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King Henry IV, Part 2: Act 1 Scene 2

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

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?

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.

[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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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!

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!

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?

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.

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]