Internet Shakespeare Editions

About this text

  • Title: Henry V (Modern, Folio)
  • Editor: James D. Mardock
  • ISBN: 978-1-55058-409-7

    Author: William Shakespeare
    Editor: James D. Mardock
    Peer Reviewed

    Henry V (Modern, Folio)

    Enter Pistol, Nym, Bardolph, Boy, and Hostess.
    Prithee, honey-sweet husband, let me bring 825thee to Staines.
    No, for my manly heart doth earn. Bardolph, be blithe. Nym, rouse thy vaunting veins. Boy, bristle thy courage up. For Falstaff he is dead, and we must earn therefore.
    Would I were with him wheresome'er he is, either in heaven or in hell.
    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 835child. A parted ev'n just between twelve and one, ev'n at the turning o'th'tide. For after I saw him fumble with the sheets, and play with flowers, and smile upon his finger's end, I knew there was but one way. For his nose was as sharp as a pen, and a babbled of green fields. "How now, 840Sir 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 845feet. 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 so up-peered, and upward and all was as cold as any stone.
    They say he cried out of sack.
    Ay, that a did.
    And of women.
    Nay, that a did not.
    Yes, that a did, and said they were devils incarnate.
    A could never abide carnation; 'twas a 855color he never liked.
    A said once the devil would have him about women.
    A did in some sort, indeed, handle women, but then he was rheumatic, and talked of the whore of Babylon.860
    Do you not remember a saw a flea stick upon Bardolph's nose, and a said it was a black soul burning in hell?
    Well, the fuel is gone that maintained that fire. 865That's all the riches I got in his service.
    Shall we shog? The king will be gone from Southampton.
    Come, let's away. My love, give me thy lips. [Kisses her]Look to my chattels and my moveables. Let senses rule. 870The world is pitch-and-pay. Trust none, for oaths are straws, men's faiths are wafer-cakes, and Holdfast is the only dog, my duck, therefore caveto be thy counselor. Go, clear thy crystals. Yoke-fellows in arms, let us to France like 875horse-leeches, my boys: to suck, to suck, the very blood to suck!
    And that's but unwholesome food, they say.
    Touch her soft mouth and march.
    [Kisses her] Farewell, hostess.
    I cannot kiss, that is the humor of it, but adieu.
    Let housewifery appear. Keep close, I thee command.
    Farewell. Adieu.