The Complete Works of William Shakespeare Part 152

FALSTAFF. Never, never; she would always say she could not abide Master Shallow.

SHALLOW. By the ma.s.s, I could anger her to th' heart. She was then a bona-roba. Doth she hold her own well?

FALSTAFF. Old, old, Master Shallow.

SHALLOW. Nay, she must be old; she cannot choose but be old; certain she's old; and had Robin Nightwork, by old Nightwork, before I came to Clement's Inn.

SILENCE. That's fifty-five year ago.

SHALLOW. Ha, cousin Silence, that thou hadst seen that that this knight and I have seen! Ha, Sir John, said I well?

FALSTAFF. We have heard the chimes at midnight, Master Shallow.

SHALLOW. That we have, that we have, that we have; in faith, Sir John, we have. Our watchword was 'Hem, boys!' Come, let's to dinner; come, let's to dinner. Jesus, the days that we have seen!

Come, come.

Exeunt FALSTAFF and the JUSTICES BULLCALF. Good Master Corporate Bardolph, stand my friend; and here's four Harry ten shillings in French crowns for you. In very truth, sir, I had as lief be hang'd, sir, as go. And yet, for mine own part, sir, I do not care; but rather because I am unwilling and, for mine own part, have a desire to stay with my friends; else, sir, I did not care for mine own part so much.

BARDOLPH. Go to; stand aside.

MOULDY. And, good Master Corporal Captain, for my old dame's sake, stand my friend. She has n.o.body to do anything about her when I am gone; and she is old, and cannot help herself. You shall have forty, sir.

BARDOLPH. Go to; stand aside.

FEEBLE. By my troth, I care not; a man can die but once; we owe G.o.d a death. I'll ne'er bear a base mind. An't be my destiny, so; an't be not, so. No man's too good to serve 's Prince; and, let it go which way it will, he that dies this year is quit for the next.

BARDOLPH. Well said; th'art a good fellow.

FEEBLE. Faith, I'll bear no base mind.

Re-enter FALSTAFF and the JUSTICES

FALSTAFF. Come, sir, which men shall I have?

SHALLOW. Four of which you please.

BARDOLPH. Sir, a word with you. I have three pound to free Mouldy and Bullcalf.

FALSTAFF. Go to; well.

SHALLOW. Come, Sir John, which four will you have?

FALSTAFF. Do you choose for me.

SHALLOW. Marry, then- Mouldy, Bullcalf, Feeble, and Shadow.

FALSTAFF. Mouldy and Bullcalf: for you, Mouldy, stay at home till you are past service; and for your part, Bullcalf, grow you come unto it. I will none of you.

SHALLOW. Sir John, Sir John, do not yourself wrong. They are your likeliest men, and I would have you serv'd with the best.

FALSTAFF. Will you tell me, Master Shallow, how to choose a man?

Care I for the limb, the thews, the stature, bulk, and big a.s.semblance of a man! Give me the spirit, Master Shallow. Here's Wart; you see what a ragged appearance it is. 'A shall charge you and discharge you with the motion of a pewterer's hammer, come off and on swifter than he that gibbets on the brewer's bucket.

And this same half-fac'd fellow, Shadow- give me this man. He presents no mark to the enemy; the foeman may with as great aim level at the edge of a penknife. And, for a retreat- how swiftly will this Feeble, the woman's tailor, run off! O, give me the spare men, and spare me the great ones. Put me a caliver into Wart's hand, Bardolph.

BARDOLPH. Hold, Wart. Traverse- thus, thus, thus.

FALSTAFF. Come, manage me your caliver. So- very well. Go to; very good; exceeding good. O, give me always a little, lean, old, chopt, bald shot. Well said, i' faith, Wart; th'art a good scab.

Hold, there's a tester for thee.

SHALLOW. He is not his craft's master, he doth not do it right. I remember at Mile-end Green, when I lay at Clement's Inn- I was then Sir Dagonet in Arthur's show- there was a little quiver fellow, and 'a would manage you his piece thus; and 'a would about and about, and come you in and come you in. 'Rah, tah, tah!' would 'a say; 'Bounce!' would 'a say; and away again would 'a go, and again would 'a come. I shall ne'er see such a fellow.

FALSTAFF. These fellows will do well. Master Shallow, G.o.d keep you!

Master Silence, I will not use many words with you: Fare you well! Gentlemen both, I thank you. I must a dozen mile to-night.

Bardolph, give the soldiers coats.

SHALLOW. Sir John, the Lord bless you; G.o.d prosper your affairs; G.o.d send us peace! At your return, visit our house; let our old acquaintance be renewed. Peradventure I will with ye to the court.

FALSTAFF. Fore G.o.d, would you would.

SHALLOW. Go to; I have spoke at a word. G.o.d keep you.

FALSTAFF. Fare you well, gentle gentlemen. [Exeunt JUSTICES] On, Bardolph; lead the men away. [Exeunt all but FALSTAFF] As I return, I will fetch off these justices. I do see the bottom of justice Shallow. Lord, Lord, how subject we old men are to this vice of lying! This same starv'd justice hath done nothing but prate to me of the wildness of his youth and the feats he hath done about Turnbull Street; and every third word a lie, duer paid to the hearer than the Turk's tribute. I do remember him at Clement's Inn, like a man made after supper of a cheese-paring.

When 'a was naked, he was for all the world like a fork'd radish, with a head fantastically carved upon it with a knife. 'A was so forlorn that his dimensions to any thick sight were invisible. 'A was the very genius of famine; yet lecherous as a monkey, and the wh.o.r.es call'd him mandrake. 'A came ever in the rearward of the fashion, and sung those tunes to the overscutch'd huswifes that he heard the carmen whistle, and sware they were his fancies or his good-nights. And now is this Vice's dagger become a squire, and talks as familiarly of John a Gaunt as if he had been sworn brother to him; and I'll be sworn 'a ne'er saw him but once in the Tiltyard; and then he burst his head for crowding among the marshal's men. I saw it, and told John a Gaunt he beat his own name; for you might have thrust him and all his apparel into an eel-skin; the case of a treble hautboy was a mansion for him, a court- and now has he land and beeves. Well, I'll be acquainted with him if I return; and 't shall go hard but I'll make him a philosopher's two stones to me. If the young dace be a bait for the old pike, I see no reason in the law of nature but I may snap at him. Let time shape, and there an end. Exit

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ACT IV. SCENE I.

Yorkshire. Within the Forest of Gaultree

Enter the ARCHBISHOP OF YORK, MOWBRAY, HASTINGS, and others

ARCHBISHOP. What is this forest call'd HASTINGS. 'Tis Gaultree Forest, an't shall please your Grace.

ARCHBISHOP. Here stand, my lords, and send discoverers forth To know the numbers of our enemies.

HASTINGS. We have sent forth already.

ARCHBISHOP. 'Tis well done.

My friends and brethren in these great affairs, I must acquaint you that I have receiv'd New-dated letters from Northumberland; Their cold intent, tenour, and substance, thus: Here doth he wish his person, with such powers As might hold sortance with his quality, The which he could not levy; whereupon He is retir'd, to ripe his growing fortunes, To Scotland; and concludes in hearty prayers That your attempts may overlive the hazard And fearful meeting of their opposite.

MOWBRAY. Thus do the hopes we have in him touch ground And dash themselves to pieces.

Enter A MESSENGER

HASTINGS. Now, what news?

MESSENGER. West of this forest, scarcely off a mile, In goodly form comes on the enemy; And, by the ground they hide, I judge their number Upon or near the rate of thirty thousand.

MOWBRAY. The just proportion that we gave them out.

Let us sway on and face them in the field.

Enter WESTMORELAND

ARCHBISHOP. What well-appointed leader fronts us here?

MOWBRAY. I think it is my Lord of Westmoreland.

WESTMORELAND. Health and fair greeting from our general, The Prince, Lord John and Duke of Lancaster.

ARCHBISHOP. Say on, my Lord of Westmoreland, in peace, What doth concern your coming.

WESTMORELAND. Then, my lord, Unto your Grace do I in chief address The substance of my speech. If that rebellion Came like itself, in base and abject routs, Led on by b.l.o.o.d.y youth, guarded with rags, And countenanc'd by boys and beggary- I say, if d.a.m.n'd commotion so appear'd In his true, native, and most proper shape, You, reverend father, and these n.o.ble lords, Had not been here to dress the ugly form Of base and b.l.o.o.d.y insurrection With your fair honours. You, Lord Archbishop, Whose see is by a civil peace maintain'd, Whose beard the silver hand of peace hath touch'd, Whose learning and good letters peace hath tutor'd, Whose white investments figure innocence, The dove, and very blessed spirit of peace- Wherefore you do so ill translate yourself Out of the speech of peace, that bears such grace, Into the harsh and boist'rous tongue of war; Turning your books to graves, your ink to blood, Your pens to lances, and your tongue divine To a loud trumpet and a point of war?

ARCHBISHOP. Wherefore do I this? So the question stands.

Briefly to this end: we are all diseas'd And with our surfeiting and wanton hours Have brought ourselves into a burning fever, And we must bleed for it; of which disease Our late King, Richard, being infected, died.

But, my most n.o.ble Lord of Westmoreland, I take not on me here as a physician; Nor do I as an enemy to peace Troop in the throngs of military men; But rather show awhile like fearful war To diet rank minds sick of happiness, And purge th' obstructions which begin to stop Our very veins of life. Hear me more plainly.

I have in equal balance justly weigh'd What wrongs our arms may do, what wrongs we suffer, And find our griefs heavier than our offences.

We see which way the stream of time doth run And are enforc'd from our most quiet there By the rough torrent of occasion; And have the summary of all our griefs, When time shall serve, to show in articles; Which long ere this we offer'd to the King, And might by no suit gain our audience: When we are wrong'd, and would unfold our griefs, We are denied access unto his person, Even by those men that most have done us wrong.

The dangers of the days but newly gone, Whose memory is written on the earth With yet appearing blood, and the examples Of every minute's instance, present now, Hath put us in these ill-beseeming arms; Not to break peace, or any branch of it, But to establish here a peace indeed, Concurring both in name and quality.

WESTMORELAND. When ever yet was your appeal denied; Wherein have you been galled by the King; What peer hath been suborn'd to grate on you That you should seal this lawless b.l.o.o.d.y book Of forg'd rebellion with a seal divine, And consecrate commotion's bitter edge?

ARCHBISHOP. My brother general, the commonwealth, To brother horn an household cruelty, I make my quarrel in particular.

WESTMORELAND. There is no need of any such redress; Or if there were, it not belongs to you.

MOWBRAY. Why not to him in part, and to us all That feel the bruises of the days before, And suffer the condition of these times To lay a heavy and unequal hand Upon our honours?

WESTMORELAND. O my good Lord Mowbray, Construe the times to their necessities, And you shall say, indeed, it is the time, And not the King, that doth you injuries.

Yet, for your part, it not appears to me, Either from the King or in the present time, That you should have an inch of any ground To build a grief on. Were you not restor'd To all the Duke of Norfolk's signiories, Your n.o.ble and right well-rememb'red father's?

MOWBRAY. What thing, in honour, had my father lost That need to be reviv'd and breath'd in me?

The King that lov'd him, as the state stood then, Was force perforce compell'd to banish him, And then that Henry Bolingbroke and he, Being mounted and both roused in their seats, Their neighing coursers daring of the spur, Their armed staves in charge, their beavers down, Their eyes of fire sparkling through sights of steel, And the loud trumpet blowing them together- Then, then, when there was nothing could have stay'd My father from the breast of Bolingbroke, O, when the King did throw his warder down- His own life hung upon the staff he threw- Then threw he down himself, and all their lives That by indictment and by dint of sword Have since miscarried under Bolingbroke.

WESTMORELAND. You speak, Lord Mowbray, now you know not what.

The Earl of Hereford was reputed then In England the most valiant gentleman.

Who knows on whom fortune would then have smil'd?

But if your father had been victor there, He ne'er had borne it out of Coventry; For all the country, in a general voice, Cried hate upon him; and all their prayers and love Were set on Hereford, whom they doted on, And bless'd and grac'd indeed more than the King.

But this is mere digression from my purpose.

Here come I from our princely general To know your griefs; to tell you from his Grace That he will give you audience; and wherein It shall appear that your demands are just, You shall enjoy them, everything set off That might so much as think you enemies.

MOWBRAY. But he hath forc'd us to compel this offer; And it proceeds from policy, not love.

WESTMORELAND. Mowbray. you overween to take it so.

This offer comes from mercy, not from fear; For, lo! within a ken our army lies- Upon mine honour, all too confident To give admittance to a thought of fear.