Page 1123 - Shakespeare - Vol. 2

FALSTAFF

God save thee, my sweet boy!

KING
My lord chief justice, speak to that vain man.

CHIEF JUSTICE
Have you your wits? Know you what ’tis you speak? [45]

FALSTAFF
My king! My Jove! I speak to thee, my heart!

KING
I know thee not, old man. Fall to thy prayers.

How ill white hairs become a fool and jester!
I have long dreamed of such a kind of man,
So surfeit-swelled, so old, and so profane, [50]
But, being awaked, I do despise my dream.
Make less thy body hence, and more thy grace.

Leave gormandizing. Know the grave doth gape
For thee thrice wider than for other men.
Reply not to me with a fool-born jest. [55]

Presume not that I am the thing I was,
For God doth know, so shall the world perceive,
That I have turned away my former self.
So will I those that kept me company.
When thou dost hear I am as I have been, [60]

Approach me, and thou shalt be as thou wast,
The tutor and the feeder of my riots.
Till then, I banish thee, on pain of death,

As I have done the rest of my misleaders,
Not to come near our person by ten mile. [65]
For competence of life I will allow you,
That lack of means enforce you not to evils.
And, as we hear you do reform yourselves,

We will, according to your strengths and qualities,
Give you advancement. Be it your charge, my lord, [70]
To see performed the tenor of our word.