King Henry IV, Part II
ACT I SCENE II | London. A street. | |
[ Enter FALSTAFF, with his Page bearing his sword and buckler ] | ||
FALSTAFF | Sirrah, you giant, what says the doctor to my water? | |
Page | He said, sir, the water itself was a good healthy | |
water; but, for the party that owed it, he might | ||
have more diseases than he knew for. | ||
FALSTAFF | Men of all sorts take a pride to gird at me: the | |
brain of this foolish-compounded clay, man, is not | ||
able to invent anything that tends to laughter, more | ||
than I invent or is invented on me: I am not only | ||
witty in myself, but the cause that wit is in other | ||
men. I do here walk before thee like a sow that | ||
hath overwhelmed all her litter but one. If the | ||
prince put thee into my service for any other reason | ||
than to set me off, why then I have no judgment. | ||
Thou whoreson mandrake, thou art fitter to be worn | ||
in my cap than to wait at my heels. I was never | ||
manned with an agate till now: but I will inset you | 10 | |
neither in gold nor silver, but in vile apparel, and | ||
send you back again to your master, for a jewel,– | ||
the juvenal, the prince your master, whose chin is | ||
not yet fledged. I will sooner have a beard grow in | ||
the palm of my hand than he shall get one on his | ||
cheek; and yet he will not stick to say his face is | ||
a face-royal: God may finish it when he will, ’tis | ||
not a hair amiss yet: he may keep it still at a | ||
face-royal, for a barber shall never earn sixpence | ||
out of it; and yet he’ll be crowing as if he had | ||
writ man ever since his father was a bachelor. He | ||
may keep his own grace, but he’s almost out of mine, | ||
I can assure him. What said Master Dombledon about | ||
the satin for my short cloak and my slops? | 23 | |
Page | He said, sir, you should procure him better | |
assurance than Bardolph: he would not take his | ||
band and yours; he liked not the security. | ||
FALSTAFF | Let him be damned, like the glutton! pray God his | |
tongue be hotter! A whoreson Achitophel! a rascally | ||
yea-forsooth knave! to bear a gentleman in hand, | ||
and then stand upon security! The whoreson | ||
smooth-pates do now wear nothing but high shoes, and | ||
bunches of keys at their girdles; and if a man is | ||
through with them in honest taking up, then they | ||
must stand upon security. I had as lief they would | ||
put ratsbane in my mouth as offer to stop it with | ||
security. I looked a’ should have sent me two and | ||
twenty yards of satin, as I am a true knight, and he | ||
sends me security. Well, he may sleep in security; | ||
for he hath the horn of abundance, and the lightness | ||
of his wife shines through it: and yet cannot he | ||
see, though he have his own lanthorn to light him. | ||
Where’s Bardolph? | ||
Page | He’s gone into Smithfield to buy your worship a horse. | |
FALSTAFF | I bought him in Paul’s, and he’ll buy me a horse in | |
Smithfield: an I could get me but a wife in the | ||
stews, I were manned, horsed, and wived. | 41 | |
[Enter the Lord Chief-Justice and Servant] | ||
Page | Sir, here comes the nobleman that committed the | |
Prince for striking him about Bardolph. | ||
FALSTAFF | Wait, close; I will not see him. | |
Lord Chief-Justice | What’s he that goes there? | |
Servant | Falstaff, an’t please your lordship. | |
Lord Chief-Justice | He that was in question for the robbery? | |
Servant | He, my lord: but he hath since done good service at | |
Shrewsbury; and, as I hear, is now going with some | ||
charge to the Lord John of Lancaster. | 50 | |
Lord Chief-Justice | What, to York? Call him back again. | |
Servant | Sir John Falstaff! | |
FALSTAFF | Boy, tell him I am deaf. | |
Page | You must speak louder; my master is deaf. | |
Lord Chief-Justice | I am sure he is, to the hearing of any thing good. | |
Go, pluck him by the elbow; I must speak with him. | ||
Servant | Sir John! | |
FALSTAFF | What! a young knave, and begging! Is there not | |
wars? is there not employment? doth not the king | ||
lack subjects? do not the rebels need soldiers? | ||
Though it be a shame to be on any side but one, it | ||
is worse shame to beg than to be on the worst side, | ||
were it worse than the name of rebellion can tell | ||
how to make it. | 63 | |
Servant | You mistake me, sir. | |
FALSTAFF | Why, sir, did I say you were an honest man? setting | |
my knighthood and my soldiership aside, I had lied | ||
in my throat, if I had said so. | ||
Servant | I pray you, sir, then set your knighthood and our | |
soldiership aside; and give me leave to tell you, | ||
you lie in your throat, if you say I am any other | ||
than an honest man. | ||
FALSTAFF | I give thee leave to tell me so! I lay aside that | |
which grows to me! if thou gettest any leave of me, | ||
hang me; if thou takest leave, thou wert better be | ||
hanged. You hunt counter: hence! avaunt! | 74 | |
Servant | Sir, my lord would speak with you. | |
Lord Chief-Justice | Sir John Falstaff, a word with you. | |
FALSTAFF | My good lord! God give your lordship good time of | |
day. I am glad to see your lordship abroad: I heard | ||
say your lordship was sick: I hope your lordship | ||
goes abroad by advice. Your lordship, though not | ||
clean past your youth, hath yet some smack of age in | ||
you, some relish of the saltness of time; and I must | ||
humbly beseech your lordship to have a reverent care | ||
of your health. | 83 | |
Lord Chief-Justice | Sir John, I sent for you before your expedition to | |
Shrewsbury. | ||
FALSTAFF | An’t please your lordship, I hear his majesty is | |
returned with some discomfort from Wales. | ||
Lord Chief-Justice | I talk not of his majesty: you would not come when | |
I sent for you. | ||
FALSTAFF | And I hear, moreover, his highness is fallen into | |
this same whoreson apoplexy. | 91 | |
Lord Chief-Justice | Well, God mend him! I pray you, let me speak with | |
you. | ||
FALSTAFF | This apoplexy is, as I take it, a kind of lethargy, | |
an’t please your lordship; a kind of sleeping in the | ||
blood, a whoreson tingling. | ||
Lord Chief-Justice | What tell you me of it? be it as it is. | |
FALSTAFF | It hath its original from much grief, from study and | |
perturbation of the brain: I have read the cause of | ||
his effects in Galen: it is a kind of deafness. | 100 | |
Lord Chief-Justice | I think you are fallen into the disease; for you | |
hear not what I say to you. | ||
FALSTAFF | Very well, my lord, very well: rather, an’t please | |
you, it is the disease of not listening, the malady | ||
of not marking, that I am troubled withal. | ||
Lord Chief-Justice | To punish you by the heels would amend the | |
attention of your ears; and I care not if I do | ||
become your physician. | ||
FALSTAFF | I am as poor as Job, my lord, but not so patient: | |
your lordship may minister the potion of | ||
imprisonment to me in respect of poverty; but how | ||
should I be your patient to follow your | ||
prescriptions, the wise may make some dram of a | ||
scruple, or indeed a scruple itself. | ||
Lord Chief-Justice | I sent for you, when there were matters against you | 114 |
for your life, to come speak with me. | ||
FALSTAFF | As I was then advised by my learned counsel in the | |
laws of this land-service, I did not come. | ||
Lord Chief-Justice | Well, the truth is, Sir John, you live in great infamy. | |
FALSTAFF | He that buckles him in my belt cannot live in less. | |
Lord Chief-Justice | Your means are very slender, and your waste is great. | |
FALSTAFF | I would it were otherwise; I would my means were | |
greater, and my waist slenderer. | ||
Lord Chief-Justice | You have misled the youthful prince. | |
FALSTAFF | The young prince hath misled me: I am the fellow | |
with the great belly, and he my dog. | ||
Lord Chief-Justice | Well, I am loath to gall a new-healed wound: your | |
day’s service at Shrewsbury hath a little gilded | ||
over your night’s exploit on Gad’s-hill: you may | ||
thank the unquiet time for your quiet o’er-posting | 131 | |
that action. | ||
FALSTAFF | My lord? | |
Lord Chief-Justice | But since all is well, keep it so: wake not a | |
sleeping wolf. | ||
FALSTAFF | To wake a wolf is as bad as to smell a fox. | |
Lord Chief-Justice | What! you are as a candle, the better part burnt | |
out. | ||
FALSTAFF | A wassail candle, my lord, all tallow: if I did say | |
of wax, my growth would approve the truth. | ||
Lord Chief-Justice | There is not a white hair on your face but should | |
have his effect of gravity. | ||
FALSTAFF | His effect of gravy, gravy, gravy. | |
Lord Chief-Justice | You follow the young prince up and down, like his | |
ill angel. | ||
FALSTAFF | Not so, my lord; your ill angel is light; but I hope | |
he that looks upon me will take me without weighing: | ||
and yet, in some respects, I grant, I cannot go: I | ||
cannot tell. Virtue is of so little regard in these | ||
costermonger times that true valour is turned | ||
bear-herd: pregnancy is made a tapster, and hath | ||
his quick wit wasted in giving reckonings: all the | ||
other gifts appertinent to man, as the malice of | ||
this age shapes them, are not worth a gooseberry. | ||
You that are old consider not the capacities of us | ||
that are young; you do measure the heat of our | ||
livers with the bitterness of your galls: and we | ||
that are in the vaward of our youth, I must confess, | ||
are wags too. | 156 | |
Lord Chief-Justice | Do you set down your name in the scroll of youth, | |
that are written down old with all the characters of | ||
age? Have you not a moist eye? a dry hand? a | ||
yellow cheek? a white beard? a decreasing leg? an | ||
increasing belly? is not your voice broken? your | ||
wind short? your chin double? your wit single? and | ||
every part about you blasted with antiquity? and | ||
will you yet call yourself young? Fie, fie, fie, Sir John! | 164 | |
FALSTAFF | My lord, I was born about three of the clock in the | |
afternoon, with a white head and something a round | ||
belly. For my voice, I have lost it with halloing | ||
and singing of anthems. To approve my youth | ||
further, I will not: the truth is, I am only old in | ||
judgment and understanding; and he that will caper | ||
with me for a thousand marks, let him lend me the | ||
money, and have at him! For the box of the ear that | ||
the prince gave you, he gave it like a rude prince, | ||
and you took it like a sensible lord. I have | ||
chequed him for it, and the young lion repents; | ||
marry, not in ashes and sackcloth, but in new silk | ||
and old sack. | ||
Lord Chief-Justice | Well, God send the prince a better companion! | 176 |
FALSTAFF | God send the companion a better prince! I cannot | |
rid my hands of him. | ||
Lord Chief-Justice | Well, the king hath severed you and Prince Harry: I | |
hear you are going with Lord John of Lancaster | ||
against the Archbishop and the Earl of | ||
Northumberland. | ||
FALSTAFF | Yea; I thank your pretty sweet wit for it. But look | |
you pray, all you that kiss my lady Peace at home, | ||
that our armies join not in a hot day; for, by the | ||
Lord, I take but two shirts out with me, and I mean | ||
not to sweat extraordinarily: if it be a hot day, | ||
and I brandish any thing but a bottle, I would I | ||
might never spit white again. There is not a | ||
dangerous action can peep out his head but I am | ||
thrust upon it: well, I cannot last ever: but it | ||
was alway yet the trick of our English nation, if | ||
they have a good thing, to make it too common. If | ||
ye will needs say I am an old man, you should give | ||
me rest. I would to God my name were not so | ||
terrible to the enemy as it is: I were better to be | ||
eaten to death with a rust than to be scoured to | ||
nothing with perpetual motion. | ||
Lord Chief-Justice | Well, be honest, be honest; and God bless your | |
expedition! | ||
FALSTAFF | Will your lordship lend me a thousand pound to | |
furnish me forth? | 200 | |
Lord Chief-Justice | Not a penny, not a penny; you are too impatient to | |
bear crosses. Fare you well: commend me to my | ||
cousin Westmoreland. | ||
[Exeunt Chief-Justice and Servant] | ||
FALSTAFF | If I do, fillip me with a three-man beetle. A man | |
can no more separate age and covetousness than a’ | ||
can part young limbs and lechery: but the gout | ||
galls the one, and the pox pinches the other; and | ||
so both the degrees prevent my curses. Boy! | ||
Page | Sir? | |
FALSTAFF | What money is in my purse? | |
Page | Seven groats and two pence. | 207 |
FALSTAFF | I can get no remedy against this consumption of the | |
purse: borrowing only lingers and lingers it out, | ||
but the disease is incurable. Go bear this letter | ||
to my Lord of Lancaster; this to the prince; this | ||
to the Earl of Westmoreland; and this to old | ||
Mistress Ursula, whom I have weekly sworn to marry | ||
since I perceived the first white hair on my chin. | ||
About it: you know where to find me. | ||
[Exit Page] | ||
A pox of this gout! or, a gout of this pox! for | ||
the one or the other plays the rogue with my great | ||
toe. ‘Tis no matter if I do halt; I have the wars | ||
for my colour, and my pension shall seem the more | ||
reasonable. A good wit will make use of any thing: | ||
I will turn diseases to commodity. | ||
[Exit] |
Continue to 2 Henry IV, Act 1, Scene 3