what instinct hadst thou for it? BARDOLPH My lord, do you see these meteors? do you behold these exhalations? PRINCE HENRY I do. BARDOLPH What think you they portend? PRINCE HENRY Hot livers and cold purses. BARDOLPH Choler, my lord, if rightly taken. PRINCE HENRY No, if rightly taken, halter.
Re-enter FALSTAFF
Here comes lean Jack, here comes bare-bone.
How now, my sweet creature of bombast!
How long is't ago, Jack, since thou sawest thine own knee? FALSTAFF My own knee! when I was about thy years, Hal, I was not an eagle's talon in the waist; I could have crept into any alderman's thumb-ring: a plague of sighing and grief! it blows a man up like a bladder. There's villanous news abroad: here was Sir John Bracy from your father; you must to the court in the morning. That same mad fellow of the north, Percy, and he of Wales, that gave Amamon the bastinado and made Lucifer cuckold and swore the devil his true liegeman upon the cross of a Welsh hook--what a plague call you him? POINS O, Glendower. FALSTAFF Owen, Owen, the same; and his son-in-law Mortimer, and old Northumberland, and that sprightly Scot of Scots, Douglas, that runs o' horseback up a hill perpendicular,-- PRINCE HENRY He that rides at high speed and with his pistol kills a sparrow flying. FALSTAFF You have hit it. PRINCE HENRY So did he never the sparrow. FALSTAFF Well, that rascal hath good mettle in him; he will not run. PRINCE HENRY Why, what a rascal art thou then, to praise him so for running! FALSTAFF O' horseback, ye cuckoo; but afoot he will not budge a foot. PRINCE HENRY Yes, Jack, upon instinct. FALSTAFF I grant ye, upon instinct. Well, he is there too, and one Mordake, and a thousand blue-caps more:
Worcester is stolen away to-night; thy father's beard is turned white with the news: you may buy land now as cheap as stinking mackerel. PRINCE HENRY Why, then, it is like, if there come a hot June and this civil buffeting hold, we shall buy maidenheads as they buy hob-nails, by the hundreds. FALSTAFF By the mass, lad, thou sayest true; it is like we shall have good trading that way. But tell me, Hal, art not thou horrible afeard? thou being heir-apparent, could the world pick thee out three such enemies again as that fiend Douglas, that spirit Percy, and that devil Glendower? Art thou not horribly afraid? doth not thy blood thrill at it? PRINCE HENRY Not a whit, i' faith; I lack some of thy instinct. FALSTAFF Well, thou wert be horribly chid tomorrow when thou comest to thy father: if thou love me, practise an answer. PRINCE HENRY Do thou stand for my father, and examine me upon the particulars of my life. FALSTAFF Shall I? content: this chair shall be my state, this dagger my sceptre, and this cushion my crown. PRINCE HENRY Thy state is taken for a joined-stool, thy golden sceptre for a leaden dagger, and thy precious rich crown for a pitiful bald crown! FALSTAFF Well, an the fire of grace be not quite out of thee, now shalt thou be moved. Give me a cup of sack to make my eyes look red, that it may be thought I have wept; for I must speak in passion, and I will do it in King Cambyses' vein. PRINCE HENRY Well, here is my leg. FALSTAFF And here is my speech. Stand aside, nobility. Hostess O Jesu, this is excellent sport, i' faith! FALSTAFF Weep not, sweet queen; for trickling tears are vain. Hostess O, the father, how he holds his countenance! FALSTAFF For God's sake, lords, convey my tristful queen;For tears do stop the flood-gates of her eyes. Hostess O Jesu, he doth it as like one of these harlotry players as ever I see! FALSTAFF Peace, good pint-pot; peace, good tickle-brain.
Harry, I do not only marvel where thou spendest thy time, but also how thou art accompanied: for though the camomile, the more it is trodden on the faster it grows, yet youth, the more it is wasted the sooner it wears. That thou art my son, I have partly thy mother's word, partly my own opinion, but chiefly a villanous trick of thine eye and a foolish-hanging of thy nether lip, that doth warrant me. If then thou be son to me, here lies the point;why, being son to me, art thou so pointed at?
Shall the blessed sun of heaven prove a micher and eat blackberries? a question not to be asked. Shall the sun of England prove a thief and take purses?
