Shal. Under king Harry. Pift. Harry the Fourth? or Fifth? Pift. A foutra for thine office! Sir John, thy tender lambkin now is king. Fal. What! is the old king dead? Pift. As nail in door. The things I speak, are just. Fal. Away, Bardolph, faddle my horfe.-Mafter Robert Shallow, chufe what office thou wilt in the land, 'tis thine.-Pistol, I will double charge thee with dignities. Bard. O joyful day! I would not take a knighthood for my fortune. Pift. What? I do bring good news. Fal. Carry mafter Silence to bed.-Mafter Shallow, my lord Shallow, be what thou wilt; I am fortune's fteward. Get on thy boots, we'll ride all night.-Oh, fweet Piftol!-Away, Bardolph.-Come, Pistol, utter more to me; and, withal, devise something to do thyfelf good. Boot, boot, mafter Shallow. I know, the young king is fick for me. Let us take any man's It is a term of reproach, frequent in the writers contemporary with our poet. Bifognofo, a needy perfon; thence metaphorically, a bafe fcoundrel. THEOBALD. Nath, in Pierce Pennyleffe his Supplication, &c. 1595, fays,"Proud lords do tumble from the towers of their high defcents, "and be trod under feet of every inferior Befonian.” In The Widow's Tears, a comedy by Chapman, 1612, the primitive word is ufed: fpurn'd out by grooms, like a bafe Befogno!" And again, in Sir Giles Goofecap, a comedy, 1606, "If he come like to your Befogno, your boor, fo he be "rich, they care not." STEEVENS. -fig me like The bragging Spaniard.] To fig, in Spanish, bigas dar, is to infult by putting the thumb between the fore and middle finger. From this Spanish cuftom we yet fay in contempt," a fig for you." JOHNSON. horfes; horfes; the laws of England are at my commandment. Happy are they which have been my friends; and woe to my lord chief juftice! Pift. Let vultures vile feize on his lungs alfo! Where is the life that late I led, fay they? Why, here it is, welcome these pleasant days. [Exeunt. SCENE IV. A ftreet in London. Enter hoftefs Quickly, Doll Tear-fheet, and Beadles. Hoft. No, thou arrant knave; I would I might dię, that I might have thee hang'd: thou haft drawn my fhoulder out of joint. Bead. The conftables have delivered her over to me; and she shall have whipping-cheer enough, I warrant her. There hath been a man or two lately kill'd about her. Dol. 3 Nut-hook, nut-hook, you lie. Come on. I'll tell thee what, thou damn'd tripe-vifag'd rafcal, if the child I go with do mifcarry, thou hadft better thou hadit ftruck thy mother, thou paper-fac'd villain. Hoft. O the Lord, that Sir John were come! he would make this a bloody day to fome body. But I pray God the fruit of her womb miscarry ! Where is the life that late I led, &c.] Words of an old ballad. WABURTON. 3 Nut-book, &c.] It has been already obferved on the Merry Wives of Windfor, that nutt-book feems to have been in thofe times a name of reproach for a catchpoll. JOHNSON, A nut-book was, I believe, a person who ftole linen, &c. out at windows by means of a pole with a hook at the end of it. Greene, in his Arte of Conny-catching, has given a very particular account of this kind of fraud; fo that nut-Look was probably as common a term of reproach as rogue is at prefent. In an old comedy, intitled, Match me in London, 1631, I find the following paffage-"She's the king's nut-book, that when any filbert is ripe, pulls down the braveft boughs to his hand." I i3 STEEVENS. Bead. Bead. If it do, you fhall have 4 a dozen of cushions again, you have but eleven now. Come, I charge you both go with me; for the man is dead that you and Piftol beat among you. 6 Dol. I'll tell thee what, 5 thou thin man in a censer ! I will have you as foundly fwing'd for this, you bluebottle rogue !-You filthy famish'd correctioner! if you be not fwing'd, I'll forfwear 7 half-kirtles. Bead. Come, come, you fhe-knight-errant; come. Hoft. O, that right fhould thus o'ercome might! Well; of fufferance comes eafe. Dol. Come, you rogue, come. Bring me to a juftice. Dol. Goodman death, goodman bones! Hoft. Thou atomy, thou! Dol. Come, you thin thing: come, you rascal! [Exeunt. a dozen of cushions-] That is, to ftuff her out that she might counterfeit pregnancy. So in Maffinger's Old Law: I faid I was with child, &c. Thou faidit it was a cushion,” &c. STEEVENS. 5 thou thin man in a cenfer !] Thefe old cenfers of thin metal had generally at the bottom the figure of fome faint raised up with a hammer, in a barbarous kind of imboffed or chafed work. The hunger-ftarved beadle is compared, in fubftance, to one of these thin raised figures, by the fame kind of humour that Pistol, in The Merry Wives, calls Slender, a laten bilboe. WARBURTON. blue bottle rogue ! A name, I fuppose, given to the beadle from the colour of his livery. JOHNSON. 7 balf-kirtles.] Probably the drefs of the prostitutes of that time. JOHNSON. A half-kirtle was, I suppose, the same kind of thing as we call at prefent a fhort-gown, or a bed-gown. There is a proverbial expreffion now in ufe which may ferve to confirm it. When a perfon is loosely drefs'd they fay-Such a one looks like a w― in a bed-gown. See Weftward Hoe, by Decker and Webster, forty fhillings I lent her to redeem two half-filk 1612 kirtles." STEEVENS. SCENE SCENE V. A public place near Westminster-abbey, 1 Groom. More rushes, more rushes. 2 Groom. The trumpets have founded twice. I Groom. It will be two of the clock ere they com from the coronation; difpatch, dispatch. [Exeunt Grooms. Enter Falstaff, Shallow, Pistol, Bardolph, and the Boy. Fal. Stand here by me, mafter Robert Shallow; I will make the king do you grace. I will leer upon him as he comes by; and do but mark the countenance that he will give me. Pift. Bless thy lungs, good knight! Fal. Come here, Piftol; ftand behind me. O, if I had had time to have made new liveries, I would have bestow'd the thousand pound I borrow'd of you: [To Shallow.] But it is no matter; this poor fhow doth better this doth infer the zeal I had to fee him. Shal. It doth fo. Fal. It fhews my earneftness of affection, Pift. It doth fo. Fal. My devotion. Pift. 9 It doth, it doth, it doth. Fal. As it were, to ride day and night, and not to deliberate, not to remember, not to have patience to fhift me. 8 Shal. It is most certain, More rushes, &c.] It has been already observed, that, at ceremonial entertainments, it was the custom to ftrew the floor with rufhes. Caius de Ephemera. JOHNSON. 9 It doth, it doth, it doth.] The two little answers here given to Pistol are transferred by Sir T. Hanmer to Shallow, the repetition of it doth fuits Shallow best. JOHNSON. Fal. But to ftand ftained with travel, and fweating with defire to see him thinking of nothing elfe; putting all affairs elfe in oblivion; as if there were nothing elfe to be done, but to fee him. Σ Pift. 'Tis femper idem; for abfque boc nihil eft. 'Tis all in every part. Shal. 'Tis fo, indeed. Pift. My knight, I will enflame thy noble liver, And make thee rage. Thy Doll and Helen of thy noble thoughts By moft mechanical and dirty hands. Rouze up revenge from Ebon den, with fell Alecto's fnake, For Doll is in. Piftol fpeaks nought but truth. Pift. There roar'd the fea; and trumpet-clangor founds. The trumpets found. Enter the King, and his train. Fal. God fave thy grace, king Hal! my royal Hal! Pift. The heavens thee guard and keep, moft royal imp of fame! Fal. God fave thee, my fweet boy! King. My lord chief juftice, fpeak to that vain man. 'Tis all in every part.] The fentence alluded to is, 'Tis all in all, and all in every part." And fo doubtless it fhould be read. 'Tis a common way of expreffing one's approbation of a right measure to say, 'tis all in all. To which this phantaftic character adds, with fome humour, and all in every part: which, both together, make up the philofophic fentence, and complete the abfurdity of Piftol's phrafeology. WARBURTON. meft royal imp of fame!] The word imp is perpetually ufed by Ulpian Fulwell, and other ancient writers, for progeny: And were it not thy royal impe "Did mitigate our pain," &c. Here Fulwell addreffes Anne Boleyn, and fpeaks of the young Elizabeth. STEEVENS. Ch. Just. |