SCENE IX.
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 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.
-- 390 --
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.
Enter Chief Justice and Prince John.
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.
Manent Lancaster and Chief Justice.
Lan.
I like this fair proceeding of the King's.
He hath intent his wonted followers
Shall all be very well provided for;
But they are banish'd, 'till their conversations
Appear more wise and modest to 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 ere 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.
-- 391 --
EPILOGUE.
Spoken by a Dancer.
First, my fear; then, my court'sie; last, my speech. My fear
is your displeasure; my court'sie, 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 a noteforgiven 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 cloid 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
he be kill'd with your hard opinions: for † noteOldcastle 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.
