"Why so didst thou; or seem they grave and learned."
"For me, the gold of France did not seduce me."
"Which I, in sufferance, heartily will rejoice at."
Sc. 3.
"And 'a babbled of green fields."
The folio reads 'and a table of green fields'; the text is the correction of Theobald, which has been universally accepted; yet talkt would come nearer to table than 'babbled,' and it also better suits the metre; in which I find I had been anticipated by an Anon. ap. Theobald. The Dame afterwards says he "talked of the Whore of Babylon." Collier's folio reads 'for his nose was as sharp as a pen on a table of green freeze,' which is ingenious, but nothing more. The nib of a pen in such a situation is usually black, and so does not strike the eye. 'A table of green fells' has also been conjectured. It has been supposed that Falstaff's mind was wandering, and so may have reverted to his youthful days in the country. But may not he, who must have been a man of some education, have been repeating the 23rd Psalm (so well suited to one in his condition), in which are the words "He maketh me to lie down in green pastures"?