King Henry IV, Part 1

by William Shakespeare

Enter Hostess.

How now, Dame Partlet the hen? Have you enquir'd yet who
pick'd
my pocket?
Host. Why, Sir John, what do you think, Sir John? Do you think
I
keep thieves in my house? I have search'd, I have enquired,
so
has my husband, man by man, boy by boy, servant by servant.
The
tithe of a hair was never lost in my house before.
Fal. Ye lie, hostess. Bardolph was shav'd and lost many a hair,
and
I'll be sworn my pocket was pick'd. Go to, you are a woman,
go!
Host. Who, I? No; I defy thee! God's light, I was never call'd
so
in mine own house before!
Fal. Go to, I know you well enough.
Host. No, Sir John; you do not know me, Sir John. I know you,
Sir
John. You owe me money, Sir John, and now you pick a quarrel
to
beguile me of it. I bought you a dozen of shirts to your
back.
Fal. Dowlas, filthy dowlas! I have given them away to bakers'
wives; they have made bolters of them.
Host. Now, as I am a true woman, holland of eight shillings an
ell.
You owe money here besides, Sir John, for your diet and
by-drinkings, and money lent you, four-and-twenty pound.
Fal. He had his part of it; let him pay.
Host. He? Alas, he is poor; he hath nothing.
Fal. How? Poor? Look upon his face. What call you rich? Let
them
coin his nose, let them coin his cheeks. I'll not pay a
denier.
What, will you make a younker of me? Shall I not take mine
ease
in mine inn but I shall have my pocket pick'd? I have lost a
seal-ring of my grandfather's worth forty mark.
Host. O Jesu, I have heard the Prince tell him, I know not how
oft,
that that ring was copper!
Fal. How? the Prince is a Jack, a sneak-cup. 'Sblood, an he
were
here, I would cudgel him like a dog if he would say so.

Enter the Prince [and Poins], marching; and Falstaff meets
them, playing upon his truncheon like a fife.

How now, lad? Is the wind in that door, i' faith? Must we all
march?
Bard. Yea, two and two, Newgate fashion.
Host. My lord, I pray you hear me.
Prince. What say'st thou, Mistress Quickly? How doth thy
husband?
I love him well; he is an honest man.
Host. Good my lord, hear me.
Fal. Prithee let her alone and list to me.
Prince. What say'st thou, Jack?
Fal. The other night I fell asleep here behind the arras and
had my
pocket pick'd. This house is turn'd bawdy house; they pick
pockets.
Prince. What didst thou lose, Jack?
Fal. Wilt thou believe me, Hal? Three or four bonds of forty
pound
apiece and a seal-ring of my grandfather's.
Prince. A trifle, some eightpenny matter.
Host. So I told him, my lord, and I said I heard your Grace say
so;
and, my lord, he speaks most vilely of you, like a
foul-mouth'd
man as he is, and said he would cudgel you.
Prince. What! he did not?
Host. There's neither faith, truth, nor womanhood in me else.
Fal. There's no more faith in thee than in a stewed prune, nor
no
more truth in thee than in a drawn fox; and for woman-hood,
Maid
Marian may be the deputy's wife of the ward to thee. Go, you
thing, go!
Host. Say, what thing? what thing?
Fal. What thing? Why, a thing to thank God on.
Host. I am no thing to thank God on, I would thou shouldst know
it!
I am an honest man's wife, and, setting thy knight-hood
aside,
thou art a knave to call me so.
Fal. Setting thy womanhood aside, thou art a beast to say
otherwise.
Host. Say, what beast, thou knave, thou?
Fal. What beast? Why, an otter.
Prince. An otter, Sir John? Why an otter?
Fal. Why, she's neither fish nor flesh; a man knows not where
to
have her.
Host. Thou art an unjust man in saying so. Thou or any man
knows
where to have me, thou knave, thou!
Prince. Thou say'st true, hostess, and he slanders thee most
grossly.
Host. So he doth you, my lord, and said this other day you
ought
him a thousand pound.
Prince. Sirrah, do I owe you a thousand pound?
Fal. A thousand pound, Hal? A million! Thy love is worth a
million;
thou owest me thy love.
Host. Nay, my lord, he call'd you Jack and said he would cudgel
you.
Fal. Did I, Bardolph?
Bard. Indeed, Sir John, you said so.
Fal. Yea. if he said my ring was copper.
Prince. I say, 'tis copper. Darest thou be as good as thy word
now?
Fal. Why, Hal, thou knowest, as thou art but man, I dare; but
as
thou art Prince, I fear thee as I fear the roaring of the
lion's
whelp.
Prince. And why not as the lion?
Fal. The King himself is to be feared as the lion. Dost thou
think
I'll fear thee as I fear thy father? Nay, an I do, I pray God
my
girdle break.
Prince. O, if it should, how would thy guts fall about thy
knees!
But, sirrah, there's no room for faith, truth, nor honesty in
this bosom of thine. It is all fill'd up with guts and
midriff.
Charge an honest woman with picking thy pocket? Why, thou
whoreson, impudent, emboss'd rascal, if there were anything
in
thy pocket but tavern reckonings, memorandums of bawdy
houses,
and one poor pennyworth of sugar candy to make thee
long-winded-
if thy pocket were enrich'd with any other injuries but
these, I
am a villain. And yet you will stand to it; you will not
pocket
up wrong. Art thou not ashamed?
Fal. Dost thou hear, Hal? Thou knowest in the state of
innocency
Adam fell; and what should poor Jack Falstaff do in the days
of
villany? Thou seest I have more flesh than another man, and
therefore more frailty. You confess then, you pick'd my
pocket?
Prince. It appears so by the story.
Fal. Hostess, I forgive thee. Go make ready breakfast. Love thy
husband, look to thy servants, cherish thy guests. Thou shalt
find me tractable to any honest reason. Thou seest I am
pacified.
-Still?- Nay, prithee be gone. [Exit Hostess.] Now, Hal, to
the
news at court. For the robbery, lad- how is that answered?
Prince. O my sweet beef, I must still be good angel to thee.
The money is paid back again.
Fal. O, I do not like that paying back! 'Tis a double labour.
Prince. I am good friends with my father, and may do anything.
Fal. Rob me the exchequer the first thing thou doest, and do it
with unwash'd hands too.
Bard. Do, my lord.
Prince. I have procured thee, Jack, a charge of foot.
Fal. I would it had been of horse. Where shall I find one that
can
steal well? O for a fine thief of the age of two-and-twenty
or
thereabouts! I am heinously unprovided. Well, God be thanked
for
these rebels. They offend none but the virtuous. I laud them,
I
praise them.
Prince. Bardolph!
Bard. My lord?
Prince. Go bear this letter to Lord John of Lancaster,
To my brother John; this to my Lord of Westmoreland.
[Exit Bardolph.]
Go, Poins, to horse, to horse; for thou and I
Have thirty miles to ride yet ere dinner time.
[Exit Poins.]
Jack, meet me to-morrow in the Temple Hall
At two o'clock in the afternoon.
There shalt thou know thy charge. and there receive
Money and order for their furniture.
The land is burning; Percy stands on high;
And either they or we must lower lie. [Exit.]
Fal. Rare words! brave world! Hostess, my breakfast, come.
O, I could wish this tavern were my drum!
Exit.

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ACT IV. Scene I. The rebel camp near Shrewsbury.

Enter Harry Hotspur, Worcester, and Douglas.

Hot. Well said, my noble Scot. If speaking truth
In this fine age were not thought flattery,
Such attribution should the Douglas have
As not a soldier of this season's stamp
Should go so general current through the world.
By God, I cannot flatter, I defy
The tongues of soothers! but a braver place
In my heart's love hath no man than yourself.
Nay, task me to my word; approve me, lord.
Doug. Thou art the king of honour.
No man so potent breathes upon the ground
But I will beard him.

Enter one with letters.

Hot. Do so, and 'tis well.-
What letters hast thou there?- I can but thank you.
Messenger. These letters come from your father.
Hot. Letters from him? Why comes he not himself?
Mess. He cannot come, my lord; he is grievous sick.
Hot. Zounds! how has he the leisure to be sick
In such a justling time? Who leads his power?
Under whose government come they along?
Mess. His letters bears his mind, not I, my lord.
Wor. I prithee tell me, doth he keep his bed?
Mess. He did, my lord, four days ere I set forth,
And at the time of my departure thence
He was much fear'd by his physicians.
Wor. I would the state of time had first been whole
Ere he by sickness had been visited.
His health was never better worth than now.
Hot. Sick now? droop now? This sickness doth infect
The very lifeblood of our enterprise.
'Tis catching hither, even to our camp.
He writes me here that inward sickness-
And that his friends by deputation could not
So soon be drawn; no did he think it meet
To lay so dangerous and dear a trust
On any soul remov'd but on his own.
Yet doth he give us bold advertisement,
That with our small conjunction we should on,
To see how fortune is dispos'd to us;
For, as he writes, there is no quailing now,
Because the King is certainly possess'd
Of all our purposes. What say you to it?
Wor. Your father's sickness is a maim to us.
Hot. A perilous gash, a very limb lopp'd off.
And yet, in faith, it is not! His present want
Seems more than we shall find it. Were it good
To set the exact wealth of all our states
All at one cast? to set so rich a man
On the nice hazard of one doubtful hour?
It were not good; for therein should we read
The very bottom and the soul of hope,
The very list, the very utmost bound
Of all our fortunes.
Doug. Faith, and so we should;
Where now remains a sweet reversion.
We may boldly spend upon the hope of what
Is to come in.
A comfort of retirement lives in this.
Hot. A rendezvous, a home to fly unto,
If that the devil and mischance look big
Upon the maidenhead of our affairs.
Wor. But yet I would your father had been here.
The quality and hair of our attempt
Brooks no division. It will be thought
By some that know not why he is away,
That wisdom, loyalty, and mere dislike
Of our proceedings kept the Earl from hence.
And think how such an apprehension
May turn the tide of fearful faction
And breed a kind of question in our cause.
For well you know we of the off'ring side
Must keep aloof from strict arbitrement,
And stop all sight-holes, every loop from whence
The eye of reason may pry in upon us.
This absence of your father's draws a curtain
That shows the ignorant a kind of fear
Before not dreamt of.
Hot. You strain too far.
I rather of his absence make this use:
It lends a lustre and more great opinion,
A larger dare to our great enterprise,
Than if the Earl were here; for men must think,
If we, without his help, can make a head
To push against a kingdom, with his help
We shall o'erturn it topsy-turvy down.
Yet all goes well; yet all our joints are whole.
Doug. As heart can think. There is not such a word
Spoke of in Scotland as this term of fear.