L. Bard. Sweet earl, divorce not wisdom from your honour.

Mor. The lives of all your loving complices" Lean on your health; the which, if you give o'er To stormy passion, must perforce decay. You cast 12 the event of war, my noble lord, And summ'd the account of chance, before you said

"Let us make head." It was your presurmise That, in the dole13 of blows, your son might drop.

171

You knew he walk'd o'er perils, on an edge, More likely to fall in than to get o'er; [You were advis'd 14 his flesh was capable Of wounds and scars, and that his forward spirit

Would lift him where most trade13 of danger rang'd:]

Yet did you say "Go forth;" [and none of this, Though strongly apprehended, could restrain The stiff-bornel action.] What hath then befallen,

Or what hath this bold enterprise brought forth,

More than that being which was like to be? L. Bard. We all that are engaged to this loss

180

And since we are o'erset, venture again. Come, we will all put forth, body and goods. Mor. 'T is more than time; and, my most noble lord,

189

I hear for certain, and do speak the truth, The gentle Archbishop of York is up With well-appointed powers: he is a man Who with a double surety binds his followers. [My lord your son had only but the corpse, But shadows, and the shows of men, to fight; > For that same word, rebellion, did divide The action of their bodies from their souls, And they did fight with queasiness,1 constrain'd,

As men drink potions, that their weapons only Seem'd on our side; but, for their spirits and souls,

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 that wit is in other men. [I do here walk before thee like a sow that. hath o'erwhelm'd 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 mann'd with an agate till now; but I will inset 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 fledg'd. 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, 't is not a hair amiss yet: he may keep it still at a face-royal, for a barber shall never earn sixpence out of it;] and yet he'll be crowing as if he had writR man ever since his father was a bachelor. He may keep his own grace, but he 's almost out of mine, I can assure him. What said Master Dombledon about the satin for my short cloak and my slops?9

34

Page. He said, sir, you should procure him better assurance10 than Bardolph: he would not take his band11 and yours; he lik'd not the security.

Fal. Let him be damn'd, like the glutton! [pray God his tongue be hotter! A whoreson Achitophel!]a rascally yea-forsooth knave! to bear a gentleman in hand,12 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

First Appar. [Pulling Falstaff by the sleeve] Sir John!

Fal. [To Apparitor] What! a young knave, and begging! 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.

First Appar. You mistake me, sir.

90

Fal. Why, sir, did I say you were an honest man? setting my knighthood and my soldiership aside, I had lied in my throat if I had said so.

First Appar. 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 gett'st any leave of me, hang me; if thou tak'st leave, thou wert better be hanged. You hunt counter; hence! avaunt!

103

First Appar. Sir, my lord would speak with you.

Ch. Just. Sir John Falstaff, a word with you. 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 reverent care of your health.

114

Ch. Just. Sir John, I sent for you before your expedition to Shrewsbury.

Fal. An't please your lordship, I hear his majesty is return'd with some discomfort from Wales.

Ch. Just. I talk not of his majesty; you would not come when I sent for you.

121

Fal. And I hear, moreover, his highness is fall'n into this same whoreson apoplexy. Ch. Just. Well, God mend him! I pray you, let me speak with you.

1 Hunt counter, are at fault. VOL. III.

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 angel3 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 so little regard in these costermonger times that true valour is turn'd 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.

200

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 voice broken? your wind short? your chin double? your wit single? and every part about you blasted with antiquity?8 and will you yet call yourself young! Fie, fie, fie, Sir John!

1 O'er-posting, getting over.

209

2 Wassail, festal, large.

Fal. My lord, I was born about three of the clock in the afternoon, with a white head and something a round belly. For my voice, I have lost it with hallooing and singing of anthems. To approve my youth further, I will not: the truth is, I am only old in judg ment and understanding; and he that will caper with me for a thousand marks, let him lend me the money, and have at him! For the box of the ear that the prince gave you, he gave it like a rude prince, and you took it like a sensible lord. I have check'd 10 him for it, and the young lion repents; marry, not in ashes and sackcloth, but in new silk and old sack.

222

Ch. Just. Well, God send the prince a better companion!

Fal. God send the companion a better prince! I cannot rid my hands of him.

Ch. Just. Well, the king hath sever'd you and Prince Harry; I hear you are going with Lord John of Lancaster against the Archbishop and the Earl of Northumberland. 230

Fal. Yea; I thank your pretty sweet wit for it. But look you pray, all you that kiss' my lady Peace at home, that our armies join not in a hot day; for, by the Lord, I take but, two shirts out with me, and I mean not to. sweat extraordinarily: if it be a hot day, and I brandish any thing but a bottle, I would I: might never spit white again. ] There is not a dangerous action can peep out his head but I am thrust upon it: well, I cannot last ever; but it was alway yet the trick of our English nation, if they have a good thing, to make it too common. [If ye will needs say I am an old man, you should give me rest. I would, to God my name were not so terrible to the enemy as it is; I were better to be eaten to death with a rust, than to be scour'd to nothing with perpetual motion. ]

247

Ch. Just. Well, be honest, be honest; and God bless your expedition!

Fal. Will your lordship lend me a thousand pound to furnish me forth?

Ch. Just. Not a penny, not a penny; you are too impatient to bear crosses.11 Fare you

9 Approve, prove, attest. 10 Check'd, chided, rebuked. 11 Crosses, coin (with a pun).