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1448

1449

Fal.

at all the ord❜naries, and only feared

his palate should degenerate, not his manners.
My son, I hope, hath not within my threshold
none of these household precedents, which are strong,
and swift to rape youth to their precipice.

FALSTAFF RECOVERING

B. JONSON

EMBOWELLED! if thou embowel me to-day, I'll

give you leave to powder me, and eat me too, tomorrow. 'Sblood, 'twas time to counterfeit, or that hot termagant Scot had paid me scot and lot too. Counterfeit? I lie, I am no counterfeit: to die, is to be a counterfeit; for he is but the counterfeit of a man who hath not the life of a man: but to counterfeit dying, when a man thereby liveth, is to be no counterfeit, but the true and perfect image of life indeed. The better part of valour is discretion; in the which better part, I have saved my life. 'Zounds, I am afraid of this gunpowder Percy, though he be dead: how, if he should counterfeit too, and rise? I am afraid he would prove the better counterfeit. Therefore I'll make him sure: yea, and I'll swear I killed him. Why may not he rise as well as I? Nothing confutes me but eyes, and nobody sees me. Therefore, sirrah, with a new wound in your thigh, come you along with me.

W. SHAKESPEARE

FALSTAFF-PRINCE HENRY

HAL, if thou see me down in the battle, and be

stride me, so; 'tis a point of friendship.

P. H. Nothing but a colossus can do thee that friendship. Say thy prayers, and farewell.

Fal.

I would it were bed-time, Hal, and all well. P. H. Why, thou owest God a death.

Fal. 'Tis not due yet; I would be loath to pay him before his day. What need I be so forward with him that calls not on me? Well, 'tis no matter; honour pricks me on. Yea, but how if honour prick me off when I come on; how then? Can honour set to a leg? no: or an arm? no: or take away the grief of a wound? no. Honour hath no skill in surgery, then? no. What is honour? a word. What is that word,

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honour? air. A trim reckoning!-Who hath it? he that died o' Wednesday. Doth he feel it? no. Doth he hear it? no. Is it insensible then? yea, to the dead. But will it not live with the living? no. Why? detraction will not suffer it:-therefore I'll none of it: honour is a mere scutcheon:-and so ends my catechism.

W. SHAKESPEARE +

PRINCE HENRY-FALSTAFF-POINTZ

fought ye with them all?

P. H. WHAT. All I know not what ye call, all; but

P. H.
Fal.

P. H.
Fal.

if I fought not with fifty of them, I am a bunch of
radish if there were not two or three and fifty upon
poor old Jack, then I am no two-legg'd creature.
Pray God, you have not murdered some of them.
Nay, that's past praying for: I have peppered two of
them: two, I am sure, I have paid; two rogues in
buckram suits. I tell thee what, Hal,-if I tell thee
a lie, spit in my face, call me horse. Thou knowest
my old ward;-here I lay, and thus I bore my point.
Four rogues in buckram let drive at me,-

What, four? thou said'st but two, even now.
Four, Hal; I told thee four.

Poin. Ay, ay, he said four.

Fal.

These four came all a-front, and mainly thrust at me. I made me no more ado, but took all their seven points in my target, thus.

P. H. Seven? why there were but four, even now.

W. SHAKESPEARE

1451

COLAX

[ATURE has been bountiful

we

to provide pleasures, and shall we be niggards

at plenteous boards? He's a discourteous guest
that will observe a diet at a feast.

When Nature thought the earth alone too little
to find us meat, and therefore stored the air
with wingéd creatures, not contented yet
she made the water fruitful to delight us.

Did she do this to have us eat with temperance?
or when she gave so many different odours
of spices, unguents and all sorts of flowers,

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she cried not-stop your noses: would she give us
so sweet a quire of winged musicians

to have us deaf? or when she placed us here,
here in a paradise, where such pleasing prospects,
so many ravishing colours, entice the eye,
was it to have us wink? Not to enjoy

all pleasures, and at full, were to make nature
guilty of that she ne'er was guilty of,-

a vanity in her works.

T. RANDOLPH

LUXURY IN DRESS

NCE, I do remember, coming from

the mercer's, where my purse had spent itself
in those unprofitable toys thou speak'st of,--
a man half naked with his poverty

did meet me, and requested my relief;
I wanted whence to give it: yet his eyes
spoke for him; those I could have satisfied
with some unfruitful sorrow (if my tears
would not have added rather to his grief
than eased it), but the true compassion
I should have given I had not. This began
to make me think how many such men's wants,
the vain superfluous cost I wore upon

my outside, would have cloathed, and left myself.

a habit as becoming: to encrease

this new consideration, there came one

clad in a garment plain and thrifty, made
as if it were of purpose to despise
the vanity of show; his purse had still
the power to do a charitable deed,
and did it.

BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER

1453

THE FOOL'S BEATITUDE

VEN in that, note a fooles beatitude:

E he is not capable of passion;

wanting the power of distinction,

he bears an unturned sayle with every winde: blowe east, blowe west, he steers his course alike. I never saw a foole leane; the chub-fac't fop shines sleeke with full cramm'd fat of happinesse,

1454

whil'st studious contemplation sucks the juyce
from wisard's cheekes: who making curious search
for natures secrets, the first innating cause

laughes them to scorne, as man doth busie apes,
when they will zanie men. Had Heaven bin kind,
creating me an honest, senselesse dolt,

a goode poore foole, I should want sense to feele
the stings of anguish shoot through every vaine:
I should not know what 'twere to loose a father:
I should be deade of sense, to viewe defame
blur my bright love: I could not thus run mad,
as one confounded in a maze of mischiefe,
staggerd, starke feld with bruising stroke of chance.
J. MARSTON

TIMON OF ATHENS

TIMON-APEMANTUS

ET thee gone.—

Tim. That the whole life of Athens were in this!

thus would I eat it.

Apem. Here; I will mend thy feast.

[eating a root

Tim. First mend my company, take away thyself. Apem. So I shall mend mine own, by the lack of thine. Tim. 'Tis not well mended so, it is but botch'd;

if not, I would it were.

Apem. What would'st thou have to Athens?

Tim. Thee thither in a whirlwind.

If thou wilt,

tell them there I have gold; look, so I have.

Apem. Here is no use for gold.

Tim.

The best, and.truest: for here it sleeps, and does no hired harm. Apem. Where ly'st o'nights, Timon?

Tim.

Under that's above me. Where feed'st thou o'days, Apemantus?

Apem. Where my stomach finds meat; or, rather, where I

eat it.

Tim. 'Would poison were obedient, and knew my mind! Apem. Where would'st thou send it?

Tim. To sauce thy dishes.. Apem. The middle of humanity thou never knewest, but the extremity of both ends: when thou wast in thy gilt and thy perfume, they mocked thee for

1455

too much curiosity; in thy rags thou knowest none, but art despised for the contrary.

SORDIDO

W. SHAKESPEARE

'LL instantly set all my hinds to thrashing

I'LL

of a whole reek of corn, which I will hide
under the ground; and with the straw thereof
I'll stuff the outsides of my other mows:

that done, I'll have them empty all my garners,
and i' the friendly earth bury my store,
that, when the searchers come, they may suppose
all's spent, and that my fortunes were belied.
and to lend more opinion to my want,
and stop that many-mouthéd vulgar dog,
which else would still be baying at my door,
each market-day I will be seen to buy
part of the purest wheat, as for my houshold:
where, when it comes, it shall increase my heaps,
'twill yield me treble gain at this dear time,
promised in this dear book: I have cast all.
Till then I will not sell an ear, I'll hang first.
O, I shall make my prices as I list,

my house and I can feed on peas and barley;
what though a world of wretches starve the while,
he that will thrive must think no courses vile.

B. JONSON

1456

WHAT

SORDIDO'S REPENTANCE

WHAT curses breathe these men! how have my
deeds

made my looks differ from another man's,
that they should thus detest, and loth my life!
Out on my wretched humour, it is that
makes me thus monstrous in true humane eyes.
Pardon me, gentle friends, I'll make fair 'mends

for my foul errors past, and twenty fold

restore to all men, what with wrong I robbed them: my barns and garners shall stand open still

to all the poor that come, and my best grain

be made alms-bread, to feed half-famished mouths.
Though hitherto amongst you I have lived,
like an unsavoury muck-hill to my self,

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