‘Shallow. Come on, come on, come on; give me your hand, Sir; give me your hand, Sir; an early stirrer, by the rood. And how doth my good cousin Silence?
Silence. Good morrow, good cousin Shallow.
Shallow. And how doth my cousin, your bedfellow? and your fairest daughter, and mine, my god-daughter Ellen?
Silence. Alas, a black ouzel, cousin Shallow.
Shallow. By yea and nay, Sir; I dare say, my cousin William is become a good scholar: he is at Oxford still, is he not?
Silence. Indeed, Sir, to my cost.
Shallow. He must then to the Inns of Court shortly. I was once of Clement’s-Inn; where, I think, they will talk of mad Shallow yet.
Silence. You were called lusty Shallow then, cousin.
Shallow. I was called any thing, and I would have done any thing indeed, and roundly too. There was I, and little John Doit of Staffordshire, and black George Bare, and Francis Pickbone, and Will Squele a Cotswold man, you had not four such swinge-bucklers in all the Inns of Court again; and, I may say to you, we knew where the bona-robas were, and had the best of them all at commandment. Then was Jack Falstaff (now Sir John, a boy,) and page to Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk.
Silence. This Sir John, cousin, that comes hither anon about soldiers?