**PRINCE HAL** Before God, I am exceedi...

PRINCE HAL 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 HAL Faith, it does me; though it discolours the

complexion of my greatness to acknowledge it. Doth

it 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.

PRINCE HAL Belike then my appetite was not princely got; for,

by my troth, I do now remember the poor 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 to-morrow! or to

take note how many pair of silk stockings thou

hast, viz. these, and those that were thy

peach-coloured 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; as thou hast not done

a great while, because the rest of thy 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 fault;

whereupon the world increases, and kindreds are

mightily strengthened.

POINS How ill it follows, after you have laboured so hard,

you should talk so idly! Tell me, how many good

young princes would do so, their fathers being so

sick as yours at this time is?

PRINCE HAL Shall I tell thee one thing, Poins?

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

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

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

PRINCE HAL Marry, I tell thee, it is not meet that I should be

sad, now my father is sick: albeit I could tell

thee, as to one it pleases me, for fault of a

better, to call my friend, I could be sad, and sad

indeed too.

POINS Very hardly upon such a subject.

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

POINS I would think thee a most princely hypocrite.

PRINCE HAL 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 road-way

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.

PRINCE HAL And to thee.

POINS By this light, I am well spoke on; I can hear it

with my 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

confess, I cannot help.

William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part Two, http://shakespeare.mit.edu/2henryiv/2henryiv.2.2.html