Page 692 - Shakespeare - Vol. 2

for all this, if I scape hanging for killing that rogue. I have forsworn his
company hourly any time this [15] two-and-twenty years, and yet I am
bewitched with the rogue’s company. If the rascal have not given me
medicines to make me love him, I’ll be hanged. It could not be else: I have

drunk medicines. Poins! Hal! A plague upon you both! Bardolph! Peto! I’ll
starve ere I’ll rob a [20] foot further. An ’twere not as good a deed as drink to
turn true man and to leave these rogues, I am the veriest varlet that ever
chewed with a tooth. Eight yards of uneven ground is threescore and ten

miles afoot with me, and the stony-hearted villains know it well enough. [25]
A plague upon it when thieves cannot be true one to another! (They whistle.)
Whew! A plague upon you all! Give me my horse, you rogues! give me my
horse and be hanged!

PRINCE
[comes forward]

Peace, ye fat-guts! Lie down, lay [30] thine ear close to the ground, and list if
thou canst hear the tread of travellers.

FALSTAFF
Have you any levers to lift me up again, being down? ’Sblood, I’ll not bear
mine own flesh so far afoot again for all the coin in thy father’s exchequer.

What a [35] plague mean ye to colt me thus?

PRINCE
Thou liest; thou art not colted, thou art uncolted.

FALSTAFF
I prithee, good Prince Hal, help me to my horse, good king’s son.

PRINCE
Out, ye rogue! Shall I be your ostler? [40]

FALSTAFF
Go hang thyself in thine own heir-apparent garters! If I be ta’en, I’ll peach for
this. An I have not ballads made on you all, and sung to filthy tunes, let a cup

of sack be my poison. When a jest is so forward − and afoot too − I hate it.
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