Henry IV, Part 1 :: Orlando Shakespeare Theatre :: 2020 :: Sides
PRINCE HAL Side 1
I know you all, and will awhile uphold
The unyoked humour of your idleness.
Yet herein will I imitate the sun,
Who doth permit the base contagious clouds
To smother up his beauty from the world,
That, when he please again to be himself,
Being wanted, he may be more wondered at
By breaking through the foul and ugly mists
Of vapors that did seem to strangle him.
If all the year were playing holidays,
To sport would be as tedious as to work;
But when they seldom come, they wished-for come,
And nothing pleaseth but rare accidents.
So when this loose behavior I throw off
And pay the debt I never promised,
By how much better than my word I am,
By so much shall I falsify men’s hopes;
And, like bright metal on a sullen ground,
My reformation, glittering o’er my fault,
Shall show more goodly and attract more eyes
Than that which hath no foil to set it off.
I’ll so offend to make offence a skill,
Redeeming time when men think least I will.
Henry IV, Part 1 :: Orlando Shakespeare Theatre :: 2020 :: Sides
PRINCE HAL Side 2
PRINCE HAL
Dost thou speak like a king? Do thou stand for me, and I’ll play
my father.
FALSTAFF
Depose Me? If thou dost if half so gravely, so majestically both in
word and matter, hang me up by the heels for a rabbit sucker or a
poulter’s hare.
PRINCE HAL
Well, here I am set.
FALSTAFF
And here I stand. – Judge, my masters.
PRINCE HAL
Now, Harry, whence come you?
FALSTAFF
My noble lord, from Eastcheap.
PRINCE HAL
The complaints I hear of thee are grievous.
FALSTAFF
‘Sblood, my lord, they are false. – Nay, I’ll tickle ye for a young
prince, i’faith.
PRINCE HAL
Swearest thou, ungracious boy? Henceforth ne’er look on me.
Thou are violently carried away from grace. There is a devil haunts
thee in the likeness of an old fat man; a tun of man is thy
companion. Why dost thou converse with that trunk of humours,
that bolting-hutch of beastliness, that swollen parcel of dropsies,
that huge bombard of sack, that stuffed cloak-bag of guts, that
roasted Manningtree ox with the pudding in his belly, that reverend
Vice, that grey Iniquity, that father Ruffian, that Vanity in years?
Wherein is he good, but to taste sack and drink it? Wherein neat
and cleanly, but to carve a capon and eat it? Wherein cunning, but
in craft? Wherein crafty, but in villainy? Wherein villainous, but in
all things? Wherein worthy, but in nothing?
FALSTAFF
I would your grace would take me with you. Whom means your
grace?
PRINCE HAL
That villainous, abominable misleader of youth, Falstaff, that old-
white-bearded Satan.
Henry IV, Part 1 :: Orlando Shakespeare Theatre :: 2020 :: Sides
PRINCE HAL Side 3
PRINCE HAL
And God forgive them that so much have swayed
Your majesty’s good thoughts away from me.
I will redeem all this on Percy’s head
And in the closing of some glorious day
Be bold to tell you that I am your son,
When I will wear a garment all of blood
And stain my favours in a bloody mask,
Which washed away shall scour my shame with it.
And that shall be the day, whene’er it lights,
That this same child of honour and renown,
This gallant Hotspur, this all-praised knight,
And your unthought-of Harry chance to meet.
For every honour sitting on his helm,
Would they were multitudes, and on my head
My shames redoubled, for the time will come
That I shall make this northern youth exchange
His glorious deeds for my indignities.
