Текст книги "William Shakespeare: The Complete Works 2nd Edition"

Автор книги: William Shakespeare

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1.2 Enter Sir John Falstaff, ⌈followed by⌉ his Page bearing his sword and buckler

SIR JOHN Sirrah, you giant, what says the doctor to my water?

PAGE He said, sir, the water itself was a good healthy water, but, for the party that owed it, he might have more diseases than he knew for.

SIR JOHN Men of all sorts take a pride to gird at me. The brain of this foolish-compounded clay, man, is not able to invent anything that tends to laughter more than I invent, or is invented on me. I am not only witty in myself, but the cause that wit is in other men. I do here walk before thee like a sow that hath o‘erwhelmed all her litter but one. If the Prince put thee into my service for any other reason than to set me off, why then, I have no judgement. Thou whoreson mandrake, thou art fitter to be worn in my cap than to wait at my heels. I was never manned with an agate till now; but I will set you neither in gold nor silver, but in vile apparel, and send you back again to your master for a jewel—the juvenal the Prince your master, whose chin is not yet fledge. I will sooner have a beard grow in the palm of my hand than he shall get one off his cheek; and yet he will not stick to say his face is a face-royal. God may finish it when he will; ’tis not a hair amiss yet. He may keep it still at a face-royal, for a barber shall never earn sixpence out of it. And yet he’ll be crowing as if he had writ man ever since his father was a bachelor. He may keep his own grace, but he’s almost out of mine, I can assure him. What said Master Dumbleton about the satin for my short cloak and slops?

PAGE He said, sir, you should procure him better assurance than Bardolph. He would not take his bond and yours; he liked not the security.

SIR JOHN Let him be damned like the glutton! Pray God his tongue be hotter! A whoreson Achitophel, a rascally yea-forsooth knave, to bear a gentleman in hand and then stand upon security! The whoreson smooth-pates do now wear nothing but high shoes and bunches of keys at their girdles; and if a man is through with them in honest taking-up, then they must stand upon security. I had as lief they would put ratsbane in my mouth as offer to stop it with security. I looked a should have sent me two-and-twenty yards of satin, as I am a true knight, and he sends me ‘security’! Well, he may sleep in security, for he hath the horn of abundance, and the lightness of his wife shines through it; and yet cannot he see, though he have his own lanthorn to light him. Where’s Bardolph?

PAGE He’s gone in Smithfield to buy your worship a horse.

SIR JOHN I bought him in Paul’s, and he’ll buy me a horse in Smithfield. An I could get me but a wife in the stews, I were manned, horsed, and wived.

Enter the Lord Chief Justice and his Servant

PAGE Sir, here comes the nobleman that committed the

Prince for striking him about Bardolph.

SIR JOHN ⌈moving away⌉ Wait close; I will not see him.

LORD CHIEF JUSTICE (to his Servant) What’s he that goes there ?

SERVANT Falstaff, an’t please your lordship.

LORD CHIEF JUSTICE He that was in question for the robbery?

SERVANT He, my lord; but he hath since done good service at Shrewsbury, and, as I hear, is now going with some charge to the Lord John of Lancaster.

LORD CHIEF JUSTICE What, to York? Call him back again.

SERVANT Sir John Falstaff!

SIR JOHN Boy, tell him I am deaf.

PAGE (to the Servant) You must speak louder; my master is deaf.

LORD CHIEF JUSTICE I am sure he is to the hearing of anything good. (To the Servant) Go pluck him by the elbow; I must speak with him.

SERVANT Sir John!

SIR JOHN What, a young knave and begging! Is there not wars? Is there not employment? Doth not the King lack subjects? Do not the rebels want soldiers? Though it be a shame to be on any side but one, it is worse shame to beg than to be on the worst side, were it worse than the name of rebellion can tell how to make it.

SERVANT You mistake me, sir.

SIR JOHN Why, sir, did I say you were an honest man? Setting my knighthood and my soldiership aside, I had lied in my throat if I had said so.

SERVANT I pray you, sir, then set your knighthood and your soldiership aside, and give me leave to tell you you lie in your throat if you say I am any other than an honest man. 88

SIR JOHN I give thee leave to tell me so? I lay aside that which grows to me? If thou gettest any leave of me, hang me. If thou takest leave, thou wert better be hanged. You hunt counter. Hence, avaunt!

SERVANT Sir, my lord would speak with you.

LORD CHIEF JUSTICE Sir John Falstaff, a word with you.

SIR JOHN My good lord! God give your lordship good time of day. I am glad to see your lordship abroad. I heard say your lordship was sick. I hope your lordship goes abroad by advice. Your lordship, though not clean past your youth, have yet some smack of age in you, some relish of the saltness of time in you; and I most humbly beseech your lordship to have a reverent care of your health.

LORD CHIEF JUSTICE Sir John, I sent for you before your expedition to Shrewsbury.

SIR JOHN An’t please your lordship, I hear his majesty is returned with some discomfort from Wales.

LORD CHIEF JUSTICE I talk not of his majesty. You would not come when I sent for you.

SIR JOHN And I hear, moreover, his highness is fallen into this same whoreson apoplexy.

LORD CHIEF JUSTICE Well, God mend him! I pray you, let me speak with you.

SIR JOHN This apoplexy is, as I take it, a kind of lethargy, an’t please your lordship, a kind of sleeping in the blood, a whoreson tingling.

LORD CHIEF JUSTICE What tell you me of it? Be it as it is.

SIR JOHN It hath it original from much grief, from study, and perturbation of the brain. I have read the cause of his effects in Galen. It is a kind of deafness.

LORD CHIEF JUSTICE I think you are fallen into the disease, for you hear not what I say to you.

SIR JOHN Very well, my lord, very well. Rather, an’t please you, it is the disease of not listening, the malady of not marking, that I am troubled withal.

LORD CHIEF JUSTICE To punish you by the heels would amend the attention of your ears, and I care not if I do become your physician.

SIR JOHN I am as poor as Job, my lord, but not so patient.

Your lordship may minister the potion of imprisonment to me in respect of poverty; but how I should be your patient to follow your prescriptions, the wise may make some dram of a scruple, or indeed a scruple itself.

LORD CHIEF JUSTICE I sent for you, when there were matters against you for your life, to come speak with me.

SIR JOHN As I was then advised by my learned counsel in the laws of this land-service, I did not come.

LORD CHIEF JUSTICE Well, the truth is, Sir John, you live in great infamy.

SIR JOHN He that buckles himself in my belt cannot live in less.

LORD CHIEF JUSTICE Your means are very slender, and your waste is great.

SIR JOHN I would it were otherwise; I would my means were greater and my waist slenderer.

LORD CHIEF JUSTICE You have misled the youthful Prince.

SIR JOHN The young Prince hath misled me. I am the fellow with the great belly, and he my dog.

LORD CHIEF JUSTICE Well, I am loath to gall a new-healed wound. Your day’s service at Shrewsbury hath a little gilded over your night’s exploit on Gads Hill. You may thank th‘unquiet time for your quiet o’erposting that action.

SIR JOHN My lord—

LORD CHIEF JUSTICE But since all is well, keep it so. Wake not a sleeping wolf.

SIR JOHN To wake a wolf is as bad as smell a fox.

LORD CHIEF JUSTICE What! You are as a candle, the better part burnt out.

SIR JOHN A wassail candle, my lord, all tallow—if I did say of wax, my growth would approve the truth.

LORD CHIEF JUSTICE There is not a white hair in your face but should have his effect of gravity.

SIR JOHN His effect of gravy, gravy, gravy.

LORD CHIEF JUSTICE You follow the young Prince up and down like his ill angel.

SIR JOHN Not so, my lord; your ill angel is light, but I hope he that looks upon me will take me without weighing. And yet in some respects, I grant, I cannot go. I cannot tell, virtue is of so little regard in these costermongers’ times that true valour is turned bearherd; pregnancy is made a tapster, and his quick wit wasted in giving reckonings; all the other gifts appertinent to man, as the malice of this age shapes them, are not worth a gooseberry. You that are old consider not the capacities of us that are young. You do measure the heat of our livers with the bitterness of your galls. And we that are in the vanguard of our youth, I must confess, are wags too.

LORD CHIEF JUSTICE Do you set down your name in the scroll of youth, that are written down old with all the characters of age? Have you not a moist eye, a dry hand, a yellow cheek, a white beard, a decreasing leg, an increasing belly? Is not your voice broken, your wind short, your chin double, your wit single, and every part about you blasted with antiquity? And will you yet call yourself young? Fie, fie, fie, Sir John!

SIR JOHN My lord, I was born about three of the clock in the afternoon with a white head, and something a round belly. For my voice, I have lost it with hallowing and singing of anthems. To approve my youth further, I will not. The truth is, I am only old in judgement and understanding; and he that will caper with me for a thousand marks, let him lend me the money, and have at him! For the box of th’ear that the Prince gave you, he gave it like a rude prince, and you took it like a sensible lord. I have checked him for it, and the young lion repents—⌈aside⌉ marry, not in ashes and sackcloth, but in new silk and old sack.

LORD CHIEF JUSTICE Well, God send the Prince a better companion!

SIR JOHN God send the companion a better prince! I cannot rid my hands of him.

LORD CHIEF JUSTICE Well, the King hath severed you and Prince Harry. I hear you are going with Lord John of Lancaster against the Archbishop and the Earl of Northumberland.

SIR JOHN Yea, I thank your pretty sweet wit for it. But look you pray, all you that kiss my lady Peace at home, that our armies join not in a hot day; for, by the Lord, I take but two shirts out with me, and I mean not to sweat extraordinarily. If it be a hot day and I brandish anything but my bottle, would I might never spit white again. There is not a dangerous action can peep out his head but I am thrust upon it. Well, I cannot last ever. But it was alway yet the trick of our English nation, if they have a good thing, to make it too common. If ye will needs say I am an old man, you should give me rest. I would to God my name were not so terrible to the enemy as it is. I were better to be eaten to death with a rust than to be scoured to nothing with perpetual motion.

LORD CHIEF JUSTICE Well, be honest, be honest, and God bless your expedition.

SIR JOHN Will your lordship lend me a thousand pound to furnish me forth?

LORD CHIEF JUSTICE Not a penny, not a penny. You are too impatient to bear crosses. Fare you well. Commend me to my cousin Westmorland.

Exeunt Lord Chief Justice and his Servant

SIR JOHN If I do, fillip me with a three-man beetle. A man can no more separate age and covetousness than a can part young limbs and lechery; but the gout galls the one and the pox pinches the other, and so both the degrees prevent my curses. Boy!

PAGE Sir.

SIR JOHN What money is in my purse?

PAGE Seven groats and two pence.

SIR JOHN I can get no remedy against this consumption of the purse. Borrowing only lingers and lingers it out, but the disease is incurable. (Giving letters) Go bear this letter to my lord of Lancaster; this to the Prince; this to the Earl of Westmorland; and this to old Mistress Ursula, whom I have weekly sworn to marry since I perceived the first white hair of my chin. About it. You know where to find me. ⌈Exit Pagel⌉ A pox of this gout!—or a gout of this pox!—for the one or the other plays the rogue with my great toe. ’Tis no matter if I do halt; I have the wars for my colour, and my pension shall seem the more reasonable. A good wit will make use of anything. I will turn diseases to commodity. Exit

1.3 Enter the Archbishop of York, Thomas Mowbray the Earl Marshal, Lord Hastings, and Lord Bardolph

ARCHBISHOP OF YORK

Thus have you heard our cause and known our

means,

And, my most noble friends, I pray you all

Speak plainly your opinions of our hopes.

And first, Lord Marshal, what say you to it?

MOWBRAY

I well allow the occasion of our arms,

But gladly would be better satisfied

How in our means we should advance ourselves

To look with forehead bold and big enough

Upon the power and puissance of the King.

HASTINGS

Our present musters grow upon the file

To five-and-twenty thousand men of choice,

And our supplies live largely in the hope

Of great Northumberland, whose bosom burns

With an incensed fire of injuries.

LORD BARDOLPH

The question then, Lord Hastings, standeth thus:

Whether our present five-and-twenty thousand

May hold up head without Northumberland.

HASTINGS

With him we may.

LORD BARDOLPH Yea, marry, there’s the point;

But if without him we be thought too feeble,

My judgement is, we should not step too far

Till we had his assistance by the hand;

For in a theme so bloody-faced as this,

Conjecture, expectation, and surmise

Of aids uncertain should not be admitted.

ARCHBISHOP OF YORK

’Tis very true, Lord Bardolph, for indeed

It was young Hotspur’s case at Shrewsbury.

LORD BARDOLPH

It was, my lord; who lined himself with hope,

Eating the air on promise of supply,

Flatt’ring himself with project of a power

Much smaller than the smallest of his thoughts;

And so, with great imagination

Proper to madmen, led his powers to death,

And winking leapt into destruction.

HASTINGS

But by your leave, it never yet did hurt

To lay down likelihoods and forms of hope.

LORD BARDOLPH

Yes, if this present quality of war—

Indeed the instant action, a cause on foot—

Lives so in hope; as in an early spring

We see th‘appearing buds, which to prove fruit

Hope gives not so much warrant as despair

That frosts will bite them. When we mean to build

We first survey the plot, then draw the model;

And when we see the figure of the house,

Then must we rate the cost of the erection,

Which if we find outweighs ability,

What do we then but draw anew the model

In fewer offices, or, at least, desist

To build at all? Much more in this great work—

Which is almost to pluck a kingdom down

And set another up—should we survey

The plot of situation and the model,

Consent upon a sure foundation,

Question surveyors, know our own estate,

How able such a work to undergo,

To weigh against his opposite; or else

We fortify in paper and in figures,

Using the names of men instead of men,

Like one that draws the model of an house

Beyond his power to build it, who, half-through,

Gives o’er, and leaves his part-created cost

A naked subject to the weeping clouds,

And waste for churlish winter’s tyranny.

HASTINGS

Grant that our hopes, yet likely of fair birth,

Should be stillborn, and that we now possessed

The utmost man of expectation,

I think we are a body strong enough,

Even as we are, to equal with the King.

LORD BARDOLPH

What, is the King but five-and-twenty thousand?

HASTINGS

To us no more, nay, not so much, Lord Bardolph;

For his divisions, as the times do brawl,

Are in three heads: one power against the French,

And one against Glyndwr, perforce a third

Must take up us. So is the unfirm King

In three divided, and his coffers sound

With hollow poverty and emptiness.

ARCHBISHOP OF YORK

That he should draw his several strengths together

And come against us in full puissance

Need not be dreaded.

HASTINGS If he should do so,

He leaves his back unarmed, the French and Welsh

Baying him at the heels. Never fear that.

LORD BARDOLPH

Who is it like should lead his forces hither?

HASTINGS

The Duke of Lancaster and Westmorland;

Against the Welsh, himself and Harry Monmouth;

But who is substituted ’gainst the French

I have no certain notice.

ARCHBISHOP OF YORK Let us on,

And publish the occasion of our arms.

The commonwealth is sick of their own choice;

Their over-greedy love hath surfeited.

An habitation giddy and unsure

Hath he that buildeth on the vulgar heart.

O thou fond many, with what loud applause

Didst thou beat heaven with blessing Bolingbroke,

Before he was what thou wouldst have him be I

And being now trimmed in thine own desires,

Thou, beastly feeder, art so full of him

That thou provok‘st thyself to cast him up.

So, so, thou common dog, didst thou disgorge

Thy glutton bosom of the royal Richard;

And now thou wouldst eat thy dead vomit up,

And howl’st to find it. What trust is in these times ?

They that when Richard lived would have him die

Are now become enamoured on his grave.

Thou that threw‘st dust upon his goodly head,

When through proud London he came sighing on

After th’admired heels of Bolingbroke,

Cri’st now, ‘O earth, yield us that king again,

And take thou this!’ O thoughts of men accursed!

Past and to come seems best; things present, worst.

⌈MOWBRAY⌉

Shall we go draw our numbers and set on?

HASTINGS

We are time’s subjects, and time bids be gone.

Exeunt

2.1 Enter Mistress Quickly (the hostess of a tavern), and an officer, Fang ⌈followed at a distance by⌉ another officer, Snare

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 ⌈coming forward⌉ 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, 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. 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 Lombard 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 fobbed off, and fobbed off, and fobbed 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 Sir John 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.

SIR JOHN How now, whose mare’s dead? What’s the matter ?

FANG Sir John, I arrest you at the suit of Mistress Quickly.

SIR JOHN ⌈drawing⌉ Away, varlets! Draw, Bardolph! Cut me off the villain’s head! Throw the quean in the channel!

⌈Bardolph draws⌉

MISTRESS QUICKLY Throw me in the channel? I’ll throw thee in the channel!

A brawl

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.

SIR JOHN Keep them off, Bardolph !

FANG A rescue, a rescue!

MISTRESS QUICKLY Good people, bring a rescue or two. Thou wot, wot thou? Thou wot, wot’a? Do, do, thou rogue, do, thou hempseed!

PAGE Away, you scullion, you rampallian, 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!

Brawl ends. ⌈Fang⌉ seizes Sir John

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.

⌈To Fang⌉ Stand from him, fellow. Wherefore hang’st

thou upon him?

MISTRESS QUICKLY O my 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; (to Sir John) but I will have some of it out again, or I will ride thee a-nights like the mare.

SIR JOHN 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?

SIR JOHN (to the Hostess) 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 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.

⌈She weeps⌉

SIR JOHN 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.

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. (To Sir John) 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.

SIR JOHN 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 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 th’effect of your reputation, and satisfy the poor woman.

SIR JOHN (drawing apart) Come hither, hostess.

She goes to him.

Enter Master Gower, a messenger

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.

⌈Lord Chief Justice reads the paper, and converses apart with Gower⌉

SIR JOHN As I am a gentleman!

MISTRESS QUICKLY Faith, you said so before.

SIR JOHN 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.

SIR JOHN 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, 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, 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!

SIR JOHN 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 altogether?

SIR JOHN Will I live? ⌈To Bardolph and the Page⌉ Go with her, with her. Hook on, hook on!

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

SIR JOHN No more words; let’s have her.

Exeunt Mistress Quickly, Bardolph, the Page, Fang and Snare

LORD CHIEF JUSTICE (to Gower) I have heard better news.

SIR JOHN What’s the news, my good lord?

LORD CHIEF JUSTICE (to Gower) Where lay the King tonight?

GOWER At Basingstoke, my lord.

SIR JOHN (to Lord Chief Justice) I hope, my lord, all’s well.

What is the news, my lord?

LORD CHIEF JUSTICE (to Gower) 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.

SIR JOHN (to Lord Chief Justice)

Comes the King back from Wales, my noble lord?

LORD CHIEF JUSTICE (to Gower)

You shall have letters of me presently.

Come, go along with me, good Master Gower.

They are going

SIR JOHN My lord!

LORD CHIEF JUSTICE What’s the matter?

SIR JOHN 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.

SIR JOHN Will you sup with me, Master Gower?

LORD CHIEF JUSTICE What foolish master taught you these manners, Sir John?

SIR JOHN Master Gower, if they become me not, he was a fool that taught them me. (To Lord Chief Justice) 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. Exeunt ⌈Lord Chief Justice and Gower at one door, Sir John at another⌉