William Shakespeare: King Henry IV Part II

ACT V. 5. SCENE V. A public place near Westminster Abbey. (continued)

PISTOL.
My knight, I will inflame thy noble liver,
And make thee rage.
Thy Doll, and Helen of thy noble thoughts,
Is in base durance and contagious prison;
Haled thither
By most mechanical and dirty hand:
Rouse up revenge from ebon den with fell Alecto's snake,
For Doll is in. Pistol speaks nought but truth.

FALSTAFF.
I will deliver her.

[Shouts, within, and the trumpets sound.]

PISTOL.
There roar'd the sea, and trumpet-clangor sounds.

[Enter the King and his train, the Lord Chief-Justice among
them.]

FALSTAFF.
God save thy grace, King Hal; my royal Hal!

PISTOL.
The heavens thee guard and keep, most royal imp of fame!

FALSTAFF.
God save thee, my sweet boy!

KING.
My lord chief-justice, speak to that vain man.

CHIEF JUSTICE.
Have you your wits? know you what 'tis you speak?

FALSTAFF.
My king! my Jove! I speak to thee, my heart!

KING.
I know thee not, old man: fall to thy prayers;
How ill white hairs become a fool and jester!
I have long dream'd of such a kind of man,
So surfeit-swell'd, so old, and so profane;
But, being awaked, I do despise my dream.
Make less thy body hence, and more thy grace;
Leave gormandizing; know the grave doth gape
For thee thrice wider than for other men.
Reply not to me with a fool-born jest:
Presume not that I am the thing I was;
For God doth know, so shall the world perceive,
That I have turn'd away my former self;
So will I those that kept me company.
When thou dost hear I am as I have been,
Approach me, and thou shalt be as thou wast,
The tutor and the feeder of my riots:
Till then, I banish thee, on pain of death,
As I have done the rest of my misleaders,
Not to come near our person by ten mile.
For competence of life I will allow you,
That lack of means enforce you not to evils:
And, as we hear you do reform yourselves,
We will, according to your strengths and qualities,
Give you advancement. Be it your charge, my lord,
To see perform'd the tenour of our word.
Set on.