If the rascal have not given me medicines to make me love him, I'll be hang'd. It could not be else, I have drunk medicines. Poins! Hal! a plague upon you both! Bardolph! Peto! I'll starve ere I'll rob a foot further. And 'twere not as good a deed as drink to turn true man and to leave these rogues, I am the veriest varlet that ever chew'd with a tooth. Eight yards of uneven ground is threescore and ten miles afoot with me, and the stony-hearted villains know it well enough. A plague upon it when thieves cannot be true one to another! (They whistle.) Whew! a plague upon you all! Give me my horse, you rogues, give me my horse, and be hang'd!

PRINCE [Coming forward.] Peace, ye fat-guts, lie down. Lay thine ear close to the ground, and list if thou canst hear the tread of travellers.

FAL. Have you any levers to lift me up again, being down? 'Sblood, I'll not bear my own flesh so far afoot again for all the coin in thy father's exchequer. What a plague mean ye to colt me thus?

PRINCE. Thou liest, thou art not colted, thou art uncolted.

FAL. I prithee, good prince – Hal! – help me to my horse, good king's son.

PRINCE. Out, ye rogue! shall I be your ostler?

FAL. Hang thyself in thine own heir-apparent garters! If I be ta'en, I'll peach for this. And I have not ballads made on you all and sung to filthy tunes, let a cup of sack be my poison. When a jest is so forward, and afoot too! I hate it.

 

Enter Gadshill.

 

GADS. Stand.

FAL. So I do, against my will.

POINS [Coming forward with Bardolph and Peto.] O, 'tis our setter, I know his voice.

[BARD.] What news?

[GADS.] Case ye, case ye, on with your vizards. There's money of the King's coming down the hill, 'tis going to the King's exchequer.

FAL. You lie, ye rogue, 'tis going to the King's tavern.

GADS. There's enough to make us all.

FAL. To be hang'd.

PRINCE. Sirs, you four shall front them in the narrow lane; Ned Poins and I will walk lower. If they scape from your encounter, then they light on us.

PETO. How many be there of them?

GADS. Some eight or ten.

FAL. 'Zounds, will they not rob us?

PRINCE. What, a coward, Sir John Paunch?

FAL. Indeed I am not John of Gaunt, your grandfather, but yet no coward, Hal.

PRINCE. Well, we leave that to the proof.

POINS. Sirrah Jack, thy horse stands behind the hedge; when thou need'st him, there thou shalt find him.