SCENE II. London, A Street. Enter Sir JOHN FALSTAFF, with his Page bear\ing his sword and buckler. Fal. 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. Fal. Men of all sorts take a pride to gird at me: The brain of this foolish-compounded clay man, is not able to invent any thing 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 bnt one. If the Prince put thee intą my service for any other reason than to set me off, why then I have no judgement. Thou whoreson mandrake, thou art fitter to be worn in my cap, than to wait at my heels. I was never mann'd with an agate till now: but I will set you neither in gold nor silver, hut iu vile ap¬ parel, and send you back again to your master, for a jewel; the juvenal, the Prince your master whose chin is not yet fledg'd. 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, it is not a hair. atniss yet he may keep it still as a face- royal, 43 for a barber shall never earn sixpence out of it; and yet he will be crowing, as if he had writ man ever since his father was a bachelor. He may keep his own grace, but he is almost out of mine, I can assure him. What said master Dumbleton about the sattin for my short cloak, and slops? Page. Ile said, Sir, you should procure him better assurance than Bardolph: he would not take his hond and yours; he liked not the securityT 20Fal. Let him be damn'd like the glutton! may his tongue be hotter! A whoreson Achitophel a rascally yea-forsooth knave! to hear a gentleman in hand, and stand upon security! The whoreson snates do now wear nothing but high shoes, and buuches of keys at their girdles; and if a man is thorough with them in honest taking up, then they must stand upon security. I had as lief they put ratsbane in my mouth, as offer to stop it with security. I look'd he should have sent e sent met two and t and twenty yards of sattin, as I am a true knight, and he sends me security. Well, he may sleep in secu rity; 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 lan tern to light him. Where's Bardolph? : Page. He's gone into Smithfield to buy your Worship a horse. Fal. I bought him in Paul's, and he'll buy me a horse in Sinithfield: an I could get me but a wife in the stews, I were mann'd, horsed, and wived. 1 Enter the Lord Chief Justice, and an Attendant. Fal close, I will not see him. robbery? Atten. Ife, 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 Ch. Just. What, to York? Call him back again. Aften. Sir Jolin Fållstaff! Fall. Boy, him, I am deaf to 41 deaf. TO Ch. Just. Tam sure, he is, to the hearing of any gooder Go, pluck him by the cl bow; I must speak with him, but dids et Atten. Sir John, dous to dozdo Fal. What a young knaye, and beg! 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 naine of rebellion can tell how to make it. Atten. You mistake me, Sir. Fal. 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. Atten. I pray you, Sir, then set your knighthood and your soldiership aside; and give me T leave to tell you, you lie in your throat, if you say I am any other than an honest man. Fal. I give thee leave to tell me so! I lay aside that which grows to me! If thou get'st any leave of me, hang me; if thou takest leave, thou wert better be hang'd: You hunt-counter, hence! avaunt! Atten. Sir, my lord would speak you. : you with Fal. My good Lord! -- God give your Lordship good time of day. I ain 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 most hum-s bly beseech yeur Lordship, to have a reverend care of your health. Ch. Just. Sir John, I sent for you before your expedition to Shrewsbury. 37 A Fal. An't please your Lordship, I hear, his Majesty is return'd with some discomfort from Wales. Ch. Just. "I talk not of his Majesty: would not come when I sent for you. Fal. And I hear morcover, his Highness is fallen into this same whoreson apoplexy. Ch. Just. Well, heaven mend him! I pray let me speak with you. Fal. 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. Ch. Just. What tell you me of it? be it as it is. Fal. 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 kind of deafness. Ch. Just. I think, you are fallen into the disease; for you hear not what I say to you. Fal. 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. and Ch. Just. To punish you by the heels, would amend the attention of your ears; I care not, if I do become your physician. Fal. I am as poor as Job, my Lord; but not so patient: your Lordship may minister the po tion of imprisonment to me, in respect of po verty; but how I should be your patient to follow your prescriptions, the wise may make some dram of a scruple, or, indeed, a scruple itself. Ch. Just. I sent for you, when there were matters against you for your life, to come speak with me. Fal. As I was then advised by my learned counsel in the laws of this land-service, I did not come. Ch. Just. Well, the truth is, Sir John, you live in great infamy. Fal. He that buckles him in my belt, can not live in less. Ch. Just. Your means are very slender, and your waste is great. Fal. I would it were otherwise; I would my means were greater, and my waist slenderer. Ch. Just. You have misled the youthful. Prince. Fal. The young Prince hath misled me: I am the fellow with the great belly, and he my dog. |