Great Britain -- History -- Henry IV, 1399-1413 -- Drama; Henry IV, King of England, 1367-1413 -- Drama; Historical drama
FALSTAFF.
I would you had but the wit, ’twere better than your dukedom. Good
faith, this same young sober-blooded boy doth not love me, nor a man
cannot make him laugh; but that’s no marvel, he drinks no wine. There’s
never none of these demure boys come to any proof; for thin drink doth
so over-cool their blood, and making many fish meals, that they fall
into a kind of male green-sickness; and then, when they marry, they get
wenches. They are generally fools and cowards, which some of us should
be too, but for inflammation. A good sherris-sack hath a two-fold
operation in it. It ascends me into the brain, dries me there all the
foolish and dull and crudy vapours which environ it, makes it
apprehensive, quick, forgetive, full of nimble, fiery, and delectable
shapes, which, delivered o’er to the voice, the tongue, which is the
birth, becomes excellent wit. The second property of your excellent
sherris is the warming of the blood, which, before cold and settled,
left the liver white and pale, which is the badge of pusillanimity and
cowardice. But the sherris warms it and makes it course from the
inwards to the parts’ extremes. It illumineth the face, which as a
beacon gives warning to all the rest of this little kingdom, man, to
arm; and then the vital commoners and inland petty spirits muster me
all to their captain, the heart, who, great and puffed up with this
retinue, doth any deed of courage; and this valour comes of sherris. So
that skill in the weapon is nothing without sack, for that sets it
a-work; and learning a mere hoard of gold kept by a devil, till sack
commences it and sets it in act and use. Hereof comes it that Prince
Harry is valiant; for the cold blood he did naturally inherit of his
father he hath, like lean, sterile and bare land, manured, husbanded
and tilled with excellent endeavour of drinking good and good store of
fertile sherris, that he is become very hot and valiant. If I had a
thousand sons, the first humane principle I would teach them should be
to forswear thin potations and to addict themselves to sack.
Enter Bardolph.
How now, Bardolph?
BARDOLPH.
The army is discharged all and gone.
FALSTAFF.
Let them go. I’ll through Gloucestershire, and there will I visit
Master Robert Shallow, Esquire. I have him already tempering between my
finger and my thumb, and shortly will I seal with him. Come away.
[_Exeunt._]
SCENE IV. Westminster. The Jerusalem Chamber.
Enter the King, Warwick, Thomas Duke of Clarence and Humphrey Duke of
Gloucester and others.
KING.
Now, lords, if God doth give successful end
To this debate that bleedeth at our doors,
We will our youth lead on to higher fields
And draw no swords but what are sanctified.
Our navy is address’d, our power collected,
Our substitutes in absence well invested,
And everything lies level to our wish.
Only we want a little personal strength;
And pause us till these rebels now afoot
Come underneath the yoke of government.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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