Pist. Let vultures vile seize on his lungs also! Where is the life that late I led, say they.

Why, here it is; welcome these pleasant days.

SCENE IV. London. A Street.

[Exeunt.

Enter Beadles, dragging in HOSTESS QUICKLY and DOLL TEAR-SHEET.1

Host. No, thou arrant knave; I would I might die, that I might have thee hanged: thou hast drawn my shoulder out of joint.

1 Bead. The constables have delivered her over to me; and she shall have whipping-cheer enough, I warrant her. There hath been a man or two lately killed about her.

Dol. Nut-hook, nut-hook,2 you lie. Come on; I'll tell thee what, thou damned tripe-visaged rascal; an the child I now go with do miscarry, thou hadst better thou hadst struck thy mother, thou paper-faced villain.

Host. O the Lord, that sir John were come! he would make this a bloody day to somebody. But I pray God, the fruit of her womb miscarry!

1 Bead. If it do, you shall have a dozen of cushions again; you have but eleven now. Come, I charge you both go with me; for the man is dead, that you and Pistol beat among you.

Dol. I'll tell thee what, thou thin man in a censer! I will have you as soundly swinged for this, you bluebottle rogue! you filthy, famished correctioner! if you be not swinged, I'll forswear half-kirtles.5

4

1 In the quarto, 1600, we have "Enter Sincklo, and three or four officers." And the name of Sincklo is prefixed to the Beadle's speechSincklo is also introduced in The Taming of the Shrew; he was an actor in the same company with Shakspeare.

es.

2 Nut-hook was a term of reproach for a bailiff or constable.

3 Doll compares the beadle's spare figure to the embossed figures in the middle of the pierced convex lid of a censer made of thin metal. The sluttery of rush-strewed chambers rendered censers or fire pans, in which coarse perfumes were burned, most necessary utensils.

4 Beadles usually wore a blue livery.

5 A half-kirtle was a kind of apron or fore part of the dress of a woman.

1 Bead. Come, come, you she knight-errant, come. Host. O, that right should thus overcome might! Well; of sufferance comes ease.

Dol. Come, you rogue, come; bring me to a justice. Host. Ay; come, you starved blood-hound.

Dol. Goodman death! goodman bones!

Host. Thou atomy, thou!

Dol. Come, you thin thing; come, you rascal! 1 Bead. Very well.

[Exeunt.

SCENE V. A public Place near Westminster Abbey.

Enter two Grooms, strewing Rushes.

1 Groom. More rushes, more rushes.

2 Groom. The trumpets have sounded twice.

1 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.-O, if I had had time to have made new liveries, I would have bestowed the thousand pound I borrowed of

you.

[To

SHALLOW.] But 'tis no matter; this poor show doth better: this doth infer the zeal I had to see him.

Shal. It doth so.

Fal. It shows my earnestness of affection.

Shal. It doth so.

Fal. My devotion.

Shal. It doth, it doth, it doth.

Fal. As it were, to ride day and night; and not to

deliberate, not to remember, not to have patience to shift me.

Shal. It is most certain.

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.1

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;
Hauled 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 roared the sea, and trumpet-clangor

sounds.

Enter the King and his Train, the Chief Justice

them.

among

2

Fal. God save thy grace, king Hal! my royal Hal! Pist. The Heavens thee guard and keep, mest royal imp of fame!

Fal. God save thee, my sweet boy!

King. My lord chief justice, speak to that vain man. Ch. Just. Have you your wits? know you what 'tis you speak?

Fal. My king! my Jove! I speak to thee, my heart!

1 Warburton thought that we should read:

"Tis all in all and all in every part."

2 A similar scene occurs in the anonymous old play of King Henry V. Falstaff and his companions address the king in the same manner, and are dismissed as in this play.

King. I know thee not, old man.

prayers;

Fall to thy

How ill white hairs become a fool, and jester!
I have long dreamed of such a kind of man,
So surfeit-swelled, so old, and so profane;1
But, being awake, I do despise my dream.
Make less thy body hence, and more thy grace;
Leave gormandizing; know the grave doth gape
For thee thrice wider than for other men:-
Reply not to me with a fool-born jest;
Presume not, that I am the thing I was;

For Heaven doth know, so shall the world perceive,
That I have turned away my former self:
So will I those that kept me company.
When thou dost hear I am as I have been,
Approach me; and thou shalt be as thou wast,
The tutor and the feeder of my riots;
Till then I banish thee, on pain of death,-
As I have done the rest of my misleaders,-
Not to come near our person by ten mile.
For competence of life, I will allow you,
That lack of means enforce you not to evil;
And, as we hear you do reform yourselves,
We will according to your strength and qualities-
Give advancement.3-Be it your charge, my lord,
To see performed the tenor of our word.

you

Set on. [Exeunt 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.

1 Profane (says Johnson) in our author often signifies love of talk. 2 Henceforward.

3 This circumstance Shakspeare may have derived from the old play of King Henry V. But Hall, Holinshed, and Stowe, give nearly the same account of the dismissal of Henry's loose companions.

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 you heard, was but a color.

Shal. A color, I fear, that you will die in, sir John. Fal. Fear no colors; go with me to dinner. Come, lieutenant Pistol ;-come, Bardolph.-I shall be sent for soon at night.

Re-enter PRINCE JOHN, the Chief Justice, Officers, &c.

Ch. Just. Go, carry sir John Falstaff to the Fleet; Take all his company along with him.

Fal. My lord, my lord,

Ch. Just. I cannot now speak; I will hear you soon. Take them away.

Pist. Si fortuna me tormenta, spero me contenta.

[Exeunt FAL., SHAL., PIST., BARD., Page, and Officers.

P. 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 banished, till their conversations

Appear more wise and modest to the world.

Ch. Just. And so they are.

P. John. The king hath called his parliament, my lord.

Ch. Just. He hath.

P. John. I will lay odds, that, ere this year expire, We bear our civil swords, and native fire,

As far as France: I heard a bird so sing,
Whose music, to my thinking, pleased the king.
Come, will
you hence?

[Exeunt.