List iconHenry IV, Part 1:
Act 4, scene 2List icon

Henry IV, Part 1
Act 4, scene 2

Synopsis:

Contents

Characters in the Play

Entire Play

Henry IV, Part 1, culminates in the battle of Shrewsbury between the king’s army and rebels seeking his crown. The…

Act 1, scene 1

King Henry meets with his advisers to discuss his proposed crusade to the Holy Land, but the discussion turns instead…

Act 1, scene 2

Prince Hal and Sir John Falstaff taunt each other, Hal warning Falstaff that he will one day be hanged as…

Act 1, scene 3

King Henry meets with Hotspur, Hotspur’s father (Northumberland), and his uncle (Worcester) to demand that Hotspur yield his prisoners to…

Act 2, scene 1

Gadshill, the “setter” for Falstaff and his fellow thieves, seeks information at an inn about the travelers whom they plan…

Act 2, scene 2

Falstaff, Peto, Bardolph, and Gadshill rob the travelers and are, in turn, robbed by Prince Hal and Poins in disguise.

Act 2, scene 3

Hotspur reads a letter from a nobleman who refuses to join the rebellion against King Henry. Lady Percy enters to…

Act 2, scene 4

At a tavern in Eastcheap, Prince Hal and Poins amuse themselves by tormenting a young waiter while waiting for Falstaff…

Act 3, scene 1

Hotspur, Worcester, Mortimer, and the leader of the Welsh rebels, Glendower, meet in Wales to make final the terms of…

Act 3, scene 2

Prince Hal reconciles himself with his father by swearing to fight the rebels and to defeat Hotspur.

Act 3, scene 3

Falstaff tries to swindle the Hostess of the inn. Prince Hal offers Falstaff a command in the infantry.

Act 4, scene 1

Hotspur, Worcester, and Douglas learn that Hotspur’s father, Northumberland, is too sick to join them in the coming battle. They…

Act 4, scene 2

Falstaff discloses to the audience how he has misused his commission as an officer to take money from men eager…

Act 4, scene 3

As Hotspur argues with his fellow commanders about when to fight, they are visited by Sir Walter Blunt, who brings…

Act 4, scene 4

The archbishop of York and Sir Michael, who sympathize with Hotspur, debate the chances of his success against the king’s…

Act 5, scene 1

Worcester and Vernon visit the king’s camp, where Worcester repeats the grievances that he says have led to the rebellion….

Act 5, scene 2

Worcester lies to Hotspur, telling him that the king made no offer of pardon and is ready to begin the…

Act 5, scene 3

The battle begins. Douglas kills Blunt, who is disguised as King Henry. Falstaff enters alone to disclose to the audience…

Act 5, scene 4

Prince Hal saves King Henry from death at the hands of Douglas. Hal then meets Hotspur. While they are fighting,…

Act 5, scene 5

The king’s forces having won, King Henry condemns Worcester and Vernon to death, and the king and his supporters prepare…
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⌜Scene 2⌝
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 5Lay out, lay out.
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 10I will, captain. Farewell. He exits.
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
15 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
169
Henry IV, Part I
ACT 4. SC. 2

20 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,
25 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 servingmen, younger
 sons to younger brothers, revolted tapsters, and
30 ostlers tradefallen, the cankers of a calm world and
 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
35 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
40 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 not a shirt and a half in all my company,
 and the half shirt is two napkins tacked together
45 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 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 50How now, blown Jack? How now, quilt?
FALSTAFF What, Hal, how now, mad wag? What a devil
 dost thou in Warwickshire?—My good Lord of
171
Henry IV, Part I
ACT 4. SC. 2

 Westmoreland, I cry you mercy. I thought your
 Honor had already been at Shrewsbury.
WESTMORELAND 55Faith, 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
60 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?
FALSTAFF Mine, Hal, mine.
PRINCE 65I 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
70 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 No, I’ll be sworn, unless you call three fingers
75 in the ribs bare. But, sirrah, make haste. Percy is
 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 80Well,
 To the latter end of a fray and the beginning of a
 feast
 Fits a dull fighter and a keen guest.
⌜He⌝ exits.



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