No Fear Shakespeare
Henry IV Part 2
Get this No Fear to go!
Act 1, Scene 2
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Modern Text |
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Enter Sir John FALSTAFF, with his PAGE bearing his sword and buckler |
Sir John FALSTAFF enters with his PAGE, who carries a sword and shield. |
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FALSTAFF
Sirrah, you giant, what says the doctor to my water?
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FALSTAFF | |
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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.
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PAGE
He said that the urine itself was good, healthy urine, but that the man who owned it probably had more diseases than he could tell.
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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 tends 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 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 than 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 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 fledge—I will
sooner have a beard grow in the palm of my hand than he
shall get one off his cheek, and yet he will not stick to say
his face is a face royal. God may finish it when He will. 'Tis
not a hair amiss yet. He may keep it still at a face royal, for
a barber shall never earn sixpence out of it, and yet he’ll be
crowing as if he had writ man ever since his father was
a bachelor. He may keep his own grace, but he’s almost out of
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FALSTAFF
All kinds of people make it a matter of pride to heckle me. No man—that foolishly assembled lump of clay—could ever invent something quite as funny as I seem to be to other people. I’m not only witty on my own, but I bring out wit in other people. Look at the two of us, walking here: I look like a sow that’s smothered all of her baby pigs, except for you. If the Prince sent you to serve me for any other reason than to irritate me, I’m a fool. You weedy little son of a bitch: you’re so tiny that you should be a decoration on my hat, not a servant at my feet. I’ve never had a servant before who was as tiny as a ring stone. But I won’t set you in a gold or silver ring; I’ll wrap you in rags and send you back to your master, to be used as a jewel—that youth, the Prince your master, whose chin is still lacking a beard. Why, I’ll grow a beard in the palm of my hand before he’ll have one that he can shave off his face. And yet, this doesn’t stop him from claiming that he has a face for royalty. Well, God will give him a beard whenever he chooses to—there’s not a hair out of place yet. It’s a good thing the Prince’s face is a royal, because a barber will never earn a coin from shaving it. And still, the
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