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  • Title: Henry IV, Part 1 (Quarto 1, 1598)
  • Editor: Rosemary Gaby
  • ISBN: 978-1-55058-371-7

    Copyright Rosemary Gaby. This text may be freely used for educational, non-profit purposes; for all other uses contact the Editor.
    Author: William Shakespeare
    Editor: Rosemary Gaby
    Not Peer Reviewed

    Henry IV, Part 1 (Quarto 1, 1598)

    The Historie
    Coosen on wednesday next our councel we wil hold
    At Windsore, so informe the Lords:
    But come your selfe with speed to vs againe,
    For more is to be said and to be done,
    110Then out of anger can be vttered.
    West. I will my liege.
    Exeunt.

    Enter prince of Wales, and Sir Iohn Falstaffe.
    115Falst. Now Hal, what time of day is it lad?
    Prince. Thou art so fat-witted with drinking of olde sacke,
    and vnbuttoning thee after supper, and sleeping vpon benches
    after noone; that thou hast forgotten to demaunde that truelie
    which thou wouldest trulie knowe. What a diuell hast thou to
    120do with the time of the daie? vnles houres were cups of sacke,
    and minutes capons, and clockes the tongues of Baudes, and
    Dialles the signes of leaping houses, and the blessed sunne
    himselfe a faire hot wench in flame-couloured taffata; I see no
    reason why thou shouldst be so superfluous to demaunde the
    time of the day.
    Falst. Indeede you come neere me nowe Hal, for wee that
    take purses go by the moone and the seuen stars, and not by
    Phoebus, he, that wandring knight so faire: and I prethe sweet
    130wag when thou art a king, as God saue thy grace: maiestie I
    should say, for grace thou wilt haue none.
    Prince. What none?
    Falst. No by my troth, not so much as will serue to bee pro-
    135logue to an egge and butter.
    Prin. Wel, how then? come roundly, roundly.
    Falst. Marry then sweet wag, when thou art king let not vs
    that are squiers of the nights bodie, bee called theeues of the
    daies beauty: let vs be Dianaes forresters, gentlemen of the
    140shade, minions of the moone, and let men say wee be men of
    good gouernement, being gouerned as the sea is, by our noble
    and chast mistresse the moone, vnder whose countenaunce
    we steale.
    Prince. Thou saiest well, and it holds wel to, for the fortune
    145of vs that are the moones men, doth ebbe and flow like the sea,
    being gouerned as the sea is by the moone, as for proofe. Now
    a purse