He has no qualms of
conscience, and therefore would as soon talk of them as of anything
else when the humour takes him.
Falstaff. But Hal, I pr'ythee trouble me no more with vanity. I
would to God thou and I knew where a commodity of good names were to
be bought: an old lord of council rated me the other day in the
street about you, sir; but I mark'd him not, and yet he talked very
wisely, and in the street too.
P. Henry. Thou didst well, for wisdom cries out in the street, and
no man regards it.
Falstaff. O, thou hast damnable iteration, and art indeed able to
corrupt a saint. Thou hast done much harm unto me, Hal; God forgive
thee for it. Before I knew thee, Hal, I knew nothing, and now I am,
if a man should speak truly, little better than one of the wicked. I
must give over this life, and I will give it over, by the lord; an I
do not, I am a villain. I'll be damn'd for never a king's son in
Christendom,
P. Henry. Where shall we take a purse to-morrow. Jack?
Falstaff. Where thou wilt, lad, I'll make one; an I do not, call me
villain, and baffle me.
P. Henry. I see good amendment of life in thee, from praying to
purse-taking.
Falstaff. Why, Hal, 'tis my vocation, Hal. 'Tis no sin for a man to
labour in his vocation.
Of the other prominent passages, his account of his pretended
resistance to the robbers, 'who grew from four men in buckram into
eleven' as the imagination of his own valour increased with his
relating it, his getting off when the truth is discovered by
pretending he knew the Prince, the scene in which in the person of
the old king he lectures the prince and gives himself a good
character, the soliloquy on honour, and description of his new-
raised recruits, his meeting with the chief justice, his abuse of
the Prince and Poins, who overhear him, to Doll Tearsheet, his
reconciliation with Mrs.
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