years? Wherein is he good but to taste sack and
drink it? wherein neat and cleanly but to carve
a capon and cat it? wherein cunning but in
craft? wherein crafty but in villainy? wherein
villainous but in all things? wherein worthy but
in nothing? 512
Fal. I would your Grace would take me with
you: whom means your Grace?
Prince. That villainous abominable misleader
of youth, Falstaff, that old white-bearded Satan.
Fal. My lord, the man I know. 517
Prince. I know thou dost.
Fal. But to say I know more harm in him
than in myself were to say more than I know.
That he is old, the more the pity, his white
hairs do witness it; but that he is, saving your
reverence, a whoremaster, that I utterly deny.
If sack and sugar be a fault, God help the
wicked! If to be old and merry be a sin, then
many an old host that I know is damned: if to
be fat be to be hated, then Pharaoh's lean kine
are to be loved. No, my good lord; banish Peto,
banish Bardolph, banish Poins; but for sweet
Jack Falstaff, kind Jack Falstaff, true Jack Fal-
staff, valiant Jack Falstaff, and therefore more
valiant, being, as he is, old Jack Falstaff, banish
not him thy Harry's company: banish not him
thy Harry's company: banish plump Jack, and
banish all the world. 535
Prince. I do, I will.
Enter Bardolph, running.
513 take me with you: let me follow your meaning
522 saving . . . reverence: an apologetic phrase introducing a remark that might offend the hearer
527 Cf. n.
