preserve thy good 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 and wearied posts
Come from the north: and, as I came along,
I met and overtook a dozen captains,
Bare-headed, sweating, knocking at the taverns,
And asking every one for Sir John Falstaff.
Prince
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 Henry, Poins, Peto, and Bardolph.
Falstaff
Now comes in the sweetest morsel of the night, and we must hence and leave it unpicked.
Knocking within. More knocking at the door!
Re-enter
Bardolph.
How now! what’s the matter?
Bardolph
You must away to court, sir, presently; a dozen captains stay at door for you.
Falstaff
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.
Doll
I cannot speak; if my heart be not read to burst—well, sweet Jack, have a care of thyself.
Falstaff
Farewell, farewell.
Exeunt Falstaff and Bardolph.
Hostess
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.
Bardolph
Within. Mistress Tearsheet!
Hostess
What’s the matter?
Bardolph
Within. Bid Mistress Tearsheet come to my master.
Hostess
O, run, Doll, run; run, good Doll: come.
She comes blubbered. Yea, will you come, Doll?
Exeunt.
Act III
Scene I
Westminster. The palace.
Enter the
King in his nightgown, with a Page.
King
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 hush’d with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber,
Than in the perfumed chambers of the great,
Under the canopies of costly state,
And lull’d with sound of sweetest melody?
O thou dull god, why liest thou with the vile
In loathsome beds, and leavest 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 deafening 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
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