FAL. How now? whose mare's dead? what's the matter?

FANG. Sir John, I arrest you at the suit of mistress Quickly.

FAL. Away, varlets!-Draw, Bardolph; cut me off the villain's head; throw the quean in the channel.

HOST. Throw me in the channel? I'll throw thee in the channel. Wilt thou? wilt thou? thou bastardly rogue !-Murder, murder! O thou honey-suckle villain! wilt thou kill God's officers, and the king's! O thou honey-seed rogue! thou art a honey-seed; a man-queller, and a womanqueller.

FAL. Keep them off, Bardolph.
FANG. A rescue! a rescue!

HOST. Good people, bring a rescue or two.dThou wo't, wo't thou? thou wo't, wo't thou? do, do, thou rogue! do, thou hemp-seed!

FAL. Away, you scullion! you rampallian; you fustilarian! I'll tickle your catastrophe.

Enter the Lord Chief Justice, attended.

CH. JUST. What is the matter? keep the peace here, ho!

HOST. Good my lord, be good to me! I beseech you stand to me!

CH. JUST. How now, sir John? what, are you brawling here? [business?

Doth this become your place, your time, and You should have been well on your way to York.— Stand from him, fellow; wherefore hang'st upon him?

HOST. O my most worshipful lord, an't please your grace, I am a poor widow of Eastcheap, and he is arrested at my suit.

CH. JUST. For what sum?

HOST. It is more than for some, my lord; it is for all, all I have: he hath eaten me out of house and home; he hath put all my substance into that fat belly of his :-but I will have some of it out again, or I'll ride thee o'nights, like the mare.

FAL. I think, I am as like to ride the mare, if I have any vantage of ground to get up.

CH. JUST. How comes this, sir John? Fie! what man of good temper would endure this tempest of exclamation? Are you not ashamed to enforce a poor widow to so rough a course to come by her own?

FAL. What is the gross sum that I owe thee?

e

HOST. Marry if thou wert an honest man, thyself, and the money too. Thou didst swear to me upon a parcel-gilt goblet, sitting in my Dolphin chamber, at the round table, by a sea-coal fire, upon † Wednesday in Whitsun-week, when the prince broke thy head for liking his father to a singingman of Windsor; thou didst swear to me then, as I was washing thy wound, to marry me, and make me my lady thy wife. Canst thou deny it? Did not goodwife Keech, the butcher's wife, come in then, and call me gossip Quickly? coming in to borrow a mess of vinegar; telling us, she had a good dish of prawns; whereby thou didst desire to eat some; whereby I told thee, they were ill for a green wound? And didst thou not, when she was gone down stairs, desire me to be no more so

familiarity § with such poor people; saying, that ere long they should call me madam? And didst thou not kiss me, and bid me fetch thee thirty shillings? I put thee now to thy book-oath; deny it, if thou canst.

FAL. My lord, this is a poor mad soul; and she says, up and down the town, that her eldest son is like you: she hath been in good case, and, the truth is, poverty hath distracted her. But for these foolish officers, I beseech you, I may have redress against them.

CH. JUST. Sir John, sir John, I am well acquainted with your manner of wrenching the true cause the false way. It is not a confident brow, nor the throng of words that come with such more than impudent sauciness from you, can thrust me from a level consideration; you have, as it appears

(*) First folio omits, knare.

a I'll throw thee in the channel.] The folio reads, I'll throw thee there.

b Honey-suckle villain!.... honey-seed rogue!] Our hostess means, homicidal, and homicide.

c Man-queller,-] An old word for manslayer or murderer. d Bring a rescue or two.- Thou wo't, &c.] The folio reading is,

(*) First folio inserts, a. (1) First folio, lik'ning.

(§) First folio, no more familiar.

(t) First folio, on.

"Bring a rescue. Thou wilt not? Thou wilt not? do, do," &c.

e Parcel-gilt goblet,-] “ Parcel-gilt means what is now called by artists party-gilt, that is, where part of the work is gilt, and part left plain, or ungilded."-MALONE.

to me, practised upon the easy-yielding spirit of this woman, and made her serve your uses both in purse and person.

HOST. Yes, in troth, my lord.

CH. JUST. Pr'ythee, peace:-Pay her the debt you owe her, and unpay the villainy you have done with her; the one you may do with sterling money, and the other with current repentance.

FAL. My lord, I will not undergo this sneapb without reply. You call honourable boldness, impudent sauciness: if a man will make+ court'sy, and say nothing, he is virtuous. No, my lord, my humble duty remembered, I will not be your suitor; I say to you, I do § desire deliverance from these officers, being upon hasty employment in the king's affairs.

CH. JUST. You speak as having power to do

b This sneap-] Sneap, Icelandic, sneipa-contumelia, convitium, a check, sarcasm, set-down.

In the effect of your reputation,-] "That is," Johnson says, "in a manner suitable to your reputation;" rather, perhaps, in the peril of your reputation.

FAL. Glasses, glasses, is the only drinking and for thy walls, a pretty slight drollery, or the story of the prodigal, or the German hunting in waterwork,(1) is worth a thousand of these bed-hangings, and these fly-bitten tapestries. Let it be ten pound, if thou canst. Come, an it were not for thy humours, there is not a better wench in England. Go, wash thy face, and 'draw thy action. Come, thou must not be in this humour with me; dost not know me? Come, come, I know thou

wast set on to this.

HOST. Pray thee, sir John, let it be but twenty nobles; i' faith I am § loth to pawn my plate, in good earnest, la.

FAL. Let it alone; I'll make other shift: you'll be a fool still.

HOST. Well, you shall have it, though I pawn my gown. I hope, you'll come to supper: you'll pay me all together?

(*) First folio, if. (+) First folio omits, dost not know me? (1) First folio, come; once only. (§) First folio omits, i' jaith, and, am.

FAL. Will I live?-Go, with her, with her; [To BARDOLPH.] hook on, hook on.

HOST. Will you have Doll Tear-sheet meet you at supper?

FAL. No more words; let's have her.
[Exeunt Hostess, BARDOLPH, Officers, and Boy.
CH. JUST. I have heard better* news.
FAL. What's the news, my good lord?
CH. JUST. Where lay the king last night?
Gow. At Basingstoke," my lord.

FAL. I hope, my lord, all's well: what is the news, my lord?

CH. JUST. Come all his forces back?

Gow. No: fifteen hundred foot, five hundred horse,

Are march'd up to my lord of Lancaster,
Against Northumberland, and the archbishop.
FAL. Comes the king back from Wales, my
noble lord?

(*) First folio, bitter.

a At Basingstoke, my lord.] The quarto makes a ludicrous mistake here, by reading Billingsgate instead of Basingstoke.

P. HEN. Trust me, I am exceeding weary. POINS. Is it come to that? I had thought, weariness durst not have attached one of so high blood.

P. HEN. 'Faith, it does me; though it discolours the complexion of my greatness to acknowledge it. Doth it not show vilely in me, to desire small beer?

POINS. Why, a prince should not be so loosely studied, as to remember so weak a composition.

P. HEN. Belike then, my appetite was not princely got: for, by my‡ troth, I do now remember the poor creature, small beer. But, indeed, these humble considerations make me out of love with my greatness. What a disgrace is it to me, to remember thy name? or to know thy face tomorrow? or to take note how many pair of silk stockings thou hast; viz. these, and those that were thy peach-coloured ones? or to bear the inventory of thy shirts; as, one for superfluity, and one other for use?-but that, the tennis-court keeper knows better than I; for it is a low ebb of linen with thee, when thou keepest § not racket

there; as thou hast not done a great while, because the rest of thy low-countries have made a shift to eat up thy holland: and God knows," whether those that bawl out the ruins of thy linen, shall inherit his kingdom: but the midwives say, the children are not in the fault; whereupon the world increases, and kindreds are mightily strengthened.

POINS. How ill it follows, after you have laboured so hard, you should talk so idly? Tell me, how many good young princes would do so, their fathers being so sick as yours at this time is ? c

с

P. HEN. Shall I tell thee one thing, Poins? POINS. Yes; and let it be an excellent good thing.

P. HEN. It shall serve among wits of no higher breeding than thine.

POINS. Go to; I stand the push of your one thing that you will tell.

*

P. HEN. Marry, I tell thee,-it is not meet that I should be sad, now my father is sick albeit I could tell to thee, (as to one it pleases me, for fault of a better, to call my friend,) I could be sad, and sad indeed too.

POINS. Very hardly, upon such a subject.

P. HEN. By this hand, † thou thinkest me as far in the devil's book, as thou and Falstaff, for obduracy and persistency: let the end try the man. But I tell thee, my heart bleeds inwardly, that my father is so sick and keeping such vile company as thou art, hath in reason taken from me all ostentation of sorrow.

POINS. The reason?

P. HEN. What wouldst thou think of me, if I should weep?

POINS. I would think thee a most princely hypocrite.

P. HEN. It would be every man's thought: and thou art a blessed fellow to think as every man thinks; never a man's thought in the world keeps the roadway better than thine: every man would think me an hypocrite indeed. And what accites your most worshipful thought, to think so?

POINS. Why, because you have been so lewd, and so much engraffed to Falstaff.

P. HEN. And to thee.

POINS. By this light, I am well spoke on, I can hear it with mine own ears: the worst that they can say of me is, that I am a second brother, and that I am a proper fellow of my hands; and those two things I confess I cannot help. Look, look, here comes Bardolph.

P. HEN. And the boy that I gave Falstaff: he

the Master of the Revels.

c Their fathers being so sick as yours at this time is?] So

the quarto. The folio reads, "their fathers jing so sick, as yours is,"

had him from me Christian; and look if the fat villain have not transformed him ape.

Enter BARDOLPH and Page.

BARD. God save your grace!

P. HEN. And yours, most noble Bardolph! BARD. Come, you virtuous ass, [To the Page.] you bashful fool, must you be blushing? wherefore blush you now? What a maidenly man-at-aims are you become? Is it such a matter to get a pottle-pot's maidenhead?"

PAGE. He called me even now, my lord, through a red lattice,(2) and I could discern no part of his face from the window: at last, I spied his eyes; and methought he had made two holes in the alewife's new petticoat, and peeped through.

P. HEN. Hath not the boy profited? BARD. Away, you whoreson upright rabbit, away!

PAGE. Away, you rascally Althea's dream, away!

P. HEN. Instruct us, boy: what dream, boy? PAGE. Marry, my lord, Althea dreamed she was delivered of a fire-brand; and therefore I call him her dream.

P. HEN. A crown's worth of good interpretation.-There it is, boy. [Gives him money. POINS. O, that this good blossom could be kept from cankers-Well, there is sixpence to preserve thee.

BARD. An§ you do not make him be hanged among you, the gallows shall have wrong.

P. HEN. And how doth thy master, Bardolph? BARD. Well, my good lord. He heard of your grace's coming to town; there's a letter for you. POINS. Delivered with good respect.-And how doth the martlemas, your master?

с

BARD. In bodily health, sir.

POINS. Marry, the immortal part needs a physician but that moves not him; though that be sick, it dies not.

P. HEN. I do allow this wen to be as familiar with me as my dog: and he holds his place, for look you how he writes.

POINS. [Reads.] John Falstaff, knight,-Every man must know that, as oft as he hath

occasion to name himself. Even like those that are kin to the king; for they never prick their finger, but they say, There is some of the king's blood spilt. How comes that? says he, that takes upon him not to conceive: the answer is as ready as a borrowed cap; I am the king's poor cousin, sir.

P. HEN. Nay, they will be kin to us, but they will fetch it from Japhet. But to the letter:

POINS. Sir John Falstaff, knight, to the son of the king, nearest his father, Harry prince of Wales, greeting. Why, this is a certificate.

P. HEN. Peace!

POINS. I will imitate the honourable Roman 8 in brevity: -sure he means brevity in breath; short-winded.—I commend me to thee, I commend thee, and I leave thee. Be not too familiar with Poins; for he misuses thy favours so much, that he swears, thou art to marry his sister Nell. Repent at idle times as thou may'ɛt, and so fare

well.

Thine, by yea and no, (which is as much as to say, as thou usest him,) Jack Falstoff, with my familiars; John, with my brothers and sisters; and Sir John, with all Europe.

My lord, I will steep this letter in sack, and make him eat it.

P. HEN. That's to make him eat twenty of his words. But do you use me thus, Ned? must I marry your sister?

POINS. God send the wench no worse fortune!* but I never said so.

P. HEN. Well, thus we play the fools with the time; and the spirits of the wise sit in the clouds, and mock us.—Is your master here in London? BARD. Yes, my lord.

P. HEN. Where sups he? doth the old boar feed in the old frank? f

BARD. At the old place, my lord; in Eastcheap. P. HEN. What company?

PAGE. Ephesians, my lord; of the old church. P. HEN. Sup any women with him? PAGE. None, my lord, but old mistress Quickly, and mistress Doll Tear-sheet.

P. HEN. What pagan may that be? PAGE. A proper gentlewoman, sir, and a kinswoman of my master's.