Fal. I am glad to see you well, good master Robert Shallow: Master Sure-card, as I think. Shal. No, sir John; it is my cousin Silence, in commission with me. Fal. Good master Silence, it well befits you should be of the peace. Sil. Your good worship is welcome. Fal. Fye! this is hot weather.-Gentlemen, have you provided me here half a dozen sufficient men? Shal. Marry, have we, sir. Will you sit? Fal. Let me see them, I beseech you. Shal. Where's the roll? where's the roll? where's the roll?-Let me see, let me see. So, 30, so, so: Yea, marry, sir:-Ralph Mouldy:let them appear as I call; let them do so, let them do so. Let me see: Where is Mouldy? Moul. Here, an't please you. Shal. What think you, sir John? a good limbed fellow: young, strong, and of good friends. Fal. Is thy name Mouldy? Moul. Yea, an't please you. Fal. 'Tis the more time thou wert used. Shal. Ha, ha, ha! most excellent, i'faith! things, that are mouldy, lack use: Very singu lar good!-In faith, well said, sir John; very well said. To Shallow Fal. Prick him. Moul. I was pricked 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 have pricked me; there are other men fitter to go out than I. Fal. Go to; peace, Mouldy, you shall go. Mouldy, it is time you were spent. Moul. Spent! J Shal. Peace, fellow, peace; stand aside; Know you where you are? For the other, sir John :let me see-Simon Shadow! Ful. Ay, marry, let me have him to sit under : he's like to be a cold soldier. 2 d. Shal. Where's Shadow ?1 Shad. Here, sir. Fal. Shadow, whose son art thou? Fal. 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 not much of the father's substance. Shal. Do you like him, sir John? Fal. Shadow will serve for summer,-prick him; for we have a number of shadows to fill up the muster-book. Shal. Thomas Wart! Wart. Here, sir. Fal. Is thy naine Wart? Wart. Yea, sir. Fal. Thou art a very ragged wart. Shal. Shall I prick him, sir John? built upon his back, and the whole frame stands upon pins: prick him no more. Shal. Ha, ha, ha!-you can do it, sir; you can do it: I commend you well.-Francis Feeble! Fee. Here, sir. Fal. What trade art thou, Feeble? Shal. Shall I prick him, sir? Fal. You may: but if he had been a man's tailor, he would have pricked you -Wilt thou make as many holes in an enemy's battle, as thou hast done in a woman's petticoat? Fee. I will do my good will, sir; you can have no more. Fal. 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. Fee, I would, Wart might have gone, sir. Fal. I would, thou wert a man's tailor; that thou might'st 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. Fee. It shall suffice, sir. Fal. I am bound to thee, reverend Feeble.- Shal. Peter Bull-calf of the green! Fal. 'Fore God, a likely fellow-Come, prick me Bull-calf till he roar again. Bull. O lord! good my lord captain,- Bull. O lord, sir! I am a diseased man. Bull. A whoreson cold, sir; a cough, sir; which I caught with ringing in the king's affairs, upon his coronation day, sir. Fal. 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? Shal. 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. Fal. Come, I will go drink with you, but I cannot tarry dinner. I am glad to see you, in good troth, master Shallow. Shal. O, sir John, do you remember since we lay all night in the windmill in Saint George's fields? Fal. No more of that, good master Shallow, no more of that. Shal. Ha, it was a merry night. And is Jane Night-work alive? Ful. She lives, master Shallow. Shal. She never could away with me. Fal. Never, never: she would always say, she Fal. It were superfluous; for his apparel is could not abide master Shallow. Shal. By the mass, I could anger her to the heart. She was then a bona-roba. Doth she hold her own well? Fal. Old, old, master Shallow. Shal. Nay, she must be old; she cannot choose but be old; certain, she's old; and had Robin Night-work, by old Night-work, before I came to Clement's-inn. Sil. That's fifty-five year ago. Shal. Ha, cousin Silence, that thou hadst seen that, that this knight and I have seen!-Ha, sir John, said I well? Fal. We have heard the chimes at midnight, master Shallow. Shal. 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 :-O, the days that we have seen!-Come, come. [Exeunt Falstaff, Shallow, and Silence. Bull. Good master corporate Bardolph, stand my friend; and here is four Harry ten shillings in French crowns for you. In very truth, sir, 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. Bard. Go to; stand aside. Moul. 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. Bard. Go to; stand aside. Fee. 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 his prince; and, let it go which way it will, he, that dies this year, is quit for the next. Bard. Well said; thou'rt a good fellow. Re-enter FALSTAFF, and Justices. Fal. Come, sir, which men shall I have? Shal. Four, of which you please. Bard. Sir, a word with you:-I have three pound to free Mouldy and Bull-calf. Fal. Go to; well. 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: he 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. Bard. Hold, Wart, traverse; thus, thus, thus. Fal. Come, manage me your caliver. So:very well go to:-very good-exceeding good.-O, give me always a little, lean, old, chapped, bald shot.-Well said, i'faith, Wart; thou'rt a good scab: hold, there's a tester for thee. Shal. 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 never see such a fellow. Fal. 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. Shal. Sir John, heaven bless you, and prosper your affairs, and send us peace! As you return, visit my house; let our old acquaintance be renewed: peradventure, I will wish you to the court. you well. Fal. I would you would, master Shallow. Shal. Go to; I have spoke, at a word. Fare [Exeunt Shallow and Silence. Fal. Fare you well, gentle gentlemen. 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 Shal. Come, sir John, which four will you are to this vice of lying! This same starved jus have? Fal. Do you choose for me. Shal. Marry then,-Mouldy, Bull-calf, Feeble, and Shadow, Fal. Mouldy, and Bull-calf:-For you, Mouldy, stay at home still; you are past service:and, for your part, Bull-calf,-grow till you come unto it; I will none of you. Shal. Sir John, sir John, do not yourself wrong; they are your likeliest men, and I would have you served with the best. Fal. Will you tell me, master Shallow, how tice 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 he was naked, he was, for all the world, like a forked radish, with a head fantastically carved upon it with a knife: he was so forlorn, that his dimensions to any thick sight were invisible: he was the very Genius of famine; yet lecherous as a monkey, and the whores called him-mandrake: he came ever in the rear-ward | own name: for you might have truss'd him, and of the fashion; and sung those tunes to the overscutched huswives 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 of Gaunt, as if he had been sworn brother to him and I'll be sworn he never saw him but once in the Tilt-yard; and then he burst his head, for crouding among the marshal's men. I saw it; and told John of Gaunt, he beat his 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 beeves. Well; I will be acquainted with him, if I return: and it shall go hard, but I will 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.-A forest in Yorkshire. Enter the Archbishop of YORK, MOWBRAY, HASTINGS, and Others. Arch. What is this forest call'd? Hast. 'Tis Gualtree forest, an't shall please your grace. Arch. Here stand, my lords; and send discoverers forth, To know the numbers of our enemies. My friends, and brethren in these great affairs, And dash themselves to pieces. Enter a Messenger. Hast. Now, what news? Mess. West of this forest, scarcely off a mile, In goodly form comes on the enemy: And, by the ground they hide, I judge their number West. Health and fair greeting from our general, The prince, lord John and duke of Lancaster. Arch. Say on, my lord of Westmoreland, in peace; What doth concern your coming? West. Then, my lord, Unto your grace do I in chief address Whose white investments figure innocence, Arch. Wherefore do I this ?-so the question stands. Briefly to this end :-We are all diseas'd; Our very veins of life. Hear me more plainly. And find our griefs heavier than our offences. We are denied access unto his person, The dangers of the days but newly gone, West. When ever yet was your appeal denied? West. There is no need of any such redress; West. O my good Lord Mowbray, That need to be reviv'd and breath'd in me? Their eyes of fire sparkling through sights of And the loud trumpet blowing them together; My father from the breast of Bolingbroke, West. You speak, lord Mowbray, now you The earl of Hereford was reputed then But if your father had been victor there, Were set on Hereford, whom they doted on, But this is mere digression from my purpose.— And it proceeds from policy, not love. West. Mowbray, you overween, to take it so; Mowb. Well, by my will, we shall admit no West. That argues but the shame of your of fence: A rotten case abides no handling. Hust. Hath the prince John a full commission, For this contains our general grievances :--- We come within our awful banks again, In sight of both our battles we may meet: Arch. My lord, we will do so. [Exit Westmoreland. Mowb. There is a thing within my bosom, tells me, That no conditions of our peace can stand. Upon such large terms, and so absolute, Arch. No, no, my lord; Note this,-the king is weary Of dainty and such picking grievances: Hast. Besides, the king hath wasted all his rods SCENE II.-Another part of the forest. Enter, from one side, MOWBRAY, the Archbishop, HASTINGS, and others; from the other side, Prince JOHN of LANCASTER, WESTMORELAND, Officers, and Attendants. P. John. You are well encounter'd here, my Good day to you, gentle lord archbishop ;- It is even so :- Arch. Good my lord of Lancaster, Whereon this Hydra son of war is born: Whose dangerous eyes may well be charm'd asleep, With grant of our most just and right desires; And true obedience, of this madness cur'd, Stoop tamely to the foot of majesty. Mowb. If not, we ready are to try our fortunes To the last man. Hast. And though we here fall down, We have supplies to second our attempt; If they miscarry, theirs shall second them; |