son, impudent, embossed' rascal, if there were any [ In my heart's love, hath no man than yourself; thing in thy pocket but tavern-reckonings, memoran- Nay, task me to the word; approve me, lord. dums of bawdy-houses, and one poor penny-worth Doug. Thou art the king of honour: of sugar-candy to make thee long-winded; if thy No man so potent breathes upon the ground, pocket were enriched with any other injuries but But I will beard him. = these, I am a villain. And yet you will stand to Hot. Do So, and 'tis well:it; you will not pocket up wrong; Art thou not ashamed? Fal. Dost thou hear, Hal? thou knowest, in the state of innocency, Adam fell; and what should poor Jack Falstaff do, in the days of villany? Thou seest I have more flesh than another man; and therefore more frailty.- You confess then, you picked my pocket? P. Hen. It appears so by the story. Fal. Hostess, I forgive thee: Go, make ready breakfast; love thy husband, look to thy servants, cherish thy guests: thou shalt find me tractable to any honest reason: thou seest, I am pacified.Sill?-Nay, pr'ythee, be gone. Exit Hostess.] Now, Hal, to the news at court: for the robbery, lad,-How is that answered? P. Hen. O, my sweet beef, I must still be good angel to thee :-The money is paid back again. Fal. O, I do not like that paying back, 'tis a dou ble labour. P. Hen, I am good friends with my father, and may do any thing. Fal. Rob me the exchequer the first thing thou doest, and do it with unwashed hands too. Bard. Do, my lord. P. Hen. I have procured thee, Jack, a charge of foot. order for their furniture.2 The land is burning; Percy stands on high; [Exeunt Prince, POINS, and BARDOLPH. 2 I have followed Mr. Douce's suggestion in printing thus much of this speech in prose. No correct ear will ever receive it as blank verse, notwithstanding the efforts by omission, &c. to convert it into metre. you, Enter a Messenger, with Letters. Hot. 'Zounds! how has he the leisure to be sick, Wor. I would, the state of time had first been Ere he by sickness had been visited; His health was never better worth than now. The very life-blood of our enterprise ; Wor. Your father's sickness is a maim to us. I 'Faith, and so we should; A comfort of retirement12 lives in this. Hot. A rendezvous, a home to fly unto, Wor. But yet, I would your father had been here. Of our proceedings, kept the earl from hence; And breed a kind of question in our cause: 7 The folio reads 'not I his mind.' The quarto, 1598, not I my mind.' The emendation is Capell's. 8 That is, on any less near to himself, or whose interest is remote. 9 Quailing is fainting, slackening, flagging; or fail renders it by alachissement. 3 This expression is frequent in Holinshed, and is ap-ing in vigour or resolution; going back. Cotgrave plied by way of preeminence to the head of the Douglas family. 4 Disdain. 5 To beard is to oppose face to face, in a daring and hostile manner, to threaten even to his beard. 6 Epaminondas being told, on the evening before the battle of Leuctra, that an officer of distinction had died in his tent, exclaimed, 'Good gods! how could any body find time to die in such a conjuncture.-Xenothon Hellenic, 1. vi. 10 Informed. 11 Where, for whereas. 12 i. e. a support to which we may have recourse.' 13 Hair was anciently used metaphorically for the colour, complexion, or nature of a thing. Pelo (in Italian) is used for the colour of a horse, also for the countenance of a man: and poil, in French, has the same significations, esser d'un pelo, estre d'un poil. To be of the same hair, quality, or condition Hot. You strain too far. Spoke of in Scotland, as this term3 of fear. Enter SIR RICHARD VERNON. Hot. My cousin Vernon! welcome, by my soul. The earl of Westmorland, seven thousand strong, And further, I have learn'd, Hot. He shall be welcome too. Where is his son, Ver. And witch the world with noble horsemanship. 1 The offering side is the assailing side. Baret renders Altentare pudicitiam puellæ, to assaile a maydens chastitie: to offer.' 2 To draw a curtain had anciently the same meaning as to undraw one at present. Thus in the Second Part of King Henry VI. quarto, 1600:- Then the curtaines being drawne, Duke Humphrey is discovered in his bed.' The folio reads dream of fear.' Shakspeare rarely bestows his epithets at random. Stowe says of the prince :- He was passing swift in running, insomuch that he, with two other of his lords, without hounds, bow, or other engine, would take a wilde bucke, or doe, in a large parke.' 5 This is the reading of all the old copies, which Hanmer not understanding, altered to- All plum'd like estridges, and with the wind Bating like eagles, &c. Then came Johnson, who supposed that there must be necessity for emendation, as it had already been attempted: he changed it thus: This praise doth nourish agues. Let them come; And yet not ours:-Come, let me take my horse, Against the bosom of the prince of Wales: Ver. There is more news: I learn'd in Worcester, as I rode along, unto? Ver. To thirty thousand. Hot. Forty let it be; My father and Glendower being both away, Doug. Talk not of dying; I am out of fear SCENE II. A Public Road near Coventry. Ester FALSTAFF and BARDOLPH. Fal. Bardolph, get thee before to Coventry; 68 me a bottle of sack; our soldiers shall march through; we'll to Sutton-Colfield to-night. Bard. Will you give me money, captain? Fal. Lav out, lay out. Bard. This bottle makes an angel. Fal. And if it do, take it for thy labour; and if it make twenty, take them all, I'll answer the coinage. Bid my lieutenant Peto meet me at the town's end. Bard. I will, captain: farewell. Fal. If I be not ashamed of my soldiers, I am a soused gurnet. I have misused the king's press damnably. I have got, in exchange of a hundred and fifty soldiers, three hundred and odd pounds. I press me none but good householders, yeomen's sons: inquire me out contracted bachelors, such as had been asked twice on the bans; such a commoties of an elliptical construction are not avoided by L Malone's notion, that a line had been omitted, has not ny concurrence. Nor do I think with Mr. Douce, that by estridges, estridge falcons are here meant, though the word may be used in that sense in Antony and Cleopatra. The ostridge's plumage would be mere likely to occur to the poet, from the circumstance of its being the cognizance of the prince of Wales. So in Drayton's Polyolbion, Song 22: Al 'Prince Edward all in gold, as he great Jove had been, All plum'd like estridges, that wing the wind; 6 The bearer of a helmet was a moveable piece, which lifted up or down to enable the wearer to drink or take breath more freely. It is frequently, though improperly, used to express the helmet itself. 7 Armour for the thighs. 8 The quartos of 1598 and 1599 read taste. kind. It was probably deemed a vulgar dish when 9 The gurnet, or gurnard, was a fish of the piper soused or pickled, hence soused gurnet was a common term of reproach. dity of warm slaves, as had as lief hear the devil as I'll Enter PRINCE HENRY and WESTMORELAND. P. Hen. How now, blown Jack? how now, quilt? Fal. What, Hal? How now, mad wag? what a devil dost thou in Warwickshire ?-My good lord of Westmoreland, I cry you mercy; I thought, your honour had already been at Shrewsbury. West. 'Faith, Sir John, 'tis more than time that I were there, and you too; but my powers are there already: The king, I can tell you, looks for us all : we must away all night. Fal. Tut, never fear me; I am as vigilant as a cat to steal cream. me, P. Hen. I think, to steal cream indeed; for thy theft hath already made thee butter. But tell Jack; Whose fellows are these that come after? Fal. Mine, Hal, mine. P. Hen. I did never see such pitiful rascals. Fal. Tut, tut; good enough to toss; food for powder, food for powder; they'll fill a pit, as well as better: tush, man, mortal men, mortal men. West. Ay, but, Sir John, methinks they are exceeding noor and bare; too beggarly. Fal. Faith, for their poverty,-I know not where they had that: and for their bareness,-I am sure, they never learned that of me. P. Hen. No, I'll be sworn; unless you call three fingers on the ribs, bare. But, sirrah, make haste; Percy is already in the field. Fal. What, is the king encamped? West. He is, Sir John; I fear, we shall stay too long. Fal. Well, 2 Londoners, and all within the sound of Bow bell, are in reproach called cockneys, and eaters of buttered toasts.-Moryson's Itin. 1617. 3 An old faced ancient is an old patched standard. To face a garment was to line or trim it. Thus in the present play : To face the garment of rebellion SCENE III. The Rebel Camp near Shrewsbury. Hot. We'll fight with him to-night. It may not be. Doug. You give him then advantage. Hot. You do not counsel well; As Yea, or to-night. Content. Come, come, it may not be. That not a horse is half the half of himself. Hot. So are the horses of the enemy • Wor. The number of the king exceedeth ours: [The trumpet sounds a parley. Enter SIR WALTER BLUNT. Hot. Welcome, Sir Walter Blunt'; And 'would You were of our determination! Some of us love you well: and even those some But stand against us like an enemy. Blunt. And God defend, but still I should stand so, Hot. The king is kind; and, well we know, the Knows at what time to promise, when to pay. He came but to be duke of Lancaster, Too indirect for long continuance. Blunt. Shall I return this answer to the king? And in the morning early shall mine uncle Gent. My good lord, I guess their tenor. Arch. Like enough, you do. To-morrow, good Sir Michael, is a day, The king, with mighty and quick-raised power, Gent. Why, good my lord, you need not fear. there's Douglas, And Lord Mortimer. Arch. Percy, And there's my lord of Worcester; and a head Of gallant warriors, noble gentlemen. Arch. And so there is but yet the king hath drawn The special head of all the land together:- Gent. Doubt not, my lord, they shall be well oppos'd. Arch. I hope no less, yet needful 'tis to fear; And, to prevent the worst, Sir Michael, speed:" For, if Lord Percy thrive not, ere the king Dismiss his power, he means to visit us,For he hath heard of our confederacy.And 'tis but wisdom to make strong against him; Therefore, make haste: I must go write again To other friends; and so farewell, Sir Michael. [Exeunt severally. ACT V. SCENE I. The King's Camp near Shrewsbury. Enter KING HENRY, PRINCE HENRY, PRINCE JOHN of Lancaster, SIR WALTER BLUNT, and SIR JOHN FALSTAFF. K. Hen. How bloodily the sun begins to peer Blunt. I would, you would accept of grace and Above yon busky hill! the day looks pale love. Hot. And, may be, so we shall. Blunt. 'Pray heaven, you do! [Exeunt. SCENE IV. A Room in the Archbishop's House. Enter the Archbishop of York, and a Gentleman. Arch. Hie, good Sir Michael; bear this sealed brief, With winged haste, to the lord marshal;" 1 That is, to sue out the delivery or possession of his lands. This law term has been already explained in King Richard II. Act it. Sc. 1. 2 The greater and the less. 3 The whole of this speech alludes to passages in King Richard II. 4 So in Painter's Palace of Pleasure: Great mischiefes succedyng one in another's necke. Tas d is here used for fared: it was common to use these words indiscriminately, says Steevens. Tuskes were tributes or subsidies, and should not be confounded with taxes, which are carefully distinguished by Baret. He interprets telonium, the place where tasks or tributes are paied. Philips, in his World of Words, says, Tasck is an old British word, signifying tribute, from whence haply cometh our word task, which is a duty or labour imposed upon any one.' At his distemperature. P. Hen. The southern wind Doth play the trumpet to his purposes: Trumpet. Enter WORCESTER and VERNON. 5 The old copies read engag'd, which Theobald altered to incag'd, without reason: to be engaged is to be pledged as an hostage. 6 A brief is any short writing, as a letter, &c. 7 Thomas Lord Mowbray. 8 A strength on which we reckoned, a help of which we made account. 9 I do not know (says Mr. Blakeway) whether Shakspeare ever surveyed the ground of Battlefield, but he has described the sun's rising over Haughmound Hall from that spot as accurately as if he had. It still merits the name of a busky hill. Milton writes the word, perhaps more properly, bosky, it is from the French boscageur, woody. 10 Shakspeare forgot that he was not at this time old, it was only four years since the deposition of King Richard. This is not well, my lord, this is not well. Of broached mischief to the unborn times? For mine own part, I could be well content I have not sought the day of this dislike. K. Hen. You have not sought for it! how comes Fal. Rebellion lay in his way, and he found it. Wor. It pleas'd your majesty, to turn your looks In Richard's time; and posted day and night That even our love durst not come near your sight, Sworn to us in your younger enterprise. K. Hen. These things, indeed, you have articulated, 4 Proclaim'd at market-crosses, read in churches; With some fine colour, that may please the eye And never yet did insurrection want cha Lette. 1 A chewet was (as Theobald justly observes) a noisy chattering bird, a pie or jackdaw; called also in French This simple and satisfactory explanation would not do for Steevens and Malone, who finding that chorets were also little round pies made of minced meat, thought that the prince compared Falstaff, for his seasonable chattering, to a minced pie! The word is a diminutive of chough, pronounced chouh, from the Saxon cro. Graculus Moneduh. Belon, in his History of Birds, describes the chouette as the smallest kind of chough or crow, and this will account for the diminutive termination of its name. 2 The Titing, therefore, that sitteth, being thus de. ceived, hatcheth the egge, and bringeth up the chicke Such water colours, to impaint his cause; P. Hen. In both our armies, there is many a soul If once they join in trial. Tell your nephew, K. Hen. And, prince of Wales, so dare we ven- Albeit, considerations infinite Do make against it :-No, good Worcester, no," [Exeunt WORCESTER and VERNON. K. Hen. Hence, therefore, every leader to his For, on their answer, will we set on them: [Exeunt KING, BLUNT, and PRINCE JOHN. Fal. Hal, if thou see me down in the battle, and bestride me, so; 'tis a point of friendship. P. Hen. Nothing but a colossus can do thee that friendship. Say thy prayers, and farewell. Fal. I would it were bed-time, Hal, and all well. P. Hen. Why, thou owest God a death. [Exit. Fal. 'Tis not due yet; I would be loath to pay him before his day. What need I be so forward with him that calls not on me? Well, 'tis no matter; Honour pricks me on. Yea, but how if honour prick me off when I come on? how then? Can honour set to a leg? No. Or an arm? No. Or take away the grief of a wound? No. Honour hath no skill in surgery then? No. What is honour? A word. What is in that word, honour? What is that honour? Air. A trim reckoning!--Who hath it? He that died o'Wednesday. Doth he feel it? No. Doth he hear it? No. Is it insensible then? Yea, to the dead. But will it not live with the living? No. Why? Detraction will not suffer it :-therefore I'll none of it: Honour is a mere scutcheon, and so ends my catechism. [Exit, of another bird:-and this she doth so long, untill the young cuckow being cnce fledge and readie to flie abroad, is so bold as to seize upon the old titling, and eat up her that hatched her.-Pliny's Nat. Hist. by Holland, b. x. ch. 9. 3 i. e. we stand in opposition to you. 4 The quartos read articulate. To articulate is to set down in articles. 5 i. e. anxiously expecting a time. 7 Mason suggests that we should read 'know good Worcester, know, &c.' 5 In the battle of Agincourt, Henry, when king, did this act of friendship for his brother the duke of Glou cester. |