Exeunt 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, Iam 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. Amad 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, Icry 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 SCENE III. The rebel camp near Shrewsbury. Enter HOTSPUR, WORCESTER, DOUGLAS, and VERNON HOTSPUR We'll fight with him to-night. EARL OF WORCESTER It may not be. EARL OF DOUGLAS You give him then the advantage. VERNON Not a whit. HOTSPUR Why say you so? looks he not for supply? VERNON So do we. HOTSPUR His is certain, ours is doubtful. EARL OF WORCESTER Good cousin, be advised; stir not tonight. VERNON Do not, my lord. EARL OF DOUGLAS You do not counsel well:
You speak it out of fear and cold heart. VERNON Do me no slander, Douglas: by my life, And I dare well maintain it with my life, If well-respected honour bid me on, I hold as little counsel with weak fear As you, my lord, or any Scot that this day lives:
Let it be seen to-morrow in the battle Which of us fears. EARL OF DOUGLAS Yea, or to-night. VERNON Content. HOTSPUR To-night, say I. VERNON Come, come it nay not be. I wonder much, Being men of such great leading as you are, That you foresee not what impediments Drag back our expedition: certain horse Of my cousin Vernon's are not yet come up:
Your uncle Worcester's horse came but today;And now their pride and mettle is asleep, Their courage with hard labour tame and dull, That not a horse is half the half of himself. HOTSPUR So are the horses of the enemy In general, journey-bated and brought low:
The better part of ours are full of rest. EARL OF WORCESTER The number of the king exceedeth ours:
For God's sake. cousin, stay till all come in.
