SCENE V. A public place near Westminster Abbey. The Second part of King Henry the Fourth  Shakespeare homepage  |  Henry IV, part 2  | Act 5, Scene 5 

 Previous scene  SCENE V. A public place near Westminster Abbey. 

 Enter two Grooms, strewing rushes  First Groom  More rushes, more rushes. 

 Second Groom  The trumpets have sounded twice. 

 First Groom  'Twill be two o'clock ere they come from the 

 coronation: dispatch, dispatch. 



 Exeunt 

 Enter FALSTAFF, SHALLOW, PISTOL, BARDOLPH, and Page  FALSTAFF  Stand here by me, Master Robert Shallow; I will 

 make the king do you grace: I will leer upon him as 

 a' comes by; and do but mark the countenance that he 

 will give me. 

 PISTOL  God bless thy lungs, good knight. 

 FALSTAFF  Come here, Pistol; stand behind me. O, if I had had 

 time to have made new liveries, I would have 

 bestowed the thousand pound I borrowed of you. But 

 'tis no matter; this poor show doth better: this 

 doth infer the zeal I had to see him. 

 SHALLOW  It doth so. 

 FALSTAFF  It shows my earnestness of affection,-- 

 SHALLOW  It doth so. 

 FALSTAFF  My devotion,-- 

 SHALLOW  It doth, it doth, it doth. 

 FALSTAFF  As it were, to ride day and night; and not to 

 deliberate, not to remember, not to have patience 

 to shift me,-- 

 SHALLOW  It is best, certain. 

 FALSTAFF  But to stand stained with travel, and sweating with 

 desire to see him; thinking of nothing else, 

 putting all affairs else in oblivion, as if there 

 were nothing else to be done but to see him. 

 PISTOL  'Tis 'semper idem,' for 'obsque hoc nihil est:' 

 'tis all in every part. 

 SHALLOW  'Tis so, indeed. 

 PISTOL  My knight, I will inflame thy noble liver, 

 And make thee rage. 

 Thy Doll, and Helen of thy noble thoughts, 

 Is in base durance and contagious prison; 

 Haled thither 

 By most mechanical and dirty hand: 

 Rouse up revenge from ebon den with fell 

 Alecto's snake, 

 For Doll is in. Pistol speaks nought but truth. 

 FALSTAFF  I will deliver her. 



 Shouts within, and the trumpets sound  PISTOL  There roar'd the sea, and trumpet-clangor sounds. 



 Enter KING HENRY V and his train, the Lord Chief- Justice among them  FALSTAFF  God save thy grace, King Hal! my royal Hal! 

 PISTOL  The heavens thee guard and keep, most royal imp of fame! 

 FALSTAFF  God save thee, my sweet boy! 

 KING HENRY IV  My lord chief-justice, speak to that vain man. 

 Lord Chief-Justice	Have you your wits? know you what 'tis to speak? 

 FALSTAFF  My king! my Jove! I speak to thee, my heart! 

 KING HENRY IV  I know thee not, old man: fall to thy prayers; 

 How ill white hairs become a fool and jester! 

 I have long dream'd of such a kind of man, 

 So surfeit-swell'd, so old and so profane; 

 But, being awaked, I do despise my dream. 

 Make less thy body hence, and more thy grace; 

 Leave gormandizing; know the grave doth gape 

 For thee thrice wider than for other men. 

 Reply not to me with a fool-born jest: 

 Presume not that I am the thing I was; 

 For God doth know, so shall the world perceive, 

 That I have turn'd away my former self; 

 So will I those that kept me company. 

 When thou dost hear I am as I have been, 

 Approach me, and thou shalt be as thou wast, 

 The tutor and the feeder of my riots: 

 Till then, I banish thee, on pain of death, 

 As I have done the rest of my misleaders, 

 Not to come near our person by ten mile. 

 For competence of life I will allow you, 

 That lack of means enforce you not to evil: 

 And, as we hear you do reform yourselves, 

 We will, according to your strengths and qualities, 

 Give you advancement. Be it your charge, my lord, 

 To see perform'd the tenor of our word. Set on. 



 Exeunt KING HENRY V,  & c  FALSTAFF  Master Shallow, I owe you a thousand pound. 

 SHALLOW  Yea, marry, Sir John; which I beseech you to let me 

 have home with me. 

 FALSTAFF  That can hardly be, Master Shallow. Do not you 

 grieve at this; I shall be sent for in private to 

 him: look you, he must seem thus to the world: 

 fear not your advancements; I will be the man yet 

 that shall make you great. 

 SHALLOW  I cannot well perceive how, unless you should give 

 me your doublet and stuff me out with straw. I 

 beseech you, good Sir John, let me have five hundred 

 of my thousand. 

 FALSTAFF  Sir, I will be as good as my word: this that you 

 heard was but a colour. 

 SHALLOW  A colour that I fear you will die in, Sir John. 

 FALSTAFF  Fear no colours: go  with me to dinner: come, 

 Lieutenant Pistol; come, Bardolph: I shall be sent 

 for soon at night. 



 Re-enter Prince John of LANCASTER, the Lord Chief-Justice; Officers with them  Lord Chief-Justice	Go, carry Sir John Falstaff to the Fleet: 

 Take all his company along with him. 

 FALSTAFF  My lord, my lord,-- 

 Lord Chief-Justice	I cannot now speak: I will hear you soon. 

 Take them away. 

 PISTOL  Si fortune me tormenta, spero contenta. 



 Exeunt all but PRINCE JOHN and the Lord Chief-Justice  LANCASTER  I like this fair proceeding of the king's: 

 He hath intent his wonted followers 

 Shall all be very well provided for; 

 But all are banish'd till their conversations 

 Appear more wise and modest to the world. 

 Lord Chief-Justice	And so they are. 

 LANCASTER  The king hath call'd his parliament, my lord. 

 Lord Chief-Justice	He hath. 

 LANCASTER  I will lay odds that, ere this year expire, 

 We bear our civil swords and native fire 

 As far as France: I beard a bird so sing, 

 Whose music, to my thinking, pleased the king. 

 Come, will you hence? 



 Exeunt  EPILOGUE 



 Spoken by a Dancer  First my fear; then my courtesy; last my speech. 

 My fear is, your displeasure; my courtesy, my duty; 

 and my speech, to beg your pardons. If you look 

 for a good speech now, you undo me: for what I have 

 to say is of mine own making; and what indeed I 

 should say will, I doubt, prove mine own marring. 

 But to the purpose, and so to the venture. Be it 

 known to you, as it is very well, I was lately here 

 in the end of a displeasing play, to pray your 

 patience for it and to promise you a better. I 

 meant indeed to pay you with this; which, if like an 

 ill venture it come unluckily home, I break, and 

 you, my gentle creditors, lose. Here I promised you 

 I would be and here I commit my body to your 

 mercies: bate me some and I will pay you some and, 

 as most debtors do, promise you infinitely. 

 If my tongue cannot entreat you to acquit me, will 

 you command me to use my legs? and yet that were but 

 light payment, to dance out of your debt. But a 

 good conscience will make any possible satisfaction, 

 and so would I. All the gentlewomen here have 

 forgiven me: if the gentlemen will not, then the 

 gentlemen do not agree with the gentlewomen, which 

 was never seen before in such an assembly. 

 One word more, I beseech you. If you be not too 

 much cloyed with fat meat, our humble author will 

 continue the story, with Sir John in it, and make 

 you merry with fair Katharine of France: where, for 

 any thing I know, Falstaff shall die of a sweat, 

 unless already a' be killed with your hard 

 opinions; for Oldcastle died a martyr, and this is 

 not the man. My tongue is weary; when my legs are 

 too, I will bid you good night: and so kneel down 

 before you; but, indeed, to pray for the queen. 

