Bard. Yea, and to tickle our noses with speargrass, to make them bleed; and then to beslubber our garments with it, and to swear it was the blood of true I did that I did not this seven year before; I blushed to hear his monstrous devices.

men.

P. Hen. O villain, thou stolest a cup of sack eighteen years ago, and wert taken with the manner,' and ever since thou hast blushed extempore. Thou hast fire and sword on thy side, and yet thou ranʼst away. What instinct hadst thou for it?

Bard. My lord, do you see these meteors? do you behold these exhalations?

P. Hen. I do.

Bard. What think you they portend?
P. Hen. Hot livers and cold purses.2
Bard. Choler, my lord, if rightly taken.
P. Hen. No, if rightly taken, halter.

Re-enter FALstaff.

Here comes lean Jack; here comes bare-bone. now, my sweet creature of bombast?

How

How long is't

ago, Jack, since thou sawest thine own knee?

Fal. My own knee? when I was about thy years, Hal, I was not an eagle's talon in the waist; I could have crept into any alderman's thumb-ring. A plague of sighing and grief! it blows a man up like a bladder. There's villanous news abroad: here was sir John Bracy from your father; you must to the court in the morning. That same mad fellow of the north, Percy; and he of Wales, that gave Amaimon the bastinado, and made Lucifer cuckold, and swore the devil his true

1 i. e. taken in the fact.

2 i. e. drunkenness and poverty.

5

3 i. e. "my sweet, stuffed creature." Bombast is cotton. Gerard calls the cotton-plant the bombast-tree. It is here used for the stuffing of clothes. 4 The custom of wearing a ring upon the thumb is very ancient. The rider of the brazen horse in Chaucer's Squiers Tale :

66 — upon his thombe he had a ring of gold."

5 A demon, who is described as one of the four kings who rule over all the demons in the world.

liegeman upon the cross of a Welsh hook '-what, a plague, call you him?—————

Poins. O, Glendower.

Fal. Owen, Owen; the same;-and his son-inlaw, Mortimer; and old Northumberland; and that sprightly Scot of Scots, Douglas, that runs o' horseback up a hill perpendicular

P. Hen. He that rides at high speed, and with his pistol kills a sparrow flying.

Fal. You have hit it.

P. Hen. So did he never the sparrow.

Fal. Well, that rascal hath good mettle in him; he will not run.

P. Hen. Why, what a rascal art thou then, to praise him so for running!

Fal. O' horseback, ye cuckoo! but, afoot, he will not budge a foot.

P. Hen. Yes, Jack, upon instinct.

Fal. I grant ye, upon instinct. Well, he is there too, and one Mordake, and a thousand blue-caps 3 more. Worcester is stolen away to-night; thy father's beard is turned white with the news; you may buy land now as cheap as stinking mackerel.

P. Hen. Why then, 'tis like, if there come a hot June, and this civil buffeting hold, we should buy maidenheads as they buy hob-nails, by the hundreds.

Fal. By the mass, lad, thou sayest true; it is like, we shall have good trading that way.-But, tell me, Hal, art thou not horribly afeard? thou being heir apparent, could the world pick thee out three such enemies again, as that fiend Douglas, that spirit Percy, and that devil Glendower? Art thou not horribly afraid? doth not thy blood thrill at it?

P. Hen. Not a whit, i' faith; I lack some of thy instinct.

1 The Welsh hook was a kind of hedging-bill, made with a hook at the end, and a long handle like the partisan or halbert.

2 Pistols were not in use in the age of Henry IV. They are said to have been much used by the Scotch in Shakspeare's time.

3 Scotsmen, on account of their blue bonnets.

Fal. Well, thou wilt be horribly chid to-morrow, when thou comest to thy father. If thou love me, practise an answer.

P. Hen. Do thou stand for my father, and examine me upon the particulars of my life.

Fal. Shall I content. This chair shall be my state,' this dagger my sceptre, and this cushion my

crown.

P. Hen. Thy state is taken for a joint-stool, thy golden sceptre for a leaden dagger, and thy precious rich crown, for a pitiful bald crown!

Fal. Well, an the fire of grace be not quite out of thee, now shalt thou be moved.-Give me a cup of sack, to make mine eyes look red, that it may be thought I have wept; for I must speak in passion, and I will do it in king Cambyses'2 vein.

P. Hen. Well, here is my leg."

Fal. And here is my speech.-Stand aside, nobility. Host. This is excellent sport, i' faith.

Fal. Weep not, sweet queen, for trickling tears are

vain.

Host. O, the father, how he holds his countenance ! Fal. For God's sake, lords, convey my tristful queen, For tears do stop the flood-gates of her eyes.

Host. O rare! he doth it as like one of these harlotry players, as I ever see.

Fal. Peace, good pint-pot; peace, good ticklebrain. Harry, I do not only marvel where thou spendest thy time, but also how thou art accompanied; for though the chamomile, the more it is trodden on, the faster it grows, yet youth, the more it is wasted, the

1 A state is a chair with a canopy over it.

2 The banter is here upon the play called A Lamentable Tragedie mixed full of pleasant Mirthe, containing the Life of Cambises, King of Persia, by Thomas Preston [1570]. There is a marginal direction in this play, "At this tale tolde, let the queen weep," which is probably alluded to, though the measure in the parody is not the same with that of the original.

obeisance.

i. e. my 4 Thus in Cambyses:—

"Queen. These words to hear makes stilling tears issue from chrys

tall eyes."

sooner it wears. That thou art my son, I have partly thy mother's word, partly my own opinion; but chiefly, a villanous trick of thine eye, and a foolish hanging of thy nether lip, that doth warrant me. If then thou be son to me, here lies the point.-Why, being son to me, art thou so pointed at? Shall the blessed sun of heaven prove a micher,' and eat blackberries? A question not to be asked. Shall the son of England prove a thief, and take purses? A question to be asked. There is a thing, Harry, which thou hast often heard of, and it is known to many in our land by the name of pitch. This pitch, as ancient writers do report, doth defile; so doth the company thou keepest; for, Harry, now I do not speak to thee in drink, but in tears; not in pleasure, but in passion; not in words only, but in woes also.-And yet there is a virtuous man, whom I have often noted in thy company, but I know not his name.

P. Hen. What manner of man, an it like your majesty?

Fal. A good portly man, i' faith, and a corpulent; of a cheerful look, a pleasing eye, and a most noble carriage; and, as I think, his age some fifty, or by'r lady, inclining to threescore. And now I remember me, his name is Falstaff: if that man should be lewdly given, he deceiveth me; for, Harry, I see virtue in his looks. If then the tree may be known by the fruit, as the fruit, by the tree, then, peremptorily I speak it, there is virtue in that Falstaff; him keep with, the rest banish. And tell me now, thou naughty varlet, tell me, where hast thou been this month?

P. Hen. Dost thou speak like a king? Do thou stand for me, and I'll play my father.

Fal. Depose me? If thou dost it half so gravely, so majestically, both in word and matter, hang me up by the heels for a rabbet-sucker, or a poulter's hare.

1 A micher here signifies a truant. So in an old phrase book, Hormanni Vulgaria, 1509:-" He is a mychar; vagus est non discolus." To mich was to skulk, to hide; and hence the word sometimes also signified a skulking thief, and sometimes a miser.

2 A young rabbit.

P. Hen. Well, here I am set.

Fal. And here I stand;-judge, my masters.
P. Hen. Now, Harry, whence come you?
Fal. My noble lord, from Eastcheap.

P. Hen. The complaints I hear of thee are grievous. Fal. 'Sblood, my lord, they are false.-Ñay, I'll tickle ye for a young prince, i' faith.

3

P. Hen. Swear'st thou, ungracious boy? Henceforth ne'er look on me. Thou art violently carried away from grace; there is a devil haunts thee, in the likeness of a fat old man; a tun of man is thy companion. Why dost thou converse with that trunk of humors, that bolting-hutch1 of beastliness, that swollen parcel of dropsies, that huge bombard of sack, that stuffed cloak-bag of guts, that roasted Manningtree ox with the pudding in his belly, that reverend vice, that gray iniquity, that father ruffian, that vanity in years? Wherein is he good, but to taste sack and drink it? wherein neat and cleanly, but to carve a capon and eat it? wherein cunning, but in craft? wherein crafty, but in villany? wherein villanous, but in all things? wherein worthy, but in nothing?

Fal. I would your grace would take me with you.1 Whom means your grace

?

P. Hen. That villanous, abominable misleader of youth, Falstaff, that old white-bearded Satan.

Fal. My lord, the man I know.

P. Hen. I know thou dost.

Fal. But to say I know more harm in him than in myself, were to say more than I know. That he is old, (the more the pity,) his white hairs do witness it; but that he is (saving your reverence) a whoremaster, that I utterly deny. If sack and sugar be a fault, God

1 The machine which separates flour from bran.

2 A bombard was a very large leathern vessel to hold drink; perhaps so called from its similarity to a sort of cannon of the same name.

3 Manningtree, in Essex, formerly enjoyed the privilege of fairs, by exhibiting a certain number of stage-plays yearly. It appears from other intimations that there were great festivities there, and much good eating at Whitsun ales, &c.

4 i. e. go no faster than I can follow.