thy fubjects afore thee like a flock of wild geefe, I'll never wear hair on my face more. You prince of Wales! P. HEN. Why, you whorefon round man! what's the matter? FAL. Are you not a coward? answer me to that; and Poins there? POINS. 'Zounds, ye fat paunch, an ye call me coward, I'll ftab thee. FAL. I call thee coward! I'll fee thee damn'd ere I call thee coward: but I would give a thoufand pound, I could run as fast as thou canft. You are ftraight enough in the fhoulders, you care not who fees your back: Call you that, backing of your friends? A plague upon fuch backing! give me them that will face me.-Give me a cup of fack:I am a rogue, if I drunk to-day. P. HEN. O villain! thy lips are scarce wiped fince thou drunk'ft laft. FAL. All's one for that. A plague of all cowards, ftill fay I. "In a trice, like to the old Vice, "Your need to fuftain: "Who with dagger of lath, "In his rage and his wrath," &c. [He drinks. Again, in Like will to Like, quoth the Devil to the Collier, 1587, the Vice fays: "Come no neer me you knaves for your life, "Left I ftick you both with this wood knife. Body o'me, they have tane away my dagger." And in the Second Part of this play, Falstaff calls Shallow a "Vice's dagger." STEEVENS. 6 Poins. 'Zounds, &c.] Thus the first quarto and the three fubfequent copies. In the quarto of 1613, Prince being prefixed to this fpeech by the careleffnefs of the printer, the errour, with many others, was adopted in the folio; the quarto of 1613 being evidently copy from which the folio was printed. MALONE. the P. HEN. What's the matter? FAL. What's the matter? there be four of us here have ta'en a thoufand pound this morning. P. HEN. Where is it, Jack? where is it? FAL. Where is it? taken from us it is: a hundred upon poor four of us. P. HEN. What, a hundred, man? FAL. I am a rogue, if I were not at half-fword with a dozen of them two hours together. I have 'fcap'd by miracle. I am eight times thruft through the doublet; four, through the hofe; my buckler cut through and through; my fword hack'd like a hand-faw, ecce fignum. I never dealt better fince I was a man: all would not do. A plague of all cowards!—Let them speak: if they speak more or lefs than truth, they are villains, and the fons of darkness. 7 P. HEN. Speak, firs; How was it? PETO. No, no, they were not bound. from the appears buckler cut through and through;] It my old comedy of The Two Angry Women of Abington, that this method of defence and fight was in Shakspeare's time growing out of fashion. The play was published in 1599, and one of the characters in it makes the following obfervation: "I fee by this dearth of good fwords, that sword-and-bucklerfight begins to grow out. I am forry for it; I fhall never fee good manhood again. If it be once gone, this poking fight of rapier and dagger will come up then. Then a tall man, and a good fword-and-buckler-man, will be spitted like a cat, or a coney: then a boy will be as good as a man," &c. STEEVENS, See Vol. III. p. 368, n. 9. MALONE. FAL. You rogue, they were bound, every man of them; or I am a Jew elfe, an Ebrew Jew.' GADS. As we were fharing, fome fix or feven fresh men set upon us, FAL. And unbound the rest, and then come in the other. P. HEN. What, fought ye with them all? FAL. All? I know not what ye call, all; but if I fought not with fifty of them, I am a bunch of radish if there were not two or three and fifty upon poor old Jack, then am I no two-legg'd crea ture. POINS. Pray God, you have not murder'd some of them. FAL. Nay, that's past praying for: I have pepper'd two of them: two, I am fure, I have pay'd;' two rogues in buckram fuits. I tell thee what, Hal,-if I tell thee a lie, fpit in my face, call me horse. Thou know'ft my old ward;-here I lay, and thus I bore my point. Four rogues in buckram let drive at me, ―an Ebrew Jew.] So, in The Two Gentlemen of Verona: -thou art an Hebrew, a Jew, and not worth the name of a Chriftian." The natives of Palestine were called Hebrews, by way of diftinction from the stranger Jews denominated Greeks. STEEVENS. Jews in Shakspeare's time were fuppofed to be peculiarly hardhearted. So, in The Two Gentlemen of Verona: " A Jew would have wept to have seen our parting." MALONE. 2-two, I am fure, I have pay'd;] i. e. drubbed, beaten. So, in Marlowe's tranflation of Ovid's Elegies, printed at Middleburgh, (without date): "Thou cozeneft boys of fleep, and doft betray them MALONE. P. HEN. What, four? thou faid'ft but two, even now. FAL. Four, Hal; I told thee four. POINS. Ay, ay, he faid four. FAL. These four came all a-front, and mainly thruft at me. I made me no more ado, but took all their seven points in my target, thus. P. HEN. Seven? why, there were but four, even now. FAL. In buckram.3 POINS. Ay, four, in buckram fuits.4 FAL. Seven, by these hilts, or I am a villain elfe. P. HEN. Pr'ythee, let him alone; we shall have more anon. FAL. Doft thou hear me, Hal? P. HEN. Ay, and mark thee too, Jack. FAL. Do fo, for it is worth the liftening to. These nine in buckram, that I told thee of, P. HEN. So, two more already. 3 In buckram,] I believe these words belong to the Prince's fpeech: "there were but four even now,-in buckram." Poins concurs with the Prince: "Ay, four, in buckram fuits;" and Falstaff perfeveres in the number of feven. As the fpeeches are at prefent regulated, Falstaff feems to affent to the Prince's affertion, that there were but four, if the Prince will but grant they were in buckram; and then immediately afterwards afferts that the number of his affailants was seven. The regulation propofed renders the whole confiftent. MALONE. 4 P. Hen. Seven? why, there were but four, even now. Fal. In buckram. Poins. Ay, four, in buckram fuits.] From the Prince's speech, and Poins's anfwer, I apprehend that Falftaff's reply should be interrogatively; In buckram? WHALLEY. Vol. XI. U-289 FAL. Their points being broken,———— POINS. Down fell their hofe." FAL. Began to give me ground: But I follow'd me close, came in foot and hand; and, with a thought, seven of the eleven I pay'd. P. HEN. O monftrous! eleven buckram men grown out of two! FAL. But, as the devil would have it, three mifbegotten knaves, in Kendal' green, came at my 5 Fal. Their paints being broken,——— Poins. Down fell their hofe.] To understand Poins's joke, the double meaning of point must be remembered, which fignifies the Sharp end of a weapon, and the lace of a garment. The cleanly phrafe for letting down the hofe, ad levandum alvum, was to untrufs a point. JOHNSON. So, in the comedy of Wily Beguiled: "I was fo near taken, that I was fain to cut all my points." Again, in Sir Giles Goofecap, 1606: Help me to trufs my points. "I had rather fee your hofe about your heels, than I would "Then Robin will I wear thy Kendall green.” Again, in the Playe of Robyn Hoode verye proper to be played in Maye Games, bl. 1. no date: Here be a fort of ragged knaves come in, "Clothed all in Kendale grene." STEEVENS. |