And mock your workings in a second body5. Hear your own dignity so much profan'd, King. You are right, justice, and you weigh this well; Therefore still bear the balance and the sword: The unstain'd sword that you have us❜d to bear; My voice shall sound as you do prompt mine ear; 5 Treat with contempt your acts executed by a representative. 6 i. e. image to yourself that you have a son. So in Titus Andronicus: a thousand deaths I could propose.' 7 In your regal character and office. 8 Remembrance; that is admonition or warning. To your well practis'd, wise directions. Our coronation done, we will accite 12, No prince, nor peer, shall have just cause to say,- 9 The meaning is, My wild dispositions having ceased on my father's death, and being now as it were buried in his tomb, he and wildness are interred in the same grave. This is confirmed by a passage in King Henry V.:— The courses of his youth promis'd it not: The breath no sooner left his father's body, 10 Sadly is soberly, seriously; sad is opposed to wild. 11 That is, With the majestic dignity of the ocean, the chief of floods. 12 Summons. VOL. V. K K Glostershire. SCENE III. The Garden of Shallow's House. Enter FALSTAFF, SHALLOW, SILENCE, BARDOLPH, the Page, and DAVY. Shal. Nay, you shall see mine orchard: where, in an arbour, we will eat a last year's pippin of my own graffing, with a dish of carraways1, and so forth; -come, cousin Silence ;-and then to bed. Fal. 'Fore God, you have here a goodly dwelling, and a rich. Shal. Barren, barren, barren; beggars all, beggars all, Sir John:-marry, good air.-Spread, Davy; spread, Davy; well said, Davy. Fal. This Davy serves you for good uses; he is your serving-man, and your husbandman. Shal. A good varlet, a good varlet, a very good varlet, Sir John.-By the mass, I have drunk too much sack at supper :- -a good varlet. down, now sit down :-come, cousin. Sil. Ah, sirrah! quoth-a,-we shall And praise heaven for the merry year; Now sit [Singing. 1 This passage, which was long a subject of dispute, some pertinaciously maintaining that carraways meant apples of that name, has been at length properly explained by the following quotations from Cogan's Haven of Health, 1599:- For the same purpose careway seeds are used to be made in comfits, and to be eaten with apples, and surely very good for that purpose, for all such things as breed wind, would be eaten with other things that breake wind.' Again:- Howbeit we are wont to eate carrawaies, or biskets, or some other kind of comfits or seedes, together with apples, thereby to breake winde ingendred by them; and surely this is a verie good way for students.' The truth is, that apples and carraways were formerly always eaten together; and it is said that they are still served up on particular days at Trinity College, Cambridge. When flesh is cheap, and females dear2, And ever among so merrily. Fal. There's a merry heart!-Good master Silence, I'll give you a health for that anon. Shal. Give master Bardolph some wine, Davy. Davy. Sweet sir, sit; [Seating BARDOLPH and the Page at another table.] I'll be with you anon:— most sweet sir, sit.- -Master page, good master page, sit proface 3! What you want in meat, we'll have in drink. But you must bear; The heart's all. [Exit. Shal. Be merry, master Bardolph ;—and my little soldier there, be merry. Sil. Be merry, be merry, my wife has all; [Singing. For women are shrews, both short and tall: 'Tis merry in hall, when beards wag all1, 2 The character of Silence is admirably sustained; he would scarcely speak a word before, and now there is no end to his garrulity. He has a catch for every occasion : 'When flesh is cheap and females dear.' Here the double sense of dear must be remembered. 3 An expression of welcome equivalent to Much good may it do you! Steevens conjectured it to be from the old French Bon prou leur face, which is to be found in Cotgrave in voce PRou. Steevens was very near the mark, for Mr. Nares has pointed out its true origin in the old Norman French or Romance language. 'PROUFACE Souhait, qui veut dire bien vous fasse, proficiat.'ROQUEFORT Glossaire de la Langue Romane. Old Heywood had explained it long before : 'Reader, reade this thus: for preface, proface, Much good may it do you,' &c. In Cavendish's Life of Wolsey, p. 132, ed. 1825, it thus occurs: — Before the second course, my lord cardinal came in among them, booted and spurred, all suddenly, and bade them proface.' 4 This proverbial rhyme is of great antiquity; it is found in Adam Davie's Life of Alexander : And welcome merry shrove-tide 5. Be merry, be merry, &c. Fal. I did not think, master Silence had been a man of this mettle. Sil. Who I? I have been merry twice and once, ere now. Re-enter DAVY. Davy. There is a dish of leather-coats for you. [Setting them before BARDOLPH. Shal. Davy, Davy. Your worship?-I'll be with you straight. [TO BARD.]-A cup of wine, sir? Sil. A cup of wine, that's brisk and fine, And a merrg heart lives long-a. [Singing. -now comes in the Fal. Well said, master Silence. Sil. And we shall be merry;sweet of the night. Fal. Health and long life to you, master Silence. Sil. Fill the cup, and let it come; I'll pledge you a mile to the bottom. Shal. Honest Bardolph, welcome: if thou wantest any thing, and wilt not call, beshrew thy heart.Welcome, my little tiny thief; [To the Page.] and welcome, indeed, too. I'll drink to master Bardolph, and to all the cavaleroes about London. Davy. I hope to see London once ere I die. 5 Shrovetide was the ancient carnival; 'In most places where the Romish religion is generally professed, it is a time wherein more than ordinary liberty is tolerated, as it were in recompense of the abstinence (penance which is to be undergone for a time) for the future whence by a metaphor it may be taken for any time of rioting or licence.'-Philips's World of Words. T. Warton does not seem to have known that shrovetide and carnival were the same, or that carniscapium and carnisprivium were the low Latin terms for the latter. Shrovetide' was a season of such mirth that shroving, or to shrove, signified to be merry. 6 Apples commonly called russetines. |