ride all night:-Oh, sweet Pistol!-Away, Bardolph.-Come, Pistol, utter more to me; and, withal, devise something to do thyself good.Boot, boot, master Shallow; I know, the young 5 king is sick for me. Let us take any man's horses; the laws of England are at my commandment. Happy are they which have been my friends; and woe to my lord chief justice! Pist. Let vultures vile seize on his lungs also! 10Where is the life that late I led', say they: Why, here it is; Welcome these pleasant days. [Exeunt. Fal. O base Assyrian knight, what is thy news: 15 'Let king Cophetua know the truth thereof. Sil. And Robin Hood, Scarlet, and John. [Sings. [ing. 20 Shal. Give me pardon, sir.—If, sir, you come with news from the court, I take it, there is but two ways; either to utter them, or to conceal 25 them. I am, sir, under the king, in some authority. Pist. Under which king, 'Bezonian? speak, or die. Shal. Under king Harry. Pist. Harry the fourth? or fifth? Shal. Harry the fourth. Pist. A foutra for thine office!- Sir John, thy tender lambkin now is king; Fal. What is the old king dead? SCENE A street in London. IV. Enter Hostess Quickly, DollTear-sheet, & Beadles. Host. No, thou arrant knave; I would I might die, that I might have thee hang'd: thou hast drawn my shoulder out of joint. Bead. The constables have deliver'd her over to me; and she shall have whipping-cheer enough, I warrant her: There bath been a man or two, lately, kill'd about her. Dol. Nu-hook, nut-hook', you lie. Come on; I'll tell thee what, thou damn'd tripe-visag'd rascal; if the child I now go with, do miscarry, thou hadst better thou hadst struck thy mother, thou paper-fac'd villain. Host. O the Lord, that Sir John were come! he would make this a bloody day to somebody. But 30I pray God, the fruit of her womb miscarry! 35 Pist. As nail in door: the things I speak, are just. Fal. Away, Bardolph; saddle my horse.--Mas-40 ter Robert Shallow, chuse what office thou wilt in the land, 'tis thine.-Pistol, I will double-charge thee with dignities. Bard. O joyful day!—I would not take a knighthood for my fortune. Pist. What? I do bring good news? 45 Bead. If it do, you shall have a dozen of cushions again; you have but eleven now. Come, I charge you both go with me; for the man is dead, that you and Pistol beat among you. Dol. I'll tell thee what, thou thin man in a censer'! I will have you as soundly swing'd for this, you blue-bottle rogue! you filthy famish'd correctioner! if you be not swing'd, I'll forswear half-kirtles'. Bead.Come,come, you she knight-errant; come. Host. O, that right should thus overcome might! Well; of sufferance comes ease. Dol. Come, you rogue, come; bring me to a justice. Host. Ay; come, you starv'd blood-hound. Dol. Come, you thin thing; come, you rascal'! 66 4 [Exeunt. 1 Lines taken from an old bombast play of King Cophetua; of whom, we learn from Shakspeare, there were ballads too. See Love's Labour's Lost. This is a term of reproach, frequent in the writers contemporary with our poet. Bisognoso, a needy person; thence, metaphorically, a base scoundrel. To fig, in Spanish higas dar, is to insult by putting the thumb between the fore and middle finger. From this Spanish custom we yet say in contempt, a fig for you." + Words of an old ballad. It has been already observed on the Merry Wives of Windsor, that nut-hook seems to have been in those times a name of reproach for a catchpole; or nut-hook might probably have been as common a term of reproach as rogue is at present. "That is, to stuff her out that she might counterfeit pregnancy. ? These old censers of thin metal had generally at the bottom the figure of some saint raised up with a hammer, in a barbarous kind of imbossed or chased work. The hungerstarved beadle is compared, in substance, to one of these thin raised figures, by the same kind of humour that Pistol, in the Merry Wives, calls Slender a laten bilboe. A name probably given to the beadle, from the colour of his livery; or perhaps the allusion may be to the great flesh-fly, commonly called a blue-bottle. A half-kirtle was the same kind of thing as we call at present a short-gown, or a bed-gown: and was the dress of the courtezans of the time. 10 Atomy for anatomy. 11 Lean deer were called rascal deer. 9 SCENE SCENE V. A public place near Westminster Abbey. 2 Groom. The trumpets have sounded twice. [Exeunt Grooms. Enter Fal. Shallow, Pistol, Bardolph, and the Boy. 10 Fat. Stand here by me, master Robert Shallow; I will make the king do you grace: I will leer| upon him as a' comes by; and do but mark the countenance that he will give nie. Pist. Bless thy lungs, good kuight! Fal. Come here, Pistol; stand behind me.O, if I had time to have made new liveries, I would have bestow'd the thousand pound I bortow'd of you. [To Shallow.] But 'tis no matter; this poor show doth better: this doth infer the zeal I had to see him. Shal. It doth so. Fal. It shews my earnestness of affection, Fal. My devotion. Shal. It doth, it doth, it doth. Fal. As it were, to ride day and night; and not to deliberate, not to remember, not to have patience to shift me. Shal. It is most certain. I have long dream'd of such a kind of man, 20 lord, To see perform'd the tenor of our word.— 125 Set on. [Exit King, &c. Fal. Master Shallow, I owe you a thousand pound. 30 Fal. But to stand stained with travel, and sweating with desire to see him: thinking of nothing else; putting all affairs else in oblivion; as it there were nothing else to be done, but to see him. Pist. 'Tis semper idem, for absque hoc nihil est:|35| 'Tis all in every part. Shal. 'Tis so, indeed. Pist. My knight, I will enflame thy noble liver, Thy Doll, and Helen of thy noble thoughts, By most mechanical and dirty hand:- [snake, Pist. There roar'd the sea, and trumpet-clangor Hal! Pist. The heavens thee guard and keep, most royal imp' of fame! Shal. Ay, marry, Sir John; which I beseech you to let me have home with me. Fal. That can hardly be, master Shallow. Do not you grieve at this; I shall be sent for in private to him: look you, he must seem thus to the world. Fear not your advancement; I will be the man yet, that shall make you great. Shal. I cannot perceive how: unless you give me your doublet, and stuff me out with straw. I beseech you, good Sir John, let me have five hundred of my thousand. Fal. Sir, I will be as good as my word: this 40 that you heard, was but a colour. Shal. A colour, I fear, that you will die in, SirJohn. Fal. Fear no colours; go with me to dinner. Come, lieutenant Pistol; come, Bardolph:-I 45 shall be sent for soon at night. 50 Fal God save thee, my sweet boy! [man. [heart! Fal. My king! my Jove! I speak to thee, my prayers; How ill white hairs become a fool, and jester! Re-enter the Chief Justice, Prince John, &c. Ch. Just. I cannot now speak; I will hear you soon. Pist. Si fortunametormenta,spero me contenta. Manent Lancaster, and Chief Justice. Imp means 1At ceremonial entertainments, it was the custom to strew the floor with rushes. progeny; and is probably derived from imp-yn, a Welch word, which primitively signifies a sprout, a ucker. Profine, in our author, often signifies love of talk, without the particular idea now given it. Ch. Just. FIRST, my fear; then, my court'sy; last, my speech. My fear is, your displeasure; my court'sy, my duty; and my speech, to beg your pardons. If you look for a good speech now, you undo me: for what I have to say, is of mine own making and what, indeed, I should say, will, I doubt, prove mine own marring. But to the purpose, and so to the venture.-Be it known to you (as it is very well) I was lately here in the end of a displeasing play, to pray your patience for it, and to promise you a better. I did mean, indeed, to pay you with this; which if, like an ill venture, it come unluckily home, I break, and you, my gentle creditors, lose. Here, I promised you, I would be, and here I commit my body to your mercies: bate me some, and I will pay you some, and, as most debtors do, promise you infinitely. If my tongue cannot entreat you to acquit me, will you command me to use my legs? and yet that were but light payment,-to dance out of your debt. But a good conscience will make any possible satisfaction, and so will I. All the gen tlewomen here have forgiven me; if the gentlemen will not, then the gentlemen do not agree with the gentlewomen, which was never seen be fore in such an assembly. One word more, I beseech you. If you be not too much cloy'd with fat meat, our humble author will continue the story, with Sir John in it, and make you merry with fair Katharine of France: where, for any thing I know, Falstaff shall die of a sweat, unless already he be killed with your hard opinions; for Oldcastle died a martyr, and this is not the man. My tongue is weary; when my legs are too, I will bid you good night and so kneel down before you;-but, indeed, to pray for the queen2, This epilogue was merely occasional, and alludes to some theatrical transaction. custom of the old players, at the end of their performance, to pray for their patrons. ancient interludes conclude with some solemn prayer for the king or queen, house of Hence, perhaps, the Vivant Rex et Regina, at the bottom of our modern play-bills. 2 It was the Almost all the commons, &c. |