The First Part of Henry IV:
Act 1, Scene 2
Enter PRINCE OF WALES and
SIR JOHN FALSTAFF.
FALSTAFF
1 Now, Hal, what time of day is it, lad?
PRINCE HENRY
2 Thou art so fat-witted, with drinking of old sack
3 and unbuttoning thee after supper and sleeping upon
4 benches after noon, that thou hast forgotten to
5 demand that truly which thou wouldst truly know.
6 What a devil hast thou to do with the time of the
7 day? Unless hours were cups of sack and minutes
8 capons and clocks the tongues of bawds and dials the
9 signs of leaping-houses and the blessed sun himself
10 a fair hot wench in flame-coloured taffeta, I see no
11 reason why thou shouldst be so superfluous to demand
12 the time of the day.
FALSTAFF
13 Indeed, you come near me now, Hal; for we that take
14 purses go by the moon and the seven stars, and not
15 by Phoebus, he, 'that wandering knight so fair.' And,
16 I prithee, sweet wag, when thou art king, as, God
17 save thy grace,—majesty I should say, for grace
18 thou wilt have none,—
PRINCE HENRY
19 What, none?
FALSTAFF
20 No, by my troth, not so much as will serve to
21 prologue to an egg and butter.
PRINCE HENRY
22 Well, how then? come, roundly, roundly.
FALSTAFF
23 Marry, then, sweet wag, when thou art king, let not
24 us that are squires of the night's body be called
25 thieves of the day's beauty: let us be Diana's
26 foresters, gentlemen of the shade, minions of the
27 moon; and let men say we be men of good government,
28 being governed, as the sea is, by our noble and
29 chaste mistress the moon, under whose countenance we steal.
PRINCE HENRY
30 Thou sayest well, and it holds well too; for the
31 fortune of us that are the moon's men doth ebb and
32 flow like the sea, being governed, as the sea is,
33 by the moon. As, for proof, now: a purse of gold
34 most resolutely snatched on Monday night and most
35 dissolutely spent on Tuesday morning; got with
36 swearing 'Lay by' and spent with crying 'Bring in;'
37 now in as low an ebb as the foot of the ladder
38 and by and by in as high a flow as the ridge of the gallows.
FALSTAFF
39 By the Lord, thou sayest true, lad. And is not my
40 hostess of the tavern a most sweet wench?
PRINCE HENRY
41 As the honey of Hybla, my old lad of the castle. And
42 is not a buff jerkin a most sweet robe of
43 durance?
FALSTAFF
44 How now, how now, mad wag! what, in thy quips and
45 thy quiddities? what a plague have I to do with a
46 buff jerkin?
PRINCE HENRY
47 Why, what a pox have I to do with my
48 hostess of the tavern?
FALSTAFF
49 Well, thou hast called her to a reckoning many a
50 time and oft.
PRINCE HENRY
51 Did I ever call for thee to pay thy part?
FALSTAFF
52 No; I'll give thee thy due, thou hast paid all
53 there.
PRINCE HENRY
54 Yea, and elsewhere, so far as my coin
55 would stretch; and where it would not, I have used my
56 credit.
FALSTAFF
57 Yea, and so used it that were it not here apparent
58 that thou art heir apparent—But, I prithee, sweet
59 wag, shall there be gallows standing in England when
60 thou art king? and resolution thus fubb'd as it is
61 with the rusty curb of old father antic the law? Do
62 not thou, when thou art king, hang a thief.
PRINCE HENRY
63 No; thou shalt.
FALSTAFF
64 Shall I? O rare! By the Lord, I'll be a brave
65 judge.
PRINCE HENRY
66 Thou judgest false already: I mean, thou
67 shalt have the hanging of the thieves and so become a
68 rare hangman.
FALSTAFF
69 Well, Hal, well; and in some sort it jumps with
70 my humor as well as waiting in the court, I can tell you
PRINCE HENRY
71 For obtaining of suits?
FALSTAFF
72 Yea, for obtaining of suits, whereof the hangman
73 hath no lean wardrobe. 'Sblood, I am as melancholy
74 as a gib cat or a lugg'd bear.
PRINCE HENRY
75 Or an old lion, or a lover's lute.
FALSTAFF
76 Yea, or the drone of a Lincolnshire bagpipe.
PRINCE HENRY
77 What sayest thou to a hare, or the melancholy of
78 Moor-ditch?
FALSTAFF
79 Thou hast the most unsavoury similes and art indeed
80 the most comparative, rascalliest, sweet young
81 prince. But, Hal, I prithee, trouble me no more
82 with vanity. I would to God thou and I knew where a
83 commodity of good names were to be bought. An old
84 lord of the council rated me the other day in the
85 street about you, sir, but I marked him not; and yet
86 he talked very wisely, but I regarded him not; and
87 yet he talked wisely, and in the street too.
PRINCE HENRY
88 Thou didst well; for wisdom cries out in the
89 streets, and no man regards it.
FALSTAFF
90 O, thou hast damnable iteration and art
91 indeed able to corrupt a saint. Thou hast done much
92 harm upon me, Hal; God forgive thee for it! Before I
93 knew thee, Hal, I knew nothing; and now am I, if a
94 man should speak truly, little better than one of the
95 wicked. I must give over this life, and I will give
96 it over: by the Lord, and I do not, I am a villain:
97 I'll be damned for never a king's son in Christendom.
PRINCE HENRY
98 Where shall we take a purse tomorrow,
99 Jack?
FALSTAFF
100 'Zounds, where thou wilt, lad; I'll make one; an I
101 do not, call me villain an' baffle me.
PRINCE HENRY
102 I see a good amendment of life in thee; from praying
103 to purse-taking.
FALSTAFF
104 Why, Hal, 'tis my vocation, Hal; 'tis no sin for a
105 man to labour in his vocation.
106 Poins! Now shall we know if Gadshill have set a
107 match. O, if men were to be saved by merit, what
108 hole in hell were hot enough for him? This is the
109 most omnipotent villain that ever cried 'Stand' to
110 a true man.
PRINCE HENRY
111 Good morrow, Ned.
POINS
112 Good morrow, sweet Hal. What says Monsieur Remorse?
113 what says Sir John Sack and Sugar? Jack! how
114 agrees the devil and thee about thy soul, that thou
115 soldest him on Good Friday last for a cup of Madeira
116 and a cold capon's leg?
PRINCE HENRY
117 Sir John stands to his word, the devil shall have
118 his bargain; for he was never yet a breaker of
119 proverbs: he will give the devil his due.
POINS
120 Then art thou damned for keeping thy word
121 with the devil.
PRINCE HENRY
122 Else he had been damned for cozening the
123 devil.
POINS
124 But, my lads, my lads, tomorrow morning, by four
125 o'clock, early at Gadshill! there are pilgrims going
126 to Canterbury with rich offerings, and traders
127 riding to London with fat purses: I have vizards
128 for you all; you have horses for yourselves:
129 Gadshill lies tonight in Rochester: I have bespoke
130 supper tomorrow night in Eastcheap: we may do it
131 as secure as sleep. If you will go, I will stuff
132 your purses full of crowns; if you will not, tarry
133 at home and be hanged.
FALSTAFF
134 Hear ye, Yedward; if I tarry at home and go not,
135 I'll hang you for going.
FALSTAFF
137 Hal, wilt thou make one?
PRINCE HENRY
138 Who, I rob? I a thief? not I, by my faith.
FALSTAFF
139 There's neither honesty, manhood, nor good
140 fellowship in thee, nor thou camest not of the blood
141 royal, if thou darest not stand for ten shillings.
PRINCE HENRY
142 Well then, once in my days I'll be a
143 madcap.
FALSTAFF
144 Why, that's well said.
PRINCE HENRY
145 Well, come what will, I'll tarry at home.
FALSTAFF
146 By the Lord, I'll be a traitor then, when
147 thou art king.
PRINCE HENRY
148 I care not.
POINS
149 Sir John, I prithee, leave the prince and me alone:
150 I will lay him down such reasons for this adventure
151 that he shall go.
FALSTAFF
152 Well, God give thee the spirit of persuasion and him
153 the ears of profiting, that what thou speakest may
154 move and what he hears may be believed, that the
155 true prince may, for recreation sake, prove a false
156 thief; for the poor abuses of the time want countenance.
157 Farewell: you shall find me in Eastcheap.
PRINCE HENRY
158 Farewell, thou latter spring! farewell,
159 All-hallown summer!
POINS
160 Now, my good sweet honey lord, ride with us
161 tomorrow: I have a jest to execute that I cannot
162 manage alone. Falstaff, Bardolph, Peto and Gadshill
163 shall rob those men that we have already waylaid:
164 yourself and I will not be there; and when they
165 have the booty, if you and I do not rob them, cut
166 this head off from my shoulders.
PRINCE HENRY
167 How shall we part with them in setting
168 forth?
POINS
169 Why, we will set forth before or after them, and
170 appoint them a place of meeting, wherein it is at
171 our pleasure to fail, and then will they adventure
172 upon the exploit themselves; which they shall have
173 no sooner achieved, but we'll set upon them.
PRINCE HENRY
174 Yea, but 'tis like that they will know us by our
175 horses, by our habits and by every other
176 appointment, to be ourselves.
POINS
177 Tut! our horses they shall not see: I'll tie them
178 in the wood; our vizards we will change after we
179 leave them: and, sirrah, I have cases of buckram
180 for the nonce, to immask our noted outward garments.
PRINCE HENRY
181 Yea, but I doubt they will be too hard for
182 us.
POINS
183 Well, for two of them, I know them to be as
184 true-bred cowards as ever turned back; and for the
185 third, if he fight longer than he sees reason, I'll
186 forswear arms. The virtue of this jest will be, the
187 incomprehensible lies that this same fat rogue will tell
188 us when we meet at supper: how thirty, at least, he
189 fought with; what wards, what blows, what extremities
190 he endured; and in the reproof of this lives the jest.
PRINCE HENRY
191 Well, I'll go with thee: provide us all things
192 necessary and meet me tomorrow night in Eastcheap;
193 there I'll sup. Farewell.
PRINCE HENRY
195 I know you all, and will awhile uphold
196 The unyok'd humor of your idleness:
197 Yet herein will I imitate the sun,
198 Who doth permit the base contagious clouds
199 To smother up his beauty from the world,
200 That, when he please again to be himself,
201 Being wanted, he may be more wonder'd at,
202 By breaking through the foul and ugly mists
203 Of vapours that did seem to strangle him.
204 If all the year were playing holidays,
205 To sport would be as tedious as to work;
206 But when they seldom come, they wish'd for come,
207 And nothing pleaseth but rare accidents.
208 So, when this loose behavior I throw off
209 And pay the debt I never promised,
210 By how much better than my word I am,
211 By so much shall I falsify men's hopes;
212 And like bright metal on a sullen ground,
213 My reformation, glittering o'er my fault,
214 Shall show more goodly and attract more eyes
215 Than that which hath no foil to set it off.
216 I'll so offend, to make offence a skill;
217 Redeeming time when men think least I will.