Complete Works (Modern Library)

by William Shakespeare

Falstaff riseth up FALSTAFF Embowelled! If thou embowel me today, I’ll give you leave to powder112 me and eat me too tomorrow. ’Twas time to counterfeit, or that hot termagant113 Scot had paid me scot and lot114 too. Counterfeit? I am no counterfeit; to die, is to be a counterfeit, for he is but the counterfeit of a man who hath not the life of a man. But to counterfeit dying, when a man thereby liveth, is to be no counterfeit, but the true and perfect image of life indeed. The better part of valour is discretion,117 in the which better part I have saved my life. I am afraid of this gunpowder118 Percy, though he be dead. How, if he should counterfeit too and rise? I am afraid he would prove the better counterfeit: therefore I’ll make him sure, yea, and I’ll swear I killed him. Why may not he rise as well as I? Nothing confutes121 me but eyes, and nobody sees me. Stabs him Therefore, sirrah, with a new wound in your thigh, come you along with me. Takes Hotspur on his back