William Shakespeare: King Henry IV Part II

ACT IV. 3. SCENE III. Another part of the forest. (continued)

FALSTAFF.
I would you had but the wit: 'twere better than your dukedom.
Good faith, this same young sober-blooded boy doth not love me;
nor a man cannot make him laugh; but that 's no marvel, he drinks
no wine. There 's never none of these demure boys come to any proof;
for thin drink doth so over-cool their blood, and making many
fish-meals, that they fall into a kind of male green-sickness; and
then, when they marry, they get wenches: they are generally fools
and cowards; which some of us should be too, but for inflammation.
A good sherris-sack hath a two-fold operation in it. It ascends me
into the brain; dries me there all the foolish and dull and crudy
vapours which environ it; makes it apprehensive, quick, forgetive,
full of nimble fiery and delectable shapes; which, delivered o'er to
the voice, the tongue, which is the birth, becomes excellent wit.
The second property of your excellent sherris is, the warming of the
blood; which, before cold and settled, left the liver white and pale,
which is the badge of pusillanimity and cowardice; but the sherris
warms it and makes it course from the inwards to the parts extremes:
it illumineth the face, which as a beacon gives warning to all
the rest of this little kingdom, man, to arm; and then the vital
commoners and inland petty spirits muster me all to their captain, the
heart, who, great and puffed up with this retinue, doth any deed of
courage; and this valour comes of sherris. So that skill in the weapon
is nothing without sack, for that sets it a-work; and learning a mere
hoard of gold kept by a devil, till sack commences it and sets it in
act and use. Hereof comes it that Prince Harry is valiant; for the
cold blood he did naturally inherit of his father, he hath, like lean,
sterile and bare land, manured, husbanded and tilled with excellent
endeavour of drinking good and good store of fertile sherris, that he
is become very hot and valiant. If I had a thousand sons, the first
humane principle I would teach them should be, to forswear thin
potations and to addict themselves to sack.

[Enter Bardolph.]

How now, Bardolph!

BARDOLPH.
The army is discharged all and gone.

FALSTAFF.
Let them go. I'll through Gloucestershire; and there will I visit
Master Robert Shallow, esquire: I have him already tempering between
my finger and my thumb, and shortly will I seal with him. Come away.

[Exeunt.]