Henry IV Part 2: Act 1, Scene 2 Translation

A side-by-side translation of Act 1, Scene 2 of Henry IV Part 2 from the original Shakespeare into modern English.

Original Text	Translated Text
Source: Folger Shakespeare Library
Enter Sir John Falstaff, with his Page bearing his sword and buckler. FALSTAFF Sirrah, you giant, what says the doctor to my water? PAGE He said, sir, the water itself was a good healthy water, but, for the party that owed it, he might have more diseases than he knew for. 5	Meanwhile, on the streets of London, Falstaff (a fat, rowdy, disgraced knight and Prince Hal's good pal) turns to his Page and asks what the doctor had to say about his recent urine sample. The Page says the urine was fine but the doctor thinks Falstaff, the owner of the urine, probably has more diseases than he can diagnose.
FALSTAFF Men of all sorts take a pride to gird at me. The brain of this foolish-compounded clay, man, is not able to invent anything that intends to laughter more than I invent, or is invented on me. I am not only witty in myself, but the cause that wit is in 10 other men. I do here walk before thee like a sow that hath overwhelmed all her litter but one. If the Prince put thee into my service for any other reason than to set me off, why then I have no judgment. Thou whoreson mandrake, thou art fitter to be 15 worn in my cap than to wait at my heels. I was never manned with an agate till now, but I will inset you neither in gold nor silver, but in vile apparel, and send you back again to your master for a jewel. The juvenal, the Prince your master, whose chin is not 20 yet fledge—I will sooner have a beard grow in the palm of my hand than he shall get one off his cheek, and yet he will not stick to say his face is a face royal. God may finish it when He will. ’Tis not a hair amiss yet. He may keep it still at a face royal, for a 25 barber shall never earn sixpence out of it, and yet he’ll be crowing as if he had writ man ever since his father was a bachelor. He may keep his own grace, but he’s almost out of mine, I can assure him. What said Master Dommelton about the satin for my 30 short cloak and my slops?	Falstaff's not amused by the saucy little Page. Falstaff turns to the Page and says that lots of men try to make fun of him but they're all chumps compared to him, Falstaff, the heavy weight champion of trash talk. He's so good, in fact, that his mad trash talking skills actually rub off on other men and make them funnier and wittier than they actually are. (We have to admit, this is completely true.) Then Falstaff proceeds, in a long speech, to hate on just about the entire world. He starts by bagging on the Page for being so tiny and for not even being fit to wait on him. Falstaff ought to send the Page back to Prince Hal, who has hired the servant as a gift to Falstaff. Speaking of Prince Hal, Falstaff's not too happy with that young pip-squeak either. Falstaff will probably grow a beard on his hand before the prince ever grows hair on his face, etc, etc. Falstaff has riled himself up by now and he turns his attention to ragging on that good for nothing tailor, Master Dumbleton, who has recently demanded a guarantee of payment before he'll make Falstaff's new outfit, a snazzy set of satin pants and a cloak that are befitting a knight.
PAGE He said, sir, you should procure him better assurance than Bardolph. He would not take his band and yours. He liked not the security. FALSTAFF Let him be damned like the glutton! Pray 35 God his tongue be hotter! A whoreson Achitophel, a rascally yea-forsooth knave, to bear a gentleman in hand and then stand upon security! The whoreson smoothy-pates do now wear nothing but high shoes and bunches of keys at their girdles; and if a man is 40 through with them in honest taking up, then they must stand upon security. I had as lief they would put ratsbane in my mouth as offer to stop it with “security.” I looked he should have sent me two-and-twenty yards of satin, as I am a true knight, and 45 he sends me “security.” Well, he may sleep in security, for he hath the horn of abundance, and the lightness of his wife shines through it, and yet cannot he see though he have his own lantern to light him. Where’s Bardolph? 50 PAGE He’s gone in Smithfield to buy your Worship a horse.	Falstaff compares the tailor to the biblical glutton who refused to help the beggar Lazarus, calls him a "whoreson" (a whore's son) and then proceeds to rag on all men who wear their hair short and dress in fashionable clothes. Who does this guy think he is, demanding a guarantee of payment from Falstaff? Falstaff's a knight and he wants his satin pants, ASAP. Plus, the tailor's wife is cheating on him and everybody knows it but him. And so on. Falstaff, who must be out of breath by now, asks the Page where his pal Bardolph is. The Page reports that Bardolph has gone to Smithfield to buy Falstaff a horse.
FALSTAFF I bought him in Paul’s, and he’ll buy me a horse in Smithfield. An I could get me but a wife in the stews, I were manned, horsed, and wived. 55 Enter Lord Chief Justice and Servant. PAGE, to Falstaff Sir, here comes the nobleman that committed the Prince for striking him about Bardolph. FALSTAFF Wait close. I will not see him. They begin to exit.	Falstaff says if only he could buy himself a wife from a brothel, then he'd have a horse, a servant, and a wife. (In other words, he'd be all set.) Falstaff's Page spots the Lord Chief Justice (LCJ) and warns Falstaff, who turns his back and tries to make himself invisible.
CHIEF JUSTICE, to Servant What’s he that goes there? 60 SERVANT Falstaff, an ’t please your Lordship. CHIEF JUSTICE He that was in question for the robbery? SERVANT He, my lord; but he hath since done good service at Shrewsbury, and, as I hear, is now going with some charge to the Lord John of Lancaster. 65 CHIEF JUSTICE What, to York? Call him back again. SERVANT Sir John Falstaff! FALSTAFF Boy, tell him I am deaf. PAGE You must speak louder. My master is deaf. CHIEF JUSTICE I am sure he is, to the hearing of 70 anything good.—Go pluck him by the elbow. I must speak with him. SERVANT, plucking Falstaff’s sleeve Sir John! FALSTAFF What, a young knave and begging? Is there not wars? Is there not employment? Doth not the 75 King lack subjects? Do not the rebels need soldiers? Though it be a shame to be on any side but one, it is worse shame to beg than to be on the worst side, were it worse than the name of rebellion can tell how to make it. 80	When the LCJ commands his servant to fetch Falstaff for a little chat, Falstaff pretends to be deaf. That doesn't work so Falstaff pretends he thinks the Servant is a beggar and he complains that all street beggars should be drafted into the king's army to fight in the wars.
SERVANT You mistake me, sir. FALSTAFF Why sir, did I say you were an honest man? Setting my knighthood and my soldiership aside, I had lied in my throat if I had said so. SERVANT I pray you, sir, then set your knighthood and 85 your soldiership aside, and give me leave to tell you, you lie in your throat if you say I am any other than an honest man. FALSTAFF I give thee leave to tell me so? I lay aside that which grows to me? If thou gett’st any leave of me, 90 hang me; if thou tak’st leave, thou wert better be hanged. You hunt counter. Hence! Avaunt! SERVANT Sir, my lord would speak with you. CHIEF JUSTICE Sir John Falstaff, a word with you. FALSTAFF My good lord. God give your Lordship good 95 time of the day. I am glad to see your Lordship abroad. I heard say your Lordship was sick. I hope your Lordship goes abroad by advice. Your Lordship, though not clean past your youth, have yet some smack of an ague in you, some relish of the 100 saltness of time in you, and I most humbly beseech your Lordship to have a reverend care of your health.	The Servant gets all huffy at the insult and finally the LCJ steps in and says enough screwing around – he wants to talk to Falstaff, now. When Falstaff finally acknowledges the Lord Chief Justice, he sweetly pretends to be concerned about the LCJ's health and makes a big show of acting like he cares about the man's general well-being.
CHIEF JUSTICE Sir John, I sent for you before your expedition to Shrewsbury. 105 FALSTAFF An ’t please your Lordship, I hear his Majesty is returned with some discomfort from Wales. CHIEF JUSTICE I talk not of his Majesty. You would not come when I sent for you. FALSTAFF And I hear, moreover, his Highness is fallen 110 into this same whoreson apoplexy. CHIEF JUSTICE Well, God mend him. I pray you let me speak with you. FALSTAFF This apoplexy, as I take it, is a kind of lethargy, an ’t please your Lordship, a kind of 115 sleeping in the blood, a whoreson tingling. CHIEF JUSTICE What tell you me of it? Be it as it is. FALSTAFF It hath it original from much grief, from study, and perturbation of the brain. I have read the cause of his effects in Galen. It is a kind of deafness. 120	The Lord Chief Justice isn't having any of Falstaff's shenanigans. He says that he sent for Falstaff a long time ago but Falstaff never showed up. (Back in Henry IV Part 1 Falstaff robbed the king's exchequer but never had to answer to the LCJ for his crime because he went off to war.) Falstaff tries to change the subject and asks the LCJ how the king is doing these days. Don't even try to change the subject, says the LCJ. Then Falstaff says he's heard that Prince Hal is paralyzed and begins to ramble about how he read all about this crazy disease in Galen's medical book. (Galen's an ancient Greek physician who wrote a bunch of anatomy and medical texts, which were pretty popular well into the 16th Century.)
CHIEF JUSTICE I think you are fallen into the disease, for you hear not what I say to you. FALSTAFF Very well, my lord, very well. Rather, an ’t please you, it is the disease of not listening, the malady of not marking, that I am troubled withal. 125 CHIEF JUSTICE To punish you by the heels would amend the attention of your ears, and I care not if I do become your physician. FALSTAFF I am as poor as Job, my lord, but not so patient. Your Lordship may minister the potion of 130 imprisonment to me in respect of poverty, but how I should be your patient to follow your prescriptions, the wise may make some dram of a scruple, or indeed a scruple itself.	The LCJ says Falstaff must be deaf because he's not listening to him. Falstaff agrees that he has the disease of not listening and then goes on to compare himself to Job, the biblical figure known for patiently bearing excessive burdens in life.
CHIEF JUSTICE I sent for you, when there were matters 135 against you for your life, to come speak with me. FALSTAFF As I was then advised by my learned counsel in the laws of this land-service, I did not come. CHIEF JUSTICE Well, the truth is, Sir John, you live in great infamy. 140 FALSTAFF He that buckles himself in my belt cannot live in less. CHIEF JUSTICE Your means are very slender, and your waste is great. FALSTAFF I would it were otherwise. I would my means 145 were greater and my waist slender. CHIEF JUSTICE You have misled the youthful prince. FALSTAFF The young prince hath misled me. I am the fellow with the great belly, and he my dog. CHIEF JUSTICE Well, I am loath to gall a new-healed 150 wound. Your day’s service at Shrewsbury hath a little gilded over your night’s exploit on Gad’s Hill. You may thank th’ unquiet time for your quiet o’erposting that action.	The LCJ says Falstaff belongs in the stocks and reminds Falstaff that he sent for him but Falstaff never reported to his office. Falstaff says he was busy being a war hero, having recently and valiantly served his country at the battle at Shrewsbury. Then the LCJ chides Falstaff for being in debt, for having corrupted Prince Hal, and for the robbery at Gad's Hill. Falstaff's lucky he served at the battle at Shrewsbury, says the Lord Chief Justice. Otherwise, he'd be in big, big trouble with the law.
FALSTAFF My lord. 155 CHIEF JUSTICE But since all is well, keep it so. Wake not a sleeping wolf. FALSTAFF To wake a wolf is as bad as to smell a fox. CHIEF JUSTICE What, you are as a candle, the better part burnt out. 160 FALSTAFF A wassail candle, my lord, all tallow. If I did say of wax, my growth would approve the truth. CHIEF JUSTICE There is not a white hair in your face but should have his effect of gravity. FALSTAFF His effect of gravy, gravy, gravy. 165 CHIEF JUSTICE You follow the young prince up and down like his ill angel. FALSTAFF Not so, my lord. Your ill angel is light, but I hope he that looks upon me will take me without weighing. And yet in some respects I grant I cannot 170 go. I cannot tell. Virtue is of so little regard in these costermongers’ times that true valor is turned bearherd; pregnancy is made a tapster, and hath his quick wit wasted in giving reckonings. All the other gifts appurtenant to man, as the malice of this age 175 shapes them, are not worth a gooseberry. You that are old consider not the capacities of us that are young. You do measure the heat of our livers with the bitterness of your galls, and we that are in the vaward of our youth, I must confess, are wags too. 180 CHIEF JUSTICE Do you set down your name in the scroll of youth, that are written down old with all the characters of age? Have you not a moist eye, a dry hand, a yellow cheek, a white beard, a decreasing leg, an increasing belly? Is not your voice broken, 185 your wind short, your chin double, your wit single, and every part about you blasted with antiquity? And will you yet call yourself young? Fie, fie, fie, Sir John.
FALSTAFF My lord, I was born about three of the clock 190 in the afternoon, with a white head and something a round belly. For my voice, I have lost it with halloing and singing of anthems. To approve my youth further, I will not. The truth is, I am only old in judgment and understanding. And he that will 195 caper with me for a thousand marks, let him lend me the money, and have at him. For the box of the ear that the Prince gave you, he gave it like a rude prince, and you took it like a sensible lord. I have checked him for it, and the young lion repents. 200 Aside. Marry, not in ashes and sackcloth, but in new silk and old sack. CHIEF JUSTICE Well, God send the Prince a better companion. FALSTAFF God send the companion a better prince. I 205 cannot rid my hands of him.	Falstaff insults the LCJ back by reminding him of the time Prince Hal gave him a box on the ears. (In other words, the LCJ is a chump.) Hmph. The LCJ says he wishes God would send the prince a better companion. Falstaff wittily retorts that he wishes God would send him, Falstaff, a better companion because he just can't seem to get rid of Hal, who's kind of a pest.
CHIEF JUSTICE Well, the King hath severed you and Prince Harry. I hear you are going with Lord John of Lancaster against the Archbishop and the Earl of Northumberland. 210 FALSTAFF Yea, I thank your pretty sweet wit for it. But look you pray, all you that kiss my Lady Peace at home, that our armies join not in a hot day, for, by the Lord, I take but two shirts out with me, and I mean not to sweat extraordinarily. If it be a hot day 215 and I brandish anything but a bottle, I would I might never spit white again. There is not a dangerous action can peep out his head but I am thrust upon it. Well, I cannot last ever. But it was always yet the trick of our English nation, if they have a 220 good thing, to make it too common. If you will needs say I am an old man, you should give me rest. I would to God my name were not so terrible to the enemy as it is. I were better to be eaten to death with a rust than to be scoured to nothing with 225 perpetual motion.	Oh yeah, says the LCJ. He heard that the king has separated Falstaff from Hal and that Falstaff is going with Prince John to fight the Archbishop of York's rebel army. That's right, replies Falstaff. You guys who stay at home should say a prayer for us soldiers. Falstaff goes on to waffle that he wishes the enemy soldiers weren't so afraid of him.
CHIEF JUSTICE Well, be honest, be honest, and God bless your expedition. FALSTAFF Will your Lordship lend me a thousand pound to furnish me forth? 230 CHIEF JUSTICE Not a penny, not a penny. You are too impatient to bear crosses. Fare you well. Commend me to my cousin Westmoreland. Lord Chief Justice and his Servant exit.	Falstaff, who is totally out of control and belligerent, then asks to borrow some money and the LCJ refuses.
FALSTAFF If I do, fillip me with a three-man beetle. A man can no more separate age and covetousness 235 than he can part young limbs and lechery; but the gout galls the one, and the pox pinches the other, and so both the degrees prevent my curses.—Boy! PAGE Sir. FALSTAFF What money is in my purse? 240 PAGE Seven groats and two pence. FALSTAFF I can get no remedy against this consumption of the purse. Borrowing only lingers and lingers it out, but the disease is incurable. Giving papers to the Page. Go bear this letter to my Lord 245 of Lancaster, this to the Prince, this to the Earl of Westmoreland, and this to old Mistress Ursula, whom I have weekly sworn to marry since I perceived the first white hair of my chin. About it. You know where to find me. Page exits. A pox of this 250 gout! Or a gout of this pox, for the one or the other plays the rogue with my great toe. ’Tis no matter if I do halt. I have the wars for my color, and my pension shall seem the more reasonable. A good wit will make use of anything. I will turn diseases to 255 commodity. He exits.	After the LCJ departs, Falstaff laments that he's completely broke and compares his debt to being sick with gout (which he says is an old man's disease) and syphilis (which he says is a young man's venereal disease). In short, Falstaff is having a hard time curing all of his afflictions. Then Falstaff sends his Page to deliver letters to Prince Hal, Westmoreland, Prince John, and his Mistress (whom Falstaff has been promising to marry). The Page leaves and Falstaff complains about the serious pain in his big toe. He's not sure if it hurts because of his gout or his syphilis. Either way, he's planning to blame his pain on a battle injury so he can collect a wounded soldier's pension.

Original Text

Translated Text

Enter Sir John Falstaff, with his Page bearing his sword
and buckler.

FALSTAFF Sirrah, you giant, what says the doctor to my
water?

PAGE He said, sir, the water itself was a good healthy
water, but, for the party that owed it, he might have
more diseases than he knew for. 5

Meanwhile, on the streets of London, Falstaff (a fat, rowdy, disgraced knight and Prince Hal's good pal) turns to his Page and asks what the doctor had to say about his recent urine sample.

The Page says the urine was fine but the doctor thinks Falstaff, the owner of the urine, probably has more diseases than he can diagnose.

FALSTAFF Men of all sorts take a pride to gird at me.
The brain of this foolish-compounded clay, man, is
not able to invent anything that intends to laughter
more than I invent, or is invented on me. I am not
only witty in myself, but the cause that wit is in 10
other men. I do here walk before thee like a sow
that hath overwhelmed all her litter but one. If the
Prince put thee into my service for any other reason
than to set me off, why then I have no judgment.
Thou whoreson mandrake, thou art fitter to be 15
worn in my cap than to wait at my heels. I was never
manned with an agate till now, but I will inset you
neither in gold nor silver, but in vile apparel, and
send you back again to your master for a jewel. The
juvenal, the Prince your master, whose chin is not 20
yet fledge—I will sooner have a beard grow in the
palm of my hand than he shall get one off his cheek,
and yet he will not stick to say his face is a face
royal. God may finish it when He will. ’Tis not a hair
amiss yet. He may keep it still at a face royal, for a 25
barber shall never earn sixpence out of it, and yet
he’ll be crowing as if he had writ man ever since his
father was a bachelor. He may keep his own grace,
but he’s almost out of mine, I can assure him. What
said Master Dommelton about the satin for my 30
short cloak and my slops?

Falstaff's not amused by the saucy little Page. Falstaff turns to the Page and says that lots of men try to make fun of him but they're all chumps compared to him, Falstaff, the heavy weight champion of trash talk.

He's so good, in fact, that his mad trash talking skills actually rub off on other men and make them funnier and wittier than they actually are. (We have to admit, this is completely true.)

Then Falstaff proceeds, in a long speech, to hate on just about the entire world. He starts by bagging on the Page for being so tiny and for not even being fit to wait on him. Falstaff ought to send the Page back to Prince Hal, who has hired the servant as a gift to Falstaff.

Speaking of Prince Hal, Falstaff's not too happy with that young pip-squeak either. Falstaff will probably grow a beard on his hand before the prince ever grows hair on his face, etc, etc.

Falstaff has riled himself up by now and he turns his attention to ragging on that good for nothing tailor, Master Dumbleton, who has recently demanded a guarantee of payment before he'll make Falstaff's new outfit, a snazzy set of satin pants and a cloak that are befitting a knight.

PAGE He said, sir, you should procure him better
assurance than Bardolph. He would not take his
band and yours. He liked not the security.

FALSTAFF Let him be damned like the glutton! Pray 35
God his tongue be hotter! A whoreson Achitophel, a
rascally yea-forsooth knave, to bear a gentleman in
hand and then stand upon security! The whoreson
smoothy-pates do now wear nothing but high shoes
and bunches of keys at their girdles; and if a man is 40
through with them in honest taking up, then they
must stand upon security. I had as lief they would
put ratsbane in my mouth as offer to stop it with
“security.” I looked he should have sent me two-and-twenty
yards of satin, as I am a true knight, and 45
he sends me “security.” Well, he may sleep in
security, for he hath the horn of abundance, and the
lightness of his wife shines through it, and yet
cannot he see though he have his own lantern to
light him. Where’s Bardolph? 50

PAGE He’s gone in Smithfield to buy your Worship a
horse.

Falstaff compares the tailor to the biblical glutton who refused to help the beggar Lazarus, calls him a "whoreson" (a whore's son) and then proceeds to rag on all men who wear their hair short and dress in fashionable clothes.

Who does this guy think he is, demanding a guarantee of payment from Falstaff? Falstaff's a knight and he wants his satin pants, ASAP. Plus, the tailor's wife is cheating on him and everybody knows it but him. And so on.

Falstaff, who must be out of breath by now, asks the Page where his pal Bardolph is. The Page reports that Bardolph has gone to Smithfield to buy Falstaff a horse.

FALSTAFF I bought him in Paul’s, and he’ll buy me a
horse in Smithfield. An I could get me but a wife in
the stews, I were manned, horsed, and wived. 55

Enter Lord Chief Justice and Servant.

PAGE, to Falstaff Sir, here comes the nobleman that
committed the Prince for striking him about
Bardolph.

FALSTAFF Wait close. I will not see him.

They begin to exit.

Falstaff says if only he could buy himself a wife from a brothel, then he'd have a horse, a servant, and a wife. (In other words, he'd be all set.)

Falstaff's Page spots the Lord Chief Justice (LCJ) and warns Falstaff, who turns his back and tries to make himself invisible.

CHIEF JUSTICE, to Servant What’s he that goes there? 60

SERVANT Falstaff, an ’t please your Lordship.

CHIEF JUSTICE He that was in question for the robbery?

SERVANT He, my lord; but he hath since done good
service at Shrewsbury, and, as I hear, is now going
with some charge to the Lord John of Lancaster. 65

CHIEF JUSTICE What, to York? Call him back again.

SERVANT Sir John Falstaff!

FALSTAFF Boy, tell him I am deaf.

PAGE You must speak louder. My master is deaf.

CHIEF JUSTICE I am sure he is, to the hearing of 70
anything good.—Go pluck him by the elbow. I must
speak with him.

SERVANT, plucking Falstaff’s sleeve Sir John!

FALSTAFF What, a young knave and begging? Is there
not wars? Is there not employment? Doth not the 75
King lack subjects? Do not the rebels need soldiers?
Though it be a shame to be on any side but one, it is
worse shame to beg than to be on the worst side,
were it worse than the name of rebellion can tell
how to make it. 80

When the LCJ commands his servant to fetch Falstaff for a little chat, Falstaff pretends to be deaf. That doesn't work so Falstaff pretends he thinks the Servant is a beggar and he complains that all street beggars should be drafted into the king's army to fight in the wars.

SERVANT You mistake me, sir.

FALSTAFF Why sir, did I say you were an honest man?
Setting my knighthood and my soldiership aside, I
had lied in my throat if I had said so.

SERVANT I pray you, sir, then set your knighthood and 85
your soldiership aside, and give me leave to tell you,
you lie in your throat if you say I am any other than
an honest man.

FALSTAFF I give thee leave to tell me so? I lay aside that
which grows to me? If thou gett’st any leave of me, 90
hang me; if thou tak’st leave, thou wert better be
hanged. You hunt counter. Hence! Avaunt!

SERVANT Sir, my lord would speak with you.

CHIEF JUSTICE Sir John Falstaff, a word with you.

FALSTAFF My good lord. God give your Lordship good 95
time of the day. I am glad to see your Lordship
abroad. I heard say your Lordship was sick. I hope
your Lordship goes abroad by advice. Your Lordship,
though not clean past your youth, have yet
some smack of an ague in you, some relish of the 100
saltness of time in you, and I most humbly beseech
your Lordship to have a reverend care of your
health.

The Servant gets all huffy at the insult and finally the LCJ steps in and says enough screwing around – he wants to talk to Falstaff, now.

When Falstaff finally acknowledges the Lord Chief Justice, he sweetly pretends to be concerned about the LCJ's health and makes a big show of acting like he cares about the man's general well-being.

CHIEF JUSTICE Sir John, I sent for you before your
expedition to Shrewsbury. 105

FALSTAFF An ’t please your Lordship, I hear his Majesty
is returned with some discomfort from Wales.

CHIEF JUSTICE I talk not of his Majesty. You would not
come when I sent for you.

FALSTAFF And I hear, moreover, his Highness is fallen 110
into this same whoreson apoplexy.

CHIEF JUSTICE Well, God mend him. I pray you let me
speak with you.

FALSTAFF This apoplexy, as I take it, is a kind of
lethargy, an ’t please your Lordship, a kind of 115
sleeping in the blood, a whoreson tingling.

CHIEF JUSTICE What tell you me of it? Be it as it is.

FALSTAFF It hath it original from much grief, from
study, and perturbation of the brain. I have read the
cause of his effects in Galen. It is a kind of deafness. 120

The Lord Chief Justice isn't having any of Falstaff's shenanigans. He says that he sent for Falstaff a long time ago but Falstaff never showed up. (Back in Henry IV Part 1 Falstaff robbed the king's exchequer but never had to answer to the LCJ for his crime because he went off to war.)

Falstaff tries to change the subject and asks the LCJ how the king is doing these days. Don't even try to change the subject, says the LCJ.

Then Falstaff says he's heard that Prince Hal is paralyzed and begins to ramble about how he read all about this crazy disease in Galen's medical book. (Galen's an ancient Greek physician who wrote a bunch of anatomy and medical texts, which were pretty popular well into the 16th Century.)

CHIEF JUSTICE I think you are fallen into the disease,
for you hear not what I say to you.

FALSTAFF Very well, my lord, very well. Rather, an ’t
please you, it is the disease of not listening, the
malady of not marking, that I am troubled withal. 125

CHIEF JUSTICE To punish you by the heels would amend
the attention of your ears, and I care not if I do
become your physician.

FALSTAFF I am as poor as Job, my lord, but not so
patient. Your Lordship may minister the potion of 130
imprisonment to me in respect of poverty, but how
I should be your patient to follow your prescriptions,
the wise may make some dram of a scruple,
or indeed a scruple itself.

The LCJ says Falstaff must be deaf because he's not listening to him.

Falstaff agrees that he has the disease of not listening and then goes on to compare himself to Job, the biblical figure known for patiently bearing excessive burdens in life.

CHIEF JUSTICE I sent for you, when there were matters 135
against you for your life, to come speak with me.

FALSTAFF As I was then advised by my learned counsel
in the laws of this land-service, I did not come.

CHIEF JUSTICE Well, the truth is, Sir John, you live in
great infamy. 140

FALSTAFF He that buckles himself in my belt cannot
live in less.

CHIEF JUSTICE Your means are very slender, and your
waste is great.

FALSTAFF I would it were otherwise. I would my means 145
were greater and my waist slender.

CHIEF JUSTICE You have misled the youthful prince.

FALSTAFF The young prince hath misled me. I am the
fellow with the great belly, and he my dog.

CHIEF JUSTICE Well, I am loath to gall a new-healed 150
wound. Your day’s service at Shrewsbury hath a
little gilded over your night’s exploit on Gad’s Hill.
You may thank th’ unquiet time for your quiet
o’erposting that action.

The LCJ says Falstaff belongs in the stocks and reminds Falstaff that he sent for him but Falstaff never reported to his office.

Falstaff says he was busy being a war hero, having recently and valiantly served his country at the battle at Shrewsbury.

Then the LCJ chides Falstaff for being in debt, for having corrupted Prince Hal, and for the robbery at Gad's Hill. Falstaff's lucky he served at the battle at Shrewsbury, says the Lord Chief Justice. Otherwise, he'd be in big, big trouble with the law.

FALSTAFF My lord. 155

CHIEF JUSTICE But since all is well, keep it so. Wake not
a sleeping wolf.

FALSTAFF To wake a wolf is as bad as to smell a fox.

CHIEF JUSTICE What, you are as a candle, the better
part burnt out. 160

FALSTAFF A wassail candle, my lord, all tallow. If I did
say of wax, my growth would approve the truth.

CHIEF JUSTICE There is not a white hair in your face but
should have his effect of gravity.

FALSTAFF His effect of gravy, gravy, gravy. 165

CHIEF JUSTICE You follow the young prince up and
down like his ill angel.

FALSTAFF Not so, my lord. Your ill angel is light, but I
hope he that looks upon me will take me without
weighing. And yet in some respects I grant I cannot 170
go. I cannot tell. Virtue is of so little regard in these
costermongers’ times that true valor is turned bearherd;
pregnancy is made a tapster, and hath his
quick wit wasted in giving reckonings. All the other
gifts appurtenant to man, as the malice of this age 175
shapes them, are not worth a gooseberry. You that
are old consider not the capacities of us that are
young. You do measure the heat of our livers with
the bitterness of your galls, and we that are in the
vaward of our youth, I must confess, are wags too. 180

CHIEF JUSTICE Do you set down your name in the scroll
of youth, that are written down old with all the
characters of age? Have you not a moist eye, a dry
hand, a yellow cheek, a white beard, a decreasing
leg, an increasing belly? Is not your voice broken, 185
your wind short, your chin double, your wit single,
and every part about you blasted with antiquity?
And will you yet call yourself young? Fie, fie, fie, Sir
John.

FALSTAFF My lord, I was born about three of the clock 190
in the afternoon, with a white head and something
a round belly. For my voice, I have lost it with
halloing and singing of anthems. To approve my
youth further, I will not. The truth is, I am only old
in judgment and understanding. And he that will 195
caper with me for a thousand marks, let him lend
me the money, and have at him. For the box of the
ear that the Prince gave you, he gave it like a rude
prince, and you took it like a sensible lord. I have
checked him for it, and the young lion repents. 200
Aside. Marry, not in ashes and sackcloth, but in
new silk and old sack.

CHIEF JUSTICE Well, God send the Prince a better
companion.

FALSTAFF God send the companion a better prince. I 205
cannot rid my hands of him.

Falstaff insults the LCJ back by reminding him of the time Prince Hal gave him a box on the ears. (In other words, the LCJ is a chump.)

Hmph. The LCJ says he wishes God would send the prince a better companion.

Falstaff wittily retorts that he wishes God would send him, Falstaff, a better companion because he just can't seem to get rid of Hal, who's kind of a pest.

CHIEF JUSTICE Well, the King hath severed you and
Prince Harry. I hear you are going with Lord John
of Lancaster against the Archbishop and the Earl of
Northumberland. 210

FALSTAFF Yea, I thank your pretty sweet wit for it. But
look you pray, all you that kiss my Lady Peace at
home, that our armies join not in a hot day, for, by
the Lord, I take but two shirts out with me, and I
mean not to sweat extraordinarily. If it be a hot day 215
and I brandish anything but a bottle, I would I
might never spit white again. There is not a dangerous
action can peep out his head but I am thrust
upon it. Well, I cannot last ever. But it was always
yet the trick of our English nation, if they have a 220
good thing, to make it too common. If you will
needs say I am an old man, you should give me rest.
I would to God my name were not so terrible to the
enemy as it is. I were better to be eaten to death
with a rust than to be scoured to nothing with 225
perpetual motion.

Oh yeah, says the LCJ. He heard that the king has separated Falstaff from Hal and that Falstaff is going with Prince John to fight the Archbishop of York's rebel army.

That's right, replies Falstaff. You guys who stay at home should say a prayer for us soldiers. Falstaff goes on to waffle that he wishes the enemy soldiers weren't so afraid of him.

CHIEF JUSTICE Well, be honest, be honest, and God
bless your expedition.

FALSTAFF Will your Lordship lend me a thousand
pound to furnish me forth? 230

CHIEF JUSTICE Not a penny, not a penny. You are too
impatient to bear crosses. Fare you well. Commend
me to my cousin Westmoreland.

Lord Chief Justice and his Servant exit.

Falstaff, who is totally out of control and belligerent, then asks to borrow some money and the LCJ refuses.

FALSTAFF If I do, fillip me with a three-man beetle. A
man can no more separate age and covetousness 235
than he can part young limbs and lechery; but the
gout galls the one, and the pox pinches the other,
and so both the degrees prevent my curses.—Boy!

PAGE Sir.

FALSTAFF What money is in my purse? 240

PAGE Seven groats and two pence.

FALSTAFF I can get no remedy against this consumption
of the purse. Borrowing only lingers and lingers
it out, but the disease is incurable. Giving
papers to the Page. Go bear this letter to my Lord 245
of Lancaster, this to the Prince, this to the Earl
of Westmoreland, and this to old Mistress Ursula,
whom I have weekly sworn to marry since I perceived
the first white hair of my chin. About it. You
know where to find me. Page exits. A pox of this 250
gout! Or a gout of this pox, for the one or the other
plays the rogue with my great toe. ’Tis no matter if I
do halt. I have the wars for my color, and my
pension shall seem the more reasonable. A good wit
will make use of anything. I will turn diseases to 255
commodity.

He exits.

After the LCJ departs, Falstaff laments that he's completely broke and compares his debt to being sick with gout (which he says is an old man's disease) and syphilis (which he says is a young man's venereal disease).

In short, Falstaff is having a hard time curing all of his afflictions.
Then Falstaff sends his Page to deliver letters to Prince Hal, Westmoreland, Prince John, and his Mistress (whom Falstaff has been promising to marry).

The Page leaves and Falstaff complains about the serious pain in his big toe. He's not sure if it hurts because of his gout or his syphilis. Either way, he's planning to blame his pain on a battle injury so he can collect a wounded soldier's pension.

Henry IV Part 2: Act 1, Scene 2 Translation

A side-by-side translation of Act 1, Scene 2 of Henry IV Part 2 from the original Shakespeare into modern English.

Original Text

Translated Text

Tired of ads?