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 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 Pray thee, peace. (To Sir John) Pay her the debt you owe her, and unpay the villainy you have done with her. The one you may do with sterling money, and the other with current repentance.

SIR JOHN 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.

LORD CHIEF JUSTICE You speak as having power to do wrong; but answer in th’effect of your reputation, and satisfy the poor woman.

SIR JOHN (drawing apart) Come hither, hostess.

She goes to him.

Enter Master Gower, a messenger

LORD 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.

⌈Lord Chief Justice reads the paper, and converses apart with Gower⌉

SIR JOHN As I am a gentleman!

MISTRESS QUICKLY Faith, you said so before.

SIR JOHN 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.

SIR JOHN 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, I know thou wast set on to this.

MISTRESS QUICKLY Pray thee, Sir John, let it be but twenty nobles. I’faith, I am loath to pawn my plate, so God save me, la!

SIR JOHN 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 hope you’ll come to supper. You’ll pay me altogether?

SIR JOHN Will I live? ⌈To Bardolph and the Page⌉ Go with her, with her. Hook on, hook on!

MISTRESS QUICKLY, Will you have Doll Tearsheet meet you at supper?

SIR JOHN No more words; let’s have her.

Exeunt Mistress Quickly, Bardolph, the Page, Fang and Snare

LORD CHIEF JUSTICE (to Gower) I have heard better news.

SIR JOHN What’s the news, my good lord?

LORD CHIEF JUSTICE (to Gower) Where lay the King tonight?

GOWER At Basingstoke, my lord.

SIR JOHN (to Lord Chief Justice) I hope, my lord, all’s well.

What is the news, my lord?

LORD CHIEF JUSTICE (to Gower) 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.

SIR JOHN (to Lord Chief Justice)

Comes the King back from Wales, my noble lord?

LORD CHIEF JUSTICE (to Gower)

You shall have letters of me presently.

Come, go along with me, good Master Gower.

They are going

SIR JOHN My lord!

LORD CHIEF JUSTICE What’s the matter?

SIR JOHN Master Gower, shall I entreat you with me to dinner?

GOWER 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.

SIR JOHN Will you sup with me, Master Gower?

LORD CHIEF JUSTICE What foolish master taught you these manners, Sir John?

SIR JOHN Master Gower, if they become me not, he was a fool that taught them me. (To Lord Chief Justice) 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 ⌈Lord Chief Justice and Gower at one door, Sir John at another⌉

2.2 Enter Prince Harry and Poins

PRINCE HARRY Before God, I am exceeding weary.

POINS Is’t come to that? I had thought weariness durst not have attached one of so high blood.

PRINCE HARRY Faith, it does me, though it discolours the complexion of my greatness to acknowledge it. Doth it not show vilely in me to desire small beer?

POINS Why, a prince should not be so loosely studied as to remember so weak a composition.

PRINCE HARRY Belike then my appetite was not princely got; for, by my troth, I do now remember the poor creature small beer. But indeed, these humble considerations make me out of love with my greatness. What a disgrace is it to me to remember thy name! Or to know thy face tomorrow! Or to take note how many pair of silk stockings thou hast—videlicet these, and those that were thy peach-coloured ones! Or to bear the inventory of thy shirts—as one for superfluity, and another for use. But that the tennis-court keeper knows better than I, for it is a low ebb of linen with thee when thou keepest not racket there; as thou hast not done a great while, because the rest of thy low countries have made a shift to eat up thy holland.

POINS How ill it follows, after you have laboured so hard, you should talk so idly! Tell me, how many good young princes would do so, their fathers lying so sick as yours is?

PRINCE HARRY Shall I tell thee one thing, Poins?

POINS Yes, faith, and let it be an excellent good thing.

PRINCE HARRY It shall serve among wits of no higher breeding than thine.

POINS Go to, I stand the push of your one thing that you’ll tell.

PRINCE HARRY Marry, I tell thee, it is not meet that I should be sad now my father is sick; albeit I could tell to thee, as to one it pleases me, for fault of a better, to call my friend, I could be sad; and sad indeed too.

POINS Very hardly, upon such a subject.

PRINCE HARRY By this hand, thou thinkest me as far in the devil’s book as thou and Falstaff, for obduracy and persistency. Let the end try the man. But I tell thee, my heart bleeds inwardly that my father is so sick; and keeping such vile company as thou art hath, in reason, taken from me all ostentation of sorrow.

POINS The reason?

PRINCE HARRY What wouldst thou think of me if I should weep?

POINS I would think thee a most princely hypocrite.

PRINCE HARRY It would be every man’s thought, and thou art a blessed fellow to think as every man thinks. Never a man’s thought in the world keeps the roadway better than thine. Every man would think me an hypocrite indeed. And what accites your most worshipful thought to think so?

POINS Why, because you have been so lewd, and so much engrafted to Falstaff.

PRINCE HARRY And to thee.

POINS By this light, I am well spoke on; I can hear it with mine own ears. The worst that they can say of me is that I am a second brother, and that I am a proper fellow of my hands; and those two things I confess I cannot help.

Enter Bardolph ⌈followed by⌉ the Page

By the mass, here comes Bardolph.

PRINCE HARRY And the boy that I gave Falstaff. A had him from me Christian, and look if the fat villain have not transformed him ape.