I knew thee, Hal, I knew nothing; and now I am, if a man should speak truly, little better than one of the wicked. I must give over this life, and I will give it over; an I do not, I am a villain; I'll be damned for never a king's son in Christendom.

P. HEN. Where shall we take a purse to-morrow, Jack?

FAL. Where thou wilt, lad, I'll make one; an I do not, call me villain and baffle me.

P. HEN. I see a good amendment of life in thee; from praying to purse-taking.

Enter POINS, at a distance.

FAL. Why, Hal, 't is my vocation, Hal; 't is no sin for a man to labour in his vocation. Poins!-Now shall we know if Gadshill have set a watch3. O, if men were to be saved by merit, what hole in hell were hot enough for him? This is the most omnipotent villain that ever cried Stand, to a true

man.

P. HEN. Good morrow, Ned.

POINS. Good morrow, sweet Hal. What says monsieur Remorse? What says sir John Sack and-Sugar1? Jack, how agrees the devil and thee about thy soul, that thou soldest him on Good-Friday last, for a cup of Madeira and a cold capon's leg?

P. HEN. Sir John stands to his word,-the devil shall have his bargain; for he was never yet a breaker of proverbs,—he will give the devil his due. POINS. Then art thou damned for keeping thy word with the devil. P. HEN. Else he had been damned for cozening the devil. POINS. But, my lads, my lads, to-morrow morning, by four o'clock, early at Gadshill: There are pilgrims going to Canterbury with rich offerings, and traders riding to London with fat purses: I have visors for you all, you have horses for yourselves; Gadshill lies to-night in Rochester; I have bespoke supper to-morrow in Eastcheap; we may do it as secure as sleep: If you will go, I will stuff your purses full of crowns; if you will not, tarry at home and be hanged.

FAL. Hear ye, Yedward, if I tarry at home and go not, I'll hang you for going. POINS. You will, chops?

FAL. Hal, wilt thou make one?

P. HEN. Who, I rob? I a thief? not I, by my faith.

FAL. There's neither honesty, manhood, nor good fellowship in thee, nor thou camest not of the blood royal, if thou darest not stand for ten shillings.

* Set a watch. The folio reads thus; the quartos, set a match. Steevens says, “As no watch is afterwards set, I suppose match is the true reading." To "set a match" appears, from a passage in Ben Jonson, to be to “make an appointment." But Gadshill, it seems to us, was in communication with the chamberlain of the Rochester inn; and this chamberlain, who was to have a share in the "purchase," was the watch or spy that Gadshill had set. When Gadshill meets Falstaff and Poins he is received with "O, 't is our setter."

Hear ye. This, which is the reading of the old editions, has been changed into the feeble Hear me. 66 "Hear ye" is the same as Hark ye."

• Ten shillings was the value of the royal. Hence Falstaff's quibble.

P. HEN. Well, then, once in my days, I'll be a madcap.

FAL. Why, that 's well said.

P. HEN. Well, come what will, I'll tarry at home.

FAL. I'll be a traitor, then, when thou art king.

P. HEN. I care not.

POINS. Sir John, I prithee, leave the prince and me alone; I will lay him down such reasons for this adventure that he shall go.

FAL. Well, mayst thou have the spirit of persuasion and he the ears of

profiting, that what thou speakest may move and what he hears may be believed, that the true prince may (for recreation sake) prove a false thief; for the poor abuses of the time want countenance. Farewell: You shall find me in Eastcheap.

P. HEN. Farewell the latter spring! Farewell, All-hallown summer!

[Exit FALSTAFF. POINS. Now, my good sweet honey lord, ride with us to-morrow; I have a jest to execute, that I cannot manage alone. Falstaff, Bardolph, Peto, and Gadshill, shall rob those men that we have already waylaid; yourself and I will not be there: and when they have the booty, if you and I do not rob them, cut this head from my shoulders.

P. HEN. But how shall we part with them in setting forth?

POINS. Why, we will set forth before or after them, and appoint them a place of meeting, wherein it is at our pleasure to fail: and then will they adventure upon the exploit themselves: which they shall have no sooner achieved, but we 'll set upon them.

P. HEN. Ay, but 't is like that they will know us, by our horses, by our habits, and by every other appointment, to be ourselves.

POINS. Tut! our horses they shall not see, I'll tie them in the wood; our visors we will change, after we leave them; and, sirrahd, I have cases of buckram for the nonce, to immask our noted outward garments.

P. HEN. But, I doubt they will be too hard for us.

POINS. Well, for two of them, I know them to be as true bred cowards as ever turned back; and for the third, if he fight longer than he sees reason I'll

-more em

• The latter spring. So all the old copies. Pope first read "thou latter spring "— phatic, but less correct.

All-hallown summer-summer in November, on the first of which month is the feast of Allhallows, or All Saints.

Falstaff, &c. In the old copies we read, "Falstaff, Harvey, Rossil, and Gadshill." Harvey and Rossil were, most probably, the names of actors; for Bardolph and Peto were two of the four robbers. (See Act II.) The correction was made by Theobald.

d Sirrah, in this and other passages, is used familiarly, and even sharply, but not contemptuously. The word is supposed to have meant, originally, Sir, ha! which etymology agrees with Shakspere's general application of the term.

• For the nonce. Gifford's explanation of this phrase (which is also the interpretation of Lord Hailes) is undoubtedly the true one. "For the nonce is simply for the once-for the one thing in question, whatever it be. *** The progress of this expression is distinctly marked in our early writers,-' a ones'-'an anes'-'for the ones '-' for the nanes'-' for the nones'-' for the nonce."" (Ben Jonson's Works, iii. 218.)

forswear arms. The virtue of this jest will be, the incomprehensible lies that this fat rogue will tell us, when we meet at supper: how thirty, at least, he fought with; what wards, what blows, what extremities he endured; and in the reproof of this lies the jest.

P. HEN. Well, I'll go with thee; provide us all things necessary and meet me. To-morrow nighta in Eastcheap, there I'll sup. Farewell.

POINS. Farewell, my lord.

P. HEN. I know you all, and will awhile uphold

The unyok'd humour of your idleness;

Yet herein will I imitate the sun,

Who doth permit the base contagious clouds
To smother
up his beauty from the world,
That when he please again to be himself,
Being wanted, he may be more wonder'd at,
By breaking through the foul and ugly mists
Of vapours that did seem to strangle him.
If all the year were playing holidays,
To sport would be as tedious as to work;
But when they seldom come they wish'd-for come,
And nothing pleaseth but rare accidents.
So, when this loose behaviour I throw off,
And pay the debt I never promised,
By how much better than my word I am
By so much shall I falsify men's hopes";
And like bright metal on a sullen ground,
My reformation, glittering o'er my fault,

Shall show more goodly and attract more eyes

Than that which hath no foil to set it off.

I'll so offend to make offence a skill;

Redeeming time when men think least I will.

SCENE III.-The same. Another Room in the Palace.

[Exit POINS.

[Exit.

Enter KING HENRY, NORTHUMBERLAND, WORCESTER, HOTSPUR, Sir WALTER

BLUNT, and others.

K. HEN. My blood hath been too cold and temperate,

Unapt to stir at these indignities,

• To-morrow night. Steevens thinks we should read to-night, for the robbery was to be committed at four in the morning. But the prince is thinking less of the exploit at Gadshill than of "the virtue of this jest—when we meet at supper,"—after the robbery. Perhaps some intermediate place of meeting was thought of by the Prince;-but he breaks off exultingly, with his head full of the supper "to-morrow night." We have ventured to point the passage in this

sense.

b Hopes-expectations. Thus, the Tanner of Tamworth said to Edward IV., “I hope I shall be hanged to-morrow."

And you have found me; for, accordingly,
You tread upon my patience: but, be sure,
I will from henceforth rather be myself,
Mighty, and to be fear'd, than my conditions;
Which hath been smooth as oil, soft as young down,
And therefore lost that title of respect

Which the proud soul ne'er pays but to the proud.
WOR. Our house, my sovereign liege, little deserves
The scourge of greatness to be used on it;

And that same greatness too which our own hands
Have holp to make so portly.

NORTH. My lord,

K. HEN. Worcester, get thee gone, for I do see

Danger and disobedience in thine eye:

O, sir, your presence is too bold and peremptory,
And majesty might never yet endure

The moody frontier of a servant brow.

You have good leave to leave us; when we need
Your use and counsel we shall send for you.-
You were about to speak.

Those prisoners in your highness' name demanded,
Which Harry Percy here at Holmedon took,

Were, as he says, not with such strength denied

As was deliver'd to your majesty:

Either envy, therefore, or misprision,

Is guilty of this fault, and not my son.

HOT. My liege, I did deny no prisoners.

A

But, I remember, when the fight was done,
When I was dry with rage and extreme toil,
Breathless and faint, leaning upon my sword,
Came there a certain lord, neat and trimly a dress'd,
Fresh as a bridegroom; and his chin, new reap'd,
Show'd like a stubble-land at harvest-home;

He was perfumed like a milliner;

d

And 'twixt his finger and his thumb he held

A pouncet-box, which ever and anon

Condition-temper of mind.

[Exit WOR. TO NORTH.

• Frontier. Steevens says "frontier was anciently used for forehead;" but assuredly it is not so used here. What means "the moody forehead of a brow?" Capell, who has been unwisely neglected, through his general obscurity, tells us that "frontier is a metaphorical expression, highly proper, implying-armed to oppose: opposition to the will of a master being as plainly indicated by such a 'brow' as the king is describing, as war by a town or town's frontier furnished against invasion." (Notes and Various Readings,' vol. i., p. 153.)

• Neat and trimly. All the old copies have and, which all modern editions omit.

his nose,

and took 't away again;

He gave
Who, therewith angry, when it next came there,
Took it in snuffa: and still he smil'd and talk'd;

And as the soldiers bore dead bodies by

He call'd them untaught knaves, unmannerly,
To bring a slovenly unhandsome corse
Betwixt the wind and his nobility.

With many holiday and lady terms

He question'd me; among the rest, demanded
My prisoners, in your majesty's behalf.

I then, all smarting, with my wounds being cold,
To be so pester'd with a popinjay,

Out of my grief and my impatience

Answer'd neglectingly, I know not what;

He should, or should not;-for he made me mad,

To see him shine so brisk, and smell so sweet,

And talk so like a waiting-gentlewoman

Of guns, and drums, and wounds, (God save the mark!)

And telling me, the sovereign'st thing on earth
Was parmaceti for an inward bruise;
And that it was great pity, so it was,
That villainous saltpetre should be digg'd
Out of the bowels of the harmless earth,
Which many a good tall fellow had destroy'd
So cowardly; and but for these vile guns
He would himself have been a soldier.
This bald unjointed chat of his, my lord,
I answer'd indirectly, as I said;
And, I beseech you, let not this report
Come current for an accusation,

Betwixt my love and your high majesty.
BLUNT. The circumstance consider'd, good my lord,
Whatever Harry Percy then had said

To such a person, and in such a place,
At such a time, with all the rest re-told,
May reasonably die, and never rise
To do him wrong, or any way impeach
What then he said, so he unsay it now.

K. HEN. Why, yet he doth deny his prisoners;

But with proviso, and exception,

That we, at our own charge, shall ransom straight
His brother-in-law, the foolish Mortimer;

Who, in my soul, hath wilfully betray'd

• Snuff. Aromatic powders were used as snuff long before the introduction of tobacco.

b

↳ I answer'd indirectly. So the quartos. The folio, "made me to answer indirectly."