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Enter FALSTAFF and BARDOLPH
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FALSTAFF and BARDOLPH enter.
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FALSTAFF Bardolph, get thee before to Coventry. Fill me a bottle of
sack. Our soldiers shall march through. We’ll to Sutton
Coldfield tonight.
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FALSTAFF Bardolph, go ahead of us to Coventry, and fill me a bottle of wine. Our army will keep marching, and we’ll make it to Sutton Coldfield tonight.
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BARDOLPH Will you give me money, captain?
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BARDOLPH Will you give me some money, captain?
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FALSTAFF
5Lay out, lay out.
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FALSTAFF Spend your own.
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BARDOLPH This bottle makes an angel.
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BARDOLPH If I buy you this bottle, that makes me
an angelan angel = several shillings; Bardolph claims he has spent an angel on Falstaff’s wine. an angel . |
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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.
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FALSTAFF Well, if this bottle earns you an angel, then keep it for your troubles. If you earn twenty angels, then keep them all; I’m good for it. Tell my lieutenant Peto to meet me at the city limit.
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BARDOLPH
10I will, captain. Farewell.
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BARDOLPH I will, captain. Farewell.
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Exit BARDOLPH
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BARDOLPH exits.
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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 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
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FALSTAFF If I’m not ashamed of my soldiers, then I’m a pickled fish. I’ve taken terrible advantage of my position. I’ve pressed a hundred and fifty soldiers into service, and for that, the treasury has paid me over three hundred pounds. I recruited only well-to-do property owners and rich farmer’s sons. I looked for men who were engaged to be married, who were already halfway through their preparations. I found a whole supply of pampered cowards who would rather listen to the devil than a military march; who feared the sound of gunfire
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