The First Part of Henry IV:
Act 3, Scene 3
FALSTAFF
1 Bardolph, am I not fallen away vilely since this last action?
2 do I not bate? do I not dwindle? Why my skin hangs
3 about me like an like an old lady's loose gown; I
4 am withered like an old apple-john. Well, I'll repent,
5 and that suddenly, while I am in some liking; I
6 shall be out of heart shortly, and then I shall have
7 no strength to repent. An I have not forgotten what
8 the inside of a church is made of, I am a peppercorn,
9 a brewer's horse: the inside of a church! Company,
10 villanous company, hath been the spoil of me.
BARDOLPH
11 Sir John, you are so fretful, you cannot live long.
FALSTAFF
12 Why, there is it: come sing me a bawdy song;
13 make me merry. I was as virtuously given as a
14 gentleman need to be; virtuous enough; swore
15 little; diced not above seven times a week; went
16 to a bawdy-house once in a quarter—of an hour;
17 paid money that I borrowed, three of four
18 times; lived well and in good compass: and
19 now I live out of all order, out of all
20 compass.
BARDOLPH
21 Why, you are so fat, Sir John, that you
22 must needs be out of all compass, out
23 of all reasonable compass, Sir John.
FALSTAFF
24 Do thou amend thy face, and I'll amend my life:
25 thou art our admiral, thou bearest the lantern in
26 the poop, but 'tis in the nose of thee; thou art the
27 Knight of the Burning Lamp.
BARDOLPH
28 Why, Sir John, my face does you no harm.
FALSTAFF
29 No, I'll be sworn; I make as good use of it as many
30 a man doth of a Death's-head or a memento mori: I
31 never see thy face but I think upon hell-fire and Dives
32 that lived in purple; for there he is in his robes,
33 burning, burning. If thou wert any way given
34 to virtue, I would swear by thy face; my oath
35 should be 'By this fire, that's God's angel:' but
36 thou art altogether given over; and wert indeed,
37 but for the light in thy face, the son of utter
38 darkness. When thou rannest up Gadshill in the
39 night to catch my horse, if I did not think thou hadst
40 been an ignis fatuus or a ball of wildfire, there's no
41 purchase in money. O, thou art a perpetual triumph,
42 an everlasting bonfire-light! Thou hast saved me a
43 thousand marks in links and torches, walking with thee
44 in the night betwixt tavern and tavern: but the sack
45 that thou hast drunk me would have bought me lights
46 as good cheap at the dearest chandler's in Europe. I
47 have maintained that salamander of yours with fire any
48 time this two and thirty years; God reward me for it!
BARDOLPH
49 'Sblood, I would my face were in your belly!
FALSTAFF
50 God-a-mercy! so should I be sure to be
51 heart-burned.
52 How now, Dame Partlet the hen! have
53 you inquired yet who picked my pocket?
Hostess
54 Why, Sir John, what do you think, Sir John? do you
55 think I keep thieves in my house? I have searched,
56 I have inquired, so has my husband, man by man,
57 boy by boy, servant by servant: the tithe of a hair
58 was never lost in my house before.
FALSTAFF
59 Ye lie, hostess: Bardolph was shaved and lost many
60 a hair; and I'll be sworn my pocket was picked. Go
61 to, you are a woman, go.
Hostess
62 Who, I? no; I defy thee: God's light, I was
63 never called so in mine own house before.
FALSTAFF
64 Go to, I know you well enough.
Hostess
65 No, Sir John; You do not know me, Sir John. I know
66 you, Sir John: you owe me money, Sir John; and now
67 you pick a quarrel to beguile me of it: I bought you a
68 dozen of shirts to your back.
FALSTAFF
69 Dowlas, filthy dowlas: I have given them away to
70 bakers' wives, and they have made bolters of them.
Hostess
71 Now, as I am a true woman, holland of eight
72 shillings an ell. You owe money here besides,
73 Sir John, for your diet and by-drinkings, and
74 money lent you, four and twenty pound.
FALSTAFF
75 He had his part of it; let him pay.
Hostess
76 He? alas, he is poor; he hath nothing.
FALSTAFF
77 How! poor? look upon his face; what call you rich?
78 let them coin his nose, let them coin his cheeks: I'll
79 not pay a denier. What, will you make a younker of
80 me? shall I not take mine case in mine inn but I shall
81 have my pocket picked? I have lost a seal-ring of my
82 grandfather's worth forty mark.
Hostess
83 O Jesu, I have heard the prince tell him, I
84 know not how oft, that ring was copper!
FALSTAFF
85 How! the prince is a Jack, a sneak-cup: 'sblood, an
86 he were here, I would cudgel him like a dog, if he
87 would say so.
Enter the PRINCE marching [with PETO,]
and FALSTAFF meets him playing on his
truncheon like a fife.
88 How now, lad! is the wind in that
89 door, i' faith? must we all march?
BARDOLPH
90 Yea, two and two, Newgate fashion.
Hostess
91 My lord, I pray you, hear me.
PRINCE HENRY
92 What sayest thou, Mistress Quickly? How doth thy
93 husband? I love him well; he is an honest man.
Hostess
94 Good my lord, hear me.
FALSTAFF
95 Prithee, let her alone, and list to me.
PRINCE HENRY
96 What sayest thou, Jack?
FALSTAFF
97 The other night I fell asleep here behind the arras
98 and had my pocket picked: this house is turned
99 bawdy-house; they pick pockets.
PRINCE HENRY
100 What didst thou lose, Jack?
FALSTAFF
101 Wilt thou believe me, Hal? three or four bonds
102 of forty pound apiece, and a seal-ring of my
103 grandfather's.
PRINCE HENRY
104 A trifle, some eight-penny matter.
Hostess
105 So I told him, my lord; and I said I heard your
106 grace say so: and, my lord, he speaks most vilely
107 of you, like a foul-mouthed man as he is; and said
108 he would cudgel you.
PRINCE HENRY
109 What! he did not?
Hostess
110 There's neither faith, truth, nor womanhood
111 in me else.
FALSTAFF
112 There's no more faith in thee than in a stewed
113 prune; nor no more truth in thee than in a drawn
114 fox; and for womanhood, Maid Marian may be the
115 deputy's wife of the ward to thee. Go, you thing, go
Hostess
116 Say, what thing? what thing?
FALSTAFF
117 What thing! why, a thing to thank God on.
Hostess
118 I am no thing to thank God on, I would thou
119 shouldst know it; I am an honest man's wife:
120 and, setting thy knighthood aside, thou art a
121 knave to call me so.
FALSTAFF
122 Setting thy womanhood aside, thou art a beast
123 to say otherwise.
Hostess
124 Say, what beast, thou knave, thou?
FALSTAFF
125 What beast! why, an otter.
PRINCE HENRY
126 An otter, Sir John! Why an otter?
FALSTAFF
127 Why, she's neither fish nor flesh; a
128 man knows not where to have her.
Hostess
129 Thou art an unjust man in saying so: thou or any
130 man knows where to have me, thou knave, thou!
PRINCE HENRY
131 Thou sayest true, hostess; and he slanders thee
132 most grossly.
Hostess
133 So he doth you, my lord; and said this other day
134 you ought him a thousand pound.
PRINCE HENRY
135 Sirrah, do I owe you a thousand pound?
FALSTAFF
136 A thousand pound, Ha! a million: thy love is
137 worth a million: thou owest me thy love.
Hostess
138 Nay, my lord, he called you Jack, and said he would
139 cudgel you.
BARDOLPH
141 Indeed, Sir John, you said so.
FALSTAFF
142 Yea, if he said my ring was copper.
PRINCE HENRY
143 I say 'tis copper: darest thou be as good
144 as thy word now?
FALSTAFF
145 Why, Hal, thou knowest, as thou art but man,
146 I dare: but as thou art prince, I fear thee as I
147 fear the roaring of a lion's whelp.
PRINCE HENRY
148 And why not as the lion?
FALSTAFF
149 The king is to be feared as the lion: dost thou
150 think I'll fear thee as I fear thy father? nay, an
151 I do, I pray God my girdle break.
PRINCE HENRY
152 O, if it should, how would thy guts fall about thy
153 knees! But, sirrah, there's no room for faith, truth,
154 nor honesty in this bosom of thine; it is all filled up
155 with guts and midriff. Charge an honest woman with
156 picking thy pocket! why, thou whoreson, impudent,
157 embossed rascal, if there were anything in thy pocket
158 but tavern-reckonings, memorandums of bawdy-houses,
159 and one poor penny-worth of sugar-candy to make thee
160 long-winded, if thy pocket were enriched with any
161 other injuries but these, I am a villain: and yet you will
162 stand to if; you will not pocket up wrong: art thou
163 not ashamed?
FALSTAFF
164 Dost thou hear, Hal? thou knowest in the state of
165 innocency Adam fell; and what should poor Jack
166 Falstaff do in the days of villany? Thou seest I have
167 more flesh than another man, and therefore more
168 frailty. You confess then, you picked my pocket?
PRINCE HENRY
169 It appears so by the story.
FALSTAFF
170 Hostess, I forgive thee: go, make ready breakfast;
171 love thy husband, look to thy servants, cherish thy
172 guests: thou shalt find me tractable to any honest
173 reason: thou seest I am pacified still. Nay, prithee,
174 be gone.
175 Now Hal, to the news at court: for the robbery, lad,
176 how is that answered?
PRINCE HENRY
177 O, my sweet beef, I must still be good angel to
178 thee: the money is paid back again.
FALSTAFF
179 O, I do not like that paying back; 'tis a
180 double labor.
PRINCE HENRY
181 I am good friends with my father and may do
182 any thing.
FALSTAFF
183 Rob me the exchequer the first thing thou doest, and
184 do it with unwashed hands too.
PRINCE HENRY
186 I have procured thee, Jack, a charge of foot.
FALSTAFF
187 I would it had been of horse. Where shall I find one
188 that can steal well? O for a fine thief, of the age of
189 two and twenty or thereabouts! I am heinously
190 unprovided. Well, God be thanked for these rebels,
191 they offend none but the virtuous: I laud them, I
192 praise them.
PRINCE HENRY
193 Bardolph!
PRINCE HENRY
195 Go bear this letter to Lord John of Lancaster,
196 To my brother John; this to my Lord of Westmoreland.
197 Go, Peto, to horse, to horse; for thou and I
198 Have thirty miles to ride yet ere dinner time.
199 Jack, meet me tomorrow in the Temple Hall
200 At two o'clock in the afternoon.
201 There shalt thou know thy charge; and there receive
202 Money and order for their furniture.
203 The land is burning; Percy stands on high;
204 And either we or they must lower lie.
FALSTAFF
205 Rare words! brave world! Hostess, my breakfast, come!
206 O, I could wish this tavern were my drum!