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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.

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. 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 Pages.

Fal. Stand here by me, master Robert Shallow; I

5 Enter Falstaff, &c.] The old stage-direction in the quarto, 1600, would show that the king and his train had passed over the stage before the entrance of Falstaff: it is, "Trumpets sound, and the King and his train pass over the stage; after them enter Falstaff, Shallow, Pistol, Bardolph, and the Boy." The king, &c. return again soon afterwards, introduced by the words, "Enter the King

will make the king do you grace. I will leer upon him, as he 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. Shal. It doth so.

Fal. It shows my earnestness of affection.

Pist. It doth so.

Fal. My devotion.

Pist. 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.

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;

Haul'd thither

By most mechanical and dirty hand :—

and his train." Possibly, for the sake of the show, the king was originally made to walk in procession twice. The stage-directions in the folio correspond with those in the text.

It doth, it doth, it doth.] We have distributed these and some other speeches as in the folio. In the quarto they are confusedly given, and some modern editors seem to have felt themselves at liberty to dispose of them as they thought best. The quarto and folio vary in other more minute particulars.

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 trumpets sound. Pist. There roar'd the sea, and trumpet-clangor sounds.

Enter KING and his Train, including the Chief Justice.

Fal. God save thy grace, king Hal! my royal Hal! Pist. The heavens thee guard and keep, most 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!

King. I know thee not, old man: fall to thy

prayers;

How ill white hairs become a fool, and jester!

I have long dream'd of such a kind of man,
So surfeit-swell'd, so old, and so profane;
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 God doth know, so shall the world perceive,
That I have turn'd 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
you advancement. Be it your charge, my lord,
To see perform'd the tenor of our word3.-

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.

Shal. I cannot perceive how, unless you should 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 colour.

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 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.

7 And as we hear you do REFORM yourselves,] Boswell states that the folio has redeem for "reform " of the quarto. No copy of the folio that I have ever met with has redeem.

8

word."

the tenor of our word.] So the folio: the quarto has "the tenor of my

Pist. Se fortuna me tormenta, il sperare 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 banish'd, till their conversations
Appear more wise and modest to the world.

Ch. Just. And so they are.

P. John. The king hath call'd 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, pleas'd the king.
Come, will you hence?

[Exeunt.

EPILOGUE'.

First my fear, then my courtesy, last my speech. My fear is your displeasure, my courtesy 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 un

9 I HEARD a bird so sing,] The folio, "I hear a bird so sing," which is clearly wrong: the quarto, "heard."

1 Epilogue.] Johnson remarks upon the flatness of the conclusion of this play, and this epilogue (which was evidently spoken by an actor, who was also a dancer) was perhaps added in order, in the words of Barten Halliday, "the more cheerfully to dismiss the spectators."

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