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Lady N.

O, fly to Scotland,

Till that the nobles, and the armed commons,
Have of their puissance made a little taste.

Lady P. If they get ground and vantage of the
king,

Then join you with them, like a rib of steel,
To make strength stronger; but, for all our loves,
First let them try themselves. So did your son;
He was so suffered; so came I a widow;
And never shall have length of life enough,
To rain upon remembrance with mine eyes,
That it may grow and sprout as high as heaven,
For recordation to my noble husband.

North. Come, come, go in with me; 'tis with my
mind,

As with the tide swelled up unto its height,
That makes a still-stand, running neither way.
Fain would I go to meet the archbishop,
But many thousand reasons hold me back.-
I will resolve for Scotland; there am I,
Till time and vantage crave my company.

[Exeunt.

SCENE IV. London. A Room in the Boar's Head
Tavern in Eastcheap.

Enter two Drawers.

1 Draw. What the devil hast thou brought there? apple-Johns? Thou know'st sir John cannot endure an apple-John.2

2 Draw. Mass, thou sayest true. The prince once set a dish of apple-Johns before him, and told him,

1 Alluding to the plant rosemary, so called because it was the symbol of remembrance.

2 This apple, which was said to keep two years, is well described by Philips :

"Nor John-apple, whose withered rind, entrenched
By many a furrow, aptly represents
Decrepid age."

there were five more sir Johns; and, putting off his hat, said, I will now take my leave of these six dry, round, old, withered knights. It angered him to the heart; but he hath forgot that.

1 Draw. Why, then, cover, and set them down; and see if thou canst find out Sneak's noise;1 mistress Tear-sheet would fain hear some music. Despatch.The room where they supped is too hot; they'll come in straight.

2 Draw. Sirrah, here will be the prince, and master Poins anon and they will put on two of our jerkins, and aprons; and sir John must not know of it. Bardolph hath brought word.

2

1 Draw. By the mass, here will be old utis. It will be an excellent stratagem.

2 Draw. I'll see if I can find out Sneak.

Enter Hostess and DOLL TEAR-SHEET.

[Exit.

Host. I' faith, sweet heart, methinks now you are in an excellent good temperality; your pulsidge beats as extraordinarily as heart would desire; and your color, I warrant you, is as red as any rose. But, i' faith, you have drunk too much canaries; and that's a marvellous searching wine, and it perfumes the blood ere one can say,-What's this? How do you now?

Dol. Better than I was. Hem.

Host. Why, that's well said; a good heart's worth gold. Look, here comes sir John.

1 A noise, or a consort, was used for a set or company of musicians. Sacak was a street minstrel, and therefore the drawer goes out to listen for his band. Falstaff addresses them as a company in another scene. In the old play of King Henry IV. "There came the young prince, and two or three more of his companions, and called for wine good store, and then sent for a noyce of musitians," &c.

2 Old utis is old festivity, or merry doings. Utis, or utas, being the eighth day after any festival, any day between the feast and the eighth day was said to be within the utas, from the French huit.

Enter FALSTAFF, singing.

Fal. When Arthur first in court.'-Empty the jordan. -And was a worthy king. How now, mistress Doll? [Exit Drawer.] Host. Sick of a calm; yea, good sooth. Fal. So is all her sect; an they be once in a calm, they are sick..

2

Dol. You muddy rascal, is that all the comfort you give me ?

3

Fal. You make fat rascals, mistress Doll.

Dol. I make them! gluttony and diseases make them; I make them not.

Fal. If the cook help to make the gluttony, you help to make the diseases, Doll; we catch of you, Doll, we catch of you; grant that, my poor virtue, grant

that.

Dol. Ay, marry; our chains, and our jewels.

Fal. Your brooches, pearls, and owches ;-for to serve bravely, is to come halting off, you know: To come off the breach with his pike bent bravely, and to surgery bravely; to venture upon the charged chambers bravely:

4

--

Dol. Hang yourself, you muddy conger, hang yourself!

5

Host. By my troth, this is the old fashion; you two never meet, but you fall to some discord: you are both, in good truth, as rheumatic as two dry toasts; you cannot one bear with another's confirmities. What the good-year! one must bear, and that must be you;

1 The entire ballad is in the first volume of Dr. Percy's Reliques of Ancient Poetry.

2 Sect and sex were anciently synonymous; the instances of the use of the one for the other are too numerous for it to have been a mere corruption.

3 "Rascall (says Puttenham, p. 150) is properly the hunting term given to young deer leane and out of season, and not to people."

4 To understand this quibble, it is necessary to remember that a cham

ber signifies not only an apartment, but a small piece of ordnance.

5 Mrs. Quickly means splenetic. It should be remarked, however that rheum seems to have been a cant word for spleen.

[To DOLL.] you are the weaker vessel, as they say, the emptier vessel.

Dol. Can a weak, empty vessel bear such a huge, full hogshead? There's a whole merchant's venture of Bordeaux stuff in him: you have not seen a hulk better stuffed in the hold.-Come, I'll be friends with thee, Jack: thou art going to the wars; and whether I shall ever see thee again, or no, there is nobody cares.

Re-enter Drawer.

Draw. Sir, ancient1 Pistol's below, and would speak with you.

Dol. Hang him, swaggering rascal! let him not come hither; it is the foul-mouth'dst rogue in England.

Host. If he swagger, let him not come here; no, by my faith; I must live amongst my neighbors; I'll no swaggerers; I am in good name and fame with the very best.-Shut the door;-there comes no swaggerers here; I have not lived all this while to have swaggering now;-shut the door, I pray you.

Fal. Dost thou hear, hostess?

Host. 'Pray you, pacify yourself, sir John; there comes no swaggerers here.

Fal. Dost thou hear? it is mine ancient.

Host. Tilly-fally, sir John, never tell me; your ancient swaggerer comes not in my doors. I was before master Tisick, the deputy, the other day; and, as he said to me, it was no longer ago than Wednesday last,-Neighbor Quickly, says he ;-master Dumb, our minister, was by then ;-Neighbor Quickly; says he, receive those that are civil; for, saith he, you are in an ill name;-now he said so, I can tell whereupon; for, says he, you are an honest woman, and well thought on; therefore take heed what guests you receive. Receive, says he, no swaggering companions.-There comes none here;-you would bless you to hear what he said.—No, I'll no swaggerers.

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Fal. He's no swaggerer, hostess; a tame cheater,'1 he; you may stroke him as gently as a puppy greyhound; he will not swagger with a Barbary hen, if her feathers turn back in any show of resistance.-Call him up, drawer.

Host. Cheater, call you him? I will bar no honest man my house, nor no cheater." But I do not love swaggering; by my troth, I am the worse, when one says-swagger: feel, masters, how I shake; look you, I warrant you.

Dol. So you do, hostess.

Host. Do I? yea, in very truth, do I, an 'twere an aspen leaf; I cannot abide swaggerers.

Enter PISTOL, BARDOLPH, and Page.

Pist. 'Save you, sir John!

Fal. Welcome, ancient Pistol. Here, Pistol, I charge you with a cup of sack; do you discharge upon mine hostess.

Pist. I will discharge upon her, sir John, with two bullets.

Fal. She is pistol-proof, sir; you shall hardly offend her.

Host. Come, I'll drink no proofs, nor no bullets. I'll drink no more than will do me good, for no man's pleasure, I.

Pist. Then to you, mistress Dorothy; I will charge you.

Dol. Charge me? I scorn you, scurvy companion. What! you poor, base, rascally, cheating, lack-linen mate! Away, you mouldy rogue; away! I am meat for

your master.

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Pist. I know you, mistress Dorothy.

Dol. Away, you cutpurse rascal! you filthy bung,3

1 Tame cheater seems to have meant a rogue in general.

2 The humor consists in Mrs. Quickly's mistaking a cheater for an escheator, or officer of the exchequer.

3 To nip a bung, in the cant of thievery, was to cut a purse. "Bung is now used for a pocket, heretofore for a purse.”—Belman of London, 1610 Doll means to call him pickpocket.

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