Bardolph

“ Mine host Pistol, you must come to my master, and you, hostess. He is very sick, and would to bed. Good Bardolph, put thy face between his sheets, and do the office of a warming-pan. Faith, he’s very ill.
BARDOLPH.
Away, you rogue!
HOSTESS.
By my troth, he’ll yield the crow a pudding one of these days.
The King has kill’d his heart.
Good husband, come home presently.
[Exeunt Hostess and Boy.]
BARDOLPH.
Come, shall I make you two friends? We must to France together; why the devil should we keep knives to cut one another’s throats? ”

“ There ’tis, boy.
POINS.
O, that this blossom could be kept from cankers! Well, there is sixpence to preserve thee.
BARDOLPH.
An you do not make him be hanged among you, the gallows shall have wrong.
PRINCE.
And how doth thy master, Bardolph?
BARDOLPH.
Well, my lord. He heard of your Grace’s coming to town. There’s a letter for you.
POINS.
Delivered with good respect. And how doth the martlemas, your master?
BARDOLPH.
In bodily health, sir.
POINS.
Marry, the immortal part needs a physician, but that moves not him. Though that be sick, it dies not. ”

“ MOULDY. And, good Master Corporal Captain, for my old dame's sake, stand my friend. She has nobody to do anything about her when I am gone; and she is old, and cannot help herself. You shall have forty, sir. BARDOLPH. Go to; stand aside. FEEBLE. By my troth, I care not; a man can die but once; we owe God a death. I'll ne'er bear a base mind. An't be my destiny, so; an't be not, so. No man's too good to serve 's Prince; and, let it go which way it will, he that dies this year is quit for the next. BARDOLPH. Well said; th'art a good fellow. FEEBLE. Faith, I'll bear no base mind. ”

“ No king of England, if not king of France!
Flourish. Exeunt
SCENE III. Eastcheap. Before the Boar's Head tavern Enter PISTOL, HOSTESS, NYM, BARDOLPH, and Boy
HOSTESS. Prithee, honey-sweet husband, let me bring thee to
Staines.
PISTOL. No; for my manly heart doth earn.
Bardolph, be blithe; Nym, rouse thy vaunting veins;
Boy, bristle thy courage up. For Falstaff he is dead,
And we must earn therefore.
BARDOLPH. Would I were with him, wheresome'er he is, either in
heaven or in hell!
HOSTESS. Nay, sure, he's not in hell: he's in Arthur's bosom,
if
ever man went to Arthur's bosom. ”

“ LORD BARDOLPH. What, is the King but five and twenty thousand? HASTINGS. To us no more; nay, not so much, Lord Bardolph; For his divisions, as the times do brawl, Are in three heads: one power against the French, And one against Glendower; perforce a third Must take up us. So is the unfirm King In three divided; and his coffers sound With hollow poverty and emptiness. ARCHBISHOP. That he should draw his several strengths together And come against us in full puissance Need not be dreaded. HASTINGS. If he should do so, He leaves his back unarm'd, the French and Welsh Baying at his heels. ”

“ BARDOLPH. I beseech you, which is Justice Shallow? SHALLOW. I am Robert Shallow, sir, a poor esquire of this county, and one of the King's justices of the peace. What is your good pleasure with me? BARDOLPH. My captain, sir, commends him to you; my captain, Sir John Falstaff—a tall gentleman, by heaven, and a most gallant leader. SHALLOW. He greets me well, sir; I knew him a good back-sword man. How doth the good knight? May I ask how my lady his wife doth? BARDOLPH. Sir, pardon; a soldier is better accommodated than with a wife. SHALLOW. It is well said, in faith, sir ”

“ For Bardolph, he is white-liver’d and red-fac’d; by the means whereof ’a faces it out, but fights not. For Pistol, he hath a killing tongue and a quiet sword; by the means whereof ’a breaks words, and keeps whole weapons. For Nym, he hath heard that men of few words are the best men; and therefore he scorns to say his prayers, lest ’a should be thought a coward. ”

“ Falstaff, good night.
[Exeunt Prince, Poins, Peto and Bardolph.]
FALSTAFF.
Now comes in the sweetest morsel of the night, and we must hence and leave it unpicked.
[Knocking within.] More knocking at the door?
Enter Bardolph.
How now, what’s the matter?
BARDOLPH.
You must away to court, sir, presently.
A dozen captains stay at door for you.
FALSTAFF.
[To the Page.] Pay the musicians, sirrah. Farewell, hostess; farewell, Doll. You see, my good wenches, how men of merit are sought after. The undeserver may sleep, when the man of action is called on. Farewell, good wenches. ”

“ He had only himself to care for, and he cared for himself well. Like his page, he had a good angel about him, but the devil outbid him. He was as virtuously given as other folk, but perhaps the devil had a handle for temptation in that congenital thirst of his. He was a social spirit too, and he tells us that company, villainous company, was the spoil of him. He was less than thirty when he took the faithful Bardolph into his service, and only just past that age when he made the acquaintance of the nimble Poins. ”

“ It is not Bardolph only whose heart has a warm corner for the memory of the poor old jovial sinner, wounded to death by the falling off of friendship—the implacable hardness of new-born virtue in the regenerated royal mind. ”

“ Bardo Bardi, aged blind scholar, father of Romola. She is his colaborer in the studies he pursues despite his infirmity.—George Eliot, Romola.
Bar'dolph, corporal of captain sir John Falstaff, in 1 and 2 Henry IV. and in The Merry Wives of Windsor. In Henry V. he is promoted to lieutenant, and Nym is corporal. Both are hanged. Bardolph is a bravo, but great humorist; he is a lowbred, drunken swaggerer, wholly without principle, and always poor. His red, pimply nose is an everlasting joke with sir John and others. Sir John in allusion thereto calls Bardolph "The Knight of the Burning Lamp." ”

“ Robert Shallow—did history present us with such a personage—would tamely have submitted to the infliction of guests so expensive as our knight and his retainers, for even one-twentieth part of that term. No country gentleman’s revenues could have stood it. The unaided exertions of the insatiable Bardolph alone would have exhausted the family cellar and exchequer in a fortnight. ”

“ LORD BARDOLPH. Who is it like should lead his forces hither? HASTINGS. The Duke of Lancaster and Westmoreland; Against the Welsh, himself and Harry Monmouth; But who is substituted against the French I have no certain notice. ARCHBISHOP. Let us on, And publish the occasion of our arms. The commonwealth is sick of their own choice; Their over-greedy love hath surfeited. An habitation giddy and unsure Hath he that buildeth on the vulgar heart. O thou fond many, with what loud applause Didst thou beat heaven with blessing Bolingbroke Before he was what thou wouldst have him be! ”

“ LORD BARDOLPH. My lord, I over-rode him on the way; And he is furnish'd with no certainties More than he haply may retail from me. NORTHUMBERLAND. Now, Travers, what good tidings comes with you? TRAVERS. My lord, Sir John Umfrevile turn'd me back With joyful tidings; and, being better hors'd, Out-rode me. After him came spurring hard A gentleman, almost forspent with speed, That stopp'd by me to breathe his bloodied horse. He ask'd the way to Chester; and of him I did demand what news from Shrewsbury. He told me that rebellion had bad luck, And that young Harry Percy's spur was cold. ”

“ BARDOLPH.
Well, the fuel is gone that maintain’d that fire. That’s all the riches I got in his service.
NYM.
Shall we shog? The King will be gone from Southampton.
PISTOL.
Come, let’s away. My love, give me thy lips.
Look to my chattels and my movables.
Let senses rule; the word is “Pitch and Pay.”
Trust none;
For oaths are straws, men’s faiths are wafer-cakes
And hold-fast is the only dog, my duck;
Therefore, Caveto be thy counsellor.
Go, clear thy crystals. Yoke-fellows in arms,
Let us to France; like horse-leeches, my boys,
To suck, to suck, the very blood to suck! ”

“ But when he reflected what indulgent, beneficent masters—if, indeed, parents were not the fitter word—his ancestors had always been to their tenants:—no! for the sake of human nature, he could not believe in such black ingratitude as to suppose Falstaff had come to any harm. It would still be in his power to give his friends a cordial welcome. He led the way almost cheerfully, deploring only that the journey must be performed on foot.
At the first opportunity he whispered Bardolph, “Slip on before us, borrow a horse, steal an ass, or run like mad. ”

“ Enter Bardolph.
How now, Bardolph?
Bard. The army is discharged all and gone.
Fal. Let them go. I'll through Gloucester-
shire; and there will I visit Master Robert ⁠140
Shallow, esquire: I have him already tempering
between my finger and my thumb, and shortly
will I seal with him. Come away. Exeunt.
Scene Four
[Westminster. The Jerusalem Chamber]
Enter the King, Warwick, Thomas Duke of Clarence, Humphrey of Gloucester [and others] . ”

“ Our hero reviewed his position.
“I don’t quite know what to do with them, now I have got them,” he meditated. “I am afraid they won’t find the Falstaff Estates quite up to my representations. I must make it out that I have been robbed by servants during my exile. At any rate, one thing is decided. They don’t go WITHOUT PAYING FOE IT.”
Bardolph returned running, with yellow cheeks, purple lips, and a blue nose,—altogether a remarkable facial chromatic phenomenon.
His tidings were startling.
The lads of Kent had risen in open rebellion, and were devastating the land with fire and sword. ”

“ Bardolph greatly distinguished himself in the sacking of London by the Kentish rebels, several of whom he had the honour of bringing to justice on the pacification of society.
BOOK THE THIRD, 1410.
I. FOR THE MOST PART A TREATISE ON HEROES AND KNIGHTS-ERRANT. WHY should we call Time old, when we constantly find him playing tricks like a schoolboy? Here we have him at the beginning of the fifteenth century, amusing himself by rolling Sir John Falstaff down a hill, which men have agreed to call Life, like a snowball—Sir John getting rounder, and bigger, and whiter, at every push. ”

“ He may keep it still
at
a face-royal, for a barber shall never earn sixpence out of
it;
and yet he'll be crowing as if he had writ man ever since his
father was a bachelor. He may keep his own grace, but he's
almost
out of mine, I can assure him. What said Master Dommelton
about
the satin for my short cloak and my slops?
PAGE. He said, sir, you should procure him better assurance
than
Bardolph. He would not take his band and yours; he liked not
the
security.
FALSTAFF. Let him be damn'd, like the Glutton; pray God his
tongue
be hotter! A whoreson Achitophel! ”

“ Prince. See now whether pure Feare, and entire Cowardise, doth not make thee wrong this vertuous Gentlewoman, to close with vs? Is shee of the Wicked? Is thine Hostesse heere, of the Wicked? Or is the Boy of the Wicked? Or honest Bardolph (whose Zeale burnes in his Nose) of the Wicked? Poin. Answere thou dead Elme, answere
Fal. The Fiend hath prickt downe Bardolph irrecouerable, and his Face is Lucifers Priuy-Kitchin, where hee doth nothing but rost Mault-Wormes: for the Boy, there is a good Angell about him, but the Deuill outbids him too
Prince. For the Women? Fal. ”

“ The whoreson smooth-pates do now wear nothing but high shoes and bunches of keys at their girdles; and if a man is through with them in honest taking up, then they must stand upon security. I had as lief they would put ratsbane in my mouth as offer to stop it with security. I looked he should have sent me two and twenty yards of satin, as I am a true knight, and he sends me “security”. Well, he may sleep in security, for he hath the horn of abundance, and the lightness of his wife shines through it; and yet cannot he see, though he have his own lanthorn to light him. Where’s Bardolph? ”

“ Baldulph, the cunning captain, got him safely from the field, by hiding beneath every bush and brake. He had lost the fairer and the stronger half of his meinie, and was at his wits' end to know how to take counsel with his brother, or to come to his aid. But speak with him he would, so that craft and courage might find a way. Baldulph devised to seek the besiegers' camp in the guise of a jongleur. He arrayed himself in all points as a harper, for he knew well how to chant songs and lays, and to touch the strings tunably. For his brother's sake he made himself as a fool. ”

“ Now and then a shot sounded far away, but clear and sharp, from where the guests of my lord of Barfield were killing time in the warren.
A labouring man, smock-frocked, billy-cocked, gaitered, and hob-nailed, was clamping down the frozen lane, the earth ringing like iron under iron as he walked. By his side was a fair-haired lad of nine or ten years of age, a boy of frank and engaging countenance, carefully and even daintily dressed, and holding up his head as if he were a lord of the soil and knew it. ”

“ The historic parallel to these liberal disbursements suggested by Sir John Falstaff paying Bardolpli arrears of wages, liquidating tavern scores for Ancient Pistol, and bestowing money on new liveries for little Robin (with perhaps a gallant souvenir for old Mistress Ursula, and some pretty toys for the young Whittingtons) out of the unfortunate Master Shallow’s thousand pounds, is most striking. A few years later we find Sir William Bardolf, lieutenant-governor of Calais, complaining bitterly in a letter to the king, that his garrison had only received 500 L.. ”