William Shakespeare: King Henry IV Part II

ACT II. 2. SCENE II. London. Another street. (continued)

PRINCE.
And yours, most noble Bardolph!

POINS.
Come, you virtuous ass, you bashful fool, must you be blushing?
wherefore blush you now? What a maidenly man-at-arms are you become!
Is 't such a matter to get a pottle-pot's maidenhead?

PAGE.
'A calls me e'en now, my lord, through a red lattice, and I could
discern no part of his face from the window: at last I spied his
eyes, and methought he had made two holes in the ale-wife's new
petticoat and so peep'd through.

PRINCE.
Has not the boy profited?

BARDOLPH.
Away, you whoreson upright rabbit, away!

PAGE.
Away, you rascally Althaea's dream, away!

PRINCE.
Instruct us, boy; what dream, boy?

PAGE.
Marry, my lord, Althaea dreamt she was delivered of a
fire-brand; and therefore I call him her dream.

PRINCE.
A crown's worth of good interpretation: there 'tis, boy.

POINS.
O, that this blossom could be kept from cankers! Well,
there is sixpence to preserve thee.

BARDOLPH.
An you do not make him hanged among you, the gallows
shall have wrong.

PRINCE.
And how doth thy master, Bardolph?

BARDOLPH.
Well, my lord. He heard of your grace's coming to town:
there's a letter for you.

POINS.
Deliver'd with good respect. And how doth the martlemas,
your master?

BARDOLPH.
In bodily health, sir.

POINS.
Marry, the immortal part needs a physician; but that moves
not him: though that be sick, it dies not.

PRINCE.
I do allow this wen to be as familiar with me as my dog;
and he holds his place; for look you how he writes.