William Shakespeare: King Henry IV Part II

ACT II. 4. SCENE IV. London. The Boar's-head Tavern in Eastcheap. (continued)

FALSTAFF.
Because their legs are both of a bigness, and a' plays at quoits
well, and eats conger and fennel, and drinks off candles' ends for
flap-dragons, and rides the wild-mare with the boys, and jumps upon
joined-stools, and swears with a good grace, and wears his boots very
smooth, like unto the sign of the leg, and breeds no bate with telling
of discreet stories; and such other gambol faculties a' has, that show
a weak mind and an able body, for the which the prince admits him: for
the prince himself is such another; the weight of a hair will turn the
scales between their avoirdupois.

PRINCE.
Would not this nave of a wheel have his ears cut off?

POINS.
Let 's beat him before his whore.

PRINCE.
Look, whether the withered elder hath not his poll clawed
like a parrot.

POINS.
Is it not strange that desire should so many years outlive
performance?

FALSTAFF.
Kiss me, Doll.

PRINCE.
Saturn and Venus this year in conjunction! what says the
almanac to that?

POINS.
And, look, whether the fiery Trigon, his man, be not lisping
to his master's old tables, his note-book, his counsel-keeper.

FALSTAFF.
Thou dost give me flattering busses.

DOLL.
By my troth, I kiss thee with a most constant heart.

FALSTAFF.
I am old, I am old.

DOLL.
I love thee better than I love e'er a scurvy young boy of
them all.

FALSTAFF.
What stuff wilt have a kirtle of? I shall receive money o'
Thursday: shalt have a cap to-morrow. A merry song, come: it
grows late; we'll to bed. Thou'lt forget me when I am gone.

DOLL.
By my troth, thou'lt set me a-weeping, an thou sayest so:
prove that ever I dress myself handsome till thy return: well,
hearken at the end.