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PRINCE HENRY
No, if rightly taken, halter.
Re-enter FALSTAFF
Here comes lean Jack, here comes bare-bone.
How now, my sweet creature of bombast!
How long is't ago, Jack, since thou sawest thine own knee?
FALSTAFF
My own knee! when I was about thy years, Hal, I was
not an eagle's talon in the waist; I could have
crept into any alderman's thumb-ring: a plague of
sighing and grief! it blows a man up like a
bladder. There's villanous news abroad: here was
Sir John Bracy from your father; you must to the
court in the morning. That same mad fellow of the
north, Percy, and he of Wales, that gave Amamon the
bastinado and made Lucifer cuckold and swore the
devil his true liegeman upon the cross of a Welsh
hook--what a plague call you him?
POINS
O, Glendower.
FALSTAFF
Owen, Owen, the same; and his son-in-law Mortimer,
and old Northumberland, and that sprightly Scot of
Scots, Douglas, that runs o' horseback up a hill
perpendicular,--
PRINCE HENRY
He that rides at high speed and with his pistol
kills a sparrow flying.
FALSTAFF
You have hit it.
PRINCE HENRY
So did he never the sparrow.
FALSTAFF
Well, that rascal hath good mettle in him; he will not run.
PRINCE HENRY
Why, what a rascal art thou then, to praise him so
for running!
FALSTAFF
O' horseback, ye cuckoo; but afoot he will not budge a foot.
PRINCE HENRY
Yes, Jack, upon instinct.
FALSTAFF
I grant ye, upon instinct. Well, he is there too,
and one Mordake, and a thousand blue-caps more:
Worcester is stolen away to-night; thy father's
beard is turned white with the news: you may buy
land now as cheap as stinking mackerel.
PRINCE HENRY
Why, then, it is like, if there come a hot June and
this civil buffeting hold, we shall buy maidenheads
as they buy hob-nails, by the hundreds.
FALSTAFF
By the mass, lad, thou sayest true; it is like we
shall have good trading that way. But tell me, Hal,
art not thou horrible afeard? thou being
heir-apparent, could the world pick thee out three
such enemies again as that fiend Douglas, that
spirit Percy, and that devil Glendower? Art thou
not horribly afraid? doth not thy blood thrill at
it?
PRINCE HENRY
Not a whit, i' faith; I lack some of thy instinct.
FALSTAFF
Well, thou wert be horribly chid tomorrow when thou
comest to thy father: if thou love me, practise an answer.
PRINCE HENRY
Do thou stand for my father, and examine me upon the
particulars of my life.
FALSTAFF
Shall I? content: this chair shall be my state,
this dagger my sceptre, and this cushion my crown.
PRINCE HENRY
Thy state is taken for a joined-stool, thy golden
sceptre for a leaden dagger, and thy precious rich
crown for a pitiful bald crown!
FALSTAFF
Well, an the fire of grace be not quite out of thee,
now shalt thou be moved. Give me a cup of sack to
make my eyes look red, that it may be thought I have
wept; for I must speak in passion, and I will do it
in King Cambyses' vein.
PRINCE HENRY
Well, here is my leg.
FALSTAFF
And here is my speech. Stand aside, nobility.
Hostess
O Jesu, this is excellent sport, i' faith!
FALSTAFF
Weep not, sweet queen; for trickling tears are vain.
Hostess
O, the father, how he holds his countenance!
FALSTAFF
For God's sake, lords, convey my tristful queen;
For tears do stop the flood-gates of her eyes.
Hostess
O Jesu, he doth it as like one of these harlotry
players as ever I see!
FALSTAFF
Peace, good pint-pot; peace, good tickle-brain.
Harry, I do not only marvel where thou spendest thy
time, but also how thou art accompanied: for though
the camomile, the more it is trodden on the faster
it grows, yet youth, the more it is wasted the
sooner it wears. That thou art my son, I have
partly thy mother's word, partly my own opinion,
but chiefly a villanous trick of thine eye and a
foolish-hanging of thy nether lip, that doth warrant
me. If then thou be son to me, here lies the point;
why, being son to me, art thou so pointed at? Shall
the blessed sun of heaven prove a micher and eat
blackberries? a question not to be asked. Shall
the sun of England prove a thief and take purses? a
question to be asked. There is a thing, Harry,
which thou hast often heard of and it is known to
many in our land by the name of pitch: this pitch,
as ancient writers do report, doth defile; so doth
the company thou keepest: for, Harry, now I do not
speak to thee in drink but in tears, not in
pleasure but in passion, not in words only, but in
woes also: and yet there is a virtuous man whom I
have often noted in thy company, but I know not his name.
PRINCE HENRY
What manner of man, an it like your majesty?
FALSTAFF
A goodly portly man, i' faith, and a corpulent; of a
cheerful look, a pleasing eye and a most noble
carriage; and, as I think, his age some fifty, or,
by'r lady, inclining to three score; and now I
remember me, his name is Falstaff: if that man
should be lewdly given, he deceiveth me; for, Harry,
I see virtue in his looks. If then the tree may be
known by the fruit, as the fruit by the tree, then,
peremptorily I speak it, there is virtue in that
Falstaff: him keep with, the rest banish. And tell
me now, thou naughty varlet, tell me, where hast
thou been this month?
PRINCE HENRY
Dost thou speak like a king? Do thou stand for me,
and I'll play my father.
FALSTAFF
Depose me? if thou dost it half so gravely, so
majestically, both in word and matter, hang me up by
the heels for a rabbit-sucker or a poulter's hare.
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