William Shakespeare: The Complete Works 2nd Edition (255 page)

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Authors: William Shakespeare

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BOOK: William Shakespeare: The Complete Works 2nd Edition

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PRINCE HARRY See now whether pure fear and entire cowardice doth not make thee wrong this virtuous gentlewoman to close with us. Is she of the wicked? Is thine hostess here of the wicked? Or is thy boy of the wicked? Or honest Bardolph, whose zeal burns in his nose, of the wicked?

POINS (
to Sir John
) Answer, thou dead elm, answer.

SIR JOHN The fiend hath pricked down Bardolph irrecoverable, and his face is Lucifer’s privy kitchen, where he doth nothing but roast malt-worms. For the boy, there is a good angel about him, but the devil outbids him, too.

PRINCE HARRY For the women?

SIR JOHN 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.

MISTRESS QUICKLY No, I warrant you.

SIR JOHN No, I think thou art not; I think thou art quit for that. Marry, there is another indictment upon thee, for suffering flesh to be eaten in thy house, contrary to the law, for the which I think thou wilt howl.

MISTRESS QUICKLY All victuallers do so. What’s a joint of mutton or two in a whole Lent?

PRINCE HARRY You, gentlewoman—

DOLL TEARSHEET What says your grace?

SIR JOHN His grace says that which his flesh rebels against.

Peto knocks at door within

MISTRESS QUICKLY Who knocks so loud at door? (
Calls
)

Look to th’ door there, Francis.

Enter Peto

PRINCE HARRY 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 every one for Sir John Falstaff.

PRINCE HARRY

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, doth begin to melt
And drop upon our bare unarmed heads.—
Give me my sword and cloak.—Falstaff, good night.

Exeunt Prince Harry and Poins

SIR JOHN Now comes in the sweetest morsel of the night,

and we must hence and leave it unpicked. 371

Knocking within
. ⌈
Exit Bardolph
⌉

More knocking at the door!

Enter Bardolph

How now, what’s the matter?

BARDOLPH

You must away to court, sir, presently.
A dozen captains stay at door for you.

SIR JOHN ⌈
to the Page
⌉ Pay the musicians, sirrah. 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 ere I go. ⌈
Exeunt musicians⌉

DOLL TEARSHEET ⌈
weeping
⌉ I cannot speak. If my heart be not ready to burst—well, sweet Jack, have a care of thyself.

SIR JOHN Farewell, farewell! 385

Exit
⌈
with Bardolph, Peto, and the Page
⌉

MISTRESS QUICKLY Well, fare thee well. I have known thee these twenty-nine years come peascod-time, but an honester and truer-hearted man—well, fare thee well.

⌈
Enter Bardolph
⌉

BARDOLPH Mistress Tearsheet!

MISTRESS QUICKLY What’s the matter? 390

BARDOLPH Bid Mistress Tearsheet come to my master.

⌈
Exit
⌉

MISTRESS QUICKLY O run, Doll; run, run, good Doll!

Exeunt
⌈
Doll at one door, Mistress Quickly at another door
⌉

3.1
Enter King Henry in his nightgown, with a page

KING HENRY (
giving letters
)

Go call the Earls of Surrey and of Warwick.
But ere they come, bid them o’er-read these letters
And well consider of them. Make good speed.

Exit page

How many thousand of my poorest subjects
Are at this hour asleep? O sleep, O gentle sleep,
Nature’s soft nurse, how have I frighted thee,
That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down
And steep my senses in forgetfulness?
Why rather, sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs,
Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee,
And hushed with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber,
Than in the perfumed chambers of the great,
Under the canopies of costly state,
And lulled with sound of sweetest melody?
O thou dull god, why li‘st thou with the vile 15
In loathsome beds, and leav’st the kingly couch
A watch-case, or a common ’larum-bell?
Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast
Seal up the ship-boy’s eyes, and rock his brains
In cradle of the rude imperious surge,
And in the visitation of the winds,
Who take the ruffian billows by the top,
Curling their monstrous heads, and hanging them
With deafing clamour in the slippery clouds,
That, with the hurly, death itself awakes?
Canst thou, O partial sleep, give thy repose
To the wet sea-boy in an hour so rude,
And in the calmest and most stillest night,
With all appliances and means to boot,
Deny it to a king? Then happy low, lie down.
Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.

Enter the Earls of Warwick and Surrey

WARWICK

Many good morrows to your majesty!

KING HENRY

Is it good morrow, lords?

WARWICK ’Tis one o’clock, and past.

KING HENRY

Why then, good morrow to you all, my lords.
Have you read o’er the letter that I sent you?

WARWICK We have, my liege.

KING HENRY

Then you perceive the body of our kingdom,
How foul it is, what rank diseases grow,
And with what danger near the heart of it.

WARWICK

It is but as a body yet distempered,
Which to his former strength may be restored
With good advice and little medicine.
My lord Northumberland will soon be cooled.

KING HENRY

O God, that one might read the book of fate,
And see the revolution of the times
Make mountains level, and the continent,
Weary of solid firmness, melt itself
Into the sea; and other times to see
The beachy girdle of the ocean
Too wide for Neptune’s hips; how chance’s mocks
And changes fill the cup of alteration
With divers liquors!‘Tis not ten years gone
Since Richard and Northumberland, great friends,
Did feast together; and in two year after
Were they at wars. It is but eight years since
This Percy was the man nearest my soul,
Who like a brother toiled in my affairs,
And laid his love and life under my foot,
Yea, for my sake, even to the eyes of Richard
Gave him defiance. But which of you was by—
(
To Warwick
) You, cousin Neville, as I may
remember—
When Richard, with his eye brimful of tears,
Then checked and rated by Northumberland,
Did speak these words, now proved a prophecy?—
‘Northumberland, thou ladder by the which
My cousin Bolingbroke ascends my throne’—
Though then, God knows, I had no such intent,
But that necessity so bowed the state
That I and greatness were compelled to kiss—
‘The time shall come’—thus did he follow it—
‘The time will come that foul sin, gathering head,
Shall break into corruption’; so went on,
Foretelling this same time’s condition,
And the division of our amity.

WARWICK

There is a history in all men’s lives
Figuring the natures of the times deceased;
The which observed, a man may prophesy,
With a near aim, of the main chance of things
As yet not come to life, who in their seeds
And weak beginnings lie intreasurèd. 80
Such things become the hatch and brood of time;
And by the necessary form of this
King Richard might create a perfect guess
That great Northumberland, then false to him,
Would of that seed grow to a greater falseness,
Which should not find a ground to root upon
Unless on you.

KING HENRY Are these things then necessities?

Then let us meet them like necessities;
And that same word even now cries out on us.
They say the Bishop and Northumberland
Are fifty thousand strong.

WARWICK It cannot be, my lord.

Rumour doth double, like the voice and echo,
The numbers of the feared. Please it your grace
To go to bed? Upon my soul, my lord,
The powers that you already have sent forth
Shall bring this prize in very easily.
To comfort you the more, I have received
A certain instance that Glyndwr is dead.
Your majesty hath been this fortnight ill,
And these unseasoned hours perforce must add
Unto your sickness.

KING HENRY I will take your counsel.

And were these inward wars once out of hand,
We would, dear lords, unto the Holy Land. Exeunt

3.2
Enter justice Shallow and Justice Silence

SHALLOW Come on, come on, come on! Give me your hand, sir, give me your hand, sir. An early stirrer, by the rood! And how doth my good cousin Silence?

SILENCE Good morrow, good cousin Shallow.

SHALLOW And how doth my cousin your bedfellow? And your fairest daughter and mine, my god-daughter Ellen?

SILENCE Alas, a black ouzel, cousin Shallow.

SHALLOW By yea and no, sir, I dare say my cousin William is become a good scholar. He is at Oxford still, is he not? 10

SILENCE Indeed, sir, to my cost.

SHALLOW A must then to the Inns o’ Court shortly. I was once of Clement’s Inn, where I think they will talk of mad Shallow yet.

SILENCE You were called ’lusty Shallow’ then, cousin. 15

SHALLOW By the mass, I was called anything; and I would have done anything indeed, too, and roundly, too. There was I, and little John Doit of Staffordshire, and black George Barnes, and Francis Pickbone, and Will Squeal, a Cotswold man; you had not four such swingebucklers in all the Inns o’ Court again. And I may say to you, we knew where the bona-robas were, and had the best of them all at commandment. Then was Jack Falstaff, now Sir John, a boy, and page to Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk.

SILENCE This Sir John, cousin, that comes hither anon about soldiers?

SHALLOW The same Sir John, the very same. I see him break Scoggin’s head at the court gate when a was a crack, not thus high. And the very same day did I fight with one Samson Stockfish, a fruiterer, behind Gray’s Inn. Jesu, Jesu, the mad days that I have spent! And to see how many of my old acquaintance are dead.

SILENCE We shall all follow, cousin.

SHALLOW Certain, ’tis certain; very sure, very sure. Death, as the Psalmist saith, is certain to all; all shall die. How a good yoke of bullocks at Stamford fair?

SILENCE By my troth, I was not there.

SHALLOW Death is certain. Is old Double of your town living yet?

SILENCE Dead, sir.

SHALLOW Jesu, Jesu, dead! A drew a good bow; and dead! A shot a fine shoot. John o’ Gaunt loved him well, and betted much money on his head. Dead! A would have clapped i’th’ clout at twelve score, and carried you a forehand shaft a fourteen and fourteen and a half, that it would have done a man’s heart good to see. How a score of ewes now?

SILENCE Thereafter as they be. A score of good ewes may be worth ten pounds.

SHALLOW And is old Double dead?