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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. Heaven may finish it when he will,
it is
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, may 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 he 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
lantern 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. If I could
get me 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, and it 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 anything good. Go pluck him by the
elbow, I must speak with him.
SERVANT
Sir John.
FALSTAFF
What a young knave and beg? 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
getst any leave of me, hang me: if thou takst 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: 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
If it 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, heaven mend him. I pray let me speak with you.
FALSTAFF
This apoplexy is (as I take it) a kind of lethargy, a 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 (and it 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 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 ore-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 costermongers,
that true valor 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 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 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 checked 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, heaven send the prince a better companion.
FALSTAFF
Heaven 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 if I take but two shirts out with me, and I mean not to sweat
extraordinarily: if it be a hot day, if I brandish anything but my 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.
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 LORD 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 he 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. A pox of this gout, or a gout of this pox: for the one or
the other plays the rogue with my great toe: It is no matter, if I do halt, I
have the wars for my color, and my pension shall seem the more reasonable. A
good wit will make use of any thing: I will turn diseases to commodity.
[Exit]