London. Before a tavern.
[Enter PISTOL, Hostess, NYM,
BARDOLPH, and Boy]
Hostess Prithee, honey-sweet husband,
let me bring thee to Staines.
PISTOL No; for my manly heart doth yearn.
Bardolph, be blithe: Nym, rouse thy vaunting veins:
Boy, bristle thy courage up; for Falstaff he is dead,
And we must yearn therefore.
BARDOLPH Would I were with him,
wheresome’er he is, either in heaven or in hell!
Hostess Nay, sure, he’s not in hell: he’s in Arthur’s
bosom, if ever man went to Arthur’s bosom. A’ made
a finer end and went away an it had been any
christom child; a’ parted even just between twelve
and one, even at the turning o’ the tide: for after
I saw him fumble with the sheets and play with
flowers and smile upon his fingers’ ends, I knew
there was but one way; for his nose was as sharp as
a pen, and a’ babbled of green fields. ‘How now,
sir John!’ quoth I ‘what, man! be o’ good
cheer.’ So a’ cried out ‘God, God, God!’ three or
four times. Now I, to comfort him, bid him a’
should not think of God; I hoped there was no need
to trouble himself with any such thoughts yet. So
a’ bade me lay more clothes on his feet: I put my
hand into the bed and felt them, and they were as
cold as any stone; then I felt to his knees, and
they were as cold as any stone, and so upward and
upward, and all was as cold as any stone.
NYM They say he cried out of sack.
Hostess Ay, that a’ did.
BARDOLPH And of women.
Hostess Nay, that a’ did not.
BARDOLPH Yes,
that a’ did; and said they were devils incarnate.
Boy A’ said once,
the devil would have him about women.
Hostess A’ did in some sort, indeed, handle women;
but then he was rheumatic, and talked of
the whore of Babylon.
Boy Do you not remember, a’ saw a flea stick upon
Bardolph’s nose, and a’ said it was a black soul
burning in hell-fire?
BARDOLPH Well,
the fuel is gone that maintained that fire:
that’s all the riches I got in his service.
NYM Shall we shog?
the king will be gone from Southampton.
PISTOL Come, let’s away. My love, give me thy lips.
Look to my chattels and my movables:
Go, clear thy crystals. Yoke-fellows in arms,
Let us to France; like horse-leeches, my boys,
To suck, to suck, the very blood to suck!
Touch her soft mouth, and march.
BARDOLPH Farewell, hostess.
[Kissing her]
NYM I cannot kiss,
that is the humour of it; but, adieu.
PISTOL Let housewifery appear: keep close,
I thee command.
Hostess Farewell; adieu.
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