ther afoot, I shall break my wind. Well, I doubt not but to die a fair death for all this, if I 'scape hanging for killing that rogue. I have forsworn his company hourly any time this two-and-twenty years, and yet I am bewitched with the rogue's company. If the rascal have not given me medicines to make me love him, I'll be hanged; it could not be else; I have drunk medicines.Poins!-Hal!-a plague upon you both!-Bardolph!Peto! I'll starve, ere I'll rob a foot further.4 An 'twere not as good a deed as drink, to turn true man, and to leave these rogues, I am the veriest varlet that ever chewed with a tooth. Eight yards of uneven ground, is threescore and ten miles afoot with me; and the stony-hearted villains know it well enough: A plague upon 't, when thieves cannot be true to one another! [They whistle.] Whew! A plague upon you all! Give me my horse, you rogues; give me my horse, and be hanged. P. Hen. Peace, ye fat-guts! lie down; lay thine ear close to the ground, and list if thou canst hear the tread of travellers. asunder, when he advanced four foot, this put together made four fect square. Warburton. I am in doubt whether there is so much humour here as is suspected: Four foot by the squire is probably no more than four foot by a rule. Johnson. Dr. Johnson is certainly right. Bishop Corbet says in one of his poems: "Some twelve foot by the square.” Farmer. All the old copies read by the squire, which points out the etymology-esquierre, Fr. The same phrase occurs in The Winter's Tale: "not the worst of the three, but jumps twelve foot and a half by the squire." Again, in Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, P. II, sect. iv: "-as for a workman not to know his axe, saw, squire, or any other toole," &c. Steevens. 3-medicines to make me love him, Alluding to the vulgar notion of love powder. Johnson. So, in Othello: 4 she is corrupted "By spells and medicines bought of mountebanks." Steevens. - rob a foot further.] This is only a slight error, which yet has run through all the copies. We should read-rub a foot. So we now say-rub on. Johnson. Why may it not mean-I will not go a foot further to rob? Steevens. Fal. Have you any levers to lift me up again, being down? 'Sblood, I'll not bear mine own flesh so far afoot again, for all the coin in thy father's exchequer. What a plague mean ye, to colts me thus? P. Hen. Thou liest, thou art not colted, thou art uncolted. Fal. I pr'ythee, good prince Hal, help me to my horse; good king's son. P. Hen. Out, you rogue! shall I be your ostler? Fal. Go, hang thyself in thy own heir-apparent garters! If I be ta'en, I'll peach for this. An I have not ballads made on you all, and sung to filthy tunes, let a cup of sack be my poison: When a jest is so forward, and afoot too, I hate it. Gads. Stand. Enter GADSHILL. Fal. So I do, against my will. Poins. O, 'tis our setter: I know his voice. Enter BARDOLPH. Bard. What news?8 5 -to colt-] Is to fool, to trick; but the prince taking it in another sense, opposes it by uncolt, that is, unhorse. Johnson. In the first of these senses it is used by Nashe, in Have with you to Saffron Walden, &c. 1596: "His master fretting and chaffing to be thus colted of both of them," &c. Again, in Beaumont and Fletcher's Loyal Subject: “What, are we bobbed thus still? colted and carted?" From Decker's Bell-man's Night-Walkes, &c. 1616, it appears that the technical term for any inn-keeper or hackney-man who had been cheated of horses, was a colt. Steevens. 6 -heir-apparent garters!] "He may hang himself in his own garters" is a proverb in Ray's Collection. Steevens. 7 An I have not ballads made on you all, and sung to filthy tunes, let a cup of sack be my poison:] So, in The Rape of Lucrece: "Shall have thy trespass cited up in rhymes, " And sung by children in succeeding times.” Again, in Antony and Cleopatra; 66 - saucy lictors "Will catch at us like strumpets, and scald rhimers & Bard. What news?] In all the copies that I have seen, Poins is made to speak upon the entrance of Gadshill thus: O, 'tis our setter; I know his voice. Bardolph, what news? This is absurd; he knows Gadshill to be the setter, and asks Bardolph Gads. Case ye, case ye; on with your visors; there's money of the king's coming down the hill; 'tis going to the king's exchequer. Fal. You lie, you rogue; 'tis going to the king's tavern. Gads. There's enough to make us all. Fal. To be hanged. P. Hen. Sirs, you four shall front them in the narrow lane; Ned Poins, and I will walk lower: if they 'scape from your encounter, then they light on us. Peto. How many be there of them? Gads. Some eight, or ten. Fal. Zounds! will they not rob us? P. Hen. What, a coward, sir John Paunch? Fal. Indeed, I am not John of Gaunt, your grand father; but yet no coward, Hal. P. Hen. Well, we leave that to the proof. Poins. Sirrah Jack, thy horse stands behind the hedge; when thou needest him, there thou shalt find him. Farewel, and stand fast. Fal. Now cannot I strike him, if I should be hanged. P. Hen. Ned, where are our disguises? Poins. Here, hard by; stand close. [Exeunt P. HEN. and POINS. 9 Fal. Now, my masters, happy man be his dole, say I; every man to his business. what news. To countenance this impropriety, the latter editions have made Gadshill and Bardolph enter together, but the old copies bring in Gadshill alone, and we find that Falstaff, who knew their stations, calls to Bardolph among others for his horse, but not to Gadshill, who was posted at a distance. We should therefore read: Poins. O, 'tis our setter, &c. Gads. Case ye, &c. Johnson. 9-dole,] The portion of alms distributed at Lambeth palace gate is at this day called the dole. In Jonson's Alchemist, Subtle charges Face with perverting his master's charitable intentions, by selling the dole beer to aqua-vite men. So, in The Costly Whore, 1633: Again: 66 - we came thinking Sir J. Hawkins. "We should have some dole at the bishop's funeral." "Go to the back gate, and you shall have dole." Steevens. Enter Travellers. 1 Trav. Come, neighbour; the boy shall lead our horses down the hill; we'll walk afoot a while, and ease our legs. Thieves. Stand. Trav. Jesu bless us! Fal. Strike; down with them; cut the villains' throats: Ah! whorson caterpillars! bacon-fed knaves! they hate us youth: down with them; fleece them. 1 Trav. O, we are undone, both we and ours, for ever. Fal. Hang ye, gorbellied1 knaves; Are ye undone? No, ye fat chuffs; 2 I would, your store were here! On, bacons, on! What, ye knaves? young men must live: You are grand-jurors are ye? We'll jure ye, i'faith. [Exeunt FAL. &c. driving the Travellers out. 1-gorbellied-] i. e. fat and corpulent. See the Glossary to Kennet's Parochial Antiquities. This word is likewise used by Sir Thomas North in his translation of Plutarch. Nashe, in his Have with you to Saffron Walden, 1596, says:"O'tis an unconscionable gorbellied volume, bigger bulk'd than a Dutch hoy, and far more boisterous and cumbersome than a payre of Swissers omnipotent galeaze breeches." Again, in The Weakest goes to the Wall, 1600: "What are these thick-skinned, heavy-pursed, gorbellied churls mad?" Steevens. 2 -ye fat chuffs;) This term of contempt is always applied &o rich and avaricious people. So, in The Muses' Looking-Glass, 1638: "the chuff's crowns, "Imprison'd in his rusty chest," &c. The derivation of the word is said to be uncertain. Perhaps it is a corruption of chough, a thievish bird that collects his prey on the sea-shore. So, in Chaucer's Assemble of Foules: "The thief the chough, and eke the chatt'ring pie." Sir W. D'Avenant, in his Just Italian, 1630, has the same term: "They're rich choughs, they 've store And Sir Epicure Mammon, in The Alchemist, being asked who had robbed him, answers, "a kind of choughs, sir." Steevens. The name of the Cornish bird is pronounced by the natives chow. Chuff is the same word with cuff, both signifying a clown, and being in all probability derived from a Saxon word of the latter sound. Ritson. Re-enter Prince HENRY and POINS. P. Hen. The thieves have bound the true men: 3 Now could thou and I rob the thieves, and go merrily to London, it would be argument for a week, laughter for a month, and a good jest for ever. Poins. Stand close, I hear them coming. Fal. Come, my masters, let us share, and then to horse before day. An the prince and Poins be not two arrant cowards, there's no equity stirring: there's no more valour in that Poins, than in a wild duck. P. Hen. Your money. [Rushing out upon them. [As they are sharing, the Prince and Poins set upon them. FALSTAFF, after a blow or tu, and the rest, run away, leaving their booty behind them.] P. Hen. Got with much ease. Now merrily to horse: The thieves are scatter'd, and possess'd with fear So strongly, that they dare not meet each other; Each takes his fellow for an officer.5 Away, good Ned. Falstaff sweats to death, 3- the true mens] In the old plays a true man is always set in opposition to a thief. So, in the ancient Morality called Hycke Scorner: bl. 1. no date: "And when me list to hang a true man "Theves I can help out of pryson." Again, in The Four Prentices of London, 1615: Again: 4 "Now, true man, try if thou canst rob a thief." "Sweet wench, embrace a true man, scorn a thief." Steevens. argument for a week,] Argument is subject matter for conversation or a drama. So, in the second part of this play: "For all my part has been but as a scene "Acting that argument." Mr. M. Mason adopts the former of these meanings, and adds, in support of his opinion, a passage from Much Ado about Nothing, where Don Pedro says to Benedick, 66 if ever thou dost fall from this faith, thou wilt prove a notable argument." Steevens. 5 Each takes his fellow for an officer.] The same thought, a little varied, occurs again in King Henry VI, P. III: "The thief doth fear each bush an officer." Steevens. |