic as two dry toasts. You cannot one bear with another’s confirmities. What the good-year! One must bear, and that must be you. You are the weaker vessel, as as they say, the emptier vessel.
DOLL
Can a weak empty vessel bear such a huge full hogshead? There’s a whole merchant’s venture of Bourdeaux stuff in him; you have not seen a hulk better stuffed in the hold. Come, I’ll be friends with , Jack. art going to the wars, and whether I shall ever see again or no, there is nobody cares.
FIRST DRAWER
Sir, Ancient Pistol’s below, and would speak with you.
DOLL
Hang him, swaggering rascal! Let him not come : it is the foul-mouthed’st rogue in England.
HOSTESS
If he swagger, let him not come here. No, by my faith, I must live among my neighbours. I’ll no swaggerers. I am in good name and fame with the very best. Shut the door, there comes no swaggerers here. I have not lived all this while to have swaggering now. Shut the door, I pray you.
FALSTAFF
hear, hostess?
HOSTESS
Pray pacify yourself, Sir John. There comes no swaggerers here.
FALSTAFF
hear? It is mine ancient.
HOSTESS
Tilly-fally, Sir John, tell me. And our ancient swaggerer comes not in my doors. I was before Master Tisick, the debuty t’other day, and, as he said to me,—’twas no longer ago than Wednesday last, i’ good faith,—“Neighbour Quickly,” says he—Master Dumb, our minister, was by then—“Neighbour Quickly,” says he, “receive those that are civil, for,” said he “you are in an ill name.” Now he said so, I can tell whereupon. “For,” says he, “you are an honest woman, and well thought on. Therefore take heed what guests you receive. Receive,” says he, “no swaggering companions.” There comes none here. You would bless you to hear what he said. No, I’ll no swaggerers.
FALSTAFF
He’s no swaggerer, hostess; a tame cheater, i’ faith, you may stroke him as gently as a puppy greyhound. He’ll not swagger with a Barbary hen, if her feathers turn back in any show of resistance. Call him up, drawer.
HOSTESS
Cheater, call you him? I will bar no honest man my house, nor no cheater, but I do not love swaggering, by my troth, I am the worse when one says “swagger.” Feel, masters, how I shake; look you, I warrant you.
DOLL
So you do, hostess.
HOSTESS
Do I? Yea, in very truth, do I, an ’twere an aspen leaf. I cannot abide swaggerers.
PISTOL
God save you, Sir John!
FALSTAFF
Welcome, Ancient Pistol. Here, Pistol, I charge you with a cup of sack. Do you discharge upon mine hostess.
PISTOL
I will discharge upon her, Sir John, with two bullets.
FALSTAFF
She is pistol-proof, sir; you shall not hardly offend her.
HOSTESS
Come, I’ll drink no proofs nor no bullets. I’ll drink no more than will do me good, for no man’s pleasure, I.
PISTOL
Then to you, Mistress Dorothy! I will charge you.
DOLL
Charge me! I scorn you, scurvy companion. What, you poor, base, rascally, cheating, lack-linen mate! Away, you mouldy rogue, away! I am meat for your master.
PISTOL
I know you, Mistress Dorothy.
DOLL
Away, you cut-purse rascal, you filthy bung, away! By this wine, I’ll thrust my knife in your mouldy chaps an you play the saucy cuttle with me. Away, you bottle-ale rascal, you basket-hilt stale juggler, you! Since when, I pray you, sir? God’s light, with two points on your shoulder? Much!
PISTOL
God let me not live, but I will murder your ruff for this.
FALSTAFF
No more, Pistol! I would not have you go off here. Discharge yourself of our company, Pistol.
HOSTESS
No, good Captain Pistol, not here, sweet captain.
DOLL
Captain! abominable damned cheater, art not ashamed to be called captain? An captains were of my mind, they would truncheon you out, for taking their names upon you before you have earned them. You a captain? You slave, for what? For tearing a poor whore’s ruff in a bawdy-house? He a captain! Hang him, rogue, he lives upon mouldy stewed prunes and dried cakes. A captain? God’s light, these villains will make the word as odious as the word “occupy,” which was an excellent good word before it was ill sorted. Therefore captains had need look to’t.
BARDOLPH
Pray go down, good ancient.
FALSTAFF
Hark , Mistress Doll.
PISTOL
Not I. I tell what, Corporal Bardolph, I could tear her. I’ll be revenged of her.
PAGE
Pray go down.
PISTOL
I’ll see her damned first to Pluto’s damned lake, by this hand, to th’ infernal deep, with Erebus and tortures vile also. Hold hook and line, say I. Down, down, dogs! Down, faitors! Have we not Hiren here?
HOSTESS
Good Captain Peesel, be quiet, very late, i’ faith. I beseek you now, aggravate your choler.
PISTOL
These be good humours, indeed! Shall packhorses
And hollow pamper’d jades of Asia,
Which cannot go but thirty mile a day,
Compare with Caesars and with Cannibals,
And Trojant Greeks? Nay, rather damn them with
King Cerberus; and let the welkin roar.
Shall we fall foul for toys?
HOSTESS
By my troth, captain, these are very bitter words.
BARDOLPH
Be gone, good ancient. This will grow to a brawl .
PISTOL
Die men like dogs! Give crowns like pins! Have we not Hiren here?
HOSTESS
O’ my word, captain, there’s none such here. What the good-year, do you think I would deny her? For God’s sake, be quiet.
PISTOL
Then feed and be fat, my fair Calipolis.
Come, give ’s some sack.
Si fortune me tormente, sperato me contento.
Fear we broadsides? No, let the fiend give fire.
Give me some sack; and, sweetheart, lie there.
PISTOL
Come we to full points here? And are etceteras nothings?
FALSTAFF
Pistol, I would be quiet.
PISTOL
Sweet knight, I kiss neaf. What! we have seen the seven stars.
DOLL
For God’s sake, thrust him downstairs. I cannot endure such a fustian rascal.
PISTOL
Thrust him downstairs? Know we not Galloway nags?
FALSTAFF
Quoit him down, Bardolph, like a shove-groat shilling. Nay, an he do nothing but speak nothing, he shall be nothing here.
BARDOLPH
Come, get you downstairs.
PISTOL
What! shall we have incision? Shall we imbrue?
PISTOL
Then death rock me asleep, abridge my doleful days!
Why then, let grievous, ghastly, gaping wounds
Untwind the Sisters Three! Come, Atropos, I say!
HOSTESS
Here’s goodly stuff toward!
FALSTAFF
Give me my rapier, boy.
DOLL
I pray , Jack, I pray , do not draw.
FALSTAFF
Get you downstairs.
HOSTESS
Here’s a goodly tumult! I’ll forswear keeping house, afore I’ll be in these tirrits and frights. So, murder, I warrant now. Alas, alas, put up your naked weapons, put up your naked weapons.
DOLL
I pray , Jack, be quiet. The rascal’s gone. Ah, you whoreson little valiant villain, you!
HOSTESS
Are you not hurt i’ th’ groin? Methought he made a shrewd thrust at your belly.
FALSTAFF
Have you turned him out o’ doors?
BARDOLPH
Yea, sir. The rascal’s drunk. You have hurt him, sir, i’ th’ shoulder.
FALSTAFF
A rascal, to brave me!
DOLL
Ah, you sweet little rogue, you! Alas, poor ape, how sweat’st! Come, let me wipe face. Come on, you whoreson chops. Ah, rogue! i’ faith, I love . art as valorous as Hector of Troy, worth five of Agamemnon, and ten times better than the Nine Worthies. Ah, villain!
FALSTAFF
A rascally slave! I will toss the rogue in a blanket.
DOLL
Do, an darest for heart. An , I’ll canvass between a pair of sheets.
PAGE
The music is come, sir.
FALSTAFF
Let them play. Play, sirs. Sit on my knee, Doll. A rascal bragging slave! The rogue fled from me like quicksilver.
DOLL
I’ faith, and followedst him like a church. whoreson little tidy Bartholomew boar-pig, when wilt leave fighting a-days and foining a-nights, and begin to patch up old body for heaven?
FALSTAFF
Peace, good Doll, do not speak like a death’s-head; do not bid me remember mine end.
DOLL
, what ’s the Prince of?
FALSTAFF
A good shallow young fellow; he would have made a good pantler; he would ha’ chipped bread well.
DOLL
They say Poins has a good wit.
FALSTAFF
He a good wit? Hang him, baboon! His wit’s as thick as Tewksbury mustard; there’s no more conceit in him than is in a mallet.
DOLL
Why does the Prince love him so, then?
FALSTAFF
Because their legs are both of a bigness, and he plays at quoits well, and eats conger and fennel, and drinks off candles’ ends for flap-dragons, and rides the wild mare with the boys, and jumps upon joint stools, and swears with a good grace, and wears his boots very smooth like unto the sign of the Leg, and breeds no bate with telling of discreet stories, and such other gambol faculties he has that show a weak mind and an able body, for the which the Prince admits him: for the Prince himself is such another. The weight of a hair will turn the scales between their avoirdupois.
PRINCE
Would not this nave of a wheel have his ears cut off?
POINS
Let’s beat him before his whore.
PRINCE
Look whe’er the withered elder not his poll clawed like a parrot.
POINS
Is it not strange that desire should so many years outlive performance?
FALSTAFF
Kiss me, Doll.
PRINCE
Saturn and Venus this year in conjunction! What says th’ almanac to that?
POINS
And look whether the fiery Trigon, his man, be not lisping to his master’s old tables, his note-book, his counsel-keeper.
FALSTAFF
give me flattering busses.
DOLL
By my troth, I kiss with a most constant heart.
FALSTAFF
I am old, I am old.
DOLL
I love better than I love e’er a scurvy young boy of them all.
FALSTAFF
What stuff wilt have a kirtle of? I shall receive money o’ Thursday; have a cap tomorrow. A merry song! Come, it grows late, we’ll to bed. Thou’lt forget me when I am gone.
DOLL
By my troth, thou’lt set me a-weeping an sayest so. Prove that ever I dress myself handsome till return. Well, hearken a’ th’ end.
FALSTAFF
Some sack, Francis.
PRINCE & POINS
, , sir.
FALSTAFF
Ha! A bastard son of the King’s? And art not Poins his brother?
PRINCE
Why, globe of sinful continents, what a life lead!
FALSTAFF
A better than . I am a gentleman, art a drawer.
PRINCE
Very true, sir, and I come to draw you out by the ears.
HOSTESS
O, the Lord preserve Grace! By my troth, welcome to London. Now, the Lord bless that sweet face of ! O Jesu, are you come from Wales?
FALSTAFF
whoreson mad compound of majesty, by this light flesh and corrupt blood, art welcome.
DOLL
How? You fat fool, I scorn you.
POINS
My lord, he will drive you out of your revenge and turn all to a merriment, if you take not the heat.
PRINCE
You whoreson candle-mine, you, how vilely did you speak of me even now before this honest, virtuous, civil gentlewoman!
HOSTESS
God’s blessing of your good heart! and so she is, by my troth.
FALSTAFF
hear me?
PRINCE
Yea, and you knew me, as you did when you ran away by Gad’s Hill. You knew I was at your back, and spoke it on purpose to try my patience.
FALSTAFF
No, no, no, not so; I did not think wast within hearing.
PRINCE
I shall drive you then to confess the wilful abuse, and then I know how to handle you.
FALSTAFF
No abuse, Hal, o’ mine honour, no abuse.
PRINCE
Not to dispraise me, and call me pantler and bread-chipper and I know not what?
FALSTAFF
No abuse, Hal.
POINS
No abuse?
FALSTAFF
No abuse, Ned, i’ th’ world, honest Ned, none. I dispraised him before the wicked, that the wicked might not fall in love with ; in which doing, I have done the part of a careful friend and a true subject, and father is to give me thanks for it. No abuse, Hal; none, Ned, none; no, faith, boys, none.
PRINCE
See now whether pure fear and entire cowardice not make wrong this virtuous gentlewoman to close with us. Is she of the wicked? Is hostess here of the wicked? Or is boy of the wicked? Or honest Bardolph, whose zeal burns in his nose, of the wicked?
POINS
Answer, dead elm, answer.
FALSTAFF
The fiend pricked down Bardolph irrecoverable, and his face is Lucifer’s privy-kitchen, where he nothing but roast malt-worms. For the boy, there is a good angel about him, but the devil outbids him too.
PRINCE
For the women?
FALSTAFF
For one of them, she’s in hell already, and burns poor souls. For th’ other, I owe her money, and whether she be damned for that I know not.
HOSTESS
No, I warrant you.
FALSTAFF
No, I think art not, I think art quit for that. Marry, there is another indictment upon , for suffering flesh to be eaten in house, contrary to the law, for the which I think wilt howl.
HOSTESS
All victuallers do so. What’s a joint of mutton or two in a whole Lent?
PRINCE
You, gentlewoman.
DOLL
What says your Grace?
FALSTAFF
His grace says that which his flesh rebels against.
HOSTESS
Who knocks so loud at door? Look to th’ door there, Francis.
PRINCE
Peto, how now, what news?
PETO
The King your father is at Westminster,
And there are twenty weak and wearied posts
Come from the north: and as I came along,
I met and overtook a dozen captains,
Bareheaded, sweating, knocking at the taverns,
And asking everyone for Sir John Falstaff.
PRINCE
By heaven, Poins, I feel me much to blame,
So idly to profane the precious time,
When tempest of commotion, like the south
Borne with black vapour, begin to melt
And drop upon our bare unarmed heads.
Give me my sword and cloak. Falstaff, good night.
FALSTAFF
Now comes in the sweetest morsel of the night, and we must and leave it unpicked.
More knocking at the door?
FALSTAFF
How now, what’s the matter?
BARDOLPH
You must away to court, sir, .
A dozen captains stay at door for you.
FALSTAFF
Pay the musicians, . Farewell, hostess; farewell, Doll. You see, my good wenches, how men of merit are sought after. The undeserver may sleep, when the man of action is called on. Farewell, good wenches. If I be not sent away post, I will see you again I go.
DOLL
I cannot speak; if my heart be not ready to burst—well, sweet Jack, have a care of thyself.
FALSTAFF
Farewell, farewell.
HOSTESS
Well, fare well. I have known these twenty-nine years, come peascod-time; but an honester and truer-hearted man—well, fare well.
BARDOLPH
Mistress Tearsheet!
HOSTESS
What’s the matter?
BARDOLPH
Bid Mistress Tearsheet come to my master.
HOSTESS
O, run, Doll, run; run, good Doll; come. She comes blubbered. Yea, will you come, Doll?