Page 1637 - Shakespeare - Vol. 2

Scene III IT

Enter Pistol, Hostess, Nym, Bardolph, and Boy.

HOSTESS
Prithee, honey-sweet husband, let me bring thee to Staines.

PISTOL
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, [5]
And we must earn therefore.

BARDOLPH
Would I were with him, wheresome’er he is, either in heaven or in hell!

HOSTESS
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 [10] end, and went away an it had been any christom

child; a’ parted even just between twelve and one, even at the turning o’ the
tide: for after I saw him fumble with the sheets and play with flowers and
smile upon his fingers’ end, I knew there was but one way; for his nose was

as [15] sharp as a pen, and a’ babbled of green fields. “How now, Sir 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 hop’d there was no need to trouble [20] himself with any such thoughts
yet. So a’ bade me lay more clothes on his feet: 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 upward, and upward, and all was as cold as any stone. [25]

NYM
They say he cried out of sack.

HOSTESS
Ay, that a’ did.

BARDOLPH