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makes Jokes

Soldiers

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Enter FALSTaff.

Shal. It is very just.-Look, here comes good sir John. Give me your good hand, give me your worship's good hand. By my troth, you look well, and bear your years very well: welcome, good sir John.

Fal. I am glad to see you well, good master Robert Shallow.-Master Sure-card, as I think.

Shal. No, sir John: it is my cousin Silence, in commission with me.

Fal. Good master Silence, it well befits you should be of the peace.

Sil. Your good worship is welcome.

Fal. Fie! this is hot weather.-Gentlemen, have you provided me here half a dozen sufficient men? Shal. Marry, have we, sir. Will

you sit?

Fal. Let me see them, I beseech you.

Shal. Where's the roll? where's the roll? where's the roll? Let me see, let me see.

So, so, so, so:

Yea, marry, sir.-Ralph Mouldy:-let them appear as I call; let them do so, let them do so.-Let me see; where is Mouldy?

Moul. Here, an't please you.

Shal. What think you, sir John? a good-limbed fellow; young, strong, and of good friends.

Fal. Is thy name Mouldy?

Moul. Yea, an't please you.

Fal. 'Tis the more time thou wert used.

Shal. Ha, ha, ha! most excellent, i' faith! things that are mouldy, lack use. Very singular good!-In faith, well said, sir John; very well said.

Fal. Prick him.

[To SHALLOW. Moul. I was pricked well enough before, an you could have let me alone; my old dame will be undone now, for one to do her husbandry, and her drudgery; you need not to have pricked me; there are other men fitter to go out than I.

Fal. Go to; peace, Mouldy, you shall go. it is time you were spent.

Moul. Spent!

Mouldy,

Shal. Peace, fellow, peace; stand aside. Know you where you are?-For the other, sir John,-let me see. Simon Shadow!

Fal. Ay, marry, let me have him to sit under; he's like to be a cold soldier.

Shal. Where's Shadow?

Shad. Here, sir.

Fal. Shadow, whose son art thou?
Shad. My mother's son, sir.

Fal. Thy mother's son! like enough; and thy father's shadow; so the son of the female is the shadow of the male. It is often so, indeed; but not much of the father's substance.

Shal. Do you like him, sir John?

Fal. Shadow will serve for summer,-prick him;— for we have a number of shadows to fill up the muster book.

Shal. Thomas Wart!

Fal. Where's he?

Wart. Here, sir.

Fal. Is thy name Wart?

Wart. Yea, sir.

Fal. Thou art a very ragged wart.

Shal. Shall I prick him, sir John?

Fal. It were superfluous; for his apparel is built upon his back, and the whole frame stands upon pins; prick him no more.

Shal. Ha, ha, ha!—you can do it, sir; you can do it: I commend you well.-Francis Feeble!

Fee. Here, sir.

Fal. What trade art thou, Feeble?

Fee. A woman's tailor, sir.

Shal. Shall I prick him, sir?

Fal. You may; but if he had been a man's tailor, he would have pricked you.-Wilt thou make as many holes in an enemy's battle, as thou hast done in a woman's petticoat?

Fee. I will do my good will, sir; you can have no

more.

Fal. Well said, good woman's tailor! well said,

courageous Feeble! Thou wilt be as valiant as the wrathful dove, or most magnanimous mouse.-Prick the woman's tailor well, master Shallow; deep, master Shallow.

Fee. I would Wart might have gone, sir.

Fal. I would thou wert a man's tailor; that thou might'st mend him and make him fit to go. I cannot put him to a private soldier, that is the leader of so many thousands. Let that suffice, most forcible

Feeble.

Fee. It shall suffice, sir.

Fal. I am bound to thee, reverend Feeble.-Who is next?

Shal. Peter Bull-calf of the green!

Fal. Yea, marry, let us see Bull-calf.

Bull. Here, sir.

Fal. 'Fore God, a likely fellow !-Come, prick me Bull-calf till he roar again.

Bull. O Lord! good my lord captain,

Fal. What, dost thou roar before thou art pricked? Bull. O Lord, sir! I am a diseased man.

Fal. What disease hast thou?

Bull. A whoreson cold, sir; a cough, sir; which I caught with ringing in the king's affairs, upon his coronation-day, sir.

Fal. Come, thou shalt go to the wars in a gown; we will have away thy cold; and I will take such order, that thy friends shall ring for thee.—Is here all?

1

Shal. Here is two more called than your number; you must have but four here, sir ;-and so, I pray you, go in with me to dinner.

Fal. Come, I will go drink with you, but I cannot tarry dinner. I am glad to see you, in good troth, master Shallow.

Shal. O, sir John, do you remember since we lay all night in the windmill in Saint George's Fields?

Fal. No more of that, good master Shallow, no more of that.

There is, in fact, but one more called than Falstaff required; perhaps we might, with Mr. Capel, omit the word two.

Shal. Ha, it was a merry night. And is Jane Night-work alive?

Fal. She lives, master Shallow.

Shal. She never could away with me.

Fal. Never, never; she would always say, she could not abide master Shallow.

Shal. By the mass, I could anger her to the heart. She was then a bona-roba. Doth she hold her own well?

Fal. Old, old, master Shallow.

Shal. Nay, she must be old; she cannot choose but be old; certain, she's old; and had Robin Night-work by old Night-work, before I came to Clement's Inn. Sil. That's fifty-five years ago.

Shal. Ha, cousin Silence, that thou hadst seen that this knight and I have seen!-Ha, sir John, said I well? Fal. We have heard the chimes at midnight, master Shallow.

Shal. That we have, that we have, that we have; in faith, sir John, we have; our watch-word was, Hem, boys!Come, let's to dinner; come, let's to dinner.O, the days that we have seen!-Come, come.

[Exeunt FAL., SHAL., and SILENCE Bull. Good master corporate Bardolph, stand my friend; and here is four Harry ten shillings' in French crowns for you. In very truth, sir, I had as lief be hanged, sir, as go; and yet, for mine own part, sir, I do not care; but rather, because I am unwilling, and, for mine own part, have a desire to stay with my friends; else, sir, I did not care, for mine own part, so

much.

Bard. Go to; stand aside.

Moul. And, good master corporal captain, for my old dame's sake, stand my friend; she has nobody to do any thing about her, when I am gone; and she is old, and cannot help herself; you shall have forty, sir. Bard. Go to; stand aside.

I There were no coins of ten shillings value in Henry the Fourth's time. Shakspeare's Harry ten shillings were those of Henry VII. or VIII.

Fee. By my troth, I care not;—a man can die but once ;-we owe God a death;-I'll ne'er bear a base mind;—an't be my destiny, so; an't be not, so. No man's too good to serve his prince; and, let it go which way it will, he that dies this year is quit for the

next.

Bard. Well said: thou'rt a good fellow.
Fee. Faith, I'll bear no base mind.

Re-enter FALSTAFF, and Justices.

Fal. Come, sir, which men shall I have?
Shal. Four, of which you please.

Bard. Sir, a word with you.-I have three pound to free Mouldy and Bull-calf.

Fal. Go to; well.

Shal. Come, sir John, which four will you have?
Fal. Do you choose for me.

Shal. Marry then, Mouldy, Bull-calf, Feeble, and Shadow.

Fal. Mouldy, and Bull-calf;-For you, Mouldy, stay at home till you are past service; and, for your part, Bull-calf, grow till you come unto it; I will none of you.

Shal. Sir John, sir John, do not yourself wrong; they are your likeliest men, and I would have you served with the best.

Fal. Will you tell me, master Shallow, how to choose a man? Care I for the limb, the thewes,' the stature, bulk, and big assemblance of a man! Give me the spirit, master Shallow.-Here's Wart;-you see what a ragged appearance it is: he shall charge you, and discharge you, with the motion of a pewterer's hammer; come off, and on, swifter than he that gibbets-on the brewer's bucket. And this same half-faced fellow, Shadow,-give me this man; he presents no mark to the enemy; the foeman may with as great aim

1 Shakspeare uses thewes in a sense almost peculiar to himself, for muscular strength or sinews.

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