Page 667 - Shakespeare - Vol. 2

to do with the time of the day? Unless hours were cups of sack, and minutes
capons, and clocks the tongues of bawds, and dials the signs of leaping
houses, and the blessed sun himself a fair hot wench in flame-coloured
taffeta, I see no reason why thou shouldst be so [10] superfluous to demand

the time of the day.

FALSTAFF
Indeed you come near me now, Hal; for we that take purses go by the moon
and the seven stars, and not by Phoebus, he, that wand’ring knight so fair.
And I prithee, sweet wag, when thou art a king, as, God save thy [15] grace

− majesty I should say, for grace thou wilt have none −

PRINCE

What, none?

FALSTAFF
No, by my troth; not so much as will serve to be prologue to an egg and
butter. [20]

PRINCE
Well, how then? Come, roundly, roundly.

FALSTAFF
Marry, then, sweet wag, when thou art king, let not us that are squires of the
night’s body be called thieves of the day’s beauty. Let us be Diana’s foresters,

gentlemen of the shade, minions of the moon; and let [25] men say we be
men of good government, being governed as the sea is, by our noble and
chaste mistress the moon, under whose countenance we steal.

PRINCE
Thou sayest well, and it holds well too; for the fortune of us that are the

moon’s men doth ebb and flow [30] like the sea, being governed, as the sea
is, by the moon. As, for proof now: a purse of gold most resolutely snatched
on Monday night and most dissolutely spent on Tuesday morning; got with
swearing ‘Lay by’, and spent with crying ‘Bring in’; now in as low an ebb as

the foot of [35] the ladder, and by-and-by in as high a flow as the ridge of the
gallows.