SCENE II. A public road near Coventry. The First part of King Henry the Fourth  Shakespeare homepage  |  Henry IV, part 1  | Act 4, Scene 2 

 Previous scene  |  Next scene  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  Shakespeare homepage  |  Henry IV, part 1  | Act 4, Scene 2 

 Previous scene  |  Next scene 