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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    Not Peer Reviewed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)

    [5.5]
    Enter [grooms,] strewers of rushes.
    Groom 1
    More rushes, more rushes!
    Groom 2
    The trumpets have sounded twice.
    Groom 3
    'Twill be two o'clock ere they come from the 3209.1coronation. Dispatch, dispatch.
    Exeunt.
    Trumpets sound, and the king and his train pass over the stage. After them enter Falstaff, Shallow, Pistol, Bardolph, and the [Page].
    Falstaff
    Stand here by me, Master 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. [To Shallow] Oh, 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 3220poor show doth better; this doth infer the zeal I had to see him.
    Pistol
    It doth so.
    Falstaff
    It shows my earnestness of affection --
    Pistol
    It doth so.
    3225Falstaff
    My devotion --
    Pistol
    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 --
    3230Shallow
    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.
    3235Pistol
    '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,
    3240Is 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 naught but truth.
    Falstaff
    I will deliver her.
    [Cheering within. Trumpets sound.]
    3245Pistol
    There roared the sea, and trumpet-clangor sounds.
    Enter the king and his train.
    3250Falstaff
    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
    My Lord Chief Justice, speak to that vain man.
    Justice
    Have you your wits? Know you what 'tis you speak?
    Falstaff
    My king, my Jove, I speak to thee, my heart!
    King Henry
    I know thee not, old man. Fall to thy prayers.
    3260How ill white hairs becomes a fool and jester.
    I have long dreamt of such a kind of man,
    So surfeit-swelled, so old, and so prophane;
    But being awaked, I do despise my dream.
    Make less thy body hence, and more thy grace,
    3265Leave 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,
    3270That I have turned 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.
    3275Till 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 evils;
    3280And as we hear you do reform yourselves,
    We will, according to your strengths and qualities,
    Give you advancement. [To the Lord Chief Justice] Be it your charge, my lord,
    To see performed the tenor of my word. Set on.
    [Exeunt the king and his train.]
    3285Falstaff
    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 3290seem thus to the world. Fear not your advancements, I will be the man yet that shall make you great.
    Shallow
    I cannot perceive how, unless you 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 color.
    Shallow
    A color that I fear you will die in, Sir John.
    Falstaff
    Fear no colors. Go with me to dinner. 3300Come lieutenant Pistol; come Bardolph. I shall be sent for soon at night.
    Enter Justice and Prince John [of Lancaster, with officers.]
    Justice
    [To officers] Go, carry Sir John Falstaff to the Fleet.
    Take all his company along with him.
    Falstaff
    My lord, my lord --
    3305Justice
    I cannot now speak. I will hear you soon.
    Take them away.
    Pistol
    Si fortuna me tormenta spero contenta.
    Exeunt [all but Lancaster and Justice].
    Lancaster
    I like this fair proceeding of the king's,
    3310He hath intent his wonted followers
    Shall all be very well provided for,
    But all are banished till their conversations
    Appear more wise and modest to the world.
    Justice
    And so they are.
    3315Lancaster
    The king hath called his parliament, my lord.
    Justice
    He hath.
    Lancaster
    I will lay odds that, ere this year expire,
    We bear our civil swords and native fire
    3320As far as France. I heard a bird so sing,
    Whose music, to my thinking, pleased the king.
    Come, will you hence?
    [Exeunt.]