Shal. Under King Harry. Shal. Harry the Fourth. Harry the Fourth? or Fifth? A foutra for thine office!— Sir John, thy tender lambkin now is King; Fal. What, is the old King dead? 11 Pist. As nail in door: 12 the things I speak are just. Master Robert Shallow, choose what office thou wilt in the land, 'tis thine. Pistol, I will double-charge thee with dignities. Bard. O, joyful day! I would not take a knighthood for my fortune. Pist. What, I do bring good news? Fal. Carry Master Silence to bed. Master Shallow, my Lord Shallow, be what thou wilt; I am Fortune's steward. Get on thy boots: we'll ride all night. O, sweet Pistol! Away, Bardolph. [Exit BARD.] - Come, Pistol, utter more to me; and, withal, devise something to do thyself good. Boot, boot, Master Shallow: I know the young King is sick for me. Let us take any man's horses; the laws of England are at my commandment. Happy are they that have been my friends, and woe to my Lord Chief Justice! Pist. Let vultures vile seize on his lungs also! SCENE IV. London. A Street. [Exeunt. Enter Beadles, dragging in Hostess QUICKLY and DOLL TEARSHEET. Host. No, thou arrant knave; I would to God I might die, that I might have thee hang'd: thou hast drawn my shoulder out of joint. 1 Bead. The constables have deliver'd her over to me; and she shall have whipping-cheer enough, I warrant her. There hath been a man or two lately kill'd about her. 11 An expression of contempt or insult by putting the thumb between the fore and middle finger, and forming a coarse representation of a disease to which the name of ficus has always been given. Pistol seems to accompany the phrase with an appropriate gesture. In explaining the higas dar of the Spaniards, Minshew says, after describing it, "a manner as they use in England to bore the nose with the finger, as in disgrace." 12 The door nail is the nail in ancient doors on which the knocker strikes. It is therefore used as a comparison for one who has fallen under such death as reiterated strokes on the head would produce. Dol. Nut-hook, nut-hook, you lie.1 Come on: I'll tell thee what, thou tripe-visag'd rascal. Host. O the Lord, that Sir John were come! he would make this a bloody day to somebody. 1 Bead. Come, I charge you both go with me; for the man is dead that you and Pistol beat among you. 3 Dol. I'll tell thee what, thou thin man in a censer,2 I will have you as soundly swing'd for this, you blue-bottle rogue! 3 you filthy famish'd correctioner! if you be not swing'd, I'll forswear half-kirtles. 1 Bead. Come, come, you she knight-errant, come. Host. O God, that right should thus overcome might! Well, of sufferance comes ease. Dol. Come, you rogue, come; bring me to a Justice. Dol. Goodman Death! goodman Bones! Host. Thou atomy, thou! 5 Dol. Come, you thin thing; come, you rascal! 1 Bead. Very well. [Exeunt. SCENE V. A public Place near Westminster Abbey. Enter three Grooms, strewing Rushes. 1 Groom. More rushes, more rushes! 2 Groom. The trumpets have sounded twice. 3 Groom. It will be two o'clock ere they come from the coronation. Despatch, despatch! [Exeunt Grooms. Enter FALSTAFF, SHALLOW, PISTOL, BARDOLPH, and the Page. Fal. Stand here by me, Master Robert Shallow; I will make the King do you grace: I will leer upon him as 'a comes by; and do but mark the countenance that he will give me. Pist. God bless thy lungs, good Knight. Fal. Come here, Pistol; stand behind me. [To SHALLow.] O, if I had had time to have made new liveries, I would have bestowed the thousand pound I borrowed of you. But 'tis no matter; this poor show doth better: this doth infer the zeal I had to see him; 1 Nut-hook was a term of reproach for a bailiff or constable. Cleveland says of a committee-man: "He is the devil's nut-hook; the sign with him is always in the clutches " 2 Alluding, probably, to the cap worn by the Beadle; the official cap. 8 Beadles usually wore a blue livery. 4 A half-kirtle was a kind of apron or fore part of the dress of a woman. Atomy is a Quicklyism for anatomy. Shal. It doth so. - Fal. it shows my earnestness of affection, — Fal. as it were, to ride day and night; and not to deliberate, not to remember, not to have patience to shift Fal.but to stand stained with travel, and sweating with desire to see him; thinking of nothing else; putting all affairs else in oblivion, as if there were nothing else to be done but to see him. Pist. 'Tis semper idem, for absque hoc nihil est: 'tis all in every part. Shal. 'Tis so, indeed. Pist. My Knight, I will inflame thy noble liver, and make thee rage. Thy doll, and Helen of thy noble thoughts, is in base durance and contagious prison; hal'd thither by most mechanical and dirty hand: Rouse up revenge from ebon den with fell Alecto's snake, for Doll is in: Pistol speaks nought but truth. Fal. I will deliver her. [Shouts within, and the Trumpets sound. Pist. There roar'd the sea, and trumpet-clangor sounds. Enter the KING and his Train; the Chief Justice among them. Fal. God save thy Grace, King Hal! my royal Hal! Pist. The Heavens thee guard and keep, most royal imp of fame! 1 Fal. God save thee, my sweet boy! King. My Lord Chief Justice, speak to that vain man. speak? you what 'tis you Fal. My King! my Jove! I speak to thee, my heart! How ill white hairs become a fool and jester! I have long dream'd of such a kind of man, Make less thy body, hence, and more thy grace; 1 Imp literally means a graff, scion, or shoot of a tree; hence formerly used in a good sense for offspring or child. It occurs repeatedly so in The Faerie Queene. How it came to be used only for a wicked or mischievous being, a child of the Devil, does not appear. Leave gormandizing; know the grave doth gape We will, according to your strength and qualities, Set on. [Exeunt the King and his Train. Fal. Master Shallow, I owe you a thousand pound. Shal. Ay, marry, Sir John; which I beseech you to let me have home with me. Fal. That can hardly be, Master Shallow. Do not you grieve at this: I shall be sent for in private to him. Look you, he must seem thus to the world. Fear not your advancement: I will be the man yet that shall make you great. Shal. I cannot perceive how, unless you give me your doublet, and stuff me out with straw. I beseech you, good Sir John, let me have five hundred of my thousand. Fal. Sir, I will be as good as my word: this that was but a colour. you heard Shal. A colour, I fear, that you will die in, Sir John. Fal. Fear no colours: go with me to dinner. Come, Lieutenant Pistol;-come, Bardolph.—I shall be sent for soon at aight.3 2 The King's treatment of his old makesport, when he has no longer any ase or time for his delectations, has been censured by several critics. In ref erence to which censure Johnson rightly observes, "If it be considered that the fat knight has never uttered one sentiment of generosity, and, with all his powers of exciting mirth, he has nothing in him that can be esteemed, no great pain will be suffered from the reflection that he is compelled to live honestly, and maintained by the king, with a promise of advancement when he shall deserve it." 3 Soon at is a phrase used several times by the Poet, and also met with in other writers of the time. The reason of it has not been very clearly ascer tained; the meaning appears to be merely as soon as, or about." Re-enter Prince JOHN, the Chief Justice, Officers, &c. Just. Go, carry Sir John Falstaff to the Fleet: Take all his company along with him. Fal. My lord, my lord, Just. I cannot now speak: I will hear you soon. Take them away. Pist. Si fortuna mi tormenta, lo sperare mi contenta. [Exeunt FAL., SHAL., PIST., BARD., Page and Officers. John. I like this fair proceeding of the King's. He hath intent his wonted followers Shall all be very well provided for; But all are banish'd till their conversations Appear more wise and modest to the world." Just. And so they are. John. The King hath call'd his Parliament, my lord. John. I will lay odds that, ere this year expire, As far as France: I heard a bird so sing, EPILOGUE. Spoken by a Dancer. [Exeunt First my fear, then my curtsy, last my speech. My fear is your displeasure, my curtsy my duty, and my speech to beg your pardons. If you look for a good speech now, you undo me for what I have to say is of mine own making; and what indeed I should say will, I doubt, prove mine own marring. But to the purpose, and so to the venture. Be it known to you, (as it is very well,) I was lately here in the end of a displeasing play, to pray your patience for it, and to promise you a better. I did mean, indeed, to pay you with this; which if, like an ill venture, it come unluckily home, I break, and you, my gentle creditors, lose. Here I promis'd you I would be, and here I commit my body to your mercies: bate me some, and I will pay you some; and, as most debtors do, promise you infinitely. If my tongue cannot entreat you to acquit me, will you command me to use my legs? and yet that were but light payment, to dance out of your debt. But a good conscience will make any possible satisfaction, and so will I. All the gentle. 4 The Fleet was one of the old prisons in London Probably its original purpose was for the accommodation of naughty sailors, hence its name; but it came to be used for other classes of offenders. 5 Conversation in Shakespeare's time had the general meaning of manners or behaviour. |