The Second Part Of King Henry The Fourth

1 Enter Prince Henry and Poins.
2 PRINCE.
3 Before God, I am exceeding weary.
4 POINS.
5 Is ’t come to that? I had thought weariness durst not have attached one
6 of so high blood.
7 PRINCE.
8 Faith, it does me, though it discolours the complexion of my greatness
9 to acknowledge it. Doth it not show vilely in me to desire small beer?
10 POINS.
11 Why, a prince should not be so loosely studied as to remember so weak a
12 composition.
13 PRINCE.
14 Belike then my appetite was not princely got, for, by my troth, I do
15 now remember the poor creature small beer. But indeed, these humble
16 considerations make me out of love with my greatness. What a disgrace
17 is it to me to remember thy name! or to know thy face tomorrow! or to
18 take note how many pair of silk stockings thou hast—viz. these, and
19 those that were thy peach-coloured ones! or to bear the inventory of
20 thy shirts, as, one for superfluity, and another for use! But that the
21 tennis-court keeper knows better than I, for it is a low ebb of linen
22 with thee when thou keepest not racket there; as thou hast not done a
23 great while, because the rest of thy low countries have made a shift to
24 eat up thy holland. And God knows whether those that bawl out of the
25 ruins of thy linen shall inherit his kingdom: but the midwives say the
26 children are not in the fault; whereupon the world increases, and
27 kindreds are mightily strengthened.
28 POINS.
29 How ill it follows, after you have laboured so hard, you should talk so
30 idly! Tell me, how many good young princes would do so, their fathers
31 being so sick as yours at this time is?
32 PRINCE.
33 Shall I tell thee one thing, Poins?
34 POINS.
35 Yes, faith, and let it be an excellent good thing.
36 PRINCE.
37 It shall serve among wits of no higher breeding than thine.
38 POINS.
39 Go to, I stand the push of your one thing that you will tell.
40 PRINCE.
41 Marry, I tell thee it is not meet that I should be sad, now my father
42 is sick; albeit I could tell to thee, as to one it pleases me, for
43 fault of a better, to call my friend, I could be sad, and sad indeed
44 too.
45 POINS.
46 Very hardly upon such a subject.
47 PRINCE.
48 By this hand, thou thinkest me as far in the devil’s book as thou and
49 Falstaff for obduracy and persistency. Let the end try the man. But I
50 tell thee, my heart bleeds inwardly that my father is so sick; and
51 keeping such vile company as thou art hath in reason taken from me all
52 ostentation of sorrow.
53 POINS.
54 The reason?
55 PRINCE.
56 What wouldst thou think of me if I should weep?
57 POINS.
58 I would think thee a most princely hypocrite.
59 PRINCE.
60 It would be every man’s thought; and thou art a blessed fellow to think
61 as every man thinks. Never a man’s thought in the world keeps the
62 roadway better than thine: every man would think me an hypocrite
63 indeed. And what accites your most worshipful thought to think so?
64 POINS.
65 Why, because you have been so lewd and so much engraffed to Falstaff.
66 PRINCE.
67 And to thee.
68 POINS.
69 By this light, I am well spoke on; I can hear it with mine own ears.
70 The worst that they can say of me is that I am a second brother, and
71 that I am a proper fellow of my hands; and those two things, I confess,
72 I cannot help. By the mass, here comes Bardolph.
73 Enter Bardolph and Page.
74 PRINCE.
75 And the boy that I gave Falstaff. He had him from me Christian, and
76 look if the fat villain have not transformed him ape.
77 BARDOLPH.
78 God save your Grace!
79 PRINCE.
80 And yours, most noble Bardolph!
81 POINS.
82 Come, you virtuous ass, you bashful fool, must you be blushing?
83 Wherefore blush you now? What a maidenly man-at-arms are you become! Is
84 ’t such a matter to get a pottle-pot’s maidenhead?
85 PAGE.
86 He calls me e’en now, my lord, through a red lattice, and I could
87 discern no part of his face from the window. At last I spied his eyes,
88 and methought he had made two holes in the ale-wife’s new petticoat and
89 so peeped through.
90 PRINCE.
91 Has not the boy profited?
92 BARDOLPH.
93 Away, you whoreson upright rabbit, away!
94 PAGE.
95 Away, you rascally Althaea’s dream, away!
96 PRINCE.
97 Instruct us, boy; what dream, boy?
98 PAGE.
99 Marry, my lord, Althaea dreamt she was delivered of a firebrand; and
100 therefore I call him her dream.
101 PRINCE.
102 A crown’s worth of good interpretation. There ’tis, boy.
103 POINS.
104 O, that this blossom could be kept from cankers! Well, there is
105 sixpence to preserve thee.
106 BARDOLPH.
107 An you do not make him be hanged among you, the gallows shall have
108 wrong.
109 PRINCE.
110 And how doth thy master, Bardolph?
111 BARDOLPH.
112 Well, my lord. He heard of your Grace’s coming to town. There’s a
113 letter for you.
114 POINS.
115 Delivered with good respect. And how doth the martlemas, your master?
116 BARDOLPH.
117 In bodily health, sir.
118 POINS.
119 Marry, the immortal part needs a physician, but that moves not him.
120 Though that be sick, it dies not.
121 PRINCE.
122 I do allow this wen to be as familiar with me as my dog, and he holds
123 his place, for look you how he writes.
124 POINS.
125 [_Reads_.] “John Falstaff, knight,” Every man must know that, as oft as
126 he has occasion to name himself: even like those that are kin to the
127 King, for they never prick their finger but they say, “There’s some of
128 the King’s blood spilt.” “How comes that?” says he that takes upon him
129 not to conceive. The answer is as ready as a borrower’s cap, “I am the
130 King’s poor cousin, sir.”
131 PRINCE.
132 Nay, they will be kin to us, or they will fetch it from Japhet. But to
133 the letter: “Sir John Falstaff, knight, to the son of the King, nearest
134 his father, Harry Prince of Wales, greeting.”
135 POINS.
136 Why, this is a certificate.
137 PRINCE.
138 Peace! “I will imitate the honourable Romans in brevity.”
139 POINS.
140 He sure means brevity in breath, short-winded.
141 PRINCE.
142 “I commend me to thee, I commend thee, and I leave thee. Be not too
143 familiar with Poins, for he misuses thy favours so much that he swears
144 thou art to marry his sister Nell. Repent at idle times as thou mayst,
145 and so, farewell.
146 Thine by yea and no, which is as much as to say, as thou usest him—Jack
147 Falstaff with my familiars, John with my brothers and sisters, and Sir
148 John with all Europe.”
149 POINS.
150 My lord, I’ll steep this letter in sack and make him eat it.
151 PRINCE.
152 That’s to make him eat twenty of his words. But do you use me thus,
153 Ned? Must I marry your sister?
154 POINS.
155 God send the wench no worse fortune! But I never said so.
156 PRINCE.
157 Well, thus we play the fools with the time, and the spirits of the wise
158 sit in the clouds and mock us. Is your master here in London?
159 BARDOLPH.
160 Yea, my lord.
161 PRINCE.
162 Where sups he? Doth the old boar feed in the old frank?
163 BARDOLPH.
164 At the old place, my lord, in Eastcheap.
165 PRINCE.
166 What company?
167 PAGE.
168 Ephesians, my lord, of the old church.
169 PRINCE.
170 Sup any women with him?
171 PAGE.
172 None, my lord, but old Mistress Quickly and Mistress Doll Tearsheet.
173 PRINCE.
174 What pagan may that be?
175 PAGE.
176 A proper gentlewoman, sir, and a kinswoman of my master’s.
177 PRINCE.
178 Even such kin as the parish heifers are to the town bull. Shall we
179 steal upon them, Ned, at supper?
180 POINS.
181 I am your shadow, my lord, I’ll follow you.
182 PRINCE.
183 Sirrah, you boy, and Bardolph, no word to your master that I am yet
184 come to town. There’s for your silence.
185 BARDOLPH.
186 I have no tongue, sir.
187 PAGE.
188 And for mine, sir, I will govern it.
189 PRINCE.
190 Fare you well; go.
191 [_Exeunt Bardolph and Page._]
192 This Doll Tearsheet should be some road.
193 POINS.
194 I warrant you, as common as the way between Saint Albans and London.
195 PRINCE.
196 How might we see Falstaff bestow himself tonight in his true colours,
197 and not ourselves be seen?
198 POINS.
199 Put on two leathern jerkins and aprons, and wait upon him at his table
200 as drawers.
201 PRINCE.
202 From a god to a bull? A heavy descension! It was Jove’s case. From a
203 prince to a ’prentice? A low transformation that shall be mine, for in
204 everything the purpose must weigh with the folly. Follow me, Ned.
205 [_Exeunt._]