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shillings an ell.' You owe money here besides, sir John, for your diet, and by-drinkings, and money lent you, four-and-twenty pound.

Fal. He had his part of it; let him pay.

Host. He? alas, he is poor; he hath nothing.

Fal. How! poor? look upon his face; what call you rich? Let them coin his nose, let them coin his cheeks; I'll not pay a denier. What, will you make a younker of me? Shall I not take mine ease in mine. inn, but I shall have my pocket picked? I have lost a seal-ring of my grand father's, worth forty mark.

Host. O Jesu! I have heard the prince tell him, I know not how oft, that that ring was copper.

Fal. How the prince is a Jack, a sneak-cup; and, if he were here, I would cudgel him like a dog, if he would say so.

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?

Host. My lord, I pray you, hear me.

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.

P. Hen. What sayest thou, Jack?

Fal. The other night I fell asleep here behind the arras, and had my pocket picked. This house is turned bawdy-house; they pick pockets.

1 Eight shillings an ell, for holland linen, appears a high price for the time; but hear Stubbes in his Anatomie of Abuses:-"In so much as I have heard of shirtes that have cost some ten shillinges, some twentie, some fortie, some five pound, some twentie nobles, and (which is horrible to heare) some ten pound a peece, yea the meanest shirte that commonly is worn of any doest cost a crowne or a noble at the least; and yet that is scarsely thought fine enough for the simplest person."

2 Younker is here used for a novice, a dupe.

P. Hen. What didst thou lose, Jack?

Fal. Wilt thou believe me, Hal? Three or four bonds of forty pound apiece, 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 prune; nor no more truth in thee, than in a drawn fox;1 and for womanhood, maid Marian2 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 shouldst 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?

Fal. What beast? Why, an otter.

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.

1 A drawn fox is a hunted for, a fox drawn from his cover.

2 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.

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.

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, an I do, I pray God, my girdle break!

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, embossed' 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 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,

Swollen, puffy, blown up.

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 labor.

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 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 Temple-hall at two o'clock i' the afternoon. There shalt thou know thy charge, and there receive money, and order for their furniture.1

The land is burning; Percy stands on high;

And either they, or we, must lower lie.

[Exeunt Prince, POINS, and BARDOLPH.

Fal. Rare words! Brave world!

breakfast; come.—

-Hostess, my

O, I could wish this tavern were my

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1 We 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 to convert it into metre.

ACT IV.

SCENE I. The rebel Camp near Shrewsbury.

Enter HOTSPUR, WORCESTER, and DOUGLAS.
Hot. Well said, my noble Scot. If speaking truth,
In this fine age, were not thought flattery,

Such attribution should the Douglas have,
As not a soldier of this season's stamp
Should go so general current through the world.
By Heaven, I cannot flatter; I defy1

The tongues of soothers; but a braver place
In my heart's love hath no man than yourself.
Nay, task me to the word; approve me, lord.
Doug. Thou art the king of honor.
No man so potent breathes upon the ground,
But I will beard him.

Hot.

Do So, and 'tis well.

Enter a Messenger, with letters.

What letters hast thou there ?-I can but thank you.
Mess. These letters come from your father,-
Hot. Letters from him! Why comes he not himself?
Mess. He cannot come, my lord; he's grievous sick.
Hot. 'Zounds! how has he the leisure to be sick,
In such a justling time? Who leads his power?
Under whose government come they along?

Mess. His letters bear his mind, not I, my lord.2 Wor. I pr'ythee, tell me, doth he keep his bed? Mess. He did, my lord, four days ere I set forth; And at the time of my departure thence,

He was much feared by his physician.

Wor. I would the state of time had first been whole,

1 Disdain.

2 The folio reads, "not I his mind;" the quarto, 1598, "not I my mind." The emendation is Capell's.

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