READ STUDY GUIDE: Act II, scenes i-ii |
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Act II, Scene ii
| [Enter Prince Henry and Poins.] |
| PRINCE.: |
| Before God, I am exceeding weary. |
| POINS.: |
| Is 't come to that? I had thought weariness durst not have |
| attach'd one of so high blood. |
| PRINCE.: |
| 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.: |
| 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 of 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.: |
| Shall I tell thee 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 thine. |
| POINS.: |
| Go to; I stand the push of your one thing that you will tell. |
| PRINCE.: |
| Marry, I tell thee it is not meet that I should be sad, now my father |
| is sick: albeit I could tell to 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.: |
| 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.: |
| What wouldst thou think of me, if I should weep? |
| POINS.: |
| I would think thee a most princely hypocrite. |
| PRINCE.: |
| 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.: |
| And to thee. |
| 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. |
| [Enter Bardolph and Page.] |
| PRINCE.: |
| 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.: |
| And yours, most noble Bardolph! |
| POINS.: |
| 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 peep'd 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 |
| fire-brand; and therefore I call him her dream. |
| PRINCE.: |
| A crown's worth of good interpretation: there 'tis, boy. |
| POINS.: |
| O, that this 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.: |
| 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.: |
| Deliver'd 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.: |
| 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.: |
| [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.: |
| 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.: |
| 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.: |
| 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.: |
| 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? doth 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.: |
| 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.: |
| 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.: |
| 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.: |
| 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. |
| [Exeunt.] |
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