TPTT The Second Part of Henry the Fourth: ACT I
Introduction
INDUCTION
ACT I
SCENE I. The same.
SCENE II. London. A street.
SCENE III. York. The Archbishop's palace.
ACT II
ACT III
ACT IV
ACT V
About the Play
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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
5     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
10    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
15    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
20    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
25    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
30    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
35    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
40    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
45    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
50    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
55    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
60    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
65    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
70    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,
75    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
80    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
85    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
90    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
95    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
100   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
105   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,
110   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
115   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
120   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:
125   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
130   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
135   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
140   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
145   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
150   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
155   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
160   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
165   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
170   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,
175   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
180   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
185   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
190   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
195   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
200   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
205   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
210   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
215   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
220   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
225   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
230   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,
235   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.
240   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
245   reasonable. A good wit will make use of any thing:
      I will turn diseases to commodity.
Exit
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