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Slen. Marry, sir, I have matter in my head against you; and against your coney-catching 14 rascals, Bardolph, Nym, and Pistol. They carried me to the tavern, and made me drunk, and afterwards pick'd my pocket.

Bar. You Banbury cheese! 15

Slen. Ay, it is no matter.

Pist. How now, Mephostophilus ? 16
Slen. Ay, it is no matter.

Nym. Slice, I say! pauca, pauca; my humour.

Slen. Where's Simple, my man? cousin ?

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17 slice! that's

can you tell,

Eva. Peace! I pray you. Now let us understand: There is three umpires in this matter, as I understand; that is - master Page, fidelicet, master Page; and there is myself, fidelicet, myself; and the three party is, lastly and finally, mine Host of the Garter.

Page. We three, to hear it, and end it between them.

Eva. Fery goot: I will make a prief of it in my note-book; and we will afterwards 'ork upon the cause with as great discreetly as we can.

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Eva. The tevil and his tam! what phrase is this, "He hears with ear?" Why, it is affectations.

14 A common name for cheats and sharpers in the time of Elizabeth.

15 Said in allusion to the thin carcass of Slender. So, in Jack Drum's Entertainment, 1601: "Put off your clothes, and you are like a Banbury Cheese, nothing but paring."

16 The name of a spirit, or familiar, in the old story book of Faustus to whom there is another allusion Act ii. sc. 2. It was a cant phrase, probably for an ugly fellow.

17 Few words.

Fal. Pistol, did you pick master Slender's purse? Slen. Ay, by these gloves, did he, (or I would I might never come in mine own great chamber again else,) of seven groats in mill-sixpences, and two Edward shovel-boards,18 that cost me two shilling and two pence a-piece of Yed Miller, by these gloves. Fal. Is this true, Pistol?

Eva. No; it is false, if it is a pick-purse.
Pist. Ha, thou mountain-foreigner! Sir John
and master mine,

I combat challenge of this lattin bilbo : 19
Word of denial in thy labras here;

20

Word of denial: froth and scum, thou liest.
Slen. By these gloves, then 'twas he.

Nym. Be avis'd, sir, and pass good humours: I

will

66 say, marry trap," with you, if you run the nuthook's 21 humour on me; that is the very note of it.

Slen. By this hat, then he in the red face had it : for though I cannot remember what I did when you made me drunk, yet I am not altogether an ass.

Fal. What say you, Scarlet and John?

Bard. Why, sir, for my part, I say the gentleman had drunk himself out of his five sentences. Eva. It is his five senses: fie, what the ignorance is!

18 Mill sixpences were used as counters; and King Edward's shillings used in the game of shuffle-board.

Bilbo is from

19 Another allusion to Slender's slenderness. Bilboa, in Spain, where fine swords were made and mixture of copper and calamine, made into thin plates. is used in the north of England for tin.

20 Word of denial in thy labras" is the same as, thy teeth." Labras is a Pistolism for lips.

lattin is a The word

H.

"the lie in

H.

21 That is, if you say I am a thief; the nuthook being used by thieves to hook things out of a window. Marry trap seems to have been a word of triumph upon seeing one caught in his own

snare.

H.

Bard. And being fap,22 sir, was, as they say, cashier'd; and so conclusions pass'd the carieres.23

Slen. Ay, you spake in Latin then too; but 'tis no matter. I'll ne'er be drunk whilst I live again, but in honest, civil, godly company, for this trick: If I be drunk, I'll be drunk with those that have the fear of God, and not with drunken knaves.

Eva. So Got 'udge me, that is a virtuous mind. Fal. You hear all these matters denied, gentlemen; you hear it.

Enter ANNE PAGE, with wine; Mrs. FORD and Mrs. PAGE following.

Page. Nay, daughter, carry the wine in; we'll drink within. [Exit ANNE PAGE. Slen. O heaven! this is mistress Anne Page. Page. How now, mistress Ford?

Fal. Mistress Ford, by my troth, you are very well met by your leave, good mistress.

[Kissing her. Page. Wife, bid these gentlemen welcome: Come, we have a hot venison pasty to dinner; come, gentlemen, I hope we shall drink down all unkindness.

[Exeunt all but SHAL., SLEN., and EVANS. Slen. I had rather than forty shillings I had my book of Songs and Sonnets 24 here:

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22 Fap was a cant word of the time, meaning fuddled.

H.

23 Cariere, according to Baret, was "the short turning of a nimble horse, now this way, now that way." The application here is probably too deep for any body but Bardolph; unless it refer to the reeling of a drunken man, now this way, now that. Slender mistook Pistol's lattin for Latin; and he now thinks that Bardolph speaks the same language.

H.

24 Slender means a popular book of Shakespeare's time:

Enter SIMPLE.

How now, Simple! where have you been? I must wait on myself, must I? You have not the Book of Riddles about have you

you,

?

Sim. Book of Riddles! why, did you not lend it to Alice Shortcake upon Allhallowmas last, a fortnight afore Michaelmas ?

25

Shal. Come, coz; come, coz; we stay for you. A word with you, coz; marry, this, coz: There is, as 'twere, a tender, a kind of tender, made afar off by Sir Hugh here : Do understand me? you

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Slen. Ay, sir, you shall find me reasonable: if it be so, I shall do that that is reason.

Shal. Nay, but understand me.

Slen. So I do, sir.

Eva. Give ear to his motions, master Slender : I will description the matter to you, if you be capacity

of it.

Slen. Nay, I will do as my cousin Shallow says: I pray you, pardon me; he's a justice of peace in his country, simple though I stand here.

Eva. But this is not the question: the question is concerning your marriage.

Shal. Ay, there's the point, sir.

Eva. Marry, is it; the very point of it; to mistress Anne Page.

Slen. Why, if it be so, I will marry her upon any reasonable demands.

Eva. But can you affection the 'oman? Let us command to know that of your mouth, or of your

"Songes and Sonnettes, written by the Earle of Surrey and others."

25 This is an intended blunder. Theobald would in sober sadness have corrected it to Martlemas.

lips; for divers philosophers hold that the lips is Therefore, precisely, can

parcel 26 of the mouth:

you carry your good will to the maid?

Shal. Cousin Abraham Slender, can you love her? Slen. I hope, sir, - I will do as it shall become one that would do reason.

Eva. Nay, Got's lords and his ladies! you must speak possitable, if you can carry her your desires towards her.

Shal. That you must: Will you, upon good dowry, marry her?

Slen. I will do a greater thing than that, upon your request, cousin, in any reason.

Shal. Nay, conceive me, conceive me, sweet coz; what I do is to pleasure you, coz: Can you love the maid?

Slen. I will marry her, sir, at your request; but if there be no great love in the beginning, yet heaven may decrease it upon better acquaintance, when we are married, and have more occasion to know one another: I hope upon familiarity will grow more content: but if you say, "marry her," I will marry her; that I am freely dissolved, and dissolutely.

27

Eva. It is a fery discretion answer; save the faul' is in the 'ort dissolutely: the 'ort is, according to our meaning, resolutely:- His meaning is good.

Shal. Ay, I think my cousin meant well.

Slen. Ay, or else I would I might be hang'd, la.

26 That is, part; a law term, often used in conjunction with its synonyme.

27 Content in the original, but generally altered to contempt in modern editions. But the change is needless, as Slender probably mistakes the word, and thence falls into a misapplication of the proverb.

VOL. I.

20

H.

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