Читать книгу King Henry the Fourth, Part 2 - William Shakespeare - Страница 8

London. A street.

Enter FALSTAFF, with his Page bearing his sword and buckler

FALSTAFF

Sirrah, you giant, what says the doctor to my water?

Page

He said, sir, the water itself was a good healthy

water; but, for the party that owed it, he mighthave more diseases than he knew for.

FALSTAFF

Men of all sorts take a pride to gird at me: the

brain of this foolish-compounded clay, man, is notable to invent anything that tends to laughter, morethan I invent or is invented on me: I am not onlywitty in myself, but the cause that wit is in othermen. I do here walk before thee like a sow thathath overwhelmed all her litter but one. If theprince put thee into my service for any other reasonthan to set me off, why then I have no judgment.Thou whoreson mandrake, thou art fitter to be wornin my cap than to wait at my heels. I was nevermanned with an agate till now: but I will inset youneither in gold nor silver, but in vile apparel, andsend you back again to your master, for a jewel,--the juvenal, the prince your master, whose chin isnot yet fledged. I will sooner have a beard grow inthe palm of my hand than he shall get one on hischeek; and yet he will not stick to say his face isa face-royal: God may finish it when he will, 'tisnot a hair amiss yet: he may keep it still at aface-royal, for a barber shall never earn sixpenceout of it; and yet he'll be crowing as if he hadwrit man ever since his father was a bachelor. Hemay keep his own grace, but he's almost out of mine,I can assure him. What said Master Dombledon aboutthe satin for my short cloak and my slops?

Page

He said, sir, you should procure him better

assurance than Bardolph: he would not take hisband and yours; he liked not the security.

FALSTAFF

Let him be damned, like the glutton! pray God his

tongue be hotter! A whoreson Achitophel! a rascallyyea-forsooth knave! to bear a gentleman in hand,and then stand upon security! The whoresonsmooth-pates do now wear nothing but high shoes, andbunches of keys at their girdles; and if a man isthrough with them in honest taking up, then theymust stand upon security. I had as lief they wouldput ratsbane in my mouth as offer to stop it withsecurity. I looked a' should have sent me two andtwenty yards of satin, as I am a true knight, and hesends me security. Well, he may sleep in security;for he hath the horn of abundance, and the lightnessof his wife shines through it: and yet cannot hesee, 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: an I could get me but a wife in thestews, I were manned, horsed, and wived.

Enter the Lord 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.

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 somecharge 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 any thing good.Go, pluck him by the elbow; I must speak with him.

Servant

Sir John!

FALSTAFF

What! a young knave, and begging! Is there not

wars? is there not employment? doth not the kinglack subjects? do not the rebels need soldiers?Though it be a shame to be on any side but one, itis worse shame to beg than to be on the worst side,were it worse than the name of rebellion can tellhow 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 liedin my throat, if I had said so.

Servant

I pray you, sir, then set your knighthood and our

soldiership aside; and give me leave to tell you,you lie in your throat, if you say I am any otherthan an honest man.

FALSTAFF

I give thee leave to tell me so! I lay aside that

which grows to me! if thou gettest any leave of me,hang me; if thou takest leave, thou wert better behanged. 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! God give your lordship good time of

day. I am glad to see your lordship abroad: I heardsay your lordship was sick: I hope your lordshipgoes abroad by advice. Your lordship, though notclean past your youth, hath yet some smack of age inyou, some relish of the saltness of time; and I musthumbly beseech your lordship to have a reverent careof your health.Lord Chief-Justice Sir John, I sent for you before your expedition toShrewsbury.

FALSTAFF

An't 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 whenI sent for you.

FALSTAFF

And I hear, moreover, his highness is fallen into

this same whoreson apoplexy.Lord Chief-Justice Well, God mend him! I pray you, let me speak withyou.

FALSTAFF

This apoplexy is, as I take it, a kind of lethargy,

an't please your lordship; a kind of sleeping in theblood, a whoreson tingling.Lord Chief-Justice What tell you me of it? be it as it is.

FALSTAFF

It hath its original from much grief, from study and

perturbation of the brain: I have read the cause ofhis effects in Galen: it is a kind of deafness.Lord Chief-Justice I think you are fallen into the disease; for youhear 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 maladyof not marking, that I am troubled withal.Lord Chief-Justice To punish you by the heels would amend theattention of your ears; and I care not if I dobecome your physician.

FALSTAFF

I am as poor as Job, my lord, but not so patient:

your lordship may minister the potion ofimprisonment to me in respect of poverty; but howshould I be your patient to follow yourprescriptions, the wise may make some dram of ascruple, or indeed a scruple itself.Lord Chief-Justice I sent for you, when there were matters against youfor 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 are very slender, and your waste is 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: yourday's service at Shrewsbury hath a little gildedover your night's exploit on Gad's-hill: you maythank the unquiet time for your quiet o'er-postingthat action.

FALSTAFF

My lord?

Lord Chief-Justice But since all is well, keep it so: wake not asleeping 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 burntout.

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 shouldhave his effect of gravity.

FALSTAFF

His effect of gravy, gravy, gravy.

Lord Chief-Justice You follow the young prince up and down, like hisill 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: Icannot tell. Virtue is of so little regard in thesecostermonger times that true valour is turnedbear-herd: pregnancy is made a tapster, and hathhis quick wit wasted in giving reckonings: all theother gifts appertinent to man, as the malice ofthis age shapes them, are not worth a gooseberry.You that are old consider not the capacities of usthat are young; you do measure the heat of ourlivers with the bitterness of your galls: and wethat 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 ofage? Have you not a moist eye? a dry hand? ayellow cheek? a white beard? a decreasing leg? anincreasing belly? is not your voice broken? yourwind short? your chin double? your wit single? andevery part about you blasted with antiquity? andwill you yet call yourself young? Fie, fie, fie, Sir John!

FALSTAFF

My lord, I was born about three of the clock in the

afternoon, with a white head and something a roundbelly. For my voice, I have lost it with halloingand singing of anthems. To approve my youthfurther, I will not: the truth is, I am only old injudgment and understanding; and he that will caperwith me for a thousand marks, let him lend me themoney, and have at him! For the box of the ear thatthe prince gave you, he gave it like a rude prince,and you took it like a sensible lord. I havechequed him for it, and the young lion repents;marry, not in ashes and sackcloth, but in new silkand old sack.Lord Chief-Justice Well, God send the prince a better companion!

FALSTAFF

God 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: Ihear you are going with Lord John of Lancasteragainst the Archbishop and the Earl ofNorthumberland.

FALSTAFF

Yea; 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, by theLord, I take but two shirts out with me, and I meannot to sweat extraordinarily: if it be a hot day,and I brandish any thing but a bottle, I would Imight never spit white again. There is not adangerous action can peep out his head but I amthrust upon it: well, I cannot last ever: but itwas alway yet the trick of our English nation, ifthey have a good thing, to make it too common. Ifye will needs say I am an old man, you should giveme rest. I would to God my name were not soterrible to the enemy as it is: I were better to beeaten to death with a rust than to be scoured tonothing with perpetual motion.Lord Chief-Justice Well, be honest, be honest; and God bless yourexpedition!

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 tobear crosses. Fare you well: commend me to mycousin Westmoreland.

Exeunt Chief-Justice and Servant

FALSTAFF

If I do, fillip me with a three-man beetle. A man

can no more separate age and covetousness than a'can part young limbs and lechery: but the goutgalls the one, and the pox pinches the other; andso both the degrees prevent my curses. Boy!

Page

Sir?

FALSTAFF

What money is in my purse?

Page

Seven groats and two pence.

FALSTAFF

I can get no remedy against this consumption of the

purse: borrowing only lingers and lingers it out,but the disease is incurable. Go bear this letterto my Lord of Lancaster; this to the prince; thisto the Earl of Westmoreland; and this to oldMistress Ursula, whom I have weekly sworn to marrysince I perceived the first white hair on my chin.About it: you know where to find me.

Exit Page

A pox of this gout! or, a gout of this pox! for

the one or the other plays the rogue with my greattoe. 'Tis no matter if I do halt; I have the warsfor my colour, and my pension shall seem the morereasonable. A good wit will make use of any thing:I will turn diseases to commodity.

Exit