Great Britain -- History -- Henry IV, 1399-1413 -- Drama; Henry IV, King of England, 1367-1413 -- Drama; Historical drama
PRINCE.
Well, come what will, I’ll tarry at home.
FALSTAFF.
By the Lord, I’ll be a traitor then, when thou art king.
PRINCE.
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.
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.
But 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.
Yea, 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
visards we will change after we leave them; and, sirrah, I have cases
of buckram for the nonce, to immask our noted outward garments.
PRINCE.
Yea, 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 lives
the jest.
PRINCE.
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._]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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