SCENE II. London. A street. The Second part of King Henry the Fourth  Shakespeare homepage  |  Henry IV, part 2  | Act 1, Scene 2 

 Previous scene  |  Next scene  SCENE II. London. A street. 

 Enter FALSTAFF, with his Page bearing his sword and buckler  FALSTAFF  Sirrah, you giant, what says the doctor to my water? 

 Page  He said, sir, the water itself was a good healthy 

 water; but, for the party that owed it, he might 

 have more diseases than he knew for. 

 FALSTAFF  Men of all sorts take a pride to gird at me: the 

 brain of this foolish-compounded clay, man, is not 

 able to invent anything that tends to laughter, more 

 than I invent or is invented on me: I am not only 

 witty in myself, but the cause that wit is in other 

 men. I do here walk before thee like a sow that 

 hath overwhelmed all her litter but one. If the 

 prince put thee into my service for any other reason 

 than to set me off, why then I have no judgment. 

 Thou whoreson mandrake, thou art fitter to be worn 

 in my cap than to wait at my heels. I was never 

 manned with an agate till now: but I will inset you 

 neither in gold nor silver, but in vile apparel, and 

 send you back again to your master, for a jewel,-- 

 the juvenal, the prince your master, whose chin is 

 not yet fledged. I will sooner have a beard grow in 

 the palm of my hand than he shall get one on his 

 cheek; and yet he will not stick to say his face is 

 a face-royal: God may finish it when he will, 'tis 

 not a hair amiss yet: he may keep it still at a 

 face-royal, for a barber shall never earn sixpence 

 out of it; and yet he'll be crowing as if he had 

 writ man ever since his father was a bachelor. He 

 may keep his own grace, but he's almost out of mine, 

 I can assure him. What said Master Dombledon about 

 the satin for my short cloak and my slops? 

 Page  He said, sir, you should procure him better 

 assurance than Bardolph: he would not take his 

 band and yours; he liked not the security. 

 FALSTAFF  Let him be damned, like the glutton! pray God his 

 tongue be hotter! A whoreson Achitophel! a rascally 

 yea-forsooth knave! to bear a gentleman in hand, 

 and then stand upon security! The whoreson 

 smooth-pates do now wear nothing but high shoes, and 

 bunches of keys at their girdles; and if a man is 

 through with them in honest taking up, then they 

 must stand upon security. I had as lief they would 

 put ratsbane in my mouth as offer to stop it with 

 security. I looked a' should have sent me two and 

 twenty yards of satin, as I am a true knight, and he 

 sends me security. Well, he may sleep in security; 

 for he hath the horn of abundance, and the lightness 

 of his wife shines through it: and yet cannot he 

 see, though he have his own lanthorn to light him. 

 Where's Bardolph? 

 Page  He's gone into Smithfield to buy your worship a horse. 

 FALSTAFF  I bought him in Paul's, and he'll buy me a horse in 

 Smithfield: an I could get me but a wife in the 

 stews, I were manned, horsed, and wived. 



 Enter the Lord Chief-Justice and Servant  Page  Sir, here comes the nobleman that committed the 

 Prince for striking him about Bardolph. 

 FALSTAFF  Wait, close; I will not see him. 

 Lord Chief-Justice	What's he that goes there? 

 Servant  Falstaff, an't please your lordship. 

 Lord Chief-Justice	He that was in question for the robbery? 

 Servant  He, my lord: but he hath since done good service at 

 Shrewsbury; and, as I hear, is now going with some 

 charge to the Lord John of Lancaster. 

 Lord Chief-Justice	What, to York? Call him back again. 

 Servant  Sir John Falstaff! 

 FALSTAFF  Boy, tell him I am deaf. 

 Page  You must speak louder; my master is deaf. 

 Lord Chief-Justice	I am sure he is, to the hearing of any thing good. 

 Go, pluck him by the elbow; I must speak with him. 

 Servant  Sir John! 

 FALSTAFF  What! a young knave, and begging! Is there not 

 wars? is there not employment? doth not the king 

 lack subjects? do not the rebels need soldiers? 

 Though it be a shame to be on any side but one, it 

 is worse shame to beg than to be on the worst side, 

 were it worse than the name of rebellion can tell 

 how to make it. 

 Servant  You mistake me, sir. 

 FALSTAFF  Why, sir, did I say you were an honest man? setting 

 my knighthood and my soldiership aside, I had lied 

 in my throat, if I had said so. 

 Servant  I pray you, sir, then set your knighthood and our 

 soldiership aside; and give me leave to tell you, 

 you lie in your throat, if you say I am any other 

 than an honest man. 

 FALSTAFF  I give thee leave to tell me so! I lay aside that 

 which grows to me! if thou gettest any leave of me, 

 hang me; if thou takest leave, thou wert better be 

 hanged. You hunt counter: hence! avaunt! 

 Servant  Sir, my lord would speak with you. 

 Lord Chief-Justice	Sir John Falstaff, a word with you. 

 FALSTAFF  My good lord! God give your lordship good time of 

 day. I am glad to see your lordship abroad: I heard 

 say your lordship was sick: I hope your lordship 

 goes abroad by advice. Your lordship, though not 

 clean past your youth, hath yet some smack of age in 

 you, some relish of the saltness of time; and I must 

 humbly beseech your lordship to have a reverent care 

 of your health. 

 Lord Chief-Justice	Sir John, I sent for you before your expedition to 

 Shrewsbury. 

 FALSTAFF  An't please your lordship, I hear his majesty is 

 returned with some discomfort from Wales. 

 Lord Chief-Justice	I talk not of his majesty: you would not come when 

 I sent for you. 

 FALSTAFF  And I hear, moreover, his highness is fallen into 

 this same whoreson apoplexy. 

 Lord Chief-Justice	Well, God mend him! I pray you, let me speak with 

 you. 

 FALSTAFF  This apoplexy is, as I take it, a kind of lethargy, 

 an't please your lordship; a kind of sleeping in the 

 blood, a whoreson tingling. 

 Lord Chief-Justice	What tell you me of it? be it as it is. 

 FALSTAFF  It hath its original from much grief, from study and 

 perturbation of the brain: I have read the cause of 

 his effects in Galen: it is a kind of deafness. 

 Lord Chief-Justice	I think you are fallen into the disease; for you 

 hear not what I say to you. 

 FALSTAFF  Very well, my lord, very well: rather, an't please 

 you, it is the disease of not listening, the malady 

 of not marking, that I am troubled withal. 

 Lord Chief-Justice	To punish you by the heels would amend the 

 attention of your ears; and I care not if I do 

 become your physician. 

 FALSTAFF  I am as poor as Job, my lord, but not so patient: 

 your lordship may minister the potion of 

 imprisonment to me in respect of poverty; but how 

 should I be your patient to follow your 

 prescriptions, the wise may make some dram of a 

 scruple, or indeed a scruple itself. 

 Lord Chief-Justice	I sent for you, when there were matters against you 

 for your life, to come speak with me. 

 FALSTAFF  As I was then advised by my learned counsel in the 

 laws of this land-service, I did not come. 

 Lord Chief-Justice	Well, the truth is, Sir John, you live in great infamy. 

 FALSTAFF  He that buckles him in my belt cannot live in less. 

 Lord Chief-Justice	Your means are very slender, and your waste is great. 

 FALSTAFF  I would it were otherwise; I would my means were 

 greater, and my waist slenderer. 

 Lord Chief-Justice	You have misled the youthful prince. 

 FALSTAFF  The young prince hath misled me: I am the fellow 

 with the great belly, and he my dog. 

 Lord Chief-Justice	Well, I am loath to gall a new-healed wound: your 

 day's service at Shrewsbury hath a little gilded 

 over your night's exploit on Gad's-hill: you may 

 thank the unquiet time for your quiet o'er-posting 

 that action. 

 FALSTAFF  My lord? 

 Lord Chief-Justice	But since all is well, keep it so: wake not a 

 sleeping wolf. 

 FALSTAFF  To wake a wolf is as bad as to smell a fox. 

 Lord Chief-Justice	What! you are as a candle, the better part burnt 

 out. 

 FALSTAFF  A wassail candle, my lord, all tallow: if I did say 

 of wax, my growth would approve the truth. 

 Lord Chief-Justice	There is not a white hair on your face but should 

 have his effect of gravity. 

 FALSTAFF  His effect of gravy, gravy, gravy. 

 Lord Chief-Justice	You follow the young prince up and down, like his 

 ill angel. 

 FALSTAFF  Not so, my lord; your ill angel is light; but I hope 

 he that looks upon me will take me without weighing: 

 and yet, in some respects, I grant, I cannot go: I 

 cannot tell. Virtue is of so little regard in these 

 costermonger times that true valour is turned 

 bear-herd: pregnancy is made a tapster, and hath 

 his quick wit wasted in giving reckonings: all the 

 other gifts appertinent to man, as the malice of 

 this age shapes them, are not worth a gooseberry. 

 You that are old consider not the capacities of us 

 that are young; you do measure the heat of our 

 livers with the bitterness of your galls: and we 

 that are in the vaward of our youth, I must confess, 

 are wags too. 

 Lord Chief-Justice	Do you set down your name in the scroll of youth, 

 that are written down old with all the characters of 

 age? Have you not a moist eye? a dry hand? a 

 yellow cheek? a white beard? a decreasing leg? an 

 increasing belly? is not your voice broken? your 

 wind short? your chin double? your wit single? and 

 every part about you blasted with antiquity? and 

 will you yet call yourself young? Fie, fie, fie, Sir John! 

 FALSTAFF  My lord, I was born about three of the clock in the 

 afternoon, with a white head and something a round 

 belly. For my voice, I have lost it with halloing 

 and singing of anthems. To approve my youth 

 further, I will not: the truth is, I am only old in 

 judgment and understanding; and he that will caper 

 with me for a thousand marks, let him lend me the 

 money, and have at him! For the box of the ear that 

 the prince gave you, he gave it like a rude prince, 

 and you took it like a sensible lord. I have 

 chequed him for it, and the young lion repents; 

 marry, not in ashes and sackcloth, but in new silk 

 and old sack. 

 Lord Chief-Justice	Well, God send the prince a better companion! 

 FALSTAFF  God send the companion a better prince! I cannot 

 rid my hands of him. 

 Lord Chief-Justice	Well, the king hath severed you and Prince Harry: I 

 hear you are going with Lord John of Lancaster 

 against the Archbishop and the Earl of 

 Northumberland. 

 FALSTAFF  Yea; I thank your pretty sweet wit for it. But look 

 you pray, all you that kiss my lady Peace at home, 

 that our armies join not in a hot day; for, by the 

 Lord, I take but two shirts out with me, and I mean 

 not to sweat extraordinarily: if it be a hot day, 

 and I brandish any thing but a bottle, I would I 

 might never spit white again. There is not a 

 dangerous action can peep out his head but I am 

 thrust upon it: well, I cannot last ever: but it 

 was alway yet the trick of our English nation, if 

 they have a good thing, to make it too common. If 

 ye will needs say I am an old man, you should give 

 me rest. I would to God my name were not so 

 terrible to the enemy as it is: I were better to be 

 eaten to death with a rust than to be scoured to 

 nothing with perpetual motion. 

 Lord Chief-Justice	Well, be honest, be honest; and God bless your 

 expedition! 

 FALSTAFF  Will your lordship lend me a thousand pound to 

 furnish me forth? 

 Lord Chief-Justice	Not a penny, not a penny; you are too impatient to 

 bear crosses. Fare you well: commend me to my 

 cousin Westmoreland. 



 Exeunt Chief-Justice and Servant  FALSTAFF  If I do, fillip me with a three-man beetle. A man 

 can no more separate age and covetousness than a' 

 can part young limbs and lechery: but the gout 

 galls the one, and the pox pinches the other; and 

 so both the degrees prevent my curses. Boy! 

 Page  Sir? 

 FALSTAFF  What money is in my purse? 

 Page  Seven groats and two pence. 

 FALSTAFF  I can get no remedy against this consumption of the 

 purse: borrowing only lingers and lingers it out, 

 but the disease is incurable. Go bear this letter 

 to my Lord of Lancaster; this to the prince; this 

 to the Earl of Westmoreland; and this to old 

 Mistress Ursula, whom I have weekly sworn to marry 

 since I perceived the first white hair on my chin. 

 About it: you know where to find me. 



 Exit Page  A pox of this gout! or, a gout of this pox! for 

 the one or the other plays the rogue with my great 

 toe. 'Tis no matter if I do halt; I have the wars 

 for my colour, and my pension shall seem the more 

 reasonable. A good wit will make use of any thing: 

 I will turn diseases to commodity. 



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