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  • Title: Henry IV, Part 2 (Modern)
  • Editor: Rosemary Gaby

  • Copyright Rosemary Gaby. This text may be freely used for educational, non-profit purposes; for all other uses contact the Editor.
    Author: William Shakespeare
    Editor: Rosemary Gaby
    Not Peer Reviewed

    Henry IV, Part 2 (Modern)

    [2.1]
    615Enter Hostess of the Tavern, and an Officer, [Fang, followed by yeoman Snare].
    Hostess
    Master Fang, have you entered the action?
    It is entered.
    Hostess
    Where's your yeoman? Is't a lusty yeoman? Will 'a stand to't?
    Sirrah! -- Where's Snare?
    Hostess
    O lord, ay, good master Snare.
    Snare
    Here, here.
    Snare, we must arrest Sir John Falstaff.
    Hostess
    Yea good Master Snare, I have entered him and all.
    625Snare
    It may chance cost some of us our lives, for he will stab.
    Hostess
    Alas the day, take heed of him: he stabbed me in mine own house, most beastly, in good faith. 'A cares not what mischief he does, if his weapon be out, he will foin like any devil, he will spare neither man, woman, nor child.
    If I can close with him, I care not for his thrust.
    Hostess
    No, nor I neither, I'll be at your elbow.
    An I but fist him once, an 'a come but within my view --
    635Hostess
    I am undone by his going, I warrant you; he's an infinitive thing upon my score. Good Master Fang, hold him sure; good Master Snare let him not 'scape. 'A comes continuantly to Pie Corner (saving your manhoods) to buy a saddle, and he is indited to dinner to the Lubber's Head in Lumbert Street to 640Master Smooth's, the silk man. I pray you, since my exion is entered, and my case so openly known to the world, let him be brought in to his answer. A hundred mark is a long one for a poor lone woman to bear, and I have borne, and borne, and borne, and have been fubbed off, and fubbed off, and fubbed off, from 645this day to that day, that it is a shame to be thought on. There is no honesty in such dealing, unless a woman should be made an ass and a beast, to bear every knave's wrong. Yonder he comes, and that errant malmsey-nose knave, Bardolph, with him. 650Do your offices, do your offices, Master Fang and Master Snare, do me, do me, do me your offices.
    651.1Enter Sir John [Falstaff], and Bardolph, and the boy.
    Falstaff
    How now, whose mare's dead? What's the matter?
    I arrest you at the suit of Mistress Quickly.
    Falstaff
    Away varlets! Draw Bardolph, cut me off the villain's 655head, throw the quean in the channel.
    Hostess
    Throw me in the channel? I'll throw thee in the channel! Wilt thou, wilt thou, thou bastardly rogue? Murder murder! Ah, thou honeysuckle villain, wilt thou kill god's officers and the king's? Ah, thou honeyseed rogue, thou art a honeyseed, a 660man-queller, and a woman-queller.
    Falstaff
    Keep them off, Bardolph.
    661.1Officers
    A rescue, a rescue!
    Hostess
    Good people, bring a rescue or two. Thou wot, wot thou, thou wot, wot ta? Do, do, thou rogue, do, thou hempseed!
    Away, you scullian, you rampallian, you fustilarian, I'll 665tickle your catastrophe!
    Enter Lord Chief Justice and his men.
    Justice
    What is the matter? Keep the peace here, ho!
    Hostess
    Good my lord be good to me. I beseech you stand to me.
    Justice
    How now Sir John? What, are you brawling here? 670Doth this become your place, your time, and business? You should have been well on your way to York. Stand from him fellow; wherefore hang'st thou upon him?
    Hostess
    O my most worshipful lord, an't please your grace, I am a poor widow of Eastcheap, and he is arrested at my 675suit.
    Justice
    For what sum?
    Hostess
    It is more than for some, my lord, it is for all I have. He hath eaten me out of house and home. He hath put all my substance into that fat belly of his; [To Falstaff] but I will have some of it out again, or I will ride thee a-nights like the mare.
    Falstaff
    I think I am as like to ride the mare, if I have any vantage of ground to get up.
    Justice
    How comes this Sir John? What man of good temper would endure this tempest of exclamation? Are you not 685ashamed to enforce a poor widow to so rough a course to come by her own?
    Falstaff
    [To the Hostess] What is the gross sum that I owe thee?
    Hostess
    Marry, if thou wert an honest man, thyself and the money too. Thou didst swear to me upon a parcel-gilt goblet, 690sitting in my Dolphin chamber, at the round table by a sea-coal fire, upon Wednesday in Wheeson week, when the prince broke thy head, for liking his father to a singing man of Windsor, thou didst swear to me then, as I was washing thy wound, to marry me, and make me my lady thy wife. Canst thou deny 695it? Did not goodwife Keech the butcher's wife come in then and call me gossip Quickly, coming in to borrow a mess of vinegar, telling us she had a good dish of prawns, whereby thou didst desire to eat some, whereby I told thee they were ill for a green wound? And didst thou not, when she was gone 700downstairs, desire me, to be no more so familiarity with such poor people, saying that ere long they should call me madam? And didst thou not kiss me, and bid me fetch thee thirty shillings? I put thee now to thy book-oath, deny it if thou canst.
    705Falstaff
    My lord, this is a poor mad soul, and she says up and down the town that her eldest son is like you. She hath been in good case, and the truth is poverty hath distracted her. But for these foolish officers, I beseech you I may have redress against them.
    710Justice
    Sir John, Sir John, I am well acquainted with your manner of wrenching the true cause the false way. It is not a confident brow, nor the throng of words that come with such more than impudent sauciness from you can thrust me from a level consideration. You have, as it appears to me, practiced upon the 715easy-yielding spirit of this woman, and made her serve your 715.1uses both in purse and in person.
    Hostess
    Yea, in truth, my lord.
    Justice
    Pray thee, peace. Pay her the debt you owe her, and unpay the villainy you have done with her: the one you may do with sterling money, and the other with current repentance.
    720Falstaff
    My lord I will not undergo this sneap without reply. You call honorable boldness, impudent sauciness; if a man will make curtsy and say nothing, he is virtuous. No, my lord, my humble duty remembered, I will not be your suitor. I say to you I do desire deliverance from these officers, being upon 725hasty employment in the king's affairs.
    Justice
    You speak as having power to do wrong; but answer in th'effect of your reputation, and satisfy the poor woman.
    Falstaff
    Come hither, hostess.
    [Takes her aside.]
    Enter [Master Gower.]
    730Justice
    Now master Gower, what news?
    Gower
    The king, my lord, and Harry Prince of Wales,
    Are near at hand, the rest the paper tells.
    Falstaff
    As I am a gentleman!
    733.1Hostess
    Faith, you said so before.
    735Falstaff
    As I am a gentleman. Come, no more words of it.
    Hostess
    By this heavenly ground I tread on, I must be fain to pawn both my plate and the tapestry of my dining chambers.
    Falstaff
    Glasses, glasses is the only drinking, and for thy walls, 740a pretty slight drollery, or the story of the prodigal, or the German hunting in waterwork is worth a thousand of these bed-hangers and these fly-bitten tapestries. Let it be ten pounds if thou canst. Come, and 'twere not for thy humors, there's not a better 745wench in England. Go wash thy face and draw the action. Come, thou must not be in this humor with me, dost not know me? Come, come, I know thou wast set on to this.
    Hostess
    Pray thee, Sir John, let it be but twenty nobles, i'faith I am loath to pawn my plate so god save me, la.
    750Falstaff
    Let it alone, I'll make other shift. You'll be a fool still.
    Hostess
    Well, you shall have it, though I pawn my gown. I hope you'll come to supper. You'll pay me all together?
    755Falstaff
    Will I live? [To Bardolph] Go with her, with her, hook on, hook on.
    Hostess
    Will you have Doll Tearsheet meet you at supper?
    Falstaff
    No more words, let's have her.
    Exit Hostess, [with officers, Bardolph, and Page].
    760Justice
    [To Gower] I have heard better news.
    Falstaff
    What's the news my lord?
    Justice
    [To Gower] Where lay the king tonight?
    [Gower]
    At Basingstoke, my lord.
    Falstaff
    I hope, my lord, all's well. What is the news, my lord?
    Justice
    [To Gower] Come all his forces back?
    [Gower]
    No, fifteen hundred foot, five hundred horse
    Are marched up to my lord of Lancaster,
    Against Northumberland and the Archbishop.
    770Falstaff
    Comes the king back from Wales, my noble lord?
    Justice
    You shall have letters of me presently.
    Come, go along with me, good Master Gower.
    Falstaff
    My lord!
    Justice
    Whats the matter?
    775Falstaff
    Master Gower, shall I entreat you with me to dinner?
    Gower
    I must wait upon my good lord here, I thank you, good Sir John.
    Justice
    Sir John, you loiter here too long, 780being you are to take soldiers up in counties as you go.
    Falstaff
    Will you sup with me, Master Gower?
    Justice
    What foolish master taught you these manners, Sir John?
    Falstaff
    Master Gower, if they become me not, he was a 785fool that taught them me. [To Justice] This is the right fencing grace, my lord, tap for tap, and so part fair.
    Justice
    Now the lord lighten thee, thou art a great fool.
    [Exeunt.]