| ACT III SCENE III | Eastcheap. The Boar's-Head Tavern. |
| [Enter FALSTAFF and BARDOLPH] |
| FALSTAFF | Bardolph, am I not fallen away vilely since this last |
| action? do I not bate? do I not dwindle? Why my |
| skin hangs about me like an like an old lady's loose |
| gown; I am withered like an old apple-john. Well, |
| I'll repent, and that suddenly, while I am in some | 5 |
| liking; I shall be out of heart shortly, and then I |
| shall have no strength to repent. An I have not |
| forgotten what the inside of a church is made of, I |
| am a peppercorn, a brewer's horse: the inside of a |
| church! Company, villanous company, hath been the | 10 |
| spoil of me. |
| BARDOLPH | Sir John, you are so fretful, you cannot live long. |
| FALSTAFF | Why, there is it: come sing me a bawdy song; make |
| me merry. I was as virtuously given as a gentleman |
| need to be; virtuous enough; swore little; diced not | 15 |
| above seven times a week; went to a bawdy-house once |
| in a quarter--of an hour; paid money that I |
| borrowed, three of four times; lived well and in |
| good compass: and now I live out of all order, out |
| of all compass. | 20 |
| BARDOLPH | Why, you are so fat, Sir John, that you must needs |
| be out of all compass, out of all reasonable |
| compass, Sir John. |
| FALSTAFF | Do thou amend thy face, and I'll amend my life: |
| thou art our admiral, thou bearest the lantern in | 25 |
| the poop, but 'tis in the nose of thee; thou art the |
| Knight of the Burning Lamp. |
| BARDOLPH | Why, Sir John, my face does you no harm. |
| FALSTAFF | No, I'll be sworn; I make as good use of it as many |
| a man doth of a Death's-head or a memento mori: I | 30 |
| never see thy face but I think upon hell-fire and |
| Dives that lived in purple; for there he is in his |
| robes, burning, burning. If thou wert any way |
| given to virtue, I would swear by thy face; my oath |
| should be 'By this fire, that's God's angel:' but | 35 |
| thou art altogether given over; and wert indeed, but |
| for the light in thy face, the son of utter |
| darkness. When thou rannest up Gadshill in the |
| night to catch my horse, if I did not think thou |
| hadst been an ignis fatuus or a ball of wildfire, | 40 |
| there's no purchase in money. O, thou art a |
| perpetual triumph, an everlasting bonfire-light! |
| Thou hast saved me a thousand marks in links and |
| torches, walking with thee in the night betwixt |
| tavern and tavern: but the sack that thou hast | 45 |
| drunk me would have bought me lights as good cheap |
| at the dearest chandler's in Europe. I have |
| maintained that salamander of yours with fire any |
| time this two and thirty years; God reward me for |
| it! | 50 |
| BARDOLPH | 'Sblood, I would my face were in your belly! |
| FALSTAFF | God-a-mercy! so should I be sure to be heart-burned. |
[Enter Hostess] |
| How now, Dame Partlet the hen! have you inquired |
| yet who picked my pocket? |
| Hostess | Why, Sir John, what do you think, Sir John? do you | 55 |
| think I keep thieves in my house? I have searched, |
| I have inquired, so has my husband, man by man, boy |
| by boy, servant by servant: the tithe of a hair |
| was never lost in my house before. |
| FALSTAFF | Ye lie, hostess: Bardolph was shaved and lost many | 60 |
| a hair; and I'll be sworn my pocket was picked. Go |
| to, you are a woman, go. |
| Hostess | Who, I? no; I defy thee: God's light, I was never |
| called so in mine own house before. |
| FALSTAFF | Go to, I know you well enough. | 65 |
| Hostess | No, Sir John; You do not know me, Sir John. I know |
| you, Sir John: you owe me money, Sir John; and now
|
| you pick a quarrel to beguile me of it: I bought |
| you a dozen of shirts to your back. |
| FALSTAFF | Dowlas, filthy dowlas: I have given them away to | 70 |
| bakers' wives, and they have made bolters of them. |
| Hostess | Now, as I am a true woman, holland of eight |
| shillings an ell. You owe money here besides, Sir |
| John, for your diet and by-drinkings, and money lent |
| you, four and twenty pound. | 75 |
| FALSTAFF | He had his part of it; let him pay. |
| Hostess | He? alas, he is poor; he hath nothing. |
| FALSTAFF | How! poor? look upon his face; what call you rich? |
| let them coin his nose, let them coin his cheeks: |
| Ill not pay a denier. What, will you make a younker | 80 |
| of me? shall I not take mine case in mine inn but I |
| shall have my pocket picked? I have lost a |
| seal-ring of my grandfather's worth forty mark. |
| Hostess | O Jesu, I have heard the prince tell him, I know not |
| how oft, that ring was copper! | 85 |
| FALSTAFF | How! the prince is a Jack, a sneak-cup: 'sblood, an |
| he were here, I would cudgel him like a dog, if he |
| would say so. |
[
Enter PRINCE HENRY and PETO, marching, and FALSTAFF
meets them playing on his truncheon like a life
] |
| How now, lad! is the wind in that door, i' faith? |
| must we all march? | 90 |
| BARDOLPH | Yea, two and two, Newgate fashion. |
| Hostess | My lord, I pray you, hear me. |
| PRINCE HENRY | What sayest thou, Mistress Quickly? How doth thy |
| husband? I love him well; he is an honest man. |
| Hostess | Good my lord, hear me. | 95 |
| FALSTAFF | Prithee, let her alone, and list to me. |
| PRINCE HENRY | What sayest thou, Jack? |
| FALSTAFF | The other night I fell asleep here behind the arras |
| and had my pocket picked: this house is turned |
| bawdy-house; they pick pockets. | 100 |
| PRINCE HENRY | What didst thou lose, Jack? |
| FALSTAFF | Wilt thou believe me, Hal? three or four bonds of |
| forty pound apiece, and a seal-ring of my |
| grandfather's. |
| PRINCE HENRY | A trifle, some eight-penny matter. | 105 |
| Hostess | So I told him, my lord; and I said I heard your |
| grace say so: and, my lord, he speaks most vilely |
| of you, like a foul-mouthed man as he is; and said |
| he would cudgel you. |
| PRINCE HENRY | What! he did not? | 110 |
| Hostess | There's neither faith, truth, nor womanhood in me else. |
| FALSTAFF | There's no more faith in thee than in a stewed |
| prune; nor no more truth in thee than in a drawn |
| fox; and for womanhood, Maid Marian may be the |
| deputy's wife of the ward to thee. Go, you thing, | 115 |
| go |
| Hostess | Say, what thing? what thing? |
| FALSTAFF | What thing! why, a thing to thank God on. |
| Hostess | I am no thing to thank God on, I would thou |
| shouldst know it; I am an honest man's wife: and, | 120 |
| setting thy knighthood aside, thou art a knave to |
| call me so. |
| FALSTAFF | Setting thy womanhood aside, thou art a beast to say |
| otherwise. |
| Hostess | Say, what beast, thou knave, thou? | 125 |
| FALSTAFF | What beast! why, an otter. |
| PRINCE HENRY | An otter, Sir John! Why an otter? |
| FALSTAFF | Why, she's neither fish nor flesh; a man knows not |
| where to have her. |
| Hostess | Thou art an unjust man in saying so: thou or any | 130 |
| man knows where to have me, thou knave, thou! |
| PRINCE HENRY | Thou sayest true, hostess; and he slanders thee most grossly. |
| Hostess | So he doth you, my lord; and said this other day you |
| ought him a thousand pound. |
| PRINCE HENRY | Sirrah, do I owe you a thousand pound? | 135 |
| FALSTAFF | A thousand pound, Ha! a million: thy love is worth |
| a million: thou owest me thy love. |
| Hostess | Nay, my lord, he called you Jack, and said he would |
| cudgel you. |
| FALSTAFF | Did I, Bardolph? | 140 |
| BARDOLPH | Indeed, Sir John, you said so. |
| FALSTAFF | Yea, if he said my ring was copper. |
| PRINCE HENRY | I say 'tis copper: darest thou be as good as thy word now? |
| FALSTAFF | Why, Hal, thou knowest, as thou art but man, I dare: |
| but as thou art prince, I fear thee as I fear the | 145 |
| roaring of a lion's whelp. |
| PRINCE HENRY | And why not as the lion? |
| FALSTAFF | The king is to be feared as the lion: dost thou |
| think I'll fear thee as I fear thy father? nay, an |
| I do, I pray God my girdle break. | 150 |
| PRINCE HENRY | O, if it should, how would thy guts fall about thy |
| knees! But, sirrah, there's no room for faith, |
| truth, nor honesty in this bosom of thine; it is all |
| filled up with guts and midriff. Charge an honest |
| woman with picking thy pocket! why, thou whoreson, | 155 |
| impudent, embossed rascal, if there were anything in |
| thy pocket but tavern-reckonings, memorandums of |
| bawdy-houses, and one poor penny-worth of |
| sugar-candy to make thee long-winded, if thy pocket |
| were enriched with any other injuries but these, I | 160 |
| am a villain: and yet you will stand to if; you will |
| not pocket up wrong: art thou not ashamed? |
| FALSTAFF | Dost thou hear, Hal? thou knowest in the state of |
| innocency Adam fell; and what should poor Jack |
| Falstaff do in the days of villany? Thou seest I | 165 |
| have more flesh than another man, and therefore more |
| frailty. You confess then, you picked my pocket? |
| PRINCE HENRY | It appears so by the story. |
| FALSTAFF | Hostess, I forgive thee: go, make ready breakfast; |
| love thy husband, look to thy servants, cherish thy | 170 |
| guests: thou shalt find me tractable to any honest |
| reason: thou seest I am pacified still. Nay, |
| prithee, be gone. |
[Exit Hostess] |
| Now Hal, to the news at court: for the robbery, |
| lad, how is that answered? | 175 |
| PRINCE HENRY | O, my sweet beef, I must still be good angel to |
| thee: the money is paid back again. |
| FALSTAFF | O, I do not like that paying back; 'tis a double labour. |
| PRINCE HENRY | I am good friends with my father and may do any thing. |
| FALSTAFF | Rob me the exchequer the first thing thou doest, and | 180 |
| do it with unwashed hands too. |
| BARDOLPH | Do, my lord. |
| PRINCE HENRY | I have procured thee, Jack, a charge of foot. |
| FALSTAFF | I would it had been of horse. Where shall I find |
| one that can steal well? O for a fine thief, of the | 185 |
| age of two and twenty or thereabouts! I am |
| heinously unprovided. Well, God be thanked for |
| these rebels, they offend none but the virtuous: I |
| laud them, I praise them. |
| PRINCE HENRY | Bardolph! | 190 |
| BARDOLPH | My lord? |
| PRINCE HENRY | Go bear this letter to Lord John of Lancaster, to my |
| brother John; this to my Lord of Westmoreland. |
[Exit Bardolph] |
| Go, Peto, to horse, to horse; for thou and I have |
| thirty miles to ride yet ere dinner time. | 195 |
[Exit Peto] |
| Jack, meet me to-morrow in the temple hall at two |
| o'clock in the afternoon. |
| There shalt thou know thy charge; and there receive |
| Money and order for their furniture. |
| The land is burning; Percy stands on high; | 200 |
| And either we or they must lower lie. |
| [Exit PRINCE HENRY] |
| FALSTAFF | Rare words! brave world! Hostess, my breakfast, come! |
| O, I could wish this tavern were my drum! |
| [Exit] |
1 Henry IV Overview (with theme analysis)