K. Hen. A hundred thousand rebels die in this:Thou shalt have charge, and sovereign trust, herein. Enter BLUNT. How now, good Blunt? thy looks are full of speed. As ever offer'd foul play in a state. K. Hen. The earl of Westmoreland set forth today ; With him my son, Lord John of Lancaster; [Exeunt. 19 There was no such person as Lord Mortimer of Scotland; but there was a Lord March of Scotland (George Dunbar), who having quitted his own country in disgust, attached himself so warmly to the English, and did them such signal services in their wars with Scotland, that the parliament petitioned the king to bestow some reward on him. He fought on the side of King Henry in this rebellion, and was the means of saving his life at the battle of Shrewsbury. The poet recollected that there was a Scottish lord on the king's side, who bore the same title with the English family on the rebels' side (one being earl of March in England, the other earl of March in Scotland), but his memory deceived him as to the particular name which was common to both. He took it to be Mortimer instead of March. 21 Feeds himself fat. 20 Intelligence. SCENE III. Eastcheap. A Room in the Boar's Head Tavern. Enter FALSTAFF and BARDOLPH. Fal. Bardolph, am I not fallen away vilely since this last action? do I not bate? do I not dwindle? Why, my skin hangs about me like an old lady's loose gown; I am wither'd like an old apple-John. Well, I'll repent, and that suddenly, while I am in some liking1; I shall be out of heart shortly, and then I shall have no strength to repent. An I have not forgotten what the inside of a church is made of, I am a pepper-corn, a brewer's horse: the inside of a church! Company, villanous company, hath been the spoil of me. Bard. Sir John, you are so fretful, you cannot live long. Fal. Why, there is it :-come, sing me a bawdy song; make me merry. I was as virtuously given, as a gentleman need to be; virtuous enough: swore little; diced, not above seven times a week; went to a bawdy-house, not above once in a quarter-of an hour; paid money that I borrowed, three or four times; lived well, and in good compass: and now I live out of all order, out of all compass. Bard. Why, you are so fat, Sir John, that you 1 Liking is condition, plight of body. If one be in better plight of body, or better liking.' Si qua habitior paulo pugilem esse aiunt. Baret. L. 435. 2 That Falstaff was unlike a brewer's horse may be collected from a conundrum in The Devil's Cabinet Opened:- What is the difference between a drunkard and a brewer's horse?-Because one carries all his liquor on his back, and the other in his belly.' Malt horse, which is the same thing, was a common term of reproach, and is used elsewhere by Shakspeare, and by Ben Jonson. must needs be out of all compass; out of all reasonable compass, Sir John. Fal. Do thou amend thy face, and I'll amend my life: Thou art our admiral 3, thou bearest the lantern in the poop,--but 'tis in the nose of thee: thou art the knight of the burning lamp. Bard. Why, Sir John, my face does you no harm. Fal. No, I'll be sworn; I make as good use of it as many a man doth of a death's head, or a memento mori: I never see thy face, but I think upon hell-fire, and Dives that lived in purple; for there he is in his robes, burning, burning. If thou wert any way given to virtue, I would swear by thy face; my oath should be, By this fire: but thou art altogether given over; and wert indeed, but for the light in thy face, the son of utter darkness. When thou ran'st up Gads-hill in the night to catch my horse, if I did not think thou hadst been an ignis fatuus, or a ball of wildfire, there's no purchase in money. O, thou art a perpetual triumph, an everlasting bonfire-light! Thou hast saved me a thousand marks in links and torches, walking with thee in the night betwixt tavern and tavern: but the sack that thou hast drunk me, would have bought me lights as good cheap", at the dearest chandler's in 3 So Decker, in his Wonderful Year, 1605 :-' An antiquary might have pickt rare matter out of his nose.—The Hamburghers offered I know not how many dollars for his company in an East Indian voyage, to have a stood a nights in the poope of their admiral, only to save the charges of candles.' That it was an old joke appears from a passage in Bullein's Dialogue against the Fever Pestilence, 1578, cited by Malone. 4 Steevens has taken occasion here to mention that candles and lanterns to let were then cried about London, the streets not being then lighted. 5 Cheap being derived from KAVPON, Gothic, is the past participle of cypan, ceapan, Sax. to traffic, to bargain, to buy and sell. Good cheap was therefore a good bargain.' Our ancestors not only used GOOD CHEAP, but BETTER CHEAP, in the sense Europe. I have maintained that salamander of yours with fire, any time this two and thirty years; Heaven reward me for it! Bard. 'Sblood, I would my face were in your belly! Fal. God-a-mercy! so should I be sure to be heart-burned. Enter Hostess. How now, dame Partlet the hen? have you inquired yet, who picked my pocket? Host. Why, Sir John! what do you think, Sir John? Do you think I keep thieves in my house? I have searched, I have inquired, so has my husband, man by man, boy by boy, servant by servant the tithe of a hair was never lost in my house before. Fal. You lie, hostess; Bardolph was shaved and lost many a hair: and I'll be sworn, my pocket was picked: Go to, you are a woman, go. Host. Who I? I defy thee: I was never called so in mine own house before. Fal. Go to, I know you well enough. Host. No, Sir John; you do not know me, Sir John: I know you, Sir John: you owe me money, Sir John, and now you pick a quarrel to beguile me of it: I bought you a dozen of shirts to your back. Fal. Dowlas, filthy dowlas: I have given them which we now use CHEAP and CHEAPER. Tooke thinks that badcheap was also used, but has adduced no example. Baret translates the ova vilia of Horace by good cheap eggs; and the minoris vendere aliquid, of Plautus, by to sell better-cheap. Cheap and cheaping therefore came to signify a market, which led Johnson to suppose that good-cheap was derived from à bon marché. All the northern dialects have the same form of speech that our ancestors used; thus godt-kop, betre kop, in Swedish; got kiob, better kiob, in Danish, &c. Florio has buon-mercato, good-cheape, a good bargaine.' away to bakers' wives, and they have made bolters of them. Host. Now, as I am a true woman, holland of eight shillings an ell. You owe money here besides, Sir John, for your diet, and by-drinkings, and money lent you, four and twenty pound. Fal. He had his part of it; let him pay. Host. He? alas, he is poor; he hath nothing. Fal. How! poor? look upon his face; What call you rich? let them coin his nose, let them coin his cheeks; I'll not pay a denier. What, will you make a younker7 of me? shall I not take mine ease in mine inn, but I shall have my pocket picked? I have,lost a seal-ring of my grandfather's worth forty mark. Host. O Jesu! I have heard the prince tell him, I know not how oft, that that ring was copper. Fal. How! the prince is a Jack, a sneak-cup; and, if he were here, I would cudgel him like a dog, if he would say so. 6 Eight shillings an ell, for holland linen, appears a high price for the time, but hear Stubbes in his Anatomie of Abuses :-' In so much as I have heard of shirtes that have cost some ten shillinges, some twentie, some fortie, some five pound, some twentie nobles, and (whiche is horrible to heare) some ten pound a peece, yea the meanest shirte that commonly is worne of any doest cost a crowne or a noble at the least; and yet that is scarsely thought fine enough for the simplest person.' 7 Younker is here used for a novice, a dupe, or a person thoughtless through inexperience. So in the Merchant of Venice : How like a younker, and a prodigal, The scarfed bark puts from her native bay.' : 8 This was a common phrase for enjoying one's self in quiet, as if at home; not very different in its application from that maxim, Every man's house is his castle. Inne originally signified a house or habitation. When the word began to change its meaning, and to be used for a house of public entertainment, the proverb still continuing in force, was applied in the latter sense. Falstaff puns upon the word inn, in order to represent the wrong done him the more strongly. Old Heywood has one or two epigrams which turn upon this phrase. |