1    What the devil hast thou brought there? apple-johns?
2    thou knowest Sir John cannot endure an apple-john.

3    Mass, thou sayest true. The prince once set a dish
4    of apple-johns before him, and told him there were
5    five more Sir Johns, and, putting off his hat, said
6    'I will now take my leave of these six dry, round,
7    old, withered knights.' It angered him to the
8    heart: but he hath forgot that.

9    Why, then, cover, and set them down: and see if
10   thou canst find out Sneak's noise; Mistress
11   Tearsheet would fain hear some music. Dispatch: the
12   room where they supped is too hot; they'll come in straight.

13   Sirrah, here will be the prince and Master Poins
14   anon; and they will put on two of our jerkins and
15   aprons; and Sir John must not know of it: Bardolph
16   hath brought word.

17   By the mass, here will be old Utis: it will be an
18   excellent stratagem.

19   I'll see if I can find out Sneak.

20   I' faith, sweetheart, methinks now you are in an
21   excellent good temperality: your pulsidge beats as
22   extraordinarily as heart would desire; and your
23   colour, I warrant you, is as red as any rose, in good
24   truth, la! But, i' faith, you have drunk too much
25   canaries; and that's a marvellous searching wine,
26   and it perfumes the blood ere one can say 'What's
27   this?' How do you now?

28   Better than I was: hem!

29   Why, that's well said; a good heart's worth gold.
30   Lo, here comes Sir John.

Singing
31    'When Arthur first in court,'
32   --Empty the jordan.
Exit First Drawer
Singing
33   --'And was a worthy king.' How now, Mistress Doll!

34   Sick of a calm; yea, good faith.

35   So is all her sect; an they be once in a calm, they are sick.

36   You muddy rascal, is that all the comfort you give me?

37   You make fat rascals, Mistress Doll.

38   I make them! gluttony and diseases make them; I
39   make them not.

40   If the cook help to make the gluttony, you help to
41   make the diseases, Doll: we catch of you, Doll, we
42   catch of you; grant that, my poor virtue grant that.

43   Yea, joy, our chains and our jewels.

44   'Your broaches, pearls, and ouches:' for to serve
45   bravely is to come halting off, you know: to come
46   off the breach with his pike bent bravely, and to
47   surgery bravely; to venture upon the charged
48   chambers bravely,--

49   Hang yourself, you muddy conger, hang yourself!

50   By my troth, this is the old fashion; you two never
51   meet but you fall to some discord: you are both,
52   i' good truth, as rheumatic as two dry toasts; you
53   cannot one bear with another's confirmities. What
54   the good-year! one must bear, and that must be
55   you: you are the weaker vessel, as they say, the
56   emptier vessel.

57   Can a weak empty vessel bear such a huge full
58   hogshead? there's a whole merchant's venture of
59   Bourdeaux stuff in him; you have not seen a hulk
60   better stuffed in the hold. Come, I'll be friends
61   with thee, Jack: thou art going to the wars; and
62   whether I shall ever see thee again or no, there is
63   nobody cares.

64   Sir, Ancient Pistol's below, and would speak with
65   you.

66   Hang him, swaggering rascal! let him not come
67   hither: it is the foul-mouthed'st rogue in England.

68   If he swagger, let him not come here: no, by my
69   faith; I must live among my neighbours: I'll no
70   swaggerers: I am in good name and fame with the
71   very best: shut the door; there comes no swaggerers
72   here: I have not lived all this while, to have
73   swaggering now: shut the door, I pray you.

74   Dost thou hear, hostess?

75   Pray ye, pacify yourself, Sir John: there comes no
76   swaggerers here.

77   Dost thou hear? it is mine ancient.

78   Tilly-fally, Sir John, ne'er tell me: your ancient
79   swaggerer comes not in my doors. I was before Master
80   Tisick, the debuty, t'other day; and, as he said to
81   me, 'twas no longer ago than Wednesday last, 'I'
82   good faith, neighbour Quickly,' says he; Master
83   Dumbe, our minister, was by then; 'neighbour
84   Quickly,' says he, 'receive those that are civil;
85   for,' said he, 'you are in an ill name:' now a'
86   said so, I can tell whereupon; 'for,' says he, 'you
87   are an honest woman, and well thought on; therefore
88   take heed what guests you receive: receive,' says
89   he, 'no swaggering companions.' There comes none
90   here: you would bless you to hear what he said:
91   no, I'll no swaggerers.

92   He's no swaggerer, hostess; a tame cheater, i'
93   faith; you may stroke him as gently as a puppy
94   greyhound: he'll not swagger with a Barbary hen, if
95   her feathers turn back in any show of resistance.
96   Call him up, drawer.

97   Cheater, call you him? I will bar no honest man my
98   house, nor no cheater: but I do not love
99   swaggering, by my troth; I am the worse, when one
100  says swagger: feel, masters, how I shake; look you,
101  I warrant you.

102  So you do, hostess.

103  Do I? yea, in very truth, do I, an 'twere an aspen
104  leaf: I cannot abide swaggerers.

105  God save you, Sir John!

106  Welcome, Ancient Pistol. Here, Pistol, I charge
107  you with a cup of sack: do you discharge upon mine hostess.

108  I will discharge upon her, Sir John, with two bullets.

109  She is Pistol-proof, sir; you shall hardly offend
110  her.

111  Come, I'll drink no proofs nor no bullets: I'll
112  drink no more than will do me good, for no man's
113  pleasure, I.

114  Then to you, Mistress Dorothy; I will charge you.

115  Charge me! I scorn you, scurvy companion. What!
116  you poor, base, rascally, cheating, lack-linen
117  mate! Away, you mouldy rogue, away! I am meat for
118  your master.

119  I know you, Mistress Dorothy.

120  Away, you cut-purse rascal! you filthy bung, away!
121  by this wine, I'll thrust my knife in your mouldy
122  chaps, an you play the saucy cuttle with me. Away,
123  you bottle-ale rascal! you basket-hilt stale
124  juggler, you! Since when, I pray you, sir? God's
125  light, with two points on your shoulder? much!

126  God let me not live, but I will murder your ruff for this.

127  No more, Pistol; I would not have you go off here:
128  discharge yourself of our company, Pistol.

129  No, Good Captain Pistol; not here, sweet captain.

130  Captain! thou abominable damned cheater, art thou
131  not ashamed to be called captain? An captains were
132  of my mind, they would truncheon you out, for
133  taking their names upon you before you have earned
134  them. You a captain! you slave, for what? for
135  tearing a poor whore's ruff in a bawdy-house? He a
136  captain! hang him, rogue! he lives upon mouldy
137  stewed prunes and dried cakes. A captain! God's
138  light, these villains will make the word as odious
139  as the word 'occupy;' which was an excellent good
140  word before it was ill sorted: therefore captains
141  had need look to 't.

142  Pray thee, go down, good ancient.

143  Hark thee hither, Mistress Doll.

144  Not I I tell thee what, Corporal Bardolph, I could
145  tear her: I'll be revenged of her.

146  Pray thee, go down.

147  I'll see her damned first; to Pluto's damned lake,
148  by this hand, to the infernal deep, with Erebus and
149  tortures vile also. Hold hook and line, say I.
150  Down, down, dogs! down, faitors! Have we not
151  Hiren here?

152  Good Captain Peesel, be quiet; 'tis very late, i'
153  faith: I beseek you now, aggravate your choler.

154  These be good humours, indeed! Shall pack-horses
155  And hollow pamper'd jades of Asia,
156  Which cannot go but thirty mile a-day,
157  Compare with Caesars, and with Cannibals,
158  And Trojan Greeks? nay, rather damn them with
159  King Cerberus; and let the welkin roar.
160  Shall we fall foul for toys?

161  By my troth, captain, these are very bitter words.

162  Be gone, good ancient: this will grow to abrawl anon.

163  Die men like dogs! give crowns like pins! Have we
164  not Heren here?

165  O' my word, captain, there's none such here. What
166  the good-year! do you think I would deny her? For
167  God's sake, be quiet.

168  Then feed, and be fat, my fair Calipolis.
169  Come, give's some sack.
170  'Si fortune me tormente, sperato me contento.'
171  Fear we broadsides? no, let the fiend give fire:
172  Give me some sack: and, sweetheart, lie thou there.
Laying down his sword
173  Come we to full points here; and are etceteras nothing?

174  Pistol, I would be quiet.

175  Sweet knight, I kiss thy neaf: what! we have seen
176  the seven stars.

177  For God's sake, thrust him down stairs: I cannot
178  endure such a fustian rascal.

179  Thrust him down stairs! know we not Galloway nags?

180  Quoit him down, Bardolph, like a shove-groat
181  shilling: nay, an a' do nothing but speak nothing,
182  a' shall be nothing here.

183  Come, get you down stairs.

184  What! shall we have incision? shall we imbrue?
Snatching up his sword
185  Then death rock me asleep, abridge my doleful days!
186  Why, then, let grievous, ghastly, gaping wounds
187  Untwine the Sisters Three! Come, Atropos, I say!

188  Here's goodly stuff toward!

189  Give me my rapier, boy.

190  I pray thee, Jack, I pray thee, do not draw.

191  Get you down stairs.

192  Here's a goodly tumult! I'll forswear keeping
193  house, afore I'll be in these tirrits and frights.
194  So; murder, I warrant now. Alas, alas! put up
195  your naked weapons, put up your naked weapons.

196  I pray thee, Jack, be quiet; the rascal's gone.
197  Ah, you whoreson little valiant villain, you!

198  He you not hurt i' the groin? methought a' made a
199  shrewd thrust at your belly.

200  Have you turned him out o' doors?

201  Yea, sir. The rascal's drunk: you have hurt him,
202  sir, i' the shoulder.

203  A rascal! to brave me!

204  Ah, you sweet little rogue, you! alas, poor ape,
205  how thou sweatest! come, let me wipe thy face;
206  come on, you whoreson chops: ah, rogue! i'faith, I
207  love thee: thou art as valorous as Hector of Troy,
208  worth five of Agamemnon, and ten times better than
209  the Nine Worthies: ah, villain!

210  A rascally slave! I will toss the rogue in a blanket.

211  Do, an thou darest for thy heart: an thou dost,
212  I'll canvass thee between a pair of sheets.

213  The music is come, sir.

214  Let them play. Play, sirs. Sit on my knee, Doll.
215  A rascal bragging slave! the rogue fled from me
216  like quicksilver.

217  I' faith, and thou followedst him like a church.
218  Thou whoreson little tidy Bartholomew boar-pig,
219  when wilt thou leave fighting o' days and foining
220  o' nights, and begin to patch up thine old body for heaven?

221  Peace, good Doll! do not speak like a death's-head;
222  do not bid me remember mine end.

223  Sirrah, what humour's the prince of?

224  A good shallow young fellow: a' would have made a
225  good pantler, a' would ha' chipp'd bread well.

226  They say Poins has a good wit.

227  He a good wit? hang him, baboon! his wit's as thick
228  as Tewksbury mustard; there's no more conceit in him
229  than is in a mallet.

230  Why does the prince love him so, then?

231  Because their legs are both of a bigness, and a'
232  plays at quoits well, and eats conger and fennel,
233  and drinks off candles' ends for flap-dragons, and
234  rides the wild-mare with the boys, and jumps upon
235  joined-stools, and swears with a good grace, and
236  wears his boots very smooth, like unto the sign of
237  the leg, and breeds no bate with telling of discreet
238  stories; and such other gambol faculties a' has,
239  that show a weak mind and an able body, for the
240  which the prince admits him: for the prince himself
241  is such another; the weight of a hair will turn the
242  scales between their avoirdupois.

243  Would not this nave of a wheel have his ears cut off?

244  Let's beat him before his whore.

245  Look, whether the withered elder hath not his poll
246  clawed like a parrot.

247  Is it not strange that desire should so many years
248  outlive performance?

249  Kiss me, Doll.

250  Saturn and Venus this year in conjunction! what
251  says the almanac to that?

252  And look, whether the fiery Trigon, his man, be not
253  lisping to his master's old tables, his note-book,
254  his counsel-keeper.

255  Thou dost give me flattering busses.

256  By my troth, I kiss thee with a most constant heart.

257  I am old, I am old.

258  I love thee better than I love e'er a scurvy young
259  boy of them all.

260  What stuff wilt have a kirtle of? I shall receive
261  money o' Thursday: shalt have a cap to-morrow. A
262  merry song, come: it grows late; we'll to bed.
263  Thou'lt forget me when I am gone.

264  By my troth, thou'lt set me a-weeping, an thou
265  sayest so: prove that ever I dress myself handsome
266  till thy return: well, harken at the end.

267  Some sack, Francis.

268  Anon, anon, sir.

269  Ha! a bastard son of the king's? And art not thou
270  Poins his brother?

271  Why, thou globe of sinful continents! what a life
272  dost thou lead!

273  A better than thou: I am a gentleman; thou art a drawer.

274  Very true, sir; and I come to draw you out by the ears.

275  O, the Lord preserve thy good grace! by my troth,
276  welcome to London. Now, the Lord bless that sweet
277  face of thine! O, Jesu, are you come from Wales?

278  Thou whoreson mad compound of majesty, by this light
279  flesh and corrupt blood, thou art welcome.

280  How, you fat fool! I scorn you.

281  My lord, he will drive you out of your revenge and
282  turn all to a merriment, if you take not the heat.

283  You whoreson candle-mine, you, how vilely did you
284  speak of me even now before this honest, virtuous,
285  civil gentlewoman!

286  God's blessing of your good heart! and so she is,
287  by my troth.

288  Didst thou hear me?

289  Yea, and you knew me, as you did when you ran away
290  by Gad's-hill: you knew I was at your back, and
291  spoke it on purpose to try my patience.

292  No, no, no; not so; I did not think thou wast within hearing.

293  I shall drive you then to confess the wilful abuse;
294  and then I know how to handle you.

295  No abuse, Hal, o' mine honour, no abuse.

296  Not to dispraise me, and call me pantier and
297  bread-chipper and I know not what?

298  No abuse, Hal.

299  No abuse?

300  No abuse, Ned, i' the world; honest Ned, none. I
301  dispraised him before the wicked, that the wicked
302  might not fall in love with him; in which doing, I
303  have done the part of a careful friend and a true
304  subject, and thy father is to give me thanks for it.
305  No abuse, Hal: none, Ned, none: no, faith, boys, none.

306  See now, whether pure fear and entire cowardice doth
307  not make thee wrong this virtuous gentlewoman to
308  close with us? is she of the wicked? is thine
309  hostess here of the wicked? or is thy boy of the
310  wicked? or honest Bardolph, whose zeal burns in his
311  nose, of the wicked?

312  Answer, thou dead elm, answer.

313  The fiend hath pricked down Bardolph irrecoverable;
314  and his face is Lucifer's privy-kitchen, where he
315  doth nothing but roast malt-worms. For the boy,
316  there is a good angel about him; but the devil
317  outbids him too.

318  For the women?

319  For one of them, she is in hell already, and burns
320  poor souls. For the other, I owe her money, and
321  whether she be damned for that, I know not.

322  No, I warrant you.

323  No, I think thou art not; I think thou art quit for
324  that. Marry, there is another indictment upon thee,
325  for suffering flesh to be eaten in thy house,
326  contrary to the law; for the which I think thou wilt howl.

327  All victuallers do so; what's a joint of mutton or
328  two in a whole Lent?

329  You, gentlewoman,-

330  What says your grace?

331  His grace says that which his flesh rebels against.

332  Who knocks so loud at door? Look to the door there, Francis.

333  Peto, how now! what news?

334  The king your father is at Westminster:
335  And there are twenty weak and wearied posts
336  Come from the north: and, as I came along,
337  I met and overtook a dozen captains,
338  Bare-headed, sweating, knocking at the taverns,
339  And asking every one for Sir John Falstaff.

340  By heaven, Poins, I feel me much to blame,
341  So idly to profane the precious time,
342  When tempest of commotion, like the south
343  Borne with black vapour, doth begin to melt
344  And drop upon our bare unarmed heads.
345  Give me my sword and cloak. Falstaff, good night.

346  Now comes in the sweetest morsel of the night, and
347  we must hence and leave it unpicked.
Knocking within
348  More knocking at the door!
Re-enter BARDOLPH
349  How now! what's the matter?

350  You must away to court, sir, presently;
351  A dozen captains stay at door for you.

To the Page
352   Pay the musicians, sirrah. Farewell,
353  hostess; farewell, Doll. You see, my good wenches,
354  how men of merit are sought after: the undeserver
355  may sleep, when the man of action is called on.
356  Farewell good wenches: if I be not sent away post,
357  I will see you again ere I go.

358  I cannot speak; if my heart be not read to burst,--
359  well, sweet Jack, have a care of thyself.

360  Farewell, farewell.

361  Well, fare thee well: I have known thee these
362  twenty-nine years, come peascod-time; but an
363  honester and truer-hearted man,--well, fare thee well.

Within
364   Mistress Tearsheet!

365  What's the matter?

Within
366   Good Mistress Tearsheet, come to my master.

367  O, run, Doll, run; run, good Doll: come.
She comes blubbered
368  Yea, will you come, Doll?