I
     looked he should have sent me two and twenty yards of
     satin, as I am true knight, and he sends me security. Well, he
     may sleep in security, for he hath the horn of abundance,
     and the lightness of his wife shines through it, and yet
     cannot he see, though he have his own lanthorn to light
     him. Where’s Bardolph?

PAGE   He’s gone into Smithfield to buy your worship a
    horse.

FALSTAFF   I bought him in Paul’s, and he’ll buy me a horse in
     Smithfield. If I could get me a wife in the stews, I were
     manned, horsed, and wived.

Enter Chief Justice and Servant

PAGE   Sir, here comes the nobleman that committed the
     prince for striking him about Bardolph.

FALSTAFF   Wait, close. I will not see him.

Tries to sneak away

LORD CHIEF JUSTICE   What’s he that goes there?

SERVANT   Falstaff, an’t please your lordship.

LORD CHIEF JUSTICE   He that was in question for the robbery?

SERVANT   He, my lord. But he hath since done good service at
     Shrewsbury, and, as I hear, is now going with some charge to
     the lord John of Lancaster.

LORD CHIEF JUSTICE   What, to York? Call him back again.

SERVANT   Sir John Falstaff!

FALSTAFF   Boy, tell him I am deaf.

PAGE   You must speak louder: my master is deaf.

LORD CHIEF JUSTICE   I am sure he is, to the hearing of anything
     good. Go, pluck him by the elbow, I must speak with him.

SERVANT   Sir John!

FALSTAFF   What? A young knave, and beg? Is there not wars?
     Is there not employment? Doth not the king lack subjects?
     Do not the rebels want soldiers? Though it be a shame to be
     on any side but one, it is worse shame to beg than to be on
     the worst side, were it worse than the name of rebellion can
     tell how to make it.

SERVANT   You mistake me, sir.

FALSTAFF   Why, sir, did I say you were an honest man? Setting
     my knighthood and my soldiership aside, I had lied in my
     throat, if I had said so.

SERVANT   I pray you, sir, then set your knighthood and your
     soldiership aside, and give me leave to tell you, you lie in your
     throat if you say I am any other than an honest man.

FALSTAFF   I give thee leave to tell me so? I lay aside that which
     grows to me? If thou gett’st any leave of me, hang me: if
    thou tak’st leave, thou wert better be hanged. You hunt
    counter, hence! Avaunt!

SERVANT   Sir, my lord would speak with you.

LORD CHIEF JUSTICE   Sir John Falstaff, a word with you.

FALSTAFF   My good lord! Give your lordship good time of the
     day. I am glad to see your lordship abroad. I heard say your
     lordship was sick. I hope your lordship goes abroad by
     advice. Your lordship, though not clean past your youth,
     hath yet some smack of age in you, some relish of the
     saltness of time, and I most humbly beseech your lordship to
     have a reverend care of your health.

LORD CHIEF JUSTICE   Sir John, I sent for you before your expedition
     to Shrewsbury.

FALSTAFF   If it please your lordship, I hear his majesty is
     returned with some discomfort from Wales.

LORD CHIEF JUSTICE   I talk not of his majesty: you would not come
     when I sent for you.

FALSTAFF   And I hear, moreover, his highness is fallen into this
     same whoreson apoplexy.

LORD CHIEF JUSTICE   Well, heaven mend him! I pray, let me speak
     with you.

FALSTAFF   This apoplexy is, as I take it, a kind of lethargy, a
     sleeping of the blood, a whoreson tingling.

LORD 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.

LORD 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.

LORD CHIEF JUSTICE   To punish you by the heels would amend
    the attention of your ears, and I care not if I be 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.

LORD 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.

LORD CHIEF JUSTICE   Well, the truth is, Sir John, you live in great
    infamy.

FALSTAFF   He that buckles him in my belt cannot live in less.

LORD CHIEF JUSTICE   Your means is very slender, and your waste
    great.

FALSTAFF   I would it were otherwise: I would my means were
    greater, and my waist slenderer.

LORD 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.

LORD 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?

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 to smell a fox.

LORD 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.

LORD CHIEF JUSTICE   There is not a white hair on your face but
    should have his effect of gravity.

FALSTAFF   His effect of gravy, gravy, gravy.

LORD CHIEF JUSTICE   You follow the young prince up and down,
    like his evil 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 costermongers 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 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.

LORD 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 wit single? And
    every part about you blasted with antiquity? And will you
    call yourself young? Fie, fie, fie, Sir John.

FALSTAFF   My lord, I was born 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 th’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.

LORD CHIEF JUSTICE   Well, heaven send the prince a better
    companion!

FALSTAFF   Heaven send the companion a better prince! I
    cannot rid my hands of him.

LORD CHIEF JUSTICE   Well, the king hath severed you and Prince
    Harry. I hear you are going with Lord John of Lancaster
    against the archbishop and the Earl of Northumberland.

FALSTAFF   Yes, I thank your pretty sweet wit for it. But look
    you pray—all you that kiss my lady Peace at home—that our
    armies join not in a hot day, for if I take but two shirts out
    with me, and I mean not to sweat extraordinarily: if it be a
    hot day, if I brandish anything but my bottle, would I might
    never spit white again. There is not a dangerous action can
    peep out his head but I am thrust upon it. Well, I cannot last
    ever.

LORD CHIEF JUSTICE   Well, be honest, be honest, and heaven bless
    your expedition.

FALSTAFF   Will your lordship lend me a thousand pound to
    furnish me forth?

LORD CHIEF JUSTICE   Not a penny, not a penny. You are too
    impatient to bear crosses.