Bard. Well met, corporal Nym. Nym. Good morrow, lieutenant Bardolph." Bard. What, are ancient Pistol and you friends yet?

Nym. For my part, I care not: I say little; bat when time shall serve, there shall be smiles; but that shall be as it may. I dare not fight; but I will wink, and hold out mine iron: It is a simple one; but what though? It will toast cheese; and it will endure cold as another man's sword will: and there's an end.

Bard. I will bestow a breakfast to make you friends; and we'll be all three sworn brothers to France; let it be so, good corporal Nym.

a Bardolph, according to some commentators, ought to be "corporal" and not "lieutenant." They have overlooked the tone of authority which he uses both to Pistol and Nym. It appears from an old MS. in the British Museum, that amongst the canonniers serving in Normandy in 1435, were Wm. Pistail and R. Bardolf,

Nym. 'Faith, I will live so long as I may, that's the certain of it; and when I cannot live any longer, I will do as I may: that is my rest, that is the rendezvous of it.

a

Bard. It is certain, corporal, that he is married to Nell Quickly: and, certainly, she did you wrong; for you were troth-plight to her.

Nym. I cannot tell; things must be as they may men may sleep, and they may have their throats about them at that time; and, some say, knives have edges. It must be as it may: though patience be a tired mare, yet she will plod. There must be conclusions. Well, I cannot tell.

Enter PISTOL and Mrs. QUICKLY.

Bard. Here comes ancient Pistol, and his

a Mason would read "die as I may." It is not necessary, we think, to make Nym's common-places antithetical. b The folio, by a typographical error, has name instead of mare. We find the true word in the quartos. This shows the proper use of those incomplete editions-the correction of printers' mistakes, but not the abolition of the author's improvements.

e The quartos have "Enter Pistol and Hostess Quickly his wife."

wife :-good corporal, be patient here.-How now, mine host Pistol?

Pist. Base tike, call'st thou me host?
Now, by this hand I swear, I scorn the term;
Nor shall my Nell keep lodgers.

Quick. No, by my troth, not long: for we cannot lodge and board a dozen or fourteen gentlewomen, that live honestly by the prick of their needles, but it will be thought we keep a bawdy-house straight. [NYм draws his sword.] O well-a-day, Lady, if he be not here. Now we shall see wilful adultery and murder committed," Good lieutenant Bardolph

Bard. Good corporal, offer nothing here.
Nym. Pish!

Pist. Pish for thee, Iceland dog! thou prickeared cur of Iceland.2

Quick. Good corporal Nym, shew thy valour, and put up thy sword.

Nym. Will you shog off? I would have you [Sheathing his sword. Pist. Solus, egregious dog? O viper vile! The soles in thy most marvellous face; The soles in thy teeth, and in thy throat, And in thy hateful lungs, yea, in thy maw, perdy;

And, which is worse, within thy nasty mouth!
I do retort the solus in thy bowels;

For I can take, and Pistol's cock is up,
And flashing fire will follow.

Nym. I am not Barbason, you cannot conjure me. I have an humour to knock you indifferently well: If you grow foul with me, Pistol, I will scour you with my rapier, as I may say, in fair terms: if you would walk off, I would prick your guts a little, in good terms, as I may say; and that's the humour of it.

Pist. O braggard vile, and damned furious wight!

The grave doth gape, and doting death is near; Therefore exhale. [PISTOL and NYм draw. Bard. Hear me, hear me what I say:—he that

a Tike. We have still the word, which signifies a common dog-a mongrel. The bull-terrier in Landseer's admirable picture of "Low-life" is a tike. In Lear we have "bob-tail tike." The ploughman's "collie" of Burns is "a gash an' faithfu' tyke."

The folio reads thus: "O well-a day, Lady, if he be not kewne now, we shall see," &c. The first quarto has "O Lord, here's corperal Nym, now shall we have wilfu adultery," &e. Hanmer suggested drawn now. We adopt Grawn, but give Now to the beginning of the next sen

tence.

+ I can take. Malone considers that take is a corruption, and that we should follow the quarto, talk. Is there any more difficulty in "I can take," than in the familiar expression, "Do you take?" Mason says Pistol means, "I can take fire." He, in his obscure language, only means, "I understand you"-"I know what you are about."

A Barbason is the name of an evil spirit in the Dæmonology.

Enter the Boy.

Boy. Mine host Pistol, you must come to my master,—and you, hostess ;—he is very sick, and would to bed.-Good Bardolph, put thy face between his sheets, and do the office of a warming-pan; 'faith, he's very ill.

Bard. Away, you rogue.

Quick. By my troth, he'll yield the crow a pudding one of these days; the king has killed his heart.-Good husband, come home presently. [Exeunt Mrs. QUICKLY and Boy.

Bard. Come, shall I make you two friends? We must to France together. Why the devil should we keep knives to cut one another's throats ?

Pist. Let floods o'erswell, and fiends for food

howl on!

I'll live by Nym, and Nym shall live by me ;—
Is not this just ?-for I shall sutler be
Unto the camp, and profits will accrue.
Give me thy hand.

Nym. I shall have my noble?
Pist. In cash most justly paid.

Nym. Well then, that's the humour of it.

Re-enter Mrs. QUICKLY.

Quick. As ever you came of women, come in quickly to sir John: Ah, poor heart! he is so shaked of a burning quotidian tertian, that it is most lamentable to behold. Sweet men, come to him.

Nym. The king hath run bad humours on the knight, that's the even of it.

Pist. Nym, thou hast spoke the right; His heart is fracted, and corroborate.

Nym. The king is a good king: but it must be as it may; he passes some humours, and

careers.

Pist. Let us condole the knight; for lambkins we will live." [Exeunt. SCENE II.-Southampton. A Council Chamber. Enter EXETER, BEDFORD, and WESTMORELAND, Bed. 'Fore God, his grace is bold, to trust these traitors.

Ere. They shall be apprehended by and by. West. How smooth and even they do bear themselves!

As if allegiance in their bosoms sat,
Crowned with faith and constant loyalty.

Bed. The king hath note of all that they intend, By interception which they dream not of.

Exe. Nay, but the man that was his bedfellow,3 Whom he hath dull'd and cloy'd with gracious favours,- _b

That he should, for a foreign purse, so sell
His sovereign's life to death and treachery!

Trumpet sounds. Enter KING HENRY, SCROOP, CAMBRIDGE, GREY, Lords, and Attendants.

K. Hen. Now sits the wind fair, and we will aboard.

My lord of Cambridge, and my kind lord of Masham,

a The whole of this scene, in the folio, exhibits the greatest care in remodelling the text of the quarto.

b We print this line as in the folio. In the quartos we find the text which Steevens adopted.

"Whom he hath cloy'd and grac'd with princely favours." But if the quarto is to be followed the editors should have left out the three lines which Westmoreland speaks-"How smooth," &c.

Have steep'd their galls in honey; and do serve you

With hearts create of duty and of zeal.

K. Hen. We therefore have great cause of thankfulness;

And shall forget the office of our hand
Sooner than quittance of desert and merit,
According to the weight and worthiness.

Scroop. So service shall with steeled sinews toil,

And labour shall refresh itself with hope,
To do your grace incessant services.

K. Hen. We judge no less.-Uncle of Exeter,
Enlarge the man committed yesterday,
That rail'd against our person: we consider
It was excess of wine that set him on ;
And, on his more advice, we pardon him.

Scroop. That's mercy, but too much security: Let him be punish'd, sovereign; lest example Breed, by his sufferance, more of such a kind. K. Hen. O, let us yet be merciful.

Cam. So may your highness, and yet punish

too.

Grey. Sir, you shew great mercy if you give him life,

After the taste of much correction.

K. Hen. Alas, your too much love and care of

me

Are heavy orisons 'gainst this poor wretch.
If little faults, proceeding on distemper,
Shall not be wink'd at, how shall we stretch our

eye

mercy;

For your own reasons turn into your bosoms,
As dogs upon their masters, worrying you."
See you, my princes, and my noble peers,
These English monsters! My lord of Cambridge
here,-

You know how apt our love was, to accord
To furnish him with all appertinents
Belonging to his honour; and this man
Hath, for a few light crowns, lightly conspir'd,
And sworn unto the practices of France,
To kill us here in Hampton: to the which,
This knight, no less for bounty bound to us
Than Cambridge is, hath likewise sworn. But O!
What shall I say to thee, lord Scroop; thou
cruel,

Ingrateful, savage, and inhuman creature!
Thou, that did'st bear the key of all my counsels,

That knew'st the very bottom of my soul,
That almost might'st have coin'd me into gold,
Would'st thou have practis'd on me for thy
use?

May it be possible, that foreign hire

Could out of thee extract one spark of evil,
That might annoy my finger? 't is so strange,
That, though the truth of it stands off as gross
As black from white," my eye will scarcely
see it.

Treason and murther ever kept together,
As two yoke-devils sworn to either's purpose,
Working so grossly in a natural cause,
That admiration did not whoop at them:
But thou, 'gainst all proportion, didst bring in
Wonder, to wait on treason, and on murther:
And whatsoever cunning fiend it was
That wrought upon thee so preposterously,
Hath got the voice in hell for excellence :
And other devils, that suggest by treasons,
Do botch and bungle up damnation
With patches, colours, and with forms being
fetch'd

From glistering semblances of piety;
But he that temper'd thee bade thee stand up,
Gave thee no instance why thou should'st do
treason,

Unless to dub thee with the name of traitor.
If that same dæmon, that hath gull'd thee thus,
Should with his lion gait walk the whole world,
He might return to vasty Tartar back,
And tell the legions, I can never win
A soul so easy as that Englishman's.
O, how hast thou with jealousy infected
The sweetness of affiance! Shew men dutiful?
Why, so didst thou: Seem they grave and
learned?

Why, so didst thou: Come they of noble family?
Why, so didst thou: Seem they religious?
Why, so didst thou: Or are they spare
in diet ;
Free from gross passion, or of mirth, or anger;
Constant in spirit, not swerving with the blood;
Garnish'd and deck'd in modest complement;
Not working with the eye without the ear,
And, but in purged judgment, trusting neither-
Such, and so finely bolted, didst thou seem:
And thus thy fall hath left a kind of blot,
To mark the full-fraught man and best indued,
With some suspicion. I will weep for thee;
For this revolt of thine, methinks, is like

a Black from white. So the quarto. The folio "black and white." b In the folio, where only these lines appear, we find make. Theobald substituted mark. Pope read the passage thus:

To make the full-fraught man, and best, indued
With some suspicion."

335

Another fall of man."-Their faults are open,
Arrest them to the answer of the law;
And God acquit them of their practices !

Exe. I arrest thee of high treason, by the name of Richard earl of Cambridge.

I arrest thee of high treason, by the name of Henry lord Scroop of Masham.

I arrest thee of high treason, by the name of Thomas Grey, knight of Northumberland.

Scroop. Our purposes God justly hath discover'd;

And I repent my fault more than my death;
Which I beseech your highness to forgive,
Although my body pay the price of it.

Cam. For me, the gold of France did not seduce;

Although I did admit it as a motive,
The sooner to effect what I intended:
But God be thanked for prevention;
Which I in sufferance heartily will rejoice,
Beseeching God, and you, to pardon me.
Grey. Never did faithful subject more rejoice
At the discovery of most dangerous treason,
Than I do at this hour joy o'er myself,
Prevented from a damned enterprise:
My fault, but not my body, pardon, sovereign.
K. Hen. God quit you in his mercy! Hear
your sentence,

You have conspir'd against our royal person, Join'd with an enemy proclaim'd, and from his coffers

Receiv'd the golden earnest of our death; Wherein you would have sold your king to slaughter,

His princes and his peers to servitude,
His subjects to oppression and contempt,
And his whole kingdom into desolation.
Touching our person, seek we no revenge;
But we our kingdom's safety must so tender,
Whose ruin you have sought, that to her laws
We do deliver Get
you.
therefore hence,
you
Poor miserable wretches, to your death:
The taste whereof, God, of his mercy, give you
Patience to endure, and true repentance
Of all your dear offences!-Bear them hence.
[Exeunt Conspirators, guarded.
Now, Lords, for France; the enterprise whereof
Shall be to you, as us, like glorious.
We doubt not of a fair and lucky war;
Since God so graciously hath brought to light
This dangerous treason, lurking in our way,

a The thirty-eight lines here ending are not found in the quartos. We are greatly mistaken if these lines, as well as the choruses and other passages which we shall point out, do not exhibit the hand of the master elaborating his original sketch.

To hinder our beginnings;—we doubt not now
But rub is smoothed on our way.
every
Then, forth, dear countrymen; let us deliver
Our puissance into the hand of God,
Putting it straight in expedition.
Cheerly to sea; the signs of war advance :
No king of England, if not king of France.

[Exeunt.

SCENE III.-London. Mrs. Quickly's Hous in Eastcheap.

Enter PISTOL, Mrs. QUICKLY, NYM, BARDOLPH, and Boy.

Quick. Prithee, honey-sweet husband, let me bring thee to Staines.

Pist. No; for my manly heart doth yearn. Bardolph, be blithe ;-Nym, rouse my vaulting veins;

Boy, bristle thy courage up; for Falstaff he is dead,

And we must yearn therefore.

Bard. Would I were with him, wheresome'er he is, either in heaven, or in hell!

Quick. Nay, sure he's not in hell; he's in Arthur's bosom, if ever man went to Arthur's bosom. 'A made a finer end, and went away, an it had been any christom child ;a 'a parted even just between twelve and one, e'en at the turning o' the tide for after I saw him fumble with the sheets, and play with flowers, and smile upon his fingers' ends, I knew there was but one way; for his nose was as sharp as a pen, and 'a babbled of green fields. How now, sir John? quoth I: what, man! be of good cheer.

a Christom child. The chrisom was a white cloth placed upon the head of an infant at baptism, when the chrism, or sacred oil of the Romish church, was used in that sacrament. The white cloth which was worn by the child at baptism was subsequently called a chrisom, and if the child died within a month of its birth that cloth was used as a shroud. Children dying under the age of a month were called chrisoms in the old Bills of Mortality. Mrs. Quickly's "christom" is one of her emendations of English.

b Derham, in his Astro-Theology, alludes to the opinion as old as Pliny that animals, and particularly man, "expire at the time of ebb."

c These symptoms of approaching death were observed by the ancient physicians, and are pointed out by modern authorities. Van Swieten has a passage in his Commentaries in which he describes these last movements of the worn-out machine, upon the authority of Galen.

d This passage is at once the glory and the opprobrium of commentators. There is nothing similar in the quarto; in the folio it reads thus: "for his nose was as shaipe as a pen, and a table of greene fields." Theobald made the correction of "table" to "a babbled"-(he babbled); which was to turn what was unintelligible into sense and poetry. Pope's conjecture that "a table of green fields" was a stagedirection to bring in a table, and that Greenfields was the name of the property-man, could only have been meant as a hoax upon the reader;-but it imposed upon Johnson. Some of the conjectures of subsequent editors appear equally absurd. See Recent New Reading, at the end of this Act.