PRINCE
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
Faith, it does me, though it discolours the complexion of my greatness to acknowledge it. 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
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 name! or to know face tomorrow! or to take note how many pair of silk stockings hast—viz. these, and those that were peach-coloured ones! or to bear the inventory of 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 when keepest not racket there; as not done a great while, because the rest of low countries have made a shift to eat up holland. And God knows whether those that bawl out of the ruins of 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
Shall I tell one thing, Poins?
POINS
Yes, faith, and let it be an excellent good thing.
PRINCE
It shall serve among wits of no higher breeding than .
POINS
Go to, I stand the push of your one thing that you will tell.
PRINCE
Marry, I tell it is not meet that I should be sad, now my father is sick; albeit I could tell to , 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
By this hand, thinkest me as far in the devil’s book as and Falstaff for obduracy and persistency. Let the end try the man. But I tell , my heart bleeds inwardly that my father is so sick; and keeping such vile company as art in reason taken from me all ostentation of sorrow.
POINS
The reason?
PRINCE
What think of me if I should weep?
POINS
I would think a most princely hypocrite.
PRINCE
It would be every man’s thought; and art a blessed fellow to think as every man thinks. Never a man’s thought in the world keeps the roadway better than : 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
And to .
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.
PRINCE
And the boy that I gave Falstaff. He had him from me Christian, and look if the fat villain have not transformed 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? 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
He calls me 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
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 , boy.
POINS
O, that this blossom could be kept from cankers! Well, there is sixpence to preserve .
BARDOLPH
An you do not make him be hanged among you, the gallows shall have wrong.
PRINCE
And how 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 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 wen to be as familiar with me as my dog, and he holds his place, for look you how he writes.
POINS
“John Falstaff, knight,” Every man must know that, as 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 to the letter: “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! “I will imitate the honourable Romans in brevity.”
POINS
He sure means brevity in breath, short-winded.
PRINCE
“I commend me to , I commend , and I leave . Be not too familiar with Poins, for he misuses favours so much that he swears art to marry his sister Nell. Repent at idle times as mayst, and so, farewell.
by yea and no, which is as much as to say, as usest him—Jack Falstaff with my familiars, John with my brothers and sisters, and Sir John with all Europe.”
POINS
My lord, I’ll steep this letter in sack and make him eat it.
PRINCE
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 no worse fortune! But I never said so.
PRINCE
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
Where sups he? the old boar feed in the old frank?
BARDOLPH
At the old place, my lord, in Eastcheap.
PRINCE
What company?
PAGE
Ephesians, my lord, of the old church.
PRINCE
Sup any women with him?
PAGE
None, my lord, but old Mistress Quickly and Mistress Doll Tearsheet.
PRINCE
What pagan may that be?
PAGE
A proper gentlewoman, sir, and a kinswoman of my master’s.
PRINCE
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
, 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
Fare you well; go.
PRINCE
This Doll Tearsheet should be some road.
POINS
I warrant you, as common as the way between Saint Albans and London.
PRINCE
How might we see Falstaff bestow himself tonight 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
From a god to a bull? A heavy descension! It was Jove’s case. From a prince to a ’prentice? A low transformation that shall be mine, for in everything the purpose must weigh with the folly. Follow me, Ned.