19 flesh meat

  dear expensive, but also desirable. The line contrasts the cheapness of meat with the high price of women (presumably prostitutes), both marketable commodities.

  22 ever among all the while

  24 give … health drink to your health, lift a glass

  26–7 Sweet … 1sit Playing the role of host, Davy attempts to get the men to sit down, but who is specifically being addressed is unclear. The first addressee may be Bardolph, whom Shallow has asked him to serve (25); but other candidates are Falstaff and Shallow himself. Davy seems to address two different people before speaking to the Page and, beginning with Proface!, to address the guests in general.

  27 Proface ‘Welcome to it’: a traditional salute spoken before a meal, from the obsolete French bon prou vous fasse (may it do you good)

  13 By the mass] Q; not in F 15 SD] Capell; not in QF 16 Ah] F, Q (A) 17 SD] Rowe subst. (also at 32, 45, 73); not in QF 17–22] Rowe subst. (lines chear / Year; / dear, / there: / merrily. / ); prose QF 18 God] Q; heauen F 21 merrily] Q (merely), F 23 Silence] F; Silens Q 25 Give Master Bardolph] Q; Good M. Bardolfe: F

  28 What … drink proverbial: ‘What they want in meat let them take in drink’ (Dent, M845)

  want lack

  meat food

  29 bear put up with things as they are

  The heart’s all ‘Good intentions are all that count’ (OED heart sb. 7).

  32–6 On the origin of this song, see 17–22n.

  34 The sentiment in this line (that talk and laughter set men’s beards wagging) was proverbial – ‘It is merry in hall when beards wag all’ (Dent, H55) – and found as early as Kyng Alisaunder in 1312: ‘Mery swithe it is in halle, / whan that berdes waweth alle’ (EETS, Orig. ser. 227, 67).

  wags On the use of a singular verb with a plural subject, see 1.1.33n.

  35 Shrovetide the three days preceding Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent, a time for feasting and drinking

  39 merry tipsy, pleasantly drunk. On the historical significance of merry.

  twice and once a stock inversion which is a jocular way of saying ‘now and then’. If taken literally, however, the phrase reveals how seldom Silence has been inebriated or allowed himself to act without inhibition. In performance, this admission tends to arouse both humour and pathos, especially if Silence is played, as he so often is, as a decrepit old man. But on Silence’s age, see 3.2.210n.

  41 leather-coats russet apples, so named for their rough skin. It is unclear to whom, if anyone in particular, Davy is offering them.

  29 must] Q; not in F SD] Theobald; not in QF 30 SD] this edn 32–6] Capell; F lines all: / tall: / all; / merry. / ; prose Q 34 wags] Q; wagge F 38 mettle] Q (mettall), F 40.1] Q; not in F 41 There’s] Q; There is F

  43 straight right away, immediately

  43–4 A cup … sir Davy may offer the wine to Bardolph, as Shallow has instructed him to do at 25, but he probably fills cups all round. Davy’s attentive service and assured control of the festivities contrast with the ineptitude of the drawers, especially Francis in 1H4 2.4. The same actor may have played Davy and Francis.

  45–7 No known setting for this drinking song is extant, though Duffin (114–15) offers two possible tunes that would fit the metrical pattern of Silence’s lines. See also 53–4n.

  46 thee QF’s ‘the’ is a frequent Elizabethan spelling of ‘thee’.

  leman mistress, sweetheart

  47 proverbial: ‘A merry heart lives long’ (Dent, H320a). Cf. LLL 5.2.18: ‘a light heart lives long’.

  49–50 the … night Cf. Falstaff’s similar sentiment at 2.4.372–3.

  53–4 Though no original setting for these lines exists, Duffin (145) suggests that they may come from a second stanza of ‘A cup of wine’. Alternatively, he offers a melody from another ‘Fill the cup’ round (which survives in the Lant Roll, 1580) whose lyric matches the number of syllables in Silence’s lines.

  53 let it come pass it round: a popular drinking cry. Cf. 2H6 2.3.66: ‘Let it come, i’ faith, and I’ll pledge you all’.

  54 pledge … bottom drain the whole cup, even if it is a mile deep: tavern cant also used by Jonson in the 1601 Q of Every Man In 5.3.153: ‘I pledge M. Doctor and ’t were a sea to the bottome’. Cf. proverbial ‘To set all a going if it were a mile to the bottom’ (Dent, A207).

  55 want’st need. Cf. 28.

  45–7] Capell; Rowe lines Wine, / fine, / mine; / long-a. / ; prose QF 46 thee,] Cam1; the QF 49 And] Q; If F 50 a’th’] Q; of the F 51 SD] this edn; not in QF 53–4] Capell; prose QF 54 to th’] Q (too th); to the F

  56 call ask for it

  beshrew See 2.3.45n.

  57 thief scoundrel, said affectionately to the Page. See a similar use in 1H4, when Lady Percy calls Hotspur a thief (3.1.231).

  59 cabileros gallants, a humorous term for drinking companions; from the Spanish caballeros

  60 once one day, or one time

  61 An would that

  62 crack drink, empty (OED v. 10)

  64 pottle-pot two-quart tankard, double the size Shallow mentions at 62. Cf. 2.2.75.

  65 By God’s liggens As Cowl notes (Ard1), this oath is recorded nowhere else. Possibly liggens is a corruption of the diminutive for eye-lid, i.e. ‘lidkins’. The expression ‘By God’s lid’ occurs in TC 1.2.203. A similar diminutive for ‘God’s body’ was ‘bodikins’.

  66–7 ’a will … bred He will not drop out (of a drinking bout) because he is a purebred. The implicit metaphor is of a hunting dog sticking with the pack or to the scent; but elsewhere Shakespeare applies the phrase to drinking, as when Lepidus vows, ‘I am not so well as I should be, but I’ll ne’er out’ (AC 2.7.30–1).

  69 there … king i.e. well said. Possibly, too, Shallow’s mention of a king’s loyalty is an ironic anticipation that the new King will not ‘stick by’ his former companions.

  72 done me right kept up with me in drinking. Do me right was a phrase commonly used to challenge a person to drink. Cf. Jonson, Every Man Out, 5.4.79–81; Dekker, 1 Honest Whore, 1.5.167–8; and Marston, Antonio and Mellida, 5.2.26–7.

  56–7 SD] Capell (after thief); not in QF 57 tiny] Q, F (tyne), Rowe (tyny) 59 cabileros] Q; Cauileroes F SD] Oxf subst.; not in QF 61 An] Q (And); If F 62 By the mass] Q; not in F 64 Yea] Q; Yes F 65 By God’s liggens,] Q; not in F 66 that ’a] Q; that. He F 67 out, ’a; ’tis] Ard2; out, a tis Q; out, he is F 70 SD] Q (opp. 68); not in F 71 Look who’s] Q; Looke, who’s F SD] Capell; not in QF

  73–5 Silence sings the refrain of a popular French drinking song, ‘Monsieur Mingo’, set to music by Orlando di Lasso and published in 1570. Samingo is Silence’s slurred pronunciation of Sir Mingo, whose name derives from the Latin mingo = ‘I urinate’ (Sisson, 2.54). The song is thus about one Sir Pisser who is knighted for his drinking capacity. Snatches of it appear in plays by Jonson, Chapman and Marston, and a fuller text in Nashe’s Summer’s Last Will and Testament, 968–71: ‘Mounsieur Mingo for quaffing doth surpasse, / In Cuppe, in Canne, or glasse. / God Bacchus, doe mee right, / And dubbe me Knight Domingo’ (Works, 3.264). For the complete musical setting, see Duffin, 263–5. The phrase dub me knight refers to the Elizabethan tavern practice of knighting, on his knees, whoever had drunk the most sack.

  79 somewhat something noteworthy (as a drinker)

  80 An ’t please See 1.2.60n.

  85 proverbial: ‘What wind blows you hither?’ (Dent, W441)

  86 Pistol answers Falstaff proverb for proverb: ‘It is an ill wind that blows no man good’ (Dent, W421).

  73–5] Malone; prose QF 79.1] Capell subst.; not in QF 80 An’t] Q (And’t); If it F 82.1] F, Q (opp. 81) 84 God save you.] Q; ’saue you sir. F 86 no man] Q; none F 86–7 good. Sweet knight,] Q subst.; good, sweet Knight: F

  87 greatest Pistol means most powerful or important, owing to Falstaff’s relationship with the new King, but Silence takes him to mean biggest, as his comparison of Falstaff with a fat man named Puff makes clear (89).

  89 but except for

  goodman yeoman or farmer, below the rank of gentleman

  90 Bar’son Shakespeare may intend no particular place, but a Barston lies 15 miles northeast of Stratford-upon-Avon, and a Barcheston-on-the-Stour (locally pronounced ‘Bar’son’), 10 miles to the southeast.

  91, 92 Puff Pistol, altering the name to a verb meaning to boast or swagger, turns it against Silence as an insult.

  92 recreant faint-hearted, dishonourable

  94 helter skelter in disorderly haste

  96 of price of great value (OED price sb. 7)

  97–8 like … world ‘as an ordinary mortal would’; i.e. in plain English

  99 A foutre a phrase of contempt stronger than a ‘fig’ (cf. 118), from the French foutre meaning to fuck: so, ‘Fuck the world and all the people in it!’

  100 Africa a source of fabulous wealth in the two parts of Marlowe’s Tamburlaine, which exerted a strong influence on Pistol’s rant in 2.4.157–200.

  101 Assyrian a biblical term with which Falstaff begins his mimicry of Pistol’s bombastic style. Assyrians were identified as brigands by Elizabethans, and in drama were sometimes associated with luxury and excess (Oxf1), as in Jonson’s Masque of Queenes, 766: ‘Th’ Assyrian pompe, the Persian pride’.

  102 King Cophetua The legend of this African king, who ‘cared not for womenkind’ yet fell in love with and married a beggar girl, was the subject of a popular ballad, ‘A Song of a Beggar and a King’, first printed in Richard Johnson’s Crowne Garland of Goulden Roses (1612) but cited repeatedly before then by Shakespeare: cf. LLL 1.2.104–5 and 4.1.65–79; RJ 2.1.14; and R2 5.3.79. For the history and a complete setting of the ballad, see Duffin, 235–40.

  88 this] Q; the F 89 By’r Lady] Q; Indeed F ’a] Q; he F 92–6] Pope; prose QF 92 i’thy] Neilson; ith thy Q; in thy F 94 And] Q; not in F 97 pray thee] Q; prethee F 99–102] F; prose Q 102 Cophetua] Pope; Couetua Q; Couitha F

  103 A line from the second stanza of a ballad printed in 1632 as ‘Robin Hood and the Jolly Pinder of Wakefield’ (Child, 3.131): see J. Long, 92. For an earlier setting of fragments of a Robin Hood song contemporary with the play, see Duffin, 339–41.

  104 Pistol, irritated by Silence’s interruption, calls him a dog (‘cur’) who lives in a shit-pile (dunghill) for daring to match wits against his own inspired muse. Helicons refers to the Muses who, in Greek mythology, lived on the sacred Mount Helicon.

  105 baffled foiled, treated so disrespectfully. Cf. TN 5.1.363: ‘Alas, poor fool. How have they baffled thee!’

  106 lay … lap give yourself up to the forces of revenge. The Furies were mythological creatures who punished those who broke natural or moral laws. Pistol calls on one of them again at 5.5.35.

  108 therefor for that (i.e. your ignorance)

  113 besonian base fellow, beggar or, in military parlance, a recruit of the lowest rank: a term of contempt derived from the Italian bisognoso through the Spanish bisoño, meaning a soldier who lacked both skill and training – one of many Spanish military terms which, according to Cowl (Ard1), infiltrated English in the 16th century. Cf. Robert Barret, who, in Theorike and Practike of Moderne Warres (1598), repeatedly refers to Besonians as ‘rawe men’ (16) with no expertise in weaponry (Ard2).

  103 SD] Johnson; not in QF 104–6] F; prose Q 107] Q; F lines Gentleman, / breeding. / 108 therefor] Bullen; therefore QF 109 Give … sir.] Q; separate line F 110 there’s] Q; there is F 111 or] Q; or to F 113] king, besonian?] Q; King? / Bezonian, F 114–15] Steevens; four prose lines QF

  115 A … office Pistol tells Shallow that his position as Justice of the Peace is worthless. At the death of a king, all judicial offices were terminated (Cam1), and Pistol implies that the new king will fill them with his cronies. For foutre, see 99n.

  118–19 do … Spaniard To fig, an insult akin to ‘giving the finger’ (or two) in contemporary Western cultures, meant to make an obscene gesture by thrusting the thumb between the index and middle fingers or, alternatively, into the mouth. A variant of the verb foutre (99, 115), ‘fig’ derived from the Spanish higos dar – hence the ‘bragging Spaniard’.

  120 As … door proverbial: ‘As dead as a doornail’ (Dent, D567)

  just true

  122–3 choose … thine Falstaff’s reassurance that Shallow may have the office of his choice counters Pistol’s insult at 115.

  123 double charge overload – a play on charging (loading) a pistol. Cf. similar puns on Pistol’s name at 2.4.112–17.

  127 What See 5.1.2n.

  128–37 Falstaff’s torrent of staccato commands and ejaculations indicates the excitement of the moment. Coming at the end of a leisurely scene, they imply a great deal of stage business – carrying Silence to bed, going off to saddle the horses, putting on boots – which concludes the scene in ecstatic confusion.

  116–19] F; prose Q 118 SD] Oxf subst.; not in QF 120] prose Q; F lines doore. / iust. / 121–4] prose Q; F lines Horse, / wilt / thee / Dignities. / 125–6] prose Q; F lines day: / Fortune. / 125 knighthood] F; Knight Q 128 SD1] Oxf1 128 SD2] Oxf subst.; not in QF

  128 *probably addressed to Davy, since Shallow, Pistol and Bardolph are given commands in subsequent lines. This instruction serves not only as a SD but also as a cue that Silence will not be a part of the retinue accompanying Falstaff to London. Although some productions include him in 5.5, Silence appropriately makes his final exit here.

  128–38 SDs *Typically, in performance, Falstaff, Shallow, Silence, Pistol and Davy exit as a group at the end of the scene; but the staggered exits indicated here are appropriate to the moment and add dramatic intensity, leaving Pistol alone onstage to deliver his final lines.

  130 Fortune’s steward the chief administrator of Fortune’s estate; i.e. the person in control of others’ futures

  132 withal in addition

  133–4 Boot … Shallow Falstaff’s repeated injunction for Shallow to hurry off and put on his boots for travel (130–4) should be sufficient motivation for him to exit. In the urgency to depart for London, he would be unlikely to linger onstage after this (GWW).

  135 sick longing

  135–6 Let … horses According to Davison, it is conceivable that Falstaff means only to conscript horses in the King’s name, which would require the owners to forgo a hiring fee but not ownership of the horses themselves. Nevertheless, given Falstaff’s bravado, especially in the following line, audiences are justified in thinking that he means to steal horses for the trip to London. Falstaff is clearly speaking this and the following lines to Pistol, one of his accomplices, and not to Shallow, who fawningly trusts in Falstaff’s integrity.

  136–7 the laws … commandment This line, more than any other, might have prepared an Elizabethan audience for Falstaff’s rejection in 5.5. By arrogating all power unto himself, Falstaff oversteps the bounds beyond which even a king was not allowed to go; for, according to Holinshed, among the grievances urged against Richard II to justify his deposition was his claim that ‘all the lawes of England should come foorth of his mouth’ (3.432) and that ‘neither law, iustice, nor equitie could take place, where the kings wilfull will was bent vpon any wrongfull purpose’ (3.496). To contemporary sensibilities, therefore, Falstaff’s presumption would have sounded shockingly anarchic.

  131 SD] Capell; not in QF 134 SD] this edn (GWW); not in QF 137 Blessed … that] Q; Happie … which F 138 to] Q; vnto F SD] this edn (GWW); not in QF

  137–8 Blessed … friends a phrase patterned on Scripture: e.g. Matthew, 5.5: ‘Blessed are the meek’

  138 woe … Justice Cf. Famous Victories, sc. 9, in which Oldcastle, upon hearing news of the King’s death, exclaims ‘we shall all be kings!’, and Ned boasts, ‘I shall be Lord Chief Justice of England’ (7, 8). Since Harry has already embraced the Justice as his father and counsellor, Falstaff’s line is heavily though unwittingly ironic, and so hubristic that even his staunchest defender condemns him for it: ‘After this we ought not to complain if we see Poetic Justice duly executed upon him, and that he is finally given up to shame and dishonour’ (Morgann, Falstaff, 179; cited in Ard2).

  139 an allusion to either of two possible myths: that of Prometheus, who, as punishment for stealing the fire of the gods, was chained to a rock and every day suffered an eagle to gnaw out his liver, which grew back at night; or that of Tityus, a giant who, as punishment for trying to rape the mother of Apollo and Artemis, was consigned to Hades where two vultures tore out his liver. The myths are found in Virgil, Aen., 6.595–600, and Ovid, Met., 4.457–8; but numerous references to them occur in plays of the period, and even Pistol alludes to them again in MW 1.3.82: ‘Let vultures gripe thy guts!’

  140 Where … led a line from a lost poem or ballad, perhaps the one registered in March 1566 as ‘A New ballad of one who misliking his liberty sought his own bondage through his own folly’ (Duffin, 453). The line is also quoted in TS 4.1.127.

  5.4 The scene occurs on a street outside the tavern in Eastcheap.

  0.1–2 *The Hostess’s opening lines indicate that she and Doll are being dragged onto the stage by the Beadles, not without a struggle. Q’s SD looks authorial in its mistaken omission of the Hostess and Doll, in the indeterminacy of its numbers (‘three or foure officers’), and in naming Sincklo both here and in all those SPs that F assigns to the Beadle. John Sincklo (or Sinclair) was the actor Shakespeare must have intended for the role. His skeletal thinness and pale complexion made him an easy comic butt, as the Hostess’s and Doll’s insults make clear; and he may have doubled in two other roles requiring an emaciated actor, Snare and Shadow. Because Sincklo is not listed among the ‘Principall Actors’ in the 1623 Folio, he is likely to have played only minor character parts for the Lord Chamberlain’s Men; but unusually, he is mentioned by name in the SDs of several other plays: in two earlier plays by Shakespeare, as a Keeper in 3H6 3.1.0 and as a Player in TS Ind.98 (F); in the plot of Dekker’s 2 Seven Deadly Sins; and in the Induction (17 SD) to Marston’s The Malcontent, acquired by the King’s Men in 1604. Davison speculates that Shakespeare wrote other roles for him as well, such as Pinch in CE, Holofernes in LLL and the Apothecary in RJ.