Anon, anon, sir.

 

[Exit.]

 

PRINCE. That ever this fellow should have fewer words than a parrot, and yet the son of a woman! His industry is up stairs and down stairs, his eloquence the parcel of a reckoning. I am not yet of Percy's mind, the Hotspur of the north, he that kills me some six or seven dozen of Scots at a breakfast, washes his hands, and says to his wife, »Fie upon this quiet life! I want work.« »O my sweet Harry,« says she, »how many hast thou kill'd to-day?« »Give my roan horse a drench,« says he, and answers, »Some fourteen,« an hour after; »a trifle, a trifle.« I prithee call in Falstaff. I'll play Percy, and that damn'd brawn shall play Dame Mortimer his wife. »Rivo!« says the drunkard. Call in ribs, call in tallow.

 

Enter Falstaff, [Gadshill, Bardolph, and Peto, Francis following with wine].

POINS. Welcome, Jack, where hast thou been?

FAL. A plague of all cowards, I say, and a vengeance too! marry and amen! Give me a cup of sack, boy. Ere I lead this life long, I'll sew nether-stocks, and mend them and foot them too. A plague of all cowards! Give me a cup of sack, rogue. Is there no virtue extant?

 

He drinketh.

 

PRINCE. Didst thou never see Titan kiss a dish of butter, pitiful-hearted Titan, that melted at the sweet tale of the sun's? If thou didst, then behold that compound.

FAL. You rogue, here's lime in this sack too. There is nothing but roguery to be found in villainous man, yet a coward is worse than a cup of sack with lime in it. A villainous coward! Go thy ways, old Jack, die when thou wilt; if manhood, good manhood, be not forgot upon the face of the earth, then am I a shotten herring. There lives not three good men unhang'd in England, and one of them is fat and grows old, God help the while! a bad world, I say. I would I were a weaver, I could sing psalms, or any thing. A plague of all cowards, I say still.

PRINCE. How now, wool-sack, what mutter you?

FAL. A king's son! If I do not beat thee out of thy kingdom with a dagger of lath, and drive all thy subjects afore thee like a flock of wild geese, I'll never wear hair on my face more. You, Prince of Wales!

PRINCE. Why, you whoreson round man, what's the matter?

FAL. Are not you a coward? Answer me to that; and Poins there?

POINS. 'Zounds, ye fat paunch, and ye call me coward, by the Lord, I'll stab thee.

FAL. I call thee coward! I'll see thee damn'd ere I call thee coward, but I would give a thousand pound I could run as fast as thou canst. You are straight enough in the shoulders, you care not who sees your back. Call you that backing of your friends? A plague upon such backing! give me them that will face me. Give me a cup of sack. I am a rogue if I drunk to-day.

PRINCE. O villain, thy lips are scarce wip'd since thou drunk'st last.

FAL.