Key Examples in Henry IV Part 2
Act 3, Scene 2
Explanation and Analysis—Old Men:
After speaking with Justice Shallow and Justice Silence, Falstaff has a rare moment of private reflection. In a soliloquy, he states:
Lord, Lord, how subject we old men are to this vice of lying. This same starved justice hath done nothing but prate to me of the wildness of his youth and the feats he hath done about Turnbull Street, and every third word a lie [...]
When he was naked, he was, for all the world, like a forked radish with a head fantastically carved upon it with a knife. He was so forlorn that his dimensions to any thick sight were invincible. He was the very genius of famine, yet lecherous as a monkey [...]