The

very list,"

7 the

very utmost bound

Doug.

Of all our fortunes.

8

'Faith, and so we should;

Where now remains a sweet reversion:

We may boldly spend upon the hope of what
Is to come in :

A comfort of retirement' lives in this.

Hot. A rendezvous, a home to fly unto, If that the devil and mischance look big Upon the maidenhead of our affairs.

Wor. But yet, I would your father had been here. The quality and hair' of our attempt

Brooks no division: It will be thought
By some, that know not why he is away,
That wisdom, loyalty, and mere dislike
Of our proceedings, kept the earl from hence;
And think, how such an apprehension
May turn the tide of fearful faction,

And breed a kind of question in our cause:
For, well
you know, we of the offering side2
Must keep aloof from strict arbitrement;

And stop all sight-holes, every loop, from whence
The eye of reason may pry in

upon us:

7 The very list,] The list is the selvage; figuratively, the utmost line of circumference, the utmost extent.

* Where now remains-] Where is, used here for whereas. It is often used with that signification by our author and his contemporaries.

9 A comfort of retirement-] A support to which we may have

recourse.

1 The quality and hair-]. The hair seems to be the complexion, the character. The metaphor appears harsh to us, but, perhaps, was familiar in our author's time. We still say something is against the hair, as against the grain, i, e. against the natural tendency.

2

we of the offering side-] The offering side may mean simply the assailant, in opposition to the defendant: and it is likewise true of him that offers war, or makes an invasion, that his cause ought to be kept clear from all objections.

This absence of your father's draws a curtain,
That shows the ignorant a kind of fear

Before not dreamt of.

Hot:

I, rather, of his absence make this use;-
It lends a lustre, and more great opinion,
A larger dare to our great enterprize,

Than if the earl were here: for men must think,
If we, without his help, can make a head.
To push against the kingdom; with his help,
We shall o'erturn it topsy-turvy down.-
Yet all goes well, yet all our joints are whole.
Doug. As heart can think: there is not such a
word

Spoke of in Scotland, as this term of fear.

Enter Sir RICHARD VERNON.

Hot. My cousin Vernon! welcome, by my soul. Ver. Pray God, my news be worth a welcome, lord.

The earl of Westmoreland, seven thousand strong, Is marching hitherwards; with him, prince John. Hot. No harm: What more?

Ver.

The king himself in person is set forth,
Or hitherwards intended speedily,

With strong and mighty preparation.

Hot. He shall be welcome too. Where is his son, The nimble-footed mad-cap prince of Wales, And his comrades, that daff'd the world aside, And bid it pass?

Ver.

All furnish'd, all in arms, All plum'd like estridges that wing the wind;

This absence of your father's draws a curtain,] To draw a cur tain had anciently the same meaning as to undraw one has at present.

Bated like eagles having lately bath'd;*
Glittering in golden coats, like images;
As full of spirit as the month of May,
And gorgeous as the sun at midsummer;
Wanton as youthful goats, wild as young bulls.
I saw young Harry, with his beaver on,
His cuisses on his thighs, gallantly arm'd,-
Rise from the ground like feather'd Mercury,
And vaulted with such ease into his seat,
As if an angel dropp'd down from the clouds,
To turn and wind a fiery Pegasus,

5

And witch the world with noble horsemanship.

Hot. No more, no more; worse than the sun in
March,

This praise doth nourish agues. Let them come;
They come like sacrifices in their trim,
And to the fire-ey'd maid of smoky war,
All hot, and bleeding, will we offer them;
The mailed Mars shall on his altar sit,
Up to the ears in blood. I am on fire,
To hear this rich reprisal is so nigh,

And yet not ours:-Come, let me take my horse,
Who is to bear me, like a thunderbolt,

Against the bosom of the prince of Wales:
Harry to Harry shall, hot horse to horse,

Meet, and ne'er part, till one drop down a corse.-
O, that Glendower were come!

Ver.

There is more news:

I learn'd in Worcester, as I rode along,

He cannot draw his power this fourteen days.
Doug. That's the worst tidings that I hear of yet.

4 All plum'd like estridges, that wing the wind;

Bated like eagles, &c.] i. e. all dressed like the Prince himself, the ostrich-feather being the cognizance of the Prince of Wales. To bate is, in the style of falconry, to beat the wing, from the French, battre, that is, to flutter in preparation for flight. • His cuisses,] Cuisses, French. Armour for the thighs. And witch-] For bewitch, charm.

Wor. Ay, by my faith, that bears a frosty sound. Hot. What may the king's whole battle reach

unto?

Ver.. To thirty thousand.

Hot.

Forty let it be; My father and Glendower being both away, The powers of us may serve so great a day. Come, let us make a muster speedily: Doomsday is near; die all, die merrily. Doug. Talk not of dying; I am out of fear Of death, or death's hand, for this one half year.

[Exeunt.

SCENE II.

A publick Road near Coventry.

Enter FALSTAFF and BARDOLPH.

Fal. Bardolph, get thee before to Coventry; fill me a bottle of sack: our soldiers shall march through; we'll to Sutton-Colfield to-night.

Bard. Will you give me money, captain?
Fal. Lay out, lay out.

Bard. This bottle makes an angel.

Fal. An if it do, take it for thy labour; and if it make twenty, take them all, I'll answer the coinage. Bid my lieutenant Peto meet me at the town's end. Bard. I will, captain: farewell. [Exit. Fal. If I be not ashamed of my soldiers, I am a souced gurnet.' I have misused the king's press damnably. I have got, in exchange of a hundred and fifty soldiers, three hundred and odd pounds. I press me none but good householders, yeomen's

7-souced gurnet.] Souced gurnet is an appellation of contempt very frequently employed in the old comedies. A gurnetis a fish resembling a piper.

sons: inquire me out contracted bachelors, such as had been asked twice on the bans; such a commodity of warm slaves, as had as lief hear the devil as a drum; such as fear the report of a caliver, worse than a struck fowl, or a hurt wild-duck. I pressed me none but such toasts and butter, with hearts in their bellies no bigger than pins' heads, and they have bought out their services; and now my whole charge consists of ancients, corporals, lieutenants, gentlemen of companies, slaves as ragged as Lazarus in the painted cloth, where the glutton's dogs licked his sores: and such as, indeed, were never soldiers; but discarded unjust servingmen, younger sons to younger brothers, revolted tapsters, and ostlers trade-fallen; the cankers of a calm world, and a long peace; ten times more dishonourable ragged than an old faced ancient: and such have I, to fill up the rooms of them that have bought out their services, that you would think, that I had a hundred and fifty tattered prodigals, lately come from swine-keeping, from eating draff and husks. A mad fellow met me on the way, and told me, I had unloaded all the gibbets, and pressed the dead bodies. No eye hath seen such scarecrows. I'll not march through Coventry with them, that's flat:-Nay, and the villains march wide betwixt the legs, as if they had gyves' on; for, indeed, I had the most of them out of prison. There's but a shirt and a half in all my company: and the half-shirt is two napkins, tacked together, and thrown over the shoulders like a herald's coat without sleeves; and the shirt, to say the truth, stolen

8

8

ten times more dishonourable ragged than an old faced ancient:] An old faced ancient, is an old standard mended with a different colour. It should not be written in one word, as old and faced are distinct epithets.

9

gyves on;] i. e. shackles.