When his father reproaches him with "hunger for his empty chair," this
is how Prince Henry answers:
"O pardon me, my liege, but for my tears,
The moist impediments unto my speech,
I had forestalled this dear and deep rebuke.
Ere you with grief had spoke and I had heard
The course of it so far."...
It might be Alfred Austin writing to Lord Salisbury--"the moist
impediments," forsooth--and the daredevil young soldier goes on like
this for forty lines.
The only memorable thing in the fifth act is the new king's contemptuous
dismissal of Falstaff: I think it appalling at least in matter:
"I know thee not, old man: fall to thy prayers;
How ill white hairs become a fool and jester!
I have long dreamed of such a kind of man,
So surfeit-swelled, so old and so profane;
But being awake I do despise my dream.
* * * * *
Reply not to me with a fool-born jest,
Presume not that I am the thing I was;
* * * * *
Till then, I banish thee on pain of death,
As I have done the rest of my misleaders,
Not to come near our person by ten mile.
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