with Erebus and tortures vile also. Hold hook and line, say I. Down, down, dogs! down, faitors! Have we not Hiren here?
Hostess
Good Captain Peesel, be quiet; ’tis very late, i’ faith: I beseek you now, aggravate your choler.
Pistol
These be good humours, indeed! Shall pack-horses
And hollow pamper’d jades of Asia,
Which cannot go but thirty mile a-day,
Compare with Caesars, and with Cannibals,
And Trojan Greeks? nay, rather damn them with
King Cerberus; and let the welkin roar.
Shall we fall foul for toys?
Hostess
By my troth, captain, these are very bitter words.
Bardolph
Be gone, good ancient: this will grow to abrawl anon.
Pistol
Die men like dogs! give crowns like pins! Have we not Heren here?
Hostess
O’ my word, captain, there’s none such here. What the good-year! do you think I would deny her? For God’s sake, be quiet.
Pistol
Then feed, and be fat, my fair Calipolis.
Come, give’s some sack.
“Si fortune me tormente, sperato me contento.”
Fear we broadsides? no, let the fiend give fire:
Give me some sack: and, sweetheart, lie thou there. Laying down his sword.
Come we to full points here; and are etceteras nothing?
Falstaff
Pistol, I would be quiet.
Pistol
Sweet knight, I kiss thy neif: what! we have seen the seven stars.
Doll
For God’s sake, thrust him down stairs: I cannot endure such a fustian rascal.
Pistol
Thrust him down stairs! know we not Galloway nags?
Falstaff
Quoit him down, Bardolph, like a shove-groat shilling: nay, an a’ do nothing but speak nothing, a’ shall be nothing here.
Bardolph
Come, get you down stairs.
Pistol
What! shall we have incision? shall we imbrue? Snatching up his sword.
Then death rock me asleep, abridge my doleful days!
Why, then, let grievous, ghastly, gaping wounds
Untwine the Sisters Three! Come, Atropos, I say!
Hostess
Here’s goodly stuff toward!
Falstaff
Give me my rapier, boy.
Doll
I pray thee, Jack, I pray thee, do not draw.
Falstaff
Get you down stairs.
Drawing, and driving Pistol out.
Hostess
Here’s a goodly tumult! I’ll forswear keeping house, afore I’ll be in these tirrits and frights. So; murder, I warrant now. Alas, alas! put up your naked weapons, put up your naked weapons.
Exeunt Pistol and Bardolph.
Doll
I pray thee, Jack, be quiet; the rascal’s gone. Ah, you whoreson little valiant villain, you!
Hostess
He you not hurt i’ the groin? methought a’ made a shrewd thrust at your belly.
Re-enter
Bardolph.
Falstaff
Have you turned him out o’ doors?
Bardolph
Yea, sir. The rascal’s drunk: you have hurt him, sir, i’ the shoulder.
Falstaff
A rascal! to brave me!
Doll
Ah, you sweet little rogue, you! alas, poor ape, how thou sweatest! come, let me wipe thy face; come on, you whoreson chops: ah, rogue! i’ faith, I love thee: thou art as valorous as Hector of Troy, worth five of Agamemnon, and ten times better than the Nine Worthies: ah, villain!
Falstaff
A rascally slave! I will toss the rogue in a blanket.
Doll
Do, an thou darest for thy heart: an thou dost, I’ll canvass thee between a pair of sheets.
Enter Music.
Page
The music is come, sir.
Falstaff
Let them play. Play, sirs. Sit on my knee, Doll. A rascal bragging slave! the rogue fled from me like quicksilver.
Doll
I’ faith, and thou followedst him like a church. Thou whoreson little tidy Bartholomew boar-pig, when wilt thou leave fighting o’ days and foining o’ nights, and begin to patch up thine old body for heaven?
Enter, behind,
Prince Henry and
Poins, disguised.
Falstaff
Peace, good Doll! do not speak like a death’s-head; do not bid me remember mine end.
Doll
Sirrah, what humour’s the prince of?
Falstaff
A good shallow young fellow: a’ would have made a good pantler, a’ would ha’ chipp’d bread well.
Doll
They say Poins has a good wit.
Falstaff
He a good wit? hang him, baboon! his wit’s as thick as Tewksbury mustard; there’s no more conceit in him than is in a mallet.
Doll
Why does the prince love him so, then?
Falstaff
Because their legs are both of a bigness, and a’ plays at quoits well, and eats conger and fennel, and drinks off candles’ ends for flap-dragons, and rides the wild-mare with the boys, and jumps upon joined-stools, and swears with a good grace, and wears his boots very smooth, like unto the sign of the leg, and breeds no bate with telling of discreet stories; and such other gambol faculties a’ has, that show a weak mind and an able body, for the which the prince admits him: for the prince himself is such another; the weight of a hair will turn the scales between their avoirdupois.
Prince
Would not this nave of a wheel have his ears cut off?
Poins
Let’s beat him before his whore.
Prince
Look, whether the withered elder hath not his poll clawed like a parrot.
Poins
Is it not strange that desire should so many years outlive performance?
Falstaff
Kiss me, Doll.
Prince
Saturn and Venus this year in conjunction! what says the almanac to that?
Poins
And, look, whether the fiery Trigon, his man, be not lisping to his master’s old tables, his note-book, his counsel-keeper.
Falstaff
Thou dost give me flattering busses.
Doll
By my troth, I kiss thee with a most constant heart.
Falstaff
I am old, I am old.
Doll
I love thee better than I love e’er a scurvy young boy of them all.
Falstaff
What stuff wilt have a kirtle of? I shall receive money o’ Thursday: shalt have a cap to-morrow. A merry song, come: it grows late; we’ll to bed. Thou’lt forget me when I am gone.
Doll
By my troth, thou’lt set me a-weeping, an thou sayest so: prove that ever I dress myself handsome till thy return: well, harken at the end.
Falstaff
Some sack, Francis.
Prince Henry
Poins
Anon, anon, sir.
Coming forward.
Falstaff
Ha! a bastard son of the king’s? And art not thou Poins his brother?
Prince
Why, thou globe of sinful continents, what a life dost thou lead!
Falstaff
A better than thou: I am a gentleman; thou art a drawer.
Prince
Very true, sir; and I come to draw you out by the ears.
Hostess
O, the Lord
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