Act 1, Scene 2

London. A street.

[Enter Falstaff, with his Page bearing his sword and buckler.]
Sir John Falstaff
267 Sirrah, you giant, what says the doctor to my water?
Page
268 He said, sir, the water itself was a good healthy water; but,
269 for the party that owed it, he might have moe diseases than he
270 knew for.
Sir John Falstaff
271 Men of all sorts take a pride to gird at me: the brain of
272 this foolish-compounded clay, man, is not able to invent any thing
273 that tends to laughter, more than I invent or is invented on me:
274 I am not only witty in myself, but the cause that wit is in other men.
275 I do here walk before thee like a sow that hath overwhelmed all her
276 litter but one.
277 If the prince put thee into my service for any other reason than to
278 set me off, why then I have no judgement. Thou whoreson mandrake, thou
279 art fitter to be worn in my cap than to wait at my heels. I was never
280 manned with an agate till now: but I will inset you neither in gold nor
281 silver, but in vile apparel, and send you back again to your master, for
282 a jewel,—the juvenal, the prince your master, whose chin is not yet
283 fledged. I will sooner have a beard grow in the palm of my hand than he
284 shall get one on his cheek; and yet he will not stick to say his face is
285 a face-royal: God may finish it when he will, 'tis not a hair amiss yet:
286 he may keep it still at a face-royal, for a barber shall never earn
287 sixpence out of it; and yet he'll be crowing as if he had writ man ever
288 since his father was a bachelor. He may keep his own grace, but he's
289 almost out of mine, I can assure him. What said Master Dombledon about
290 the satin for my short cloak and my slops?
Page
291 He said, sir, you should procure him better assurance than Bardolph:
292 he would not take his band and yours; he liked not the security.
Sir John Falstaff
293 Let him be damned, like the glutton! pray God his tongue be hotter!
294 A whoreson Achitophel! a rascally yea-forsooth knave! to bear a
295 gentleman in hand, and then stand upon security! The whoreson
296 smooth-pates do now wear nothing but high shoes, and bunches of keys
297 at their girdles; and if a man is through with them in honest taking
298 up, then they must stand upon security. I had as lief they would
299 put ratsbane in my mouth as offer to stop it with security.
300 I looked 'a should have sent me two and twenty yards of satin, as I
301 am a true knight, and he sends me security. Well, he may sleep in
302 security; for he hath the horn of abundance, and the lightness of
303 his wife shines through it: and yet cannot he see, though he have his
304 own lanthorn to light him. Where's Bardolph?
Page
305 He's gone into Smithfield to buy your worship a horse.
Sir John Falstaff
306 I bought him in Paul's, and he'll buy me a horse in Smithfield:
307 an I could get me but a wife in the stews, I were manned, horsed,
308 and wived.
[Enter the Lord Chief-Justice and Servant.]
Sir John Falstaff
309 PAGE. Sir, here comes the nobleman that committed the Prince for
310 striking him about Bardolph.
Sir John Falstaff
311 Wait close; I will not see him.
Lord Chief Justice
312 What's he that goes there?
Servant
313 Falstaff, an 't please your lordship.
Lord Chief Justice
314 He that was in question for the robbery?
Servant
315 He, my lord; but he hath since done good service at
316 Shrewsbury; and, as I hear, is now going with some charge to the
317 Lord John of Lancaster.
Lord Chief Justice
318 What, to York? Call him back again.
Servant
319 Sir John Falstaff!
Sir John Falstaff
320 Boy, tell him I am deaf.
Page
321 You must speak louder; my master is deaf.
Lord Chief Justice
322 I am sure he is, to the hearing of anything good.
323 Go, pluck him by the elbow; I must speak with him.
Servant
324 Sir John!
Sir John Falstaff
325 What! a young knave, and begging! Is there not wars? is
326 there not employment? doth not the king lack subjects? do not the
327 rebels need soldiers? Though it be a shame to be on any side but
328 one, it is worse shame to beg than to be on the worst side, were
329 it worse than the name of rebellion can tell how to make it.
Servant
330 You mistake me, sir.
Sir John Falstaff
331 Why, sir, did I say you were an honest man? setting my knighthood
332 and my soldiership aside, I had lied in my throat, if I had said so.
Servant
333 I pray you, sir, then set your knighthood and your soldiership aside;
334 and give me leave to tell you, you lie in your throat, if you say I
335 am any other than an honest man.
Sir John Falstaff
336 I give thee leave to tell me so! I lay aside that which grows to me!
337 If thou gettest any leave of me, hang me; if thou takest leave,
338 thou wert better be hanged. You hunt counter: hence! avaunt!
Servant
339 Sir, my lord would speak with you.
Lord Chief Justice
340 Sir John Falstaff, a word with you.
Sir John Falstaff
341 My good lord! God give your lordship good time of day. I am glad to
342 see your lordship abroad: I heard say your lordship was sick:
343 I hope your lordship goes abroad by advice. Your lordship, though
344 not clean past your youth, hath yet some smack of age in you, some
345 relish of the saltness of time; and I most humbly beseech your lordship
346 to have a reverend care of your health.
Lord Chief Justice
347 Sir John, I sent for you before your expedition to Shrewsbury.
Sir John Falstaff
348 An 't please your lordship, I hear his majesty is returned
349 with some discomfort from Wales.
Lord Chief Justice
350 I talk not of his majesty: you would not come when I
351 sent for you.
Sir John Falstaff
352 And I hear, moreover, his highness is fall'n into this same
353 whoreson apoplexy.
Lord Chief Justice
354 Well God mend him! I pray you, let me speak with you.
Sir John Falstaff
355 This apoplexy is, as I take it, a kind of lethargy, an 't please
356 your lordship; a kind of sleeping in the blood, a whoreson tingling.
Lord Chief Justice
357 What tell you me of it? be it as it is.
Sir John Falstaff
358 It hath it original from much grief, from study and perturbation
359 of the brain: I have read the cause of his effects in Galen:
360 it is a kind of deafness.
Lord Chief Justice
361 I think you are fallen into the disease, for you hear not
362 what I say to you.
Sir John Falstaff
363 Very well, my lord, very well: rather, an 't please you, it
364 is the disease of not listening, the malady of not marking, that
365 I am troubled withal.
Lord Chief Justice
366 To punish you by the heels would amend the attention
367 of your ears; and I care not if I do become your physician.
Sir John Falstaff
368 I am as poor as Job, my lord, but not so patient: your lordship
369 may minister the potion of imprisonment to me in respect of poverty;
370 but how I should be your patient to follow your prescriptions,
371 the wise may make some dram of a scruple, or indeed a scruple itself.
Lord Chief Justice
372 I sent for you, when there were matters against you
373 for your life, to come speak with me.
Sir John Falstaff
374 As I was then advised by my learned counsel in the laws
375 of this land-service, I did not come.
Lord Chief Justice
376 Well, the truth is, Sir John, you live in great infamy.
Sir John Falstaff
377 He that buckles himself in my belt cannot live in less.
Lord Chief Justice
378 Your means are very slender, and your waste is great.
Sir John Falstaff
379 I would it were otherwise; I would my means were greater,
380 and my waist slenderer.
Lord Chief Justice
381 You have misled the youthful prince.
Sir John Falstaff
382 The young prince hath misled me: I am the fellow with the
383 great belly, and he my dog.
Lord Chief Justice
384 Well, I am loath to gall a new-healed wound: your day's service
385 at Shrewsbury hath a little gilded over your night's exploit
386 on Gad's-hill: you may thank the unquiet time for your quiet
387 o'er-posting that action.
Sir John Falstaff
388 My lord?
Lord Chief Justice
389 But since all is well, keep it so: wake not a sleeping wolf.
Sir John Falstaff
390 To wake a wolf is as bad as smell a fox.
Lord Chief Justice
391 What! you are as a candle, the better part burnt out.
Sir John Falstaff
392 A wassail candle, my lord, all tallow: if I did say of wax, my
393 growth would approve the truth.
Lord Chief Justice
394 There is not a white hair in your face but should have his
395 effect of gravity.
Sir John Falstaff
396 His effect of gravy, gravy, gravy.
Lord Chief Justice
397 You follow the young prince up and down, like his ill angel.
Sir John Falstaff
398 Not so, my lord; your ill angel is light; but I hope he that looks
399 upon me will take me without weighing: and yet, in some respects,
400 I grant, I cannot go: I cannot tell. Virtue is of so little regard
401 in these costermonger times that true valour is turned bear-herd;
402 pregnancy is made a tapster, and hath his quick wit wasted in giving
403 reckonings: all the other gifts appertinent to man, as the malice of
404 this age shapes them, are not worth a gooseberry. You that are old
405 consider not the capacities of us that are young; you do measure the
406 heat of our livers with the bitterness of your galls: and we that
407 are in the vaward of our youth, I must confess, are wags too.
Lord Chief Justice
408 Do you set down your name in the scroll of youth, that are written
409 down old with all the characters of age? Have you not a moist eye?
410 a dry hand? a yellow cheek? a white beard? a decreasing leg? an
411 increasing belly? is not your voice broken? your wind short? your
412 chin double? your wit single? and every part about you blasted
413 with antiquity? and will you yet call yourself young? Fie, fie,
414 fie, Sir John!
Sir John Falstaff
415 My lord, I was born about three of the clock in the afternoon,
416 with a white head and something a round belly. For my voice, I
417 have lost it with halloing and singing of anthems. To approve my
418 youth further, I will not: the truth is, I am only old in judgement
419 and understanding; and he that will caper with me for a thousand
420 marks, let him lend me the money, and have at him!
421 For the box of the ear that the prince gave you, he gave it like a
422 rude prince, and you took it like a sensible lord. I have checked
423 him for it, and the young lion repents; marry, not in ashes and
424 sackcloth, but in new silk and old sack.
Lord Chief Justice
425 Well, God send the prince a better companion!
Sir John Falstaff
426 God send the companion a better prince! I cannot rid my hands of him.
Lord Chief Justice
427 Well, the king hath severed you and Prince Harry:
428 I hear you are going with Lord John of Lancaster against the
429 Archbishop and the Earl of Northumberland.
Sir John Falstaff
430 Yea; I thank your pretty sweet wit for it. But look you pray, all
431 you that kiss my lady Peace at home, that our armies join not in a
432 hot day; for, by the Lord, I take but two shirts out with me, and I
433 mean not to sweat extraordinarily: if it be a hot day, and I brandish
434 any thing but a bottle, I would I might never spit white again.
435 There is not a dangerous action can peep out his head but I am thrust
436 upon it: well, I cannot last ever: but it was alway yet the trick of
437 our English nation, if they have a good thing, to make it too common.
438 If ye will needs say I am an old man, you should give me rest. I
439 would to God my name were not so terrible to the enemy as it is:
440 I were better to be eaten to death with a rust than to be scoured to
441 nothing with perpetual motion.
Lord Chief Justice
442 Well, be honest, be honest; and God bless your expedition!
Sir John Falstaff
443 Will your lordship lend me a thousand pound to furnish me forth?
Lord Chief Justice
444 Not a penny, not a penny; you are too impatient to bear crosses.
445 Fare you well: commend me to my cousin Westmoreland.
[Exeunt Chief-Justice and Servant.]
Sir John Falstaff
446 If I do, fillip me with a three-man beetle. A man can no more separate
447 age and covetousness than 'a can part young limbs and lechery: but
448 the gout galls the one, and the pox pinches the other; and so both the
449 degrees prevent my curses. Boy!
Page
450 Sir?
Sir John Falstaff
451 What money is in my purse?
Page
452 Seven groats and two pence.
Sir John Falstaff
453 I can get no remedy against this consumption of the purse:
454 borrowing only lingers and lingers it out, but the disease is
455 incurable. Go bear this letter to my Lord of Lancaster; this to the
456 prince; this to the Earl of Westmoreland; and this to old Mistress
457 Ursula, whom I have weekly sworn to marry since I perceived the
458 first white hair of my chin. About it: you know where to find me.
[Exit Page.]
Sir John Falstaff
459 A pox of this gout! or, a gout of this pox! for the one or the other
460 plays the rogue with my great toe. 'Tis no matter if I do halt; I
461 have the wars for my colour, and my pension shall seem the more
462 reasonable. A good wit will make use of any thing: I will turn
463 diseases to commodity.
[Exit.]

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Notes

TLN 267cultural context
“what says the doctor to my water”
Uroscopy — diagnosing illness by examining a patient's urine — was the standard first step in Elizabethan medicine. Falstaff has sent a sample ('his water') to a physician for inspection; the doctor can read color, sediment, and smell for signs of disease. The Page's reply that the patient 'might have moe diseases than he knew for' is an understated verdict on Falstaff's debauchery.
TLN 274rhetorical device
“not only witty in myself, but the cause that wit is in other men”
One of the most quoted lines in Shakespeare: Falstaff claims he is both witty in his own right and the butt whose antics generate wit in those around him. The paradox is carefully constructed — he is the source and the occasion of comedy at once. It is a rare moment of self-aware, near-Aristotelian analysis of his own comic function.
TLN 278cultural context
“whoreson mandrake, thou art fitter to be worn in my cap”
Mandrake roots were forked and vaguely human in shape, sometimes carried as charms or ornaments. Calling the tiny Page a 'mandrake' mocks his small, stunted size — he looks like a mandrake root, not a proper servant. The joke that he should be 'worn in my cap' (like a badge or trinket) reduces him further from a person to a decoration.
historical The shrieking mandrake
TLN 280archaic vocab
“manned with an agate till now”
'Manned' means attended or waited upon by a servant. An 'agate' is a semi-precious stone often carved with tiny human figures — aldermen wore such stones as ring-seals (Mercutio describes Queen Mab as no bigger than 'the agate-stone on the forefinger of an alderman'). Falstaff's joke: his Page is so small he resembles one of these miniature carved figures in a ring, not a real attendant.
TLN 282wordplay
“the juvenal, the prince your master”
'Juvenal' is a pun: it means 'juvenile' (a young person) but also glances at the Roman satirist Juvenal, whose poems mocked vice and folly. Calling Prince Hal a 'juvenal' is Falstaff's double-edged compliment — he is young and naive, but the word also hints that he is a sharp, satirical observer. The play on the satirist's name adds a literary jest for educated audience members.
TLN 285wordplay
“a face-royal: God may finish it when he will”
A triple pun: (1) a 'royal' was a gold coin worth ten shillings — a 'face royal' is thus a face deserving royal respect; (2) since a barber will never earn sixpence from Hal's beardless face, the face can 'remain' at a royal without depreciating (a minted coin keeps its face value); (3) 'face-royal' = a face fit for a king, which the beardless Hal does not yet have. Falstaff is mocking Hal's boyish chin under a flattering title.
TLN 293biblical allusion
“damned, like the glutton! pray God his tongue be hotter! A whoreson Achitophel!”
Two rapid biblical insults. 'The glutton' is Dives from the parable of Dives and Lazarus (Luke 16), tormented in hellfire — Falstaff wishes Dombledon's tongue burned in the same flames. 'Achitophel' (Ahithophel) was King David's counsellor who gave treacherous advice and then hanged himself when it was ignored (2 Samuel 17). Falstaff calls the mercer a treacherous flatterer who raised his hopes then pulled back, just as Ahithophel raised and betrayed Absalom.
biblical Dives and Lazarus
TLN 296historical topical
“smooth-pates do now wear nothing but high shoes, and bunches of keys at their girdles”
'Smooth-pates' are closely-cropped or shaved heads — the Elizabethan look of a respectable citizen tradesman or merchant, as distinct from the long hair of a gentleman. 'High shoes' and 'bunches of keys' are the markers of the prosperous London shopkeeper: raised-soled shoes indicated urban status, and a large bunch of keys at the belt (for shop, storeroom, cash-box) was the emblem of a man with property to lock up. Falstaff is sneering at the merchant class who demand security before extending credit.
TLN 306historical topical
“I bought him in Paul's, and he'll buy me a horse in Smithfield”
St Paul's Cathedral nave ('Paul's Walk') was a notorious public meeting-place and informal employment exchange where servants were hired, goods sold, and business conducted. Smithfield, just outside the city wall, was London's main livestock and horse market. Falstaff jokes that he acquired his small Page from a notoriously low hiring-spot, and Bardolph is now buying him a horse at the equally rough horse-trading ground — and he rounds out the joke by wishing he could find a wife in 'the stews' (the brothels of Southwark), completing the trio of disreputable London localities: servant,
TLN 309historical topical
“the nobleman that committed the Prince for striking him about Bardolph”
The Page recalls a famous anecdote: the Lord Chief Justice once committed (sent to prison) Prince Hal for striking him in open court over some matter involving Bardolph. This story — repeated in Tudor conduct-manuals and chronicles as an example of impartial justice — explains why Falstaff and the Chief Justice are adversaries, and why Falstaff now tries to avoid him. The episode is the backstory behind the entire scene that follows.
historical Prince Hal and the Lord Chief Justice
TLN 338archaic vocab
“You hunt counter: hence! avaunt!”
To 'hunt counter' is a hunting term meaning to follow a scent in the wrong direction — backward along the trail the quarry already took, instead of forward toward where it is going. Falstaff accuses the Servant of running the wrong way (persisting toward someone who will not speak to him). 'Avaunt' is an archaic command to 'go away' or 'begone,' from the French avant. Together the phrase is a contemptuous dismissal: 'you are chasing the wrong scent — get out of here.'
TLN 359classical allusion
“I have read the cause of his effects in Galen”
Galen (Claudius Galenus, c. 129-216 CE) was the Greek physician whose theories dominated European medicine for over 1,400 years. His humoral system — four bodily fluids (blood, phlegm, yellow bile, black bile) whose balance determined health — was still the foundation of Elizabethan medical teaching. Falstaff's absurd claim to have 'read the cause' of the King's apoplexy in Galen is pure bluster: he is performing medical authority he does not have to deflect the Chief Justice's questions.
TLN 368biblical allusion
“I am as poor as Job, my lord, but not so patient”
Job, the central figure of the Old Testament book that bears his name, lost his wealth, health, and family as God tested him, yet endured without cursing God — 'patient Job' became the byword for Christian suffering under affliction. Falstaff's riposte splits the comparison: he shares Job's poverty but pointedly rejects his patience. The joke also deflects the Chief Justice's threat of imprisonment — if he is as poor as Job, what is there to gain by locking him up?
TLN 392archaic vocab
“A wassail candle, my lord, all tallow”
A 'wassail candle' was a large festive candle burned at feast and holiday — bought for celebration, not thrift. 'Tallow' is rendered animal fat, the cheap material for common candles; 'wax' candles were far more expensive and burned more cleanly. The Chief Justice says Falstaff is like a burnt-down candle — his best years gone. Falstaff retorts that he is a tallow candle (fat = Falstaff's own bulk), conceding the point while making a self-deprecating pun on his own corpulence: if he were made of wax, his great 'growth' (his belly) would prove it.
TLN 401archaic vocab
“these costermonger times that true valour is turned bear-herd; pregnancy is made a tapster”
A 'costermonger' was a street-hawker who sold apples and cheap fruit — a byword for the most menial, mercenary trade. 'Costermonger times' = a debased, commercial age with no room for real virtue. A 'bear-herd' was the keeper of a bear used for bear-baiting, a low occupation. 'Pregnancy' here means quick-wittedness or natural cleverness (not pregnancy in the modern sense). A 'tapster' drew ale at a tavern. Falstaff's complaint: in this petty commercial age, courage is reduced to bear-keeping and intelligence to pouring drinks.
TLN 423biblical allusion
“not in ashes and sackcloth, but in new silk and old sack”
Repentance in the Bible was expressed physically by wearing coarse sackcloth, sitting in ashes, and fasting — the standard outward signs of grief and contrition (as in the parable of the Prodigal Son and in the prophets). Falstaff claims the prince has repented for striking the Chief Justice, but not in the prescribed biblical manner — instead he repents in 'new silk' (rich clothes) and 'old sack' (well-aged Spanish wine). The antithesis is both funny and precise: sackcloth vs silk, ashes vs sack.
biblical The Prodigal Son
TLN 444wordplay
“you are too impatient to bear crosses”
A double meaning the Chief Justice delivers straight-faced. 'To bear crosses' means (1) to suffer trials and afflictions patiently — the Christian duty derived from carrying one's cross (Matthew 16:24); and (2) to carry coins, since English pennies and many other coins bore a cross on the reverse. He refuses Falstaff money and simultaneously accuses him of impatience — which Falstaff demonstrated just two scenes ago by his whole speech about being poor as Job but not so patient.
TLN 452cultural context
“Seven groats and two pence”
A groat was a silver coin worth four pence. Seven groats and two pence equals 30 pence, or two shillings and sixpence — a laughably tiny sum for a knight who has just been denied a thousand pounds and has letters to deliver across the kingdom. The specificity of the Page's answer ('seven groats and two pence,' not 'almost nothing') makes the poverty funnier and more humiliating.
TLN 459cultural context
“A pox of this gout! or, a gout of this pox! for the one or the other plays the rogue with my great toe”
Gout (painful joint inflammation, famously of the big toe, linked to rich eating and heavy drinking) and 'the pox' (syphilis, the great venereal epidemic of the 16th century) are the two diseases Falstaff jokes about. He cannot decide which is plaguing his toe — gout from his gluttony, or syphilis from his promiscuity. He then turns even his diseases into a strategic asset: he will claim his limp is a war wound to justify a pension. The passage is the scene's final self-portrait: Falstaff sick, broke, but incorrigibly scheming.