TPTT The Second Part of Henry the Fourth: ACT II
Introduction
INDUCTION
ACT I
ACT II
SCENE I. London. A street.
SCENE II. London. Another street.
SCENE III. Warkworth. Before the castle.
SCENE IV. London. The Boar's-head Tavern in Eastcheap.
ACT III
ACT IV
ACT V
About the Play
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SCENE I. London. A street.
Enter MISTRESS QUICKLY, FANG and his Boy with her, and SNARE following.
MISTRESS QUICKLY
      Master Fang, have you entered the action?
FANG
      It is entered.
MISTRESS QUICKLY
      Where's your yeoman? Is't a lusty yeoman?
      Will a' stand to 't?
FANG
5     Sirrah, where's Snare?
MISTRESS QUICKLY
      O Lord, ay! good Master Snare.
SNARE
      Here, here.
FANG
      Snare, we must arrest Sir John Falstaff.
MISTRESS QUICKLY
      Yea, good Master Snare; I have entered him
10    and all.
SNARE
      It may chance cost some of us our lives, for
      he will stab.
MISTRESS QUICKLY
      Alas the day! take heed of him; he stabbed
      me in mine own house, and that most beastly: in good faith, he
15    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.
MISTRESS QUICKLY
20    No, nor I neither: I'll be at your elbow.
FANG
      An I but fist him once; an a' come but
      within my vice,--
MISTRESS QUICKLY
      I am undone by his going; I warrant you,
      he's an infinitive thing upon my score. Good Master
25    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,
30    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
35    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 errant malmsey-nose knave,
40    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
45    Away, varlets! Draw, Bardolph: cut me off the
      villain's head: throw the quean in the channel.
MISTRESS QUICKLY
      Throw me in the channel! I'll throw thee in the
      channel. Wilt thou? wilt thou? thou bastardly
      rogue! Murder, murder! Ah, thou honeysuckle
50    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!
MISTRESS QUICKLY
55    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!
FALSTAFF
      Away, you scullion! you rampallion! You
      fustilarian! I'll tickle your catastrophe.
Enter the Lord Chief-Justice, and his men
Lord Chief-Justice
60    What is the matter? keep the peace here, ho!
MISTRESS QUICKLY
      Good my lord, be good to me. I beseech you, stand to me.
Lord 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.
65    Stand from him, fellow: wherefore hang'st upon him?
MISTRESS QUICKLY
      O most worshipful lord, an't please your grace, I am
      a poor widow of Eastcheap, and he is arrested at my suit.
Lord Chief-Justice
      For what sum?
MISTRESS QUICKLY
      It is more than for some, my lord; it is for all,
70    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
75    any vantage of ground to get up.
Lord 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
80    What is the gross sum that I owe thee?
MISTRESS QUICKLY
      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
85    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
90    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 a green wound? And
95    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
100   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 the eldest son is like you:
      she hath been in good case, and the truth is,
      poverty hath distracted her. But for these foolish
105   officers, I beseech you I may have redress against them.
Lord 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
110   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.
MISTRESS QUICKLY
      Yea, in truth, my lord.
Lord Chief-Justice
115   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
120   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,
125   being upon hasty employment in the king's affairs.
Lord Chief-Justice
      You speak as having power to do wrong: but answer
      in the effect of your reputation, and satisfy this
      poor woman.
FALSTAFF
      Come hither, hostess.
Enter GOWER
Lord Chief-Justice
130   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.
MISTRESS QUICKLY
      Faith, you said so before.
FALSTAFF
135   As I am a gentleman. Come, no more words of it.
MISTRESS QUICKLY
      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
140   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
145   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.
MISTRESS QUICKLY
      Pray thee, Sir John, let it be but twenty nobles: i'
150   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.
MISTRESS QUICKLY
      Well, you shall have it, though I pawn my gown. I
155   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.
MISTRESS QUICKLY
      Will you have Doll Tearsheet meet you at supper?
FALSTAFF
      No more words; let's have her.
Exeunt MISTRESS QUICKLY, BARDOLPH, Officers and Boy
Lord Chief-Justice
160   I have heard better news.
FALSTAFF
      What's the news, my lord?
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?
Lord Chief-Justice
165   Come all his forces back?
GOWER
      No; fifteen hundred foot, five hundred horse,
      Are marched up to my lord of Lancaster,
      Against Northumberland and the Archbishop.
FALSTAFF
      Comes the king back from Wales, my noble lord?
Lord Chief-Justice
170   You shall have letters of me presently:
      Come, go along with me, good Master Gower.
FALSTAFF
      My lord!
Lord Chief-Justice
      What's the matter?
FALSTAFF
      Master Gower, shall I entreat you with me to dinner?
GOWER
175   I must wait upon my good lord here; I thank you,
      good Sir John.
Lord 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?
Lord Chief-Justice
180   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.
Lord Chief-Justice
      Now the Lord lighten thee! thou art a great fool.
Exeunt
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