SCENE I. London. A street. The Second part of King Henry the Fourth  Shakespeare homepage  |  Henry IV, part 2  | Act 2, Scene 1 

 Previous scene  |  Next scene  SCENE I. London. A street. 

 Enter MISTRESS QUICKLY, FANG and his Boy with her, and SNARE following.  MISTRESS QUICKLY  Master Fang, have you entered the action? 

 FANG  It is entered. 

 MISTRESS QUICKLY  Where's your yeoman? Is't a lusty yeoman? will a' 

 stand to 't? 

 FANG  Sirrah, where's Snare? 

 MISTRESS QUICKLY  O Lord, ay! good Master Snare. 

 SNARE  Here, here. 

 FANG  Snare, we must arrest Sir John Falstaff. 

 MISTRESS 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. 

 MISTRESS QUICKLY  Alas the day! take heed of him; he stabbed me in 

 mine own house, and that most beastly: in good 

 faith, he 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. 

 MISTRESS QUICKLY  No, nor I neither: I'll be at your elbow. 

 FANG  An I but fist him once; an a' come but within my vice,-- 

 MISTRESS 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 ye, 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. Yonder he 

 comes; and that errant 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. 



 Enter FALSTAFF, Page, and BARDOLPH  FALSTAFF  How now! whose mare's dead? what's the matter? 

 FANG  Sir John, 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. 

 MISTRESS 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 honey-seed rogue! thou art a 

 honey-seed, a man-queller, and a woman-queller. 

 FALSTAFF  Keep them off, Bardolph. 

 FANG  A rescue! a rescue! 

 MISTRESS QUICKLY  Good people, bring a rescue or two. Thou wo't, wo't 

 thou? Thou wo't, wo't ta? do, do, thou rogue! do, 

 thou hemp-seed! 

 FALSTAFF  Away, you scullion! you rampallion! You 

 fustilarian! I'll tickle your catastrophe. 



 Enter the Lord Chief-Justice, and his men  Lord Chief-Justice	What is the matter? keep the peace here, ho! 

 MISTRESS QUICKLY  Good my lord, be good to me. I beseech you, stand to me. 

 Lord 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 upon him? 

 MISTRESS QUICKLY  O most worshipful lord, an't please your grace, I am 

 a poor widow of Eastcheap, and he is arrested at my suit. 

 Lord Chief-Justice	For what sum? 

 MISTRESS QUICKLY  It is more than for some, my lord; it is for all, 

 all I have. 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 o' 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. 

 Lord 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? 

 MISTRESS 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 down stairs, 

 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 the 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. 

 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. Pay her the debt you owe her, and 

 unpay the villany you have done 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 courtesy 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 the effect of your reputation, and satisfy this 

 poor woman. 

 FALSTAFF  Come hither, hostess. 



 Enter GOWER  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. 

 FALSTAFF  As I am a gentleman. 

 MISTRESS QUICKLY  Faith, you said so before. 

 FALSTAFF  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. 

 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 water-work, 

 is worth a thousand of these bed-hangings 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, 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! 

 FALSTAFF  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 all together? 

 FALSTAFF  Will I live? 



 To BARDOLPH  Go, with her, with her; hook on, hook on. 

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

 FALSTAFF  No more words; let's have her. 



 Exeunt MISTRESS QUICKLY, BARDOLPH, Officers and Boy  Lord Chief-Justice	I have heard better news. 

 FALSTAFF  What's the news, my lord? 

 Lord Chief-Justice	Where lay the king last night? 

 GOWER  At Basingstoke, my lord. 

 FALSTAFF  I hope, my lord, all's well: what is the news, my lord? 

 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? 

 Lord Chief-Justice	You shall have letters of me presently: 

 Come, go along with me, good Master Gower. 

 FALSTAFF  My lord! 

 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. 

 Lord 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? 

 Lord 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. 

 Lord Chief-Justice	Now the Lord lighten thee! thou art a great fool. 



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