What’s your name, sir? Of what condition are you, and of what place, I

pray?

I am a knight, sir, and my name is Colevile of the Dale.

Well, then, Colevile is your name, a knight is your degree, and your

place the Dale. Colevile shall be still your name, a traitor your

degree, and the dungeon your place, a place deep enough; so shall you

be still Colevile of the Dale.

Are not you Sir John Falstaff?

As good a man as he, sir, whoe’er I am. Do ye yield, sir, or shall I

sweat for you? If I do sweat, they are the drops of thy lovers, and

they weep for thy death. Therefore rouse up fear and trembling, and do

observance to my mercy.

I think you are Sir John Falstaff, and in that thought yield me.

I have a whole school of tongues in this belly of mine, and not a

tongue of them all speaks any other word but my name. An I had but a

belly of any indifferency, I were simply the most active fellow in

Europe. My womb, my womb, my womb undoes me. Here comes our general.

The heat is past; follow no further now.

Call in the powers, good cousin Westmoreland.

Now, Falstaff, where have you been all this while?

When everything is ended, then you come.

These tardy tricks of yours will, on my life,

One time or other break some gallows’ back.

I would be sorry, my lord, but it should be thus. I never knew yet but

rebuke and check was the reward of valour. Do you think me a swallow,

an arrow, or a bullet? Have I, in my poor and old motion, the

expedition of thought? I have speeded hither with the very extremest

inch of possibility; I have foundered nine score and odd posts; and

here, travel-tainted as I am, have in my pure and immaculate valour,

taken Sir John Colevile of the Dale, a most furious knight and valorous

enemy. But what of that? He saw me, and yielded; that I may justly say,

with the hook-nosed fellow of Rome, “I came, saw, and overcame.”

It was more of his courtesy than your deserving.

I know not. Here he is, and here I yield him. And I beseech your Grace,

let it be booked with the rest of this day’s deeds, or, by the Lord, I

will have it in a particular ballad else, with mine own picture on the

top on’t, Colevile kissing my foot: to the which course if I be

enforced, if you do not all show like gilt twopences to me, and I in

the clear sky of fame o’ershine you as much as the full moon doth the

cinders of the element, which show like pins’ heads to her, believe not

the word of the noble. Therefore let me have right, and let desert

mount.

Thine’s too heavy to mount.

Let it shine, then.

Thine’s too thick to shine.

Let it do something, my good lord, that may do me good, and call it

what you will.

Is thy name Colevile?

It is, my lord.

A famous rebel art thou, Colevile.

And a famous true subject took him.

I am, my lord, but as my betters are

That led me hither. Had they been ruled by me,

You should have won them dearer than you have.

I know not how they sold themselves, but thou, like a kind fellow,

gavest thyself away gratis, and I thank thee for thee.

Now, have you left pursuit?

Retreat is made and execution stay’d.

Send Colevile with his confederates

To York, to present execution.

Blunt, lead him hence, and see you guard him sure.

And now dispatch we toward the court, my lords.

I hear the King my father is sore sick.

Our news shall go before us to his Majesty,

Which, cousin, you shall bear to comfort him,

And we with sober speed will follow you.

My lord, I beseech you give me leave to go through Gloucestershire,

and, when you come to court, stand my good lord, pray, in your good

report.

Fare you well, Falstaff. I, in my condition,

Shall better speak of you than you deserve.

I would you had but the wit, ’twere better than your dukedom. Good

faith, this same young sober-blooded boy doth not love me, nor a man

cannot make him laugh; but that’s no marvel, he drinks no wine. There’s

never none of these demure boys come to any proof; for thin drink doth

so over-cool their blood, and making many fish meals, that they fall

into a kind of male green-sickness; and then, when they marry, they get

wenches. They are generally fools and cowards, which some of us should

be too, but for inflammation. A good sherris-sack hath a two-fold

operation in it. It ascends me into the brain, dries me there all the

foolish and dull and crudy vapours which environ it, makes it

apprehensive, quick, forgetive, full of nimble, fiery, and delectable

shapes, which, delivered o’er to the voice, the tongue, which is the

birth, becomes excellent wit. The second property of your excellent

sherris is the warming of the blood, which, before cold and settled,

left the liver white and pale, which is the badge of pusillanimity and

cowardice. But the sherris warms it and makes it course from the

inwards to the parts’ extremes. It illumineth the face, which as a

beacon gives warning to all the rest of this little kingdom, man, to

arm; and then the vital commoners and inland petty spirits muster me

all to their captain, the heart, who, great and puffed up with this

retinue, doth any deed of courage; and this valour comes of sherris. So

that skill in the weapon is nothing without sack, for that sets it

a-work; and learning a mere hoard of gold kept by a devil, till sack

commences it and sets it in act and use. Hereof comes it that Prince

Harry is valiant; for the cold blood he did naturally inherit of his

father he hath, like lean, sterile and bare land, manured, husbanded

and tilled with excellent endeavour of drinking good and good store of

fertile sherris, that he is become very hot and valiant. If I had a

thousand sons, the first humane principle I would teach them should be

to forswear thin potations and to addict themselves to sack.

How now, Bardolph?

The army is discharged all and gone.

Let them go. I’ll through Gloucestershire, and there will I visit

Master Robert Shallow, Esquire. I have him already tempering between my

finger and my thumb, and shortly will I seal with him. Come away.