POOR JACK
(The curtain rises to show the Angel room of the Boar’s Head Tavern in Eastcheap. ’Tis the private parlor of the mistress of the inn, Dame Quickly.
At the back is a high fireplace with heavy leaded diamond paned windows on either side. At the left is the doorway leading to the tap room, on the right a huge clothes press. When our play opens Dame Quickly is demurely stirring the fire while Bardolph is sorting garments which he takes from the press. We hear a quivery voice singing: “Then Came Bold Sir Caradoc” ... and Sir John Falstaff fumbles at the door and enters. It is a Falstaff much broken since his loss of the King’s favor and now equally decayed in wit, health and reputation. His paunch alone remains prosperous and monstrous and contrasts greatly with the shrunken remainder of the man. He is particularly shaky this morning after a night’s hard drinking. Nevertheless he enters with what cheerfulness he can muster.)
FALSTAFF
(sings) Then came the Bold Sir Caradoc—Ah, Mistress what news?—and eke Sir Pellinore—Did I rage last night, Bardolph? Was I a Bedlamite?
BARDOLPH
As mine own bruises can testify. Had each one of them a tongue they would raise a clamor beside which Babel were an heir weeping for his rich uncle’s death; their testimony would qualify you for any mad-house in England. And if their evidence go against the doctor’s stomach, the watchman at the corner hath three teeth—or rather, hath them no longer, since you knocked them out last night, that will willingly aid him to digest it.
FALSTAFF
(as he stiffly lowers his great body into the great chair that awaits him beside the fire and stretches his hands to catch the heat of the flames.) Three say you? I would have my valor in all men’s mouths, but not in this fashion, for it is too biting a jest. Three, say you? Well, I am glad it was no worse; I have a tender conscience and that mad fellow of the North, Hotspur, sits heavily upon it, so that thus this Percy, being slain by my valor, is per se avenged, a plague upon him! Three, say you? I would to God my name were not so terrible to the enemy as it is; I would I had ’bated my natural inclination somewhat and slain less tall fellows by three score. I doubt Agamemnon slept not well o’ nights. Three, say you? Give the fellow a crown apiece for his mouldy teeth, if thou hast them; if thou hast them not, bid him eschew this vice of drunkenness whereby his misfortune hath befallen him, and thus win him heavenly crowns.
BARDOLPH