William Shakespeare: King Henry IV Part I

ACT III. 3. Scene III. Eastcheap. A Room in the Boar's-Head Tavern. (continued)

HOST.
O Jesu, I have heard the Prince tell him, I know not how oft,
that that ring was copper!

FAL.
How! the Prince is a Jack, a sneak-cup: 'sblood, an he were
here, I would cudgel him like a dog, if he would say so.--

[Enter Prince Henry and Pointz, marching. Falstaff meets them,
playing on his truncheon like a fife.]

How now, lad? is the wind in that door, i'faith? must we all
march?

BARD.
Yea, two-and-two, Newgate-fashion.

HOST.
My lord, I pray you, hear me.

PRINCE.
What say'st thou, Mistress Quickly? How doth thy husband? I love
him well; he is an honest man.

HOST.
Good my lord, hear me.

FAL.
Pr'ythee, let her alone, and list to me.

PRINCE.
What say'st thou, Jack?

FAL.
The other night I fell asleep here behind the arras, and had my
pocket pick'd: this house is turn'd bawdy-house; they pick pockets.

PRINCE.
What didst thou lose, Jack?

FAL.
Wilt thou believe me, Hal? three or four bonds of forty pound
a-piece and a seal-ring of my grandfather's.

PRINCE.
A trifle, some eight-penny matter.

HOST.
So I told him, my lord; and I said I heard your Grace say so;
and, my lord, he speaks most vilely of you, like a foul-mouth'd
man as he is; and said he would cudgel you.

PRINCE.
What! he did not?

HOST.
There's neither faith, truth, nor womanhood in me else.

FAL.
There's no more faith in thee than in a stew'd prune; nor no more
truth in thee than in a drawn fox; and, for woman-hood, Maid Marian
may be the deputy's wife of the ward to thee. Go, you thing, go.