Act V, Scene 5

Westminster. Near the Abbey

Enter GROOMS, strewing rushes

• 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 3590
  coronation. Dispatch, dispatch. Exeunt

Trumpets sound, and the KING and his train pass over the stage. After them enter FALSTAFF, SHALLOW, PISTOL, BARDOLPH, and page

• Falstaff. Stand here by me, Master Robert 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. 3595

• Pistol. God bless thy lungs, good knight!

• Falstaff. Come here, Pistol; stand behind me. [To SHALLOW] O, if
  I had had 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. 3600

• Robert Shallow. It doth so.

• Falstaff. It shows my earnestness of affection-

• Robert Shallow. It doth so.

• Falstaff. My devotion—

• Robert Shallow. It doth, it doth, it doth. 3605

• Falstaff. As it were, to ride day and night; and not to
  not to remember, not to have patience to shift me—

• Robert Shallow. It is best, certain.

• Falstaff. But to stand stained with travel, and sweating with 3610
  desire to see him; thinking of nothing else, putting all
  else in oblivion, as if there were nothing else to be done
  see him.

• Pistol. 'Tis 'semper idem' for 'obsque hoc nihil est.' 'Tis all
  every part.

• Robert Shallow. 'Tis so, indeed.

• Pistol. My knight, I will inflame thy noble liver 3620
  And make thee rage.
  Thy Doll, and Helen of thy noble thoughts,
  Is in base durance and contagious prison;
  Hal'd thither
  By most mechanical and dirty hand. 3625
  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.

[Shouts,within, and the trumpets sound]

• Pistol. There roar'd the sea, and trumpet-clangor sounds. 3630

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

• Falstaff. God save thee, my sweet boy! 3635

• Henry V. My Lord Chief Justice, speak to that vain man.

• Lord Chief Justice. Have you your wits? Know you what 'tis you

• Falstaff. My king! my Jove! I speak to thee, my heart!

• Henry V. I know thee not, old man. Fall to thy prayers. 3640
  How ill white hairs become a fool and jester!
  I have long dreamt of such a kind of man,
  So surfeit-swell'd, so old, and so profane;
  But being awak'd, I do despise my dream.
  Make less thy body hence, and more thy grace; 3645
  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, 3650
  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. 3655
  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; 3660
  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 perform'd the tenour of our word.
  Set on. Exeunt the KING and his train 3665

• Falstaff. Master Shallow, I owe you a thousand pounds.

• Robert Shallow. Yea, marry, Sir John; which I beseech you to let me
  home with me.

• Falstaff. That can hardly be, Master Shallow. Do not you grieve 3670
  this; I shall be sent for in private to him. Look you, he
  seem thus to the world. Fear not your advancements; I will be
  man yet that shall make you great.

• Robert Shallow. I cannot perceive how, unless you give me your
  and stuff me out with straw. I beseech you, good Sir John,
  have five hundred of my thousand.

• Falstaff. Sir, I will be as good as my word. This that you
  was but a colour.

• Robert Shallow. A colour that I fear you will die in, Sir John. 3685

• Falstaff. Fear no colours; go with me to dinner. Come,
  Pistol; come, Bardolph. I shall be sent for soon at night.

Re-enter PRINCE JOHN, the LORD CHIEF JUSTICE, with officers

• Lord Chief Justice. Go, carry Sir John Falstaff to the Fleet; 3690
  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 fortuna me tormenta, spero me contenta. 3695

Exeunt all but PRINCE JOHN and the LORD CHIEF JUSTICE

• Prince 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 3700
  Appear more wise and modest to the world.

• Lord Chief Justice. And so they are.

• Prince John. The King hath call'd his parliament, my lord.

• Lord Chief Justice. He hath.

• Prince John. I will lay odds that, ere this year expire, 3705
  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.

• Dancer. First my fear, then my curtsy, last my speech. My fear, is your
  displeasure; my curtsy, 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 3715
  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 meant, indeed, to pay you with this; which if like an 3720
  ill venture it come unluckily home, I break, and you, my gentle
  creditors, lose. Here I promis'd 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; and so I kneel down
  before you—but, indeed, to pray for the Queen. 3725
  
  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 3730
  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 cloy'd
  with fat meat, our humble author will continue the story, with Sir John in 3735
  it, and make you merry with fair Katherine of France; where, for
  anything 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. 3740

THE END