Enter PISTOL.

Gow. Why, here he comes, swelling like a turkey-cock.

Flu. 'Tis no matter for his swellings nor his turkey-cocks. God pless you, Aunchient Pistol! you scurvy, lousy knave, God pless you!

Pist. Ha! art thou bedlam? dost thou thirst,
base Trojan,

To have me fold up Parca's fatal web?
Hence! I am qualmish at the smell of leek.

Flu I peseech you heartily, scurvy, lousy 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 disgestions doo's not agree with it, I would desire you to eat it.

Pist. Not for Cadwallader and all his goats.
Flu. There is one goat for you.

20

[Strikes him.] 30 Will you be so good, scauld knave, as eat it? Pist. Base Trojan, thou shalt die.

Flu. You say very true, scauld knave, when God's will is I will desire you to live in the mean time, and eat your victuals: come, there is sauce for it. [Strikes him.] You called me yesterday mountain-squire; but I will make you to day a squire of low degree. I pray you, fall to: if you can mock a leek, you can eat a leek. Gow. Enough, captain: you have astonished 40 him.

Flu. I say, I will make him eat some part of my leek, or I will peat his pate four days. Bite, I pray you; it is good for your green wound and your ploody coxcomb.

29. Cadwallader, a legendary Welsh king.

32. Trojan, knave.

38. a squire of low degree; alluding to the burlesque romance so entitled.

Pist. Must I bite?

ACT V

Flu. Yes, certainly, and out of doubt and out of question too, and ambiguities.

Pist. By this leek, I will most horribly revenge: I eat and eat, I swear

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 good do you, scauld knave, heartily. Nay, pray you, throw none away; the skin is good for your broken coxcomb. occasions to see leeks hereafter, I pray you, mock When you take at 'em; that is all.

Pist. Good.

Flu. Ay, leeks is good: hold you, there is a groat to heal your pate.

Pist. Me 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 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 b' wi' you, and keep you, and heal your pate.

50

60

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 gleeking and galling at this gentleman twice or thrice. You thought, because he could not speak English in the native garb, he so 78. gleeking, scoffing.

could not therefore handle an English cudgel:
you find it otherwise; and henceforth let a Welsh
correction teach you a good English condition.
Fare ye well.
[Exit.

Pist. Doth Fortune play the huswife with me
now?

News have I, that my Nell is dead i' the spital
Of malady of France;

And there my rendezvous is quite cut off.
Old I do wax; and from my weary limbs
Honour is cudgelled. Well, bawd I'll turn,
And something lean to cutpurse of quick hand.
To England will I steal, and there I'll steal:
And patches will I get unto these cudgell'd scars,
And swear I got them in the Gallia wars. [Exit.

SCENE II. France. A royal palace.

Enter, at one door, KING HENRY, EXETER, BED-
FORD, GLOUCESTER, CLARENCE, WARWICK,
WESTMORELAND, and other Lords; at another,
the FRENCH KING, QUEEN ISABEL, the PRIN-
CESS KATHARINE, ALICE and other Ladies; the
DUKE OF BURGUNDY, and his train.

K. Hen. Peace to this meeting, wherefore we
are met!

90

Clarence's name has not hitherto been included in the stage direction or among the dramatis personæ, since he does not speak; but v. 84 implies that he is present. Huntingdon, who is addressed in the next line, is included among the other Lords.'

1. wherefore, for which (viz. peace).

Unto our brother France, and to our sister,
Health and fair time of day; joy and good wishes
To our most fair and princely cousin Katharine;
And, as a branch and member of this royalty,
By whom this great assembly is contrived,
We do salute you, Duke of Burgundy;

And, princes French, and peers, health to you all! Fr. King. Right joyous are we to behold your face,

Most worthy brother England; fairly met:

So are you, princes English, every one.

Q. Isa. So happy be the issue, brother England,
Of this good day and of this gracious meeting,
As we are now glad to behold your eyes;
Your eyes, which hitherto have borne in them
Against the French, that met them in their bent,
The fatal balls of murdering basilisks:

The venom of such looks, we fairly hope,
Have lost their quality, and that this day
Shall change all griefs and quarrels into love.
K. Hen. To cry amen to that, thus we appear.
Q. Isa. You English princes all, I do salute

you.

Bur. My duty to you both, on equal love,

Great Kings of France and England! That I have labour'd,

With all my wits, my pains and strong endeavours,
To bring your most imperial majesties

Unto this bar and royal interview,

Your mightiness on both parts best can witness.

II. So are you, princes English; Ff1-3 'so are you princess (English).'

16. bent, the direction (or aim) of an eye-glance (or a cannon-shot).

17. basilisks; used with a

ΤΟ

20

Since then my office hath so far prevail'd
That, face to face and royal eye to eye,
You have congreeted, let it not disgrace me,
If I demand, before this royal view,
What rub or what impediment there is,
Why that the naked, poor and mangled Peace,
Dear nurse of arts, plenties and joyful births,
Should not in this best garden of the world,
Our fertile France, put up her lovely visage?
Alas, she hath from France too long been chased,
And all her husbandry doth lie on heaps,
Corrupting in it own fertility.

Her vine, the merry cheerer of the heart,
Unpruned dies; her hedges even-pleach'd,
Like prisoners wildly overgrown with hair,
Put forth disorder'd twigs; her fallow leas
The darnel, hemlock and rank fumitory
Doth root upon, while that the coulter rusts
That should deracinate such savagery;
The even mead, that erst brought sweetly forth
The freckled cowslip, burnet and green clover,
Wanting the scythe, all uncorrected, rank,
Conceives by idleness, and nothing teems
But hateful docks, rough thistles, kecksies, burs,
Losing both beauty and utility.

And as our vineyards, fallows, meads and hedges,
Defective in their natures, grow to wildness,
Even so our houses and ourselves and children
Have lost, or do not learn for want of time,

30

40

50

found occasionally elsewhere in F1.

42. even-pleach'd, trimmed to form an even surface.

49. burnet, a herb used in stanching wounds.

52. kecksies, dry hemlockstalks.

K