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? 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. Fal. The other night I fell asleep here behind the and had my pocket picked: this house is turned bawdy-house, they pick pockets. arras, 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 prune9; nor no more truth in thee, than in 9 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 properties. It is not easy to understand Falstaff's similes, perhaps he means as faithless as a strumpet or a bawd. A drawn fox is surely neither an exenterated fox! nor a fox drawn a drawn fox; and for womanhood, maid Marian 10 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? 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. over the grounds to exercise the hounds; but a hunted fox, a fox drawn from his cover, whose cunning in doubling and deceiving the hounds makes the simile perfectly appropriate. Beaumont and Fletcher, in the Tamer Tamed, call Moroso, a cunning avaricious old man, ' that drawn fox.' Drawing is a term used in hunting, when they beat the bushes, &c. after a fox.'-Country Dict. 1704. 10 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. 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. P. Hen. I say, 'tis copper: Darest thou be as good as thy word now? 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, and I do, I pray God, my girdle break 11? 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 whoreson, impudent, embossed12 rascal, if there were any thing in thy pocket but tavern-reckonings, memorandums of bawdy-houses, and one poor penny-worth of sugar-candy to make thee long-winded; if thy pocket were enriched with any other injuries but these, I am a villain. And yet you will stand to it; you will not pocket up wrong; Art thou not ashamed? Fal. Dost thou hear, Hal? thou knowest, in the 11 This imprecation is supposed to have reference to the old adage, Ungirt, unblest.' It appears to have been also proverbial. In a humorous poem, apparently from the pen of Sam. Rowlands, 'Tis Merry when Gossips meet, 1609,' we also find it :'How say'st thou, Besse? shall it be so, girle? speake: If I make one, pray God my girdle break!" 6 Malone observes, that as the purse was worn hanging at the girdle, its breaking, unobserved by the wearer, was a serious matter.' 12 Swoln, puffy, blown up. 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.Still?-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 double 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. Fal. I would, it had been of horse. Where shall I find one that can steal well? O for a fine thief, of the age of two and twenty, or thereabouts! I am heinously unprovided. Well, God be thanked for these rebels, they offend none but the virtuous; I laud them, I praise them. P. Hen. Bardolph Bard. My lord. P. Hen. Go bear this letter to Lord John of Lancaster, my brother John;-this to my lord of Westmoreland.-Go, Poins, to horse, to horse; for thou, and I, have thirty miles to ride yet ere dinner time.Jack, meet me to-morrow i'the Templehall at two o'clock i'the afternoon: there shalt thou know thy charge; and there receive money, and order for their furniture 13. The land is burning; Percy stands on high; And either they, or we, must lower lie. [Exeunt Prince, POINS, and BARDOLPH. -Hostess, my Fal. Rare words! brave world! breakfast; come : O, I could wish, this tavern were my drum. [Exit. ACT IV. SCENE I. The rebel Camp near Shrewsbury. The tongues of soothers; but a braver place No man so potent breathes upon the ground, 13 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. 1 This expression is frequent in Holinshed, and is applied by way of preeminence to the head of the Douglas family. 2 Disdain. 3 To beard is to oppose face to face, in a daring and hostile man |