SCENE 1.5 France. An English Court of Guard. Enter FLUELLEN and GoWER. Gow. Nay, that's right; but why wear yoù your leek to-day? Saint Davy's day is past. Flu. There is occasions and causes why and wherefore in all things: I will tell you, as my friend, captain Gower; The rascally, scald, beggarly, lowsy, pragging knave, Pistol,—which you and yourself, and all the 'orld, know to be no petter than a fellow, look you now, of no merits, he is come to me, and prings me pread and salt yesterday, look you, and bid me eat my leek: it was in a place where I could not breed no contentions with him; but I will be so pold as to wear it in my cap till I see him once again, and then I will tell him a little piece of my desires. Enter PISTOL. Gow. Why, here he comes, swelling like a turkey-cock. Flu. 'Tis no matter for his swellings, nor his turkeycocks.-Got pless you, ancient Pistol! you scurvy, lowsy knave, Got pless you! Pist. Ha! art thou Bedlam? dost thou thirst, base Trojan, To have me fold up Parca's fatal web?6 Hence! I am qualmish at the smell of leek. Flu. I peseech you heartily, scurvy, lowsy knave, at my desires, and my requests, and my petitions, to eat, look you, this leek; because, look you, you do not love it, nor your affections, and your appetites, and your digestions, does not agree with it, I would desire you to eat it. 5 Scene I.] This scene ought, in my opinion, to conclude the fourth Act, and be placed before the last Chorus. There is no English camp in this Act; the quarrel apparently happened before the return of the army to England, and not after so long an interval as the Chorus has supplied. Johnson. Fluellen presently says, that he wore his leek in consequence of an affront he had received but the day before from Pistol. Their present quarrel has therefore no reference to that begun in the sixth scene of the third Act. Steevens. 6 To have me fold up &c.] Dost thou desire to have me put thee to death? Johnson. Pist. Not for Cadwallader, and all his goats. Flu. There is one goat for you. [strikes him] Will you be so goot, scald knave, as eat it? Pist. Base Trojan, thou shalt die. Flu. You say very true, scald knave, when Got's will is: I will desire you to live in the mean time, and eat your victuals; come, there is sauce for it. [striking him again] You called me yesterday, mountain-squire; † but I will make you to-day a squire of low degree.7 I pray you, fall to; if you can mock a leek, you can eat a leek. Gow. Enough, captain; you have astonished him.8 Flu. I say, I will make him eat some part of my leek, or I will peat his pate four days:-Pite, I pray you; it is goot for your green wound, and your ploody coxcomb. Pist. Must I bite? Flu. Yes, certainly; and out of doubt, and out of questions too, and ambiguities. Pist. By this leek, I will most horribly revenge; I eat, and eke I swear -.9 Flu. Eat, I pray you: Will you have some more sauce to your leek? there is not enough leek to swear by. Pist. Quiet thy cudgel; thou dost see, I eat. Flu. Much goot do you, scald knave, heartily. Nay, 'pray you, throw none away; the skin is goot for your proken coxcomb. When you take occasions to see leeks hereafter, I pray you, mock at them; that is all. Pist. Good. †The manner in which this epithet is here used, is an additional proof of the correctness of my explanation of a similar expression of the French king, when speaking of the victory gained at Cressy, by Edward the Black Prince, "Whiles that his mountain sire,-on mountain standing," &c. See a preceding note, page 263. Am. Ed. 7 squire of low degree.] That is, I will bring thee to the ground. Johnson. The Squire of Low Degree is the title of an old romance, enumerated, among other books, in A Letter concerning Queen Elizabeth's Entertainment at Kenelworth. Steevens. 8 astonished him.] That is, you have stunned him with the blow. Johnson. 9 I eat, and eke I swear .] The first folio has eat, for which the later editors have put-1 eat and swear. We should read, I suppose, in the frigid tumour of Pistol's dialect: I eat, and eke I swear. Johnson. Flu. Ay, leeks is goot:-Hold you, there is a groat to heal your pate. Pist. Mẹ a groat! Flu. Yes, verily, and in truth, you shall take it; or I have another leek in my pocket, which you shall eat. Pist. I take thy groat, in earnest of revenge. Flu. If I owe you any thing, I will pay you in cudgels; you shall be a woodmonger, and buy nothing of me but cudgels. God be wi' you, and keep you, and heal your pate. [Exit. Pist. All hell shall stir for this. Gow. Go, go; you are a counterfeit cowardly knave. Will you mock at an ancient tradition,-begun upon an honourable respect, and worn as a memorable trophy of predeceased valour,—and dare not avouch in your deeds any of your words? I have seen you gleeking1 and galling at this gentleman twice or thrice. You thought, because he could not speak English in the native garb, he could not therefore handle an English cudgel: you find it otherwise; and, henceforth, let a Welsh correction teach you a good English condition.2 Fare ye well. [Exit. Pist. Doth fortune play the huswife3 with me now? News have I, that my Nell is dead4 i' the spital 11 gleeking] i. e. scoffing, sneering. Gleek was a game at cards. So, in Greene's Tu Quoque, 1614: “ Why gleek, that 's your only game-."-" Gleek let it be; for I am persuaded I shall gleek some of you." Steevens. 2 English condition.] Condition is temper, disposition of mind. So, in The Merchant of Venice: "- - if he have the condition of a saint, with the complexion of a devil." Steevens. See p. 374, n. 9. Malone. 3 Doth fortune play the huswife-] That is, the jilt. Huswife is here used in an ill sense. Johnson. 4 News have 1, that my Nell is dead &c.] Old copy-Doll. Steevens. We must read-my Nell is dead. In a former scene Pistol says: "Nor shall my Nell keep lodgers," Malone. Doll Tearsheet was so little the favourite of Pistol, that he offered her in contempt to Nym. Nor would her death have cut off his rendezvous, that is, deprived him of a home. Perhaps the poet forgot his plan. In the quartos, 1600 and 1608, the lines are read thus: "Doth fortune playe the huswyfe with me now? Of malady of France; And there my rendezvous is quite cut off. SCENE II. 6 [Exit.5 Troyes in Champagne. An Apartment in the French King's Palace. Enter, at one Door, King HENRY, BEDFORD, Gloster, EXETER, WARWICK, WESTMORELAND, and other Lords; at another, the French King, Queen ISABEL, the Princess KATHARINE, Lords, Ladies, &c. the Duke of BURGUNDY, and his Train. K. Hen. Peace to this meeting, wherefore we are met!? "Is honour cudgel'd from my warlike lines [loins]? "And I swear I gat them in the Gallia wars." Johnson. 5 The comick scenes of The History of Henry the Fourth and Fifth are now at an end, and all the comick personages are now dismissed. Falstaff and Mrs. Quickly are dead; Nym and Bardolph are hanged; Gadshill was lost immediately after the robbery; Poins and Peto have vanished since, one knows not how; and Pistol is now beaten into obscurity. I believe every reader regrets their departure. Johnson. 6 Henry, some time before his marriage with Katharine, accompanied by his brothers, uncles, &c. had a conference with her, the French King and Queen, the Duke of Burgundy, &c. in a field near Melun, where two pavilions were erected for the royal families, and a third between them for the council to assemble in and deliberate on the articles of peace. "The Frenchmen, (says the Chronicle,) ditched, trenched, and paled their lodging for fear of after-clappes; but the Englishmen had their parte of the field only barred and parted." But the treaty was then broken off. Some time afterwards they again met in St. Peter's church at Troyes in Champagne, where Katharine was Unto our brother France,-and to our sister, Q. Isa. So happy be the issue, brother England, Great kings of France and England! That I have labour'd affianced to Henry, and the articles of peace between France and England finally concluded.-Shakspeare, having mentioned, in the course of this scene, "a bar and royal interview," seems to have had the former place of meeting in his thoughts; the description of the field near Melun, in the Chronicle, somewhat corresponding to that of a bar or barriers. But the place of the present scene is certainly Troyes in Champagne. However, as St. Peter's church would not admit of the French King and Queen, &c. retiring, and then appearing again on the scene, I have supposed, with the former editors, the interview to take place in a palace. Malone. 7 Peace to this meeting, wherefore we are met!] Peace, for which we are here met, be to this meeting. Here, after the chorus, the fifth Act seems naturally to begin, Johnson. 8 The fatal balls of murdering basilisks:] So, in The Winter's Tale: "Make me not sighted like the basilisk." It was anciently supposed that this serpent could destroy the object of its vengeance by merely looking at it. See note in Second Part of King Henry VI, Act III, sc. ii. Steevens. |