Page 1002 - Shakespeare - Vol. 2

Tells them he doth bestride a bleeding land,
Gasping for life under great Bolingbroke;
And more and less do flock to follow him.]

NORTHUMBERLAND
I knew of this before; but, to speak truth, [210]
This present grief had wiped it from my mind.

Go in with me, and counsel every man
The aptest way for safety and revenge.
Get posts and letters, and make friends with speed.

Never so few, and never yet more need. [215]
Exeunt.

Scene II IT

Enter Sir John [Falstaff] alone, 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 might have more diseases than he knew for. [5]

FALSTAFF
Men of all sorts take a pride to gird at me. The brain of this foolish
compounded clay-man is not able to invent anything that intends to laughter

more than I invent or is invented on me. I am not only witty in myself, but
the cause that wit is in other men. I do here walk [10] before thee like a sow
that hath overwhelmed all her litter but one. If the prince put thee into my

service for any other reason that to set me off, why then I have no judgment.
Thou whoreson mandrake, thou art fitter to be worn in my cap than to wait at
my heels. I was never [15] manned with an agate till now. But I will inset you
neither in gold nor silver, but in vile apparel, and send you back again to your
master, for a jewel − the juvenal, the prince your master, whose chin is not

yet fledged. I will sooner have a beard grow in the palm of my hand [20]