First Groom

More rushes, more rushes.

Second Groom

The trumpets have sounded twice.

Third Groom

'Twill be two o'clock ere they come from the coronation: dispatch, dispatch.

Falstaff

Stand here by me, Master 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.

Pistol

There roared the sea, and trumpet-clangor sounds. Enter the KING 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

My lord chief justice, speak to that vain man.

Chief-Justice

Have you your wits? know you what 'tis you speak?

Falstaff

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 becomes a fool and jester!

I have long dreamt of such a kind of man,

So surfeit-swelled, 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 turned 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 evils:

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 performed the tenor of my word.

Set on. Exeunt King, etc,

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 perceive how, unless you 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.

Chief-Justice

Go, carry Sir John Falstaff to the Fleet:

Take all his company along with him.

Falstaff

My lord, my lord, —

Chief-Justice

I cannot now speak: I will hear you soon.

Take them away.

Pistol

Si fortuna me tormenta, spero contenta.

Exeunt all but Prince John and the 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 banished till their conversations

Appear more wise and modest to the world.

Chief-Justice

And so they are.

Lancaster

The king hath called his parliament, my 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 heard a bird so sing,

Whose music, to my thinking, pleased the king.

Come, will you hence? Exeunt.