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send you back again to your master, for a jewel; the juvenal, the prince your master, whose chin is not yet fledged. I will sooner have a beard grow in the palm of my hand, than he shall get one on his cheek; and yet he will not stick to say, his face is a face-royal: God may finish it when he will, it is not a hair amiss yet: he may keep it still as a face-royal, for a barber shall never earn sixpence out of it; and yet he will be crowing, as if he had writ man ever since his father was a bachelor. He may keep his own grace, but he is almost out of mine, I can assure him. -What said master Dombledon about the satin for my short cloak, and my ‡ slops?

PAGE. He said, sir, you should procure him better assurance than Bardolph: he would not take his bond and yours; he liked not the security.

FAL. Let him be damned like the glutton! pray God § his tongue be hotter!-A whoreson Achitophel! a rascally yea-forsooth knave! to bear a gentleman in hand, and then stand upon security!-The whoreson smooth-pates do now wear nothing but high shoes, and bunches of keys at their girdles; and if a man is thorough with them in honest taking up, then they must stand upon-security. I had as lief they would put ratsbane in my mouth, as offer to stop it with -security. I looked he should have sent me two and twenty yards of satin, as I am a true knight, and he sends me-security. Well, he may sleep in security; for he hath the horn of abundance, and the lightness of his wife shines through it; and yet cannot he see, though he have his own lantern to light him.-Where's Bardolph ?

PAGE. He's gone into Smithfield to buy your worship a horse. FAL. I bought him in Paul's, and he'll buy me a horse in Smithfield: an I could get me but a wife in the stews, I were manned, horsed, and wived.

Enter the Lord Chief Justice, (1) and an Attendant.

PAGE. Sir, here comes the nobleman that committed the prince for striking him about Bardolph.

FAL. Wait close, I will not see him.

CH. JUST. What's he that goes there?

ATTEN. Falstaff, an 't please your lordship.

CH. JUST. He that was in question for the robbery?

ATTEN. He, my lord: but he hath since done good service at Shrewsbury and, as I hear, is now going with some charge to the lord John of Lancaster.

CH. JUST. What, to York? Call him back again.

ATTEN. Sir John Falstaff!

First folio, Heaven.

First folio omits, my.

First folio, if.

(†) Old text, at.
(3) First folio, may.
First folio omits, but.

To bear a gentleman in hand,-] To bear in hand, was to buoy up. See note (^), Vol. I., p. 358.

b If a man is thorough with them in honest taking up.-] Falstaff appears to mean if a man is resolute with them to have honest goods dealt to him.

I were manned, horsed, and wived.] Alluding to a proverb often quoted by the old writers: "Who goes to Westminster for a wife, to St. Paul's for a man, and to Smithfield for a horse, may meet with a queane, a knave, and a jade.”

FAL. Boy, tell him, I am deaf.

PAGE. You must speak louder, my master is deaf.

CH. JUST. I am sure he is, to the hearing of anything good.-Go, pluck him by the elbow; I must speak with him.

ATTEN. Sir John,

FAL. What! a young knave, and beg! Is there not wars? Is there not employment? Doth not the king lack subjects? do not the rebels need soldiers? Though it be a shame to be on any side but one, it is worse shame to beg than to be on the worst side, were it worse than the name of rebellion can tell how to make it. ATTEN. You mistake me, sir.

FAL. Why, sir, did I say you were an honest man? setting my knighthood and my soldiership aside, I had lied in my throat (2) if I

had said so.

ATTEN. I pray you, sir, then set your knighthood and soldiership aside; and give me leave to tell you, you lie in your throat, if you say I am any other than an honest man.

FAL. I give thee leave to tell me so! I lay aside that which grows to me! If thou get'st any leave of me, hang me; if thou takest leave, thou wert better be hanged: you hunt-counter, hence! avaunt! ATTEN. Sir, my lord' would speak with you.

a

CH. JUST. Sir John Falstaff, a word with you.

FAL. My good lord!-Godt give your lordship good time of day. I am glad to see your lordship abroad: I heard say, your lordship was sick I hope, your lordship goes abroad by advice. Your lordship, though not clean past your youth, hath yet some smack of age in you, some relish of the saltness of time; and I most humbly beseech your lordship, to have a reverend care of your health.

CH. JUST. Sir John, I sent for you before your expedition to Shrewsbury.

FAL. An't please your lordship, I hear, his majesty is returned with some discomfort from Wales.

CH. JUST. I talk not of his majesty:-you would not come when I sent for you.

FAL. And I hear moreover, his highness is fallen into this same whoreson apoplexy.

CH. JUST. Well, heaven mend him! I pray, let me speak with you. FAL. This apoplexy is, as I take it, a kind of lethargy, an 't please your lordship; a kind of sleeping in the blood," a whoreson tingling. CH. JUST. What tell you me of it? be it as it is.

FAL. It hath it original from much grief; from study, and perturbation of the brain: I have read the cause of his effects in Galen; it is a kind of deafness.

CH. JUST. I think, you are fallen into the disease; for you hear not what I say to you.

First folio, want.

First folio omits, for.

(+) First folio omits, God.
(§) First folio, If it.

You hunt-counter,-] A quibble may have been intended on the cant term huntcounter for a sheriff's officer, and the fault of a hound in turning and following the scent the way the chase has come.

An't please your lordship; a kind of sleeping in the blood,-] So the quarto, for which the folio reads only, "a sleeping of the blood."

FAL. Very well, my lord, very well: rather, an't please you, it is the disease of not listening, the malady of not marking, that I am troubled withal.

CH. JUST. To punish you by the heels, would amend the attention of your ears; and I care not, if I do become your physician.

FAL. I am as poor as Job, my lord, but not so patient: your lordship may minister the potion of imprisonment to me, in respect of poverty; but how I should be your patient to follow your prescriptions, the wise may make some dram of a scruple, or, indeed, a scruple

itself.

CH. JUST. I sent for you, when there were matters against you for your life, to come speak with me.

FAL. As I was then advised by my learned counsel in the laws of this land-service, I did not come.

CH. JUST. Well, the truth is, sir John, you live in great infamy. FAL. He that buckles him in my belt, cannot live in less.

CH. JUST. Your means are very slender, and your waste is† great. FAL. I would it were otherwise; I would my means were greater, and my waist slenderer.

CH. JUST. You have misled the youthful prince.

FAL. The young prince hath misled me: I am the fellow with the great belly, and he my dog.a

CH. JUST. Well, I am loth to gall a new-healed wound; your day's service at Shrewsbury hath a little gilded over your night's exploit on Gads-hill: you may thank the unquiet time for your quiet o'er-posting that action.

FAL. My lord?

CH. JUST. But since all is well, keep it so: wake not a sleeping wolf.

FAL. To wake a wolf, is as bad as to smell a fox.

CH. JUST. What! you are as a candle, the better part burnt out. FAL. A wassel candle, my lord; all tallow: if I did say of wax, my growth would approve the truth.

CH. JUST. There is not a white hair on your face, but should have his effect of gravity.

FAL. His effect of gravy, gravy, gravy.

CH. JUST. You follow the young prince up and down, like his ill‡ angel.

FAL. Not so, my lord; your ill angel is light; but, I hope, he that looks upon me, will take me without weighing; and yet, in some respects, I grant, I cannot go, I cannot tell: Virtue is of so little regard in these costar-mongers' times §, that true valour is turned

First folio, if I be.

(1) First folio, evil.

(†) First folio omits, is.
() First folio omits, times.

The fellow with the great belly, and he my dog.] A supposed allusion to a fat blind beggar, well known at the time, who was led by his dog.

b Your ill angel is light;] The Chief Justice means evil genius; Falstaff evades the application by alluding to the coin called an angel, which was frequently made light enough by the process of clipping.

I cannot tell:] This phrase usually signifies, as Gifford has shown, no more than, I cannot tell what to think of it, or I cannot account for it: but, in the present instance, the interpretation assigned to it by Johnson, "I cannot be taken; I cannot pass current," seems preferable.

bear-herd: pregnancya is made a tapster, and hath his quick wit wasted in giving reckonings: all the other gifts appertinent to man, as the malice of this age shapes them, are not worth a gooseberry. You, that are old, consider not the capacities of us that are young; you measure the heat of our livers with the bitterness of your galls: and we that are in the vaward of our youth, I must confess, are wags too.

CH. JUST. Do you set down your name in the scroll of youth, that are written down old with all the characters of age? Have you not a moist eye? a dry hand? a yellow cheek? a white beard? a decreasing leg? an increasing belly? Is not your voice broken? your wind short? your chin double?* your wit single? and every part about you blasted with antiquity; and will you yet † call yourself young? Fie, fie, fie, sir John!

FAL. My lord, I was born about three of the clock in the afternoon, with a white head, and something a round belly. For my voice,-I have lost it with hollaing, and singing of anthems. To approve my youth further, I will not: the truth is, I am only old in judgment and understanding; and he that will caper with me for a thousand marks, let him lend me the money, and have at him. For the box of the ear that the prince gave you, he gave it like a rude prince, and you took it like a sensible lord. I have checked him for it; and the young lion repents; marry, not in ashes, and sackcloth; but in new silk, and old sack.

CH. JUST. Well, God § send the prince a better companion!

FAL. God!§ send the companion a better prince! I cannot rid my hands of him.

CH. JUST. Well, the king hath severed you and prince Harry: I hear, you are going with lord John of Lancaster, against the archbishop, and the earl of Northumberland.

FAL. Yea; I thank your pretty sweet wit for it. But look you pray, all you that kiss my lady peace at home, that our armies join not in a hot day; for, by the Lord,¶ I take but two shirts out with me, and I mean not to sweat extraordinarily: if it be a hot day, an** I brandish anything but my bottle, would I might never spit white again. There is not a dangerous action can peep out his head, but I am thrust upon it. Well, I cannot last ever; but it was always yet the trick of our English nation, if they have a good thing,

First folio omits, your chin double.

(+) First folio omits, yet.

First folio omits, about three of the clock in the afternoon.
() First folio, Yes.

() First folio, Heaven.

First folio omits, by the Lord, and inserts, if.
First folio, if.

Pregnancy-] That is, Ready wit.

Your wit single?] Single meant simple, silly, weak.

Never spit white again.] Steevens interprets this "never have my stomach inflamed again with liquor." Mr. Collier thinks the expression "may have reference to his exertions and wounds in the expected conflicts, which might compel him to spit blood." The meaning is simply, may I never be thirsty again, want of drink being supposed to have the effect of making people spit white. Thus Spungius in Massinger's Virgin Martyr," Act III. Sc. 3:-"Had I been a pagan still, I should not have spit white for want of drink."

d Well, I cannot last ever;] Falstaff's speech ends here in the folio, 1623.

should give me rest.

to make it too common. If ye will needs say, I am an old man, you I would to God, my name were not so terrible I were better to be eaten to death with rust, nothing with perpetual motion.

to the enemy as it is. than to be scoured to

*

CH. JUST. Well, be honest, be honest; and God bless your expedition!

FAL. Will your lordship lend me a thousand pound, to furnish me forth?

CH. JUST. Not a penny, not a penny; you are too impatient to bear crosses. Fare you well. Commend me to my cousin Westmoreland. [Exeunt Chief Justice and Attendant.

FAL. If I do, fillip me with a three-man_beetle.b-A man can no more separate age and covetousness, than he can part young limbs and lechery: but the gout galls the one, and the pox pinches the other; and so both the degrees prevent my curses.-Boy!

PAGE. Sir?

FAL. What money is in my purse?

PAGE. Seven groats and two-pence.

FAL. I can get no remedy against this consumption of the purse: borrowing only lingers and lingers it out, but the disease is incurable. -Go bear this letter to my lord of Lancaster; this to the prince; this to the earl of Westmoreland; and this to old mistress Ursula, whom I have weekly sworn to marry since I perceived the first white hair on my chin: about it; you know where to find me. [Exit Page.] A pox of this gout! or, a gout of this pox! for the one or the other plays the rogue with my great toe. 'Tis no matter, if I do halt; I have the wars for my colour, and my pension shall seem the more reasonable. A good wit will make use of anything; I will turn diseases to commodity. [Exit.

SCENE III.-York. A Room in the Archbishop's Palace. Enter the ARCHBISHOP OF YORK, the Lords HASTINGS, MOWBRAY, and BARDOLPH.

ARCH. Thus have you heard our cause,† and know our means;
And, my most noble friends, I pray you all,
Speak plainly your opinions of our hopes :-
And first, lord marshal, what say you to it?

-

MOWB. I well allow the occasion of our arms;
But gladly would be better satisfied,

How, in our means, we should advance ourselves,
To look with forehead bold and big enough
Upon the power and puissance of the king.
HAST. Our present musters grow upon the file

(*) First folio, Heaven.

(+) First folio, causes.

You are too impatient to bear crosses.] The same pun is met with in "Love's Labour's Lost," See note (c), Vol. I., p. 78.

b A three-man beetle.] An implement made of wood, and having two long handles and a short one, which was used for driving piles.

< Prevent-] i. e. Anticipate, come before.

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