SCENE V.
Enter two Grooms.
1 Groom.
More Rushes, more Rushes.
2 Groom.
The Trumpets have sounded twice.
1 Groom.
It will be two of the Clock e'er they come from
the Coronation.
[Exeunt Grooms.
Enter Falstaff, Shallow, Pistol, Bardolph and Page.
Fal.
Stand here by me, Master Robert Shallow, I will
make the King do you Grace: I will lear upon him as he
comes by, and do but mark the Countenance that he will
give me.
Pistol.
Bless thy Lungs, good Knight.
Fal.
Come here, Pistol, stand behind me. O, if I had
had time to have made new Liveries, I would have bestow'd
the thousand pound I borrow'd of you. But it is no matter,
this poor shew doth better; this doth infer the zeal I had to
see him.
Shal.
It doth so.
Fal.
It shews my earnestness in Affection.
Pist.
It doth so.
Fal.
My Devotion.
Pist.
It doth, it doth, it doth.
Fal.
As it were to ride day and night,
And not to deliberate, not to remember,
Not to have patience to shift me.
Shal.
It is most certain.
-- 1287 --
Fal.
But to stand stained with Travel and Sweating with
desire to see him, thinking of nothing else, putting all Affairs
in oblivion, as if there were nothing else to be done but
to see him.
Pist.
'Tis semper idem; for absque hoc nihil est. 'Tis all
in every part.
Shal.
'Tis so indeed.
Pist.
My Knight, I will enflame thy Noble Liver, and
make thee rage. Thy Dol, and Helen of thy noble Thoughts
is in base Durance and contagious Prison; hall'd thither by
most mechanical and dirty Hands. Rowze up Revenge from
Ebon Den, with fell Alecto's Snake, for Dol's in. Pistol speaks
nought but troth.
Fal.
I will deliver her.
Pist.
There roar'd the Sea; and Trumpet Clangour
sounds.
The Trumpets sound. Enter King Henry the Fifth, his Brothers,
and the Lord Chief Justice.
Fal.
Save thy Grace, King Hal, my Royal Hal.
Pist.
The Heavens thee guard and keep, most Royal Imp
of Fame.
Fal.
Save thee, my sweet Boy.
King.
My Lord Chief Justice speak to that vain Man.
Ch. Just.
Have you your Wits?
Know you what 'tis you speak?
Fal.
My King, my Jove, I speak to thee, my Heart.
King.
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 prophane;
But, being awake, 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 Heaven 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,
-- 1288 --
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 Miss-leaders,
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 redeem your selves,
We will, according to our Strength and Qualities,
Give you Advancement. Be it your Charge, my Lord,
To see perform'd the tenure of our Word. Set on.
[Exit King.
Fal.
Master Shallow, I owe you a thousand pound.
Shal.
Ay marry, Sir John, which I beseech you to let me
have home with me.
Fal.
That can hardly be, Mr. 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 Advancement,
I will be the Man yet that shall make you Great.
Shal.
I cannot well perceive how, unless you would give
me your Doublet and stuff me out with Straw. I beseech
you, good Sir John, let me have five hundred of my
thousand.
Fal.
Sir, I will be as good as my word. This, that you
heard, was but a colour.
Shal.
A colour, I fear, that you will die in, Sir John.
Fal.
Fear no Colours, go with me to Dinner:
Come Lieutenant Pistol, come Bardolph,
I shall be sent for soon at Night.
Ch. Just.
Go carry Sir John Falstaff to the Fleet,
Take all his Company along with him.
Fal.
My Lord, my Lord.
Ch. Just.
I cannot now speak, I will hear you soon.
Take them away.
Pist.
Si fortuna me tormento, spera me contento.
[Exeunt.
Manet Lancaster, and Chief Justice.
Lan.
I like this fair proceeding of the King's,
He hath intent his wonted Followers
Shall be very well provided for;
But are banish'd, 'till their Conversations
-- 1289 --
Appear more wise and modest in the World.
Ch. Just.
And so they are.
Lan.
The King hath call'd his Parliament,
My Lord.
Ch. Just.
He hath.
Lan.
I will lay odds, that e'er this year expire,
We bear our Civil Swords and Native Fire
As far as France. I heard a Bird so sing,
Whose Musick, to my thinking, pleas'd the King.
Come, will you hence?
[Exeunt.
-- 1290 --
EPILOGUE.
First, my Fear; then, my Courtesie; last, my Speech. My
Fear is your Displeasure; my Courtesie, 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 did mean, 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 will I. All the Gentlewomen
here have forgotten me; if the Gentlewomen 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 cloid
with fat Meat, our humble Author will continue the Story,
with Sir John in it, and make you merry with fair Katherine
of France; where, for any thing I know, Falstaff shall die of
a Sweat, unless already he be kill'd 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.
