as can hold in,27 such as will strike sooner than speak, and speak sooner than drink, and drink sooner than pray and yet I lie; for they pray continually to their saint, the commonwealth; or, rather, not pray to her, but prey on her, for they ride up and down on her, and make her their boots.23

Cham. What! the commonwealth their boots? Will she hold out water in foul way?

Gads. She will, she will; justice hath liquored her.29 We steal as in a castle,30 cock-sure; we have the receipt of fern-seed,-we walk invisible.31 Cham. Nay, by my faith, I think you are more beholden to the night, than to fern-seed, for your walking invisible.

Gads. Give me thy hand: thou shalt have a share in our purchase,32 as I am a true man.

Cham. Nay, rather let me have it, as you are a false thief.

Gads. Go to; homo is a common name to all Bid the ostler bring my gelding out of the stable. Farewell, you muddy knave. [Exeunt.

men.

27. Such as can hold in. This has been variously interpreted; but we take the meaning to be, such as can restrain themselves upon occasion,' 'such as can refrain from swaggering or rioting when they see fit:' and the interpretation of the remainder of the consecution to be- Such as will strike sooner than quarrel in words, quarrel sooner than drink, and drink sooner than pray.'

28. Make her their boots. Boots" is here used with a play on the word, in the sense which "boot" sometimes bore'advantage,'' profit'-as if it were 'booty,' or 'plunder.'

29. Justice hath liquored her. That is, rendered her waterproof. The process of greasing boots for this purpose is elsewhere alluded to by Shakespeare: in the "Merry Wives of Windsor," Act iv., sc. 5, Falstaff says, "They would melt me out of my fat, drop by drop, and liquor fishermen's boots with me." See also Note 45, Act iii., "Taming of the Shrew."

30. As in a castle. An old proverbial phrase, expressive of security. Cock-sure" is also an ancient word familiarly used to denote confidence of success, or certainty.

Fal. I am accursed to rob in that thief's company: the rascal hath removed my horse, and tied hiin I know not where. If I travel but four foot by the squire,34 farther a-foot, I shall break my wind. Well, I doubt not but to die a fair death for all this, if I 'scape hanging for killing that rogue. I have forsworn his company hourly any time this two-and-twenty years, and yet I am bewitched with the rogue's company. If the rascal have not given me medicines to make me love him, I'll be hanged; it could not be else; I have drunk medicines.-Poins!-Hal!-a plague upon you both!-Bardolph!-Peto!—I'll starve, ere I'll rob a foot farther. An 'twere not as good a deed as drink, to turn true man, and leave these rogues, I am the veriest varlet that ever chewed with a tooth. Eight yards of uneven ground is threescore and ten miles a-foot with me; and the stony-hearted villains know it well enough: a plague upon 't, when thieves cannot be true one to another! [They whistle.] Whew! A plague upon you all! Give me my horse, you rogues; give me my horse, and be hanged.

P. Hen. [Coming forward.] Peace, ye fat paunch lie down; lay thine ear close to the ground, and list if thou canst hear the tread of travellers.

Fal. Have you any levers to lift me up again, being down? 'Sblood, I'll not bear mine own flesh so far a-foot again for all the coin in thy father's exchequer. What a plague mean ye to colt 35 me

thus ?

P. Hen. Thou liest; thou art not colted, thou art uncolted.

Fal. I pr'ythee, good Prince Hal, help me to my horse, good king's son.

P. Hen. Out, you rogue! shall I be your ostler?

Fal. Go, hang thyself in thine own heirapparent garters! If I be ta'en, I'll peach for this. An I have not ballads made on you all, and sung to filthy tunes, let a cup of sack be my

31. We have the receipt of fern-seed,— -we walk invisible. Fern-seed," from being itself so small, and so hiddenly placed on the back of the leaf, was said to be "invisible;" and thence arose a belief that its use conferred invisibility. The gathering it at a certain period (at noon or at midnight on Midsummer Eve, 23rd of June), fasting, and in silence, was indispensable to its efficacy; and the conjuration formula needful to be repeated during the difficult process of collecting the minute seed, was the "receipt" to which Gadshill alludes.

32. Purchase. A word formerly used in thieves' jargon, for stolen goods.'

33. Frets like a gummed velvet. Gum was used for stiffening velvet; and the consequence was, that the stuff soon fretted and wore out.

34. By the squire. By the square-rule.' See Notes 116, Act V., "Love's Labour's Lost," and 126, Act iv., "Winter's Tale." 35. To colt. To cheat, to trick, to deceive. Falstaff uses the words in this sense, while Prince Hal plays upon them in his reply, as if they referred to the horse that Falstaff misses.

Fal. So I do, against my will.

Poins. Oh, 'tis our setter: 36 I know his voice. [Coming forward with BARDOLPH and PETO. Bard. What news?

Gads. Case ye, case ye; on with your visors: there's money of the king's coming down the hill; 'tis going to the king's exchequer.

Fal. You lie, you rogue; 'tis going to the king's tavern.

Gads. There's enough to make us all,37
Fal. To be hanged.

P. Hen. Sirs, you four shall front them in the narrow lane; Ned Poins and I will walk lower: if they 'scape from your encounter, then they light

on us.

Peto. How many be there of them?
Gads. Some eight or ten.

Fal. Zounds, will they not rob us?

P. Hen. What! a coward, Sir John Paunch? Fal. Indeed, I am not John of Gaunt, your grandfather; but yet no coward, Hal.

P. Hen. Well, we leave that to the proof. Poins. Sirrah Jack, thy horse stands behind the hedge: when thou needest him, there thou shalt find him. Farewell, and stand fast.

Fal. Now cannot I strike him, if I should be hanged.

P. Hen. [Aside to POINS.] Ned, where are our disguises?

Poins. Here, hard by: stand close.

[Exeunt Prince HENRY and POINS. Fal. Now, my masters, happy man be his dole,38 say I: every man to his business.

Enter Travellers.

First Trav. Come, neighbour: the boy shall lead our horses down the hill; we'll walk a-foot awhile, and ease our legs.

Fal., Gads., &c. Stand!
Travellers. Heaven bless us!

Fal. Strike; down with them; cut the villains' throats-ah! gorging caterpillars! bacon-fed knaves! they hate us youth:-down with them; fleece them.

36. Oh, 'tis our setter This refers to Gadshill (see Note 39, Act i.); which shows that Johnson's appropriation of the two next speeches, as in our text, is correct, although the old copies give the prefixes somewhat differently.

37. There's enough to make us all. Gadshill says this in the i liomatic sense pointed out in Note 59, Act iii., "Winter's Tale" but Falstaff chooses to take it as though it were a broken speech, and said in the sense of 'There's enough to cause us all-'.

38. Happy man be his dole. 'Happiness be his lot.' See Note 52, Act i, "Winter's Tale."

Travellers. Oh, we are undone, both we and ours for ever!

Fal. Hang ye, gorbellied 39 knaves, are ye undone? No, ye fat chuffs; 40 I would your store were here! On, bacons, on! What, ye knaves! young men must live. You are grand-jurors, are ye? We'll jure ye, i' faith.

[Exeunt FALSTAFF, GADSHILL, &c., driving the Travellers out.

Re-enter Prince HENRY and POINS, in buckram suits.

P. Hen. The thieves have bound the true men. Now, could thou and I rob the thieves, and go merrily to London, it would be argument for a week, laughter for a month, and a good jest for

ever.

39. Gorbellied. Sir Thomas More uses this word in the following passage, which illustrates its meaning:-"As a great gorbelyed glutton, so corpulente and fatte that he canne scantelye goe; while Shakespeare's putting it into Falstaff's mouth, as a taunting term, is supreme in humorous effect.

40. Chuffs. Churls; clowns; generally applied to rich but grudging and stingy old fellows.

41. Reading a letter. Mr. Edwards, in his MS. notes, states that this letter was from George Dunbar, Earl of March, in Scotland.

44

42

He could be contented,-why is he not, then? In respect of the love he bears our house:-he shows in this, he loves his own barn better than he loves our house. Let me see some more. The purpose you undertake is dangerous:—why, that's certain: 'tis dangerous to take a cold, to sleep, to drink; but I tell you, my lord fool, out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety. The purpose you undertake is dangerous; the friends you have named, uncertain; the time itself unsorted; 13 and your whole plot too light for the counterpoise of so great an opposition.-Say you so? say you so? I say unto you again, you are a shallow, cowardly hind, and you lie. What a lack-brain is this! Our plot is a good plot as ever was laid; our friends true and constant: a good plot, good friends, and full of expectation; an excellent plot, very good friends. What a frosty-spirited rogue is this! Why, my Lord of York commends the plot and the general course of the action. 'Zounds! an I were now by this rascal, I could brain him with his lady's fan. Is there not my father, my uncle, and myself? Lord Edmund Mortimer, my Lord of York, and Owen Glendower? Is there not, besides, the Douglas? Have I not all their letters, to meet me in arms by the ninth of the next month? and are they not some of them set forward already? What a pagan rascal is this! an infidel! Ha! you shall see now, in very sincerity of fear and cold heart, will he to the king, and lay open all our proceedings. Oh, I could divide myself, and go to buffets, for moving such a dish of skimmed milk 46 with so honourable an action! Hang him! let him tell the king: we are prepared. I will set forward to-night.

Enter Lady PERCY.

How now, Kate! I must leave you within these

two hours.

Lady. Oh, my good lord, why are you thus alone?

For what offence have I this fortnight been

42. Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety. "This" is used in the present passage according to Shakespeare's mode of employing it to instance an observation of general application. See Note 107, Act i., "All's Well." 43. Unsorted. Ill-selected; unsuited.

A banish'd woman from my Harry's bed?
Tell me, sweet lord, what is 't that takes from thee
Thy stomach, pleasure, and thy golden sleep?
Why dost thou bend thine eyes upon the earth,
And start so often when thou sitt'st alone?
Why hast thou lost the fresh blood in thy cheeks;
And given my treasures and my rights of thee
To thick-ey'd musing and curs'd melancholy?
In thy faint slumbers I by thee have watch'd,
And heard thee murmur tales of iron wars;
Speak terms of manage to thy bounding steed;
Cry, "Courage! to the field!"-and thou hast talk'd
Of sallies and retires, of trenches, tents,
Of palisadoes, frontiers,47 parapets,
Of basilisks, of cannon, culverin, 18
Of prisoners' ransom, and of soldiers slain,
And all the 'currents 49 of a heady fight.
Thy spirit within thee hath been so at war,
And thus hath so bestirr'd thee in thy sleep,
That beads of sweat have stood upon thy brow
Like bubbles in a late-disturbèd stream;
And in thy face strange motions have appear'd,
Such as we see when men restrain their breath
On some great sudden hest.50 Oh, what portents
are these?

Some heavy business hath my lord in hand,
And I must know it, else he loves me not.
Hot. What, ho!

give 'haste.' But Shakespeare elsewhere has the word "hest for behest, mandate, or command (see Note 46, Act i., "Tem pest"); and this supplies precisely the required meaning in the present passage. On the issue of an unexpected mandate, the breath is held suspended; while the effect of haste is to hurry it forth. Moreover, in other passages, we find Shakespeare combines the epithets thus, "grand hests," and "great behests;' which confirms us in our belief that “great sudden hest” is what the poet wrote here.

51. Esperance! The motto of the Percy family. Many of the armorial mottoes borne by ancient English houses, being derived from Norman ancestors, are in French; the one in question being the French word for 'hope.' It was used by the Percys as their battle-cry.

Lady P. But hear you, my lord.
Hot. What say'st thou, my lady ?52
Lady P. What is it carries you away
Hot. Why, my horse, my love,-my horse.
Lady P. Out, you mad-headed ape!
A weasel hath not such a deal of spleen 53
As you are toss'd with. In faith,

I'll know your business, Harry,—that I will.
I fear my brother Mortimer doth stir
About his title, and hath sent for you

To line his enterprise: 54 but if

you go,Hot. So far a-foot, I shall be weary, love.

Lady P. Come, come, you paraquito,55 answer me Directly unto this question that I ask:

In faith, I'll break thy little finger, Harry,
An if thou wilt not tell me all things true.
Hot. Away,

Away, you trifler!-Love ?-I love thee not,56
I care not for thee, Kate: this is no world

To play with mammets,57 and to tilt with lips:
We must have bloody noses and crack'd crowns,
And pass them current too. - Odd's me, my
horse!-

What say'st thou, Kate? what wouldst thou have with me?

Lady P. Do you not love me? do you not, in-
deed?

Well, do not, then; for since you love me not,
I will not love myself. Do you not love me?
Nay, tell me if you speak in jest or no.
Hot. Come, wilt thou see me ride ?
And when I am o' horseback, I will swear
I love thee infinitely. But hark you, Kate;
I must not have you henceforth question me
Whither I go, nor reason whereabout:

52. What say'st thou, my lady? A playful retort, similar to the one indicated in Note 60, Act V., "Richard II."

53. Spleen. Shakespeare uses this word with various significations; but that he here uses it for splenetic humour, quarrelsomeness, waywardness, is made manifest by another passage wherein he has the expression, “As quarrelous as the weasel." Probably the weasel was made a type of snappishness from the mortal severity of its bite.

54. To line his enterprise. Shakespeare here, and elsewhere, uses "line" for 'strengthen,' 'give sustainment or support to.' See the passage commented upon in Note 54, Act iv., "King John."

55. Paraquito. A small kind of parrot.

56. Love?—I love thee not. This is one of Hotspur's characteristic replies, which he is in the habit of making to words addressed to him long previously; a habit so well known to characterise him, that Prince Hal laughingly alludes to it when he mimics Percy's manner: "And answers, 'Some fourteen,' an hour after." See Note 81 of this Act. In the present passage, the words refer to what Lady Percy has said some time before: "I must know it, else he loves me not."

Whither I must, I must; and, to conclude,
This evening must I leave you, gentle Kate.
I know you wise; but yet no farther wise
Than Harry Percy's wife: constant you are;
But yet a woman: and for secrecy,

No lady closer; for I well believe

Thou wilt not utter what thou dost not know,--And so far will I trust thee, gentle Kate.

Lady P. How! so far?

Hot. Not an inch farther. But hark you, Kate: Whither I go, thither shall you go too; To-day will I set forth, to-morrow you.— Will this content you, Kate? Lady P.

It must, of force. [Exeunt.

SCENE IV.-EASTCHEAP. A Room in the Boar's Head Tavern.58

Enter Prince HENRY.

P. Hen. Ned, pr'ythee, come out of that fat room,59 and lend me thy hand to laugh a little. Enter POINS.

Poins. Where hast been, Hal?

P. Hen. With three or four loggerheads, amongst three or four score hogsheads. I have sounded the very base string of humility. Sirrah, I am sworn brother 60 to a leash of drawers; and can call them all by their Christian names, 61 as,-Tom, Dick, and Francis. They take it already upon their salvation, that though I be but Prince of Wales, yet I am the king of courtesy; and tell me flatly I am no proud Jack,63 like Falstaff, but a

fourteenth century, is testified by historical record; and it is ascertained that "the Boar's Head Tavern" was the name of a place of entertainment very near to the Blackfriars' Playhouse : so that Shakespeare has blended a verity of history, and a daily visible actuality of his own London life, into one piece of imperishable poetic enamel-painting, by making the Boar's Head Tavern in Eastcheap the meeting-place of Prince Hal, Sir John Falstaff, Ned Poins, Bardolph, Pistol, and Hostess Quickly.

59 That fat room. Shakespeare elsewhere uses the word "fat" to express 'fulsome,' 'distasteful,' 'offensive' (see Note 22, Act v., "Twelfth Night"); and here it not only describes the nauseousness of the room where fatuous blockheads of men and reeking hogsheads of beer fill the air with oppressive fumes, but it serves to bring before the imagination a room that lusty Sir John frequently fills with his unctuous presence. 60. Sworn brother. See Note 13, Act i., "Much Ado." 61. Can call them all by their Christian names. That this was still considered a desirable achievement among fashionable sparks, even for some time after Shakespeare wrote this passage, we learn from a sentence in Decker's "Gull's Horn Book," 1609:-"Your first compliment shall be to grow most inwardly acquainted with the drawers; to learn their names, as Jack, and Will, and Tom."

62. They take it already upon their salvation. An idiom similar to the one pointed out in Note 27, Act v., " Richard II." 63. Jack. Used as a term of contempt. See Note 62, Act i., "Merry Wives." Here it has also punning reference to Falstaff's Christian name.