Henry V
| ACT III SCENE VI | The English camp in Picardy. | |
| Enter GOWER and FLUELLEN, meeting. | ||
| GOWER | How now, Captain Fluellen! come you from the bridge? | |
| FLUELLEN | I assure you, there is very excellent services | |
| committed at the bridge. | ||
| GOWER | Is the Duke of Exeter safe? | 5 |
| FLUELLEN | The Duke of Exeter is as magnanimous as Agamemnon; | |
| and a man that I love and honour with my soul, and my | ||
| heart, and my duty, and my life, and my living, and | ||
| my uttermost power: he is not-God be praised and | ||
| blessed!–any hurt in the world; but keeps the | 10 | |
| bridge most valiantly, with excellent discipline. | ||
| There is an aunchient lieutenant there at the | ||
| pridge, I think in my very conscience he is as | ||
| valiant a man as Mark Antony; and he is a man of no | ||
| estimation in the world; but did see him do as | 15 | |
| gallant service. | ||
| GOWER | What do you call him? | |
| FLUELLEN | He is called Aunchient Pistol. | |
| GOWER | I know him not. | |
| Enter PISTOL | ||
| FLUELLEN | Here is the man. | 20 |
| PISTOL | Captain, I thee beseech to do me favours: | |
| The Duke of Exeter doth love thee well. | ||
| FLUELLEN | Ay, I praise God; and I have merited some love at | |
| his hands. | ||
| PISTOL | Bardolph, a soldier, firm and sound of heart, | 25 |
| And of buxom valour, hath, by cruel fate, | ||
| And giddy Fortune’s furious fickle wheel, | ||
| That goddess blind, | ||
| That stands upon the rolling restless stone– | ||
| FLUELLEN | By your patience, Aunchient Pistol. Fortune is | 30 |
| painted blind, with a muffler afore her eyes, to | ||
| signify to you that Fortune is blind; and she is | ||
| painted also with a wheel, to signify to you, which | ||
| is the moral of it, that she is turning, and | ||
| inconstant, and mutability, and variation: and her | 35 | |
| foot, look you, is fixed upon a spherical stone, | ||
| which rolls, and rolls, and rolls: in good truth, | ||
| the poet makes a most excellent description of it: | ||
| Fortune is an excellent moral. | ||
| PISTOL | Fortune is Bardolph’s foe, and frowns on him; | 40 |
| For he hath stolen a pax, and hanged must a’ be: | ||
| A damned death! | ||
| Let gallows gape for dog; let man go free | ||
| And let not hemp his wind-pipe suffocate: | ||
| But Exeter hath given the doom of death | 45 | |
| For pax of little price. | ||
| Therefore, go speak: the duke will hear thy voice: | ||
| And let not Bardolph’s vital thread be cut | ||
| With edge of penny cord and vile reproach: | ||
| Speak, captain, for his life, and I will thee requite. | 50 | |
| FLUELLEN | Aunchient Pistol, I do partly understand your meaning. | |
| PISTOL | Why then, rejoice therefore. | |
| FLUELLEN | Certainly, aunchient, it is not a thing to rejoice | |
| at: for if, look you, he were my brother, I would | ||
| desire the duke to use his good pleasure, and put | 55 | |
| him to execution; for discipline ought to be used. | ||
| PISTOL | Die and be damn’d! and figo for thy friendship! | |
| FLUELLEN | It is well. | |
| PISTOL | The fig of Spain! | |
| Exit. | ||
| FLUELLEN | Very good. | 60 |
| GOWER | Why, this is an arrant counterfeit rascal; I | |
| remember him now; a bawd, a cutpurse. | ||
| FLUELLEN | I’ll assure you, a’ uttered as brave words at the | |
| bridge as you shall see in a summer’s day. But it | ||
| is very well; what he has spoke to me, that is well, | 65 | |
| I warrant you, when time is serve. | ||
| GOWER | Why, ’tis a gull, a fool, a rogue, that now and then | |
| goes to the wars, to grace himself at his return | ||
| into London under the form of a soldier. And such | ||
| fellows are perfect in the great commanders’ names: | 70 | |
| and they will learn you by rote where services were | ||
| done; at such and such a sconce, at such a breach, | ||
| at such a convoy; who came off bravely, who was | ||
| shot, who disgraced, what terms the enemy stood on; | ||
| and this they con perfectly in the phrase of war, | 75 | |
| which they trick up with new-tuned oaths: and what | ||
| a beard of the general’s cut and a horrid suit of | ||
| the camp will do among foaming bottles and | ||
| ale-washed wits, is wonderful to be thought on. But | ||
| you must learn to know such slanders of the age, or | 80 | |
| else you may be marvellously mistook. | ||
| FLUELLEN | I tell you what, Captain Gower; I do perceive he is | |
| not the man that he would gladly make show to the | ||
| world he is: if I find a hole in his coat, I will | ||
| tell him my mind. | 85 | |
| Drum heard | ||
| Hark you, the king is coming, and I must speak with | ||
| him from the pridge. | ||
| Drum and colours. Enter KING HENRY, GLOUCESTER, and Soldiers. | ||
| God pless your majesty! | ||
| KING HENRY V | How now, Fluellen! camest thou from the bridge? | |
| FLUELLEN | Ay, so please your majesty. The Duke of Exeter has | 90 |
| very gallantly maintained the pridge: the French is | ||
| gone off, look you; and there is gallant and most | ||
| prave passages; marry, th’ athversary was have | ||
| possession of the pridge; but he is enforced to | ||
| retire, and the Duke of Exeter is master of the | 95 | |
| pridge: I can tell your majesty, the duke is a | ||
| prave man. | ||
| KING HENRY V | What men have you lost, Fluellen? | |
| FLUELLEN | The perdition of th’ athversary hath been very | |
| great, reasonable great: marry, for my part, I | 100 | |
| think the duke hath lost never a man, but one that | ||
| is like to be executed for robbing a church, one | ||
| Bardolph, if your majesty know the man: his face is | ||
| all bubukles, and whelks, and knobs, and flames o’ | ||
| fire: and his lips blows at his nose, and it is like | 105 | |
| a coal of fire, sometimes plue and sometimes red; | ||
| but his nose is executed and his fire’s out. | ||
| KING HENRY V | We would have all such offenders so cut off: and we | |
| give express charge, that in our marches through the | ||
| country, there be nothing compelled from the | 110 | |
| villages, nothing taken but paid for, none of the | ||
| French upbraided or abused in disdainful language; | ||
| for when lenity and cruelty play for a kingdom, the | ||
| gentler gamester is the soonest winner. | ||
| Tucket. Enter MONTJOY | ||
| MONTJOY | You know me by my habit. | 115 |
| KING HENRY V | Well then I know thee: what shall I know of thee? | |
| MONTJOY | My master’s mind. | |
| KING HENRY V | Unfold it. | |
| MONTJOY | Thus says my king: Say thou to Harry of England: | |
| Though we seemed dead, we did but sleep: advantage | 120 | |
| is a better soldier than rashness. Tell him we | ||
| could have rebuked him at Harfleur, but that we | ||
| thought not good to bruise an injury till it were | ||
| full ripe: now we speak upon our cue, and our voice | ||
| is imperial: England shall repent his folly, see | 125 | |
| his weakness, and admire our sufferance. Bid him | ||
| therefore consider of his ransom; which must | ||
| proportion the losses we have borne, the subjects we | ||
| have lost, the disgrace we have digested; which in | ||
| weight to re-answer, his pettiness would bow under. | 130 | |
| For our losses, his exchequer is too poor; for the | ||
| effusion of our blood, the muster of his kingdom too | ||
| faint a number; and for our disgrace, his own | ||
| person, kneeling at our feet, but a weak and | ||
| worthless satisfaction. To this add defiance: and | 135 | |
| tell him, for conclusion, he hath betrayed his | ||
| followers, whose condemnation is pronounced. So far | ||
| my king and master; so much my office. | ||
| KING HENRY V | What is thy name? I know thy quality. | |
| MONTJOY | Montjoy. | 140 |
| KING HENRY V | Thou dost thy office fairly. Turn thee back. | |
| And tell thy king I do not seek him now; | ||
| But could be willing to march on to Calais | ||
| Without impeachment: for, to say the sooth, | ||
| Though ’tis no wisdom to confess so much | 145 | |
| Unto an enemy of craft and vantage, | ||
| My people are with sickness much enfeebled, | ||
| My numbers lessened, and those few I have | ||
| Almost no better than so many French; | ||
| Who when they were in health, I tell thee, herald, | 150 | |
| I thought upon one pair of English legs | ||
| Did march three Frenchmen. Yet, forgive me, God, | ||
| That I do brag thus! This your air of France | ||
| Hath blown that vice in me: I must repent. | ||
| Go therefore, tell thy master here I am; | 155 | |
| My ransom is this frail and worthless trunk, | ||
| My army but a weak and sickly guard; | ||
| Yet, God before, tell him we will come on, | ||
| Though France himself and such another neighbour | ||
| Stand in our way. There’s for thy labour, Montjoy. | 160 | |
| Go bid thy master well advise himself: | ||
| If we may pass, we will; if we be hinder’d, | ||
| We shall your tawny ground with your red blood | ||
| Discolour: and so Montjoy, fare you well. | ||
| The sum of all our answer is but this: | 165 | |
| We would not seek a battle, as we are; | ||
| Nor, as we are, we say we will not shun it: | ||
| So tell your master. | ||
| MONTJOY | I shall deliver so. Thanks to your highness. | |
| Exit. | ||
| GLOUCESTER | I hope they will not come upon us now. | 170 |
| KING HENRY V | We are in God’s hand, brother, not in theirs. | |
| March to the bridge; it now draws toward night: | ||
| Beyond the river we’ll encamp ourselves, | ||
| And on to-morrow, bid them march away. | ||
| Exeunt |
Henry V, Act 3, Scene 7