BARDOLPH God save your grace!
PRINCE HARRY And yours, most noble Bardolph!
POINS (to Bardolph) 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 red petticoat, and so peeped through.
PRINCE HARRY (to Poins) Has not the boy profited?
BARDOLPH (to the Page) Away, you whoreson upright rabbit, away!
PAGE Away, you rascally Althea’s dream, away!
PRINCE HARRY Instruct us, boy; what dream, boy?
PAGE Marry, my lord, Althea dreamt she was delivered of a firebrand, and therefore I call him her dream.
PRINCE HARRY (giving him money) A crown‘s-worth of good interpretation! There ’tis, boy.
POINS O, that this good blossom could be kept from cankers! (Giving the Page money) Well, there is sixpence to preserve thee.
BARDOLPH An you do not make him hanged among you, the gallows shall be wronged.
PRINCE HARRY And how doth thy master, Bardolph?
BARDOLPH Well, my good lord. He heard of your grace’s coming to town. There’s a letter for you.
POINS Delivered with good respect. And how doth the Martlemas your master?
BARDOLPH In bodily health, sir.
Prince Harry reads the letter
POINS Marry, the immortal part needs a physician, but that moves not him. Though that be sick, it dies not.
PRINCE HARRY 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.
⌈He gives Poins the letter⌉
POINS ‘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 HARRY Nay, they will be kin to us, or they will fetch it from Japhet. (Taking the letter) But 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 HARRY Peace!—‘I will imitate the honourable Romans in brevity.’
POINS (taking the letter) Sure he means brevity in breath, short winded. (Reads) ’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 mayst. 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 HARRY 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 HARRY Well, thus we play the fools with the time, and the spirits of the wise sit in the clouds and mock us. (To Bardolph) Is your master here in London?
BARDOLPH Yea, my lord.
PRINCE HARRY Where sups he? Doth the old boar feed in the old frank?
BARDOLPH At the old place, my lord, in Eastcheap.
PRINCE HARRY What company?
PAGE Ephesians, my lord, of the old church.
PRINCE HARRY Sup any women with him?
PAGE None, my lord, but old Mistress Quickly and Mistress Doll Tearsheet.
PRINCE HARRY What pagan may that be?
PAGE A proper gentlewoman, sir, and a kinswoman of my master’s.
PRINCE HARRY 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 HARRY Sirrah, you, boy, and Bardolph, no word to your master that I am yet come to town. (Giving money) There’s for your silence.
BARDOLPH I have no tongue, sir.
PAGE And for mine, sir, I will govern it.
PRINCE HARRY Fare you well; go.
Exeunt Bardolph and the Page
This Doll Tearsheet should be some road.
POINS I warrant you, as common as the way between Saint Albans and London.
PRINCE HARRY 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 like drawers.
PRINCE HARRY From a god to a bull—a heavy declension—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
2.3 Enter the Earl of Northumberland, Lady Northumberland, and Lady Percy
NORTHUMBERLAND
I pray thee, loving wife and gentle daughter,
Give even way unto my rough affairs.
Put not you on the visage of the times
And be like them to Percy troublesome.
LADY NORTHUMBERLAND
I have given over; I will speak no more.
Do what you will; your wisdom be your guide.
NORTHUMBERLAND
Alas, sweet wife, my honour is at pawn,
And, but my going, nothing can redeem it.
LADY PERCY
O yet, for God’s sake, go not to these wars!
The time was, father, that you broke your word
When you were more endeared to it than now—
When your own Percy, when my heart’s dear Harry,
Threw many a northward look to see his father
Bring up his powers; but he did long in vain.
Who then persuaded you to stay at home?
There were two honours lost, yours and your son’s.
For yours, the God of heaven brighten it!
For his, it stuck upon him as the sun
In the grey vault of heaven, and by his light
Did all the chivalry of England move
To do brave acts. He was indeed the glass
Wherein the noble youth did dress themselves.
He had no legs that practised not his gait;
And speaking thick, which nature made his blemish,
Became the accents of the valiant;
For those that could speak low and tardily
Would turn their own perfection to abuse
To seem like him. So that in speech, in gait,
In diet, in affections of delight,
In military rules, humours of blood,
He was the mark and glass, copy and book,
That fashioned others. And him—O wondrous him!
O miracle of men!—him did you leave,
Second to none, unseconded by you,
To look upon the hideous god of war