Lan. Send Colevile with his confederates[4123]70
To York, to present execution:
Blunt, lead him hence; and see you guard him sure.
[Exeunt Blunt and others with Colevile.[4124]
And now dispatch we toward the court, my lords:
I hear the king my father is sore sick:
Our news shall go before us to his majesty,75
Which, cousin, you shall bear to comfort him;
And we with sober speed will follow you.
Fal. My lord, I beseech you, give me leave to go[4125][4126]
Through Gloucestershire: and, when you come to court,[4125]
Stand my good lord, pray, in your good report.[4125][4127]80
Lan. Fare you well, Falstaff: I, in my condition,[4128]
Shall better speak of you than you deserve.[4128]
[Exeunt all except Falstaff.[4129]
Fal. I would you had but the wit: 'twere better than[4130]
your dukedom. Good faith, this same young sober-blooded
boy doth not love me; nor a man cannot make him laugh;[4131]85
but that's no marvel, he drinks no wine. There's never none[4132]
of these demure boys come to any proof; for thin drink doth[4133]
so over-cool their blood, and making many fish-meals, that[4133]
they fall into a kind of male green-sickness; and then, when
they marry, they get wenches: they are generally fools and90
cowards; which some of us should be too, but for inflammation.
A good sherris-sack hath a two-fold operation in it. It
ascends me into the brain; dries me there all the foolish and[4134]
dull and crudy vapours which environ it; makes it apprehensive,[4134][4135]
quick, forgetive, full of nimble fiery and delectable95
shapes; which, delivered o'er to the voice, the tongue, which[4136]
is the birth, becomes excellent wit. The second property of[4137]
your excellent sherris is, the warming of the blood; which,
before cold and settled, left the liver white and pale, which
is the badge of pusillanimity and cowardice; but the sherris100
warms it and makes it course from the inwards to the parts
extreme: it illumineth the face, which as a beacon gives[4138]
warning to all the rest of this little kingdom, man, to arm;
and then the vital commoners and inland petty spirits muster
me all to their captain, the heart, who, great and puffed105
up with this retinue, doth any deed of courage; and this[4139]
valour comes of sherris. So that skill in the weapon is
nothing without sack, for that sets it a-work; and learning
a mere hoard of gold kept by a devil, till sack commences[4140]
it and sets it in act and use. Hereof comes it that Prince110
Harry is valiant; for the cold blood he did naturally inherit
of his father, he hath, like lean sterile and bare land,
manured, husbanded and tilled with excellent endeavour
of drinking good and good store of fertile sherris, that he
is become very hot and valiant. If I had a thousand sons,115
the first humane principle I would teach them should be, to[4141]
forswear thin potations, and to addict themselves to sack.
Enter Bardolph.[4142]
How now, Bardolph?
Bard. The army is discharged all and gone.