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• The First Part of King Henry the Fourth: Dramatis PersonÆ.
• Act I.
• Scene I.—: London. the Palace.
• Scene II.—: The Same. an Apartment of Theprince’s.
• Scene III.—: The Same. the Palace.
• Act II.
• Scene I.—: Rochester. an Inn-yard.
• Scene II.—: The Road By Gadshill.
• Scene III.—: Warkworth. a Room In the Castle.
• Scene IV.—: Eastcheap. a Room In the Boar’s Head Tavern.
• Act III.
• Scene I.—: Bangor. a Room In the Archdeacon’s House.
• Scene II.—: London. a Room In the Palace.
• Scene III.—: Eastcheap. a Room In the Boar’s Head Tavern.
• Act IV.
• Scene I.—: The Rebel Camp Near Shrewsbury.
• Scene II.—: A Public Road Near Coventry.
• Scene III.—: The Rebel Camp Near Shrewsbury.
• Scene IV.—: York. a Room In Thearchbishop’spalace.
• Act V.
• Scene I.—: Theking’scamp Near Shrewsbury.
• Scene II.—: The Rebel Camp Near Shrewsbury.
• Scene III.—: Between the Camps.
• Scene IV.—: Another Part of the Field.
• Scene V.—: Another Part of the Field.

Scene II.—

A public Road near Coventry.

EnterFalstaffandBardolph.

Fal.

Bardolph, get thee before to Coventry; fill me a bottle of sack: our soldiers shall march through: we’ll to Sutton-Co’fil’ to-night.

Bard.

Will you give me money, captain?

Fal.

Lay out, lay out.

Bard.

This bottle makes an angel.

Fal.

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 the town’s end.

Bard.

I will, captain: farewell.

[Exit.

Fal.

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 householders, yeomen’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 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 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 a herald’s coat without sleeves; and the shirt, to say the truth, stolen from my host at Saint Alban’s, or the red-nose inn-keeper of Daventry. But that’s all one; they’ll find linen enough on every hedge.

Enter thePrinceandWestmoreland.

Prince.

How now, blown Jack! how now, quilt!

Fal.

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.

West.

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.

Fal.

Tut, never fear me: I am as vigilant as a cat to steal cream.

Prince.

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?

Fal.

Mine, Hal, mine.

Prince.

I did never see such pitiful rascals.

Fal.

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.

West.

Ay, but, Sir John, methinks they are exceeding poor and bare; too beggarly.

Fal.

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.

No, I’ll be sworn; unless you call three fingers on the ribs bare. But sirrah, make haste: Percy is already in the field.

Fal.

What, is the king encamped?

West.

He is, Sir John: I fear we shall stay too long.

Fal.

Well,

To the latter end of a fray and the beginning of a feast

Fits a dull fighter and a keen guest.

[Exeunt.