SCENE I.-London. Eastcheap.

Enter, severally, NYм and BARDOLPH.

BARD. Well met, corporal Nym. NYM. Good morrow, lieutenant Bardolph. BARD. What, are ancient Pistol and you friends yet?

NYм. For my part, I care not: I say little; but when time shall serve, there shall be smiles; -but that shall be as it may. I dare not fight, but I will wink, and hold out mine iron: it is a simple one, but what though? it will toast cheese, and it will endure cold as another man's sword will and there's an end."

a And there's an end.] The quartos read, "And there's the hu nour of it."

b And we'll be all three sworn brothers-] See note (a), p. 484, Vol. I.

BARD. I will bestow a breakfast, to make you friends, and we'll be all three sworn brothers" to France: let it be so, good corporal Nym. NYM. 'Faith, I will live so long as I may, that's the certain of it; and when I cannot live any longer, I will do as I may: that is my rest, that is the rendezvous of it.

BARD. It is certain, corporal, that he is married to Nell Quickly: and, certainly, she did you wrong; for you were troth-plight to her.

NYм. I cannot tell; things must be as they may men may sleep, and they may have their throats about them at that time; and, some say, knives have edges. It must be as it may though patience be a tired mare, yet she will plod.

(*) First folio, name.

e I will do as I may:] Monck Mason, with some reason, proposed to read:"die as I may."

There must be conclusions:-well, I cannot tell. BARD. Here comes ancient Pistol, and his wife: -good corporal, be patient here.

Enter PISTOL and Hostess."

How now, mine host Pistol !

PIST. Base tike, call'st thou me-host? Now, by this hand, I swear I scorn the term; Nor shall my Nell keep lodgers.

HOST. No, by my troth, not long for we cannot lodge and board a dozen or fourteen gentlewomen, that live honestly by the prick of their needles, but it will be thought we keep a bawdyhouse straight. [NYM draws his sword.] O wella-day, Lady, if he be not drawn! now we shall see wilful adultery and murder committed.

BARD. Good lieutenant,-good corporal,-offer nothing here.

c

NYM. Pish!a

PIST. Pish for thee, Iceland dog! (1) thou prickear'd cur of Iceland!

HOST. Good corporal Nym, show thy valour, and put up your sword.

NYм. Will you shog off? I would have you solus. [Sheathing his sword.

PIST. Solus, egregious dog! O viper vile!
The solus in thy most marvellous face;
The solus in thy teeth, and in thy throat,

And in thy hateful lungs, yea, in thy maw, perdy;
And, which is worse, within thy nasty mouth!
I do retort the solus in thy bowels:
For I can take, and Pistol's cock is up,
And flashing fire will follow.

NYM. I am not Barbason; you cannot conjure me. I have an humour to knock you indifferently well if you grow foul with me, Pistol, I will scour you with my rapier, as I may, in fair terms: if you would walk off, I would prick your guts a little, in good terms, as I may; and that's the

humour of it.

PIST. O braggart vile, and damned furious wight!

The grave doth gape, and doting death is near; Therefore exhale.

[PISTOL and NYм draw their swords. BARD. Hear me, hear me what I say:-he that strikes the first stroke, I'll run him up to the hilts, as I am a soldier. [Draws his sword.

A Hostess.] The old copies have "Quickly," but evidently through inadvertence, as she is always afterwards called "Hostess," which, or "Mistress Pistol," is now her proper appellation. bO well-a-day, Lady, if he be not drawn! now we shall see, &c.] In the folio, "if he be not hewne now." The correction was made by Theobald.

e Good lieutenant,-good corporal,-offer nothing here.] To obviate the inconsistency of Bardolph, himself the lieutenant, designating Pistol by that title, Capell prints, "Good ancient," and Malone makes the sentence a part of the Hostess's speech. This, however, is not the only anomaly of the same kind. In the opening of the present scene, Nym addresses Bardolph as "lieu

Boy. Mine host Pistol, you must come to my master, and you,† hostess ;-he is very sick, and would to bed.-Good Bardolph, put thy nose between his sheets, and do the office of a warmingpan: 'faith, he's very ill.

BARD. Away, you rogue!

HOST. By my troth, he'll yield the crow a pudding one of these days: the king has killed his heart. Good husband, come home presently.

[Exeunt Hostess and Boy.

BARD. Come, shall I make you two friends? We must to France together; why the devil should we keep knives to cut one another's throats?

PIST. Let floods o'erswell, and fiends for food howl on!

NYм. You'll pay me the eight shillings I won of you at betting?

PIST. Base is the slave that pays.

NYM. That now I will have; that's the humour of it.

PIST. As manhood shall compound; push home. [PISTOL and NYм draw their swords. BARD. By this sword, he that makes the first thrust, I'll kill him; by this sword, I will. PIST. Sword is an oath; and oaths must have their course.

tenant," while in Act III. Sc. 2, he calls him " corporal." Again, in the Second Part of "Henry IV." Act V. Sc. 5, Falstaff styles Pistol "lieutenant," though his military rank is only that of "ancient." Whether these incongruities are the effect of design or inattention on Shakespeare's part, (they could hardly arise from carelessness in the printing office,) it is now, perhaps, impossible to determine; we prefer therefore to adhere to the old text.

d Pish!] In the quartos "Push!" the older form of the same contemptuous exclamation. See note (a), p. 731, Vol. I.

BARD. Corporal Nym, an thou wilt be friends, be friends; an thou wilt not, why then be enemies with me too. Pr'ythee, put up.

NYM. I shall have my eight shillings, I won of you at betting?"

PIST. A noble shalt thou have, and present pay;
And liquor likewise will I give to thee,
And friendship shall combine, and brotherhood.
I'll live by Nym, and Nym shall live by me ;-
Is not this just?-for I shall sutler be
Unto the camp, and profits will accrue.
Give me thy hand.

NYM. I shall have my noble?
PIST. In cash most justly paid.

NYM. Well then, that's the humour of it.

Re-enter Hostess.

WEST. How smooth and even they do bear themselves!

As if allegiance in their bosoms sat,
Crowned with faith, and constant loyalty.

BED. The king hath note of all that they intend, By interception which they dream not of.

EXE. Nay, but the man that was his bedfellow, Whom he hath dull'd and cloy'd with gracious favours,

That he should, for a foreign purse, so sell
His sovereign's life to death and treachery!

Trumpets sound. Enter KING HENRY, SCROOP, CAMBRIDGE, GREY, Lords, and Attendants.

K. HEN. Now sits the wind fair, and we will aboard.

My lord of Cambridge,—and my kind lord of
Masham,—

And
you, my gentle knight, give me your thoughts:
Think you not, that the powers we bear with us,
Will cut their passage through the force of France,
Doing the execution, and the act,

For which we have in head assembled them?

SCROOP. No doubt, my liege, if each man do his best.

K. HEN. I doubt not that, since we are well persuaded,

We carry not a heart with us from hence,
That grows not in a fair concent with ours;
Nor leave not one behind, that doth not wish
Success and conquest to attend on us.

CAM. Never was monarch better fear'd and lov'd,

Than is your majesty; there's not, I think, a subject,

That sits in heart-grief and uneasiness
Under the sweet shade of your government.

GREY. True: those that were your father's enemies

Have steep'd their galls in honey, and do serve you With hearts create of duty and of zeal.

K. HEN. We therefore have great cause of thankfulness,

And shall forget the office of our hand,
Sooner than quittance of desert and merit,
According to the weight and worthiness.

SCROOP. So service shall with steeled sinews toil,

And labour shall refresh itself with hope,
To do your grace incessant services.

K. HEN. We judge no less.-Uncle of Exeter, Enlarge the man committed yesterday,

a Dull'd and cloy'd-] So the folio; the quartos read, “cloy'd and grac'd.

b And, on his more advice,-] This is variously interpreted. We believe it to mean, on his further representations.

b

That rail'd against our person: we consider,
It was excess of wine that set him on ;
And, on his more advice, we pardon him.
SCROOP. That's mercy, but too much security;
Let him be punish'd, sovereign, lest example
Breed, by his sufferance, more of such a kind.
K. HEN. O, let us yet be merciful.

CAM. So may your highness, and yet punish too. GREY. Sir, you show great mercy, if you give him life,

After the taste of much correction.

K. HEN. Alas, your too much love and care of

me

Are heavy orisons 'gainst this poor wretch.
If little faults, proceeding on distemper, [eye,
Shall not be wink'd at, how shall we stretch our
When capital crimes, chew'd, swallow'd, and di-
gested,

Appear before us!-We'll yet enlarge that man, Though Cambridge, Scroop, and Grey, in their dear care

And tender preservation of our person,

Would have him punish'd. And now to our French

causes;

Who are the late commissioners?

CAM.

I one, my lord; Your highness bade me ask for it to-day. SCROOP. So did you me, my liege. GREY. And me, my royal sovereign. K. HEN. Then, Richard earl of Cambridge, there is yours;

There yours, lord Scroop of Masham ;—and, sir knight,

Grey of Northumberland, this same is yours:
Read them; and know, I know your worthiness.
My lord of Westmoreland,-and uncle Exeter,
We will aboard to-night. Why, how now, gen-

tlemen!

here,

You know how apt our love was to accord
To furnish him with all appertinents
Belonging to his honour; and this man

Hath, for a few light crowns, lightly conspir'd,
And sworn unto the practices of France,
To kill us here in Hampton: to the which,
This knight, no less for bounty bound to us
Than Cambridge is,-hath likewise sworn.-But, O!
What shall I say to thee, lord Scroop? thou cruel,
Ingrateful, savage, and inhuman creature!
Thou, that didst bear the key of all my counsels,
That knew'st the very bottom of my soul,
That almost mightst have coined me into gold,
Wouldst thou have practis'd on me for thy use?
May it be possible, that foreign hire
Could out of thee extract one spark of evil,
That might annoy my finger? 'tis so strange,
That, though the truth of it stands off as gross
As black from white," my eye will scarcely see it.
Treason and murder ever kept together,
As two yoke-devils sworn to either's purpose,
Working so grossly in a natural cause,'
That admiration did not whoop † at them:
But thou, 'gainst all proportion, didst bring in
Wonder, to wait on treason and on murder:
And whatsoever cunning fiend it was,
That wrought upon thee so preposterously,
Hath got the voice in hell for excellence;
And other devils that suggest by treasons,
Do botch and bungle up damnation

b

With patches, colours, and with forms being fetch'd
From glistering semblances of piety;

But he that temper'd thee, bade thee stand up,
Gave thee no instance why thou shouldst do treason,
Unless to dub thee with the name of traitor.
If that same dæmon, that hath gull'd thee thus,
Should with his lion-gait walk the whole world,
He might return to vasty Tartard back,
And tell the legions-I can never win
A soul so easy as that Englishman's.
O, how hast thou with jealousy infected
The sweetness of affiance! Show men dutiful?
Why, so didst thou. Seem they grave and

learned?

Constant in spirit, not swerving with the blood,
Garnish'd and deck'd in modest complement;
Not working with the eye, without the ear,
And, but in purged judgment, trusting neither?
Such and so finely boulted didst thou seem;
And thus thy fall hath left a kind of blot
To mark the full-fraught man, and best indued,
With some suspicion. I will weep for thee;
For this revolt of thine, methinks, is like
Another fall of man.'-Their faults are open,
Arrest them to the answer of the law ;-
And God acquit them of their practices!

EXE. I arrest thee of high treason, by the name of Richard earl of Cambridge.

I arrest thee of high treason, by the name of Henry+ lord Scroop of Masham.

I arrest thee of high treason, by the name of Thomas Grey, knight, of Northumberland.

SCROOP. Our purposes God justly hath discovered,

And I repent my fault more than my death;
Which I beseech your highness to forgive,
Although my body pay the price of it.

CAM. For me, the gold of France did not seduce,

Although I did admit it as a motive
The sooner to effect what I intended:
But God be thanked for prevention ;
Which I in sufferance heartily will rejoice,
Beseeching God and you to pardon me.

GREY. Never did faithful subject more rejoice
At the discovery of most dangerous treason,
Than I do at this hour joy o'er myself,
Prevented from a damned enterprize:
My fault, but not my body, pardon, sovereign.
K. HEN. God quit you in his mercy! Hear
your sentence.

You have conspir'd against our royal person, Join'd with an enemy proclaim'd, and from his coffers

Receiv'd the golden earnest of our death;
Wherein you would have sold your king to