And nothing pleaseth but rare accidents.

So, when this loose behaviour I throw off,

And pay the debt I never promisèd,

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.

[V, i, 127–40] Told by Prince Harry that he owes God a death, since all men must die eventually, Sir John Falstaff makes it clear that he has no intention of discharging his debt in that day’s battle:

‘Tis not due yet – I would be loath to pay him before his day. What need I be so forward with him that calls not on me? Well, ’tis no matter, honour pricks me on. Yea, but how if honour prick me off when I come on, how then? Can honour set to a leg? No. Or an arm? No. Or take away the grief of a wound? No. Honour hath no skill in surgery then? No. What is honour? A word. What is that word honour? Air. A trim reckoning! Who hath it? He that died a’ Wednesday. Doth he feel it? No. Doth he hear it? No. ’Tis insensible then? Yea, to the dead. But will it not live with the living? No. Why? Detraction will not suffer it. Therefore I’ll none of it. Honour is a mere scutcheon – and so ends my catechism.

[V, iv, 86–109] The great and the gross: victorious in battle, Prince Harry finds two very different men lying dead before him, the defeated rebel Hotspur and his own old drinking-companion Falstaff:

For worms, brave Percy. Fare thee well, great heart!

Ill-weaved ambition, how much art thou shrunk.

When that this body did contain a spirit,

A kingdom for it was too small a bound;

But now two paces of the vilest earth

Is room enough. This earth that bears thee dead

Bears not alive so stout a gentleman.

If thou wert sensible of courtesy

I should not make so dear a show of zeal,

But let my favours hide thy mangled face,

And even in thy behalf I’ll thank myself

For doing these fair rites of tenderness.

Adieu, and take thy praise with thee to heaven!

Thy ignominy sleep with thee in the grave,

But not remembered in thy epitaph!

(He spieth Falstaff on the ground)

What, old acquaintance, could not all this flesh

Keep in a little life? Poor Jack, farewell!

I could have better spared a better man.

O, I should have a heavy miss of thee

If I were much in love with vanity.

Death hath not struck so fat a deer today,

Though many dearer, in this bloody fray.

Embowelled will I see thee by and by;

Till then in blood by noble Percy lie.