But who is substituted ’gainst the French

I have no certain notice.

ARCHBISHOP OF YORK Let us on,

And publish the occasion of our arms.

The commonwealth is sick of their own choice;

Their over-greedy love hath surfeited.

An habitation giddy and unsure

Hath he that buildeth on the vulgar heart.

O thou fond many, with what loud applause

Didst thou beat heaven with blessing Bolingbroke,

Before he was what thou wouldst have him be I

And being now trimmed in thine own desires,

Thou, beastly feeder, art so full of him

That thou provok‘st thyself to cast him up.

So, so, thou common dog, didst thou disgorge

Thy glutton bosom of the royal Richard;

And now thou wouldst eat thy dead vomit up,

And howl’st to find it. What trust is in these times ?

They that when Richard lived would have him die

Are now become enamoured on his grave.

Thou that threw‘st dust upon his goodly head,

When through proud London he came sighing on

After th’admired heels of Bolingbroke,

Cri’st now, ‘O earth, yield us that king again,

And take thou this!’ O thoughts of men accursed!

Past and to come seems best; things present, worst.

⌈MOWBRAY⌉

Shall we go draw our numbers and set on?

HASTINGS

We are time’s subjects, and time bids be gone.

Exeunt

2.1 Enter Mistress Quickly (the hostess of a tavern), and an officer, Fang ⌈followed at a distance by⌉ another officer, Snare

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 Sirrah!—Where’s Snare?

MISTRESS QUICKLY O Lord, ay, good Master Snare.

SNARE ⌈coming forward⌉ Here, here.

FANG Snare, we must arrest Sir John Falstaff.

MISTRESS QUICKLY Yea, good Master Snare, I have entered him 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, most beastly, in good faith. A 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 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 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 Lombard 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 fobbed off, and fobbed off, and fobbed 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.

Enter Sir John Falstaff, Bardolph, and the Page

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.

SIR JOHN How now, whose mare’s dead? What’s the matter ?

FANG Sir John, I arrest you at the suit of Mistress Quickly.

SIR JOHN ⌈drawing⌉ Away, varlets! Draw, Bardolph! Cut me off the villain’s head! Throw the quean in the channel!

⌈Bardolph draws⌉

MISTRESS QUICKLY Throw me in the channel? I’ll throw thee in the channel!

A brawl

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.

SIR JOHN Keep them off, Bardolph !

FANG A rescue, a rescue!

MISTRESS QUICKLY Good people, bring a rescue or two. Thou wot, wot thou? Thou wot, wot’a? 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

LORD CHIEF JUSTICE

What is the matter? Keep the peace here, ho!

Brawl ends. ⌈Fang⌉ seizes Sir John

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.

⌈To Fang⌉ Stand from him, fellow. Wherefore hang’st

thou upon him?

MISTRESS QUICKLY O my 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, all I have. He hath eaten me out of house and home. He hath put all my substance into that fat belly of his; (to Sir John) but I will have some of it out again, or I will ride thee a-nights like the mare.

SIR JOHN I think I am as like to ride the mare, if I have 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?

SIR JOHN (to the Hostess) 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 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 a 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.

⌈She weeps⌉

SIR JOHN 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.