Act 4 scene 2

  Act IV  Scene II A public road near Coventry.  
  [Enter FALSTAFF and BARDOLPH]  
FALSTAFF Bardolph, get thee before to Coventry; fill me
a bottle of sack: our soldiers shall march through;
we'll to Sutton Co'fil' tonight.		  
BARDOLPH Will you give me money, captain?  
FALSTAFF Lay out, lay out. 5
BARDOLPH This bottle makes an angel.  
FALSTAFF An if it do, take it for thy labour; and if it make
twenty, take them all; I'll answer the coinage. Bid
my lieutenant Peto meet me at town's end.		  
BARDOLPH I will, captain: farewell. 10
  [Exit]  
FALSTAFF






























 

 If I be not ashamed of my soldiers, I am a
soused gurnet. I have misused the king's press dam-
nably. I have got, in exchange of a hundred and fifty
soldiers, three hundred and odd pounds. I press me
none but good house-holders, yeoman's sons; inquire
me out contracted bachelors, such as had been asked
twice on the banns; such a commodity of warm
slaves, as had as lieve hear the devil as a drum; such
as fear the report of a caliver worse than a struck
fowl or a hurt wild-duck. I pressed me none but
such toasts-and-butter, with hearts in their bellies no
bigger than pins' heads, and they have bought out
their services; and now my whole charge consists of
ancients, corporals, lieutenants, gentlemen of com-
panies, slaves as ragged as Lazarus in the painted
cloth, where the glutton's dogs licked his sores; and
such as indeed were never soldiers, but discarded un-
just serving-men, younger sons to younger brothers,
revolted tapsters and ostlers trade-fallen, the cankers
of a calm world and a long peace, ten times more dis-
honourable ragged than an old faced ancient: and
such have I, to fill up the rooms of them that have
bought out their services, that you would think that
I had a hundred and fifty tattered prodigals lately
come from swine-keeping, from eating draff and
husks. A mad fellow met me on the way and told
me I had unloaded all the gibbets and pressed the
dead bodies. No eye hath seen such scarecrows. I'll
not march through Coventry with them, that's flat:
nay, and the villains march wide betwixt the legs,
as if they had gyves on; for indeed I had the most
of them out of prison. There's but a shirt and a half
in all my company; and the half shirt is two napkins
tacked together and thrown over the shoulders like
an herald's coat without sleeves; and the shirt, to say
the truth, stolen from my host at Saint Alban's, or the
red-nose innkeeper of Daventry. But that's all one;
they'll find linen enough on every hedge.



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45
  [Enter the PRINCE and WESTMORELAND]  
PRINCE HENRY How now, blown Jack! how now, quilt!  
FALSTAFF What, Hal! how now, mad wag! what a
devil dost thou in Warwickshire? My good Lord of
Westmoreland, I cry you mercy: I thought your
honour had already been at Shrewsbury.		 50
WESTMORELAND Faith, Sir John,'tis more than time that I
were there, and you too; but my powers are there al-
ready. The king, I can tell you, looks for us all: we
must away all night.
55
FALSTAFF Tut, never fear me: I am as vigilant as a cat
to steal cream.		  
PRINCE HENRY I think, to steal cream indeed, for thy theft
hath already made thee butter. But tell me, Jack,
whose fellows are these that come after?		 60
FALSTAFF Mine, Hal, mine.  
PRINCE HENRY I did never see such pitiful rascals.  
FALSTAFF Tut, tut; good enough to toss; food for pow-
der, food for powder; they'll fill a pit as well as
better: tush, man, mortal men, mortal men.		 65
WESTMORELAND Ay, but, Sir John, methinks they are exceed-
ing poor and bare, too beggarly.		  
FALSTAFF 'Faith, for their poverty, I know not where
they had that; and for their bareness, I am sure they
never learned that of me.		 70
PRINCE HENRY No I'll be sworn; unless you call three
fingers on the ribs bare. But, sirrah, make haste:
Percy is already in the field.

75
FALSTAFF What, is the king encamped?  
WESTMORELAND He is, Sir John: I fear we shall stay too long.  
FALSTAFF Well,
To the latter end of a fray and the beginning of a
feast
Fits a dull fighter and a keen guest.

80
  [Exeunt]