[To DOLL.] you are the weaker vessel, as they say, the emptier vessel.

Dol. Can a weak, empty vessel bear such a huge, full hogshead? There's a whole merchant's venture of Bordeaux stuff in him: you have not seen a hulk better stuffed in the hold.-Come, I'll be friends with thee, Jack thou art going to the wars; and whether I shall ever see thee again, or no, there is nobody cares.

Re-enter Drawer.

1

Draw. Sir, ancient 1 Pistol's below, and would speak with you.

Dol. Hang him, swaggering rascal! let him not come hither; it is the foul-mouth'dst rogue in England.

Host. If he swagger, let him not come here; no, by my faith; I must live amongst my neighbors; I'll no swaggerers; I am in good name and fame with the very best.-Shut the door;-there comes no swaggerers here; I have not lived all this while to have swaggering now;-shut the door, I pray you.

Fal. Dost thou hear, hostess?

Host. 'Pray you, pacify yourself, sir John; there comes no swaggerers here.

Fal. Dost thou hear? it is mine ancient.

Host. Tilly-fally, sir John, never tell me; your ancient swaggerer comes not in my doors. I was before master Tisick, the deputy, the other day; and, as he said to me, it was no longer ago than Wednesday last,-Neighbor Quickly, says he ;-master Dumb, our minister, was by then ;-Neighbor Quickly, says he, receive those that are civil; for, saith he, you are in an ill name;-now he said so, I can tell whereupon; for, says he, you are an honest woman, and well thought on; therefore take heed what guests you receive. Receive, says he, no swaggering companions.-There comes none here;-you would bless you to hear what he said. No, I'll no swaggerers.

Fal. He's no swaggerer, hostess; a tame cheater,' he; you may stroke him as gently as a puppy greyhound; he will not swagger with a Barbary hen, if her feathers turn back in any show of resistance.-Call him up, drawer.

Host. Cheater, call you him? I will bar no honest man my house, nor no cheater. But I do not love swaggering; by my troth, I am the worse, when one says-swagger: feel, masters, how I shake; look you, I warrant you.

Dol. So you do, hostess.

Host. Do I? yea, in very truth, do I, an 'twere an aspen leaf; I cannot abide swaggerers.

Enter PISTOL, BARDOLPH, and Page.

Pist. 'Save you, sir John!

Fal. Welcome, ancient Pistol. Here, Pistol, I charge you with a cup of sack; do you discharge upon mine hostess.

Pist. I will discharge upon her, sir John, with two bullets.

Fal. She is pistol-proof, sir; you shall hardly offend her.

Host. Come, I'll drink no proofs, nor no bullets. I'll drink no more than will do me good, for no man's pleasure, I.

Pist. Then to you, mistress Dorothy; I will charge you.

Dol. Charge me? I scorn you, scurvy companion. What you poor, base, rascally, cheating, lack-linen mate! Away, you mouldy rogue; away! I am meat for your master.

Pist. I know you, mistress Dorothy.

Dol. Away, you cutpurse rascal! you filthy bung,3

1 Tame cheater seems to have meant a rogue in general.

2 The humor consists in Mrs. Quickly's mistaking a cheater for an escheator, or officer of the exchequer.

3 To nip a bung, in the cant of thievery, was to cut a purse. "Bung is now used for a pocket, heretofore for a purse."-Belman of London, 1610. Doll means to call him pickpocket.

away! by this wine, I'll thrust my knife in your mouldy chaps, an you play the saucy cuttle with me. Away, you bottle-ale rascal! you basket-hilt stale juggler, you! -Since when, I pray you, sir?-What, with two points on your shoulder? much! 2

Pist. I will murder your ruff for this.

Fal. No more, Pistol; I would not have you go off here; discharge yourself of our company, Pistol. Host. No, good captain Pistol; not here, sweet captain.

Dol. Captain! thou abominable, damned cheater, art thou not ashamed to be called-captain? If captains were of my mind, they would truncheon you out, for taking their names upon you before you have earned them. You a captain, you slave! for what? for tearing a poor whore's ruff in a bawdy house?-He a captain! hang him, rogue! He lives upon mouldy stewed prunes, and dried cakes. A captain! these villains will make the word captain as odious as the word occupy,3 which was an excellent good word before it was ill-sorted ; therefore captains had need look to it.

Bard. 'Pray thee, go down, good ancient.

Fal. Hark thee hither, mistress Doll.

Pist. Not I; tell thee what, corporal Bardolph ;I could tear her ;-I'll be revenged on her.

Page. 'Pray thee, go down.

Pist. I'll see her damned first ;-to Pluto's damned lake, to the infernal deep, with Erebus and tortures vile also. Hold hook and line, say I. Down! down, dogs! down, faitors! Have we not Hiren here ? 5

1 Laces, marks of his commission.

2 An expression of disdain.

3 This word had been perverted to an obscene meaning.

4 Traitors, rascals.

5 Shakspeare has put into the mouth of Pistol a tissue of absurd and fustian passages from many ridiculous old plays. Part of this speech is parodied from The Battle of Alcazar, 1594. Have we not Hiren here, is probably a line from a play of George Peele's, called The Turkish Mahomet and Hiren the fair Greek. It is often used ludicrously by subsequent dramatists. Hiren, from its resemblance to siren, was used for a seducing woman, and consequently for a courtesan. Pistol, in his rants, twice brings in the same words, but apparently meaning to give his sword the name of Hiren. Mrs. Quickly, with admirable simplicity, sup poses him to ask for a woman.

Host. Good captain Peesel, be quiet; it is very late, i' faith: I beseek you now, aggravate your choler. Pist. These be good humors, indeed! Shall packhorses,

And hollow, pampered jades of Asia,

Which cannot go but thirty miles a day,1
Compare with Cæsars, and with Cannibals,2

And Trojan Greeks? nay, rather damn them with
King Cerberus; and let the welkin roar.

Shall we fall foul for toys?

Host. By my troth, captain, these are very bitter words.

Bard. Be gone, good ancient; this will grow to a brawl anon.

Pist. Die men, like dogs; give crowns like pins. Have we not Hiren here?

Host. O' my word, captain, there's none such here. What the good-year! do you think I would deny her? for God's sake, be quiet.

Past. Then feed and be fat, my fair Calipolis.3 Come, give's some sack.

Si fortuna me tormenta, sperato me contenta.1

Fear we broadsides? no, let the fiend give fire. Give me some sack;-and, sweetheart, lie thou there. [Laying down his sword.

Come we to full points here; and are et ceteras nothing?5

Fal. Pistol, I would be quiet.

Pist. Sweet knight, I kiss thy neif! What! we have seen the seven stars.

1 This is a parody of the lines addressed by Tamberlane to the captive princes who draw his chariot, in Marlowe's Tamberlaine, 1590.

2 A blunder for Hannibal.

3 This is again a burlesque upon a line in The Battle of Alcazar, in which Muley Mahomet enters to his wife with lion's flesh on his sword:"Feed then and faint not, my faire Callypolis."

4 Pistol is supposed to read this motto on his sword; by singular chance Mr. Douce picked up an old rapier with the same motto in French :Si fortune me tourmente, l'esperance me contente. 5 That is, Shall we have no further entertainment? 6 Neif is used for fist. It is a north country word.

Dol. Thrust him down stairs; I cannot endure such a fustian rascal.

Pist. Thrust him down stairs! know we not Galloway nags ?1

Fal. Quoit him down, Bardolph, like a shove-groat shilling. Nay, if he do nothing but speak nothing, he shall be nothing here.

Bard. Come, get you down stairs.

brue?

Pist. What! shall we have incision? shall we im[Snatching up his sword. Then death rock me asleep, abridge my doleful days! Why, then, let grievous, ghastly, gaping wounds Untwine the sisters three! Come, Atropos, I say! 3 Host. Here's goodly stuff toward!

Fal. Give me my rapier, boy.

Dol. I pray thee, Jack, I pray thee, do not draw. Fal. Get you down stars.

[Drawing, and driving PISTOL out. Host. Here's a goodly tumult! I'll forswear keeping house, afore I'll be in these tirrits and frights. So; murder, I warrant now. Alas, alas! put up your naked weapons, put up your naked weapons.

[Exeunt PISTOL and BARDOLPH. Dol. I pray thee, Jack, be quiet; the rascal is gone. Ah, you whoreson little valiant villain, you.

Host. Are you not hurt i' the groin? methought he made a shrewd thrust at your belly.

1 Common hackneys.

2 i. e. pitch him down. The shove-groat shillings were such broad shillings of king Edward VI. as Slender calls Edward shovel-boards, in The Merry Wives of Windsor, Act i. Sc. 1.

3 Pistol makes use of fragments of old ballads as well as old plays:

"O death, rock me on slepe,

Bring me on quiet rest,"

is an ancient song, attributed to Anne Boleyn. There is another in the Gorgious Gallery of Gallant Inventions, 1578, which has furnished him with some of his rhodomontade :

"I hate this loathsome life,

O Atropos, draw nie,

Untwist the thread of mortall strife,

Send death, and let me die."