Great Britain -- History -- Henry IV, 1399-1413 -- Drama; Henry IV, King of England, 1367-1413 -- Drama; Historical drama
FALSTAFF.
What doth gravity out of his bed at midnight? Shall I give him his
answer?
PRINCE.
Prithee do, Jack.
FALSTAFF.
Faith, and I’ll send him packing.
[_Exit._]
PRINCE.
Now, sirs: by’r Lady, you fought fair, so did you, Peto. So did you,
Bardolph. You are lions, too, you ran away upon instinct, you will not
touch the true prince, no, fie!
BARDOLPH.
Faith, I ran when I saw others run.
PRINCE.
Faith, tell me now in earnest, how came Falstaff’s sword so hacked?
PETO.
Why, he hacked it with his dagger, and said he would swear truth out of
England but he would make you believe it was done in fight, and
persuaded us to do the like.
BARDOLPH.
Yea, and to tickle our noses with spear-grass to make them bleed, and
then to beslubber our garments with it, and swear it was the blood of
true men. I did that I did not this seven year before: I blushed to
hear his monstrous devices.
PRINCE.
O villain, thou stolest a cup of sack eighteen years ago, and wert
taken with the manner, and ever since thou hast blushed extempore. Thou
hadst fire and sword on thy side, and yet thou ran’st away. What
instinct hadst thou for it?
BARDOLPH.
My lord, do you see these meteors? Do you behold these exhalations?
PRINCE.
I do.
BARDOLPH.
What think you they portend?
PRINCE.
Hot livers and cold purses.
BARDOLPH.
Choler, my lord, if rightly taken.
PRINCE.
No, if rightly taken, halter.
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
a-horseback up a hill perpendicular—
PRINCE.
He that rides at high speed, and with his pistol kills a sparrow
flying.
FALSTAFF.
You have hit it.
PRINCE.
So did he never the sparrow.
FALSTAFF.
Well, that rascal hath good metal in him, he will not run.
PRINCE.
Why, what a rascal art thou then, to praise him so for running!
FALSTAFF.
A-horseback, ye cuckoo, but afoot he will not budge a foot.
PRINCE.
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 tonight; thy
father’s beard is turned white with the news. You may buy land now as
cheap as stinking mackerel.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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