he; you may stroke him as gently as a puppy greyhound: he will not fwagger with a Barbary hen, if her feathers turn back in any fhow of refiftance.Call him up, drawer. HOST. Cheater, call you him? I will bar no honeft man my house, nor no cheater: 5 But I do not love fwaggering; by my troth, I am the worse, when one fays-fwagger: feel, mafters, how I fhake; look you, I warrant you. DOL. So you do, hoftefs. HOST. Do I? yea, in very truth, do I, an 'twere an afpen leaf: I cannot abide swaggerers. Enter PISTOL, BARDOLPH, and Page. PIST. 'Save you, fir John! FAL. Welcome, ancient Pistol. Here, Piftol, I charge you with a cup of fack: do you discharge upon mine hostess. PIST. I will discharge upon her, fir John, with two bullets. FAL. She is piftol-proof, fir; you fhall hardly offend her. HOST. Come, I'll drink no proofs, nor no bullets: I'll drink no more than will do me good, for no man's pleasure, I. 5 I will bar no honeft man my houfe, nor no cheater:] The humour of this confifts in the woman's mistaking the title of cheater, (which our ancestors gave to him whom we now, with better manners, call a gamefter,) for that officer of the exchequer called an efcheator, well known to the common people of that time; and named, either corruptly or satirically, a cheater. WARBURTON., I'll drink no more—for no man's pleasure, I.] This PIST. Then to you, miftrefs Dorothy; I will charge you. DOL. Charge me? I fcorn you, fcurvy companion. What! you poor, bafe, rafcally, cheating, lack-linen mate! Away, you mouldy rogue, away! I am meat for your mafter. PIST. I know you, miftrefs Dorothy. DOL. Away, you cut-purfe rafcal! you filthy bung,' away! by this wine, I'll thruft my knife in your mouldy chaps, an you play the faucy cuttle with me. Away, you bottle-ale rascal! you basket should not be printed as a broken fentence. The duplication of the pronoun was very common in The London Prodigal we have, "I fcorn fervice, I."-" I am an afs, I," fays the stagekeeper in the Induction to Bartholomew Fair; and Kendal thus tranflates a well-known epigram of Martial: "I love thee not, Sabidius, "I cannot tell thee why: "I can faie naught but this alone, "I do not love thee, I." In Kendall's Collection there are many translations from Claudian, Aufonius, the Anthologia, &c. FARMER. So, in King Richard III. A& III. fc. ii: "I do not like these separate councils, I." STEEVENS. Again, in Romeo and Juliet: "I will not budge, for no man's pleasure, I." Again, in King Edward II. by Marlow, 1598: "I am none of those common peasants, I." The French still use this idiom :-Je suis Parifien, moi. MALONE. 7 — filthy bung,] In the cant of thievery, to nip a bung. was to cut a purfe; and among an explanation of many of these terms in Martin Mark-all's Apologie to the Bel-man of London, 1610, it is faid that " Bung is now used for a pocket, heretofore for a purfe." STEEVENS. 8 an you play the faucy cuttle with me.] It appears from Greene's Art of Coneycatching, that cuttle and cuttleboung were the cant terms for the knife ufed by the sharpers of that age to cut the bottoms of purfes, which were then worn hilt ftale juggler, you !-Since when, I pray you, fir?-What, with two points on your thoulder? much!! PIST. I will murder your ruff for this. 2 FAL. No more, Piftol; I would not have you go off here: discharge yourself of our company, Pistol. HOST. No, good captain Piftol; not here, sweet captain. DOL. Captain! thou abominable damned cheater,3 hanging at the girdle. Or the allufion may be to the foul language thrown out by Piftol, which the means to compare with fuch filth as the cuttle-fifh ejects. STEEVENS. 9 ·with two points -] As a mark of his commiffion. JOHNSON, much!] Much was a common expreffion of disdain at that time, of the fame fenfe with that more modern one, Marry come up. The Oxford editor, not apprehending this, alters it to march. WARBURTON. Dr. Warburton is right. Much is used thus in Ben Jonson's Volpone: fhall eat it. Much!" -But you "Much, wench! or much, fon!" Again, in Every Man out of his Humour: 2 "To charge me bring my grain unto the markets: No more, Piftol; &c.] This is from the oldeft edition of 1600. POPE. 3 Captain, thou abominable damned cheater, &c.] Piftol's character seems to have been a common one on the stage in the time of Shakspeare. In A Woman's a Weathercock, by N. Field, 1612, there is a perfonage of the fame stamp, who is thus defcribed: "Thou unspeakable rafcal, thou a foldier! "That with thy flops and cat-a-mountain face, GA art thou not ashamed to be called-captain? If captains were of my mind, they would truncheon you out, for taking their names upon you before you have earned them. You a captain, you flave! for what? for tearing a poor whore's ruff in a bawdyhoufe?-He a captain! Hang him, rogue! He lives upon mouldy ftewed prunes, and dried cakes.4 A captain! thefe villains will make the word captain as odious as the word occupy; 5 which was an "Fright'ft the poor whore, and terribly doft exact MALONE. He lives upon mouldy ftewed prunes, and dried cakes.] That is, he lives on the refufe provifions of bawdy-houses and paftry-cooks' fhops. Stewed prunes, when mouldy, were perhaps formerly fold at a cheap rate, as ftale pies and cakes are at prefent. The allufion to ftewed prunes, and all that is neceffary to be known on that fubject, has been already explained in the First Part of this hiftorical play, p. 361, n. 4. STEEVENS. $ as odious as the word occupy ;] So Ben Jonfon, in his Difcoveries: "Many, out of their own obfcene apprehenfions, refuse proper and fit words; as, occupy, nature," &c. STEEVENS. This word is used with different fenfes in the following jeft, from Wits, Fits, and Fancies, 1614: "One threw ftones at an yll-fauor'd old womaus Owle, and the olde woman faid: Faith (fir knaue) you are well occupy'd, to throw ftones at my poore Owle, that doth you no harme. Yea marie (anfwered the wag) fo would you be better occupy'd too (I wiffe) if you were young againe, and had a better face." RITSON. Occupant seems to have been formerly a term for a woman of the town, as occupier was for a wencher. So, in Mariton's Satires, 1599: He with his occupant "Are cling'd fo close, like dew-worms in the morne, "That he'll not ftir." Again, in a Song by Sir T. Overbury, 1616: "Here's water to quench maiden's fires, "Here's fpirits for old occupiers." MALONE. excellent good word before it was ill forted: therefore captains had need look to it. BARD. Pray thee, go down, good ancient. PIST. Not I: tell thee what, corporal Bardolph;I could tear her :-I'll be revenged on her. PIST. I'll fee her damned firft;-to Pluto's damned lake, to the infernal deep, with Erebus and tortures vile alfo." Hold hook and line, fay I. Again, in Promos and Caffandra, bl. 1. 1578: "Miftreffe, you must shut up your shop, and leave your occupying." This is faid to a bawd. HENDERSON. I'll fee her damned firft;-to Pluto's damned lake, to the infernal deep, with Erebus and tortures vile alfo.] Thefe words, I believe, were intended to allude to the following paffage in an old play called The Battel of Alcazar, 1594, from which Piftol afterwards quotes a line (see p. 94, n. 6): "You daftards of the night and Erebus, "Fiends, fairies, hags, that fight in beds of fteel, "Damn'd let him be, damn'd and condemn'd to bear MALONE. Hold hook and line,] Thefe words are introduced in ridicule, by Ben Jonfon, in The Cafe is alter'd, 1609. Of abfurd and fuftian paffages from many plays, in which Shakspeare had performer, I have always fuppofed no fmall part of Piftol's character to be compofed: and the pieces themselves being now irretrievably loft, the humour of his allufion is not a little obfcured. been a Let me add, however, that in the frontispiece to an ancient bl. 1. ballad, entitled The Royal Recreation of Joviall Anglers, one of the figures has the following couplet proceeding from his mouth : |