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

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

 Enter PRINCE HENRY and POINS  PRINCE HENRY  Before God, I am exceeding weary. 

 POINS  Is't come to that? I had thought weariness durst not 

 have attached one of so high blood. 

 PRINCE HENRY  Faith, it does me; though it discolours the 

 complexion of my greatness to acknowledge it. Doth 

 it not show vilely in me to desire small beer? 

 POINS  Why, a prince should not be so loosely studied as 

 to remember so weak a composition. 

 PRINCE HENRY  Belike then my appetite was not princely got; for, 

 by my troth, I do now remember the poor creature, 

 small beer. But, indeed, these humble 

 considerations make me out of love with my 

 greatness. What a disgrace is it to me to remember 

 thy name! or to know thy face to-morrow! or to 

 take note how many pair of silk stockings thou 

 hast, viz. these, and those that were thy 

 peach-coloured ones! or to bear the inventory of thy 

 shirts, as, one for superfluity, and another for 

 use! But that the tennis-court-keeper knows better 

 than I; for it is a low ebb of linen with thee when 

 thou keepest not racket there; as thou hast not done 

 a great while, because the rest of thy low 

 countries have made a shift to eat up thy holland: 

 and God knows, whether those that bawl out the ruins 

 of thy linen shall inherit his kingdom: but the 

 midwives say the children are not in the fault; 

 whereupon the world increases, and kindreds are 

 mightily strengthened. 

 POINS  How ill it follows, after you have laboured so hard, 

 you should talk so idly! Tell me, how many good 

 young princes would do so, their fathers being so 

 sick as yours at this time is? 

 PRINCE HENRY  Shall I tell thee one thing, Poins? 

 POINS  Yes, faith; and let it be an excellent good thing. 

 PRINCE HENRY  It shall serve among wits of no higher breeding than thine. 

 POINS  Go to; I stand the push of your one thing that you 

 will tell. 

 PRINCE HENRY  Marry, I tell thee, it is not meet that I should be 

 sad, now my father is sick: albeit I could tell 

 thee, as to one it pleases me, for fault of a 

 better, to call my friend, I could be sad, and sad 

 indeed too. 

 POINS  Very hardly upon such a subject. 

 PRINCE HENRY  By this hand thou thinkest me as far in the devil's 

 book as thou and Falstaff for obduracy and 

 persistency: let the end try the man. But I tell 

 thee, my heart bleeds inwardly that my father is so 

 sick: and keeping such vile company as thou art 

 hath in reason taken from me all ostentation of sorrow. 

 POINS  The reason? 

 PRINCE HENRY  What wouldst thou think of me, if I should weep? 

 POINS  I would think thee a most princely hypocrite. 

 PRINCE HENRY  It would be every man's thought; and thou art a 

 blessed fellow to think as every man thinks: never 

 a man's thought in the world keeps the road-way 

 better than thine: every man would think me an 

 hypocrite indeed. And what accites your most 

 worshipful thought to think so? 

 POINS  Why, because you have been so lewd and so much 

 engraffed to Falstaff. 

 PRINCE HENRY  And to thee. 

 POINS  By this light, I am well spoke on; I can hear it 

 with my 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 HENRY  And the boy that I gave Falstaff: a' had him from 

 me Christian; and look, if the fat villain have not 

 transformed him ape. 

 BARDOLPH  God save your grace! 

 PRINCE HENRY  And yours, most noble Bardolph! 

 BARDOLPH  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 ale-wife's 

 new petticoat and so peeped through. 

 PRINCE HENRY  Has not the boy profited? 

 BARDOLPH  Away, you whoreson upright rabbit, away! 

 Page  Away, you rascally Althaea's dream, away! 

 PRINCE HENRY  Instruct us, boy; what dream, boy? 

 Page  Marry, my lord, Althaea dreamed she was delivered 

 of a fire-brand; and therefore I call him her dream. 

 PRINCE HENRY  A crown's worth of good interpretation: there 'tis, 

 boy. 

 POINS  O, that this good blossom could be kept from 

 cankers! Well, there is sixpence to preserve thee. 

 BARDOLPH  An you do not make him hanged among you, the 

 gallows shall have wrong. 

 PRINCE HENRY  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  Delivered 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 HENRY  I do allow this wen to be as familiar with me as my 

 dog; and he holds his place; for look you how be 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 HENRY  Nay, they will be kin to us, or they will fetch it 

 from Japhet. But to the letter. 

 POINS  [Reads]  'Sir John Falstaff, knight, to the son of 

 the king, nearest his father, Harry Prince of 

 Wales, greeting.' Why, this is a certificate. 

 PRINCE HENRY  Peace! 

 POINS  [Reads]  'I will imitate the honourable Romans in 

 brevity:' he sure means brevity in breath, 

 short-winded. 'I commend me to thee, I commend 

 thee, and I leave thee. Be not too familiar with 

 Poins; for he misuses thy favours so much, that he 

 swears thou art to marry his sister Nell. Repent 

 at idle times as thou mayest; and so, farewell. 

 Thine, by yea and no, which is as much as to 

 say, as thou usest him, JACK FALSTAFF with my 

 familiars, JOHN with my brothers and sisters, 

 and SIR JOHN with all Europe.' 

 My lord, I'll steep this letter in sack and make him eat it. 

 PRINCE HENRY  That's to make him eat twenty of his words. But do 

 you use me thus, Ned? must I marry your sister? 

 POINS  God send the wench no worse fortune! But I never said so. 

 PRINCE HENRY  Well, thus we play the fools with the time, and the 

 spirits of the wise sit in the clouds and mock us. 

 Is your master here in London? 

 BARDOLPH  Yea, my lord. 

 PRINCE HENRY  Where sups he? doth the old boar feed in the old frank? 

 BARDOLPH  At the old place, my lord, in Eastcheap. 

 PRINCE HENRY  What company? 

 Page  Ephesians, my lord, of the old church. 

 PRINCE HENRY  Sup any women with him? 

 Page  None, my lord, but old Mistress Quickly and 

 Mistress Doll Tearsheet. 

 PRINCE HENRY  What pagan may that be? 

 Page  A proper gentlewoman, sir, and a kinswoman of my master's. 

 PRINCE HENRY  Even such kin as the parish heifers are to the town 

 bull. Shall we steal upon them, Ned, at supper? 

 POINS  I am your shadow, my lord; I'll follow you. 

 PRINCE HENRY  Sirrah, you boy, and Bardolph, no word to your 

 master that I am yet come to town: there's for 

 your silence. 

 BARDOLPH  I have no tongue, sir. 

 Page  And for mine, sir, I will govern it. 

 PRINCE HENRY  Fare you well; go. 



 Exeunt BARDOLPH and Page  This Doll Tearsheet should be some road. 

 POINS  I warrant you, as common as the way between Saint 

 Alban's and London. 

 PRINCE HENRY  How might we see Falstaff bestow himself to-night 

 in his true colours, and not ourselves be seen? 

 POINS  Put on two leathern jerkins and aprons, and wait 

 upon him at his table as drawers. 

 PRINCE HENRY  From a God to a bull? a heavy decension! it was 

 Jove's case. From a prince to a prentice? a low 

 transformation! that shall be mine; for in every 

 thing the purpose must weigh with the folly. 

 Follow me, Ned. 



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