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King Henry IV Part 1: Act 3 Scene 3

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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,

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

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!

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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!

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?

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.

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.

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.

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?

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,

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,

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?

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

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?

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?

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

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.

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,

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

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

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

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?

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

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

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!

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.

[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;

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]