Eastcheap. A Room in the Boar's Head Tavern.
 Enter FALSTAFF and BARDOLPH.

Falstaff	Bardolph, am I not fall'n away vilely since this last 
	action? Do I not bate? Do I not dwindle? Why, my skin 
	hangs about me like an old lady's loose gown. I am 
	withered like an old apple-john. Well, I'll repent, and 
	that suddenly, while I am in some liking. I shall be out 
	of heart shortly, and then I shall have no strength to 
	repent. And I have not forgotten what the inside of a 
	church is made of, I am a peppercorn, a brewer's horse. 
	The inside of a church! Company, villainous company, hath 
	been the spoil of me.

Bardolph	Sir John, you are so fretful you cannot live long.

Falstaff	Why, there is it. Come, sing me a bawdy song, make me 
	merry. I was as virtuously given as a gentleman need to 
	be: virtuous enough; swore little; diced not above seven 
	times (a week); went to a bawdy-house not above once in a 
	quarter (of an hour); paid money that I borrowed (three or 
	four times); lived well, and in good compass; and now I 
	live out of all order, out of all compass.

Bardolph	Why, you are so fat, Sir John, that you must needs be out 
	of all compass, out of all reasonable compass, Sir John.

Falstaff	Do thou amend thy face, and I'll amend my life. Thou art 
	our admiral, thou bearest the lantern in the poop, but 
	'tis in the nose of thee: thou art the Knight of the 
	Burning Lamp.

Bardolph	Why, Sir John, my face does you no harm.

Falstaff	No, I'll be sworn, I make as good use of it as many a man 
	doth of a death's-head or a memento mori. I never see thy 
	face but I think upon hell-fire and Dives that lived in 
	purple; for there he is in his robes, burning, burning. If 
	thou wert any way given to virtue, I would swear by thy 
	face: my oath should be "By this fire, that's God's 
	angel!" But thou art altogether given over, and wert 
	indeed, but for the light in thy face, the son of utter 
	darkness. When thou rann'st up Gad's Hill in the night to 
	catch my horse, if I did not think thou hadst been an 
	ignis fatuus or a ball of wildfire, there's no purchase in 
	money. O, thou art a perpetual triumph, an everlasting 
	bonfire-light! Thou hast saved me a thousand marks in 
	links and torches, walking with thee in the night betwixt 
	tavern and tavern; but the sack that thou hast drunk me 
	would have bought me lights as good cheap at the dearest 
	chandler's in Europe. I have maintained that salamander of 
	yours with fire any time this two-and-thirty years. God 
	reward me for it!

Bardolph	'Sblood, I would my face were in your belly!

Falstaff	God-a-mercy! So should I be sure to be heart-burned.

                              Enter HOSTESS.

	How now, dame Partlet the hen, have you enquired yet who 
	picked my pocket?

Hostess	Why, Sir John, what do you think, Sir John? Do you think I 
	keep thieves in my house? I have searched, I have 
	enquired, so has my husband, man by man, boy by boy, 
	servant by servant. The tithe of a hair was never lost in 
	my house before.

Falstaff	Ye lie, hostess: Bardolph was shaved and lost many a hair, 
	and I'll be sworn my pocket was picked. Go to, you are a 
	woman, go.

Hostess	Who, I? No, I defy thee. God's light, I was never called 
	so in mine own house before!

Falstaff	Go to, I know you well enough.

Hostess	No, Sir John, you do not know me, Sir John. I know you, 
	Sir John: you owe me money, Sir John, and now you pick a 
	quarrel to beguile me of it. I bought you a dozen of 
	shirts to your back.

Falstaff	Dowlas, filthy dowlas. I have given them away to bakers' 
	wives; they have made bolters of them.

Hostess	Now as I am a true woman, holland of eight shillings an 
	ell. You owe money here besides, Sir John, for your diet, 
	and by-drinkings, and money lent you, four-and-twenty 
	pound.

Falstaff	He had his part of it; let him pay.

Hostess	He? Alas, he is poor, he hath nothing.

Falstaff	How, poor? Look upon his face. What call you rich? Let 
	them coin his nose, let them coin his cheeks. I'll not pay 
	a denier. What, will you make a younker of me? Shall I not 
	take mine ease in mine inn but I shall have my pocket 
	picked? I have lost a seal-ring of my grandfather's worth 
	forty mark.

Hostess	O Jesu, I have heard the Prince tell him, I know not how 
	oft, that that ring was copper.

Falstaff	How? The Prince is a Jack, a sneak-up. 'Sblood, and he 
	were here I would cudgel him like a dog if he would say 
	so.

                   Enter the PRINCE and PETO, marching;
     and FALSTAFF meets them, playing upon his truncheon like a fife.

	How now, lad! Is the wind in that door, i'faith? Must we 
	all march?

Bardolph	Yea, two and two, Newgate fashion.

Hostess	My lord, I pray you hear me.

Prince Henry	What sayst thou, Mistress Quickly? How doth thy husband? I 
	love him well, he is an honest man.

Hostess	Good my lord, hear me.

Falstaff	Prithee let her alone, and list to me.

Prince Henry	What sayst thou, Jack?

Falstaff	The other night I fell asleep here, behind the arras, and 
	had my pocket picked. This house is turned bawdy-house - 
	they pick pockets.

Prince Henry	What didst thou lose, Jack?

Falstaff	Wilt thou believe me, Hal, three or four bonds of forty 
	pound apiece, and a seal-ring of my grandfather's.

Prince Henry	A trifle, some eightpenny matter.

Hostess	So I told him, my lord, and I said I heard your grace say 
	so; and, my lord, he speaks most vilely of you, like a 
	foul-mouthed man as he is, and said he would cudgel you.

Prince Henry	What! He did not?

Hostess	There's neither faith, truth, nor womanhood in me else.

Falstaff	There's no more faith in thee than in a stewed prune, nor 
	no more truth in thee than in a drawn fox; and for 
	womanhood, Maid Marian may be the deputy's wife of the 
	ward to thee. Go, you thing, go!

Hostess	Say, what thing? What thing?

Falstaff	What thing? Why, a thing to thank God on.

Hostess	I am no thing to thank God on, I would thou shouldst know 
	it. I am an honest man's wife, and, setting thy knighthood 
	aside, thou art a knave to call me so.

Falstaff	Setting thy womanhood aside, thou art a beast to say 
	otherwise.

Hostess	Say, what beast, thou knave, thou?

Falstaff	What beast? Why, an otter.

Prince Henry	An otter, Sir John? Why an otter?

Falstaff	Why, she's neither fish nor flesh; a man knows not where 
	to have her.

Hostess	Thou art an unjust man in saying so. Thou or any man knows 
	where to have me, thou knave, thou.

Prince Henry	Thou sayst true, hostess, and he slanders thee most 
	grossly.

Hostess	So he doth you, my lord, and said this other day you ought 
	him a thousand pound.

Prince Henry	Sirrah, do I owe you a thousand pound?

Falstaff	A thousand pound, Hal? A million: thy love is worth a 
	million; thou owest me thy love.

Hostess	Nay, my lord, he called you Jack, and said he would cudgel 
	you.

Falstaff	Did I, Bardolph?

Bardolph	Indeed, Sir John, you said so.

Falstaff	Yea, if he said my ring was copper.

Prince Henry	I say 'tis copper; darest thou be as good as thy word now?

Falstaff	Why, Hal, thou knowest, as thou art but man, I dare; but 
	as thou art prince, I fear thee as I fear the roaring of 
	the lion's whelp.

Prince Henry	And why not as the lion?

Falstaff	The king himself is to be feared as the lion: dost thou 
	think I'll fear thee as I fear thy father? Nay, and I do, 
	I pray God my girdle break.

Prince Henry	O, if it should, how would thy guts fall about thy knees! 
	But sirrah, there's no room for faith, truth, nor honesty 
	in this bosom of thine; it is all filled up with guts and 
	midriff. Charge an honest woman with picking thy pocket? 
	Why, thou whoreson impudent embossed rascal, if there were 
	anything in thy pocket but tavern reckonings, memorandums 
	of bawdy-houses, and one poor pennyworth of sugar-candy to 
	make thee long-winded - if thy pocket were enriched with 
	any other injuries but these, I am a villain. And yet you 
	will stand to it, you will not pocket up wrong! Art thou 
	not ashamed?

Falstaff	Dost thou hear, Hal? Thou knowest in the state of 
	innocency Adam fell; and what should poor Jack Falstaff do 
	in the days of villainy? Thou seest I have more flesh than 
	another man, and therefore more frailty. You confess then, 
	you picked my pocket?

Prince Henry	It appears so by the story.

Falstaff	Hostess, I forgive thee. Go make ready breakfast, love thy 
	husband, look to thy servants, cherish thy guests: thou 
	shalt find me tractable to any honest reason; thou seest I 
	am pacified still. Nay, prithee be gone.
												[Exit HOSTESS.
	Now, Hal, to the news at court. For the robbery, lad, how 
	is that answered?

Prince Henry	O, my sweet beef, I must still be good angel to thee: the 
	money is paid back again.

Falstaff	O, I do not like that paying back, 'tis a double labour.

Prince Henry	I am good friends with my father, and may do anything.

Falstaff	Rob me the exchequer the first thing thou dost, and do it 
	with unwashed hands too.

Bardolph	Do, my lord.

Prince Henry	I have procured thee, Jack, a charge of foot.

Falstaff	I would it had been of horse. Where shall I find one that 
	can steal well? O, for a fine thief of the age of two-and-
	twenty or thereabouts! I am heinously unprovided. Well, 
	God be thanked for these rebels: they offend none but the 
	virtuous. I laud them, I praise them.

Prince Henry	Bardolph!

Bardolph	My lord?

Prince Henry	Go bear this letter to Lord John of Lancaster,
	To my brother John; this to my Lord of Westmoreland.
												[Exit BARDOLPH.
	Go, Peto, to horse, to horse, for thou and I
	Have thirty miles to ride yet ere dinner-time.
												[Exit PETO.
	Jack, meet me tomorrow in the Temple Hall
	At two o'clock in the afternoon.
	There shalt thou know thy charge, and there receive
	Money and order for their furniture.
	The land is burning, Percy stands on high,
	And either we or they must lower lie.
												[Exit.

Falstaff	Rare words! Brave world! Hostess, my breakfast, come.
	O, I could wish this tavern were my drum!
												[Exit.
