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King Henry IV, Part 2: Act 5 Scene 5

Scene V A public place near Westminster Abbey.

[Enter two Grooms, strewing rushes]

FIRST GROOM

More rushes, more rushes.

SECOND GROOM

The trumpets have sounded twice.

FIRST GROOM

'Twill be two o'clock ere they come from the

coronation: dispatch, dispatch.

[Exeunt]

[Enter FALSTAFF, SHALLOW, PISTOL,

BARDOLPH, and Page]

FALSTAFF

Stand here by me, Master Robert Shallow; I will

make the king do you grace: I will leer upon him as

a' comes by; and do but mark the countenance that he

will give me.

PISTOL

God bless thy lungs, good knight.

FALSTAFF

Come here, Pistol; stand behind me. O, if I had had

time to have made new liveries, I would have

bestowed the thousand pound I borrowed of you. But

'tis no matter; this poor show doth better: this

doth infer the zeal I had to see him.

SHALLOW

It doth so.

FALSTAFF

It shows my earnestness of affection,--

SHALLOW

It doth so.

FALSTAFF

My devotion,--

SHALLOW

It doth, it doth, it doth.

FALSTAFF

As it were, to ride day and night; and not to

deliberate, not to remember, not to have patience

to shift me,--

SHALLOW

It is best, certain.

FALSTAFF

But to stand stained with travel, and sweating with

desire to see him; thinking of nothing else,

putting all affairs else in oblivion, as if there

were nothing else to be done but to see him.

PISTOL

'Tis 'semper idem,' for 'obsque hoc nihil est:'

'tis all in every part.

SHALLOW

'Tis so, indeed.

PISTOL

My knight, I will inflame thy noble liver,

And make thee rage.

Thy Doll, and Helen of thy noble thoughts,

Is in base durance and contagious prison;

Haled thither

By most mechanical and dirty hand:

Rouse up revenge from ebon den with fell

Alecto's snake,

For Doll is in. Pistol speaks nought but truth.

FALSTAFF

I will deliver her.

[Shouts within, and the trumpets sound]

PISTOL

There roar'd the sea, and trumpet-clangor sounds.

[Enter KING HENRY V and his train, the Lord Chief-

Justice among them]

FALSTAFF

God save thy grace, King Hal! my royal Hal!

PISTOL

The heavens thee guard and keep, most royal imp of fame!

FALSTAFF

God save thee, my sweet boy!

KING HENRY IV

My lord chief-justice, speak to that vain man.

LORD CHIEF-JUSTICE

Have you your wits? know you what 'tis to speak?

FALSTAFF

My king! my Jove! I speak to thee, my heart!

KING HENRY IV

I know thee not, old man: fall to thy prayers;

How ill white hairs become a fool and jester!

I have long dream'd of such a kind of man,

So surfeit-swell'd, so old and so profane;

But, being awaked, I do despise my dream.

Make less thy body hence, and more thy grace;

Leave gormandizing; know the grave doth gape

For thee thrice wider than for other men.

Reply not to me with a fool-born jest:

Presume not that I am the thing I was;

For God doth know, so shall the world perceive,

That I have turn'd away my former self;

So will I those that kept me company.

When thou dost hear I am as I have been,

Approach me, and thou shalt be as thou wast,

The tutor and the feeder of my riots:

Till then, I banish thee, on pain of death,

As I have done the rest of my misleaders,

Not to come near our person by ten mile.

For competence of life I will allow you,

That lack of means enforce you not to evil:

And, as we hear you do reform yourselves,

We will, according to your strengths and qualities,

Give you advancement. Be it your charge, my lord,

To see perform'd the tenor of our word. Set on.

[Exeunt KING HENRY V, &c]

FALSTAFF

Master Shallow, I owe you a thousand pound.

SHALLOW

Yea, marry, Sir John; which I beseech you to let me

have home with me.

FALSTAFF

That can hardly be, Master Shallow. Do not you

grieve at this; I shall be sent for in private to

him: look you, he must seem thus to the world:

fear not your advancements; I will be the man yet

that shall make you great.

SHALLOW

I cannot well perceive how, unless you should give

me your doublet and stuff me out with straw. I

beseech you, good Sir John, let me have five hundred

of my thousand.

FALSTAFF

Sir, I will be as good as my word: this that you

heard was but a colour.

SHALLOW

A colour that I fear you will die in, Sir John.

FALSTAFF

Fear no colours: go with me to dinner: come,

Lieutenant Pistol; come, Bardolph: I shall be sent

for soon at night.

[Re-enter Prince John of LANCASTER, the Lord

Chief-Justice; Officers with them]

LORD CHIEF-JUSTICE

Go, carry Sir John Falstaff to the Fleet:

Take all his company along with him.

FALSTAFF

My lord, my lord,--

LORD CHIEF-JUSTICE

I cannot now speak: I will hear you soon.

Take them away.

PISTOL

Si fortune me tormenta, spero contenta.

[Exeunt all but PRINCE JOHN and the Lord

Chief-Justice]

LANCASTER

I like this fair proceeding of the king's:

He hath intent his wonted followers

Shall all be very well provided for;

But all are banish'd till their conversations

Appear more wise and modest to the world.

LORD CHIEF-JUSTICE

And so they are.

LANCASTER

The king hath call'd his parliament, my lord.

LORD CHIEF-JUSTICE

He hath.

LANCASTER

I will lay odds that, ere this year expire,

We bear our civil swords and native fire

As far as France: I beard a bird so sing,

Whose music, to my thinking, pleased the king.

Come, will you hence?

[Exeunt]

EPILOGUE

[Spoken by a Dancer]

First my fear; then my courtesy; last my speech.

My fear is, your displeasure; my courtesy, my duty;

and my speech, to beg your pardons. If you look

for a good speech now, you undo me: for what I have

to say is of mine own making; and what indeed I

should say will, I doubt, prove mine own marring.

But to the purpose, and so to the venture. Be it

known to you, as it is very well, I was lately here

in the end of a displeasing play, to pray your

patience for it and to promise you a better. I

meant indeed to pay you with this; which, if like an

ill venture it come unluckily home, I break, and

you, my gentle creditors, lose. Here I promised you

I would be and here I commit my body to your

mercies: bate me some and I will pay you some and,

as most debtors do, promise you infinitely.

If my tongue cannot entreat you to acquit me, will

you command me to use my legs? and yet that were but

light payment, to dance out of your debt. But a

good conscience will make any possible satisfaction,

and so would I. All the gentlewomen here have

forgiven me: if the gentlemen will not, then the

gentlemen do not agree with the gentlewomen, which

was never seen before in such an assembly.

One word more, I beseech you. If you be not too

much cloyed with fat meat, our humble author will

continue the story, with Sir John in it, and make

you merry with fair Katharine of France: where, for

any thing I know, Falstaff shall die of a sweat,

unless already a' be killed with your hard

opinions; for Oldcastle died a martyr, and this is

not the man. My tongue is weary; when my legs are

too, I will bid you good night: and so kneel down

before you; but, indeed, to pray for the queen.