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Fal. He's no swaggerer, hostess; a tame cheater,1 he; you may stroke him as gently as a puppy greyhound; he will not swagger with a Barbary hen, if her feathers turn back in any show of resistance.-Call him up, drawer.

2

Host. Cheater, call you him? I will bar no honest man my house, nor no cheater. But I do not love swaggering; by my troth, I am the worse, when one says-swagger: feel, masters, how I shake; look you, I warrant you.

Dol. So you do, hostess.

Host. Do I? yea, in very truth, do I, an 'twere an aspen leaf; I cannot abide swaggerers.

Enter PISTOL, BARDOLPH, and Page.

Pist. 'Save you, sir John!

Fal. Welcome, ancient Pistol. Here, Pistol, I charge you with a cup of sack; do you discharge upon mine hostess.

Pist. I will discharge upon her, sir John, with two bullets.

Fal. She is pistol-proof, sir; you shall 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.

Pist. Then to you, mistress Dorothy; I will charge

you.

Dol. Charge me? I scorn you, scurvy companion. What! you poor, base, rascally, cheating, lack-linen mate! Away, you mouldy rogue; away! I am meat for

your master.

Pist. I know you, mistress Dorothy.

Dol. Away, you cutpurse rascal! you filthy bung,3

1 Tame cheater seems to have meant a rogue in general.

2 The humor consists in Mrs. Quickly's mistaking a cheater for an escheator, or officer of the exchequer.

3 To nip a bung, in the cant of thievery, was to cut a purse. "Bung is now used for a pocket, heretofore for a purse."-Belman of London, 1610. Doll means to call him pickpocket.

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away! by this wine, I'll thrust my knife in your mouldy chaps, an you play the saucy cuttle with me. Away, you bottle-ale rascal! you basket-hilt stale juggler, you! -Since when, I pray you, sir?-What, with two points on your shoulder? much!?

1

Pist. I will murder your ruff for this.

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Fal. No more, Pistol; I would not have you go here; discharge yourself of our company, Pistol. Host. No, good captain Pistol; not here, sweet captain.

Dol. Captain! thou abominable, damned cheater, 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 slave! for what? for tearing a poor whore's ruff in a bawdy house?-He a captain! hang him, rogue! He lives upon mouldy stewed prunes, and dried cakes. A captain! these villains will make the word captain as odious as the word occupy,3 which was an excellent good word before it was ill-sorted; therefore captains had need look to it.

Bard. 'Pray thee, go down, good ancient.
Fal. Hark thee hither, mistress Doll.

Pist. Not I; tell thee what, corporal Bardolph ;I could tear her ;-I'll be revenged on her.

Page. 'Pray thee, go down.

Pist. I'll see her damned first ;-to Pluto's damned lake, to the infernal deep, with Erebus and tortures vile also. Hold hook and line, say I. Down! down, dogs! down, faitors! Have we not Hiren here ? 5

1 Laces, marks of his commission.

2 An expression of disdain.

3 This word had been perverted to an obscene meaning.

4 Traitors, rascals.

5 Shakspeare has put into the mouth of Pistol a tissue of absurd and fustian passages from many ridiculous old plays. Part of this speech is parodied from The Battle of Alcazar, 1594. Have we not Hiren here, is probably a line from a play of George Peele's, called The Turkish Mahomet and Hiren the fair Greek. It is often used ludicrously by subsequent dramatists. Hiren, from its resemblance to siren, was used for a seducing woman, and consequently for a courtesan. Pistol, in his rants, twice brings in the same words, but apparently meaning to give his sword the name of Hiren. Mrs. Quickly, with admirable simplicity, supposes him to ask for a woman.

Host. Good captain Peesel, be quiet; it is very late, i' faith: I beseek you now, aggravate your choler. Pist. These be good humors, indeed! Shall packhorses,

And hollow, pampered jades of Asia,

Which cannot go but thirty miles a day,'
Compare with Cæsars, and with Cannibals,2
And Trojan Greeks? nay, rather damn them with
King Cerberus; and let the welkin roar.

Shall we fall foul for toys?

Host. By my troth, captain, these are very bitter words.

Bard. Be gone, good ancient; this will grow to a brawl anon.

Pist. Die men, like dogs; give crowns like pins. Have we not Hiren here?

Host. O' my word, captain, there's none such here. What the good-year! do you think I would deny her? for God's sake, be quiet.

Pist. Then feed and be fat, my fair Calipolis.3 Come, give's some sack.

Si fortuna me tormenta, sperato me contenta.^— Fear we broadsides? no, let the fiend give fire. Give me some sack;—and, sweetheart, lie thou there. [Laying down his sword. Come we to full points here; and are et ceteras nothing? 5

Fal. Pistol, I would be quiet.

Pist. Sweet knight, I kiss thy neif! What! we have seen the seven stars.

1 This is a parody of the lines addressed by Tamberlane to the captive princes who draw his chariot, in Marlowe's Tamberlaine, 1590.

2 A blunder for Hannibal.

3 This is again a burlesque upon a line in The Battle of Alcazar, in which Muley Mahomet enters to his wife with lion's flesh on his sword:"Feed then and faint not, my faire Cally polis."

4 Pistol is supposed to read this motto on his sword; by singular chance Mr. Douce picked up an old rapier with the same motto in French:Si fortune me tourmente, l'esperance me contente. 5 That is, Shall we have no further entertainment? 6 Neif is used for fist. It is a north country word.

Dol. Thrust him down stairs; I cannot endure such a fustian rascal.

Pist. Thrust him down stairs! know we not Galloway nags ?1

Fal. Quoit him down, Bardolph, like a shove-groat shilling. Nay, if he do nothing but speak nothing, he shall be nothing here.

Bard. Come, get you down stairs.

brue?

Pist. What! shall we have incision? shall we im[Snatching up his sword. Then death rock me asleep, abridge my doleful days! Why, then, let grievous, ghastly, gaping wounds Untwine the sisters three! Come, Atropos, I say! 3 Host. Here's goodly stuff toward! Fal. Give me my rapier, boy.

Dol. I pray thee, Jack, I pray thee, do not draw. Fal. Get you down stars.

So;

[Drawing, and driving PISTOL out. Host. Here's a goodly tumult! I'll forswear keeping house, afore I'll be in these tirrits and frights. murder, I warrant now. Alas, alas! put up your naked weapons, put up your naked weapons.

[Exeunt PISTOL and BARDOLPH. Dol. I pray thee, Jack, be quiet; the rascal is gone. Ah, you whoreson little valiant villain, you.

Host. Are you not hurt i' the groin? methought he made a shrewd thrust at your belly.

1 Common hackneys.

2 i. e. pitch him down. The shove-grout shillings were such broad shillings of king Edward VI. as Slender calls Edward shovel-boards, in The Merry Wives of Windsor, Act i. Sc. 1.

3 Pistol makes use of fragments of old ballads as well as old plays:

"O death, rock me on slepe,

Bring me on quiet rest,"

is an ancient song, attributed to Anne Boleyn. There is another in the Gorgious Gallery of Gallant Inventions, 1578, which has furnished him with some of his rhodomontade :

"I hate this loathsome life,

O Atropos, draw nie,

Untwist the thread of mortall strife,

Send death, and let me die."

Re-enter BArdolph.

Fal. Have you turned him out of doors?

Bard. Yes, sir. The rascal's drunk: you have hurt him, sir, in the shoulder.

Fal. A rascal! to brave me!

Dol. Ah, you sweet little rogue, you! Alas, poor ape, how thou sweat'st! Come, let me wipe thy face; -come on, you whoreson chops.-Ah, rogue! i' faith, I love thee. Thou art as valorous as Hector of Troy, worth five of Agamemnon, and ten times better than the nine worthies. Ah, villain!

Fal. A rascally slave! I will toss the rogue in a blanket.

Dol. Do, if thou darest for thy heart; if thou dost, I'll canvass thee between a pair of sheets.

Enter Music.

Page. The music is come, sir.

Fal. Let them play ;-play, sirs ;-sit on my knee, Doll. A rascally, bragging slave! the rogue fled from me like quicksilver.

Dol. I'faith, and thou followedst him like a church. Thou whoreson little tidy Bartholomew boar-pig,' when wilt thou leave fighting o' days, and foining o' nights, and begin to patch up thine old body for heaven?

Enter, behind, PRINCE HENRY and POINs, disguised like Drawers.

Fal. Peace, good Doll! do not speak like a death's head; do not bid me remember mine end.

Dol. Sirrah, what humor is the prince of?

Fal. A good, shallow young fellow he would have made a good pantler; he would have chipped bread well.

1 Roasted pigs were formerly among the chief attractions of Bartholomew fair.

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