Act 4, Scene 2

A public Road near Coventry.

[Enter Falstaff and Bardolph.]
Sir John Falstaff
2091 Bardolph, get thee before to Coventry; fill me a bottle of
2092 sack: our soldiers shall march through; we'll to Sutton-Co'fil'
2093 to-night.
Bardolph
2094 Will you give me money, captain?
Sir John Falstaff
2095 Lay out, lay out.
Bardolph
2096 This bottle makes an angel.
Sir John Falstaff
2097 An if it do, take it for thy labour; an if it make twenty,
2098 take them all; I'll answer the coinage. Bid my lieutenant
2099 Peto meet me at the town's end.
Bardolph
2100 I will, captain: farewell.
[Exit.]
Sir John Falstaff
2101 If I be not ashamed of my soldiers, I am a soused gurnet. I have
2102 misused the King's press damnably. I have got, in exchange of
2103 a hundred and fifty soldiers, three hundred and odd pounds. I
2104 press'd me none but good householders, yeomen's sons; inquired
2105 me out contracted bachelors, such as had been ask'd twice on the
2106 banns; such a commodity of warm slaves as had as lief hear the
2107 Devil as a drum; such as fear the report of a caliver worse than
2108 a struck fowl or a hurt wild-duck. I press'd me none but such
2109 toasts-and-butter, with hearts in their bodies no bigger than
2110 pins'-heads, and they have bought out their services; and now
2111 my whole charge consists of ancients, corporals, lieutenants,
2112 gentlemen of companies, slaves as ragged as Lazarus in the
2113 painted cloth, where the glutton's dogs licked his sores; and
2114 such as, indeed, were never soldiers, but discarded unjust
2115 serving-men, younger sons to younger brothers, revolted tapsters,
2116 and ostlers trade-fallen; the cankers of a calm world and a long
2117 peace; ten times more dishonourable ragged than an old faced
2118 ancient: and such have I, to fill up the rooms of them that have
2119 bought out their services, that you would think that I had a
2120 hundred and fifty tattered Prodigals lately come from
2121 swine-keeping, from eating draff and husks. A mad fellow met me on
2122 the way, and told me I had unloaded all the gibbets, and press'd
2123 the dead bodies.
2124 No eye hath seen such scarecrows. I'll not march through Coventry
2125 with them, that's flat: nay, and the villains march wide betwixt
2126 the legs, as if they had gyves on; for, indeed, I had the most of
2127 them out of prison. There's but a shirt and a half in all my company;
2128 and the half-shirt is two napkins tack'd together and thrown over the
2129 shoulders like a herald's coat without sleeves; and the shirt, to say
2130 the truth, stolen from my host at Saint Alban's, or the red-nose
2131 innkeeper of Daventry.
2132 But that's all one; they'll find linen enough on every hedge.
[Enter Prince Henry and Westmoreland.]
Prince Hal
2133 How now, blown Jack! how now, quilt!
Sir John Falstaff
2134 What, Hal! how now, mad wag! what a devil dost thou in
2135 Warwickshire?—My good Lord of Westmoreland, I cry you mercy:
2136 I thought your honour had already been at Shrewsbury.
Earl of Westmoreland
2137 Faith, Sir John, 'tis more than time that I were there, and you too;
2138 but my powers are there already. The King, I can tell you, looks for
2139 us all: we must away all, to-night.
Sir John Falstaff
2140 Tut, never fear me: I am as vigilant as a cat to steal cream.
Prince Hal
2141 I think, to steal cream, indeed; for thy theft hath already made thee
2142 butter. But tell me, Jack, whose fellows are these that come after?
Sir John Falstaff
2143 Mine, Hal, mine.
Prince Hal
2144 I did never see such pitiful rascals.
Sir John Falstaff
2145 Tut, tut; good enough to toss; food for powder, food for powder;
2146 they'll fill a pit as well as better: tush, man, mortal men,
2147 mortal men.
Earl of Westmoreland
2148 Ay, but, Sir John, methinks they are exceeding poor and bare,—too
2149 beggarly.
Sir John Falstaff
2150 Faith, for their poverty, I know not where they had that; and,
2151 for their bareness, I am sure they never learn'd that of me.
Prince Hal
2152 No, I'll be sworn; unless you call three fingers on the ribs
2153 bare. But, sirrah, make haste: Percy is already in the field.
[Exit.]
Sir John Falstaff
2154 What, is the King encamp'd?
Earl of Westmoreland
2155 He is, Sir John: I fear we shall stay too long.
[Exit.]
Sir John Falstaff
2156 Well,
2157 To the latter end of a fray and the beginning of a feast
2158 Fits a dull fighter and a keen guest.
[Exit.]

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Word definitions on hover

Notes

TLN 2091archaic vocab
“fill me a bottle of sack”
'Sack' was a dry white wine imported from Spain or the Canary Islands, the most fashionable and expensive drink in Elizabethan England. Falstaff's first thought before battle is to secure his supply of it.
TLN 2092historical topical
“we'll to Sutton-Co'fil' to-night”
'Sutton-Co'fil'' is Sutton Coldfield, a market town in Warwickshire, about fifteen miles southeast of Coventry on the main road north-west toward Shrewsbury. The contraction marks a casual, vernacular pronunciation.
historical The Battle of Shrewsbury (1403)
TLN 2102historical topical
“misused the King's press damnably”
The 'King's press' was the royal authority to conscript men for military service by force — known as impressment. Falstaff has corruptly sold exemptions to the men he should have drafted, pocketing the money and filling his ranks instead with the dregs he could not shake down.
TLN 2105archaic vocab
“such as had been ask'd twice on the banns”
Marriage 'banns' were the public announcements of an intended wedding, read aloud in church on three successive Sundays before the ceremony so that anyone with a legal objection could come forward. To have been 'asked twice on the banns' means a man was within days of marrying — close enough to his wedding that a good reason to excuse him from the army.
TLN 2107archaic vocab
“fear the report of a caliver worse than a struck fowl”
A 'caliver' was a light musket — a firearm lighter than the heavier arquebus — carried by infantry in Shakespeare's day. The 'report' is the noise of its discharge, and Falstaff's men are so cowardly that the sound of a gun frightens them more than it frightens a bird that has just been shot.
TLN 2112biblical allusion
“ragged as Lazarus in the painted cloth, where the glutton's dogs licked his sores”
Falstaff compares his troops to Lazarus, the starving beggar in Jesus's parable whose sores were licked by dogs at the rich man's gate. The 'painted cloth' is a cheap wall-hanging — a canvas painted with a popular scene — which was the poor household's substitute for expensive tapestry. Taverns and inns commonly displayed this very story.
biblical Dives and Lazarus
TLN 2120biblical allusion
“tattered Prodigals lately come from swine-keeping, from eating draff and husks”
'Draff and husks' are the waste-grain swill fed to pigs -- the lowest possible food. Falstaff quotes the parable of the Prodigal Son, who squandered his inheritance and was reduced to feeding swine, envying them their husks. He says his wretched soldiers look as though they have just stumbled in from the same degradation.
biblical The Prodigal Son
TLN 2125archaic vocab
“the villains march wide betwixt the legs, as if they had gyves on”
'Gyves' (rhymes with 'hives') are iron fetters or shackles locked around a prisoner's ankles. Falstaff says his men shuffle along with their legs spread wide as if they were still chained — because he has, in fact, recruited most of them directly out of prison.
TLN 2133wordplay
“blown Jack! how now, quilt”
Prince Hal greets Falstaff with two insults aimed at his bulk. 'Blown' means puffed up or inflated, like a bloated carcass or a man swollen with self-importance and fat. 'Quilt' pictures Falstaff as a padded object — stuffed, rounded, good for nothing but lying on.
TLN 2140wordplay
“I am as vigilant as a cat to steal cream”
Falstaff boasts of vigilance but his own simile gives him away: a cat is 'vigilant' only in stalking something to eat, not in guarding anything. Prince Hal immediately takes the word 'steal' and runs with it — Falstaff's 'theft hath already made thee butter' — turning the fat knight's self-praise into a confession of gluttony.
TLN 2145cultural context
“food for powder, food for powder; they'll fill a pit as well as better”
'Food for powder' means cannon fodder — men of no importance, useful only to be shot at and to fill a mass grave. Falstaff says his wretched troops will die just as effectively as better soldiers: a pit (the mass grave of the battlefield) accepts anyone. The phrase is one of Shakespeare's bleakest comic lines.