Notes on the notes:

3. Sutton Co'fil': Sutton Coldfield, a town in Warwickshire near Coventry.

5. Lay out: i.e., pay for it yourself.

6. makes an angel: i.e., brings your debt to ten shillings. (But Falstaff answers as though makes means "produces," implying that Bardolph can profit from the transaction.) An angel was a gold coin stamped with the figure of the archangel Michael.

8. I'll answer the coinage: i.e., I'll be responsible for whatever money the purchases "make."

11-12. sous'd gurnet: pickled fish. press: warrant for conscripting.

12. King's press: royal warrant for the impressment of troops.

14. press: draft, conscript.

15. good: i.e., wealthy. yeoman's: small freeholders'.

16. contracted: engaged to be married.

17-18. banns: i.e., public announcements, repeated on three successive Sundays, of an intent to marry. commodity of warm slaves: lot of comfort-loving fellows.

18. lieve: lief; i.e., willingly.

19. caliver: musket.

20. struck: wounded.

21. toasts-and-butter: weaklings.

22-23. bought out their services: i.e., bribed me to release them from military duty.

23. charge: company, troop.

24. ancients: ensigns; i.e., standard-bearers. (By appointing a disproportionate number of junior officers, Falstaff had made it possible to collect for himself their more substantial pay.) gentlemen of companies: a kind of junior officer; gentlemen -- but not officers -- who had volunteered for military service.

25. painted cloth: cheap wall-hangings. (For the story of Lazarus the beggar and Dives the rich man, see Luke 16:19-31.)

27. unjust: dishonest.

28. younger sons to younger brothers: i.e., with no possibility of inheritance. revolted: runaway.

29.trade-fall'n: whose business has fallen away; unemployed. cankers: cankerworms that destroy leaves and buds. (Used figuratively.)

31. feaz'd ancient: tattered and frayed flag.

34. totter'd: tattered. prodigals: spendthrifts. (See Luke 15:15-16.)

35. draff: swill, hogwash. mad: madcap.

37. gibbets: gallows.

39. that's flat: that's for sure.

40. gyves: fetters, leg-irons.

45. my host: the innkeeper.

46. Saint Albons: St. Albans, town north of London on the road to Coventry. Daventry: town in Northamptonshire, west of London on the road to Coventry.

47. that's all one: i.e., no matter.

48. hedge: Where wet linen was spread out to dry and could be easily stolen.

49. blown: swollen, inflated; also, short of wind. quilt: thickly padded.

52. cry you mercy: beg your pardon.

55. powers: soldiers, troops.

56. must away: must march.

58. fear: worry about.

60-61. thy theft hath already made thee butter: i.e., all the cream (rich things) you have stolen has been churned into butter-fat in your barrel-like belly.

65. toss: i.e., on a pike. food for powder: cannon fodder.

69. poor and bare: inferior and threadbare. (But Falstaff puns on the sense of "financially strapped and lean.")

70. for: as for.

73-74. three fingers on the ribs: i.e., Falstaff's fat-covered ribs. (A finger was a measure of three-fourths of an inch.)

79-80. To the latter end of a fray and the beginning of a feast / Fits a dull fighter and a keen guest: i.e., Better to be late to a battle and early to a feast. (Keen means "with keen appetite.")