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Bard. Yea, sir. The rascal's drunk: you have hurt him, sir, o' the shoulder.

Fal. A rascal! to brave me!

Dol. Ah, you sweet little rogue, you! Alas, poor ape, how thou sweatest! come, let me 240 wipe thy face; come on, you whoreson chops: ah, rogue! i' faith, I love thee: thou art as valorous as Hector of Troy, worth five of Agamemnon, and ten times better than the Nine Worthies: ah, villain!

Fal. A rascally slave! I will toss the rogue in a blanket.

Dol. Do, an thou darest for thy heart: an thou dost, I'll canvass thee between a pair of sheets.

Enter Music.

Page. The music is come, sir.

Fal. Let them play. Play, sirs. Sit on my knee, Doll. A rascal bragging slave! the rogue fled from me like quicksilver.

Dol. I' faith, and thou followedst him like a church. Thou whoreson little tidy Bartholomew boar-pig, when wilt thou leave fighting o' days and foining o' nights, and begin to patch up thine old body for heaven?

250

Enter, behind, Prince Henry and Poins, disguised. Fal. Peace, good Doll! do not speak like a 260 death's-head; do not bid me remember mine

end.

256. "thou whoreson little tidy Bartholomew boar-pig"; Doll says this in coaxing playful ridicule of Falstaff's enormous bulk. It was a common subject of allusion.-H. N. H.

Dol. Sirrah, what humor 's the prince of?
Fal. A good shallow young fellow: a' would
have made a good pantler, a' would ha'
chipped bread well.

Dol. They say Poins has a good wit.

Fal. He a good wit? hang him, baboon! his wit's as thick as Tewksbury mustard;

there's no more conceit in him than is in a 270
mallet.

Dol. Why does the prince love him so, then?
Fal. Because their legs are both of a bigness;

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and a' plays at quoits well; and eats conger
and fennel; and drinks off candles' ends for
flap-dragons; and rides the wild-mare with
the boys; and jumps upon joined-stools;
and swears with a good grace; and wears his
boots very smooth, like unto the sign of the
leg; and breeds no bate with telling of dis-280
creet stories; and such other gambol facul-
ties a' has, that show a weak mind and an
able body, for the which the prince admits
him: for the prince himself is such another;
the weight of a hair will turn the scales be-
tween their avoirdupois.

Prince. Would not this nave of a wheel have his
ears cut off?

279. "the sign of the leg"; suspended over shoemakers' shops.C. H. H.

280. “discreet”; Poins, it is insinuated tells indiscreet (i. e. indecent) stories.-C. H. H.

287. "nave of a wheel"; Falstaff is humorously called nave of a wheel, from his rotundity of figure. The equivoque between nave and knave is obvious.-H. N. H.

Poins. Let's beat him before his whore.

Prince. Look, whether the withered elder hath 290

not his poll clawed like a parrot.

Poins. Is it not strange that desire should so many years outlive performance?

Fal. Kiss me, Doll.

Prince. Saturn and Venus this year in conjunction! what says the almanac to that?

Poins. And, look, whether the fiery Trigon, his man, be not lisping to his master's old tables, his note-book, his counsel-keeper.

Fal. Thou dost give me flattering busses.

Dol. By my troth, I kiss thee with a most constant heart.

Fal. I am old, I am old.

Dol. I love thee better than I love e'er a scurvy young boy of them all.

Fal. What stuff wilt have a kirtle of? I shall

300

295. This was indeed a prodigy. The astrologers, says Ficinus, remark that Saturn and Venus are never conjoined.-H. N. H.

297. "Fiery Trigon"; alluding to the astrological division of the zodiacal signs into four trigons or triplicities; one consisting of the three fiery signs (Aries, Leo, and Sagittarius); the others, respectively, of three airy, three watery, and three earthy signs. When the three superior planets were in the three fiery signs they formed a fiery trigon; when in Cancer, Scorpio, and Pisces, a watery one, etc. -I. G.

Poins of course refers to Bardolph, who is supposed to be whispering to the Hostess, Sir John's counsel-keeper.-H. N. H.

306. "kirtle"; few words, as Mr. Gifford observes, have occasioned such controversy as kirtle. The most familiar terms are often the most baffling to the antiquary; for, being in general use, they were clearly understood by our ancestors, and therefore are not accurately defined in the dictionaries. A kirtle, from the Saxon cyrtel, to gird, was undoubtedly a petticoat, which sometimes had a body without sleeves attached to it. "Vasquine," says Cotgrave, "a kirtle or petticoat." "Surcot, an upper kirtle, or garment worn over a

receive money o' Thursday: shalt have a cap to-morrow. A merry song, come: it grows late; we 'll to bed. Thou 'lt forget me when I am gone. Dol. By my troth, thou 'lt set me a-weeping, an thou sayest so: prove that ever I dress myself handsome till thy return: well, hearken at the end.

Fal. Some sack, Francis.

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310

[Coming forward.

Fal. Ha! a bastard son of the king's? And art not thou Poins his brother?

Prince. Why, thou globe of sinful continents, what a life dost thou lead!

Fal. A better than thou: I am a gentleman;

thou art a drawer. Prince. Very true, sir; and I come to draw you out by the ears.

Host. O, the Lord preserve thy good grace! by

my troth, welcome to London. Now, the
Lord bless that sweet face of thine! O Jesu,
are you come from Wales?

Fal. Thou whoreson mad compound of maj

320

kirtle." Also, "cotte de femme, a kirtle." Chaucer also uses kirtle for a tunic or sleeveless coat for a man. Florio explains Tonaca

"a coate or jacket, or a sleeveless coate. Also, a woman's petticoat or kirtle, an upper safeguard." Cotgrave also translates "un devant de robe, a kirtle or apron." Minsheu renders the Spanish word “vasquina, a woman's petticoat or kirtle." And, finally, Torriano defines "grembiale, an apron, a fore-kirtle." All this dictionary learning may appear very ridiculous, but at least it has put an end to doubt upon the subject.-H. N. H.

818."Poins his"; Poins's.-C. H. H.

esty, by this light flesh and corrupt blood, 380 thou art welcome.

Dol. How, you fat fool! I scorn you.

Poins. My lord, he will drive you out of your revenge and turn all to a merriment, if you

take not the heat.

Prince. You whoreson candle-mine, you, how
vilely did you speak of me even now before
this honest, virtuous, civil gentlewoman!
Host. God's blessing of your good heart! and
so she is, by my troth.

Fal. Didst thou hear me?
Prince. Yea, and you knew me, as you did when
you ran away by Gadshill: you knew I was

at your back, and spoke it on purpose to try
my patience.

Fal. No, no, no; not so; I did not think thou
wast within hearing.

Prince. I shall drive you then to confess the willful abuse; and then I know how to han

dle you. Fal. No abuse, Hal, o' mine honor; no abuse. Prince. Not to dispraise me, and call me pantler and bread-chipper and I know not what?

Fal. No abuse, Hal.

Poins. No abuse?

Fal. No abuse, Ned, i̇' the world; honest Ned,
I dispraised him before the wicked,

none.

340

350

that the wicked might not fall in love with
him; in which doing, I have done the part of
a careful friend and a true subject, and thy 360
father is to give me thanks for it. No

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