SUMMARY
{Falstaff banters with the ever critical
Chief Justice of the King's bench.}

You that are old consider not the capacities of us
that are young; you measure the heat of our livers
with the bitterness of your galls; and we that are
in the vaward of our youth, I must confess, are
wags too.

Ch. Just: Do you set down your name in the scroll of youth…
Fie, fie, fie, Sir John!

My lord, I was born about three of the
clock in the afternoon, with a white head, and
something a round belly. For my voice, I have
lost it with hollaing, and singing of anthems.
To approve my youth further, I will not: the
truth is, I am only old in judgment and under-
standing; and he that will caper with me for a
thousand marks, let him lend me the money,
and have at him! For the box o' the ear that
the prince gave you, he gave it like a rude prince,
and you took it like a sensible lord. I have
checked him for it, and the young lion repents;
marry, not in ashes and sackcloth, but in new
silk and old sack...

Ch. Just: Well, the king hath severed you
and Prince Harry. I hear you are going with
Lord John of Lancaster against the archbishop
and the Earl of Northumberland.

Yea; I thank your pretty sweet wit for
it. But look you pray, all you that kiss my lady
Peace at home, that our armies join not in a hot
day; for, by the Lord, I take but two shirts out
with me, and I mean not to sweat extraordinarily:
if it be a hot day, and I brandish anything but
my bottle, I would I might never spit white again.
There is not a dangerous action can peep out
his head but I am thrust upon it. Well, I can-
not last ever. But it was always yet the trick of
our English nation, if they have a good thing, to
make it too common. If you will needs say I am
an old man, you should give me rest. I would to
God my name were not so terrible to the enemy
as it is: I were better to be eaten to death with rust
than to be scoured to nothing with perpetual motion.