Great Britain -- History -- Henry IV, 1399-1413 -- Drama; Henry IV, King of England, 1367-1413 -- Drama; Historical drama
SHALLOW.
It doth, it doth, it doth.
FALSTAFF.
As it were, to ride day and night, and not to deliberate, not to
remember, not to have patience to shift me—
SHALLOW.
It is best, certain.
FALSTAFF.
But to stand stained with travel, and sweating with desire to see him,
thinking of nothing else, putting all affairs else in oblivion, as if
there were nothing else to be done but to see him.
PISTOL.
’Tis _semper idem_, for _obsque hoc nihil est;_ ’tis all in every part.
SHALLOW.
’Tis so, indeed.
PISTOL.
My knight, I will inflame thy noble liver,
And make thee rage.
Thy Doll, and Helen of thy noble thoughts,
Is in base durance and contagious prison,
Haled thither
By most mechanical and dirty hand.
Rouse up revenge from ebon den with fell Alecto’s snake,
For Doll is in. Pistol speaks nought but truth.
FALSTAFF.
I will deliver her.
[_Shouts within. The trumpets sound._]
PISTOL.
There roar’d the sea, and trumpet-clangor sounds.
Enter the King and his train, the Lord Chief Justice among them.
FALSTAFF.
God save thy Grace, King Hal, my royal Hal!
PISTOL.
The heavens thee guard and keep, most royal imp of fame!
FALSTAFF.
God save thee, my sweet boy!
KING.
My Lord Chief Justice, speak to that vain man.
CHIEF JUSTICE.
Have you your wits? Know you what ’tis you speak?
FALSTAFF.
My King! My Jove! I speak to thee, my heart!
KING.
I know thee not, old man. Fall to thy prayers.
How ill white hairs becomes a fool and jester!
I have long dreamt of such a kind of man,
So surfeit-swell’d, so old, and so profane;
But, being awaked, I do despise my dream.
Make less thy body hence, and more thy grace;
Leave gormandizing; know the grave doth gape
For thee thrice wider than for other men.
Reply not to me with a fool-born jest.
Presume not that I am the thing I was;
For God doth know, so shall the world perceive,
That I have turn’d away my former self;
So will I those that kept me company.
When thou dost hear I am as I have been,
Approach me, and thou shalt be as thou wast,
The tutor and the feeder of my riots.
Till then I banish thee, on pain of death,
As I have done the rest of my misleaders,
Not to come near our person by ten mile.
For competence of life I will allow you,
That lack of means enforce you not to evils.
And, as we hear you do reform yourselves,
We will, according to your strengths and qualities,
Give you advancement. Be it your charge, my lord,
To see perform’d the tenor of our word.
Set on.
[_Exeunt King with his train._]
FALSTAFF.
Master Shallow, I owe you a thousand pounds.
SHALLOW.
Yea, marry, Sir John, which I beseech you to let me have home with me.
FALSTAFF.
That can hardly be, Master Shallow. Do not you grieve at this; I shall
be sent for in private to him. Look you, he must seem thus to the
world. Fear not your advancements; I will be the man yet that shall
make you great.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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