And from his coffers

Received the golden earnest of our death,

Wherein you would have sold your king to slaughter,

His princes and his peers to servitude,

His subjects to oppression and contempt,

And his whole kingdom into desolation.

Touching our person seek we no revenge,

But we our kingdom’s safety must so tender,

Whose ruin you have sought, that to her laws

We do deliver you. Get ye therefore hence,

Poor miserable wretches, to your death;

The taste whereof, God of his mercy give

You patience to endure, and true repentance

Of all your dear offences.—Bear them hence.

Exeunt the traitors, guarded

Now lords for France, the enterprise whereof

Shall be to you, as us, like glorious.

We doubt not of a fair and lucky war,

Since God so graciously hath brought to light

This dangerous treason lurking in our way

To hinder our beginnings. We doubt not now

But every rub is smoothed on our way.

Then forth, dear countrymen. Let us deliver

Our puissance into the hand of God,

Putting it straight in expedition.

Cheerly to sea, the signs of war advance:

No king of England, if not king of France.

Flourish. Exeunt

2.3 Enter Ensign Pistol, Corporal Nim, Lieutenant Bardolph, Boy, and Hostess Quickly

HOSTESS Prithee, honey, sweet husband, let me bring thee to Staines.

PISTOL

No, for my manly heart doth erne. Bardolph,

Be blithe; Nim, rouse thy vaunting veins; boy, bristle

Thy courage up. For Falstaff he is dead,

And we must earn therefore.

BARDOLPH Would I were with him, wheresome’er he is, either in heaven or in hell.

HOSTESS Nay, sure he’s not in hell. He’s in Arthur’s bosom, if ever man went to Arthur’s bosom. A made a finer end, and went away an it had been any christom child. A parted ev’n just between twelve and one, ev’n at the turning o‘th’ tide—for after I saw him fumble with the sheets, and play with flowers, and smile upon his finger’s end, I knew there was but one way. For his nose was as sharp as a pen, and a babbled of green fields. ‘How now, Sir John?’ quoth I. ‘What, man! Be o’ good cheer.’ So a cried out, ‘God, God, God’, three or four times. Now I, to comfort him, bid him a should not think of God; I hoped there was no need to trouble himself with any such thoughts yet. So a bade me lay more clothes on his feet. I put my hand into the bed and felt them, and they were as cold as any stone. Then I felt to his knees, and so up’ard and up’ard, and all was as cold as any stone.

NIM They say he cried out of sack.

HOSTESS Ay, that a did.

BARDOLPH And of women.

HOSTESS Nay, that a did not.

BOY Yes, that a did, and said they were devils incarnate.

HOSTESS A could never abide carnation, ’twas a colour he never liked.

BOY A said once the devil would have him about women.

HOSTESS A did in some sort, indeed, handle women—but then he was rheumatic, and talked of the Whore of Babylon.

BOY Do you not remember, a saw a flea stick upon Bardolph’s nose, and a said it was a black soul burning in hell-fire.

BARDOLPH Well, the fuel is gone that maintained that fire. That’s all the riches I got in his service.

NIM Shall we shog? The King will be gone from Southampton.

PISTOL

Come, let’s away.—My love, give me thy lips.

He kisses her

Look to my chattels and my movables.

Let senses rule. The word is ‘Pitch and pay’.

Trust none, for oaths are straws, men’s faiths are

wafer-cakes,

And Holdfast is the only dog, my duck.

Therefore caveto be thy counsellor.

Go, clear thy crystals.—Yokefellows in arms,

Let us to France, like horseleeches, my boys,

To suck, to suck, the very blood to suck!

BOY (aside) And that’s but unwholesome food, they say.

PISTOL Touch her soft mouth, and march.

BARDOLPH Farewell, hostess. He kisses her

NIM I cannot kiss, that is the humour of it, but adieu.

PISTOL (to Hostess) Let housewifery appear. Keep close, I thee command.

HOSTESS Farewell! Adieu! Exeunt severally

2.4 Flourish. Enter King Charles the Sixth of France, the Dauphin, the Constable, and the Dukes of Berri and ⌈Bourbon⌉

KING CHARLES

Thus comes the English with full power upon us,

And more than carefully it us concerns

To answer royally in our defences.

Therefore the Dukes of Berri and of Bourbon,

Of Brabant and of Orléans shall make forth,

And you Prince Dauphin, with all swift dispatch

To line and new-repair our towns of war

With men of courage and with means defendant.

For England his approaches makes as fierce

As waters to the sucking of a gulf.

It fits us then to be as provident

As fear may teach us, out of late examples

Left by the fatal and neglected English

Upon our fields.

DAUPHIN My most redoubted father,

It is most meet we arm us ‘gainst the foe,

For peace itself should not so dull a kingdom—

Though war, nor no known quarrel, were in

question—

But that defences, musters, preparations

Should be maintained, assembled, and collected

As were a war in expectation.

Therefore, I say, ’tis meet we all go forth

To view the sick and feeble parts of France.

And let us do it with no show of fear,

No, with no more than if we heard that England

Were busied with a Whitsun morris dance.

For, my good liege, she is so idly kinged,

Her sceptre so fantastically borne

By a vain, giddy, shallow, humorous youth,