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Pist. It doth so.

Fal. My devotion.

Pist. It doth, it doth, it doth.

Fal. As it were, to ride day and night; and not to deliberate,

not to remember, not to have patience to shift me.

Shal. It is most certain.

Fal. 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 do be done but to see him.

Pist. 'T is semper idem, for absque hoc nihil est. 'T is all in every part.

Shal. 'Tis so, indeed.

Pist. 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;

Haul'd 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.

Fal. I will deliver her.

[Shouts within, and trumpets sound.

Pist. There roar'd the sea, and trumpet-clangor sounds.

Enter KING and his Train, including the Chief Justice.

Fal. God save thy grace, king Hal! my royal Hal!

Pist. The heavens thee guard and keep, most royal imp of

fame!

Fal. God save thee, my sweet boy!

King. My lord chief justice, speak to that vain man.

Ch. Just. Have you your wits? know you what 't is you

speak?

Fal. My king! my Jove! I speak to thee, my heart!
King. 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 awake, 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 strength and qualities,
Give you advancement. - Be it your charge, my lord,

To see perform'd the tenor of our word.

Set on.

[Exeunt KING and his Train.

Fal. Master Shallow, I owe you a thousand pound. Shal. Ay, marry, Sir John; which I beseech you to let me have home with me.

Fal. 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 advancement; I will be the man yet that shall make you great.

Shal. I cannot 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.

Fal. Sir, I will be as good as my word: this that you heard was but a colour.

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

Fal. 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, the Chief Justice, Officers, &c.

Ch. Just. Go, carry Sir John Falstaff to the Fleet.

Take all his company along with him.

Fal. My lord, my lord!

Ch. Just. I cannot now speak: I will hear you soon. Take them away.

Pist. Se fortuna me tormenta, il sperare me contenta.

[Exeunt FAL. SHAL. PIST. Bard. Page, and

Officers.

P. John. 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.
Ch. Just. And so they are.

P. John. The king hath call'd his parliament, my lord.
Ch. Just. He hath.

P. John. I will lay odds, that, ere this year expire,

We bear our civil swords, and native fire,

As far as France. I heard a bird so sing,
Whose music, to my thinking, pleas'd the king.

Come, will you hence?

[Exeunt.

EPILOGUE.

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 did mean, 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 will 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 he 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.

CHORUS.

Enter CHORUS.

O, for a muse of fire, that would ascend

The brightest heaven of invention!
A kingdom for a stage, princes to act,
And monarchs to behold the swelling scene!
Then should the warlike Harry, like himself,
Assume the port of Mars; and at his heels,

Leash'd in like hounds, should famine, sword, and fire,
Crouch for employment. But pardon, gentles all,
The flad unraised spirit thal hath dar'd,
On this unworthy scaffold, to bring forth
So great an object: can this cockpit hold
The vasty fields of France? or may we cram
Within this wooden O the very casques,

That did affright the air at Agincourt?
O, pardon! since a crooked figure may
Attest in little place a million;
And let us, ciphers to this great accompt,
On your imaginary forces work.
Suppose, within the girdle of these walls
Are now confin'd two mighty monarchies,
Whose high upreared and abutting fronts
The perilous, narrow ocean parts asunder.
Piece out our imperfections with your thoughts;
Into a thousand parts divide one man,
And make imaginary puissance:

Think, when we talk of horses, that you see them
Printing their proud hoofs i' the receiving earth;
For 't is your thoughts that now must deck our kings,
Carry them here and there, jumping o'er times,
Turning th' accomplishment of many years
Into an hour-glass: for the which supply,
Admit me chorus to this history;

Who, prologue-like, your humble patience pray,
Gently to hear, kindly to judge, our play.

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