Of fair king Richard, scrap'd from Pomfret stones :
Derives from heaven his quarrel, and his cause ;
Tells them, he doth bestride a bleeding land,
Gasping for life under great Bolingbroke;
And more and less do flock to follow him.

a

North. I knew of this before; but, to speak truth,
This present grief had wip'd it from my mind.
Go in with me; and counsel every man
The aptest way for safety and revenge :

Get posts and letters, and make friends with speed;
Never so few, nor never yet more need.

SCENE II.-London. A Street.

[Exeunt.

Enter SIR JOHN Falstaff, with his Page bearing his sword and buckler.

Fal. Sirrah, you giant, what says the doctor to my water?

Page. He said, sir, the water itself was a good healthy water: but, for the party that owed it, he might have more diseases than he knew for.

Fal. Men of all sorts take a pride to gird b at me. The brain of this foolish-compounded clay, man, is not able to invent anything that tends to laughter, more than I invent, or is invented on me: I am not only witty in myself, but the cause that wit is in other men I do here walk before thee, like a sow that hath o'er whelmed all her litter but one. If the prince put thee into my service for any other reason than to set ine off. why then I have no judgment. Thou whoreson mandrake, thou art fitter to be worn in my cap, than to wait at my heels. I was never manned with an agate till now; but I will set you neither in gold nor silver, but in vile apparel, and send you back again to your

a More and less-greater and less-great and small.

b Gird. To gird is to smite, and thence metaphorically to jeer, to scoff at.

master, for a jewel; the juvenal, the prince, your master, whose chin is not yet fledged. I will sooner have a beard grow in the palm of my hand, than he shall get one on his cheek; yet he will not stick to say, his face is a face-royal: Heaven may finish it when he will, it is not a hair amiss yet: he may keep it still as a face-royal, for a barber shall never earn sixpence out of it; and yet he will be crowing, as if he had writ man ever since his father was a bachelor. He may keep his own grace, but he is almost out of mine, I can assure him. What said master Dombledon about the

satin for my short cloak and slops?

Page. He said, sir, you should procure him better assurance than Bardolph: he would not take his bond and yours; he liked not the security.

Fal. Let him be damned like the glutton! may his tongue be hotter!-A whoreson Achitophel! a rascally yea-forsooth knave! to bear a gentleman in hand, and then stand upon security! The whoreson sinooth-pates do now wear nothing but high shoes, and bunches of keys at their girdles; and if a man is through with them in honest taking up, then they must stand upon security. I had as lief they would put ratsbane in my mouth, as offer to stop it with security. I looked he should have sent me two-and-twenty yards of satin, as I am true knight, and he sends me security. Well, he may sleep in security; for he hath the horn of abundance, and the lightness of his wife shines through it : and yet cannot he see, though he hare his own lantern to light him. Where's Bardolph ?

Page. He's gone into Smithfield, to buy your worship a horse.

Fal. I bought him in Paul's, and he 'll buy me a horse in Smithfield: if I could get me a wife in the stews, I were manned, horsed, and wived.

Enter the LORD CHIEF JUSTICE and an Attendant.

Page. Sir, here comes the nobleman that committed the prince for striking him about Bardolph.

Fal. Wait close, I will not see him.

Ch. Just. What 's he that goes there?
Atten. Falstaff, an 't please your lordship.

Ch. Just. He that was in question for the robbery?

Atten. He, my lord: but he hath since done good service at Shrewsbury; and, as I hear, is now going with some charge to the lord John of Lancaster.

Ch. Just. What, to York? Call him back again. Atten. Sir John Falstaff!

Fal. Boy, tell him I am deaf.

Page. You must speak louder, my master is deaf.

Ch. Just. I am sure he is, to the hearing of anything good. Go, pluck him by the elbow; I must speak with him.

Atten. Sir John,

Fal. What! a young knave, and beg! Is there not wars? is there not employment? Doth not the king lack subjects? do not the rebels want soldiers? Though it be a shame to be on any side but one, it is worse shame to beg than to be on the worst side, were it worse than the name of rebellion can tell how to make it.

Atten. You mistake me, sir.

Fal. Why, sir, did I say you were an honest man? setting my knighthood and my soldiership aside, I had lied in my throat if I had said so.

Atten. I pray you, sir, then set your knighthood and your soldiership aside; and give me leave to tell you, you lie in your throat, if you say I am any other than an honest man.

Fal. I give thee leave to tell me so! I lay aside that which grows to me! If thou gett'st any leave of

me, hang me; if thou takest leave, thou wert better be hanged: You hunt counter; hence! avaunt! Atten. Sir, my lord would speak with you.

Ch. Just. Sir John Falstaff, a word with you.

Fal. My good lord!-Give your lordship good time of day. I am glad to see your lordship abroad: I heard say your lordship was sick I hope your lordship goes abroad by advice. Your lordship, though not clean past your youth, hath yet some smack of age in you, some relish of the saltness of time; and I most humbly beseech your lordship to have a reverend care of your health.

Ch. Just. Sir John, I sent for you before your expedition to Shrewsbury.

Fal. If it please your lordship, I hear his majesty is returned with some discomfort from Wales.

Ch. Just. I talk not of his majesty :-You would not come when I sent for you.

Fal. And I hear, moreover, his highness is fallen into this same whoreson apoplexy.

Ch. Just. Well, heaven mend him! I pray, let me speak with you.

Fal. This apoplexy is, as I take it, a kind of lethargy; a sleeping of the blood, a whoreson tingling.

Ch. Just. What tell you me of it? be it as it is.

Fal. It hath its original from much grief; from study, and perturbation of the brain; I have read the cause of his effects in Galen; it is a kind of deafness.

Ch. Just. I think you are fallen into the disease; for you hear not what I say to you.

Fal. Very well, my lord, very well: rather, an 't please you, it is the disease of not listening, the malady of not marking, that I am troubled withal.

a Hunt counter. Falstaff either tells the attendant "you hunt counter"-you hunt the wrong way; or calls him a "huntcounter," which also might imply that the attendant was a bailiff's follower.

Ch. Just. To punish you by the heels would amend the attention of your ears; and I care not if I be your physician.

Fal. I am as poor as Job, my lord, but not so patient your lordship may minister the potion of imprisonment to me, in respect of poverty; but how I should be your patient to follow your prescriptions, the wise may make some dram of a scruple, or, indeed, a scruple itself.

Ch. Just. I sent for you, when there were matters against you for your life, to come speak with me.

Fal. As I was then advised by my learned counsel in the laws of this land-service, I did not come.

Ch. Just. Well, the truth is, Sir John, you live in great infamy.

Fal. He that buckles him in my belt cannot live in less.

Ch. Just. Your means are very slender, and your waste great.

Fal. I would it were otherwise; I would my means were greater and my waist slenderer.

Ch. Just. You have misled the youthful prince. Fal. The young prince hath misled me: I am the fellow with the great belly, and he my dog.

Ch. Just. Well, I am loth to gall a new-healed wound; your day's service at Shrewsbury hath a little gilded over your night's exploit on Gadshill: you may thank the unquiet time for your quiet o'erposting that action.

Fal. My lord?

Ch. Just. But since all is well, keep it so wake not a sleeping wolf.

Fal. To wake a wolf is as bad as to smell a fox.

Ch. Just. What! you are as a candle, the better part burnt out.

Fal. A wassel candle, my lord; all tallow if I did say of wax, my growth would approve the truth.