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_ ACT III SCENE III
Eastcheap. 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. An 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, villanous 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, dic'd 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 hellfire 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 ran'st up Gadshill 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-burn'd.
[Enter Hostess.]
How now, Dame Partlet the hen? Have you enquir'd yet who
pick'd my pocket?
HOSTESS.
Why, Sir John, what do you think, Sir John? Do you think
I keep thieves in my house? I have search'd, 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 shav'd and lost many a hair,
and I'll be sworn my pocket was pick'd. Go to, you are a woman, go!
HOSTESS.
Who, I? No; I defy thee! God's light, I was never call'd 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 pick'd? 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-cup. 'Sblood, an he
were here, I would cudgel him like a dog if he would say so.
[Enter the Prince (and Poins), 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.
What say'st 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.
What say'st thou, Jack?
FALSTAFF.
The other night I fell asleep here behind the arras and
had my pocket pick'd. This house is turn'd bawdy house; they pick pockets.
PRINCE.
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.
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-mouth'd man as he is, and said he would cudgel you.
PRINCE.
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 woman-hood,
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 knight-hood
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.
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.
Thou say'st 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.
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 call'd 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.
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.
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, an I do, I pray God
my girdle break.
PRINCE.
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 fill'd up with guts and midriff.
Charge an honest woman with picking thy pocket? Why, thou
whoreson, impudent, emboss'd 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 enrich'd 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 villany? Thou seest I have more flesh than another man, and
therefore more frailty. You confess then, you pick'd my pocket?
PRINCE.
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.
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.
I am good friends with my father, and may do anything.
FALSTAFF.
Rob me the exchequer the first thing thou doest, and do it
with unwash'd hands too.
BARDOLPH.
Do, my lord.
PRINCE.
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.
Bardolph!
BARDOLPH.
My lord?
PRINCE.
Go bear this letter to Lord John of Lancaster,
To my brother John; this to my Lord of Westmoreland.
[Exit Bardolph.]
Go, Poins, to horse, to horse; for thou and I
Have thirty miles to ride yet ere dinner time.
[Exit Poins.]
Jack, meet me to-morrow 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 they or we must lower lie.
[Exit.]
FALSTAFF.
Rare words! brave world! Hostess, my breakfast, come.
O, I could wish this tavern were my drum!
[Exit.] _
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