Henry IV, Pt. 1
Act IV, Scene 2
A public road near Coventry .
Bardolph
Henry Stacy Marks, circa 1853
- Enter Falstaff , Bardolph .
Falstaff
1 - 3- 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
4- Will you give me money , captain ?
Falstaff
5- Lay out , lay out .
Bardolph
6- This bottle makes an angel .
Falstaff
7 - 9- And if it do , take it for thy labor , and if it make twenty ,
- take them all , I’ll answer the coinage . Bid my lieutenant
- Peto meet me at town’s end .
Bardolph
10- I will , captain , farewell .
- Exit .
Falstaff
11 - 43- If I be not asham’d of my soldiers , I am a sous’d gurnet . I
- have misus’d 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 householders , yeomen’s
- sons , inquire me out contracted bachelors , such as had been
- ask’d twice on the banes , such a commodity of warm slaves ,
- as had as lief 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 press’d 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 lick’d his sores , and such as
- indeed were never soldiers , but discarded unjust servingmen ,
- younger sons to younger brothers , revolted tapsters , and
- ostlers trade - fall’n , the cankers of a calm world and a long
- peace , ten times more dishonorable ragged than an old feaz’d
- ancient : and such have I , to fill up the rooms of them as
- have bought out their services , that you would think that I
- had a hundred and fifty totter’d 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
- press’d 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 not a shirt and a half in all my company , and the
- half shirt is two napkins tack’d together and thrown over
- the shoulders like a herald’s coat without sleeves ; and the
- shirt , to say the truth , stol’n from my host at Saint
- Albans , or the red - nose innkeeper of Daventry . But that’s
- all one , they’ll find linen - enough on every hedge .
- Enter the Prince , Lord of Westmorland .
A mad fellow met me on the way and told me I had unloaded all the gibbets and press’d the dead bodies.
Johann Heinrich Ramberg, 1829
Prince Henry
44- How now , blown Jack ? How now , quilt ?
Falstaff
45 - 47- What , Hal ? How now , mad wag ? What a devil dost thou in
- Warwickshire ? My good Lord of Westmorland , I cry you mercy !
- I thought your honor had already been at Shrewsbury .
Earl of Westmorland
48 - 50- 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
51 - 52- Tut , never fear me , I am as vigilant as a cat to steal
- cream .
Prince Henry
53 - 55- 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
56- Mine , Hal , mine .
Prince Henry
57- I did never see such pitiful rascals .
Falstaff
58 - 60- 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 .
Earl of Westmorland
61 - 62- Ay , but , Sir John , methinks they are exceeding poor and
- bare , too beggarly .
Falstaff
63 - 65- Faith , for their poverty , I know not where they had that ,
- and for their bareness , I am sure they never learn’d that of
- me .
Prince Henry
66 - 68- No , I’ll be sworn , unless you call three fingers in the ribs
- bare . But , sirrah , make haste , Percy is already in the
- field .
- Exit .
Falstaff
69- What , is the King encamp’d ?
Earl of Westmorland
70- He is , Sir John . I fear we shall stay too long .
Falstaff
71 - 73- Well ,
- To the latter end of a fray and the beginning of a feast
- Fits a dull fighter and a keen guest .
- Exeunt .
Bardolph
J. Mortimer, 18th century