Henry IV Part 2: Act 2, Scene 2 Translation

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

Original Text	Translated Text
Source: Folger Shakespeare Library
Enter the Prince and Poins. PRINCE Before God, I am exceeding weary. POINS Is ’t come to that? I had thought weariness durst not have attached one of so high blood. PRINCE Faith, it does me, though it discolors the complexion of my greatness to acknowledge it. Doth it 5 not show vilely in me to desire small beer? POINS Why, a prince should not be so loosely studied as to remember so weak a composition.	At the prince's bachelor pad in London, Hal and his buddy, Ned Poins, chill out and shoot the breeze. Prince Hal complains that he's exhausted and Poins teases that he thought guys with royal blood didn't get tired. Hal says that, embarrassingly, he gets tired a lot. Then he asks Poins if he thinks he, Hal, is a chump for craving the taste of "small beer." FYI: "Small beer" (cheap, light beer) is the kind of thing that commoners, not royalty, usually drink. In other words, Hal has developed a taste for his Eastcheap lifestyle and he's worried that he's becoming too much like the commoners.
PRINCE Belike then my appetite was not princely got, for, by my troth, I do now remember the poor 10 creature small beer. But indeed these humble considerations make me out of love with my greatness. What a disgrace is it to me to remember thy name, or to know thy face tomorrow, or to take note how many pair of silk stockings thou hast—with these, 15 and those that were thy peach-colored ones—or to bear the inventory of thy shirts, as, one for superfluity and another for use. But that the tennis-court keeper knows better than I, for it is a low ebb of linen with thee when thou keepest not racket there, 20 as thou hast not done a great while, because the rest of the low countries have made a shift to eat up thy holland; and God knows whether those that bawl out the ruins of thy linen shall inherit His kingdom; but the midwives say the children are not in the 25 fault, whereupon the world increases and kindreds are mightily strengthened.	In fact, says Hal, he shouldn't even be hanging out with Poins because he, Hal, is a prince, whereas Poins is a guy who has spent all his cash in the brothels and has fathered a bunch of illegitimate children.
POINS How ill it follows, after you have labored so hard, you should talk so idly! Tell me, how many good young princes would do so, their fathers being 30 so sick as yours at this time is? PRINCE Shall I tell thee one thing, Poins? POINS Yes, faith, and let it be an excellent good thing. PRINCE It shall serve among wits of no higher breeding than thine. 35 POINS Go to. I stand the push of your one thing that you will tell. PRINCE Marry, I tell thee it is not meet that I should be sad, now my father is sick—albeit I could tell to thee, as to one it pleases me, for fault of a better, to 40 call my friend, I could be sad, and sad indeed too. POINS Very hardly, upon such a subject. PRINCE By this hand, thou thinkest me as far in the devil’s book as thou and Falstaff for obduracy and persistency. Let the end try the man. But I tell thee, 45 my heart bleeds inwardly that my father is so sick; and keeping such vile company as thou art hath in reason taken from me all ostentation of sorrow. POINS The reason? PRINCE What wouldst thou think of me if I should 50 weep? POINS I would think thee a most princely hypocrite. PRINCE It would be every man’s thought, and thou art a blessed fellow to think as every man thinks. Never a man’s thought in the world keeps the roadway 55 better than thine. Every man would think me an hypocrite indeed. And what accites your most worshipful thought to think so? POINS Why, because you have been so lewd and so much engraffed to Falstaff. 60 PRINCE And to thee. POINS By this light, I am well spoke on. I can hear it with mine own ears. The worst that they can say of me is that I am a second brother, and that I am a proper fellow of my hands; and those two things, I 65 confess, I cannot help. By the Mass, here comes Bardolph.	Poins plays along and points out that it's most unbecoming for a Prince to even talk of such things, especially when his father, the king, is so sick right now. Hal confesses that he can't reveal to anyone just how sad he is that his father is ill. He would look like a hypocrite if he wept because he's spent so much of his youth rebelling against his dad and thumbing his nose at authority.
Enter Bardolph and Page. PRINCE And the boy that I gave Falstaff. He had him from me Christian, and look if the fat villain have not transformed him ape. 70 BARDOLPH God save your Grace. PRINCE And yours, most noble Bardolph. POINS, to Bardolph Come, you virtuous ass, you bashful fool, must you be blushing? Wherefore blush you now? What a maidenly man-at-arms are you 75 become! Is ’t such a matter to get a pottle-pot’s maidenhead?	Bardolph and Falstaff's Page enter and the guys immediately fall into a familiar routine of horsing around and volleying insults at each other. Poins, for example, bags on Bardolph's notoriously red face and then accuses him of blushing like a girl. According to Poins, what Bardolph should be doing (instead of blushing) is chugging beer and sleeping with virgins. (Don't get mad at us. This is how they really talk.)
PAGE He calls me e’en now, my lord, through a red lattice, and I could discern no part of his face from the window. At last I spied his eyes, and methought 80 he had made two holes in the ale-wife’s new petticoat and so peeped through. PRINCE Has not the boy profited? BARDOLPH, to Page Away, you whoreson upright rabbit, away! 85 PAGE Away, you rascally Althea’s dream, away! PRINCE Instruct us, boy. What dream, boy? PAGE Marry, my lord, Althea dreamt she was delivered of a firebrand, and therefore I call him her dream. PRINCE A crown’s worth of good interpretation. There 90 ’tis, boy. He gives the Page money. POINS O, that this good blossom could be kept from cankers! Well, there is sixpence to preserve thee. He gives the Page money.	The Page joins in on the fun and cracks a joke about Bardolph's red face and Prince Hal notes that Falstaff has definitely rubbed off on the kid because the Page is quite a smart aleck. Hal gives the Page some money as a reward for being so clever with his insults. Poins gives the Page some money too and jokes that he hopes the extra cash will help prevent the young Page from being corrupted (i.e., by Falstaff's company, venereal disease, etc.). It won't, of course.
BARDOLPH An you do not make him be hanged among you, the gallows shall have wrong. 95 PRINCE And how doth thy master, Bardolph? BARDOLPH Well, my good lord. He heard of your Grace’s coming to town. There’s a letter for you. He gives the Prince a paper. POINS Delivered with good respect. And how doth the Martlemas your master? 100 BARDOLPH In bodily health, sir. POINS Marry, the immortal part needs a physician, but that moves not him. Though that be sick, it dies not. PRINCE I do allow this wen to be as familiar with me as my dog, and he holds his place, for look you how he 105 writes. He shows the letter to Poins. POINS reads the superscription John Falstaff, knight. Every man must know that as oft as he has occasion to name himself, even like those that are kin to the King, for they never prick their finger but they say 110 “There’s some of the King’s blood spilt.” “How comes that?” says he that takes upon him not to conceive. The answer is as ready as a borrower’s cap: “I am the King’s poor cousin, sir.” PRINCE Nay, they will be kin to us, or they will fetch it 115 from Japheth. But to the letter: Reads. Sir John Falstaff, knight, to the son of the King nearest his father, Harry Prince of Wales, greeting. POINS Why, this is a certificate. PRINCE Peace! 120 Reads. I will imitate the honorable Romans in brevity. POINS He sure means brevity in breath, short-winded. PRINCE reads I commend me to thee, I commend thee, and I leave thee. Be not too familiar with Poins, for he 125 misuses thy favors so much that he swears thou art to marry his sister Nell. Repent at idle times as thou mayst, and so farewell. Thine by yea and no, which is as much as to say, as thou usest him, 130 Jack Falstaff with my familiars, John with my brothers and sisters, and Sir John with all Europe.	Bardolph gives Prince Hal a letter. The letter's from Falstaff and it's obnoxious so, the guys take turns passing it around and reading it aloud so they can mock the contents of the letter. Poins bags on the pretentious Falstaff for always referring to himself as a knight and then Hal reads a part of the letter that warns the prince not to hang out with Poins because Poins has been telling everyone that Hal is going to marry his sister.
POINS My lord, I’ll steep this letter in sack and make him eat it. 135 PRINCE That’s to make him eat twenty of his words. But do you use me thus, Ned? Must I marry your sister? POINS God send the wench no worse fortune! But I never said so. 140 PRINCE Well, thus we play the fools with the time, and the spirits of the wise sit in the clouds and mock us. To Bardolph. Is your master here in London? BARDOLPH Yea, my lord. PRINCE Where sups he? Doth the old boar feed in the 145 old frank? BARDOLPH At the old place, my lord, in Eastcheap. PRINCE What company? PAGE Ephesians, my lord, of the old church. PRINCE Sup any women with him? 150 PAGE None, my lord, but old Mistress Quickly and Mistress Doll Tearsheet. PRINCE What pagan may that be? PAGE A proper gentlewoman, sir, and a kinswoman of my master’s. 155 PRINCE Even such kin as the parish heifers are to the town bull.—Shall we steal upon them, Ned, at supper?	Poins is ticked off – he threatens to dip the letter in wine and then shove it down Falstaff's throat. He never said the prince would marry his sister. Hal says this is all a big waste of time and asks where Falstaff is hanging out that night. When he learns that Falstaff's having dinner at the Boar's Head tavern, with Mistress Quickly and Doll Tearsheet, he decides that he and Poins should pay a surprise visit to Falstaff.
POINS I am your shadow, my lord. I’ll follow you. PRINCE Sirrah—you, boy—and Bardolph, no word to 160 your master that I am yet come to town. There’s for your silence. He gives money. BARDOLPH I have no tongue, sir. PAGE And for mine, sir, I will govern it. PRINCE Fare you well. Go. Bardolph and Page exit. 165 This Doll Tearsheet should be some road. POINS I warrant you, as common as the way between Saint Albans and London.	Hal gives the Page and Bardolph some money so they'll keep their mouths shut about Hal visiting the tavern – that way, he can spy on Falstaff. Then Hal and Poins crack jokes about Doll Tearsheet, who Hal says, must be "some road." Translation: Doll Tearsheet must be a prostitute. Poins chimes in that Doll Tearsheet is a well-travelled "road" at that.
PRINCE How might we see Falstaff bestow himself tonight in his true colors, and not ourselves be 170 seen? POINS Put on two leathern jerkins and aprons, and wait upon him at his table as drawers. PRINCE From a god to a bull: a heavy descension. It was Jove’s case. From a prince to a ’prentice: a low 175 transformation that shall be mine, for in everything the purpose must weigh with the folly. Follow me, Ned. They exit.	Poins and Hal decide to go to the Boar's Head Tavern and dress up like waiters so they can spy on Falstaff. It'll be tons of fun to see how the old man acts when he doesn't know they're there. Prince Hal says that when he dresses up like a lowly waiter, it will be like Jove transforming himself into a bull. (Hmm. Jove's the guy who turned himself into a bull right before he raped Europa.)

Original Text

Translated Text

Enter the Prince and Poins.

PRINCE Before God, I am exceeding weary.

POINS Is ’t come to that? I had thought weariness durst
not have attached one of so high blood.

PRINCE Faith, it does me, though it discolors the complexion
of my greatness to acknowledge it. Doth it 5
not show vilely in me to desire small beer?

POINS Why, a prince should not be so loosely studied
as to remember so weak a composition.

At the prince's bachelor pad in London, Hal and his buddy, Ned Poins, chill out and shoot the breeze.
Prince Hal complains that he's exhausted and Poins teases that he thought guys with royal blood didn't get tired.

Hal says that, embarrassingly, he gets tired a lot. Then he asks Poins if he thinks he, Hal, is a chump for craving the taste of "small beer."

FYI: "Small beer" (cheap, light beer) is the kind of thing that commoners, not royalty, usually drink. In other words, Hal has developed a taste for his Eastcheap lifestyle and he's worried that he's becoming too much like the commoners.

PRINCE Belike then my appetite was not princely got,
for, by my troth, I do now remember the poor 10
creature small beer. But indeed these humble considerations
make me out of love with my greatness.
What a disgrace is it to me to remember thy name,
or to know thy face tomorrow, or to take note how
many pair of silk stockings thou hast—with these, 15
and those that were thy peach-colored ones—or to
bear the inventory of thy shirts, as, one for superfluity
and another for use. But that the tennis-court
keeper knows better than I, for it is a low ebb of
linen with thee when thou keepest not racket there, 20
as thou hast not done a great while, because the rest
of the low countries have made a shift to eat up thy
holland; and God knows whether those that bawl
out the ruins of thy linen shall inherit His kingdom;
but the midwives say the children are not in the 25
fault, whereupon the world increases and kindreds
are mightily strengthened.

In fact, says Hal, he shouldn't even be hanging out with Poins because he, Hal, is a prince, whereas Poins is a guy who has spent all his cash in the brothels and has fathered a bunch of illegitimate children.

POINS How ill it follows, after you have labored so
hard, you should talk so idly! Tell me, how many
good young princes would do so, their fathers being 30
so sick as yours at this time is?

PRINCE Shall I tell thee one thing, Poins?

POINS Yes, faith, and let it be an excellent good thing.

PRINCE It shall serve among wits of no higher breeding
than thine. 35

POINS Go to. I stand the push of your one thing that
you will tell.

PRINCE Marry, I tell thee it is not meet that I should be
sad, now my father is sick—albeit I could tell to
thee, as to one it pleases me, for fault of a better, to 40
call my friend, I could be sad, and sad indeed too.

POINS Very hardly, upon such a subject.

PRINCE By this hand, thou thinkest me as far in the
devil’s book as thou and Falstaff for obduracy and
persistency. Let the end try the man. But I tell thee, 45
my heart bleeds inwardly that my father is so sick;
and keeping such vile company as thou art hath in
reason taken from me all ostentation of sorrow.

POINS The reason?

PRINCE What wouldst thou think of me if I should 50
weep?

POINS I would think thee a most princely hypocrite.

PRINCE It would be every man’s thought, and thou art
a blessed fellow to think as every man thinks. Never
a man’s thought in the world keeps the roadway 55
better than thine. Every man would think me an
hypocrite indeed. And what accites your most worshipful
thought to think so?

POINS Why, because you have been so lewd and so
much engraffed to Falstaff. 60

PRINCE And to thee.

POINS By this light, I am well spoke on. I can hear it
with mine own ears. The worst that they can say of
me is that I am a second brother, and that I am a
proper fellow of my hands; and those two things, I 65
confess, I cannot help. By the Mass, here comes
Bardolph.

Poins plays along and points out that it's most unbecoming for a Prince to even talk of such things, especially when his father, the king, is so sick right now.

Hal confesses that he can't reveal to anyone just how sad he is that his father is ill. He would look like a hypocrite if he wept because he's spent so much of his youth rebelling against his dad and thumbing his nose at authority.

Enter Bardolph and Page.

PRINCE And the boy that I gave Falstaff. He had him
from me Christian, and look if the fat villain have
not transformed him ape. 70

BARDOLPH God save your Grace.

PRINCE And yours, most noble Bardolph.

POINS, to Bardolph Come, you virtuous ass, you bashful
fool, must you be blushing? Wherefore blush
you now? What a maidenly man-at-arms are you 75
become! Is ’t such a matter to get a pottle-pot’s
maidenhead?

Bardolph and Falstaff's Page enter and the guys immediately fall into a familiar routine of horsing around and volleying insults at each other.

Poins, for example, bags on Bardolph's notoriously red face and then accuses him of blushing like a girl. According to Poins, what Bardolph should be doing (instead of blushing) is chugging beer and sleeping with virgins. (Don't get mad at us. This is how they really talk.)

PAGE He calls me e’en now, my lord, through a red
lattice, and I could discern no part of his face from
the window. At last I spied his eyes, and methought 80
he had made two holes in the ale-wife’s new
petticoat and so peeped through.

PRINCE Has not the boy profited?

BARDOLPH, to Page Away, you whoreson upright rabbit,
away! 85

PAGE Away, you rascally Althea’s dream, away!

PRINCE Instruct us, boy. What dream, boy?

PAGE Marry, my lord, Althea dreamt she was delivered
of a firebrand, and therefore I call him her dream.

PRINCE A crown’s worth of good interpretation. There 90
’tis, boy.

He gives the Page money.

POINS O, that this good blossom could be kept from
cankers! Well, there is sixpence to preserve thee.

He gives the Page money.

The Page joins in on the fun and cracks a joke about Bardolph's red face and Prince Hal notes that Falstaff has definitely rubbed off on the kid because the Page is quite a smart aleck.

Hal gives the Page some money as a reward for being so clever with his insults.

Poins gives the Page some money too and jokes that he hopes the extra cash will help prevent the young Page from being corrupted (i.e., by Falstaff's company, venereal disease, etc.). It won't, of course.

BARDOLPH An you do not make him be hanged among
you, the gallows shall have wrong. 95

PRINCE And how doth thy master, Bardolph?

BARDOLPH Well, my good lord. He heard of your
Grace’s coming to town. There’s a letter for you.

He gives the Prince a paper.

POINS Delivered with good respect. And how doth the
Martlemas your master? 100

BARDOLPH In bodily health, sir.

POINS Marry, the immortal part needs a physician, but
that moves not him. Though that be sick, it dies not.

PRINCE I do allow this wen to be as familiar with me as
my dog, and he holds his place, for look you how he 105
writes. He shows the letter to Poins.

POINS reads the superscription John Falstaff, knight.
Every man must know that as oft as he has occasion
to name himself, even like those that are kin to the
King, for they never prick their finger but they say 110
“There’s some of the King’s blood spilt.” “How
comes that?” says he that takes upon him not to
conceive. The answer is as ready as a borrower’s
cap: “I am the King’s poor cousin, sir.”

PRINCE Nay, they will be kin to us, or they will fetch it 115
from Japheth. But to the letter: Reads. Sir John
Falstaff, knight, to the son of the King nearest his
father, Harry Prince of Wales, greeting.

POINS Why, this is a certificate.

PRINCE Peace! 120

Reads. I will imitate the honorable Romans in
brevity.

POINS He sure means brevity in breath, short-winded.

PRINCE reads I commend me to thee, I commend thee,
and I leave thee. Be not too familiar with Poins, for he 125
misuses thy favors so much that he swears thou art to
marry his sister Nell. Repent at idle times as thou
mayst, and so farewell.
Thine by yea and no, which is as much as
to say, as thou usest him, 130
Jack Falstaff with my familiars,
John with my brothers and sisters, and
Sir John with all Europe.

Bardolph gives Prince Hal a letter.

The letter's from Falstaff and it's obnoxious so, the guys take turns passing it around and reading it aloud so they can mock the contents of the letter.

Poins bags on the pretentious Falstaff for always referring to himself as a knight and then Hal reads a part of the letter that warns the prince not to hang out with Poins because Poins has been telling everyone that Hal is going to marry his sister.

POINS My lord, I’ll steep this letter in sack and make
him eat it. 135

PRINCE That’s to make him eat twenty of his words.
But do you use me thus, Ned? Must I marry your
sister?

POINS God send the wench no worse fortune! But I
never said so. 140

PRINCE Well, thus we play the fools with the time, and
the spirits of the wise sit in the clouds and mock us.
To Bardolph. Is your master here in London?

BARDOLPH Yea, my lord.

PRINCE Where sups he? Doth the old boar feed in the 145
old frank?

BARDOLPH At the old place, my lord, in Eastcheap.

PRINCE What company?

PAGE Ephesians, my lord, of the old church.

PRINCE Sup any women with him? 150

PAGE None, my lord, but old Mistress Quickly and
Mistress Doll Tearsheet.

PRINCE What pagan may that be?

PAGE A proper gentlewoman, sir, and a kinswoman of
my master’s. 155

PRINCE Even such kin as the parish heifers are to the
town bull.—Shall we steal upon them, Ned, at
supper?

Poins is ticked off – he threatens to dip the letter in wine and then shove it down Falstaff's throat. He never said the prince would marry his sister. Hal says this is all a big waste of time and asks where Falstaff is hanging out that night.

When he learns that Falstaff's having dinner at the Boar's Head tavern, with Mistress Quickly and Doll Tearsheet, he decides that he and Poins should pay a surprise visit to Falstaff.

POINS I am your shadow, my lord. I’ll follow you.

PRINCE Sirrah—you, boy—and Bardolph, no word to 160
your master that I am yet come to town. There’s for
your silence. He gives money.

BARDOLPH I have no tongue, sir.

PAGE And for mine, sir, I will govern it.

PRINCE Fare you well. Go. Bardolph and Page exit. 165
This Doll Tearsheet should be some road.

POINS I warrant you, as common as the way between
Saint Albans and London.

Hal gives the Page and Bardolph some money so they'll keep their mouths shut about Hal visiting the tavern – that way, he can spy on Falstaff.

Then Hal and Poins crack jokes about Doll Tearsheet, who Hal says, must be "some road." Translation: Doll Tearsheet must be a prostitute.

Poins chimes in that Doll Tearsheet is a well-travelled "road" at that.

PRINCE How might we see Falstaff bestow himself
tonight in his true colors, and not ourselves be 170
seen?

POINS Put on two leathern jerkins and aprons, and
wait upon him at his table as drawers.

PRINCE From a god to a bull: a heavy descension. It
was Jove’s case. From a prince to a ’prentice: a low 175
transformation that shall be mine, for in everything
the purpose must weigh with the folly. Follow me,
Ned.

They exit.

Poins and Hal decide to go to the Boar's Head Tavern and dress up like waiters so they can spy on Falstaff. It'll be tons of fun to see how the old man acts when he doesn't know they're there.

Prince Hal says that when he dresses up like a lowly waiter, it will be like Jove transforming himself into a bull. (Hmm. Jove's the guy who turned himself into a bull right before he raped Europa.)

Henry IV Part 2: Act 2, Scene 2 Translation

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

Original Text

Translated Text

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