Page 706 - Shakespeare - Vol. 2

POINS

Welcome, Jack. Where hast thou been?

FALSTAFF
A plague of all cowards, I say, and a vengeance too! Marry and amen! Give
me a cup of sack, boy. Ere I lead this life long, I’ll sew netherstocks, and
mend them and foot them too. A plague of all cowards! Give me a [110] cup

of sack, rogue. Is there no virtue extant?
He drinketh.

PRINCE
Didst thou never see Titan kiss a dish of butter (pitiful-hearted Titan!) that
melted at the sweet tale of the sun’s? If thou didst, then behold that
compound.

FALSTAFF

You rogue, here’s lime in this sack too! There is [115] nothing but roguery to
be found in villainous man. Yet a coward is worse than a cup of sack with
lime in it − a villainous coward! Go thy ways, old Jack, die when thou wilt; if
manhood, good manhood, be not forgot upon the face of the earth, then am I

a shotten herring. There lives [120] not three good men unhanged in
England; and one of them is fat, and grows old. God help the while! A bad
world, I say. I would I were a weaver; I could sing psalms or anything. A
plague of all cowards, I say still!

PRINCE
How now, woolsack? What mutter you? [125]

FALSTAFF

A king’s son! If I do not beat thee out of thy kingdom with a dagger of lath
and drive all thy subjects afore thee like a flock of wild geese, I’ll never wear
hair on my face more. You Prince of Wales?

PRINCE
Why, you whoreson round man, what’s the matter? [130]

FALSTAFF