The Complete Works of William Shakespeare · William Shakespeare
SCENE I. London. A street.
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. He 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 you, 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, Bardolph and Page. 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 honeysuckle villain, wilt thou kill God’s officers and the King’s? Ah, thou honeyseed rogue, thou art a honeyseed, 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 hempseed! 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 downstairs, 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 with 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 curtsy 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 th’ 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 waterwork, is worth a thousand of these bed-hangers 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.
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