King Henry IV, Part II

King Henry IV, Part II

ACT V SCENE V	A public place near Westminster Abbey.
	Enter two Grooms, strewing rushes
First Groom	More rushes, more rushes.
Second Groom	The trumpets have sounded twice.
First Groom	'Twill be two o'clock ere they come from the
	coronation: dispatch, dispatch.	5
	Exeunt
	Enter FALSTAFF, SHALLOW, PISTOL,BARDOLPH, and Page
FALSTAFF	Stand here by me, Master Robert Shallow; I will
	make the king do you grace: I will leer upon him as
	a' comes by; and do but mark the countenance that he
	will give me.
PISTOL	God bless thy lungs, good knight.	10
FALSTAFF	Come here, Pistol; stand behind me. O, if I had had
	time to have made new liveries, I would have
	bestowed the thousand pound I borrowed of you. But
	'tis no matter; this poor show doth better: this
	doth infer the zeal I had to see him.	15
SHALLOW	It doth so.
FALSTAFF	It shows my earnestness of affection,--
SHALLOW	It doth so.
FALSTAFF	My devotion,--
SHALLOW	It doth, it doth, it doth.	20
FALSTAFF	As it were, to ride day and night; and not to
	deliberate, not to remember, not to have patience
	to shift me,--
SHALLOW	It is best, certain.
FALSTAFF	But to stand stained with travel, and sweating with	25
	desire to see him; thinking of nothing else,
	putting all affairs else in oblivion, as if there
	were nothing else to be done but to see him.
PISTOL	'Tis 'semper idem,' for 'obsque hoc nihil est:'
	'tis all in every part.	30
SHALLOW	'Tis so, indeed.
PISTOL	My knight, I will inflame thy noble liver,
	And make thee rage.
	Thy Doll, and Helen of thy noble thoughts,
	Is in base durance and contagious prison;	35
	Haled thither
	By most mechanical and dirty hand:
	Rouse up revenge from ebon den with fell
	Alecto's snake,
	For Doll is in. Pistol speaks nought but truth.	40
FALSTAFF	I will deliver her.
	Shouts within, and the trumpets sound
PISTOL	There roar'd the sea, and trumpet-clangor sounds.
	Enter KING HENRY V and his train, the Lord Chief-Justice among them
FALSTAFF	God save thy grace, King Hal! my royal Hal!
PISTOL	The heavens thee guard and keep, most royal imp of fame!
FALSTAFF	God save thee, my sweet boy!	45
KING HENRY IV	My lord chief-justice, speak to that vain man.
Lord Chief-Justice	Have you your wits? know you what 'tis to speak?
FALSTAFF	My king! my Jove! I speak to thee, my heart!
KING HENRY IV	I know thee not, old man: fall to thy prayers;
	How ill white hairs become a fool and jester!	50
	I have long dream'd of such a kind of man,
	So surfeit-swell'd, so old and so profane;
	But, being awaked, I do despise my dream.
	Make less thy body hence, and more thy grace;
	Leave gormandizing; know the grave doth gape	55
	For thee thrice wider than for other men.
	Reply not to me with a fool-born jest:
	Presume not that I am the thing I was;
	For God doth know, so shall the world perceive,
	That I have turn'd away my former self;	60
	So will I those that kept me company.
	When thou dost hear I am as I have been,
	Approach me, and thou shalt be as thou wast,
	The tutor and the feeder of my riots:
	Till then, I banish thee, on pain of death,	65
	As I have done the rest of my misleaders,
	Not to come near our person by ten mile.
	For competence of life I will allow you,
	That lack of means enforce you not to evil:
	And, as we hear you do reform yourselves,	70
	We will, according to your strengths and qualities,
	Give you advancement. Be it your charge, my lord,
	To see perform'd the tenor of our word. Set on.
	Exeunt KING HENRY V, &c
FALSTAFF	Master Shallow, I owe you a thousand pound.
SHALLOW	Yea, marry, Sir John; which I beseech you to let me	75
	have home with me.
FALSTAFF	That can hardly be, Master Shallow. Do not you
	grieve at this; I shall be sent for in private to
	him: look you, he must seem thus to the world:
	fear not your advancements; I will be the man yet	80
	that shall make you great.
SHALLOW	I cannot well perceive how, unless you should give
	me your doublet and stuff me out with straw. I
	beseech you, good Sir John, let me have five hundred
	of my thousand.	85
FALSTAFF	Sir, I will be as good as my word: this that you
	heard was but a colour.
SHALLOW	A colour that I fear you will die in, Sir John.
FALSTAFF	Fear no colours: go with me to dinner: come,
	Lieutenant Pistol; come, Bardolph: I shall be sent	90
	for soon at night.
	Re-enter Prince John of LANCASTER, the LordChief-Justice; Officers with them
Lord Chief-Justice	Go, carry Sir John Falstaff to the Fleet:
	Take all his company along with him.
FALSTAFF	My lord, my lord,--
Lord Chief-Justice	I cannot now speak: I will hear you soon.	95
	Take them away.
PISTOL	Si fortune me tormenta, spero contenta.
	Exeunt all but PRINCE JOHN and the LordChief-Justice
LANCASTER	I like this fair proceeding of the king's:
	He hath intent his wonted followers
	Shall all be very well provided for;	100
	But all are banish'd till their conversations
	Appear more wise and modest to the world.
Lord Chief-Justice	And so they are.
LANCASTER	The king hath call'd his parliament, my lord.
Lord Chief-Justice	He hath.	105
LANCASTER	I will lay odds that, ere this year expire,
	We bear our civil swords and native fire
	As far as France: I beard a bird so sing,
	Whose music, to my thinking, pleased the king.
	Come, will you hence?	110
	Exeunt
	EPILOGUE
	Spoken by a Dancer
	First my fear; then my courtesy; last my speech.
	My fear is, your displeasure; my courtesy, my duty;
	and my speech, to beg your pardons. If you look
	for a good speech now, you undo me: for what I have	115
	to say is of mine own making; and what indeed I
	should say will, I doubt, prove mine own marring.
	But to the purpose, and so to the venture. Be it
	known to you, as it is very well, I was lately here
	in the end of a displeasing play, to pray your	120
	patience for it and to promise you a better. I
	meant indeed to pay you with this; which, if like an
	ill venture it come unluckily home, I break, and
	you, my gentle creditors, lose. Here I promised you
	I would be and here I commit my body to your	125
	mercies: bate me some and I will pay you some and,
	as most debtors do, promise you infinitely.
	If my tongue cannot entreat you to acquit me, will
	you command me to use my legs? and yet that were but
	light payment, to dance out of your debt. But a	130
	good conscience will make any possible satisfaction,
	and so would I. All the gentlewomen here have
	forgiven me: if the gentlemen will not, then the
	gentlemen do not agree with the gentlewomen, which
	was never seen before in such an assembly.	135
	One word more, I beseech you. If you be not too
	much cloyed with fat meat, our humble author will
	continue the story, with Sir John in it, and make
	you merry with fair Katharine of France: where, for
	any thing I know, Falstaff shall die of a sweat,	140
	unless already a' be killed with your hard
	opinions; for Oldcastle died a martyr, and this is
	not the man. My tongue is weary; when my legs are
	too, I will bid you good night: and so kneel down
	before you; but, indeed, to pray for the queen.	145