Great Britain -- History -- Henry IV, 1399-1413 -- Drama; Henry IV, King of England, 1367-1413 -- Drama; Historical drama
And to thee.
POINS. By this light, I am well spoke on; I can hear it with
mine
own ears. The worst that they can say of me is that I am a
second
brother and that I am a proper fellow of my hands; and those
two
things, I confess, I cannot help. By the mass, here comes
Bardolph.
Enter BARDOLPH and PAGE
PRINCE. And the boy that I gave Falstaff. 'A had him from me
Christian; and look if the fat villain have not transform'd
him
ape.
BARDOLPH. God save your Grace!
PRINCE. And yours, most noble Bardolph!
POINS. Come, you virtuous ass, you bashful fool, must you be
blushing? Wherefore blush you now? What a maidenly
man-at-arms
are you become! Is't such a matter to get a pottle-pot's
maidenhead?
PAGE. 'A calls me e'en now, my lord, through a red lattice, and
I
could discern no part of his face from the window. At last I
spied his eyes; and methought he had made two holes in the
alewife's new petticoat, and so peep'd through.
PRINCE. Has not the boy profited?
BARDOLPH. Away, you whoreson upright rabbit, away!
PAGE. Away, you rascally Althaea's dream, away!
PRINCE. Instruct us, boy; what dream, boy?
PAGE. Marry, my lord, Althaea dreamt she was delivered of a
firebrand; and therefore I call him her dream.
PRINCE. A crown's worth of good interpretation. There 'tis,
boy.
[Giving a crown]
POINS. O that this blossom could be kept from cankers!
Well, there is sixpence to preserve thee.
BARDOLPH. An you do not make him be hang'd among you, the
gallows
shall have wrong.
PRINCE. And how doth thy master, Bardolph?
BARDOLPH. Well, my lord. He heard of your Grace's coming to
town.
There's a letter for you.
POINS. Deliver'd with good respect. And how doth the martlemas,
your master?
BARDOLPH. In bodily health, sir.
POINS. Marry, the immortal part needs a physician; but that
moves
not him. Though that be sick, it dies not.
PRINCE. I do allow this well to be as familiar with me as my
dog;
and he holds his place, for look you how he writes.
POINS. [Reads] 'John Falstaff, knight'--Every man must know
that
as oft as he has occasion to name himself, even like those
that
are kin to the King; for they never prick their finger but
they
say 'There's some of the King's blood spilt.' 'How comes
that?'
says he that takes upon him not to conceive. The answer is as
ready as a borrower's cap: 'I am the King's poor cousin,
sir.'
PRINCE. Nay, they will be kin to us, or they will fetch it from
Japhet. But the letter: [Reads] 'Sir John Falstaff, knight,
to
the son of the King nearest his father, Harry Prince of
Wales,
greeting.'
POINS. Why, this is a certificate.
PRINCE. Peace! [Reads] 'I will imitate the honourable Romans
in
brevity.'-
POINS. He sure means brevity in breath, short-winded.
PRINCE.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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