Great Britain -- History -- Henry IV, 1399-1413 -- Drama; Henry IV, King of England, 1367-1413 -- Drama; Historical drama
well! Gentlemen both, I thank you. I must a dozen mile
to-night.
Bardolph, give the soldiers coats.
SHALLOW. Sir John, the Lord bless you; God prosper your
affairs;
God send us peace! At your return, visit our house; let our
old
acquaintance be renewed. Peradventure I will with ye to the
court.
FALSTAFF. Fore God, would you would.
SHALLOW. Go to; I have spoke at a word. God keep you.
FALSTAFF. Fare you well, gentle gentlemen. [Exeunt JUSTICES]
On,
Bardolph; lead the men away. [Exeunt all but FALSTAFF] As I
return, I will fetch off these justices. I do see the bottom
of
justice Shallow. Lord, Lord, how subject we old men are to
this
vice of lying! This same starv'd justice hath done nothing
but
prate to me of the wildness of his youth and the feats he
hath
done about Turnbull Street; and every third word a lie, duer
paid
to the hearer than the Turk's tribute. I do remember him at
Clement's Inn, like a man made after supper of a
cheese-paring.
When 'a was naked, he was for all the world like a fork'd
radish,
with a head fantastically carved upon it with a knife. 'A was
so
forlorn that his dimensions to any thick sight were
invisible. 'A
was the very genius of famine; yet lecherous as a monkey, and
the
whores call'd him mandrake. 'A came ever in the rearward of
the
fashion, and sung those tunes to the overscutch'd huswifes
that
he heard the carmen whistle, and sware they were his fancies
or
his good-nights. And now is this Vice's dagger become a
squire,
and talks as familiarly of John a Gaunt as if he had been
sworn
brother to him; and I'll be sworn 'a ne'er saw him but once
in
the Tiltyard; and then he burst his head for crowding among
the
marshal's men. I saw it, and told John a Gaunt he beat his
own
name; for you might have thrust him and all his apparel into
an
eel-skin; the case of a treble hautboy was a mansion for him,
a
court--and now has he land and beeves. Well, I'll be
acquainted
with him if I return; and 't shall go hard but I'll make him
a
philosopher's two stones to me. If the young dace be a bait
for
the old pike, I see no reason in the law of nature but I may
snap
at him. Let time shape, and there an end. Exit
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ACT IV. SCENE I.
Yorkshire. Within the Forest of Gaultree
Enter the ARCHBISHOP OF YORK, MOWBRAY, HASTINGS, and others
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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