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Gloucestershire. Before SHALLOW'S house.
[Enter SHALLOW and SILENCE, meeting; MOLDY, SHADOW, WART, FEEBLE, BULLCALF,
a Servant or two with them]
SHALLOW
Come on, come on, come on: give me your hand, sir; give me your hand,
sir: an early stirrer, by the rood. And how doth my good cousin Silence?
SILENCE
Good morrow, good cousin Shallow.
SHALLOW
And how doth my cousin, your bedfellow? and your fairest daughter, and mine,
my god-daughter Ellen?
SILENCE
Alas, a black ousel (cousin Shallow).
SHALLOW
By yea and nay, sir, I dare say my cousin William is become a good scholar:
he is at Oxford still, is he not?
SILENCE
Indeed sir, to my cost.
SHALLOW
He must then to the inns of court shortly: I was once of Clement's Inn;
where (I think) they will talk of mad Shallow yet.
SILENCE
You were called lusty Shallow then (cousin).
SHALLOW
I was called anything: and I would have done anything indeed
too, and roundly too. There was I, and little John Doit of Staffordshire,
and black George Barnes, and Francis Pickbone, and Will Squele, a Cotswold
man, you had not four such swinge-bucklers in all the inns of court again:
and I may say to you, we knew where the bona-robas were, and had the best of
them all at commandment. Then was Jack Falstaff (now Sir John) a boy, and
page to Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk.
SILENCE
This Sir John (cousin) that comes hither anon about soldiers?
SHALLOW
The same Sir John, the very same: I see him break Skogan's head at the
court-gate, when he was a crack, not thus high: and the very same day did I
fight with one Sampson Stockfish, a fruiterer, behind Gray's Inn. Oh the
mad days that I have spent! and to see how many of my old acquaintance are
dead?
SILENCE
We shall all follow (cousin).
SHADOW
Certain: 'tis certain: very sure, very sure: death
is certain to all, all shall die. How a good yoke of bullocks at Stamford
fair?
SILENCE
Truly cousin, I was not there.
SHALLOW
Death is certain. Is old Double of your town living yet?
SILENCE
Dead, sir.
SHALLOW
Dead? See, see: he drew a good bow: and dead? he shot a fine shoot. John of
Gaunt loved him well, and betted much money on his head. Dead? He would have
clapped in the clout at twelve score, and carried you a forehand shaft a
fourteen, and fourteen and a half, that it would have done a man's heart good
to see. How a score of ewes now?
SILENCE
Thereafter as they be: a score of good ewes may be worth ten pounds.
SHALLOW
And is old Double dead?
SILENCE
Here come two of Sir John Falstaff's men (as I think).
[Enter BARDOLPH and one with him]
SHALLOW
Good morrow, honest gentlemen.
BARDOLPH
I beseech you, which is Justice Shallow?
SHALLOW
I am Robert Shallow (sir) a poor esquire of this county, and one of the
king's justices of th e peace: What is your good pleasure with me?
BARDOLPH
My captain (sir) commends him to you: my captain, Sir John Falstaff: a tall
gentleman, and a most gallant leader.
SHALLOW
He greets me well: (sir) I knew him a good backsword man. How doth the good
knight? may I ask, how my lady his wife doth?
BARDOLPH
Sir, pardon: a soldier is better accommodated, than with a wife.
SHALLOW
It is well said, sir; and it is well said, indeed, too. Better
accommodated? It is good, yea indeed is it: good phrases are surely, and
everywere very commendable. Accommodated, it comes of accommodo: very
good, a good phrase.
BARDOLPH
Pardon, sir, I have heard the word. Phrase call you it? by this day,
I know not the phrase: but I will maintain the word with my sword, to be a
soldier-like word, and a word of exceeding good command. Accommodated: that is, when a man is
(as they say) accommodated: or, when a
man is, being whereby he may be thought to be accommodated, which is an
excellent thing.
SHALLOW
It is very just: Look, here comes good Sir John. Give me your good hand,
give me your worship's good hand: trust me, you look well: and bear your
years very well. welcome, good Sir John.
FALSTAFF
I am glad to see you well, good Master Robert Shallow. Master Surecard, as I
think?
SHALLOW
No Sir John, it is my cousin Silence: in commission with me.
FALSTAFF
Good Master Silence, it well befits you should be of the peace.
SILENCE
Your good worship is welcome.
FALSTAFF
Fie, this is hot weather (gentlemen) Have you provided me here half a dozen
sufficient men?
SHALLOW
Marry have we sir: Will you sit?
FALSTAFF
Let me see them, I beseech you.
SHALLOW
Where's the roll? Where's the roll? Where's the roll? Let me see, let me
see, let me see. So, so, so, so: yea marry sir, Ralph Moldy: Let them appear as I
call: let them do so, let them do so: Let me see, where is Moldy?
MOLDY
Here, if it please you.
SHALLOW
What think you (Sir John) a good-limbed fellow, young, strong, and of good
friends.
FALSTAFF
Is thy name Moldy?
MOLDY
Yea, and it please you.
FALSTAFF
'Tis the more time thou wert used.
SHALLOW
Ha, ha, ha, most excellent. Things that are moldy lack use: very
singular good. Well said Sir John, very well said.
FALSTAFF
Prick him.
MOLDY
I was pricked well enough before, if you could have let me alone: my old
dame will be undone now, for one to do her husbandry, and her drudgery; you
need not to have pricked me, there are other men fitter to go out than I.
FALSTAFF
Go to: peace Moldy, you shall go. Moldy, it is time you were spent.
MOLDY
Spent?
SHALLOW
Peace, fellow, peace; stand aside: know you where you are? For the other Sir
John: let me see: Simon Shadow.
FALSTAFF
Aye marry, let me have him to sit under: he's like to be a cold soldier.
SHALLOW
Where's Shadow?
SHADOW
Here sir.
FALSTAFF
Shadow, whose son art thou?
SHADOW
My mother's son, sir.
FALSTAFF
Thy mother's son: like enough, and thy father's shadow: so the son of the
female, is the shadow of the male: it is often so indeed, but much of the
father's substance.
SHALLOW
Do you like him, Sir John?
FALSTAFF
Shadow will serve for summer: prick him: for we have a number of shadows to
fill up the muster-book.
SHALLOW
Thomas Wart?
FALSTAFF
Where's he?
WART
Here sir.
FALSTAFF
Is thy name Wart?
WART
Yea sir.
FALSTAFF
Thou art a very ragged wart.
SHALLOW
Shall I prick him down,
Sir John?
FALSTAFF
It were superfluous: for his apparel is built upon his back, and the whole
frame stands upon pins: prick him no more.
SHALLOW
Ha, ha, ha, you can do it sir: you can do it: I commend you well.
Francis Feeble.
FEEBLE
Here sir.
FALSTAFF
What trade art thou, Feeble?
FEEBLE
A woman's tailor, sir.
SHALLOW
Shall I prick him, sir?
FALSTAFF
You may:
But if he had been a man's tailor, he’d have pricked you. Wilt thou
make as many holes in an enemy's battle, as thou hast done in a woman's
petticoat?
FEEBLE
I will do my good will sir, you can have no more.
FALSTAFF
Well said, good woman's tailor: well said courageous Feeble: thou wilt be
as valiant as the wrathful dove, or most magnanimous mouse. Prick the woman's
tailor well Master Shallow, deep Master Shallow.
FEEBLE
I would Wart might have gone sir.
FALSTAFF
I would thou wert a man's tailor, that thou mightst mend him, and make him
fit to go. I cannot put him to a private soldier, that is the leader of so
many thousands. Let that suffice, most forcible Feeble.
FEEBLE
It shall suffice.
FALSTAFF
I am bound to thee, reverend Feeble. Who is next?
SHALLOW
Peter Bullcalf of the green.
FALSTAFF
Yea marry, let's see Bullcalf.
BULLCALF
Here sir.
FALSTAFF
Trust me, a likely fellow! Come, prick me Bullcalf till he roar again.
BULLCALF
Oh, good my lord captain.
FALSTAFF
What? dost thou roar before thou art pricked.
BULLCALF
Oh sir, I am a diseased man.
FALSTAFF
What disease hast thou?
BULLCALF
A whoreson cold sir, a cough sir, which I caught with ringing in the
king's affairs, upon his coronation-day, sir.
FALSTAFF
Come thou shalt go to the wars in a gown: we wilt have away thy cold, and I
will take such order, that my friends shall ring for thee. Is here all?
SHALLOW
There is two more called than your number: you must have but four here sir,
and so I pray you go in with me to dinner.
FALSTAFF
Come, I will go drink with you, but I cannot tarry dinner, I am glad to see
you in good troth, Master Shallow.
SHALLOW
O Sir John, do you remember since we lay all night in the windmill, in Saint
George's field?
FALSTAFF
No more of that good Master Shallow: no more of that.
SHALLOW
Ha? It was a merry night. And is Jane Nightwork alive?
FALSTAFF
She lives, Master Shallow.
SHALLOW
She never could away with me.
FALSTAFF
Never, never: she would always say she could not abide Master Shallow.
SHALLOW
I could anger her to the heart: She was then a bona-roba. Doth
she hold her own well?
FALSTAFF
Old, old, Master Shallow.
SHALLOW
Nay, she must be old, she cannot choose but be old: certain she's old: and
had Robin Nightwork, by old Nightwork, before I came to Clement's Inn.
SILENCE
That's fifty-five years ago.
SHALLOW
Hah, cousin Silence, that thou hadst seen that, that this knight and I have
seen: Ha, Sir John, said I well?
FALSTAFF
We have heard the chimes at midnight, Master Shallow.
SHALLOW
That we have, that we have; in faith, Sir John, we have: our
watch-word was, Hem boys. Come, let's to dinner; come, let's to dinner:
Jesus, the days that we have seen. Come, come.
[Exeunt FALSTAFF and Justices]
BULLCALF
Good Master Corporate Bardolph, stand my friend, and here's four Harry ten
shillings in French crowns for you: In very truth, sir, I had as lief be
hanged sir, as go: and yet, for mine own part, sir, I do not care; but
rather, because I am unwilling, and, for mine own part, have a desire to
stay with my friends: else, sir, I did not care, for mine own part, so much.
BARDOLPH
Go to: stand aside.
MOLDY
And good master corporal captain, for my old dame's sake, stand my friend:
she has nobody to do anything about her, when I am gone: and she is old, and
cannot help herself: You shall have forty, sir.
BARDOLPH
Go to: stand aside.
FEEBLE
I care not, a man can die but once: we owe God a death. I will
never bear a base mind: and it be my destiny, so: and it be not, so: no man
is too good to serve his prince: and let it go which way it will, he that dies
this year, is quit for the next.
BARDOLPH
Well said, thou art a good fellow.
FEEBLE
Nay, I'll bear no base mind.
FALSTAFF
Come sir, which men shall I have?
SHALLOW
Four of which you please.
BARDOLPH
Sir, a word with you: I have three pound, to free Moldy and Bullcalf.
FALSTAFF
Go to: well.
SHALLOW
Come, Sir John, which four will you have?
FALSTAFF
Do you choose for me.
SHALLOW
Marry then, Moldy, Bullcalf, Feeble, and Shadow.
FALSTAFF
Moldy, and Bullcalf: for you Moldy, stay at home, till you are past service:
and for your part, Bullcalf, grow till you come unto it: I will none of you.
SHALLOW
Sir John, Sir John, do not yourself wrong, they are your likeliest men, and
I would have you served with the best.
FALSTAFF
Will you tell me (Master Shallow) how to choose a man? Care I for the limb,
the thewes, the stature, bulk, and big assemblance of a man? Give me the
spirit (Master Shallow). Where's Wart? you see what a ragged appearance it is:
he shall charge you, and discharge you, with the motion of a pewterer's
hammer: come off, and on, swifter than he that gibbets on the brewer's bucket.
And this same half-faced fellow, Shadow, give me this man: he presents no
mark to the enemy, the foeman may with as great aim level at the edge of a
penknife: and for a retreat, how swiftly will this Feeble, the woman's tailor,
run off. O, give me the spare men, and spare me the great ones. Put me a
caliver into Wart's hand, Bardolph.
BARDOLPH
Hold Wart, traverse: thus, thus, thus.
FALSTAFF
Come, manage me your caliver: So very well, go to, very good, exceeding
good. O, give me always a little, lean, old, chapped, bald shot. Well said Wart, thou
art a good scab: hold, there's a tester for thee.
SHALLOW
He is not his craft's master, he doth not do it right. I remember at
Mile-end Green, when I lay at Clement's Inn, I was then Sir Dagonet in
Arthur's show: there was a little quiver fellow, and he would manage you
his piece thus: and he would about, and about, and come you in, and come you
in: rah, tah, tah, would he say; bounce would he say, and away again
would he go, and again would he come: I shall nere see such a fellow.
FALSTAFF
These fellows will do well, Master Shallow. Farewell Master Silence, I
will not use many words with you: fare you well, gentlemen both: I thank
you: I must a dozen mile tonight. Bardolph, give the soldiers coats.
SHALLOW
Sir John, heaven bless you, and prosper your affairs, and send us peace.
At your return, visit my house. Let our old acquaintance be renewed:
peradventure I will with you to the court.
FALSTAFF
I would you would, Master Shallow.
SHALLOW
Go to: I have spoke at a word. Fare you well.
FALSTAFF
Fare you well, gentle gentlemen. On Bardolph, lead the men away. As I
return, I will fetch off these justices: I do see the bottom of Justice
Shallow. How subject we old men are to this vice of lying? This
same starved justice hath done nothing but prate to me of the wildness of
his youth, and the feats he hath done about Turnbull Street, and every third
word a lie, duer paid to the hearer, than the Turk's tribute. I do remember
him at Clement's Inn, like a man made after supper, of a cheese-paring.
When
he was naked, he was, for all the world, like a forked radish, with a head
fantastically carved upon it with a knife. He was so forlorn, that his
dimensions (to any thick sight) were invincible. He was the very genius of
famine: he
came ever in the rearward of the fashion: And now is this Vice's dagger become a
squire, and talks as familiarly of John of Gaunt, as if he had been sworn
brother to him: and I'll be sworn he never saw him but once in the Tilt-yard,
and then he burst his head, for crowding among the marshal's men. I saw it,
and told John of Gaunt, he beat his own name, for you might have thrust him
and all his apparel into an eel-skin: the case of a treble hautboy was a
mansion for him: a court: and now has he land, and beefs. Well, I'll be
acquainted with him, if I return: and it shall go hard, but I will make him a
philosopher's two stones to me. If the young dace be a bait for the old
pike, I see no reason, in the law of nature, but I may snap at him. Let time
shape, and there an end.
[Exit]