Act III, Scene iii:
Eastcheap. A Room in the Boar's-Head Tavern.

[Enter Falstaff and Bardolph.]

FAL.:

Bardolph, am I not fallen away vilely since this last action? do I

not bate? do I not dwindle? Why, my skin hangs about me like an

old lady's loose gown; I am withered like an old apple-John.

Well, I'll repent, and that suddenly, while I am in some liking; I

shall be out of heart shortly, and then I shall have no strength to

repent.

An I have not forgotten what the inside of a church is made of, I

am a peppercorn, a brewer's horse: the inside of a church!

Company, villainous company, hath been the spoil of me.

BARD.:

Sir John, you are so fretful, you cannot live long.

FAL.:

Why, there is it: come, sing me a song; make me merry. I was as

virtuously given as a gentleman need to be; virtuous enough; swore

little; diced not above seven times a week; paid money that I borrowed

—three or four times; lived well, and in good compass: and now I live

out of all order, out of all compass.

BARD.:

Why, you are so fat, Sir John, that you must needs be out of all

compass,—out of all reasonable compass, Sir John.

FAL.:

Do thou amend thy face, and I'll amend my life: thou art our admiral,

thou bearest the lantern in the poop,—but 'tis in the nose of thee;

thou art the Knight of the Burning Lamp.

BARD.:

Why, Sir John, my face does you no harm.

FAL.:

No, I'll be sworn; I make as good use of it as many a man doth of a

death's-head or a memento mori: I never see thy face but I think upon

hell-fire, and Dives that lived in purple; for there he is in his robes,

burning, burning. If thou wert any way given to virtue, I would swear

by thy face; my oath should be, By this fire, that's God's angel: but

thou art altogether given over; and wert indeed, but for the light in

thy face, the son of utter darkness. When thou rann'st up Gad's-hill in

the night to catch my horse, if I did not think thou hadst been an ignis

fatuus or a ball of wildfire, there's no purchase in money. O, thou art

a perpetual triumph, an everlasting bonfire-light! Thou hast saved me a

thousand marks in links and torches, walking with thee in the night

betwixt tavern and tavern: but the sack that thou hast drunk me would

have bought me lights as good cheap at the dearest chandler's in Europe.

I have maintain'd that salamander of yours with fire any time this

two-and-thirty years; God reward me for it!

BARD.:

'Sblood, I would my face were in your stomach!

FAL.:

God-a-mercy! so should I be sure to be heart-burn'd.—

[Enter the 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 inquired,

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 shaved, 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,

and 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 Prince Henry and Pointz, marching. Falstaff meets them,playing on 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.:

Pr'ythee, 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

a-piece and a seal-ring of my grandfather's.

PRINCE.:

A trifle, some eight-penny 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 stew'd 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? I am an honest man's wife: and,

setting thy knighthood 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 know'st, 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.:

Sirrah, there's no room for faith, truth, nor honesty in this

bosom of thine; it is all fill'd up with 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, 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 know'st, in the state of innocency Adam fell;

and what should poor Jack Falstaff do in the days of villainy?

Thou see'st 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 see'st I am pacified.—Still? Nay, pr'ythee,

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 any thing.

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,

My brother John; this to my Lord of Westmoreland.—

[Exit Bardolph.]

Go, Pointz, to horse, to horse; for thou and I

Have thirty miles to ride yet ere dinner-time.—

[Exit Pointz.]

Meet me to-morrow, Jack, i' the Temple-hall

At two o'clock in th' 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.]