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. Ibeseech 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 Ishould 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.
Imeant 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.
