Act 1, Scene 2: London. An apartment of the Prince's

SCENE II. London. An apartment of the Prince's.

    Enter the PRINCE OF WALES and FALSTAFF

FALSTAFF

    Now, Hal, what time of day is it, lad?

PRINCE HENRY

    Thou art so fat-witted, with drinking of old sack
    and unbuttoning thee after supper and sleeping upon
    benches after noon, that thou hast forgotten to
    demand that truly which thou wouldst truly know.
    What a devil hast thou to do with the time of the
    day? Unless hours were cups of sack and minutes
    capons and clocks the tongues of bawds and dials the
    signs of leaping-houses and the blessed sun himself
    a fair hot wench in flame-coloured taffeta, I see no
    reason why thou shouldst be so superfluous to demand
    the time of the day.

FALSTAFF

    Indeed, you come near me now, Hal; for we that take
    purses go by the moon and the seven stars, and not
    by Phoebus, he,'that wandering knight so fair.' And,
    I prithee, sweet wag, when thou art king, as, God
    save thy grace,--majesty I should say, for grace
    thou wilt have none,--

PRINCE HENRY

    What, none?

FALSTAFF

    No, by my troth, not so much as will serve to
    prologue to an egg and butter.

PRINCE HENRY

    Well, how then? come, roundly, roundly.

FALSTAFF

    Marry, then, sweet wag, when thou art king, let not
    us that are squires of the night's body be called
    thieves of the day's beauty: let us be Diana's
    foresters, gentlemen of the shade, minions of the
    moon; and let men say we be men of good government,
    being governed, as the sea is, by our noble and
    chaste mistress the moon, under whose countenance we steal.

PRINCE HENRY

    Thou sayest well, and it holds well too; for the
    fortune of us that are the moon's men doth ebb and
    flow like the sea, being governed, as the sea is,
    by the moon. As, for proof, now: a purse of gold
    most resolutely snatched on Monday night and most
    dissolutely spent on Tuesday morning; got with
    swearing 'Lay by' and spent with crying 'Bring in;'
    now in as low an ebb as the foot of the ladder
    and by and by in as high a flow as the ridge of the gallows.

FALSTAFF

    By the Lord, thou sayest true, lad. And is not my
    hostess of the tavern a most sweet wench?

PRINCE HENRY

    As the honey of Hybla, my old lad of the castle. And
    is not a buff jerkin a most sweet robe of durance?

FALSTAFF

    How now, how now, mad wag! what, in thy quips and
    thy quiddities? what a plague have I to do with a
    buff jerkin?

PRINCE HENRY

    Why, what a pox have I to do with my hostess of the tavern?

FALSTAFF

    Well, thou hast called her to a reckoning many a
    time and oft.

PRINCE HENRY

    Did I ever call for thee to pay thy part?

FALSTAFF

    No; I'll give thee thy due, thou hast paid all there.

PRINCE HENRY

    Yea, and elsewhere, so far as my coin would stretch;
    and where it would not, I have used my credit.

FALSTAFF

    Yea, and so used it that were it not here apparent
    that thou art heir apparent--But, I prithee, sweet
    wag, shall there be gallows standing in England when
    thou art king? and resolution thus fobbed as it is
    with the rusty curb of old father antic the law? Do
    not thou, when thou art king, hang a thief.

PRINCE HENRY

    No; thou shalt.

FALSTAFF

    Shall I? O rare! By the Lord, I'll be a brave judge.

PRINCE HENRY

    Thou judgest false already: I mean, thou shalt have
    the hanging of the thieves and so become a rare hangman.

FALSTAFF

    Well, Hal, well; and in some sort it jumps with my
    humour as well as waiting in the court, I can tell
    you.

PRINCE HENRY

    For obtaining of suits?

FALSTAFF

    Yea, for obtaining of suits, whereof the hangman
    hath no lean wardrobe. 'Sblood, I am as melancholy
    as a gib cat or a lugged bear.

PRINCE HENRY

    Or an old lion, or a lover's lute.

FALSTAFF

    Yea, or the drone of a Lincolnshire bagpipe.

PRINCE HENRY

    What sayest thou to a hare, or the melancholy of
    Moor-ditch?

FALSTAFF

    Thou hast the most unsavoury similes and art indeed
    the most comparative, rascalliest, sweet young
    prince. But, Hal, I prithee, trouble me no more
    with vanity. I would to God thou and I knew where a
    commodity of good names were to be bought. An old
    lord of the council rated me the other day in the
    street about you, sir, but I marked him not; and yet
    he talked very wisely, but I regarded him not; and
    yet he talked wisely, and in the street too.

PRINCE HENRY

    Thou didst well; for wisdom cries out in the
    streets, and no man regards it.

FALSTAFF

    O, thou hast damnable iteration and art indeed able
    to corrupt a saint. Thou hast done much harm upon
    me, Hal; God forgive thee for it! Before I knew
    thee, Hal, I knew nothing; and now am I, if a man
    should speak truly, little better than one of the
    wicked. I must give over this life, and I will give
    it over: by the Lord, and I do not, I am a villain:
    I'll be damned for never a king's son in
    Christendom.

PRINCE HENRY

    Where shall we take a purse tomorrow, Jack?

FALSTAFF

    'Zounds, where thou wilt, lad; I'll make one; an I
    do not, call me villain and baffle me.

PRINCE HENRY

    I see a good amendment of life in thee; from praying
    to purse-taking.

FALSTAFF

    Why, Hal, 'tis my vocation, Hal; 'tis no sin for a
    man to labour in his vocation.

    Enter POINS
    Poins! Now shall we know if Gadshill have set a
    match. O, if men were to be saved by merit, what
    hole in hell were hot enough for him? This is the
    most omnipotent villain that ever cried 'Stand' to
    a true man.

PRINCE HENRY

    Good morrow, Ned.

POINS

    Good morrow, sweet Hal. What says Monsieur Remorse?
    what says Sir John Sack and Sugar? Jack! how
    agrees the devil and thee about thy soul, that thou
    soldest him on Good-Friday last for a cup of Madeira
    and a cold capon's leg?

PRINCE HENRY

    Sir John stands to his word, the devil shall have
    his bargain; for he was never yet a breaker of
    proverbs: he will give the devil his due.

POINS

    Then art thou damned for keeping thy word with the devil.

PRINCE HENRY

    Else he had been damned for cozening the devil.

POINS

    But, my lads, my lads, to-morrow morning, by four
    o'clock, early at Gadshill! there are pilgrims going
    to Canterbury with rich offerings, and traders
    riding to London with fat purses: I have vizards
    for you all; you have horses for yourselves:
    Gadshill lies to-night in Rochester: I have bespoke
    supper to-morrow night in Eastcheap: we may do it
    as secure as sleep. If you will go, I will stuff
    your purses full of crowns; if you will not, tarry
    at home and be hanged.

FALSTAFF

    Hear ye, Yedward; if I tarry at home and go not,
    I'll hang you for going.

POINS

    You will, chops?

FALSTAFF

    Hal, wilt thou make one?

PRINCE HENRY

    Who, I rob? I a thief? not I, by my faith.

FALSTAFF

    There's neither honesty, manhood, nor good
    fellowship in thee, nor thou camest not of the blood
    royal, if thou darest not stand for ten shillings.

PRINCE HENRY

    Well then, once in my days I'll be a madcap.

FALSTAFF

    Why, that's well said.

PRINCE HENRY

    Well, come what will, I'll tarry at home.

FALSTAFF

    By the Lord, I'll be a traitor then, when thou art king.

PRINCE HENRY

    I care not.

POINS

    Sir John, I prithee, leave the prince and me alone:
    I will lay him down such reasons for this adventure
    that he shall go.

FALSTAFF

    Well, God give thee the spirit of persuasion and him
    the ears of profiting, that what thou speakest may
    move and what he hears may be believed, that the
    true prince may, for recreation sake, prove a false
    thief; for the poor abuses of the time want
    countenance. Farewell: you shall find me in Eastcheap.

PRINCE HENRY

    Farewell, thou latter spring! farewell, All-hallown summer!

    Exit Falstaff

POINS

    Now, my good sweet honey lord, ride with us
    to-morrow: I have a jest to execute that I cannot
    manage alone. Falstaff, Bardolph, Peto and Gadshill
    shall rob those men that we have already waylaid:
    yourself and I will not be there; and when they
    have the booty, if you and I do not rob them, cut
    this head off from my shoulders.

PRINCE HENRY

    How shall we part with them in setting forth?

POINS

    Why, we will set forth before or after them, and
    appoint them a place of meeting, wherein it is at
    our pleasure to fail, and then will they adventure
    upon the exploit themselves; which they shall have
    no sooner achieved, but we'll set upon them.

PRINCE HENRY

    Yea, but 'tis like that they will know us by our
    horses, by our habits and by every other
    appointment, to be ourselves.

POINS

    Tut! our horses they shall not see: I'll tie them
    in the wood; our vizards we will change after we
    leave them: and, sirrah, I have cases of buckram
    for the nonce, to immask our noted outward garments.

PRINCE HENRY

    Yea, but I doubt they will be too hard for us.

POINS

    Well, for two of them, I know them to be as
    true-bred cowards as ever turned back; and for the
    third, if he fight longer than he sees reason, I'll
    forswear arms. The virtue of this jest will be, the
    incomprehensible lies that this same fat rogue will
    tell us when we meet at supper: how thirty, at
    least, he fought with; what wards, what blows, what
    extremities he endured; and in the reproof of this
    lies the jest.

PRINCE HENRY

    Well, I'll go with thee: provide us all things
    necessary and meet me to-morrow night in Eastcheap;
    there I'll sup. Farewell.

POINS

    Farewell, my lord.

    Exit Poins

PRINCE HENRY

    I know you all, and will awhile uphold
    The unyoked humour of your idleness:
    Yet herein will I imitate the sun,
    Who doth permit the base contagious clouds
    To smother up his beauty from the world,
    That, when he please again to be himself,
    Being wanted, he may be more wonder'd at,
    By breaking through the foul and ugly mists
    Of vapours that did seem to strangle him.
    If all the year were playing holidays,
    To sport would be as tedious as to work;
    But when they seldom come, they wish'd for come,
    And nothing pleaseth but rare accidents.
    So, when this loose behavior I throw off
    And pay the debt I never promised,
    By how much better than my word I am,
    By so much shall I falsify men's hopes;
    And like bright metal on a sullen ground,
    My reformation, glittering o'er my fault,
    Shall show more goodly and attract more eyes
    Than that which hath no foil to set it off.
    I'll so offend, to make offence a skill;
    Redeeming time when men think least I will.

    Exit