Fal, She is pistol-proof, sir; you shall hardly offend her. Host. Come, I'll drink no proofs, nor no bullets: I'll drink no more than will do me good, for no man's pleasure, I.5 Pist. Then to you, mistress Dorothy; I will charge you. Dol. Charge me? I scorn you, scurvy companion. What! you poor, base, rascally, cheating, lack-linen mate! Away, you mouldy rogue, away! I am meat for your master. Pist. I know you, mistress Dorothy. 6 Dol. Away, you cut-purse rascal! you filthy bung, away! by this wine, I'll thrust my knife in your mouldy chaps, an you play the saucy cuttle with me.7 Away, 5 - I'll drink no more -for no man's pleasure, I.] This should not be printed as a broken sentence. The duplication of the pronoun was very common: in The London Prodigal we have, "I scorn service, I."—"I am an ass, I," says the stage-keeper in the Induction to Bartholomew Fair; and Kendal thus translates a well-known epigram of Martial: "I love thee not, Sabidius, "I cannot tell thee why: "I can saie naught but this alone, "I do not love thee, I." In Kendal's Collection there are many translations from Claulian, Ausonius, the Anthologia, &c. Farmer. So, in King Richard III, Act III, sc. ii: "I do not like these separate councils, I." Steevens. Again, in Romeo and Juliet: "I will not budge, for no man's pleasure, I." Again, in King Edward II, by Marlowe, 1598: "I am none of those common peasants, I." The French still use this idiom:-Je suis Parisien, moi. Malone. 6 - filthy bung,] In the cant of thievery, to nip a bung was to cut a purse; and among an explanation of many of these terms in Martin Mark-all's Apologie to the Bel-man of London, 1610, it is said that "Bung is now used for a pocket, heretofore for a purse." Steevens. 7an you play the saucy cuttle with me.] It appears from Greene's Art of Coneycatching, that cuttle and cuttle-boung were the cant terms for the knife used by the sharpers of that age to cut the bottoms of purses, which were then worn hanging at the gir dle. Or the allusion may be to the foul language thrown out by Pistol, which she means to compare with such filth as the cuttlefish ejects, Steevens. you bottle-ale rascal! you basket-hilt stale juggler, you! -Since when, I pray you, sir?-What, with two points® on your shoulder? much!? Pist. I will murder your ruff for this. Fal. No more, Pistol;1 I would not have you go off here: discharge yourself of our company, Pistol. Host. No, good captain Pistol; not here, sweet captain. Dol. Captain! thou abominable damned cheater,2 art thou not ashamed to be called-captain? If captains were of my mind, they would truncheon you out, for taking their names upon you before you have earned them. You a captain, you slave! for what? for tearing a poor whore's ruff in a bawdy-house?-He a captain! Hang him, rogue! He lives upon mouldy stewed prunes, and dried cakes.3 A captain! these villains will make 8 with two points] As a mark of his commission. Johnson. 9 much!] Much was a common expression of disdain at that time, of the same sense with that more modern one, Marry come up. The Oxford editor, not apprehending this, alters it to march. Warburton. Dr. Warburton is right. Much! is used thus in Ben Jonson's Volpone: 66 But you shall eat it. Much!” Again, in Every Man in his Humour: "Much, wench! or much, son!" Again, in Every Man out of his Humour: "To charge me bring my grain unto the markets: Steevens. 1 No more, Pistol; &c.] This is from the oldest edition of 1600. Pope. 2 Captain, thou abominable damned cheater, &c.] Pistol's character seems to have been a common one on the stage in the time of Shakspeare. In A Woman's a Weathercock, by N. Field, 1612, there is a personage of the same stamp, who is thus described: "Thou unspeakable rascal, thou a soldier! "That with thy slops and cat-a-mountain face, "Thy blather chaps, and thy robustious words, "Fright'st the poor whore, and terribly dost exact "A weekly subsidy, twelve pence a piece, "Whereon thou livest; and on my conscience, "Thou snap'st besides with cheats and cut-purses." Malone. 3 He lives upon mouldy stewed prunes, and dried cakes.] That is, he lives on the refuse provisions of bawdy-houses and pastrycooks' shops. Stewed prunes, when mouldy, were perhaps for the word captain as odious as the word occupy; which was an excellent good word before it was ill sorted: therefore captains had need look to it. Bard. Pray thee. go down, good ancient. Fal. Hark thee hither, mistress Doll. Pist. Not I: I tell thee what, corporal Bardolph ;-I could tear her:-I'll be revenged on her. Page. Pray thee, go down. Pist. I'll see her damned first;-to Pluto's damned lake, to the infernal deep, with Erebus and tortures vile also. Hold hook and line, say I. Down! down, dogs! down faitors!? Have we not Hiren here? merly sold at a cheap rate, as stale pies and cakes are at present. The allusion to stewed prunes, and all that is necessary to be known on this subject, has been already explained in the First Part of this historical play, p. 285, n. 3. Steevens. 4 — as odious as the word occupy;] So Ben Jonson, in his Discoveries: "Many, out of their own obscene apprehensions, refuse proper and fit words; as, occupy, nature," &c. Steevens. This word is used with different senses in the following jest, from Wits, Fits, and Fancies, 1614: "One threw stones at an yllfauor'd old womans Owle, and olde woman said: Faith (sir knaue) you are well occupy'd, to throw stones at my poore Owle, that doth you no harme. Yea marie (answered the wag) so would you be better occupy'd too (I wisse) if you were young againe, and had a better face." Ritson. Occupant was formerly a term for a woman of the town, as occupier was for a wencher. Malone. Again, in Promos and Cassandra, bl. 1. 1578: "Mistresse, you must shut up your shop, and leave your occupying." This is said to a bawd. Henderson. 5 I'll see her damned first-to Pluto's damned lake, to the infernal deep, with Erebus and tortures vile also.] These words, I believe, were intended to allude to the following passage in an old play called The Battel of Alcazar, 1594, from which Pistol afterwards quotes a line (see p. 71, n. 5): "You dastards of the night and Erebus, "Fiends, fairies, hags, that fight in beds of steel, "The mangled body of that traitor king.- "Damn'd let him be, damn'd and condemn'd to bear Malone. 6 Hold hook and line,] These words are introduced in ridicule, Host. Good captain Peesel, be quiet; it is very late i' faith: I beseek you now, aggravate your choler. by Ben Jonson, in The Case is alter'd, 1609. Of absurd and fus tian passages from many plays, in which Shakspeare had been performer, I have always supposed no small part of Pistol's cha racter to be composed: and the pieces themselves being now irretrievably lost, the humour of his allusion is not a little obscured. Let me add, however, that in the frontispiece to an ancient bl. 1. ballad, entitled The Royal Recreation of Joviall Anglers, one of the figures has the following couplet proceeding from his mouth: "Hold hooke and line, "Then all is mine." Steevens. In Tusser's Husbandry, bl. 1. 1580, it is said: "At noone if it bloweth, at night if it shine, "Out trudgeth Hew Makeshift, with hook and with line." Henderson. 7 Down! down, dogs! down faitors!] A burlesque on a play already quoted; The Battle of Alcazar: "Ye proud malicious dogs of Italy, "Strike on, strike down, this body to the earth." Malone. Faitours, says Minshieu's Dictionary, is a corruption of the French word faiseurs, i. e. factores, doers; and it is used in the statute 7 Rich. II, c. 5, for evil doers, or rather for idle livers; from the French, faitard, which in Cotgrave's Dictionary signifies slothful, idle, &c. Tollet. down faitors!] i. e. traitors, rascals. So, Spenser: "By this false faitour." The word often occurs in The Chester Mysteries. Steevens. 8 Have we not Hiren here?] In an old comedy, 1608, called Law Tricks; or, Who would have thought it? the same quotation is likewise introduced, and on a similar occasion. The Prince Polymetes says: "What ominous news can Polymetes daunt? Again, in Massinger's Old Law: "Clown. No dancing for me, we have Siren here. "Cook. Syren! 'twas Hiren the fair Greek, man." Again, in Decker's Satiromastix: "- therefore whilst we have Hiren here, speak my little dish-washers." 66 Again, in Love's Mistress, a masque, by T. Heywood, 1636: says she is a foul beast in your eyes, yet she is my Hyren." Mr. Tollet observes, that in Adams's Spiritual Navigator, &c. 1615, there is the following passage: "There be sirens in the sea of the world. Syrens? Hirens, as they are now called. What a number of these sirens, Hirens, cockatrices, courteghians,-in plain English, harlots,-swimme amongst us?"Pistol may therefore mean,-Have we not a strumpet here? and why am I thus used by her? Steevens. Pist. These be good humours, indeed! Shall pack horses, And hollow pamper'd jades of Asia, 9 "There From The merie conceited Fests of George Peele, Gentleman, sometime Student in Oxford, quarto, 1657, it appears that Peele was the author of a play called The Turkish Mahomet, and Hyren the fair Greek, which is now lost. One of these jests, or rather stories, is entitled How George read a Play-book to a Gentleman. was a gentleman (says the tale) whom God had endued with good living, to maintain his small wit,-one that took great delight to have the first hearing of any work that George had done, himself being a writer.-This self-conceited brock had George invited to half a score sheets of paper; whose Christianly pen had writ Finis to the famous play of The Turkish Mahomet, and Hyren the fair Greek;-in Italian called a curtezan; in Spaine, a margarite; in French, un curtain; in English, among the barbarous a whore; among the gentles, their usual associates, a punk. -This fantastick, whose brain was made of nought but cork and spunge, came to the cold lodging of Monsieur Peel.-George bids him welcome;-told him he would gladly have his opinion of his book. He willingly condescended, and George begins to read, and between every scene he would make pauses, and demand his opinion how he liked the carriage of it," &c. Have we not Hiren here? was, without doubt, a quotation from this play of Peele's, and, from the explanation of the word Hiren above given, is put with peculiar propriety on the present occasion into the mouth of Pistol. In Eastward Hoe, a comedy, by Jonson, Chapman, and Marston, 1605, Quicksilver comes in drunk, and repeats this, and many other verses, from dramatick performances of that time: 'Holla, ye pamper'd jades of Asia!" [Tamburlaine.] "Hast thou not Hiren here?" [Probably The Turkish Mahomet.] "Who cries on murther? lady, was it you?” [A Parody on The Spanish Tragedy.] All these lines are printed as quotations, in Italicks. In John Day's Law Tricks, quoted by Mr. Steevens, in the preceding note, the Prince Polymetes, when he says, " Have we not Hiren here?" alludes to a lady then present, whom he imagines to be a harlot. 9 Malone. hollow pamper'd jades of Asia, &c.] These lines are in part a quotation out of an old absurd fustian play, entitled Tamburlaine's Conquests; or, The Scythian Shepherds, 1590, [by C. Marlowe.] Theobald. These lines are addressed by Tamburlaine to the captive princes who drew his chariot: Holla, you pamper'd jades of Asia, What! can you draw but twenty miles a day?" The same passage is burlesqued by Beaumont and Fletcher, in |