King Henry IV, Part 2 - William Shakespeare (short books to read txt) 📗

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.

[Enter Pistol, Bardolph, and Page.]

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 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! thou abominable damned cheater, art thou 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 thee, go down, good ancient.

FALSTAFF. Hark thee hither, Mistress Doll.

PISTOL. Not I: I tell thee what, Corporal Bardolph, I could tear her: I’ll be revenged of her.

PAGE. Pray thee go down.

PISTOL. I’ll see her damned first; to Pluto’s damned lake, by this hand, to the 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; ‘tis 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 Trojan 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 anon.

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 thou there.

[Laying down his sword.]

Come we to full points here, and are etceteras nothing?

FALSTAFF. Pistol, I would be quiet.

PISTOL. Sweet knight, I kiss thy neif: what! we have seen the seven stars.

DOLL. For God’s sake, thrust him down stairs: I cannot endure such a fustian rascal.

PISTOL. Thrust him down stairs! know we not Galloway nags?

FALSTAFF. Quoit him down, Bardolph, like a shove-groat shilling: nay, an a’ do nothing but speak nothing, a’ shall be nothing here.

BARDOLPH. Come, get you down stairs.

PISTOL. What! shall we have incision? shall we imbrue?

[Snatching up his sword.]

Then death rock me asleep, abridge my doleful days! Why, then, let grievous, ghastly, gaping wounds Untwine the Sisters Three! Come, Atropos, I say!

HOSTESS. Here’s goodly stuff toward!

FALSTAFF. Give me my rapier, boy.

DOLL. I pray thee, Jack, I pray thee, do not draw.

FALSTAFF. Get you down stairs.

[Drawing, and driving Pistol out.]

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.

[Exeunt Pistol and Bardolph.]

DOLL. I pray thee, Jack, be quiet; the rascal’s gone. Ah, you whoreson little valiant villain, you!

HOSTESS. Are you not hurt i’ the groin? methought a’ made a shrewd thrust at your belly.

[Re-enter Bardolph.]

FALSTAFF. Have you turned him out o’ doors?

BARDOLPH. Yea, sir. The rascal’s drunk: you have hurt him, sir, i’ the shoulder.

FALSTAFF. A rascal! to brave me!

DOLL. Ah, you sweet little rogue, you! Alas, poor ape, how thou sweatest! come, let me wipe thy face; come on, you whoreson chops: ah, rogue! i’ faith, I love thee: thou 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 thou darest for thy heart: an thou dost, I’ll canvass thee between a pair of sheets.

[Enter Music.]

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 thou followedst him like a church. Thou whoreson little tidy Bartholomew boar-pig, when wilt thou leave fighting o’ days and foining o’ nights, and begin to patch up thine old body for heaven?

[Enter, behind, Prince Henry and Poins, disguised as drawers.]

FALSTAFF. Peace, good Doll! do not speak like a death’s-head; do not bid me remember mine end.

DOLL. Sirrah, what humour ‘s the prince of?

FALSTAFF. A good shallow young fellow: ‘a would have made a good pantler; a’ 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 a’ 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 joined-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 a’ 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, whether the withered elder hath 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 the 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. Thou dost give me flattering busses.

DOLL. By my troth, I kiss thee with a most constant heart.

FALSTAFF. I am old, I am old.

DOLL. I love thee 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: shalt 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 thou sayest so: prove that ever I dress myself handsome till thy return: well, hearken at the end.

FALSTAFF. Some sack, Francis.

PRINCE & POINS. Anon, anon, sir.

[Coming forward.]

FALSTAFF. Ha! a bastard son of the king’s? And art thou not Poins his brother?

PRINCE. Why, thou globe of sinful continents, what a life dost thou lead!

FALSTAFF. A better than thou: I am a gentleman; thou art a drawer.

PRINCE. Very true, sir; and I come to draw you out by the ears.

HOSTESS. O, the Lord preserve thy grace! by my troth, welcome to London. Now, the Lord bless that sweet face of thine! O Jesu, are you come from Wales?

FALSTAFF. Thou whoreson mad compound of majesty, by this light flesh and corrupt blood, thou 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. Didst thou 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 thou 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’ the world; honest Ned, none. I dispraised him before the wicked, that the wicked might not fall in love with him; in which doing, I have done the part of a careful friend and a true subject, and thy 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 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. Answer, thou dead elm, answer.

FALSTAFF. 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. For the women?

FALSTAFF. For one of them, she is in hell already, and burns poor souls. For the other, I owe her money; and whether she be damned for that, I know not.

HOSTESS. No, I warrant you.

FALSTAFF. 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.

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.

[Knocking within.]

HOSTESS. Who knocks so loud at door? Look to the door there, Francis.

[Enter Peto.]

PRINCE. Peto, how now! what news?

PETO. The king your father is at Westminster; And there are twenty weak