Henry V, Modern text based on the Folio

¶Hostess Prithee, honey-sweet husband, let me bring 825thee to Staines.

¶Pistol No, for my manly heart doth earn. Bardolph, ¶be blithe. Nym, rouse thy vaunting veins. Boy, bristle ¶thy courage up. For Falstaff he is dead, and we must ¶earn therefore.

830Bardolph Would I were with him wheresome'er he is, ¶either in heaven or in hell.

¶Hostess Nay, sure he's not in hell. He's in ¶Arthur's bosom, if ever man went to Arthur's bosom. A made ¶a finer end, and went away an it had been any christom 835child. A parted ev'n just between twelve and one, ev'n ¶at the turning o'th'tide. For after I saw him ¶fumble with the sheets, and play with flowers, and smile upon ¶his finger's end, I knew there was but one way. For his nose was ¶as sharp as a pen, and a babbled of green fields. "How now, 840Sir John?" quoth I. "What, man, be o' good cheer!" So a ¶cried out, "God, God, God," three or four times. Now I, ¶to comfort him, bid him a should not think of God; I ¶hoped there was no need to trouble himself with any ¶such thoughts yet. So a bade me lay more clothes on his 845feet. I put my hand into the bed and felt them, and they ¶were as cold as any stone. Then I felt to his knees, and ¶so up-peered, and upward and all was as cold as any stone.

¶Nym They say he cried out of sack.

¶Hostess Ay, that a did.

850Bardolph And of women.

¶Hostess Nay, that a did not.

¶Boy Yes that a did, and said they were devils ¶incarnate.

¶Hostess A could never abide carnation; 'twas a 855color he never liked.

¶Boy A said once the devil would have him about ¶women.

¶Hostess A did in some sort, indeed, handle women, ¶but then he was rheumatic, and talked of the whore of Babylon.860

¶Boy Do you not remember a saw a flea stick upon ¶Bardolph's nose, and a said it was a black soul ¶burning in hell?

¶Bardolph Well, the fuel is gone that maintained that fire. 865That's all the riches I got in his service.

¶Nym Shall we shog? The king will be gone from ¶Southampton.

¶Pistol Come, let's away. My love, give me thy lips. [Kisses her]¶Look to my chattels and my moveables. Let senses rule. 870The world is pitch-and-pay. Trust none, for oaths ¶are straws, men's faiths are wafer-cakes, and Holdfast ¶is the only dog, my duck, therefore caveto be ¶thy counselor. Go, clear thy crystals. ¶Yoke-fellows in arms, let us to France like 875horse-leeches, my boys: to suck, to suck, the very blood to ¶suck!

¶Boy And that's but unwholesome food, they say.

¶Pistol Touch her soft mouth and march.

¶Bardolph [Kisses her] Farewell, hostess.

880Nym I cannot kiss, that is the humor of it, but ¶adieu.

¶Pistol Let housewifery appear. Keep close, I thee ¶command.

¶Hostess Farewell. Adieu.