with an agate till now; but I will set you neither in gold nor silver, but in vile apparel, and send you back again to your master, for a jewel; the juvenal, the prince your master, whose chin is not yet fledged. I will sooner have a beard grow in the palm of my hand than he shall get one on his cheek; and yet he will not stick to say his face is a face-royal: God may finish it when he will, 'tis not a hair amiss yet he may keep it still as a face-royal, for a barber shall never earn sixpence out of it; and yet he'll be crow ing as if he had writ man ever since his father was a bachelor. He may keep his own grace, but he's almost out of mine, I can assure him. What said Master Dombledon about the satin for my short cloak and my slops?

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Page. He said, sir, you should procure him better assurance than Bardolph; he would not take his bond and yours: he liked not the security.

Fal. Let him be damned like the glutton! pray God his tongue be hotter! A whoreson Achitophel a rascally yea-forsooth knave! to bear a gentleman in hand, and then stand upon security. The whoreson smooth-pates do now wear nothing but high shoes, and bunches of keys at their girdles; and if a man is thorough with them in honest taking up, then they must stand upon security. I had as lief they would put ratsbane in my mouth as offer to stop it with security. I looked a' should have sent me twoand-twenty yards of satin, as I am a true knight, and he sends me security. Well, he may sleep in security; for he hath the horn of abundance, and the lightness of his wife shines through it: and yet cannot he see, though he have his own lantern to light him. Where's Bardolph ?

Page. He's gone into Smithfield to buy your worship a horse.

Fal. I bought him in Paul's, and he'll buy me a horse in Smithfield: an I could get me but a wife in the stews, I were manned, horsed, and wived.

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Enter the Lord Chief Justice and Servant. Page. Sir, here comes the nobleman that committed the prince for striking him about Bardolph.

Fal. Wait close; I will not see him. Ch. Just. What's he that goes there? Serv. Falstaff, an 't please your lordship. Ch. Just. He that was in question for the robbery?

Serv. He, my lord; but he hath since done good service at Shrewsbury, and, as I hear, is now going with some charge to the Lord John of Lancaster. 72

Ch. Just. What! to York? Call him back again. Serv. Sir John Falstaff!

Fal. Boy, tell him I am deaf.

Page. You must speak louder, my master is deaf. Ch. Just. I am sure he is, to the hearing of any thing good. Go, pluck him by the elbow; I must speak with him.

Serv. Sir John!

Fal. What a young knave, and beg! Is there not wars? is there not employment? doth not the king lack subjects? do not the rebels want soldiers? Though it be a shame to be on any side but one, it is worse shame to beg than to

be on the worst side, were it worse than the name of rebellion can tell how to make it. Serv. You mistake me, sir.

Fal. Why, sir, did I say you were an honest man? setting my knighthood and my soldiership aside, I had lied in my throat if I had said so. 91 Serv. I pray you, sir, then set your knighthood and your soldiership aside, and give me leave to tell you you lie in your throat if you say I am any other than an honest man.

Fal. I give thee leave to tell me so! I lay aside that which grows to me! If thou gettest any leave of me, hang me: if thou takest leave, thou wert better be hanged. You hunt-counter: hence! avaunt!

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Serv. Sir, my lord would speak with you. Ch. Just. Sir John Fal-taff, a word with you. Fal. My good lord! God give your lordship good time of day. I am glad to see your lordship abroad; I heard say your lordship was sick: I hope your lordship goes abroad by advice. Your lordship, though not clean past your youth, hath yet some smack of age in you, some relish of the saltness of time; and I most humbly beseech your lordship to have a reverent care of your health.

111

Ch. Just. Sir John, I sent for you before your expedition to Shrewsbury.

Fal. An't please your lordship, I hear his majesty is returned with some discomfort from Wales.

Fal. I am as poor as Job, my lord, but not so patient: your lordship may minister the potion of imprisonment to me in respect of poverty; but how I should be your patient to follow your prescriptions, the wise may make some dram of a scruple, or indeed a scruple itself.

Ch. Just. I sent for you, when there were matters against you for your life, to come speak with me.

Fal. As I was then advised by my learned counsel in the laws of this land-service, I did not come.

151

Ch. Just. Well, the truth is, Sir John, you live in great infamy.

Fal. He that buckles him in my belt cannot live in less.

And our supplies live largely in the hope
Of great Northumberland, whose bosom burns
With an incensed fire of injuries.

L. Bard. The question then, Lord Hastings, standeth thus:

20

Whether our present five-and-twenty thousand
May hold up head without Northumberland.
Hast. With him, we may.
L. Bard.
Ay, marry, there's the point:
But if without him we be thought too feeble,
My judgment is, we should not step too far
Till we had his assistance by the hand;
For in a theme so bloody-fac'd as this,
Conjecture, expectation, and surmise
Of aids incertain should not be admitted.
Arch. "Tis very true, Lord Bardolph; for indeed
It was young Hotspur's case at Shrewsbury.
L. Bard. It was, my lord; who lin'd himself
with hope,

Eating the air on promise of supply,
Flattering himself with project of a power
Much smaller than the smallest of his thoughts;
And so, with great imagination

Proper to madmen, led his powers to death,
And winking leap'd into destruction.

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We fortify in paper and in figures,

Using the names of men instead of men: Like one that draws the model of a house

60

Beyond his power to build it; who, half through,
Gives o'er and leaves his part-created cost
A naked subject to the weeping clouds,
And waste for churlish winter's tyranny.
Hast. Grant that our hopes, yet likely of fair
birth,

Should be still-born, and that we now possess'd
The utmost man of expectation,

I think we are a body strong enough,
Even as we are, to equal with the king.

L. Bard. What is the king but five-andtwenty thousand?

And publish the occasion of our arms.
The commonwealth is sick of their own choice;
Their over-greedy love hath surfeited.
An habitation giddy and unsure

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Hath he that buildeth on the vulgar heart.
O thou fond many! with what loud applause
Didst thou beat heaven with blessing Polingbroke
Before he was what thou would'st have him be:
And being now trimm'd in thine own desires,
Thou, beastly feeder, art so full of him
That thou provok'st thyself to cast him up.
So, so, thou common dog, didst thou disgorge
Thy glutton bosom of the royal Richard,
And now thou would'st eat thy dead vomit up,
And howl'st to find it. What trust is in these
times?

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They that, when Richard liv'd, would have him die,
Are now become enamour'd on his grave:
Thou, that threw'st dust upon his goodly head,
When through proud London he came sighing on
After the admired heels of Bolingbroke,
Cry'st now, 'O earth! yield us that king again,
And take thou this.' Othoughts of men accurst!
Past and to come seems best; things present
worst.

Mowb. Shall we go draw our numbers and set on?

Ilast. We are time's subjects, and time bids be gone. Exeunt. 110

70

Hast. To us no more; nay, not so much, Lord
Bardolph:

For his divisions, as the times do brawl,
Are in three heads: one power against the
French,

And one against Glendower; perforce a third
Must take up us: so is the unfirm king

Suare. It may chance cost some of us our lives, for he will stab.

Quick. Alas the day! take heed of him: he stabbed me in mine own house, and that most beastly. In good faith, he cares not what mischief he doth if his weapon be out: he will foin

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Quick. No, nor I neither: I'll be at your elbow. Fang. An I but fist him once; an a' come but within my vice,—

Quick. I am undone with his going; I warrant you, he's an infinitive thing upon my score. Good Master Fang, hold him sure: good Master Snare, let him not 'scape. A' comes continuantly to Pie-corner-saving your manhoods-to buy a saddle; and he's indited to dinner to the Lubber's head in Lumbert street, to Master Smooth's the silkman: I pray ye, since my exion is entered, and my case so openly known to the world, let him be brought in to his answer. A hundred mark is a long one for a poor lone woman to bear; and I have borne, and borne, and borne; and have been fubbed off, and fubbed off, and fubbed off, from this day to that day, that it is a shame to be thought on. There is no honesty in such dealing; unless a woman should be made an ass, and a beast, to bear every knave's wrong. Yonder he comes; and that arrant malmsey nose knave, Bardolph, with him. Do your offices, do your offices, Master Fang and Master Snare: do me, do me, do me your offices.

Enter Sir JOHN FALSTAFF, Page, and BARDOLPH.

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

Fang. Sir John, I arrest you at the suit of Mistress Quickly. 50 Fal. Away, varlets! Draw, Bardolph: cut me off the villain's head; throw the quean in the channel.

Quick. Throw me in the channel! I'll throw thee in the channel. Wilt thou wilt thou? thou bastardly rogue! Murder, murder! Ah! thou honey-suckle villain! wilt thou kill God's officers and the king's? Ah! thou honey-seed rogue! thou art a honey-seed, a man-queller, and a woman-queller. 60

Fal. Keep them off, Bardolph. Fang. A rescue! a rescue! Quick. Good people, bring a rescue or two. Thou wo't, wo 't thou thou wo 't, wo 't ta? 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!

Quick. Good my lord, be good to me! I be seech you, stand to me!

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Ch. Just. How now, Sir John! what are you brawling here?

Doth this become your place, your time and

business?

You should have been well on your way to York. Stand from him, fellow: wherefore hang'st upon him?

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

Ch. Just. For what sum?

Quick. It is more than for some, my lord; it

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 will 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?

91

Fal. What is the gross sum that I owe thee? Quick. 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 seacoal fire, upon Wednesday in Wheeson week, when the prince broke thy head for liking his father to a singing-man 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 bookoath 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 to me, practised upon the easy-yielding spirit of this woman, and made her serve your uses both in purse and person.

Quick. Yea, in troth, my lord.

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Ch. Just. Prithee, peace. Pay her the debt you owe her, and unpay the villany 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 sneap 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.

142

Ch. Just. You speak as having power to do wrong but answer in the effect of your reputation, and satisfy the poor woman. Fal. Come hither, hostess.

Enter GOWER.

Ch. Just. Now, Master Gower! what news!

Gow. The king, my lord, and Harry Prince of
Wales

Are near at hand: the rest the paper tells.
Fal. As I am a gentleman.
Quick. Nay, you said so before.

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Fal. As I am a gentleman. Come, no more words of it.

Quick. By this heavenly ground I tread on, I must be fain to pawn both my plate and the tapestry of my dining-chambers.

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 water-work, is worth a thousand of these bedhangings and these fly-bitten tapestries. Let it be ten pound if thou canst. Come, an 'twere not for thy humours, there's 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.

Quick. Prithee, Sir John, let it be but twenty nobles: i' faith, I am loath to pawn my plate, so God save me, la!

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

170

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

Fal. Will I live? To BARDOLPH. Go, with her, with her; hook on, hook on. Quick. Will you have Doll Tearsheet meet you at supper?

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Fal. No more words; let's have her.
Exeunt Mistress QUICKLY, BARDOLPH,
Officers, and Page.

Ch. Just. I have heard better news.
Fal. What's the news, my good lord?
Ch. Just. Where lay the king last night?
Gone. 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? Gou. No; fifteen hundred foot, five hundred horse,

Are march'd up to my Lord of Lancaster, Against Northumberland and the archbishop. 190 Fal. Comes the king back from Wales, my noble lord?

Ch. Just. You shall have letters of me presently. Come, go along with me, good Master Gower.

Fal. My lord!

SCENE II.-The Same. Another Street.

Enter the PRINCE and POINS.

Prince. Before God, I am exceeding weary. Poins. Is it come to that? I had thought weariness durst not have attached one of so high blood.

Prince. 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. Prince. 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 to-morrow! 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 lowcountries 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 king. dom; but the midwives say the children are not in the fault; whereupon the world increases, and kindreds are mightily strengthened.

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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 ?

Prince. Shall I tell thee one thing, Poins? Poins. Yes, faith, and let it be an excellent good thing.

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Prince. 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.

Prince. 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.

Prince. 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.