90

Then would I have his Harry, and he mine.
But let him from my thoughts. What think you, coz,
Of this young Percy's pride? the prisoners,
Which he in this adventure hath surprised,

To his own use he keeps; and sends me word,
I shall have none but Mordake Earl of Fife.
West. This is his uncle's teaching: this is Worcester,
Malevolent to you in all aspects;

Which makes him prune himself, and bristle up
The crest of youth against your dignity.
King. But I have sent for him to answer this;
And for this cause a while we must neglect
Our holy purpose to Jerusalem.

Cousin, on Wednesday next our council we
Will hold at Windsor; so inform the lords:
But come yourself with speed to us again;

IOI. a while] a-while F. 104. so] and so F.

95

100

105

103, 104. Cousin, . . . lords :] See note infra.

91. let him from] The omission of the verb, when of motion, is com

mon.

92-95. the prisoners... Fife] Tollet and Steevens assert that by the law of arms Hotspur had an exclusive right to the prisoners, excepting only the Earl of Fife, to whom, as a prince of the blood royal, Henry was entitled by his acknowledged military prerogative. Sir J. Turner, Pallas Armata (pr. 1683), p. 341: "The Ransome of a Prisoner belongs to him who took him, unless he be a person of very eminent quality, and then the Prince, the State, or their General seizeth on him, giving some gratuity to those who took him."

93. surprised] captured, as in 2 Henry VI. IV. ix. 8, and King Edward III. v. i.

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97. Malevolent . . . aspects] Worcester is likened to some "ill planet" which exerts an evil influence "in all aspects. Aspect" is an astrological term strictly denoting the relative positions of the heavenly bodies at a given time, but loosely used with reference to the way in which they look upon the earth at a particular moment. Cf. Troilus and Cressida, 1. iii. 92; Winter's Tale, II. i. 107; and Chaucer, Canterbury Tales, A. 1087. For "malevolent " in its astrological use cf. "malevolent

star" in Massinger, Duke of Milan, 1.
iii. See Introd. p. xxxvii.

98. prune himself] “To prune " is a
technical term in falconry used of a
hawk that trims or dresses her feathers
in preparation for action. The Boke
of St. Albans, 1486: "She proynith
when she fetcheth oyle with hir beke
over hir tayle and anoynteth hir fete
and hir federis. And... that

tyme that she proynyth she is lykyng
and lusty, and whanne she hathe doone
she will rowse hire myghtyl." Cf.
Cymbeline, v. iv. 118.

98, 99. bristle . . . crest] Cf. King
John, IV. iii. 149: "Now ... Doth
dogged war bristle his angry crest."

100. I have . . . this] This is not according to Holinshed. See Introd. p. xxxvii.

103, 104. Pope's arrangement of the lines. Line 103 ends at "hold" in Qq and Ff. It has not been suggested to put cousin in a separate line and then to divide as in Qq and Ff.

106, 107. more is to be .] we must speak and act, not in anger, but advisedly. For "out of anger" cf. I. iii. 51 and IV. iii. 7. post: "You speak it out of fear and cold heart." Johnson paraphrases: "more is to be said than anger will suffer me to say: more than can issue from a mind disturbed like mine."

For more is to be said and to be done
Than out of anger can be uttered.

West. I will, my liege.

[Exeunt.

SCENE II.-London. An Apartment of the Prince's.
Enter the PRINCE OF WALES and FALSTAFF.

Fal. Now, Hal, what time of day is it, lad?
Prince. Thou art so fat-witted, with drinking of old sack
and unbuttoning thee after supper and sleeping upon
benches after noon, that thou hast forgotten to de-
mand that truly which thou wouldst truly know.
What a devil hast thou to do with the time of the day?
Unless hours were cups of sack, and minutes capons,
and clocks the tongues of bawds, and dials the signs
of leaping-houses, and the blessed sun himself a fair
hot wench in flame-coloured taffeta, I see no reason

London Prince's] Tradition says that the Prince had a residence called Cold Harbour in the neighbourhood of Eastcheap, and Holinshed (see Introd. p. xxxix) speaks of "the princes house" in London. There is nothing in the text to support Staunton's view that the scene is laid in a tavern, while it is intrinsically improbable that the Prince's associates met in a room in the palace as suggested by Capell.

2. fat-witted] thick-witted, dull; cf. Love's Labour's Lost, v. ii. 268: “Wellliking wits they have; gross, gross; fat, fat."

...

4, 5. thou hast .. know] Falstaff had asked a question the answer to which could not concern a man of his habits, tastes and way of life. Why should a man of pleasure ask aught so superfluous as the time of day, when he might have asked of sack, capons, etc.? The point is not, as Johnson sup

Enter ... Falstaff.] Enter

4. after noon] in the afternoone Ff. posed, that Falstaff had asked in the night what was the time of the day. The Prince, Moorman thinks, contends that Falstaff's concern is with the night and not with the day. There is no reason to suppose with Steevens that the scene takes place at night, and that this circumstance was forgotten by Shakespeare when in line 112 the Prince wishes Poins a good morrow.

6. What a devil] A form apparently taken from the French (12th century) "comment diables!"; "diables" being in the_nominative (= vocative) case. In M.E. the expression is found as "what devil," but in the sixteenth century the form "what a devil" is found. Cf. Puttenham, English Poesie (Arber), III. xxiii. 274 [New Eng. Dict.].

66

9. leaping-houses] brothels. Cf. vb. to leap" in Beaumont and Fletcher, Cupid's Revenge, v; and "vaultinghouses" in Middleton, Father Hubburd's Tales (Bullen, viii. 79).

10. flame-coloured] bright red. So in Middleton, Your Five Gallants, I. 1; and in Beaumont and Fletcher, The Masque of the Inner Temple and Gray's Inn: "Enter four Cupids . . . attired in flame-coloured taffeta." Cotgrave: "Haulte couleur. A fierie red, or flame colour."

why thou shouldst be so superfluous to demand the
time of the day.

Fal. Indeed, you come near me now, Hal; for we that
take purses go by the moon and the seven stars, and
not by Phoebus, he, that wandering knight so fair. 15
And, I prithee, sweet wag, when thou art king, as,
God save thy grace,-majesty I should say, for grace
thou wilt have none,—

Fal. No, by my troth, not so much as will serve to be 20 prologue to an egg and butter.

Prince. Well, how then? come, roundly, roundly.

14. the seven] Qq 1-4; seven Qq 5-8, Ff.

king] a king Q I. 18. none,-] Cambridge; none.- Rowe (ed. 2); none Qq, Ff. 20. by my troth] omitted Ff. 22. come, roundly] Theobald; come roundly Qq, Ff.

Fal. Marry, then, sweet wag, when thou art king, let not us that are squires of the night's body be called thieves of the day's beauty: let us be Diana's 25 foresters, gentlemen of the shade, minions of the moon; and let men say we be men of good government, being governed, as the sea is, by our noble and chaste mistress the moon, under whose countenance we steal. Prince. Thou sayest well, and it holds well too; for the fortune of us that are the moon's men doth ebb and flow like the sea, being governed, as the sea is, by

IV. iii: "answer me roundly to the point," and Brome, A Mad Couple well Match'd, II. i.

23-25. let not beauty] "A thief of the day's beauty "may have been, like the German Tagesdieb, a euphemism for a loafer, and "a squire of the night's body" was perhaps a euphemism for a highwayman. "Let us," says Falstaff, "who go by the moon and not by the sun, be called, if you will, squires of the night's body' (i.e. highwaymen), but not thieves of the day's beauty (i.e. loafers, wastrels)." Theobald substituted booty for beauty, interpreting: "Let us not be called thieves, the purloiners of that booty, which, to the proprietors, was the purchase of honest labour and industry by day.' Steevens explains: "let not us who are body squires to the night," i.e. adorn the night, "be called a disgrace to the day." Wright: "let us not be called thieves by the sun, that is in broad daylight," comparing, for the construction, Coriolanus, II. iii. 19. Daniel conjectures beauty for body and booty for beauty. There is a word-play upon "night" and "knight," as also possibly on body," "beauty" and "booty.

25, 26. Diana's foresters] attendants upon the huntress Diana. Cf. the ex

pression "Diana's rangers "in Cymbeline, II. iii. 73.

26. shade] darkness, as in Sonnets, xviii. II.

26. minions] servants. Skelton, Speke, Parrot, 21: "I am a mynyon to wayt vppon a quene."

27, 28. of good government] of exemplary life. So in Beaumont and Fletcher, The Scornful Lady, 1: "Other women of good carriage and

30

government," and Heywood, An Apol-
ogy for Actors (Shak. Soc. ed., p. 44):
"Many amongst us I know to be
of government, of sober lives and tem-
perate carriages."

66

28, 29. being... moon] Cf. Heywood, King Edward IV. Part II. (Pearson, i. 162): "Women all are gouernd by the moon," and Dryden, Absalom and Achitophel: govern'd by the moon, the giddy Jews. Shakespeare and his contemporaries refer frequently to the moon as the cause of the tides. See Drayton, The Man in the Moon:

"I am the rectress of this globe below,

And with my course the sea doth ebb and flow," etc.;

and Dekker, London Triumphing (Pearson, iii. 242); and Donne, Metempsychosis, First Song: "this great soule Which, as the Moon the Sea, moves us." Cf. also Hamlet, 1. i. 118, and Midsummer-Night's Dream, II. i. 103.

28-30. our steal] So Wilkins, The Miseries of Enforced Marriage (Hazlitt's Dodsley, ix. 528): "the moon, patroness of all purse takers."

29, 30. under . . . steal] with a play on the double meaning of countenance, viz. face and patronage. See lines 155, 156, post. Pope's we-steal is happy and may be right.

31. it holds well] the simile is apt. Cf. Donne, Biathanatos (ed. 1648, p. 49): "heaven is certainly good; Life, but probably and possibly. For here it holds well which Athenagoras sayes [Earthly things and Heavenly differ so, as Veri-simile, & Verum]."

the moon. As, for proof, now: a purse of gold
most resolutely snatched on Monday night and most 35
dissolutely spent on Tuesday morning; got with
swearing "Lay by" and spent with crying "Bring in ;
now in as low an ebb as the foot of the ladder, and
by and by in as high a flow as the ridge of the
gallows.

Fal. By the Lord, thou sayest true, lad. And is not my
hostess of the tavern a most sweet wench?

Prince. As the honey of Hybla, my old lad of the castle.
And is not a buff jerkin a most sweet robe of dur-

ance ?

34. proof, now: a] Rowe; proofe. Now a Qq 1-6, Ff. omitted Ff. 43. As the honey of Hybla] As is the hony Ff.

36, 37. got "Bring in"] got with an oath bidding the traveller "Lay by," and spent with crying to the drawer, "Bring in more wine." "Lay by" may have been equivalent to "Stand and deliver your purses," or was perhaps a command to the travellers to put aside or throw down their arms. See Brome, Covent-Garden Weeded, v. iii: "You shall receive no harm, sir. Lay by your Armes, my Masters. I bring none but friends." Possibly it was one of the watchwords in use among highwaymen to which Bailey's Dict. (Canting Words) refers: "When they meet a Prize upon the Road, they have a Watch-Word, among them, which is no sooner pronounced, but every one falls on." Hudson equates it with "stand close," and others connect it with the nautical expression "lie by," to slacken sail, to bring to. (Cf. Henry VIII. III. i. II.) 38-40. now.. gallows] Cf. J. Hey. wood, Three Hundred Epigrammes, 56: "Thou art at an ebbe in Newgate, But thou shalt be aflote at Tyburne ere long." The condemned man was compelled to climb to the ridge or crossbar of the gallows. In the account of the execution of Guy Fawkes in The Weekely Newes, 31 January, 1606, we read that "Fawkes was scarce able to go up the ladder, yet, with much ado, by the help of the hangman, went high enough to break his neck by the fall." Also Beaumont and Fletcher, Thierry and Theodoret, 1. i: "I do now begin to feel myself Tuck'd into a halter, and a ladder Turning from me, one pulling

40

45

41. By the Lord]

at my legs too"; and Wilkins, The Miseries of Enforced Marriage (Hazlitt's Dodsley, ix. 528).

43. lad of the castle] A cant term for a roisterer. Steevens quotes from Harvey, Pierce's Supererogation, 1593 (Grosart, ii. 44): "And heere is a lusty ladd of the Castell, that will binde Bears, and ride golden Asses to death"; and Farmer cites the same author's Foure Letters, 1592 (Grosart, i. 225): "Old Lads of the Castell, with their rappinge bable." "Old Dick of the castle occurs in Nashe's Gabriel Harvey's Hunt is up, The Dedication (Grosart, iii. 6). Farmer says that "old lad of the castle" is equivalent to "old lad of Castile, a Castilian"; and Rushton suggests an allusion to the Castle, one of the "allowed Stewhouses" mentioned in Stow's Survey of London (ed. 1720, iv. 7). See Introd. P. xi.

44. a buff jerkin] An allusion to the catchpole or sergeant who wore a jerkin or sleeveless jacket of a stout kind of leather called buff. Comedy of Errors, IV. ii. 45: "he's in a suit of buff which rested him," and Barry, Ram Alley (Hazlitt's Dodsley, x. 330): "certain goblins [sergeants] in buff jackets."

44, 45. robe of durance] With a play on the meanings of durance, viz. buff or other stout durable material (cf. 'everlasting") and imprisonment. The same quibble occurs in Dekker and Webster, Westward Hoe, III. ii: "Honest Sergeant where didst

buy this buffe? Let me not liue but Ile giue thee a good suite of durance."