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King Henry IV Part 1: Act 4 Scene 2

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.

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.

[Exit]

FALSTAFF

If I be not ashamed of my soldiers, I am a soused

gurnet. I have misused the king's press damnably.

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

companies, 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 unjust 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 dishonourable 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.

[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.

WESTMORELAND

Faith, Sir John,'tis more than time that I were

there, and you too; but my powers are there already.

The king, I can tell you, looks for us all: we must

away all night.

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?

FALSTAFF

Mine, Hal, mine.

PRINCE HENRY

I did never see such pitiful rascals.

FALSTAFF

Tut, tut; good enough to toss; food for powder, food

for powder; they'll fill a pit as well as better:

tush, man, mortal men, mortal men.

WESTMORELAND

Ay, but, Sir John, methinks they are exceeding 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.

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.

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.

[Exeunt]