O, I should have a heavy miss of thee, If I were much in love with vanity! Death hath not struck so fat a deer to-day, Though many dearer, in this bloody fray. Embowell'd will I see thee by and by: Till then in blood by noble Percy lie. Exit. 110 Falstaff riseth up. Fal. Embowell'd! if thou embowel me to-day, I'll give you leave to powder me and eat me too to-morrow. 'Sblood, 'twas time to counterfeit, or that hot termagant Scot had paid me scot and lot too. Counterfeit? I lie, I am no counterfeit: to die is to be a counterfeit; for he is but the counterfeit of a man who hath not the life of a man: but to counterfeit dying, when a man thereby liveth, is to be no counterfeit, but the true and perfect image of life indeed. The better part of valour is discretion; in the which better part I have saved my life. 'Zounds, I am afraid of this gunpowder Percy, though he be dead: how, if he should counterfeit too and rise? by my faith, I am afraid he would prove the better counterfeit. Therefore I'll make him sure; yea, and I'll swear I kill'd him. Why may not he rise as well as I? Nothing confutes me but eyes, and nobody sees me. Therefore, sirrah [stabbing him], with a new wound in your thigh, come you along with me. Takes Hotspur on his back.

Enter Prince and John of Lancaster.

Prince. Come, brother John; full bravely hast thou flesh'd

Thy maiden sword.

John.
But, soft! whom have we here?
Did you not tell me this fat man was dead? 135
Prince. I did; I saw him dead, breathless and
bleeding

On the ground. Art thou alive? or is it
Fantasy that plays upon our eyesight?

I prethee, speak; we will not trust our eyes 139 Without our ears: thou art not what thou seem'st.

Fal. No, that's certain; I am not a double man: but if I be not Jack Falstaff, then am I a Jack. There is Percy [throwing the body down]. If your father will do me any honour, so; if not, let him kill the next Percy himself. I look to be either earl or duke, I can assure you.

146

Prince. Why, Percy I kill'd myself, and saw thee dead.

Fal. Didst thou? Lord, Lord, how this world is given to lying! I grant you I was down and out of breath; and so was he: but we rose both at an instant and fought a long hour by Shrewsbury clock. If I may be believed, so; if not, let them that should reward valour bear the sin upon their own heads. I'll take it upon my death, I gave him this wound in the thigh: if the man were alive and would deny it, 'zounds, I would make him eat a piece of my sword.

157

Lan. This is the strangest tale that e'er I heard. Prince. This is the strangest fellow, brother John.

Come, bring your luggage nobly on your back:

may

For my part, if a lie do thee grace, I'll gild it with the happiest terms I have. A retreat is sounded. The trumpet sounds retreat; the day is ours. Come, brother, let's to the highest of the field, To see what friends are living, who are dead. Exeunt [Prince of Wales and Lancaster]. Fal. I'll follow, as they say, for reward. He that rewards me, God reward him! If I do grow great again, I'll grow less; for I'll purge, and leave sack, and live cleanly as a nobleman should do.

Exit.

SCENE V.-[Another part of the field.]

The trumpets sound. Enter the King, Prince of Wales, Lord John of Lancaster, Earl of Westmoreland, with Worcester and Vernon prisoners.

King. Thus ever did rebellion find rebuke.

Ill-spirited Worcester! did we not send grace,
Pardon, and terms of love to all of you?
And wouldst thou turn our offers contrary?
Misuse the tenour of thy kinsman's trust? 5
Three knights upon our party slain to-day,
A noble earl and many a creature else
Had been alive this hour,

28 this our purpose. The king's purpose had been expressed at the close of Richard II (V. vi. 49). 33 this dear expedience, this precious expedition. 38 the noble Mortimer, Sir Edmund Mortimer, great-grandson of Edward III. Throughout the play Shakespeare, following Holinshed, confuses this Mortimer with another Edmund Mortimer, his nephew, who was the fifth Earl of March and heir to the crown after the death of Richard II in 1399. The battle in which Sir Edmund was captured by the Welsh occurred at Pilleth, Radnorshire, June 22, 1402.

43 corpse, a plural, as often in Shakespeare.

49 other like; i. e., other similar tidings. Q1 2 read 'did' for 'like.'

52 Holy-rood day, the festival of the Holy Cross (Sept. 14).

55 Holmedon, Humbleton Hill in Northumberland, on the Scotch border. The battle alluded to was a sort of sequel to that fought by Hotspur at Otterburn in 1388, in which Douglas's father had been killed and Hotspur captured. The different versions of the Ballad of Otterburn (The Hunting of the Cheviot, Chevy Chase) had made Percy and Douglas favorite heroes long before Shakespeare took up the subject.

69 Balk'd, piled in ridges. A balk' in agriculture was a ridge of earth between two furrows. 71 Mordake Earl of Fife. This was Murdach Stewart, son of the Duke of Albany, not of Douglas. Defective punctuation in Holinshed's list of Hotspur's prisoners led to Shakespeare's error. 76, 77 In faith, It is] Printed as part of the preceding speech Q F.

83 minion, favorite.

86-89 The belief that young children might be exchanged or stolen by fairies was common in Shakespeare's age. The poet had already made use of it in A Midsummer Night's Dream II. i. 120. The purpose of the allusion here is probably to persuade the audience of the similarity in age (really quite unhistoric) between the king's son and Northumberland's.

16, 17 Phoebus, he, 'that wandering knight so fair': a jesting allusion, apparently, to a current romance, "The Knight of the Sun. Phoebus was, as Falstaff knew, the sun-god.

22 by my troth] Even this mild oath is omitted in F. See note on Merchant of Venice, I. ii. 121. 23 prologue to an egg and butter. Falstaff is punning on the meanings of the word grace, which he employs in three different senses. An egg and butter, or buttered egg, appeared to the hearty Elizabethan appetite a very meager repast and would therefore require as 'prologue' only the slightest benediction or 'grace.'

47 As... Hybla] As is the honey F. 47, 48 my old lad of the castle. Contemporary usage shows that this phrase was a regular term for a rioter. For its possible reference to Falstaff's earlier name, Oldcastle, see the Introduction. 48 buff jerkin, properly a jacket of buffalo skin. Sheriff's officers wore this costume. 'Robe of durance' in the next line involves a pun on durance, imprisonment, and on the everlasting wear of buff. 51 quiddities, cavils, a word borrowed from the hair-splitting subtleties of the medieval schoolmen. 'Quidditas' meant in their jargon the nature of a thing.

69 antic, antique; hence old-fashioned or grotesque. 'Antics' were popular figures in May-games and morris dances.

73 brave, fine.

83 gib cat, a Tom cat. 'Gib' was a contraction for Gilbert.

38 Moor-ditch, an ill-smelling swamp outside the north wall of London. The Theatre' and 'Curtain' play-houses, where Shakespeare's plays were probably most usually performed before the erection of the Globe in 1598, were in Shoreditch nearby. 99, 100 wisdom. . . and] om. F (because thought irreverent).

140 pilgrims going to Canterbury, to the shrine of St. Thomas à Becket, the 'holy blisful martir' of Chaucer's prologue.

145 Eastcheap, a section near London Bridge, noted for its flesh and fish markets and its taverns; so called in distinction from West Cheap or Cheapside, near St. Paul's.

170, 171 God give thee . . . him] maist thou have he F.

177 thou] Pope; the Q F.

178 All-hallown summer. The feast of All Hallown or All Saints is November 1st. Falstaff, in his mixture of youth and age, is like the unseasonable weather of that time of year.

182 Bardolph, Peto] Theobald; Harvey, Rossill Q F (Theobald suggested that Harvey and Rossill were the actors who took the parts of Bardolph and Peto).

i. 8 cess, measure. The word is connected with assess and meant originally a 'rate' or tax.

91 boots, booties; the monosyllabic form is used to bring in the pun in the next lin、.

96 the receipt of fern-seed. The seeding of ferns was a mystery to early botanists. Hence arose the myth that fern-seed appeared only on St. John's Eve (June 23) and that any one lucky enough to gather it then could himself walk invisible.

101 purchase, profits. F reads 'purpose' (i. e., enterprise) which is also possible.

11. 2 gummed velvet. Velvet fraudulently stiffened with gum was particularly likely to 'fret.' 13 squire, carpenter's rule.

40 colt, cheat, befool.

53 our setter, i. e., Gadshill. See I. ii. 118. In thieves' language, the setter was the decoy.

55 case ye. The next words, on with your vizards,' explain what is meant. 'Case' is the skin or hide of animals.

94 fat chuffs, rich countrymen; so called in thieves' slang because they were easy prey. The chough, or jackdaw, is a hoarding bird.

100 argument, theme of conversation.

110 S. D. run away] F; run away and Falstaff after a blow or two runs away too Q (which indicates the way the scene was acted).

clear.

Loach in 1. 23 is another kind of fish.

19 in Christendom] F; christen Q.

26 gammon of bacon, a ham; connected with French jambon.

27 razes, roots. Charing-cross, in Shakespeare's time a mile west of London. The Carriers were approaching the city from the east. 60 franklin, a country gentleman.

wild of Kent, colloquial name of the 'weald' or south-eastern part of the county, the site of the Anglo-Saxon forest of Andredes weald.

61 three hundred marks. A mark was two-thirds of a pound, that is, thirteen shillings and four

pence.

67, 68 St. Nicholas' clerks, highwaymen.

82 long-staff sixpenny strikers, thieves who 'strike' for the petty gain of sixpence. A long staff was part of the highwayman's equipment.

84 malt-worms, drunkards.

85 oneyers, slang, probably, for "ones."

iv. 1 fat, stuffy.

Trojan' is used

8 by their] F; all by their christen Q. 10 salvation] Q; confidence F. 13 a Corinthian, a wild gallant. in the same sense (See II. i. 77). 14 boy] F; boy (by the Lord so they call me) Q. 19 play it off, drink it off.

27 under-skinker, inferior waiter or drawer. 31 bastard, a Spanish wine, artificially sweetened.

the Half-moon. The separate rooms in Elizabethan taverns were often given individual names. Set 'Pomgarnet' (pomegranate) in line 42. Ben Jonson used to meet his followers in the Apollo Room at the Devil Tavern, and to-day at the Shakespeare Inn, Stratford-on-Avon, the rooms are named after Shakespeare's plays.

78 not-pated, round-headed. Short hair was a mark of the Puritans, who were very numerous among the tradespeople of Elizabethan London,

321 royal man. The prince puns on 'royal,' a coin worth ten shillings. A 'noble' was six shillings and eightpence. He means, Give the 'nobleman' the additional three and fourpence which will raise him to the higher denomination.

346, 47 with the manner, in the act: a NormanFrench law term.

359 bombast, cotton wadding, much used to stuff out Elizabethan garments. The stage Falstaff was doubtless specially indebted to this material for his proportions.

370 Amamon, or Amaymon, is the name of a devil in Reginald Scot's Discovery of Witchcraft (1584). 392 blue-caps, Scots in blue bonnets. 397 June] Q1-3; Sun Q.-F.

416 state, throne or chair of state. 426 King Cambyses' vein. Thomas Preston's extravagant melodrama, King Cambises, was published about 1570. In Shakespeare's time it was regarded as typical of the bad dramatic taste of the previous generation.

427 my leg, my obeisance.

434 tristful, sad (Rowe's emendation); trustful Q F. 441 etc. through the camomile, etc. A parody of the affected prose style introduced by John Lyly's Euphues (1579). The particular features here ridiculed are its exaggerated use of antithesis and alliteration and the constant allusion to fantastic stories of natural history.

451 micher, truant.

480 rabbit-sucker, a young (sucking) rabbit. 481 poulter's, poultry-dealer's.

496 bolting-hutch, a chest for sifting meal.

497 bombard, a large leather wine vessel.

131 oanstick, candlestick. F has the modern form. 133 an edge, on edge. So in Hamlet I. v. 19. 144 Break with, break the news to. 149 moldwarp, mole.

153 couching-ramping, conventional attitudes of beasts in heraldry. 154 skimble-skamble, confused.

163 cates, dainties provided by the catour or caterer. 167 concealments, secret arts.

177 wilful-blame, apparently a coined adjective: blamable for wilfulness.

196 my aunt Percy. Elsewhere Shakespeare follows history in making Lady Percy Sir Edmund Mortimer's sister; but for the confusion between this Mortimer and his nephew see note on I. i. 38. 199 harlotry, a word here of affectionate dispraise. See II. iv. 437.

211 division, modulation.

214 rushes, the usual floor covering of Shakespeare's time.

234 humorous, full of ill-humor. 240 brach, hunting dog.

253 comfit-maker's, confectioner's. 256 sarcenet, a thin silk.

257 Finsbury, a piece of open ground outside the north wall of London.

261 velvet-guards, velvet-trimmings, a conspicuous feature of the Sunday dress of citizens' wives. 265 red-breast teacher, trainer of singing birds. The English robin was artificially taught to sing.

And, if, one of the old uses of the conjunction.

ii. 45 likelihood, prospect of greatness. 61 bavin, brushwood, kindling; hence, inflammable. 62 carded, adulterated, a term from the mixing of liquors.

63 cap'ring] Q.; carping Q.-F.

67 comparative, jester, a dealer in humorous comparisons.

69 Enfeoff'd himself, gave himself up, as in feesimple.

100 colour, pretense.

101 harness, armor.