11

Wor. But yet, I would your father had been here,
The quality and hair 11 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 12 side
Must keep aloof from strict arbitrement;
And stop all sight-holes, every loop, from whence
The eye of reason may pry in upon us:

This absence of your father's draws a curtain 13,
That shows the ignorant a kind of fear

Before not dreamt of.

Hot.

You strain too far.

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

Than if the earl were here: for men must think,
If we, without his help, can make a head,

11 Hair was anciently used metaphorically for the colour, complexion, or nature of a thing. Pelo (in Italian) is used for the colour of a horse, also for the countenance of a man :'- and poil, in French, has the same significations, esser d'un pelo, estre d'un poil. To be of the same hair, quality, or condition. Thus, in Beaumont and Fletcher's Nice Valour ::

'A lady of my hair cannot want pitying.'

And in the old comedy of The Family of Love:- They say I am of the right haire, and indeed they may stand to't.' So in the Interlude of Tom Tyler and his Wife :

'But I bridled a colt of a contrary haire.'

12 The offering side is the assailing side. Baret renders' Attentare pudicitiam puellæ, to assaile a maydens chastitie: to offer.' 13 To draw a curtain had anciently the same meaning as to undraw one at present. Thus in the Second Part of King Henry VI. quarto, 1600:- Then the curtaines being drawne, Duke Humphrey is discovered in his bed.'

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 14 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.

And further, I have learn'd, 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 15 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 with the wind Bated, like eagles having lately bath'd 16;

14 The folio reads dream of fear.'

15 Shakspeare rarely bestows his epithets at random. Stowe says of the prince : He was passing swift in running, insomuch that he, with two other of his lords, without hounds, bow, or other engine, would take a wilde bucke, or doe, in a large parke.'

16 This is the reading of all the old copies, which Hanmer not understanding, altered to

All plum'd like estridges, and with the wind
Bating like eagles, &c.'

Then came Johnson, who supposed that there must be necessity for emendation, as it had already been attempted: he changed it thus:

'All plum'd like estridges, that wing the wind;
Bated like eagles, &c.'

This reading has been adopted by Malone, and by Steevens, with a voluminous commentary to show its necessity. But surely, if VOL. V.

U

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 17 on,
His cuisses 18 on his thighs, gallantly arm'd,—
Rise from the ground like feather'd Mercury,

a clear sense can be deduced from the passage as it stands, no conjectural alteration of the text should be admitted. The meaning of the passage is obviously this: The prince and his comrades were all furnish'd, all in arms, all plumed: like estridges (ostriches) that bated (i. e. flutter or beat) the wind with their wings; like eagles having lately bathed.' Johnson's reading is exceptionable, if it was not an unwarrantable innovation, because to wing the wind and to bate are the same thing; and the difficulties of an elliptical construction are not avoided by it. Malone's notion, that a line had been omitted, has not my concurrence. Nor do I think with Mr. Douce, that by estridges, estridge falcons are here meant, though the word may be used in that sense in Antony and Cleopatra. The ostridge's plumage would be more likely to occur to the poet, from the circumstance of its being the cognizance of the prince of Wales. So in Drayton's Polyolbion, Song 22:

'Prince Edward all in gold, as he great Jove had been, The Mountford's all in plumes like estridges were seen.' Bating, or to bate, in falconry, is the unquiet fluttering of a hawk. To beat the wing, batter l'ale, Ital. All birds bate, i. e. flutter, beat, or flap their wings to dry their feathers after bathing; and the mode in which the ostrich uses its wings, to assist itself in running with the wind, is of this character; it is a fluttering or a flapping, not a flight. The fluttering motion and flapping of the plumed crests of the prince and his associates naturally excited these images. Bated refers both to the flapping of the plumes, and of the wings of the ostrich; the plumage of that bird is displayed to more advantage when its wings are in motion, than when at rest; and hence the propriety of representing the feathers of the helmets flouting the air to the plumage of the ostrich when its wings were in motion, or when it 'bated the air, like eagles lately bathed.'

17 The beaver of a helmet was a moveable piece, which lifted up or down to enable the wearer to drink or to take breath more freely. It is frequently, though improperly, used to express the helmet itself.

18 Armour for the thighs.

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,

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,

19

And yet not ours :-Come, let me take 19 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.
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.

19 The quartos of 1598 and 1599 read taste.

[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 gurnet1. 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 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 caliver2, worse than a struck fowl, or a hurt wild-duck. I pressed me none but such toasts and butter3, 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

1 The gurnet, or gurnard, was a fish of the piper kind. It was probably deemed a vulgar dish when soused or pickled, hence soused gurnet was a common term of reproach.

2 A gun.

3 Londoners, and all within the sound of Bow bell, are in reproach called cockneys, and eaters of buttered toasts.'—Moryson's Itin. 1617. So in Beaumont and Fletcher's Wit without Money:

'They love young toasts and butter, Bow bell suckers.'