King Henry IV, Part 2 | Page 7

come
when I
sent for you.
FALSTAFF.
And I hear, moreover, his highness is fall'n into this
same whoreson apoplexy.
CHIEF JUSTICE.
Well God mend him! I pray you, let me speak
with you.

FALSTAFF.
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.
CHIEF JUSTICE.
What tell you me of it? be it as it is.
FALSTAFF.
It hath it original from much grief, from study and
perturbation of the brain: I have read the cause of his effects in Galen:
it is a kind of deafness.
CHIEF JUSTICE.
I think you are fallen into the disease, for you
hear not
what I say to you.
FALSTAFF.
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.
CHIEF JUSTICE.
To punish you by the heels would amend the
attention
of your ears; and I care not if I do become your physician.
FALSTAFF.
I am as poor as Job, my lord, but not so patient: your
lordship may minister the potion of imprisonment to me in respect of
poverty; 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.
CHIEF JUSTICE.
I sent for you, when there were matters against
you
for your life, to come speak with me.
FALSTAFF.
As I was then advised by my learned counsel in the
laws
of this land-service, I did not come.
CHIEF JUSTICE.
Well, the truth is, Sir John, you live in great
infamy.
FALSTAFF.
He that buckles himself in my belt cannot live in less.

CHIEF JUSTICE.
Your means are very slender, and your waste is
great.
FALSTAFF.
I would it were otherwise; I would my means were
greater,
and my waist slenderer.
CHIEF JUSTICE.
You have misled the youthful prince.
FALSTAFF.
The young prince hath misled me: I am the fellow with
the
great belly, and he my dog.
CHIEF JUSTICE.
Well, I am loath to gall a new-healed wound:
your day's service at Shrewsbury hath a little gilded over your night's
exploit on Gad's-hill: you may thank the unquiet time for your quiet
o'er-posting that action.
FALSTAFF.
My lord?
CHIEF JUSTICE.
But since all is well, keep it so: wake not a
sleeping wolf.
FALSTAFF.
To wake a wolf is as bad as smell a fox.
CHIEF JUSTICE.
What! you are as a candle, the better part burnt
out.
FALSTAFF.
A wassail candle, my lord, all tallow: if I did say of
wax, my growth would approve the truth.
CHIEF JUSTICE.
There is not a white hair in your face but should
have his
effect of gravity.
FALSTAFF.
His effect of gravy, gravy, gravy.
CHIEF JUSTICE.
You follow the young prince up and down, like
his ill angel.

FALSTAFF.
Not so, my lord; your ill angel is light; but I hope he
that looks upon me will take me without weighing: and yet, in some
respects, I grant, I cannot go: I cannot tell. Virtue is of so little regard in
these costermonger times that true valour is turned bear-herd;
pregnancy is made a tapster, and hath his quick wit wasted in giving
reckonings: all the other gifts appertinent to man, as the malice of this
age shapes them, are not worth a gooseberry. You that are old consider
not the capacities of us that are young; you do measure the heat of our
livers with the bitterness of your galls: and we that are in the vaward of
our youth, I must confess, are wags too.
CHIEF JUSTICE.
Do you set down your name in the scroll of youth,
that are written down old with all the characters of age? Have you not a
moist eye? a dry hand? a yellow cheek? a white beard? a decreasing leg?
an increasing belly? is not your voice broken? your wind short? your
chin double? your wit single? and every part about you blasted with
antiquity? and will you yet call yourself young? Fie, fie, fie, Sir John!
FALSTAFF.
My lord, I was born about three of the clock in the
afternoon, with a white head and something a round belly. For my
voice, I have lost it with halloing and singing of anthems. To approve
my youth further, I will not: the truth is, I am only old in judgement
and understanding; and he that will caper with me for a thousand marks,
let him lend me the money, and have at him!
For the box of the ear
that the prince gave you, he gave it like a rude prince, and you took it
like a sensible lord. I have checked him for it, and the young lion
repents; marry, not in ashes and sackcloth, but in new silk and old sack.
CHIEF JUSTICE.
Well, God send the prince a better companion!
FALSTAFF.
God send the companion a better prince! I