from much grief, from study and
perturbation of the brain: I have read the cause of
his effects in Galen: it is a kind of deafness.
I think you are fallen into the disease; for you
hear not what I say to you.
Very well, my lord, very well: rather, an't please
you, it is the disease of not listening, the malady
of not marking, that I am troubled withal.
To punish you by the heels would amend the
attention of your ears; and I care not if I do
become your physician.
I am as poor as Job, my lord, but not so patient:
your lordship may minister the potion of
imprisonment to me in respect of poverty; but how
should I be your patient to follow your
prescriptions, the wise may make some dram of a
scruple, or indeed a scruple itself.
I sent for you, when there were matters against you
for your life, to come speak with me.
As I was then advised by my learned counsel in the
laws of this land-service, I did not come.
Well, the truth is, Sir John, you live in great infamy.
He that buckles him in my belt cannot live in less.
Your means are very slender, and your waste is great.
I would it were otherwise; I would my means were
greater, and my waist slenderer.
You have misled the youthful prince.
The young prince hath misled me: I am the fellow
with the great belly, and he my dog.
Well, I am loath to gall a new-healed wound: your
day's service at Shrewsbury hath a little gilded
over your night's exploit on Gad's-hill: you may
thank the unquiet time for your quiet o'er-posting
that action.
My lord?
But since all is well, keep it so: wake not a
sleeping wolf.
To wake a wolf is as bad as to smell a fox.
What! you are as a candle, the better part burnt
out.
A wassail candle, my lord, all tallow: if I did say
of wax, my growth would approve the truth.
There is not a white hair on your face but should
have his effect of gravity.
His effect of gravy, gravy, gravy.
You follow the young prince up and down, like his
ill angel.
Not so, my lord; your ill angel is light; but I hope
he that looks upon me will take me without weighing:
and yet, in some respects, I grant, I cannot go: I
cannot tell. Virtue is of so little regard in these
costermonger times that true valour is turned
bear-herd: pregnancy is made a tapster, and