The First Part of King Henry the Fourth

Wanton as youthful goats, wild as young bulls.
I saw young Harry with his beaver on
His cushes on his thighs, gallantly arm'd,
Rise from the ground like feathered Mercury,
And vaulted with such ease into his seat
As if an angel dropp'd down from the clouds
To turn and wind a fiery Pegasus
And witch the world with noble horsemanship.
Hot. No more, no more! Worse than the sun in March,
This praise doth nourish agues. Let them come.
They come like sacrifices in their trim,
And to the fire-ey'd maid of smoky war
All hot and bleeding Will we offer them.
The mailed Mars Shall on his altar sit
Up to the ears in blood. I am on fire
To hear this rich reprisal is so nigh,
And yet not ours. Come, let me taste my horse,
Who is to bear me like a thunderbolt
Against the bosom of the Prince of Wales.
Harry to Harry shall, hot horse to horse,
Meet, and ne'er part till one drop down a corse.
that Glendower were come!
Ver. There is more news.
I learn'd in Worcester, as I rode along,
He cannot draw his power this fourteen days.
Doug. That's the worst tidings that I hear of yet.
Wor. Ay, by my faith, that bears a frosty sound.
Hot. What may the King's whole battle reach unto?
Ver. To thirty thousand.
Hot. Forty let it be.
My father and Glendower being both away,
The powers of us may serve so great a day.
Come, let us take a muster speedily.
Doomsday is near. Die all, die merrily.
Doug. Talk not of dying. I am out of fear
Of death or death's hand for this one half-year.

Exeunt

Scene II. A public road near Coventry

Enter Falstaff and Bardolph.

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.
Bald. This bottle makes an angel.
Fal. An if it do, take it for thy labour; an if it make twenty,
take them all; I'll answer the coinage. Bid my lieutenant
Peto
meet me at town's end.
Bard. I Will, Captain. Farewell. Exit.
Fal. If I be not ashamed of my soldiers, I am a sous'd 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 ask'd twice on the
banes- 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 press'd 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-fall'n; the cankers of a calm world and a
long
peace; ten times more dishonourable ragged than an old fac'd
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
press'd 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 tack'd together and thrown over the shoulders like a
herald's coat without sleeves; and the shirt, to say the
truth,