Page:Henry IV Part 1 (1917) Yale.djvu/26

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same fat rogue will tell us when we meet at

supper: how thirty, at least, he fought with;

what wards, what blows, what extremities he

endured; and in the reproof of this lies the jest.

Prince. Well, I'll go with thee: provide us

all things necessary and meet me to-morrow

night in Eastcheap; there I'll sup. Farewell.

Poins. Farewell, my lord.

Prince. I know you all, and will awhile uphold

The unyok'd humour of your idleness:

Yet herein will I imitate the sun,

Who doth permit the base contagious clouds

To smother up his beauty from the world,

That when he please again to be himself,

Being wanted, he may be more wonder'd at,

By breaking through the foul and ugly mists

Of vapours that did seem to strangle him.

If all the year were playing holidays,

To sport would be as tedious as to work;

But when they seldom come, they wish'd for come,

And nothing pleaseth but rare accidents.

So, when this loose behaviour I throw off,

And pay the debt I never promised,

By how much better than my word I am

By so much shall I falsify men's hopes;

And like bright metal on a sullen ground,

My reformation, glittering o'er my fault,

Shall show more goodly and attract more eyes

Than that which hath no foil to set it off.

I'll so offend to make offence a skill;

Redeeming time when men think least I will.

 211 wards: guards in fencing

212 reproof: refutation

218 unyok'd humour: unrestrained caprices

220 contagious: pestilential

229 accidents: events

234 sullen: dull 