William Shakespeare: King Henry IV Part II

ACT I. 2. SCENE II. London. A street. (continued)

FALSTAFF.
Not so, my lord; your ill angel is light; but I hope he that looks
upon me will take me without weighing: and yet, in some respects,
I grant, I cannot go: I cannot tell. Virtue is of so little regard
in these costermonger times that true valour is turned bear-herd;
pregnancy is made a tapster, and hath his quick wit wasted in giving
reckonings: all the other gifts appertinent to man, as the malice of
this age shapes them, are not worth a gooseberry. You that are old
consider not the capacities of us that are young; you do measure the
heat of our livers with the bitterness of your galls: and we that
are in the vaward of our youth, I must confess, are wags too.

CHIEF JUSTICE.
Do you set down your name in the scroll of youth, that are written
down old with all the characters of age? Have you not a moist eye?
a dry hand? a yellow cheek? a white beard? a decreasing leg? an
increasing belly? is not your voice broken? your wind short? your
chin double? your wit single? and every part about you blasted
with antiquity? and will you yet call yourself young? Fie, fie,
fie, Sir John!

FALSTAFF.
My lord, I was born about three of the clock in the afternoon,
with a white head and something a round belly. For my voice, I
have lost it with halloing and singing of anthems. To approve my
youth further, I will not: the truth is, I am only old in judgement
and understanding; and he that will caper with me for a thousand
marks, let him lend me the money, and have at him!
For the box of the ear that the prince gave you, he gave it like a
rude prince, and you took it like a sensible lord. I have checked
him for it, and the young lion repents; marry, not in ashes and
sackcloth, but in new silk and old sack.

CHIEF JUSTICE.
Well, God send the prince a better companion!

FALSTAFF.
God send the companion a better prince! I cannot rid my hands of him.

CHIEF JUSTICE.
Well, the king hath severed you and Prince Harry:
I hear you are going with Lord John of Lancaster against the
Archbishop and the Earl of Northumberland.