Read William Shakespeare: The Complete Works 2nd Edition Online

Authors: William Shakespeare

Tags: #Drama, #Literary Criticism, #Shakespeare

William Shakespeare: The Complete Works 2nd Edition (228 page)

BOOK: William Shakespeare: The Complete Works 2nd Edition
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SIR JOHN Four, Hal, I told thee four.
POINS Ay, ay, he said four.
SIR JOHN These four came all afront, and mainly thrust at me. I made me no more ado, but took all their seven points in my target, thus.
⌈
He wards himself with his buckler
⌉
 
PRINCE HARRY Seven? Why, there were but four even now.
SIR JOHN In buckram?
POINS Ay, four in buckram suits.
SIR JOHN Seven, by these hilts, or I am a villain else.
PRINCE HARRY (
aside to Poins
) Prithee, let him alone. We shall have more anon.
SIR JOHN Dost thou hear me, Hal?
PRINCE HARRY Ay, and mark thee too, Jack.
SIR JOHN Do so, for it is worth the listening to. These nine in buckram that I told thee of—
PRINCE HARRY (aside to
Poins
) So, two more already.
SIR JOHN Their points being broken—
POINS ⌈
aside
to the
Prince
⌉ Down fell their hose.
SIR JOHN Began to give me ground. But I followed me close, came in foot and hand, and, with a thought, seven of the eleven I paid.
PRINCE HARRY (aside to
Poins
) O monstrous! Eleven buckram men grown out of two!
SIR JOHN But, as the devil would have it, three misbegotten knaves in Kendal green came at my back and let drive at me; for it was so dark, Hal, that thou couldst not see thy hand.
PRINCE HARRY These lies are like their father that begets them—gross as a mountain, open, palpable. Why, thou clay-brained guts, thou knotty-pated fool, thou whoreson obscene greasy tallow-catch-
SIR JOHN What, art thou mad? Art thou mad? Is not the truth the truth?
PRINCE HARRY Why, how couldst thou know these men in Kendal green when it was so dark thou couldst not see thy hand? Come, tell us your reason. What sayst thou to this?
POINS Come, your reason, Jack, your reason.
SIR JOHN What, upon compulsion? Zounds, an I were at the strappado, or all the racks in the world, I would not tell you on compulsion. Give you a reason on compulsion? If reasons were as plentiful as blackberries, I would give no man a reason upon compulsion, I.
PRINCE HARRY I’ll be no longer guilty of this sin. This sanguine coward, this bed-presser, this horse-back-breaker, this huge hill of flesh—
SIR JOHN ’Sblood, you starveling, you elf-skin, you dried neat’s tongue, you bull’s pizzle, you stock-fish—O, for breath to utter what is like thee!—you tailor’s yard, you sheath, you bow-case, you vile standing tuck—
PRINCE HARRY Well, breathe awhile, and then to’t again, and when thou hast tired thyself in base comparisons, hear me speak but this.
POINS Mark, Jack.
PRINCE HARRY We two saw you four set on four, and bound them, and were masters of their wealth.—Mark now how a plain tale shall put you down.—Then did we two set on you four, and, with a word, outfaced you from your prize, and have it; yea, and can show it you here in the house. And Oldcastle, you carried your guts away as nimbly, with as quick dexterity, and roared for mercy, and still run and roared, as ever I heard bull-calf. What a slave art thou, to hack thy sword as thou hast done, and then say it was in fight! What trick, what device, what starting-hole canst thou now find out to hide thee from this open and apparent shame?
POINS Come, let’s hear, Jack; what trick hast thou now?
SIR JOHN By the Lord, I knew ye as well as he that made ye. Why, hear you, my masters. Was it for me to kill the heir-apparent? Should I turn upon the true prince? Why, thou knowest I am as valiant as Hercules; but beware instinct. The lion will not touch the true prince—instinct is a great matter. I was now a coward on instinct. I shall think the better of myself and thee during my life—I for a valiant lion, and thou for a true prince. But by the Lord, lads, I am glad you have the money.—(
Calling
) Hostess, clap to the doors.—Watch tonight, pray tomorrow. Gallants, lads, boys, hearts of gold, all the titles of good fellowship come to you! What, shall we be merry, shall we have a play extempore?
PRINCE HARRY Content, and the argument shall be thy running away.
SIR JOHN Ah, no more of that, Hal, an thou lovest me.
Enter Hostess
 
HOSTESS O Jesu, my lord the Prince!
PRINCE HARRY How now, my lady the Hostess, what sayst thou to me?
HOSTESS Marry, my lord, there is a nobleman of the court at door would speak with you. He says he comes from your father.
PRINCE HARRY Give him as much as will make him a royal man, and send him back again to my mother.
SIR JOHN What manner of man is he?
HOSTESS An old man.
SIR JOHN What doth gravity out of his bed at midnight? Shall I give him his answer?
PRINCE HARRY Prithee do, Jack.
SIR JOHN Faith, and I’ll send him packing. Exit
PRINCE HARRY Now, sirs; (to
Gadshill
) by’r Lady, you fought fair—so did you, Harvey, so did you, Russell. You are lions too—you ran away upon instinct, you will not touch the true prince; no, fie!
RUSSELL Faith, I ran when I saw others run.
PRINCE HARRY Faith, tell me now in earnest, how came Oldcastle’s sword so hacked?
HARVEY Why, he hacked it with his dagger, and said he would swear truth out of England but he would make you believe it was done in fight, and persuaded us to do the like.
RUSSELL Yea, and to tickle our noses with speargrass, to make them bleed; and then to beslubber our garments with it, and swear it was the blood of true men. I did that I did not this seven year before—I blushed to hear his monstrous devices.
PRINCE HARRY O villain, thou stolest a cup of sack eighteen years ago, and wert taken with the manner, and ever since thou hast blushed extempore. Thou hadst fire and sword on thy side, and yet thou rannest away. What instinct hadst thou for it?
RUSSELL (indicating his face) My lord, do you see these meteors? Do you behold these exhalations?
PRINCE HARRY I do.
RUSSELL What think you they portend?
PRINCE HARRY Hot livers, and cold purses.
RUSSELL Choler, my lord, if rightly taken. ⌈
Exit
⌉
PRINCE HARRY No, if rightly taken, halter.
Enter Sir John
Oldcastle
 
Here comes lean Jack; here comes bare-bone. How now, my sweet creature of bombast? How long is’t ago, Jack, since thou sawest thine own knee?
SIR JOHN My own knee? When I was about thy years, Hal, I was not an eagle’s talon in the waist; I could have crept into any alderman’s thumb-ring. A plague of sighing and grief—it blows a man up like a bladder. There’s villainous news abroad. Here was Sir John Bracy from your father; you must to the court in the morning. That same mad fellow of the North, Percy, and he of Wales that gave Amamon the bastinado, and made Lucifer cuckold, and swore the devil his true liegeman upon the cross of a Welsh hook—what a plague call you him?
POINS Owain Glyndwr.
SIR JOHN Owain, Owain, the same; and his son-in-law Mortimer, and old Northumberland, and that sprightly Scot of Scots Douglas, that runs a-horseback up a hill perpendicular—
PRINCE HARRY He that rides at high speed and with his pistol kills a sparrow flying.
SIR JOHN You have hit it.
PRINCE HARRY So did he never the sparrow.
SIR JOHN Well, that rascal hath good mettle in him; he will not run.
PRINCE HARRY Why, what a rascal art thou, then, to praise him so for running!
SIR JOHN A-horseback, ye cuckoo, but afoot he will not budge a foot.
PRINCE HARRY Yes, Jack, upon instinct.
SIR JOHN I grant ye, upon instinct. Well, he is there too, and one Mordake, and a thousand blue-caps more. Worcester is stolen away tonight. Thy father’s beard is turned white with the news. You may buy land now as cheap as stinking mackerel.
PRINCE HARRY Why then, it is like, if there come a hot June and this civil buffeting hold, we shall buy maidenheads as they buy hobnails: by the hundreds.
SIR JOHN By the mass, lad, thou sayst true; it is like we shall have good trading that way. But tell me, Hal, art not thou horrible afeard? Thou being heir-apparent, could the world pick thee out three such enemies again as that fiend Douglas, that spirit Percy, and that devil Glyndŵr? Art thou not horribly afraid? Doth not thy blood thrill at it?
PRINCE HARRY Not a whit, i’faith. I lack some of thy instinct. 375
SIR JOHN Well, thou wilt be horribly chid tomorrow when thou comest to thy father. If thou love me, practise an answer.
PRINCE HARRY Do thou stand for my father, and examine me upon the particulars of my life.
SIR JOHN Shall I? Content. This chair shall be my state, this dagger my sceptre, and this cushion my crown.
He sits
 
PRINCE HARRY Thy state is taken for a joint-stool, thy golden sceptre for a leaden dagger, and thy precious rich crown for a pitiful bald crown.
SIR JOHN Well, an the fire of grace be not quite out of thee, now shalt thou be moved. Give me a cup of sack to make my eyes look red, that it may be thought I have wept; for I must speak in passion, and I will do it in King Cambyses’ vein.
PRINCE HARRY (
bowing
) Well, here is my leg.
SIR JOHN And here is my speech. (
To Harvey, Poins, and Gadshill
) Stand aside, nobility.
HOSTESS O Jesu, this is excellent sport, i’faith.
SIR JOHN Weep not, sweet Queen, for trickling tears are vain.
HOSTESS O the Father, how he holds his countenance!
SIR JOHN
For God’s sake, lords, convey my tristful Queen,
For tears do stop the floodgates of her eyes.
HOSTESS O Jesu, he doth it as like one of these harlotry players as ever I see!
SIR JOHN
Peace, good pint-pot; peace, good tickle-brain.—
Harry, I do not only marvel where thou spendest thy
time, but also how thou art accompanied. For though
the camomile, the more it is trodden on, the faster it
grows, yet youth, the more it is wasted, the sooner it
wears. That thou art my son I have partly thy mother’s
word, partly my own opinion, but chiefly a villainous
trick of thine eye, and a foolish hanging of thy nether
lip, that doth warrant me. If then thou be son to me,
here lies the point. Why, being son to me, art thou so
pointed at? Shall the blessed sun of heaven prove a
micher, and eat btackberries?—A question not to be
asked. Shall the son of England prove a thief, and take
purses?—A question to be asked. There is a thing,
Harry, which thou hast often heard of, and it is known
to many in our land by the name of pitch. This pitch,
as ancient writers do report, doth defile. So doth the
company thou keepest. For Harry, now I do not speak
to thee in drink, but in tears; not in pleasure, but in
passion; not in words only, but in woes also. And yet
there is a virtuous man whom I have often noted in
thy company, but I know not his name.
PRINCE HARRY What manner of man, an it like your majesty?
SIR JOHN A goodly, portly man, i‘faith, and a corpulent; of a cheerful look, a pleasing eye, and a most noble carriage; and, as I think, his age some fifty, or, by’r Lady, inclining to threescore. And now I remember me, his name is Oldcastle. If that man should be lewdly given, he deceiveth me; for, Harry, I see virtue in his looks. If, then, the tree may be known by the fruit, as the fruit by the tree, then peremptorily I speak it—there is virtue in that Oldcastle. Him keep with; the rest banish. And tell me now, thou naughty varlet, tell me, where hast thou been this month?
PRINCE HARRY Dost thou speak like a king? Do thou stand for me, and I’ll play my father.
SIR JOHN (
standing
) Depose me. If thou dost it half so gravely, so majestically both in word and matter, hang me up by the heels for a rabbit sucker, or a poulter’s hare.
PRINCE HARRY (
sitting
) Well, here I am set.
SIR JOHN And here I stand. (
To the others
) Judge, my masters.
PRINCE HARRY Now, Harry, whence come you?
SIR JOHN My noble lord, from Eastcheap.
PRINCE HARRY The complaints I hear of thee are grievous.
SIR JOHN ’Sblood, my lord, they are false. ⌈
To
the others
⌉
Nay, I’ll tickle ye for a young prince, i’faith.
PRINCE HARRY Swearest thou, ungracious boy? Henceforth ne’er look on me. Thou art violently carried away from grace. There is a devil haunts thee in the likeness of an old fat man; a tun of man is thy companion. Why dost thou converse with that trunk of humours, that bolting-hutch of beastliness, that swollen parcel of dropsies, that huge bombard of sack, that stuffed cloak-bag of guts, that roasted Manningtree ox with the pudding in his belly, that reverend Vice, that grey Iniquity, that father Ruffian, that Vanity in Years? Wherein is he good, but to taste sack and drink it? Wherein neat and cleanly, but to carve a capon and eat it? Wherein cunning, but in craft? Wherein crafty, but in villainy? Wherein villainous, but in all things? Wherein worthy, but in nothing?
BOOK: William Shakespeare: The Complete Works 2nd Edition
3.39Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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