Act 2, Scene 1

London. A street.

[Enter Hostess, Fang and his Boy with her, and Snare following.]
Mistress Quickly
577 Master Fang, have you entered the action?
Fang
578 It is entered.
Mistress Quickly
579 Where 's your yeoman? Is 't a lusty yeoman? will 'a stand to 't?
Fang
580 Sirrah, where 's Snare?
Mistress Quickly
581 O Lord, ay! good Master Snare.
Snare
582 Here, here.
Fang
583 Snare, we must arrest Sir John Falstaff.
Mistress Quickly
584 Yea, good Master Snare; I have entered him and all.
Snare
585 It may chance cost some of our lives, for he will stab.
Mistress Quickly
586 Alas the day! take heed of him; he stabbed me in mine own house,
587 and that most beastly: in good faith, he cares not what
588 mischief he does, if his weapon be out: he will foin like any
589 devil; he will spare neither man, woman, nor child.
Fang
590 If I can close with him, I care not for his thrust.
Mistress Quickly
591 No, nor I neither: I'll be at your elbow.
Fang
592 An I but fist him once; an 'a come but within my vice,—
Mistress Quickly
593 I am undone by his going; I warrant you, he 's an
594 infinitive thing upon my score. Good Master Fang, hold him sure:
595 good Master Snare, let him not 'scape. A' comes continuantly to
596 Pie-corner—saving your manhoods—to buy a saddle; and he is
597 indited to dinner to the Lubber's-head in Lumbert Street, to
598 Master Smooth's the silkman: I pray ye, since my exion is
599 entered and my case so openly known to the world, let him be
600 brought in to his answer. A hundred mark is a long one for a poor
601 lone woman to bear: and I have borne, and borne, and borne; and
602 have been fubbed off, and fubbed off, and fubbed off, from this
603 day to that day, that it is a shame to be thought on. There is no
604 honesty in such dealing; unless a woman should be made an ass and
605 a beast, to bear every knave's wrong. Yonder he comes; and that
606 arrant malmsey-nose knave, Bardolph, with him. Do your offices,
607 do your offices, Master Fang and Master Snare, do me, do me, do me
608 your offices.
[Enter Falstaff, Page, and Bardolph.]
Sir John Falstaff
609 How now! whose mare's dead? what's the matter?
Fang
610 Sir John, I arrest you at the suit of Mistress Quickly.
Sir John Falstaff
611 Away, varlets! Draw, Bardolph: cut me off the villain's
612 head: throw the quean in the channel.
Mistress Quickly
613 Throw me in the channel! I'll throw thee in the channel.
614 Wilt thou? wilt thou? thou bastardly rogue! Murder, murder! Ah,
615 thou honey-suckle villain! wilt thou kill God's officers and the
616 king's?
617 Ah, thou honey-seed rogue! thou art a honey-seed, a man-queller,
618 and a woman-queller.
Sir John Falstaff
619 Keep them off, Bardolph.
Fang
620 A rescue! a rescue!
Mistress Quickly
621 Good people, bring a rescue or two. Thou wo't, wo't thou?
622 thou wo't, wo't ta? do, do, thou rogue! do, thou hemp-seed!
Page
623 Away, you scullion! you rampallian! you fustilarian! I'll tickle
624 your catastrophe.
[Enter the Lord Chief-Justice, and his men.]
Lord Chief Justice
625 What is the matter? keep the peace here, ho!
Mistress Quickly
626 Good my lord, be good to me. I beseech you, stand to me.
Lord Chief Justice
627 How now, Sir John! what are you brawling here?
628 Doth this become your place, your time and business?
629 You should have been well on your way to York.
630 Stand from him, fellow: wherefore hang'st thou upon him?
Mistress Quickly
631 O my most worshipful lord, an't please your grace, I am a
632 poor widow of Eastcheap, and he is arrested at my suit.
Lord Chief Justice
633 For what sum?
Mistress Quickly
634 It is more than for some, my lord; it is for all, all I have.
635 He hath eaten me out of house and home; he hath put all my substance
636 into that fat belly of his: but I will have some of it out again,
637 or I will ride thee o' nights like the mare.
Sir John Falstaff
638 I think I am as like to ride the mare, if I have any
639 vantage of ground to get up.
Lord Chief Justice
640 How comes this, Sir John? Fie! what man of good temper would
641 endure this tempest of exclamation? Are you not ashamed to enforce
642 a poor widow to so rough a course to come by her own?
Sir John Falstaff
643 What is the gross sum that I owe thee?
Mistress Quickly
644 Marry, if thou wert an honest man, thyself and the money too.
645 Thou didst swear to me upon a parcel-gilt goblet, sitting in
646 my Dolphin-chamber, at the round table, by a sea-coal fire, upon
647 Wednesday in Wheeson week, when the prince broke thy head for
648 liking his father to a singing-man of Windsor, thou didst swear to
649 me then, as I was washing thy wound, to marry me and make me my
650 lady thy wife. Canst thou deny it? Did not goodwife Keech, the
651 butcher's wife, come in then and call me gossip Quickly? Coming
652 in to borrow a mess of vinegar; telling us she had a good dish of
653 prawns, whereby thou didst desire to eat some, whereby I told
654 thee they were ill for green wound? And didst thou not, when she
655 was gone down stairs, desire me to be no more so familiarity with
656 such poor people; saying that ere long they should call me madam?
657 And didst thou not kiss me, and bid me fetch thee thirty shillings?
658 I put thee now to thy book-oath: deny it, if thou canst.
Sir John Falstaff
659 My lord, this is a poor mad soul; and she says up and down the
660 town that her eldest son is like you: she hath been in good case,
661 and the truth is, poverty hath distracted her. But for these
662 foolish officers, I beseech you I may have redress against them.
Lord Chief Justice
663 Sir John, Sir John, I am well acquainted with your
664 manner of wrenching the true cause the false way. It is not a
665 confident brow, nor the throng of words that come with such more
666 than impudent sauciness from you, can thrust me from a level
667 consideration: you have, as it appears to me, practised upon the
668 easy-yielding spirit of this woman, and made her serve your uses
669 both in purse and in person.
Mistress Quickly
670 Yea, in truth, my lord.
Lord Chief Justice
671 Pray thee, peace. Pay her the debt you owe her, and unpay the
672 villany you have done her: the one you may do with sterling
673 money, and the other with current repentance.
Sir John Falstaff
674 My lord, I will not undergo this sneap without reply.
675 You call honourable boldness impudent sauciness: if a man will make
676 courtesy and say nothing, he is virtuous: no, my lord, my humble
677 duty remembered, I will not be your suitor. I say to you, I do desire
678 deliverance from these officers, being upon hasty employment in the
679 king's affairs.
Lord Chief Justice
680 You speak as having power to do wrong: but answer
681 in the effect of your reputation, and satisfy the poor woman.
Sir John Falstaff
682 Come hither, hostess.
[Enter Gower.]
Lord Chief Justice
683 Now, Master Gower, what news?
Gower
684 The king, my lord, and Harry Prince of Wales
685 Are near at hand: the rest the paper tells.
Sir John Falstaff
686 As I am a gentleman.
Mistress Quickly
687 Faith, you said so before.
Sir John Falstaff
688 As I am a gentleman. Come, no more words of it.
Mistress Quickly
689 By this heavenly ground I tread on, I must be fain to pawn
690 both my plate and the tapestry of my dining-chambers.
Sir John Falstaff
691 Glasses, glasses, is the only drinking: and for thy walls, a pretty
692 slight drollery, or the story of the Prodigal, or the German hunting
693 in water-work, is worth a thousand of these bed-hangings and
694 these fly-bitten tapestries. Let it be ten pound, if thou canst.
695 Come, an 'twere not for thy humours, there's not a better wench in
696 England. Go, wash thy face, and draw the action. Come, thou must not be
697 in this humour with me; dost not know me? come, come, I know thou wast
698 set on to this.
Mistress Quickly
699 Pray thee, Sir John, let it be but twenty nobles: i' faith,
700 I am loath to pawn my plate, so God save me, la!
Sir John Falstaff
701 Let it alone; I'll make other shift: you'll be a fool still.
Mistress Quickly
702 Well, you shall have it, though I pawn my gown. I hope
703 you'll come to supper. You'll pay me all together?
Sir John Falstaff
704 Will I live?
[To Bardolph.]
Sir John Falstaff
705 Go, with her, with her;
706 hook on, hook on.
Mistress Quickly
707 Will you have Doll Tearsheet meet you at supper?
Sir John Falstaff
708 No more words; let 's have her.
[Exeunt Hostess, Bardolph, Officers, and Boy.]
Lord Chief Justice
709 I have heard better news.
Sir John Falstaff
710 What 's the news, my lord?
Lord Chief Justice
711 Where lay the king last night?
Gower
712 At Basingstoke, my lord.
Sir John Falstaff
713 I hope, my lord, all 's well: what is the news, my lord?
Lord Chief Justice
714 Come all his forces back?
Gower
715 No; fifteen hundred foot, five hundred horse,
716 Are march'd up to my Lord of Lancaster,
717 Against Northumberland and the Archbishop.
Sir John Falstaff
718 Comes the king back from Wales, my noble lord?
Lord Chief Justice
719 You shall have letters of me presently:
720 Come, go along with me, good Master Gower.
Sir John Falstaff
721 My lord!
Lord Chief Justice
722 What's the matter?
Sir John Falstaff
723 Master Gower, shall I entreat you with me to dinner?
Gower
724 I must wait upon my good lord here; I thank you, good Sir John.
Lord Chief Justice
725 Sir John, you loiter here too long, being you are to
726 take soldiers up in counties as you go.
Sir John Falstaff
727 Will you sup with me, Master Gower?
Lord Chief Justice
728 What foolish master taught you these manners, Sir John?
Sir John Falstaff
729 Master Gower, if they become me not, he was a fool that
730 taught them me. This is the right fencing grace, my lord; tap for
731 tap, and so part fair.
Lord Chief Justice
732 Now the Lord lighten thee! thou art a great fool.
[Exeunt.]

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Notes

TLN 577archaic vocab
“have you entered the action”
To 'enter the action' is a legal phrase meaning to file the formal record of a lawsuit in court. Mistress Quickly has gone to a law officer — Fang — to initiate legal proceedings against Falstaff for his unpaid debts.
TLN 588archaic vocab
“he will foin like any devil”
To 'foin' means to thrust with a pointed weapon, particularly a sword or dagger. Mistress Quickly warns that Falstaff stabs without mercy — 'he will foin like any devil' — and will not spare man, woman, or child.
TLN 592archaic vocab
“an 'a come but within my vice”
A 'vice' here is a mechanical gripping device — a screw-clamp or hand-vice — used by craftsmen to hold an object fast. Fang means: if Falstaff comes close enough to grab, he will hold him in a grip as tight as that of a bench-vice.
TLN 594archaic vocab
“infinitive thing upon my score”
'Infinitive' is Mistress Quickly's mangled form of 'infinite' — she means Falstaff owes her an enormous, uncountable debt. A 'score' is a tally of credit: tavern-keepers kept account of what drinkers owed by cutting notches in a stick of wood. She is saying his debt on her tally is beyond counting.
TLN 595historical topical
“continuantly to Pie-corner—saving your manhoods—to buy a saddle; and he is indited to dinner to the Lubber's-head in Lumbert Street”
Pie-corner was a real London street corner at Giltspur Street and Cock Lane in Smithfield, famous for cook-shops and meat-pies, near butchers' stalls. 'Lombard Street' (garbled by Quickly as 'Lumbert Street') was the main street of London's Italian banking and merchant community. Both locations fix the scene firmly in the working-class geography of the city.
TLN 600cultural context
“A hundred mark is a long one for a poor lone woman to bear”
A 'mark' was a unit of account worth two-thirds of a pound (13 shillings and 4 pence). One hundred marks equalled just over sixty-six pounds — a very large sum for a tavern-keeper: roughly a skilled tradesman's income for several years. Mistress Quickly's claim makes clear how seriously Falstaff has exploited her.
TLN 606archaic vocab
“arrant malmsey-nose knave, Bardolph”
Malmsey was a rich, dark-red sweet wine imported from Greece and Madeira. Calling Bardolph a 'malmsey-nose' knave is an insult for his famously red, inflamed nose, which the play associates throughout with his heavy drinking. Bardolph's fiery face is a running joke in both parts of Henry IV.
TLN 615archaic vocab
“thou honey-suckle villain! wilt thou kill God's officers and the king's? Ah, thou honey-seed rogue! thou art a honey-seed, a man-queller, and a woman-queller”
Mistress Quickly is reaching for the word 'homicidal' — meaning a killer — and garbles it into 'honey-suckle' and 'honey-seed,' which are the names of harmless plants. 'Man-queller' and 'woman-queller' are her own coinages meaning 'man-killer' and 'woman-killer': to 'quell' means to kill or destroy.
TLN 623archaic vocab
“you scullion! you rampallian! you fustilarian! I'll tickle your catastrophe”
The Page hurls a volley of insults at the Hostess: a 'scullion' is a kitchen drudge (the lowest servant); a 'rampallian' is a scoundrel or ruffian; a 'fustilarian' is Shakespeare's apparent invention meaning something like a fat, fusty, worthless person. To 'tickle your catastrophe' is a euphemism for thrashing the Hostess's backside — 'catastrophe' meaning the hindquarters.
TLN 645cultural context
“upon a parcel-gilt goblet, sitting in my Dolphin-chamber, at the round table, by a sea-coal fire”
A 'parcel-gilt' cup is one that is only partly gilded — silver on the outside with gold on the inside (or gilded only at the rim and handle) — as opposed to fully gold. It was a middling-quality piece of plate, respectable but not grand. Mistress Quickly's precise inventory of the scene — named room, shape of table, type of fire — gives the false oath its comic legal weight.
TLN 672wordplay
“the one you may do with sterling money, and the other with current repentance”
The Lord Chief Justice draws a pointed parallel between money and morality using terms from currency: 'sterling' money is genuine, legally valid coin; 'current' repentance is sincere, acceptable — literally repentance that 'passes current' like good coin. Both words are monetary, applied to two different kinds of debt Falstaff owes the Hostess.
TLN 674archaic vocab
“I will not undergo this sneap without reply”
A 'sneap' (also 'snape' or 'snap') is a sharp rebuke or a nipping check — the word comes from a root meaning to pinch or bite. Falstaff is refusing to accept the Lord Chief Justice's public correction without answering back.
TLN 692biblical allusion
“the story of the Prodigal, or the German hunting in water-work, is worth a thousand of these bed-hangings and these fly-bitten tapestries”
Falstaff dismisses the Hostess's tapestries — the woven hangings that decorated the walls of her rooms — and recommends cheaper 'water-work' (watercolor-painted cloth) showing the story of the Prodigal Son, the parable from Luke of the son who squanders his inheritance and returns home to be forgiven. The detail is darkly comic: the Prodigal's story — a son who drains his father's wealth in reckless living — mirrors exactly what Falstaff has done to the Hostess.
biblical The Prodigal Son