Eastcheap. A Street near the Boar's Head Tavern.
 Enter HOSTESS of the tavern, and two officers, FANG, and SNARE.
 SNARE lagging behind.

Quickly	Master Fang, have you entered the action?

Fang	It is entered.

Quickly	Where's your yeoman? Is't a lusty yeoman? Will a' stand 
	to't?

Fang	Sirrah - Where's Snare?

Quickly	O Lord, ay, good Master Snare.

Snare	Here, here.

Fang	Snare, we must arrest Sir John Falstaff.

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.

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.

Quickly	No, nor I neither; I'll be at your elbow.

Fang	And I but fist him once, if a' come but within my vice - 

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 Lumbert 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 
	fubbed off, and fubbed off, and fubbed 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 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.

Falstaff	How now, whose mare's dead? What's the matter?

Fang	I arrest you at the suit of Mistress Quickly.

Falstaff	Away, varlets! Draw, Bardolph! Cut me off the villain's 
	head. Throw the quean in the channel.
													[BARDOLPH draws.

Quickly	Throw me in the channel? I'll throw thee in the channel. 
	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.

Falstaff	Keep them off, Bardolph!

Fang	A rescue, a rescue!

Quickly	Good people, bring a rescue or two. Thou wot, wot thou? 
	Thou wot, wot ta? Do, do, thou rogue! Do, thou hempseed!

Page	Away, you scullion, you rampallian, you fustilarian! I'll 
	tickle your catastrophe!

                     Enter CHIEF JUSTICE and his MEN.

Chief Justice	What's the matter? Keep the peace here, ho!

Quickly	Good my lord, be good to me; I beseech you, stand to me.

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.
	Stand from him, fellow; wherefore hang'st thou upon him?

Quickly	O, my most worshipful lord, and't please your grace, I am 
	a poor widow of Eastcheap, and he is arrested at my suit.

Chief Justice	For what sum?

Quickly	It is more than for some, my lord; it is for all. He hath 
	eaten me out of house and home, he hath put all my 
	substance into that fat belly of his; but I will have some 
	of it out again, or I will ride thee a-nights like the 
	mare.

Falstaff	I think I am as like to ride the mare if I have any 
	vantage of ground to get up.

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?

Falstaff	What is the gross sum that I owe thee?

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.

Falstaff	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.

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.

Quickly	Yea, in truth, my lord.

Chief Justice	Pray thee, peace. 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.

Falstaff	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 deliv'rance from these officers, 
	being upon hasty employment in the king's affairs.

Chief Justice	You speak as having power to do wrong; but answer in th' 
	effect of your reputation, and satisfy the poor woman.

Falstaff	Come hither, hostess.
													[Takes her aside.

                        Enter GOWER, a messenger.

Chief Justice	Now, Master Gower, what news?

Gower	The king, my lord, and Harry Prince of Wales
	Are near at hand;
													[Gives a letter.
						the rest the paper tells.

Falstaff	As I am a gentleman!

Quickly	Faith, you said so before.

Falstaff	As I am a gentleman! Come, no more words of it.

Quickly	By this heavenly ground I tread on, I must be fain to pawn 
	both my plate and the tapestry of my dining-chambers.

Falstaff	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, and '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, come, I know 
	thou wast set on to this.

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!

Falstaff	Let it alone, I'll make other shift; you'll be a fool 
	still.

Quickly	Well, you shall have it, though I pawn my gown. I hope 
	you'll come to supper. You'll pay me all together?

Falstaff	Will I live? [To BARDOLPH.] Go, with her, with her - hook 
	on, hook on!

Quickly	Will you have Doll Tearsheet meet you at supper?

Falstaff	No more words; let's have her.
												[Exeunt HOSTESS, BARDOLPH,
													PAGE, FANG, and SNARE.

Chief Justice	I have heard better news.

Falstaff	What's the news, my good lord?

Chief Justice	Where lay the king tonight?

Gower	At Basingstoke, my lord.

Falstaff	I hope, my lord, all's well. What is the news, my lord?

Chief Justice	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.

Falstaff	Comes the king back from Wales, my noble lord?

Chief Justice	You shall have letters of me presently.
	Come, go along with me, good Master Gower.

Falstaff	My lord!

Chief Justice	What's the matter?

Falstaff	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.

Chief Justice	Sir John, you loiter here too long, being you are to take 
	soldiers up in counties as you go.

Falstaff	Will you sup with me, Master Gower?

Chief Justice	What foolish master taught you these manners, Sir John?

Falstaff	Master Gower, if they become me not, he was a fool that
	taught them me. This is the right fencing grace, my lord -  
	tap for tap, and so part fair.

Chief Justice	Now the Lord lighten thee, thou art a great fool.
													[Exeunt.
