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Dramatis Personae
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/ Home / Library / Complete Shakespeare / King Henry IV, Part 2 / Act II Scene IV
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King Henry IV, Part 2: Act 2 Scene 4
Scene IV London. The Boar's-head Tavern in Eastcheap.
- [Enter two Drawers]
- FIRST DRAWER
- What the devil hast thou brought there? apple-johns?
- thou knowest Sir John cannot endure an apple-john.
- SECOND DRAWER
- Mass, thou sayest true. The prince once set a dish
- of apple-johns before him, and told him there were
- five more Sir Johns, and, putting off his hat, said
- 'I will now take my leave of these six dry, round,
- old, withered knights.' It angered him to the
- heart: but he hath forgot that.
- FIRST DRAWER
- Why, then, cover, and set them down: and see if
- thou canst find out Sneak's noise; Mistress
- Tearsheet would fain hear some music. Dispatch: the
- room where they supped is too hot; they'll come in straight.
- SECOND DRAWER
- Sirrah, here will be the prince and Master Poins
- anon; and they will put on two of our jerkins and
- aprons; and Sir John must not know of it: Bardolph
- hath brought word.
- FIRST DRAWER
- By the mass, here will be old Utis: it will be an
- excellent stratagem.
- SECOND DRAWER
- I'll see if I can find out Sneak.
- [Exit]
- [Enter MISTRESS QUICKLY and DOLL TEARSHEET]
- MISTRESS QUICKLY
- I' faith, sweetheart, methinks now you are in an
- excellent good temperality: your pulsidge beats as
- extraordinarily as heart would desire; and your
- colour, I warrant you, is as red as any rose, in good
- truth, la! But, i' faith, you have drunk too much
- canaries; and that's a marvellous searching wine,
- and it perfumes the blood ere one can say 'What's
- this?' How do you now?
- DOLL TEARSHEET
- Better than I was: hem!
- MISTRESS QUICKLY
- Why, that's well said; a good heart's worth gold.
- Lo, here comes Sir John.
- [Enter FALSTAFF]
- FALSTAFF
- [Singing] 'When Arthur first in court,'
- --Empty the jordan.
- [Exit First Drawer]
- [Singing]
- --'And was a worthy king.' How now, Mistress Doll!
- MISTRESS QUICKLY
- Sick of a calm; yea, good faith.
- FALSTAFF
- So is all her sect; an they be once in a calm, they are sick.
- DOLL TEARSHEET
- You muddy rascal, is that all the comfort you give me?
- FALSTAFF
- You make fat rascals, Mistress Doll.
- DOLL TEARSHEET
- I make them! gluttony and diseases make them; I
- make them not.
- FALSTAFF
- If the cook help to make the gluttony, you help to
- make the diseases, Doll: we catch of you, Doll, we
- catch of you; grant that, my poor virtue grant that.
- DOLL TEARSHEET
- Yea, joy, our chains and our jewels.
- FALSTAFF
- 'Your broaches, pearls, and ouches:' for to serve
- bravely is to come halting off, you know: to come
- off the breach with his pike bent bravely, and to
- surgery bravely; to venture upon the charged
- chambers bravely,--
- DOLL TEARSHEET
- Hang yourself, you muddy conger, hang yourself!
- MISTRESS QUICKLY
- By my troth, this is the old fashion; you two never
- meet but you fall to some discord: you are both,
- i' good truth, as rheumatic as two dry toasts; you
- cannot one bear with another's confirmities. What
- the good-year! one must bear, and that must be
- you: you are the weaker vessel, as they say, the
- emptier vessel.
- DOLL TEARSHEET
- Can a weak empty vessel bear such a huge full
- hogshead? there's a whole merchant's venture of
- Bourdeaux stuff in him; you have not seen a hulk
- better stuffed in the hold. Come, I'll be friends
- with thee, Jack: thou art going to the wars; and
- whether I shall ever see thee again or no, there is
- nobody cares.
- [Re-enter First Drawer]
- FIRST DRAWER
- Sir, Ancient Pistol's below, and would speak with
- you.
- DOLL TEARSHEET
- Hang him, swaggering rascal! let him not come
- hither: it is the foul-mouthed'st rogue in England.
- MISTRESS QUICKLY
- If he swagger, let him not come here: no, by my
- faith; I must live among my neighbours: I'll no
- swaggerers: I am in good name and fame with the
- very best: shut the door; there comes no swaggerers
- here: I have not lived all this while, to have
- swaggering now: shut the door, I pray you.
- FALSTAFF
- Dost thou hear, hostess?
- MISTRESS QUICKLY
- Pray ye, pacify yourself, Sir John: there comes no
- swaggerers here.
- FALSTAFF
- Dost thou hear? it is mine ancient.
- MISTRESS QUICKLY
- Tilly-fally, Sir John, ne'er tell me: your ancient
- swaggerer comes not in my doors. I was before Master
- Tisick, the debuty, t'other day; and, as he said to
- me, 'twas no longer ago than Wednesday last, 'I'
- good faith, neighbour Quickly,' says he; Master
- Dumbe, our minister, was by then; 'neighbour
- Quickly,' says he, 'receive those that are civil;
- for,' said he, 'you are in an ill name:' now a'
- said so, I can tell whereupon; 'for,' says he, 'you
- are an honest woman, and well thought on; therefore
- take heed what guests you receive: receive,' says
- he, 'no swaggering companions.' There comes none
- here: you would bless you to hear what he said:
- no, I'll no swaggerers.
- FALSTAFF
- He's no swaggerer, hostess; a tame cheater, i'
- faith; you may stroke him as gently as a puppy
- greyhound: he'll not swagger with a Barbary hen, if
- her feathers turn back in any show of resistance.
- Call him up, drawer.
- [Exit First Drawer]
- MISTRESS QUICKLY
- Cheater, call you him? I will bar no honest man my
- house, nor no cheater: but I do not love
- swaggering, by my troth; I am the worse, when one
- says swagger: feel, masters, how I shake; look you,
- I warrant you.
- DOLL TEARSHEET
- So you do, hostess.
- MISTRESS QUICKLY
- Do I? yea, in very truth, do I, an 'twere an aspen
- leaf: I cannot abide swaggerers.
- [Enter PISTOL, BARDOLPH, and Page]
- PISTOL
- God save you, Sir John!
- FALSTAFF
- Welcome, Ancient Pistol. Here, Pistol, I charge
- you with a cup of sack: do you discharge upon mine hostess.
- PISTOL
- I will discharge upon her, Sir John, with two bullets.
- FALSTAFF
- She is Pistol-proof, sir; you shall hardly offend
- her.
- MISTRESS QUICKLY
- Come, I'll drink no proofs nor no bullets: I'll
- drink no more than will do me good, for no man's
- pleasure, I.
- PISTOL
- Then to you, Mistress Dorothy; I will charge you.
- DOLL TEARSHEET
- Charge me! I scorn you, scurvy companion. What!
- you poor, base, rascally, cheating, lack-linen
- mate! Away, you mouldy rogue, away! I am meat for
- your master.
- PISTOL
- I know you, Mistress Dorothy.
- DOLL TEARSHEET
- Away, you cut-purse rascal! you filthy bung, away!
- by this wine, I'll thrust my knife in your mouldy
- chaps, an you play the saucy cuttle with me. Away,
- you bottle-ale rascal! you basket-hilt stale
- juggler, you! Since when, I pray you, sir? God's
- light, with two points on your shoulder? much!
- PISTOL
- God let me not live, but I will murder your ruff for this.
- FALSTAFF
- No more, Pistol; I would not have you go off here:
- discharge yourself of our company, Pistol.
- MISTRESS QUICKLY
- No, Good Captain Pistol; not here, sweet captain.
- DOLL TEARSHEET
- Captain! thou abominable damned cheater, art thou
- not ashamed to be called captain? An captains were
- of my mind, they would truncheon you out, for
- taking their names upon you before you have earned
- them. You a captain! you slave, for what? for
- tearing a poor whore's ruff in a bawdy-house? He a
- captain! hang him, rogue! he lives upon mouldy
- stewed prunes and dried cakes. A captain! God's
- light, these villains will make the word as odious
- as the word 'occupy;' which was an excellent good
- word before it was ill sorted: therefore captains
- had need look to 't.
- BARDOLPH
- Pray thee, go down, good ancient.
- FALSTAFF
- Hark thee hither, Mistress Doll.
- PISTOL
- Not I I tell thee what, Corporal Bardolph, I could
- tear her: I'll be revenged of her.
- PAGE
- Pray thee, go down.
- PISTOL
- I'll see her damned first; to Pluto's damned lake,
- by this hand, to the infernal deep, with Erebus and
- tortures vile also. Hold hook and line, say I.
- Down, down, dogs! down, faitors! Have we not
- Hiren here?
- MISTRESS QUICKLY
- Good Captain Peesel, be quiet; 'tis very late, i'
- faith: I beseek you now, aggravate your choler.
- PISTOL
- These be good humours, indeed! Shall pack-horses
- And hollow pamper'd jades of Asia,
- Which cannot go but thirty mile a-day,
- Compare with Caesars, and with Cannibals,
- And Trojan Greeks? nay, rather damn them with
- King Cerberus; and let the welkin roar.
- Shall we fall foul for toys?
- MISTRESS QUICKLY
- By my troth, captain, these are very bitter words.
- BARDOLPH
- Be gone, good ancient: this will grow to abrawl anon.
- PISTOL
- Die men like dogs! give crowns like pins! Have we
- not Heren here?
- MISTRESS QUICKLY
- O' my word, captain, there's none such here. What
- the good-year! do you think I would deny her? For
- God's sake, be quiet.
- PISTOL
- Then feed, and be fat, my fair Calipolis.
- Come, give's some sack.
- 'Si fortune me tormente, sperato me contento.'
- Fear we broadsides? no, let the fiend give fire:
- Give me some sack: and, sweetheart, lie thou there.
- [Laying down his sword]
- Come we to full points here; and are etceteras nothing?
- FALSTAFF
- Pistol, I would be quiet.
- PISTOL
- Sweet knight, I kiss thy neaf: what! we have seen
- the seven stars.
- DOLL TEARSHEET
- For God's sake, thrust him down stairs: I cannot
- endure such a fustian rascal.
- PISTOL
- Thrust him down stairs! know we not Galloway nags?
- FALSTAFF
- Quoit him down, Bardolph, like a shove-groat
- shilling: nay, an a' do nothing but speak nothing,
- a' shall be nothing here.
- BARDOLPH
- Come, get you down stairs.
- PISTOL
- What! shall we have incision? shall we imbrue?
- [Snatching up his sword]
- Then death rock me asleep, abridge my doleful days!
- Why, then, let grievous, ghastly, gaping wounds
- Untwine the Sisters Three! Come, Atropos, I say!
- MISTRESS QUICKLY
- Here's goodly stuff toward!
- FALSTAFF
- Give me my rapier, boy.
- DOLL TEARSHEET
- I pray thee, Jack, I pray thee, do not draw.
- FALSTAFF
- Get you down stairs.
- [Drawing, and driving PISTOL out]
- MISTRESS QUICKLY
- Here's a goodly tumult! I'll forswear keeping
- house, afore I'll be in these tirrits and frights.
- So; murder, I warrant now. Alas, alas! put up
- your naked weapons, put up your naked weapons.
- [Exeunt PISTOL and BARDOLPH]
- DOLL TEARSHEET
- I pray thee, Jack, be quiet; the rascal's gone.
- Ah, you whoreson little valiant villain, you!
- MISTRESS QUICKLY
- He you not hurt i' the groin? methought a' made a
- shrewd thrust at your belly.
- [Re-enter BARDOLPH]
- FALSTAFF
- Have you turned him out o' doors?
- BARDOLPH
- Yea, sir. The rascal's drunk: you have hurt him,
- sir, i' the shoulder.
- FALSTAFF
- A rascal! to brave me!
- DOLL TEARSHEET
- Ah, you sweet little rogue, you! alas, poor ape,
- how thou sweatest! come, let me wipe thy face;
- come on, you whoreson chops: ah, rogue! i'faith, I
- love thee: thou art as valorous as Hector of Troy,
- worth five of Agamemnon, and ten times better than
- the Nine Worthies: ah, villain!
- FALSTAFF
- A rascally slave! I will toss the rogue in a blanket.
- DOLL TEARSHEET
- Do, an thou darest for thy heart: an thou dost,
- I'll canvass thee between a pair of sheets.
- [Enter Music]
- PAGE
- The music is come, sir.
- FALSTAFF
- Let them play. Play, sirs. Sit on my knee, Doll.
- A rascal bragging slave! the rogue fled from me
- like quicksilver.
- DOLL TEARSHEET
- I' faith, and thou followedst him like a church.
- Thou whoreson little tidy Bartholomew boar-pig,
- when wilt thou leave fighting o' days and foining
- o' nights, and begin to patch up thine old body for heaven?
- [Enter, behind, PRINCE HENRY and POINS, disguised]
- FALSTAFF
- Peace, good Doll! do not speak like a death's-head;
- do not bid me remember mine end.
- DOLL TEARSHEET
- Sirrah, what humour's the prince of?
- FALSTAFF
- A good shallow young fellow: a' would have made a
- good pantler, a' would ha' chipp'd bread well.
- DOLL TEARSHEET
- They say Poins has a good wit.
- FALSTAFF
- He a good wit? hang him, baboon! his wit's as thick
- as Tewksbury mustard; there's no more conceit in him
- than is in a mallet.
- DOLL TEARSHEET
- Why does the prince love him so, then?
- FALSTAFF
- Because their legs are both of a bigness, and a'
- plays at quoits well, and eats conger and fennel,
- and drinks off candles' ends for flap-dragons, and
- rides the wild-mare with the boys, and jumps upon
- joined-stools, and swears with a good grace, and
- wears his boots very smooth, like unto the sign of
- the leg, and breeds no bate with telling of discreet
- stories; and such other gambol faculties a' has,
- that show a weak mind and an able body, for the
- which the prince admits him: for the prince himself
- is such another; the weight of a hair will turn the
- scales between their avoirdupois.
- PRINCE HENRY
- Would not this nave of a wheel have his ears cut off?
- POINS
- Let's beat him before his whore.
- PRINCE HENRY
- Look, whether the withered elder hath not his poll
- clawed like a parrot.
- POINS
- Is it not strange that desire should so many years
- outlive performance?
- FALSTAFF
- Kiss me, Doll.
- PRINCE HENRY
- Saturn and Venus this year in conjunction! what
- says the almanac to that?
- POINS
- And look, whether the fiery Trigon, his man, be not
- lisping to his master's old tables, his note-book,
- his counsel-keeper.
- FALSTAFF
- Thou dost give me flattering busses.
- DOLL TEARSHEET
- By my troth, I kiss thee with a most constant heart.
- FALSTAFF
- I am old, I am old.
- DOLL TEARSHEET
- I love thee better than I love e'er a scurvy young
- boy of them all.
- FALSTAFF
- What stuff wilt have a kirtle of? I shall receive
- money o' Thursday: shalt have a cap to-morrow. A
- merry song, come: it grows late; we'll to bed.
- Thou'lt forget me when I am gone.
- DOLL TEARSHEET
- By my troth, thou'lt set me a-weeping, an thou
- sayest so: prove that ever I dress myself handsome
- till thy return: well, harken at the end.
- FALSTAFF
- Some sack, Francis.
- PRINCE HENRY / POINS
- Anon, anon, sir.
- [Coming forward]
- FALSTAFF
- Ha! a bastard son of the king's? And art not thou
- Poins his brother?
- PRINCE HENRY
- Why, thou globe of sinful continents! what a life
- dost thou lead!
- FALSTAFF
- A better than thou: I am a gentleman; thou art a drawer.
- PRINCE HENRY
- Very true, sir; and I come to draw you out by the ears.
- MISTRESS QUICKLY
- O, the Lord preserve thy good grace! by my troth,
- welcome to London. Now, the Lord bless that sweet
- face of thine! O, Jesu, are you come from Wales?
- FALSTAFF
- Thou whoreson mad compound of majesty, by this light
- flesh and corrupt blood, thou art welcome.
- DOLL TEARSHEET
- How, you fat fool! I scorn you.
- POINS
- My lord, he will drive you out of your revenge and
- turn all to a merriment, if you take not the heat.
- PRINCE HENRY
- You whoreson candle-mine, you, how vilely did you
- speak of me even now before this honest, virtuous,
- civil gentlewoman!
- MISTRESS QUICKLY
- God's blessing of your good heart! and so she is,
- by my troth.
- FALSTAFF
- Didst thou hear me?
- PRINCE HENRY
- Yea, and you knew me, as you did when you ran away
- by Gad's-hill: you knew I was at your back, and
- spoke it on purpose to try my patience.
- FALSTAFF
- No, no, no; not so; I did not think thou wast within hearing.
- PRINCE HENRY
- I shall drive you then to confess the wilful abuse;
- and then I know how to handle you.
- FALSTAFF
- No abuse, Hal, o' mine honour, no abuse.
- PRINCE HENRY
- Not to dispraise me, and call me pantier and
- bread-chipper and I know not what?
- FALSTAFF
- No abuse, Hal.
- POINS
- No abuse?
- FALSTAFF
- No abuse, Ned, i' the world; honest Ned, none. I
- dispraised him before the wicked, that the wicked
- might not fall in love with him; in which doing, I
- have done the part of a careful friend and a true
- subject, and thy father is to give me thanks for it.
- No abuse, Hal: none, Ned, none: no, faith, boys, none.
- PRINCE HENRY
- See now, whether pure fear and entire cowardice doth
- not make thee wrong this virtuous gentlewoman to
- close with us? is she of the wicked? is thine
- hostess here of the wicked? or is thy boy of the
- wicked? or honest Bardolph, whose zeal burns in his
- nose, of the wicked?
- POINS
- Answer, thou dead elm, answer.
- FALSTAFF
- The fiend hath pricked down Bardolph irrecoverable;
- and his face is Lucifer's privy-kitchen, where he
- doth nothing but roast malt-worms. For the boy,
- there is a good angel about him; but the devil
- outbids him too.
- PRINCE HENRY
- For the women?
- FALSTAFF
- For one of them, she is in hell already, and burns
- poor souls. For the other, I owe her money, and
- whether she be damned for that, I know not.
- MISTRESS QUICKLY
- No, I warrant you.
- FALSTAFF
- No, I think thou art not; I think thou art quit for
- that. Marry, there is another indictment upon thee,
- for suffering flesh to be eaten in thy house,
- contrary to the law; for the which I think thou wilt howl.
- MISTRESS QUICKLY
- All victuallers do so; what's a joint of mutton or
- two in a whole Lent?
- PRINCE HENRY
- You, gentlewoman,-
- DOLL TEARSHEET
- What says your grace?
- FALSTAFF
- His grace says that which his flesh rebels against.
- [Knocking within]
- MISTRESS QUICKLY
- Who knocks so loud at door? Look to the door there, Francis.
- [Enter PETO]
- PRINCE HENRY
- Peto, how now! what news?
- PETO
- The king your father is at Westminster:
- And there are twenty weak and wearied posts
- Come from the north: and, as I came along,
- I met and overtook a dozen captains,
- Bare-headed, sweating, knocking at the taverns,
- And asking every one for Sir John Falstaff.
- PRINCE HENRY
- By heaven, Poins, I feel me much to blame,
- So idly to profane the precious time,
- When tempest of commotion, like the south
- Borne with black vapour, doth begin to melt
- And drop upon our bare unarmed heads.
- Give me my sword and cloak. Falstaff, good night.
- [Exeunt PRINCE HENRY, POINS, PETO and BARDOLPH]
- FALSTAFF
- Now comes in the sweetest morsel of the night, and
- we must hence and leave it unpicked.
- [Knocking within]
- More knocking at the door!
- [Re-enter BARDOLPH]
- How now! what's the matter?
- BARDOLPH
- You must away to court, sir, presently;
- A dozen captains stay at door for you.
- FALSTAFF
- [To the Page] Pay the musicians, sirrah. Farewell,
- hostess; farewell, Doll. You see, my good wenches,
- how men of merit are sought after: the undeserver
- may sleep, when the man of action is called on.
- Farewell good wenches: if I be not sent away post,
- I will see you again ere I go.
- DOLL TEARSHEET
- I cannot speak; if my heart be not read to burst,--
- well, sweet Jack, have a care of thyself.
- FALSTAFF
- Farewell, farewell.
- [Exeunt FALSTAFF and BARDOLPH]
- MISTRESS QUICKLY
- Well, fare thee well: I have known thee these
- twenty-nine years, come peascod-time; but an
- honester and truer-hearted man,--well, fare thee well.
- BARDOLPH
- [Within] Mistress Tearsheet!
- MISTRESS QUICKLY
- What's the matter?
- BARDOLPH
- [Within] Good Mistress Tearsheet, come to my master.
- MISTRESS QUICKLY
- O, run, Doll, run; run, good Doll: come.
- [She comes blubbered]
- Yea, will you come, Doll?
- [Exeunt]
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