Shakespeare's King Henry IV 4.2 - Falstaff's soliloquy

King Henry IV, Part I

Please see the bottom of the page for extensive explanatory notes and other helpful resources.

ACT IV 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.	5
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.	10
[Exit]
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 house-holders, yeoman's sons; inquire	15
	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	20
	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	25
	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	30
	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	35
	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	40
	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	45
	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!	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 honour had already been
	at Shrewsbury.
WESTMORELAND	Faith, Sir John,'tis more than time that I were	55
	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 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.	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 HENRY	No I'll be sworn; unless you call three fingers on
	the ribs bare. But, sirrah, make haste: Percy is	75
	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	80
	Fits a dull fighter and a keen guest.
[Exeunt]

Continue to Henry IV, Part I, Act 4, Scene 3

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Explanatory Notes for Act 4, Scene 2
From Henry IV, Part I. Ed. Brainerd Kellogg. New York: Clark and Maynard.
(Line numbers have been altered.)
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11. Soused gurnet, pickled fish.

14. Press, the press of enlistment.

21. Toasts-and-butter, a contemptuous term for effeminate, comfort-loving cockneys.

24. Ancients, ensign-bearers. Fr. enseigne.

26. The painted cloth, an allusion to the custom of hanging the walls of apartments with cloths on which were painted representations of Dives and Lazarus, the Prodigal Son, and other Scripture subjects.

28. Unjust, dishonest.

29. Revolted, runaway.

32. Old faced ancient, an old patched standard.

50. Quilt, refers to Falstaff's obesity.

53. I cry you mercy. To cry any one mercy is to beg pardon.

61. Thy theft. This implies a perversion of Falstaff's words to signify, "I am as vigilant to steal cream as a cat is."

66. To toss, on the enemy's pikes.

74. Three fingers' thickness of fat.

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How to cite the explanatory notes:
Shakespeare, William. King Henry IV, Part 1. Ed. Brainerd Kellogg. New York: Clark and Maynard, 1885. Shakespeare Online. 20 Feb. 2010. (date when you accessed the information) < http://www.shakespeare-online.com/plays/1kh4_4_2.html >.

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