7

with me; dost not know me? Come, come, I know thou wast set on to this.

Host. Pray thee, sir John, let it be but twenty nobles; i'faith, I am loath to pawn my plate in good earnest, la. Fal. Let it alone; I'll make other shift: you'll be a fool still.

Host. 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 ?—Go, with her, with her: [To BARDOLPH.] hook on, hook on.

Host. Will you have Doll Tear-sheet meet you at supper?

Fal. No more words; let's have her.

[Exeunt Hostess, 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?

Gow. At Basingstoke, my lord.

Fal. I hope, my lord, all's well: What's the news, my lord?

Ch. Just. Come all his forces back?

Gow. No; fifteen hundred foot, five hundred horse, Are march'd up to my lord of Lancaster,

Against Northumberland, and the archbishop.

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!

Ch. Just. What's the matter?

Fal. Master Gower, shall I entreat you with me to dinner?

Gow. I must wait upon my good lord here: I thank you, good sir John.

Ch. Just. Sir John, you loiter here too long, being you are to take soldiers up in counties as you go.

Fal. Will you sup with me, master Gower?

Ch. Just. What foolish master taught you these manners, sir John?

Fal. Master Gower, if they become me not, he was a fool that taught them me.-This is the right fencing grace, my lord; tap for tap, and so part fair.

Ch. Just. Now the Lord lighten thee! thou art a great fool.

Excunt.

SCENE II.

The same. Another Street. Enter Prince HENRY, and POINS.

P. Hen. Trust me, I am exceeding weary.

Poins. Is it come to that? I had thought, weariness durst not have attached one of so high blood.

P. Hen. '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.

P. Hen. 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 the 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 low-countries 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 kingdom: but the midwives say, the children are not in the fault; whereupon the world increases, and kindreds are mightily strengthened.

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 ?

P. Hen. Shall I tell thee one thing, Poins?

Poins. Yes; and let it be an excellent good thing. P. Hen. 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.

P. Hen. Why, 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.

P. Hen. By this hand, thou think'st 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. 4

Poins. The reason?

P. Hen. What would'st thou think of me, if I should weep?

Poins. I would think thee a most princely hypocrite. P. Hen. It would be every man's thought: and thou art a blessed fellow, to think as every man thinks; never a man's thought in the world keeps the road-way better than thine every man would think me a hypocrite indeed. And what accites your most worshipful thought, to think so!

Poins. Why, because you have been so lewd, and so much engraffed to Falstaff.

P. Hen. And to thee.

Poins. By this light, I am well spoken of, I can hear it with my own ears: the worst that they can say of me is, that I am a second brother, and that I am a proper fellow of my hands; and those two things, I confess, I cannot help. By the mass, here comes Bardolph.

P. Hen. And the boy that I gave Falstaff: he had him from me christian; and look, if the fat villain have not transformed him ape.

Enter BARDOLPH and Page.

Bard. 'Save your grace!

P. Hen. And yours, most noble Bardolph!

Bard. Come, you virtuous ass, [To the Page.] you bashful fool, must you be blushing? wherefore blush you now? What a maidenly man at arms are you become? Is it such a matter, to get a pottle-pot's maidenhead?

Page. He called me even now, my lord, through a red lattice, and I could discern no part of his face from the window at last, I spied his eyes; and, methought, he had made two holes in the alewife's new petticoat, and peeped through.

P. Hen. Hath not the boy profited?

Bard. Away, you whoreson upright rabbit, away
Page. Away, you rascally Althea's dream, away

JOH.

[4] Ostentation is her not boastful show, but simply show. JOHNS. 151 A tall or proper fellow of his hands was stout fighting man Proper, it has been already observed, in our author's time, signified hand some. MAL.

P. Hen. Instruct us, boy: What dream, boy?

Page. Marry, my lord, Althea dreamed she was delivered of a fire-brand ;6 and therefore I call him her dream.

P. Hen. A crown's worth of good interpretation.There it is, boy. [Gives him money. Poins. O, that this good blossom could be kept from Cankers-Well, there is sixpence to preserve thee. Bard. And you do not make him be hanged among you, the gallows shall have wrong.

P. Hen. And how doth thy master, Bardolph?

Bard. Well, my lord. He heard of your grace's Coming to town; there's a letter for you.

Poins. Delivered with good respect.-And how doth the martlemas, your master ?7

Bard. In bodily health, sir.

Poins. Marry, the immortal part needs a physician : but that moves not him; though that be sick, it dies not. P. Hen. I do allow this wen8 to be as familiar with me as my dog: and he holds his place; for, look you, how he writes.

Poins. [Reads.] John Falstaff, knight,-Every man must know that, as oft as he has occasion to name himself. Even like those that are kin to the king; for they never prick their finger, but they say, There is some of the king's blood spilt: How comes that? says he, that takes upon him not to conceive the answer is as ready as a borrower's cap: I am the king's poor cousin, sir.

P. Hen. Nay, they will be kin to us, or they will fetch it from Japhet. But the letter:

Poins. Sir John Falstaff, knight, to the son of the king, nearest his father, Harry prince of Wales, greeting.-Why, this is a certificate.

P. Hen. Peace!

Poins. I will imitate the honourable Roman in brevity-he sure means brevity in breath; short-winded. -I commend me to thee, I commend thee, and I leave

[6] Shakspeare is here mistaken in his mythology, and has confounded Althea's firebrand with Hecuba's. The firebrand of Althea was real; but Hecuba, when she was big with Paris, dreamed that she was delivered of a firebrand that consumed the kingdom. JOHNS.

[7] i. e. the autumn, or rather the latter spring. The old fellow with juvenile passions. [8] This swoln excrescence of a man. JOHNS. [9] I suppose by the honourable Roman is intended Julius Cesar, whose veni, vidi, vici, seems to be alluded to in the beginning of the letter. I com mend me to thee, I commend thee, and I leave thee. The very words of Cesar are afterwards quoted by Falstaff. HEATH.

thee. Be not too familiar with Poins; for he misuses thy favours so much, that he swears, thou art to marry his sister Nell. Repent at idle times as thou may'st, and so farewell.

Thine, by yea and no, (which is as much as to say, as thou usest him,) JACK FALSTAFF, with my familiars; JOHN, with my brothers and sisters; and SIR JOHN with all Europe. My lord, I will steep this letter in sack, and make him eat it.

P. Hen. That's to make him eat twenty of his words. But do you use me thus, Ned? must I marry your sister? Poins. May the wench have no worse fortune! but I never said so.

P. Hen. Well, thus we play the fool with the time; and the spirits of the wise sit in the clouds, and mock us. Is your master here in London ?

Bard. Yes, my lord.

P. Hen. Where sups he? doth the old boar feed in the old frank ?9

Bard. At the old place, my lord; in Eastcheap.
P. Hen. What company

Page. Ephesians, my lord; of the old church.
P. Hen. Sup any women with him?

Page. None, my lord, but old mistress Quickly, and mistress Doll Tear-sheet.

P. Hen. What pagan may that be?

Page. A proper gentlewoman, sir, and a kins woman of my master's.

P. Hen. Even such kin as the parish heifers are to the town bull-Shall we steal upon them, Ned, at supper? Poins. I am your shadow, my lord ; I'l follow you.

P. Hen. Sirrah, you boy,—and Bardolph ;—no word to your master, that I am yet come to town: There's for your silence.

Bard. I have no tongue, sir.

Page. And for mine, sir,-I will govern it.

P. Hen. Fare ye well; go. [Exeunt BARDOLPH and Page.] This Doll Tear-sheet should be some road.

Poins. I warrant you, as common as the way between St. Alban's and London.

P. Hen. How might we see Falstaff bestow himself to-night in his true colours, and not ourselves be seen?

[9] Frank is stye. POPE.