England, from Trent and Severn hitherto,'
By south and east, is to my part assign'd':
All westward, Wales beyond the Severn shore,
And all the fertile land within that bound,
To Owen Glendower: and, dear coz, to you
The remnant northward, lying off from Trent,
And our indentures tripartite are drawn:
Which being sealed interchangeably,
(A business that this night may execute,)
To-morrow, cousin Percy, you, and I,
And my good lord of Worcester, will set forth,
To meet your father, and the Scottish power,
As is appointed us, at Shrewsbury.
My father Glendower is not ready yet,

Nor shall we need his help these fourteen days:--
Within that space [To GLEND.] you may have
drawn together

Your tenants, friends, and neighbouring gentlemen.
Glend. A shorter time shall send me to you, lords,
And in my conduct shall your ladies come:
From whom you now must steal, and take no leave;
For there will be a world of water shed,
Upon the parting of your wives and you.

Glend. Come, you shall have Trent turn'd.
Hot. I do not care: I'll give thrice so much land
To any well-deserving friend;

But, in the way of bargain, mark ye me,

I'll cavil on the ninth part of a hair.

Are the indentures drawn? shall we be gone?
Glend. The moon shines fair, you may away by
night:

I'll in and haste the writer, and, withal,
Break with your wives of your departure hence:
I am afraid, my daughter will run mad,
So much she doteth on her Mortimer." [Erit.
Mort. Fye, cousin Percy! how you cross my
father!

Hot. I cannot choose: sometimes he angers me,
With telling me of the moldwarp and the ant,
Of the dreamer Merlin and his prophecies;
And of a dragon and a finless fish,
A clip-wing'd griffin, and a moulten raven,
A couching lion, and a ramping cat,
And such a deal of skimble-skamble stuff
As puts me from my faith. I tell you what,-
He held me, last night, at least nine hours,

Hot. Methinks, my moiety, north from Burton In reckoning up the several devils' names,

here,

In quantity equals not one of yours:

See, how this river comes me cranking3 in,
And cuts me from the best of all my land,

A huge half moon, and monstrous cantle out.
I'll have the current in this place damm'd up;
And here the smug and silver Trent shall run,
In a new channel, fair and evenly:

It shall not wind with such a deep indent,
To rob me of so rich a bottom here.

That were his lackeys: I cried, humph,—and well,

-go to,

But mark'd him not a word. O, he's as tedious
As is a tired horse, a railing wife;
Worse than a smoky house;-I had rather live
With cheese and garlick, in a windmill, far,
Than feed on cates, and have him talk to me,
In any summer-house in christendom.
Mort. In faith, he is a worthy gentleman;
Exceedingly well read, and profited

Glend. Not wind? it shall, it must; you see, it In strange concealments; 10 valiant as a lion,

doth.

Mort. Yea,

And wondrous affable: and as bountiful
As mines of India. Shall I tell you, cousin?

But mark, how he bears his course, and runs me up He holds your temper in a high respect,

With like advantage on the other side;
Gelding the opposed continent as much,
As on the other side it takes from you.

Wor. Yea, but a little charge will trench him here,
And on this north side win this cape of land;
And then he runs straight and even.

Hot. I'll have it so; a little charge will do it.
Glend. I will not have it alter'd.
Hot.

Glend. No, nor you shall not.
Hot.

Glend. Why, that will I.
Hot.

Will not you?

Who shall say me nay?

Let me not understand you then,
Speak it in Welsh.

Glend. I can speak English, lord, as well as you;
For I was train'd up in the English court;
Where, being but young, I framed to the harp
Many an English ditty, lovely well,
And gave the tongue a helpful ornament ;
A virtue that was never seen in you.

Hot. Marry, and I'm glad of it with all my heart;

I had rather be a kitten, and cry-mew,
Than one of these same metre ballad-mongers:
I had rather hear a brazen canstick' turn'd,
Or a dry wheel grate on an axle-tree;

And that would set my teeth nothing on edge,
Nothing so much as mincing poetry;
"Tis like the fore'd gait of a shuffling nag.

1 i. e. to this spot (pointing to the map.)
2 A moiety was frequently used by the writers of
Shakspeare's age as a portion of any thing, though not
divided into equal parts.

3 To crank is to crook, to turn in and out. Crankling is used by Drayton in the same sense: speaking of a river, he says that Meander

'Hath not so many turns and crankling nooks as she.' 4 A cantle is a portion, a part, a corner or fragment of any thing. The French had chanteau and chantel, and the Italians canto and cantone in the same sense.

5 Owen Glendower's real name was Owen ap-Gryf fyth Vaughan. He took the name of Glendower from the lordship of which he was the owner.

6 This disputed passage seems to me to mean that he gave to the language the helpful ornament of verse. Hotspur's answer shows that he took it in that sense.

And curbs himself even of his natural scope,
When you do cross his humour; 'faith, he does:
I warrant you, that man is not alive,
Might so have tempted him as you have done,
Without the taste of danger and reproof;
But do not use it oft, let me entreat you.

Wor. In faith, my lord, you are too wilful-
blame ;11

And since your coming hither, have done enough
To put him quite beside his patience.

You must needs learn, lord, to amend this fault:
Though sometimes it show greatness, courage, blood,
(And that's the dearest grace it renders you,)
Yet oftentimes it doth present harsh rage,
Defect of manners, want of government,
Pride, haughtiness, opinion, 12 and disdain:
The least of which, haunting a nobleman,
Loseth men's hearts; and leaves behind a stain
Upon the beauty of all parts besides,
Beguiling them of commendation.

Hot. Well, I am school'd; good manners be your
speed!

Here come our wives, and let us take our leave.
Re-enter GLENDOWER, with the Ladies.
Mort. This is the deadly spite that angers me,-
My wife can speak no English, I no Welsh.

7 A very common contraction of candlestick. The
Trick to cheat the Devil, 1636:--
noise to which Hotspur alludes is mentioned in A New

'As if you were to lodge in Lothbury,
Where they turn brazen candlesticks."

8 i. e. the writer of the articles. The old copy reads
(in and) were suggested by Steevens.
I'll haste the writer, &c.' The two necessary words

pan; because it warps or renders the surface of the 9 The moldwarp is the mole; A. S. molde and rear earth uneven by its hillocks.

10 Skilled in wonderful secrets.

11 Shakspeare has several compounds in which the Richard III. we meet with childish-foolish, senselessfirst adjective has the power of an adverb. In King obstinate, and mortal-staring.

12 i. e. self-opinion or conceit.

She'll be a soldier too, she'll to the wars.
Mort. Good father, tell her,-that she, and my

aunt Percy,

Shall follow in your conduct' speedily.

[GLEND. speaks to his daughter in Welsh, and she answers him in the same.

Glend. She's desperate here; a peevish self-will'd harlotry,

One that no persuasion can do good upon.

[LADY M. speaks to MORTIMER in Welsh. Mort. I understand thy looks: that pretty Welsh Which thou pourest down from these swelling hea

vens,

I am too perfect in; and, but for shame,
In such a parley would I answer thee.

Hot. I had rather hear Lady, my brach," howl

in Irish.

Lady P. Would'st thou have thy head broken?
Hot. No.

Lady P. Then be still.

Hot. Neither; 'tis a woman's fault."
Lady P. Now God help thee!
Hot. To the Welsh lady's bed.
Lady P. What's that?
Hot. Peace! she sings.

A Welsh song sung by LADY M.
Hot. Come, Kate, I'll have your song too.
Lady P. Not mine, in good sooth.

Hot. Not yours, in good sooth! 'Heart, you swear like a comfit-maker's wife! Not you, in good sooth: and, As true as I live; and, As God shall mend me; and, As sure as day:

[LADY M. speaks. And giv'st such sarcenet surety for thy oaths,

I understand thy kisses, and thou mine,
And that's a feeling disputation:
But I will never be a truant, love,

Till I have learn'd thy language; for thy tongue
Makes Welsh as sweet as ditties highly penn'd,
Sung by a fair queen in a summer's bower,
With ravishing division, to her lute.4
Glend. Nay, if you melt, then will she run mad.
[LADY M. speaks again.
Mort. O, I am ignorance itself in this.
Glend. She bids you on the wanton rushes lay
you down,

And rest your gentle head upon her lap,
And she will sing the song that pleaseth you,
And on your eyelids crown the god of sleep,
Charming your blood with pleasing heaviness;
Making such difference 'twixt wake and sleep,
As is the difference betwixt day and night,
The hour before the heavenly-harness'd team
Begins his golden progress in the east.

Mort. With all my heart I'll sit, and hear her sing:
By that time will our book,' I think, be drawn.
Glend. Do so;

And those musicians that shall play to you,
Hang in the air a thousand leagues from hence;
And straight they shall be here: sit, and attend.
Hot. Come, Kate, thou art perfect in lying down:
Come, quick, quick; that I may lay my head in
thy lap.

Lady P. Go, ye giddy goose.

[GLENDOWER speaks some Welsh words, and
then the Music plays.
Hot. Now I perceive the devil understands
Welsh;

And 'tis no marvel, he's so humorous.
By'r-lady, he's a good musician.

Lady P. Then should you be nothing but musical; for you are altogether governed by humours. Lie still, ye thief, and hear the lady sing in Welsh.

1 Guard, escort.

2 Capulet, in Romeo and Juliet, reproaches his daughter in the same words :

A peevish self-will'd harlotry it is.'

3 It seems extraordinary that Steevens could for a moment conceive that Mortimer meant his lady's two prominent lips! It is obvious, as Mr. Douce has remarked, that her eyes swollen with tears are meant, whose language he is too perfect in, and could answer with the like if it were not for shame.

4 A compliment to Queen Elizabeth was perhaps here intended, who was a performer on the lute and virginals. See Melvil's Memoirs, folio, p. 50. Division, which were then uncommon in vocal music, are variations of melody upon some given fundamental harmony.

5 It has been already remarked, that it was long the custom in this country to strew the floors with rushes, as we now cover them with carpets.

So in Beaumont and Fletcher's Philaster:-
who shall take his lute,

And touch it úll he crown a silent sleep
Upon my eyelid.'

The God of Sleep is not only to sit on Mortimer's
eyelids, but to sit crowned, that is, with sovereign do-
minion.

7 It was usual to call any manuscript of bulk a book ancient times, such as patents, grants, articles, cove

As if thou never walk'st further than Finsbury.10
Swear me, Kate, like a lady, as thou art,

A good mouth-filling oath; and leave in sooth,
And such protest of pepper-gingerbread,
To velvet-guards, and Sunday-citizens.
Come, sing.

Lady P. I will not sing.

Hot. 'Tis the next way to turn tailor, or be redbreast teacher. 12 An the indentures be drawn, I'll away within these two hours; and so come in when ye will. [Exit. Glend. Come, come, Lord Mortimer; you are as slow,

As hot lord Percy is on fire to go.

By this our book's drawn; we'll but seal, and then
To horse immediately.

Mort.

With all my heart. [Exeunt. SCENE II. London. A Room in the Palace. Enter KING HENRY, Prince of Wales, and Lords. K. Hen. Lords, give us leave: the Prince of Wales and I

Must have some private conference: But be near at hand,

For we shall presently have need of you.

[Exeunt Lords.

I know not whether God will have it so,
For some displeasing service13 I have done,

That in his secret doom, out of my blood
He'll breed revengement and a scourge for me;
But thou dost, in thy passages of life,
Make me believe,-that thou art only mark'd
For the hot vengeance and the rod of heaven,
To punish my mistreadings. Tell me else,
Could such inordinate, and low desires,
Such poor, such bare, such lewd, such mean at-
tempts,14

Such barren pleasures, rude society,

As thou art match'd withal, and grafted to,

nants, &c. In a MS. letter from Sir Richard Sackville, in 1560, to Lady Throckmorton, announcing a grant of some land to her husband Sir Nicholas, he says, 'It hath pleased the queen's majesty to sign Mr. Frogmorton's book.'--Comway Papers.

8 Hound.

9 That this is spoken ironically is sufficiently obvious, as Mr. Pye has observed; but the strange attempts to misunderstand the passage made by some commentators, make the observation in some measure necessary. 10 Finsbury, being then open walks and fields, was the common resort of the citizens, as appears from many old plays.

11 Velvet-guards, or trimmings of velvet, being the city fashion in Shakspeare's time, the term was used metaphorically to designate such persons.

12 Tailors, like weavers, have ever been remarkable for their vocal skill. Percy is jocular in his mode of persuading his wife to sing, and this is a humorous turn which he gives to his argument, 'Come, sing.'—' I will not sing.'Tis the next (i. e. readiest, nearest) way to turn tailor or redbreast teacher. The meaning is, to sing is to put yourself upon a level with tailors and teachers of birds."

13 Service, for action.

14 Mean attempts are mean, unworthy undertakings. Lewd, in this place, has its original signification of idle, ungracious, naughty.

To loathe the taste of sweetness, whereof a little
More than a little is by much too much.
So, when he had occasion to be seen,
He was but as the cuckoo is in June,

Heard, not regarded; seen, but with such eyes,

Which oft the ear of greatness needs must hear,-As, sick and blunted with community,

By smiling pickthanks2 and base newsmongers,

I may, for some things true, wherein my youth

Hath faulty wander'd and irregular,

Find pardon on my true submission.

Afford no extraordinary gaze,

Such as is bent on sunlike majesty,

When it shines seldom in admiring eyes:

But rather drowz'd, and hung their eyelids down.

K. Hen. God pardon thee!-yet let me wonder, Slept in his face, and render'd such aspect

1 The construction of this passage is somewhat obscure. Johnson thus explains it :- Let me beg so much extenuation, that upon confutation of many false charges, I may be pardoned some which are true. Re-lighting fires. proof means disproof.

2 A sycophant, a flatterer, one who is studious to gain favour, or to pick occasions for obtaining thanks.

3 This appears to be an anachronism. The prince's removal from council, in consequence of his striking the Lord Chief Justice Gascoigne, was some years after the battle of Shrewsbury, (1403.) His brother the duke of Clarence was appointed president in his room, and he was not created a duke till 1411.

4 True to him that had then possession of the crown. 5 Massinger, in The Great Duke of Florence, has adopted this expression:

11 Interest to the state. We should now write in the Mr. Gifford, in the following note on this passage, gives So in The Winter's Tale, he is less frequent to his state; but this was the phraseology of the poet's time. the best explanation of the phrase, which the commen-princely exercises than formerly. Thou hast but the tators have altogether mistaken:-The plain meaning shadow of succession, compared with the more worthy of the phrase is, that the affability and sweetness of Gio-interest in the state (i. e. great popularity) which he pos vanni were of a heavenly kind, i. e. more perfect than was usually found among men, resembling that divine condescension which excludes none from its regard, and, therefore, immediately derived or stolen from heaven, from whence all good proceeds. The word stolen here

Why, Harry, do I tell thee of my foes,
Which art my near'st and dearest' enemy?
Thou that art like enough,-through vassal fear,
Base inclination, and the start of spleen-
To fight against me under Percy's pay,
To dog his heels, and court'sy at his frowns,
To show how much degenerate thou art.

P. Hen. Do not think so, you shall not find it so;
And God forgive them, that have so much sway'd
Your majesty's good thoughts away from me!
I will redeem all this on Percy's head,
And, in the closing of some glorious day,
Be bold to tell you, that I am your son;
When I will wear a garment all of blood,
And stain my favours2 in a bloody mask,

Fal. Bardolph, am I not fallen away vilely since this last action? do I not bate? do I not dwindle? Why, my skin hangs about me like an old lady's loose gown; I am wither'd like an old apple-John,

Which, wash'd away, shall scour my shame with it. Well, I'll repent, and that suddenly, while I am in

And that shall be the day, whene'er it lights,
That this same child of honour and renown,
This gallant Hotspur, this all-praised knight,
And your unthought-of Harry, chance to meet:
For every honour sitting on his helm,
'Would they were multitudes; and on my head
My shames redoubled! for the time will come,
That I shall make this northern youth exchange
His glorious deeds for my indignities.
Percy is but my factor, good my lord,
To engross up glorious deeds on my behalf;
And I will call him to so strict account,
That he shall render every glory up,
Yea, even the slightest worship of his time,
Or I will tear the reckoning from his heart.
This, in the name of God, I promise here:
The which if he be pleas'd I shall perform,
I do beseech your majesty, may salve
The long-grown wounds of my intemperance:
If not, the end of life cancels all bands;3
And I will die a hundred thousand deaths,
Ere break the smallest parcel of this vow.

K. Hen. A hundred thousand rebels die in this :-
Thou shalt have charge, and sovereign trust, herein.
Enter BLUNT.

How now, good Blunt? thy looks are full of speed.
Blunt. So hath the business that I come to
speak of.

Lord Mortimer of Scotland' hath sent word,-
That Douglas, and the English rebels, met,
The eleventh of this month, at Shrewsbury:
A mighty and a fearful head they are,
If promises be kept on every hand,
As ever offer'd foul play in a state.

K. Hen. The earl of Westmoreland set forth
day:

some liking; I shall be out of heart shortly, and then I shall have no strength to repent. An I have not forgotten what the inside of a church is made of, I am a pepper-corn, a brewer's horse: the inside of a church! Company, villanous company, hath been the spoil of me.

Bard. Sir John, you are so fretful, you cannot live long.

Fal. Why, there is it :-come, sing me a bawdy song; make me merry. I was as virtuously given, as a gentleman need to be; virtuous enough: swore little; diced, not above seven times a week; went to a bawdy-house, not above once in a quarter-of an hour; paid money that I borrowed, three or four times; lived well, and in good compass: and now I live out of all order, out of all compass.

Bard. Why, you are so fat, Sir John, that you must needs be out of all compass; out of all reasonable compass, Sir John.

Fal. Do thou amend thy face, and I'll amend my life: Thou art our admiral,10 thou bearest the lantern in the poop, but 'tis in the nose of thee: thou art the knight of the burning lamp.

Bard. Why, Sir John, my face does you no harm. Fal. No, I'll be sworn; I make as good use of it as many a man doth of a death's head, or a memento mori: I never see thy face, but I think upon hell-fire, and Dives that lived in purple; for there he is in his robes, burning, burning. If thou wert any way given to virtue, I would swear by thy face; my oath should be, By this fire: but thou art altogether given over; and wert indeed, but for the light in thy face, the son of utter darkness. When thou ran'st up Gads-hill in the night to catch my horse, if I did not think thou hadst been an ignis to-fatuus, or a ball of wildfire, there's no purchase in money. O, thou art a perpetual triumph, an everlasting bonfire-light! Thou hast saved me a thousand marks in links and torches, walking with thee in the night betwixt tavern and tavern: but the sack that thou hast drunk me, would have bought me lights as good cheap,12 at the dearest chandler's in liquor on his back, and the other in his belly.' Malt horse, which is the same thing, was a common term of reproach, and is used elsewhere by Shakspeare, and by

With him my son, Lord John of Lancaster;
For this advertisement is five days old :-
On Wednesday next, Harry, you shall set
Forward; on Thursday, we ourselves will march:
Our meeting is Bridgnorth: and, Harry, you

1 See p. 119, note 5.

2 Favours is probably here used for colours; the scarf by which a knight of rank was distinguished. 3 Bonds. 4 Part.

Ben Jonson.

5 There was no such person as Lord Mortimer of 10 So Decker, in his Wonderful Year, 1605:- An an. Scotland; but there was a Lord March of Scotland, tiquary might have pickt rare matter out of his nose.(George Dunbar,) who having quitted his own country The Hamburghers offered I know not how many dollars in disgust, attached himself so warmly to the English, for his company in an East Indian voyage, to have stood and did them such signal services in their wars with a nights in the poope of their admirál, only to save the Scotland, that the parliament petitioned the king to be-charges of candles. That it was an old joke appears stow some reward on him. He fought on the side of from a passage in Bullein's Dialogue against the Fever King Henry in this rebellion, and was the means of Pestilence, 1578, cited by Malone. saving his life at the battle of Shrewsbury. The poet recollected that there was a Scottish lord on the king's side, who bore the same title with the English family on the rebels' side, (one being earl of March in England, the other earl of March in Scotland,) but his memory deceived him as to the particular name which was common to both. He took it to be Mortimer instead of March.

11 Steevens has taken occasion here to mention that candles and lanterns to let were then cried about Lon. don, the streets not being then lighted.

12 Cheap being derived from KAVPON, Gothic, is the past participle of cypan, Sax. to traffic, to bargain, to buy and sell. Good cheap was therefore a good bar. gain. Our ancestors not only used good cheap, but better cheap, in the sense which we now use cheap and cheaper. Tooke thinks that hud-cheap was also used, but has adduced no example. Baret translates the ora vilia of Horace by good cheap eggs; and the minoris rendere aliquid, of Plautus, by to sell better-cheap. Cheap and cheaping therefore came to signify a market, which led Johnson to suppose that good-cheap was de. rived from a bon marche. All the northern dialecta

Europe. I have maintained that salamander of yours with fire, any time this two and thirty years; Heaven reward me for it!

Bard. 'Sblood, I would my face were in your belly!

Fal. God-a-mercy! so should I be sure to be heart-burned.

Enter Hostess.

How now, dame Partlet the hea? have you inquired yet, who picked my pocket?

Host. Why, Sir John! what do you think, Sir John? Do you think I keep thieves in my house? I have searched, I have inquired, so has my husband, man by man, boy by boy, servant by servant the tithe of a hair was never lost in my house before.

Fal. You lie, hostess; Bardolph was shaved and lost many a hair: and I'll be sworn, my pocket was picked: Go to, you are a woman, go.

Host. Who I? I defy thee: I was never called so in mine own house before.

Fal. Go to, I know you well enough.

Host. No, Sir John; you do not know me, Sir John I know you, Sir John: you owe me money, Sir John, and now you pick a quarrel to beguile me of it: I bought you a dozen of shirts to your back.

Fal. Dowlas, filthy dowlas: I have given them away to bakers' wives, and they have made boiters of them.

Host. Now, as I am a true woman, holland of eight shillings an ell.' You owe money here besides, Sir John, for your diet, and by-drinkings, and money lent you, four and twenty pound.

Fal. He had his part of it; let him pay. Host. He? alas, he is poor; he hath nothing. Fal. How! poor? look upon his face; What call you rich? let them coin his nose, let them coin his cheeks; I'll not pay a denier. What, will you make a younker of me? shall I not take mine ease in mine inn, but I shall have my pocket picked? I have lost a seal-ring of my grandfather's worth forty mark.

Host. O Jesu! I have heard the prince tell him, I know not how oft, that that ring was copper.

Fal. How! the prince is a Jack, a sneak-cup; and, if he were here, I would cudgel him like a dog, if he would say so.

Enter PRINCE HENRY and POINS, marching FALSTAFF meets the Prince, playing on his truncheon like a fife.

Fal. How now, lad? is the wind in that door, i'faith? must we all march?

Bard. Yea, two and two, Newgate-fashion?
Host. My lord, I pray you, hear me.

P. Hen. What sayest thou, mistress Quickly?
How does thy husband? I love him well, he is an

honest man.

Host. Good my lord, hear me.

Fal. Pr'ythee, let her alone, and list to me.
P. Hen. What sayest thou, Jack?

have the same form of speech that our ancestors used;
thus godt-kop, betre kop, in Swedish; got kiob, better
kiob, in Danish, &c. Florio has buon-mercato, good-
cheape, a good bargaine.'

1 Eight shillings un ell, for holland linen, appears a high price for the time, but hear Stubbes in his Anatomie of Abuses: In so much as I have heard of shirtes that have cost some ten shillinges, some twentie, some fortie, some five pound, some twentie nobles, and (which is horrible to heare) some ten pound a peece, yea the meanest shirte that commonly is worn of any doest cost a crowne or a noble at the least; and yet thai is scarsely thought fine enough for the simplest person.'

2 Younker is here used for a novice, a dupe, or a person thoughtless through inexperience.

3 This was a common phrase for enjoying one's self in quiet, as if at home; not very different in its application from that maxim, Every man's house is his castle. Inne originally signified a house or habitation. When the word began to change its meaning, and to be used for a house of public entertainment, the proverb still continuing in force, was applied in the latter sense. Falstaff puns upon the word inn in order to represent

Fal. The other night I fell asleep here behind the arras, and had my pocket picked: this house is turned bawdy-house, they pick pockets.

P. Hen. What didst thou lose, Jack?

Fal. Wilt thou believe me, Hal? three or four bonds of forty pound a-piece, and a seal-ring of my grandfather's.

P. Hen. A trifle, some eight-penny matter. Host. So I told him, my lord; and I said I heard your grace say so: And, my lord, he speaks most vilely of you, like a foul-mouthed man as he is; and said, he would cudgel you.

P. Hen. What! he did not?

Host. There's neither faith, truth, nor womanhood in me else.

Fal. There's no more faith in thee than in a stewed prune; nor no more truth in thee, than in a drawn fox; and for womanhood, maid Marian may be the deputy's wife of the ward to thee. Go, you thing, go.

Host. Say, what thing? what thing?

Fal. What thing? why a thing to thank God on. Host. I am no thing to thank God on, I would thou should'st know it; I am an honest man's wife: and, setting thy knighthood aside, thou art a knave to call me so.

Fal. Setting thy womanhood aside, thou art a beast to say otherwise.

Host. Say, what beast, thou knave thou?
Fal. What beast? why an otter.

P. Hen. An otter, Sir John! why an otter?
Fal. Why? she's neither fish, nor flesh; a man
knows not where to have her.

Host. Thou art an unjust man in saying so; thou or any man knows where to have me, thou knave

thou.

P. Hen. Thou sayest true, hostess; and he slanders thee most grossly.

Host. So he doth you, my lord; and said this other day, you ought him a thousand pound.

P. Hen. Sirrah, do I owe you a thousand pound. Fal. A thousand pound, Hal? a million: thy love is worth a million; thou owest me thy love. Host. Nay, my lord, he called you Jack, and said, he would cudgel you.

Fal. Did I, Bardolph ?

Bard. Indeed, Sir John, you said so.
Fal. Yea; if he said, my ring was copper.
good as thy word now?
P. Hen. I say, 'tis copper: Darest thou be as

Fal. Why, Hal, thou knowest, as thou art but
man, I dare: but, as thou art prince, I fear thee, as
I fear the roaring of the lion's whelp.
P. Hen. And why not, as the lion?

Fal. The king himself is to be feared as the lion: Dost thou think, I'll fear thee as I fear thy father? nay, an I do, I pray God, my girdle break?

P. Hen. O, if it should, how would thy guts fall about thy knees! But, sirrah, there's no room for faith, truth, nor honesty, in this bosom of thine; it is filled up with guts, and midriff. Charge an honest woman with picking thy pocket! Why, thou whorethe wrong done him the more strongly. Old Heywood has one or two epigrams which turn upon this phrase.

4 Steevens has been too abundantly copious on the subject of stewed prunes. They were a refection particularly common in brothels in Shakspeare's time, perhaps from mistaken notions of their antisyphilitic preperties. It is not easy to understand Falstaff's similes, perhaps he means as faithless as a strumpet or a baud. A drawn for is surely neither an exenterated for nor a fox drawn over the grounds to exercise the hounds: but a hunted for, a fox drawn from his cover, whose cunning in doubling and deceiving the hounds makes the simile perfectly appropriate.

5 One of the characters in the ancient morris dance, generally a man dressed like a woman, sometimes a strumpet; and therefore forms an allusion to describe women of a masculine character. A curious tract, entitled Old Meg of Herefordshire for a Mayd Marian, and Hereford Town for a Morris-dance, 1609,' was reprinted by Mr. Triphook in 1816.

6 This imprecation is supposed to have reference to the old adage, Ungirt, unblest. It appears to have been also proverbial.