Henry IV Part 1: Act 4, Scene 2 Translation

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 Coldfield tonight.

BARDOLPH Will you give me money, captain?

FALSTAFF Lay out, lay out. 5

BARDOLPH This bottle makes an angel.

FALSTAFF An if it do, take it for thy labor. An 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. He exits. 10

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 householders, yeomen’s 15
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 20
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 25
in the painted cloth, where the glutton’s dogs
licked his sores; and such as indeed were never
soldiers, but discarded, unjust servingmen, younger
sons to younger brothers, revolted tapsters, and
ostlers tradefallen, the cankers of a calm world and 30
a long peace, ten times more dishonorable-ragged
than an old feazed 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
tattered prodigals lately come from swine-keeping, 35
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 40
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 tacked together
and thrown over the shoulders like a herald’s coat 45
without sleeves; and the shirt, to say the truth,
stolen 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 and the Lord of Westmoreland.

PRINCE How now, blown Jack? How now, quilt? 50

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
Honor had already been at Shrewsbury.

WESTMORELAND Faith, Sir John, ’tis more than time 55
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. 60

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?

FALSTAFF Mine, Hal, mine.

PRINCE I did never see such pitiful rascals. 65

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. 70

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 No, I’ll be sworn, unless you call three fingers
in the ribs bare. But, sirrah, make haste. Percy is 75
already in the field. He exits.

FALSTAFF What, is the King encamped?

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

FALSTAFF Well, 80
To the latter end of a fray and the beginning of a
feast
Fits a dull fighter and a keen guest.
He exits.