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London. An apartment of the Prince's.
[Enter the PRINCE OF WALES and FALSTAFF]
FALSTAFF
Now Hal, what time of day is it lad?
PRINCE HENRY
Thou art so fat-witted with drinking of old sack, and unbuttoning thee after
supper, and sleeping upon benches in the afternoon that thou hast forgotten to
demand that truly, which thou wouldst truly know. What a devil hast thou to
do with the time of the day? Unless hours were cups of sack, and minutes
capons, and clocks the tongues of bawds, and dials the signs of leaping-houses,
and the blessed sun himself a fair hot wench in flame-colored taffeta; I see
no reason, why thou shouldst be so superfluous, to demand the time of the day.
FALSTAFF
Indeed you come near me now Hal, for we that take purses go by the moon
and the seven stars, and not by Phoebus he, that wandering knight so fair.
And I prithee sweet wag, when thou art king, as God save thy
grace, majesty I should say, for grace thou wilt have none.
PRINCE HENRY
What, none?
FALSTAFF
No, not so much as will serve to prologue to an egg and butter.
PRINCE HENRY
Well, how then? come roundly, roundly.
FALSTAFF
Marry then, sweet wag, when thou art king, let not us that are squires of
the night's body, be called thieves of the day's beauty. Let us be Diana's
foresters, gentlemen of the shade, minions of the moon; and let men say, we
be men of good government, being governed as the sea is, by our noble and
chaste mistress the moon, under whose countenance we steal.
PRINCE HENRY
Thou sayst well, and it holds well too: for the fortune of us that are the
moon's men, doth ebb and flow like the sea, being governed as the sea is, by
the moon: as for proof. Now a purse of gold most resolutely snatched on
Monday night, and most dissolutely spent on Tuesday morning; got with
swearing, Lay by: and spent with crying, Bring in: now, in as low an ebb as
the foot of the ladder, and by and by in as high a flow as the ridge of the
gallows.
FALSTAFF
Thou sayst true lad: and is not my hostess of the tavern a
most sweet wench?
PRINCE HENRY
As the honey, my old lad of the castle: And is not a buff jerkin a
most sweet robe of durance?
FALSTAFF
How now? how now mad wag? what in thy quips and thy quiddities? what a
plague have I to do with a buff jerkin?
PRINCE HENRY
Why, what a pox have I to do with my hostess of the tavern?
FALSTAFF
Well, thou hast called her to a reckoning many a time and oft.
PRINCE HENRY
Did I ever call for thee to pay thy part?
FALSTAFF
No, I'll give thee thy due, thou hast paid all there.
PRINCE HENRY
Yea and elsewhere, so far as my coin would stretch, and where it would not,
I have used my credit.
FALSTAFF
Yea, and so used it, that were it not here apparent, that thou art heir
apparent. But I prithee sweet wag, shall there be gallows standing in
England when thou art king? and resolution thus fobbed as it is with the
rusty curb of old father antic the law? Do not thou when thou art king,
hang a thief.
PRINCE HENRY
No, thou shalt.
FALSTAFF
Shall I? O rare! I'll be a brave judge.
PRINCE HENRY
Thou judgest false already. I mean, thou shalt have the hanging of the
thieves, and so become a rare hangman.
FALSTAFF
Well Hal, well: and in some sort it jumps with my humor, as well as waiting
in the court, I can tell you.
PRINCE HENRY
For obtaining of suits?
FALSTAFF
Yea, for obtaining of suits, whereof the hangman hath no lean wardrobe.
I am as melancholy as a gib cat, or a lugged bear.
PRINCE HENRY
Or an old lion, or a lover's lute.
FALSTAFF
Yea, or the drone of a Lincolnshire bagpipe.
PRINCE HENRY
What sayst thou to a hare, or the melancholy of Moor-ditch?
FALSTAFF
Thou hast the most unsavory similes, and art indeed the most comparative
rascalliest sweet young prince. But Hal, I prithee trouble me no more
with vanity, I would to God thou and I knew, where a commodity of good names
were to be bought: an old lord of the council rated me the other day in the
street about you sir; but I marked him not, and yet he talked very wisely,
but I regarded him not, and yet he talked wisely, and in the street too.
PRINCE HENRY
Thou didst well: for no man regards it.
FALSTAFF
O, thou hast damnable iteration, and art indeed able to corrupt a saint. Thou
hast done much harm upon me Hal, God forgive thee for it. Before I knew
thee Hal, I knew nothing: and now I am (if a man should speak truly) little
better than one of the wicked. I must give over this life, and I will give
it over: by the Lord, and I do not, I am a villain, I'll be damned for never
a king's son in Christendom.
PRINCE HENRY
Where shall we take a purse tomorrow, Jack?
FALSTAFF
Where thou wilt lad, I'll make one: and I do not, call me villain,
and baffle me.
PRINCE HENRY
I see a good amendment of life in thee: from praying, to purse-taking.
FALSTAFF
Why, Hal, 'tis my vocation Hal: 'tis no sin for a man to labor in his
vocation.
POINS
Now shall we know if Gadshill have set a watch. O, if men were to be
saved by merit, what hole in hell were hot enough for him? This is the most
omnipotent villain, that ever cried, stand, to a true man.
PRINCE HENRY
Good morrow Ned.
POINS
Good morrow sweet Hal. What says Monsieur Remorse? what says Sir John Sack
and Sugar: Jack? how agrees the devil and thee about thy soul, that thou
soldest him on Good-Friday last, for a cup of Madeira, and a cold capon's leg?
PRINCE HENRY
Sir John stands to his word, the devil shall have his bargain, for he was
never yet a breaker of proverbs: he will give the devil his due.
POINS
Then art thou damned for keeping thy word with the devil.
PRINCE HENRY
Else he had been damned for cozening the devil.
POINS
But my lads, my lads, tomorrow morning, by four o'clock early at Gadshill,
there are pilgrims going to Canterbury with rich offerings, and traders
riding to London with fat purses. I have vizards for you all; you have
horses for yourselves: Gadshill lies tonight in Rochester, I have bespoke
supper tomorrow night in Eastcheap; we may do it as secure as sleep: If you
will go, I will stuff your purses full of crowns: if you will not, tarry at
home and be hanged.
FALSTAFF
Hear ye Yedward, if I tarry at home and go not, I'll hang you for going.
POINS
You will chops.
FALSTAFF
Hal, wilt thou make one?
PRINCE HENRY
Who, I rob? I a thief? not I.
FALSTAFF
There's neither honesty, manhood, nor good fellowship in thee, nor thou
camest not of the blood royal, if thou darst not stand for ten shillings.
PRINCE HENRY
Well then, once in my days I'll be a madcap.
FALSTAFF
Why, that's well said.
PRINCE HENRY
Well, come what will, I'll tarry at home.
FALSTAFF
I'll be a traitor then, when thou art king.
PRINCE HENRY
I care not.
POINS
Sir John, I prithee leave the prince and me alone, I will lay him down such
reasons for this adventure, that he shall go.
FALSTAFF
Well, God give thee the spirit of persuasion; and him the ears of profiting,
that what thou speakest, may move; and what he hears may be believed, that the
true prince, may (for recreation sake) prove a false thief; for the poor
abuses of the time, want countenance. Farewell, you shall find me in
Eastcheap.
PRINCE HENRY
Farewell thou latter spring. Farewell All-hallown summer.
[Exit Falstaff]
POINS
Now, my good sweet honey lord, ride with us tomorrow. I have a jest to
execute, that I cannot manage alone. Falstaff, Bardolph, Peto, and Gadshill,
shall rob those men that we have already waylaid, yourself and I, will not be
there: and when they have the booty, if you and I do not rob them, cut this
head off from my shoulders.
PRINCE HENRY
How shall we part with them in setting forth?
POINS
Why, we will set forth before or after them, and appoint them a place of
meeting, wherein it is at our pleasure to fail; and then will they adventure
upon the exploit themselves, which they shall have no sooner achieved, but
we'll set upon them.
PRINCE HENRY
Aye, but 'tis like that they will know us by our horses, by our habits, and
by every other appointment to be ourselves.
POINS
Tut our horses they shall not see, I'll tie them in the wood, our vizards
we will change after we leave them: and sirrah, I have cases of buckram for
the nonce, to immask our noted outward garments.
PRINCE HENRY
But I doubt they will be too hard for us.
POINS
Well, for two of them, I know them to be as true-bred cowards as ever turned
back: and for the third, if he fight longer than he sees reason, I'll
forswear arms. The virtue of this jest will be, the incomprehensible lies
that this same fat rogue will tell us, when we meet at supper: how thirty at
least he fought with, what wards, what blows, what extremities he endured;
and in the reproof of this, lies the jest.
PRINCE HENRY
Well, I'll go with thee, provide us all things necessary, and meet me
tomorrow night in Eastcheap, there I'll sup. Farewell.
POINS
Farewell, my lord.
[Exit Poins]
PRINCE HENRY
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I know | you all,| and will | awhile | uphold
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The un|yoked hum/or of | your id|leness:
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Yet here|in will | I i|mitate | the sun,
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Who doth | permit | the base | contag|ious clouds
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To smoth|er up | his beaut|y from | the world,
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That when | he please | again | to be | himself,
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Being want|ed, he | may be | more wond|ered at,
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By break|ing through | the foul | and ug|ly mists
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Of vap|ors, that | did seem | to strang|le him.
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If all | the year | were play|ing hol|idays,
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To sport,| would be | as ted|ious as | to work;
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But when they | seldom | come, they | wished for
come,
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And noth|ing pleas|eth but / rare ac|cidents.
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So when | this loose | behav|ior I / throw off,
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And pay | the debt | I nev|er prom|ised;
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By || how much bet|ter than | my word | I am,
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By so | much^shall | I fal|sify men's hopes,
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And like bright met|al on | a sul|len ground:
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My re|forma|tion glit|tering ore | my fault,
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Shall show | more* good|ly, and | attract
more eyes,
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Than that | which hath | no foil | to set | it
off.
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I'll so | offend,| to make | offense | a skill,
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Redeem|ing time,| when men | think^least | I
will.
[Exit]