READ STUDY GUIDE: Act II, scenes i-ii |
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Act II, Scene i
| [Enter Hostess, Fang and his Boy with her, and Snare following.] |
| HOSTESS.: |
| Master Fang, have you entered the action? |
| FANG.: |
| It is entered. |
| HOSTESS.: |
| Where 's your yeoman? Is 't a lusty yeoman? will 'a stand to 't? |
| FANG.: |
| Sirrah, where 's Snare? |
| HOSTESS.: |
| O Lord, ay! good Master Snare. |
| SNARE.: |
| Here, here. |
| FANG.: |
| Snare, we must arrest Sir John Falstaff. |
| HOSTESS.: |
| Yea, good Master Snare; I have entered him and all. |
| SNARE.: |
| It may chance cost some of our lives, for he will stab. |
| HOSTESS.: |
| Alas the day! take heed of him; he stabbed me in mine own house, |
| and that most beastly: in good faith, he cares not what |
| mischief he does, if his weapon be out: he will foin like any |
| devil; he will spare neither man, woman, nor child. |
| FANG.: |
| If I can close with him, I care not for his thrust. |
| HOSTESS.: |
| No, nor I neither: I'll be at your elbow. |
| FANG.: |
| An I but fist him once; an 'a come but within my vice,— |
| HOSTESS.: |
| I am undone by his going; I warrant you, he 's an |
| infinitive thing upon my score. Good Master Fang, hold him sure: |
| good Master Snare, let him not 'scape. A' comes continuantly to |
| Pie-corner—saving your manhoods—to buy a saddle; and he is |
| indited to dinner to the Lubber's-head in Lumbert Street, to |
| Master Smooth's the silkman: I pray ye, since my exion is |
| entered and my case so openly known to the world, let him be |
| brought in to his answer. A hundred mark is a long one for a poor |
| lone woman to bear: and I have borne, and borne, and borne; and |
| have been fubbed off, and fubbed off, and fubbed off, from this |
| day to that day, that it is a shame to be thought on. There is no |
| honesty in such dealing; unless a woman should be made an ass and |
| a beast, to bear every knave's wrong. Yonder he comes; and that |
| arrant malmsey-nose knave, Bardolph, with him. Do your offices, |
| do your offices, Master Fang and Master Snare, do me, do me, do me |
| your offices. |
| [Enter Falstaff, Page, and Bardolph.] |
| FALSTAFF.: |
| How now! whose mare's dead? what's the matter? |
| FANG.: |
| Sir John, I arrest you at the suit of Mistress Quickly. |
| FALSTAFF.: |
| Away, varlets! Draw, Bardolph: cut me off the villain's |
| head: throw the quean in the channel. |
| HOSTESS.: |
| Throw me in the channel! I'll throw thee in the channel. |
| Wilt thou? wilt thou? thou bastardly rogue! Murder, murder! Ah, |
| thou honey-suckle villain! wilt thou kill God's officers and the |
| king's? |
| Ah, thou honey-seed rogue! thou art a honey-seed, a man-queller, |
| and a woman-queller. |
| FALSTAFF.: |
| Keep them off, Bardolph. |
| FANG.: |
| A rescue! a rescue! |
| HOSTESS.: |
| Good people, bring a rescue or two. Thou wo't, wo't thou? |
| thou wo't, wo't ta? do, do, thou rogue! do, thou hemp-seed! |
| PAGE.: |
| Away, you scullion! you rampallian! you fustilarian! I'll tickle |
| your catastrophe. |
| [Enter the Lord Chief-Justice, and his men.] |
| CHIEF JUSTICE.: |
| What is the matter? keep the peace here, ho! |
| HOSTESS.: |
| Good my lord, be good to me. I beseech you, stand to me. |
| CHIEF JUSTICE.: |
| How now, Sir John! what are you brawling here? |
| Doth this become your place, your time and business? |
| You should have been well on your way to York. |
| Stand from him, fellow: wherefore hang'st thou upon him? |
| HOSTESS.: |
| O my most worshipful lord, an't please your grace, I am a |
| poor widow of Eastcheap, and he is arrested at my suit. |
| CHIEF JUSTICE.: |
| For what sum? |
| HOSTESS.: |
| It is more than for some, my lord; it is for all, all I have. |
| He hath eaten me out of house and home; he hath put all my substance |
| into that fat belly of his: but I will have some of it out again, |
| or I will ride thee o' nights like the mare. |
| FALSTAFF.: |
| I think I am as like to ride the mare, if I have any |
| vantage of ground to get up. |
| CHIEF JUSTICE.: |
| How comes this, Sir John? Fie! what man of good temper would |
| endure this tempest of exclamation? Are you not ashamed to enforce |
| a poor widow to so rough a course to come by her own? |
| FALSTAFF.: |
| What is the gross sum that I owe thee? |
| HOSTESS.: |
| Marry, if thou wert an honest man, thyself and the money too. |
| Thou didst swear to me upon a parcel-gilt goblet, sitting in |
| my Dolphin-chamber, at the round table, by a sea-coal fire, upon |
| Wednesday in Wheeson week, when the prince broke thy head for |
| liking his father to a singing-man of Windsor, thou didst swear to |
| me then, as I was washing thy wound, to marry me and make me my |
| lady thy wife. Canst thou deny it? Did not goodwife Keech, the |
| butcher's wife, come in then and call me gossip Quickly? Coming |
| in to borrow a mess of vinegar; telling us she had a good dish of |
| prawns, whereby thou didst desire to eat some, whereby I told |
| thee they were ill for green wound? And didst thou not, when she |
| was gone down stairs, desire me to be no more so familiarity with |
| such poor people; saying that ere long they should call me madam? |
| And didst thou not kiss me, and bid me fetch thee thirty shillings? |
| I put thee now to thy book-oath: deny it, if thou canst. |
| FALSTAFF.: |
| My lord, this is a poor mad soul; and she says up and down the |
| town that her eldest son is like you: she hath been in good case, |
| and the truth is, poverty hath distracted her. But for these |
| foolish officers, I beseech you I may have redress against them. |
| CHIEF JUSTICE.: |
| Sir John, Sir John, I am well acquainted with your |
| manner of wrenching the true cause the false way. It is not a |
| confident brow, nor the throng of words that come with such more |
| than impudent sauciness from you, can thrust me from a level |
| consideration: you have, as it appears to me, practised upon the |
| easy-yielding spirit of this woman, and made her serve your uses |
| both in purse and in person. |
| HOSTESS.: |
| Yea, in truth, my lord. |
| CHIEF JUSTICE.: |
| Pray thee, peace. Pay her the debt you owe her, and unpay the |
| villany you have done her: the one you may do with sterling |
| money, and the other with current repentance. |
| FALSTAFF.: |
| My lord, I will not undergo this sneap without reply. |
| You call honourable boldness impudent sauciness: if a man will make |
| courtesy and say nothing, he is virtuous: no, my lord, my humble |
| duty remembered, I will not be your suitor. I say to you, I do desire |
| deliverance from these officers, being upon hasty employment in the |
| king's affairs. |
| CHIEF JUSTICE.: |
| You speak as having power to do wrong: but answer |
| in the effect of your reputation, and satisfy the poor woman. |
| FALSTAFF.: |
| Come hither, hostess. |
| [Enter Gower.] |
| CHIEF JUSTICE.: |
| Now, Master Gower, what news? |
| GOWER.: |
| The king, my lord, and Harry Prince of Wales |
| Are near at hand: the rest the paper tells. |
| FALSTAFF.: |
| As I am a gentleman. |
| HOSTESS.: |
| Faith, you said so before. |
| FALSTAFF.: |
| As I am a gentleman. Come, no more words of it. |
| HOSTESS.: |
| By this heavenly ground I tread on, I must be fain to pawn |
| both my plate and the tapestry of my dining-chambers. |
| FALSTAFF.: |
| Glasses, glasses, is the only drinking: and for thy walls, a pretty |
| slight drollery, or the story of the Prodigal, or the German hunting |
| in water-work, is worth a thousand of these bed-hangings and |
| these fly-bitten tapestries. Let it be ten pound, if thou canst. |
| Come, an 'twere not for thy humours, there's not a better wench in |
| England. Go, wash thy face, and draw the action. Come, thou must not be |
| in this humour with me; dost not know me? come, come, I know thou wast |
| set on to this. |
| HOSTESS.: |
| Pray thee, Sir John, let it be but twenty nobles: i' faith, |
| I am loath to pawn my plate, so God save me, la! |
| FALSTAFF.: |
| Let it alone; I'll make other shift: you'll be a fool still. |
| HOSTESS.: |
| Well, you shall have it, though I pawn my gown. I hope |
| you'll come to supper. You'll pay me all together? |
| FALSTAFF.: |
| Will I live?[To Bardolph.]Go, with her, with her; |
| hook on, hook on. |
| HOSTESS.: |
| Will you have Doll Tearsheet meet you at supper? |
| FALSTAFF.: |
| No more words; let 's have her. |
| [Exeunt Hostess, Bardolph, Officers, and Boy.] |
| CHIEF JUSTICE.: |
| I have heard better news. |
| FALSTAFF.: |
| What 's the news, my lord? |
| CHIEF JUSTICE.: |
| Where lay the king last night? |
| GOWER.: |
| At Basingstoke, my lord. |
| FALSTAFF.: |
| I hope, my lord, all 's well: what is the news, my lord? |
| CHIEF JUSTICE.: |
| Come all his forces back? |
| GOWER.: |
| No; fifteen hundred foot, five hundred horse, |
| Are march'd up to my Lord of Lancaster, |
| Against Northumberland and the Archbishop. |
| FALSTAFF.: |
| Comes the king back from Wales, my noble lord? |
| CHIEF JUSTICE.: |
| You shall have letters of me presently: |
| Come, go along with me, good Master Gower. |
| FALSTAFF.: |
| My lord! |
| CHIEF JUSTICE.: |
| What's the matter? |
| FALSTAFF.: |
| Master Gower, shall I entreat you with me to dinner? |
| GOWER.: |
| I must wait upon my good lord here; I thank you, good Sir John. |
| CHIEF JUSTICE.: |
| Sir John, you loiter here too long, being you are to |
| take soldiers up in counties as you go. |
| FALSTAFF.: |
| Will you sup with me, Master Gower? |
| CHIEF JUSTICE.: |
| What foolish master taught you these manners, Sir John? |
| FALSTAFF.: |
| Master Gower, if they become me not, he was a fool that |
| taught them me. This is the right fencing grace, my lord; tap for |
| tap, and so part fair. |
| CHIEF JUSTICE.: |
| Now the Lord lighten thee! thou art a great fool. |
| [Exeunt.] |
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