NORTH. Now, Travers, what good tidings comes with* you? [back TRA. My lord, sir John Umfrevile turn'd me With joyful tidings; and, being better hors'd, Out-rode me. After him, came, spurring hard,† A gentleman almost forespent with speed, That stopp'd by me to breathe his bloodied horse: He ask'd the way to Chester; and of him I did demand, what news from Shrewsbury. He told me, that rebellion had bad‡ luck, And that young Harry Percy's spur was cold: With that he gave his able horse the head, And, bending forward, struck his armed§ heels Against the panting sides of his poor jade Up to the rowel-head; and, starting so, He seem'd in running to devour the Staying no longer question. NORTH. way, Ha! Again. Said he, young Harry Percy's spur was cold? Of Hotspur, coldspur? that rebellion Had met ill luck? NORTH. Yea, this man's brow, like to a titleForetells the nature of a tragic volume: [leaf,b So looks the strand, whereon* the imperious flood Hath left a witness'd usurpation. Enter MORTON. Say, Morton, did'st thou come from Shrewsbury? NORTH. How doth my son, and brother? But Priam found the fire, ere he his tongue, Your brother, thus; so fought the noble Douglas; Why, he is dead. Tell thou thy earl, his divination lies; And I will take it as a sweet disgrace, I see a strange confession in thine eye: The never-daunted Percy to the earth, a Rend'ring faint quittance,-] Quittance here means requital, as in "Henry V." Act II. Sc. 2: "And shall forget the office of our hand, b In few,-] That is, in short, in a few words. So in "The Tempest," Act I. Sc. 2: "In few, they hurried us aboard a bark; " and in "Measure for Measure," Act III. Sc. 1: "In few, bestowed her on her own lamentation." Are thrice themselves: hence therefore, thou nice* crutch; A scaly gauntlet now, with joints of steel, BARD. Sweet carl, divorce not wisdom from your honour. MOR. The lives of all your loving complices Let us make head. It was your presurmise, BARD. We all that are engaged to this loss, line is omitted in the folio. h Must perforce decay.] The remainder of Morton's speech. after this line, is omitted in the quarto. iThe dole of blows,-] The dealing, the distribution of blows, You were advis'd,-] You were aware. 1 Capable-] That is, susceptible, sensible. "Alongst the galupin or silver paved way of heaven, conducted into the great hall of the gods, Mercury sprinkled me with water, which made me capable of their divine presence."-GREENE'S Orpharion, ite, 1599, p. 7. See note (b), p. 297. m Where most trade-] Most traffic. See note (c), p. 473. MOR. 'Tis more than time: and, my most noble I hear for certain, and do* speak the truth,"- Suppos'd sincere and holy in his thoughts, This present grief had wip'd it from [Exeunt. SCENE II.-London. A Street. Enter SIR JOHN FALSTAFF, with his Page bearing his sword and buckler. FAL. Sirrah, you giant, what says the doctor to my water? PAGE. He said, sir, the water itself was a good healthy water: but, for the party that owed it, he might have more diseases than he knew for. FAL. Men of all sorts take a pride to gird at me. The brain of this foolish-compounded clay, man, is not able to invent any thing that tends to laughter, more than I invent, or is invented on me: I am not only witty in myself, but the cause a And do speak the truth,-] Here, again, the quarto omits what follows of Morton's speech. b More and less,-] That is, great and small. So in "Henry IV." Part I. Act IV. Sc. 3: "The more and less came in with cap and knee." e I was never manned with an agate-] An agate stone was frequently cut to represent the human form, and was occasionally worn in the hat by gallants. d To bear a gentleman in hand,-] To bear in hand, was to buoy up. See note (c), p. 258. that wit is in other men. I do here walk before thee, like a sow, that hath overwhelmed all her litter but one. If the prince put thee into my service for any other reason than to set me off, why then I have no judgment. Thou whoreson mandrake, thou art fitter to be worn in my cap, than to wait at my heels. I was never manned with an agate till now: but I will in-set* you neither in gold nor silver, but in vile apparel, and 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 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! 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 any thing good.-Go, pluck him by the elbow; I must speak with him. a You hunt-counter,-] A quibble may have been intended on the cant term hunt-counter for a sheriff's officer, and the fault 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 your 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. (*) First folio, want. of a hound in turning and following the scent the way the chase has come. FAL. My good lord!—God* 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 fort 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. 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 a 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." b 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. Your ill angel is light:] The Chief Justice means evil genius; Falstaff evades the application by alluding to the coin called 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.b 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 s little regard in these costar-mongers' times, that true valour is turned bear-herd: pregnancy 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 an angel, which was frequently made light enough by the process of clipping. d 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. e Pregnancy-] That is, Ready wit. |