From Shakespeare's Henry IV Part II 2.4.226-272


Enter Music

Page. The music come, sir.

Falstaff. Let them play.  Play, sirs.  Sit on my knee, Doll.  A rascal bragging slave!  The rogue fled from me like quicksilver.

Doll. I'faith, and thou follow'dst him like a church.  Thou whoreson little tidy Bartholomew boar - pig, when wilt thou leave fighting a' days and foining a' nights, and begin to patch up thine old body for heaven?

Enter, [behind,] Prince Henry and Poins, [disguised].

Fal. Peace, good Doll, do not speak like a death's-head, do not bid me remember mine end.

Doll. Sirrah, what humor's the Prince of?

Fal. A good shallow young fellow. 'A would have make a good pantler, 'a would 'a' chipp'd bread well.

Doll. They say Poins has a good wit.

Fal. He a good wit? Hang him, baboon! his wit's as thick as Tewksbury mustard, there's no more conceit in him than is in a mallet.

Doll. Why does the Prince love him so then?

Fal. Because their legs are both of a bignesss, and 'a plays at quoits well, and eats cunger and fennel, and drinks off candles' ends for flap-dragons, and rides the wild-mare with the boys, and jumps upon join'd-stools, and swears with a good grace, and wears his boots very smooth, like unto the sign of the Leg, and breeds no bate with telling of discreet stories; and such other gambol faculties 'a has, that show a weak mind and an able body, for the which the Prince admits him. For the Prince himself is such another, the weight of a hair will turn scales between their haberdepois.

Prince. Would not this knave of a wheel have his ears cut off?

Poins. Let's beat him before his whore.

Prince. Look whe'er the wither'd elder hath not his pole claw'd like a parrot.

Poins. Is it not strange that desire should so many years outlive performance?

Fal. Kiss me, Doll.

Prince. Saturn and Venus this years in conjunction! What says th' almanac to that?

Poins. And look whether the fiery Trigon, his man, be not lisping to his master's old tables, his note-book, his counsel-keeper.

Fal. Thou dost give me faltering busses.

Doll. By my troth, I kiss thee with a most constant heart.

Fal. I am old, I am old.

Doll. I love thee better than I love e'er a scurvy young boy of them all.

The entirety of Henry IV, Part II