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

as I call; let them do so, let them do so. Let me see; where is Mouldy?

MOULDY. Here, an’t please you.

SHALLOW. What think you, Sir John? a good-limbed fellow; young, strong, and of good friends.

FALSTAFF. Is thy name Mouldy?

MOULDY. Yea, an’t please you.

FALSTAFF. ‘Tis the more time thou wert used.

SHALLOW. Ha, ha, ha! most excellent, i’ faith! things that are mouldy lack use: very singular good! in faith, well said, Sir John, very well said.

FALSTAFF. Prick him.

MOULDY. I was prick’d well enough before, an you could have let me alone: my old dame will be undone now for one to do her husbandry and her drudgery: you need not to have pricked me; there are other men fitter to go out than I.

FALSTAFF. Go to: peace, Mouldy; you shall go. Mouldy, it is time you were spent.

MOULDY. Spent!

SHALLOW. Peace, fellow, peace; stand aside: know you where you are? For the other, Sir John: let me see: Simon Shadow!

FALSTAFF. Yea, marry, let me have him to sit under: he ‘s like to be a cold soldier.

SHALLOW. Where’s Shadow?

SHADOW. Here, sir.

FALSTAFF. Shadow, whose son art thou?

SHADOW. My mother’s son, sir.

FALSTAFF. Thy mother’s son! like enough; and thy father’s shadow: so the son of the female is the shadow of the male: it is often so indeed; but much of the father’s substance!

SHALLOW. Do you like him, Sir John?

FALSTAFF. Shadow will serve for summer; prick him; for we have a number of shadows to fill up the muster-book.

SHALLOW. Thomas Wart!

FALSTAFF. Where’s he?

WART. Here, sir.

FALSTAFF. Is thy name Wart?

WART. Yea, sir.

FALSTAFF. Thou art a very ragged wart.

SHALLOW. Shall I prick him down, Sir John?

FALSTAFF. It were superfluous; for his apparel is built upon his back and the whole frame stands upon pins: prick him no more.

SHALLOW. Ha, ha, ha! you can do it, sir; you can do it: I commend you well. Francis Feeble!

FEEBLE. Here, sir.

FALSTAFF. What trade art thou, Feeble?

FEEBLE. A woman’s tailor, sir.

SHALLOW. Shall I prick him, sir?

FALSTAFF. You may: but if he had been a man’s tailor, he’ld ha’ prick’d you. Wilt thou make as many holes in an enemy’s battle as thou hast done in a woman’s petticoat?

FEEBLE. I will do my good will, sir; you can have no more.

FALSTAFF. Well said, good woman’s tailor! well said, courageous Feeble! thou wilt be as valiant as the wrathful dove or most magnanimous mouse. Prick the woman’s tailor: well, Master Shallow, deep, Master Shallow.

FEEBLE. I would Wart might have gone, sir.

FALSTAFF. I would thou wert a man’s tailor, that thou mightst mend him and make him fit to go. I cannot put him to a private soldier that is the leader of so many thousands; let that suffice, most forcible Feeble.

FEEBLE. It shall suffice, sir.

FALSTAFF. I am bound to thee, reverend Feeble. Who is next?

SHALLOW. Peter Bullcalf o’ th’ green!

FALSTAFF. Yea, marry, let ‘s see Bullcalf.

BULLCALF. Here, sir.

FALSTAFF. ‘Fore God, a likely fellow! Come, prick me Bullcalf till he roar again.

BULLCALF. O Lord! good my lord captain,—

FALSTAFF. What, dost thou roar before thou art prick’d?

BULLCALF. O Lord, sir! I am a diseased man.

FALSTAFF. What disease hast thou?

BULLCALF. A whoreson cold, sir, a cough, sir, which I caught with ringing in the king’s affairs upon his coronation-day, sir.

FALSTAFF. Come, thou shalt go to the wars in a gown; we will have away thy cold; and I will take such order that thy friends shall ring for thee. Is here all?

SHALLOW. Here is two more called than your number; you must have but four here, sir; and so, I pray you, go in with me to dinner.

FALSTAFF. Come, I will go drink with you, but I cannot tarry dinner. I am glad to see you, by my troth, Master Shallow.

SHALLOW. O, Sir John, do you remember since we lay all night in the windmill in Saint George’s field?

FALSTAFF. No more of that, Master Shallow, no more of that.

SHALLOW. Ha, ‘twas a merry night. And is Jane Nightwork alive?

FALSTAFF. She lives, Master Shallow.

SHALLOW. She never could away with me.

FALSTAFF. Never, never; she would always say she could not abide Master Shallow.

SHALLOW. By the mass, I could anger her to the heart. She was then a bona-roba. Doth she hold her own well?

FALSTAFF. Old, old, Master Shallow.

SHALLOW. Nay, she must be old; she cannot choose but be old; certain she ‘s old; and had Robin Nightwork by old Nightwork before I came to Clement’s Inn.

SILENCE. That’s fifty-five year ago.

SHALLOW. Ha, cousin Silence, that thou hadst seen that that this knight and I have seen! Ha, Sir John, said I well?

FALSTAFF. We have heard the chimes at midnight, Master Shallow.

SHALLOW. That we have, that we have, that we have; in faith, Sir John, we have: our watchword was “Hem boys!” Come, let ‘s to dinner; come, let ‘s to dinner: Jesus, the days that we have seen! Come, come.

[Exeunt Falstaff and the Justices.]

BULLCALF. Good Master Corporate Bardolph, stand my friend; and here ‘s four Harry ten shillings in French crowns for you. In very truth, sir, I had as lief be hanged, sir, as go: and yet, for mine own part, sir, I do not care; but rather, because I am unwilling, and, for mine own part, have a desire to stay with my friends; else, sir, I did not care, for mine own part, so much.

BARDOLPH. Go to; stand aside.

MOULDY. And, good master corporal captain, for my old dame’s sake, stand my friend: she has nobody to do any thing about her when I am gone; and she is old, and cannot help herself: you shall have forty, sir.

BARDOLPH. Go to; stand aside.

FEEBLE. By my troth, I care not; a man can die but once; we owe God a death: I’ll ne’er bear a base mind: an ‘t be my destiny, so; an ‘t be not, so: no man’s too good to serve ‘s prince; and let it go which way it will, he that dies this year is quit for the next.

BARDOLPH. Well said; th’art a good fellow.

FEEBLE. Faith, I’ll bear no base mind.

[Re-enter Falstaff and the Justices.]

FALSTAFF. Come, sir, which men shall I have?

SHALLOW. Four of which you please.

BARDOLPH. Sir, a word with you: I have three pound to free Mouldy and Bullcalf.

FALSTAFF. Go to; well.

SHALLOW. Come, Sir John, which four will you have?

FALSTAFF. Do you choose for me.

SHALLOW. Marry, then, Mouldy, Bullcalf, Feeble, and Shadow.

FALSTAFF. Mouldy and Bullcalf: for you, Mouldy, stay at home till you are past service; and for your part, Bullcalf, grow till you come unto it: I will none of you.

SHALLOW. Sir John, Sir John, do not yourself wrong: they are your likeliest men, and I would have you served with the best.

FALSTAFF. Will you tell me, Master Shallow, how to choose a man? Care I for the limb, the thewes, the stature, bulk, and big assemblance of a man! Give me the spirit, Master Shallow. Here’s Wart; you see what a ragged appearance it is: a’ shall charge you and discharge you with the motion of a pewterer’s hammer, come off and on swifter than he that gibbets on the brewer’s bucket. And this same half-faced fellow, Shadow; give me this man: he presents no mark to the enemy; the foeman may with as great aim level at the edge of a penknife. And for a retreat; how swiftly will this Feeble the woman’s tailor run off! O, give me the spare men, and spare me the great ones. Put me a caliver into Wart’s hand, Bardolph.

BARDOLPH. Hold, Wart, traverse; thus, thus, thus.

FALSTAFF. Come, manage me your caliver. So: very well: go to: very good, exceeding good. O, give me always a little, lean, old, chapt, bald shot. Well said, i’ faith, Wart; thou’rt a good scab: hold, there’s a tester for thee.

SHALLOW. He is not his craft’s master; he doth not do it right. I remember at Mile-end Green, when I lay at Clement’s Inn,—I was then Sir Dagonet in Arthur’s show,—there was a little quiver fellow, and a’ would manage you his piece thus; and a’ would about and about, and come you in and come you in: “rah, tah, tah,” would a’ say; “bounce” would a’ say; and away again would a’ go, and again would ‘a come: I shall ne’er see such a fellow.

FALSTAFF. These fellows will do well. Master Shallow, God keep you, Master Silence: I will not use many words with you. Fare you well, gentlemen both: I thank you: I must a dozen mile to-night. Bardolph, give the soldiers coats.

SHALLOW. Sir John, the Lord bless you! God prosper your affairs! God send us peace! At your return visit our house; let our old acquaintance be renewed: peradventure I will with ye to the court.

FALSTAFF. ‘Fore God, I would you would.

SHALLOW. Go to; I have spoke at a word. God keep you.

FALSTAFF. Fare you well, gentle gentlemen. [Exeunt Justices.] On, Bardolph; lead the men away. [Exeunt Bardolph, Recruits, &c.] As I return, I will fetch off these justices: I do see the bottom of Justice Shallow. Lord, Lord, how subject we old men are to this vice of lying! This same starved justice hath done nothing but prate to me of the wildness of his youth, and the feats he hath done about Turnbull Street; and every third word a lie, duer paid to the hearer than the Turk’s tribute. I do remember him at Clement’s Inn like a man made after supper of a cheese-paring: when a’ was naked, he was, for all the world, like a fork’d radish, with a head fantastically carved upon it with a knife: a’ was so forlorn, that his dimensions to any thick sight were invincible: a’ was the very genius of famine; yet lecherous as a monkey, and the whores called him mandrake: a’ came ever in the rearward of the fashion, and sung those tunes to the overscutch’d huswifes that he heard the carmen whistle, and sware they were his fancies or his good-nights. And now is this Vice’s dagger become a squire, and talks as familiarly of John a Gaunt as if he had been sworn brother to him; and I’ll be sworn a’ ne’er saw him but once in the Tilt-yard; and then he burst his head for crowding among the marshal’s men. I saw it, and told John a Gaunt he beat his own name; for you might have thrust him and all his apparel into an eel-skin; the case of a treble hautboy was a mansion for him, a court: and now has he land and beefs. Well, I’ll be acquainted with him, if I return; and it shall go hard but I’ll make him a philosopher’s two stones to me: if the young dace be a bait for the old pike, I see no reason in the law of nature but I may snap at him. Let time shape, and there an end.

[Exit.]

 

ACT IV.

SCENE I. Yorkshire. Gaultree Forest.

[Enter the Archbishop of York, Mowbray, Hastings, and others.]

ARCHBISHOP. What is this forest call’d?

HASTINGS. ‘Tis Gaultree Forest, an ‘t shall please your grace.

ARCHBISHOP. Here stand, my lords; and send discoverers forth To know the numbers of our enemies.

HASTINGS. We have sent forth already.

ARCHBISHOP. ‘Tis well done. My friends and brethren in these great affairs, I must acquaint you that I have received New-dated letters from Northumberland; Their cold intent, tenour and substance, thus: Here doth he wish his person, with such powers As might hold sortance with his quality, The