The Life Of King Henry The Fifth

1 Enter Gower and Fluellen, meeting.
2 GOWER.
3 How now, Captain Fluellen! come you from the bridge?
4 FLUELLEN.
5 I assure you, there is very excellent services committed at the bridge.
6 GOWER.
7 Is the Duke of Exeter safe?
8 FLUELLEN.
9 The Duke of Exeter is as magnanimous as Agamemnon; and a man that I
10 love and honour with my soul, and my heart, and my duty, and my life,
11 and my living, and my uttermost power. He is not—God be praised and
12 blessed!—any hurt in the world; but keeps the bridge most valiantly,
13 with excellent discipline. There is an anchient lieutenant there at the
14 pridge, I think in my very conscience he is as valiant a man as Mark
15 Antony; and he is a man of no estimation in the world, but I did see
16 him do as gallant service.
17 GOWER.
18 What do you call him?
19 FLUELLEN.
20 He is call’d Anchient Pistol.
21 GOWER.
22 I know him not.
23 Enter Pistol.
24 FLUELLEN.
25 Here is the man.
26 PISTOL.
27 Captain, I thee beseech to do me favours.
28 The Duke of Exeter doth love thee well.
29 FLUELLEN.
30 Ay, I praise God; and I have merited some love at his hands.
31 PISTOL.
32 Bardolph, a soldier, firm and sound of heart,
33 And of buxom valour, hath by cruel fate
34 And giddy Fortune’s furious fickle wheel,
35 That goddess blind,
36 That stands upon the rolling restless stone—
37 FLUELLEN.
38 By your patience, Anchient Pistol. Fortune is painted blind, with a
39 muffler afore his eyes, to signify to you that Fortune is blind; and
40 she is painted also with a wheel, to signify to you, which is the moral
41 of it, that she is turning, and inconstant, and mutability, and
42 variation; and her foot, look you, is fixed upon a spherical stone,
43 which rolls, and rolls, and rolls. In good truth, the poet makes a most
44 excellent description of it. Fortune is an excellent moral.
45 PISTOL.
46 Fortune is Bardolph’s foe, and frowns on him;
47 For he hath stolen a pax, and hanged must ’a be,—
48 A damned death!
49 Let gallows gape for dog; let man go free,
50 And let not hemp his windpipe suffocate.
51 But Exeter hath given the doom of death
52 For pax of little price.
53 Therefore, go speak; the Duke will hear thy voice;
54 And let not Bardolph’s vital thread be cut
55 With edge of penny cord and vile reproach.
56 Speak, captain, for his life, and I will thee requite.
57 FLUELLEN.
58 Anchient Pistol, I do partly understand your meaning.
59 PISTOL.
60 Why then, rejoice therefore.
61 FLUELLEN.
62 Certainly, anchient, it is not a thing to rejoice at; for if, look you,
63 he were my brother, I would desire the Duke to use his good pleasure,
64 and put him to execution; for discipline ought to be used.
65 PISTOL.
66 Die and be damn’d! and _fico_ for thy friendship!
67 FLUELLEN.
68 It is well.
69 PISTOL.
70 The fig of Spain.
71 [_Exit._]
72 FLUELLEN.
73 Very good.
74 GOWER.
75 Why, this is an arrant counterfeit rascal. I remember him now; a bawd,
76 a cutpurse.
77 FLUELLEN.
78 I’ll assure you, ’a uttered as prave words at the pridge as you shall
79 see in a summer’s day. But it is very well; what he has spoke to me,
80 that is well, I warrant you, when time is serve.
81 GOWER.
82 Why, ’t is a gull, a fool, a rogue, that now and then goes to the wars,
83 to grace himself at his return into London under the form of a soldier.
84 And such fellows are perfect in the great commanders’ names; and they
85 will learn you by rote where services were done; at such and such a
86 sconce, at such a breach, at such a convoy; who came off bravely, who
87 was shot, who disgrac’d, what terms the enemy stood on; and this they
88 con perfectly in the phrase of war, which they trick up with new-tuned
89 oaths: and what a beard of the general’s cut and a horrid suit of the
90 camp will do among foaming bottles and ale-wash’d wits, is wonderful to
91 be thought on. But you must learn to know such slanders of the age, or
92 else you may be marvellously mistook.
93 FLUELLEN.
94 I tell you what, Captain Gower; I do perceive he is not the man that he
95 would gladly make show to the world he is. If I find a hole in his
96 coat, I will tell him my mind. [_Drum heard._] Hark you, the King is
97 coming, and I must speak with him from the pridge.
98 Drum and colours. Enter King Henry, Gloucester and his poor soldiers.
99 God bless your Majesty!
100 KING HENRY.
101 How now, Fluellen! cam’st thou from the bridge?
102 FLUELLEN.
103 Ay, so please your Majesty. The Duke of Exeter has very gallantly
104 maintain’d the pridge. The French is gone off, look you; and there is
105 gallant and most prave passages. Marry, th’ athversary was have
106 possession of the pridge; but he is enforced to retire, and the Duke of
107 Exeter is master of the pridge. I can tell your Majesty, the Duke is a
108 prave man.
109 KING HENRY.
110 What men have you lost, Fluellen?
111 FLUELLEN.
112 The perdition of the athversary hath been very great, reasonable great.
113 Marry, for my part, I think the Duke hath lost never a man, but one
114 that is like to be executed for robbing a church, one Bardolph, if your
115 Majesty know the man. His face is all bubukles, and whelks, and knobs,
116 and flames o’ fire; and his lips blows at his nose, and it is like a
117 coal of fire, sometimes plue and sometimes red; but his nose is
118 executed, and his fire’s out.
119 KING HENRY.
120 We would have all such offenders so cut off; and we give express
121 charge, that in our marches through the country, there be nothing
122 compell’d from the villages, nothing taken but paid for, none of the
123 French upbraided or abused in disdainful language; for when lenity and
124 cruelty play for a kingdom, the gentler gamester is the soonest winner.
125 Tucket. Enter Montjoy.
126 MONTJOY.
127 You know me by my habit.
128 KING HENRY.
129 Well then I know thee. What shall I know of thee?
130 MONTJOY.
131 My master’s mind.
132 KING HENRY.
133 Unfold it.
134 MONTJOY.
135 Thus says my King: Say thou to Harry of England: Though we seem’d dead,
136 we did but sleep; advantage is a better soldier than rashness. Tell him
137 we could have rebuk’d him at Harfleur, but that we thought not good to
138 bruise an injury till it were full ripe. Now we speak upon our cue, and
139 our voice is imperial. England shall repent his folly, see his
140 weakness, and admire our sufferance. Bid him therefore consider of his
141 ransom; which must proportion the losses we have borne, the subjects we
142 have lost, the disgrace we have digested; which in weight to re-answer,
143 his pettishness would bow under. For our losses, his exchequer is too
144 poor; for the effusion of our blood, the muster of his kingdom too
145 faint a number; and for our disgrace, his own person, kneeling at our
146 feet, but a weak and worthless satisfaction. To this add defiance; and
147 tell him, for conclusion, he hath betrayed his followers, whose
148 condemnation is pronounc’d. So far my King and master; so much my
149 office.
150 KING HENRY.
151 What is thy name? I know thy quality.
152 MONTJOY.
153 Montjoy.
154 KING HENRY.
155 Thou dost thy office fairly. Turn thee back,
156 And tell thy King I do not seek him now,
157 But could be willing to march on to Calais
158 Without impeachment; for, to say the sooth,
159 Though ’tis no wisdom to confess so much
160 Unto an enemy of craft and vantage,
161 My people are with sickness much enfeebled,
162 My numbers lessen’d, and those few I have
163 Almost no better than so many French;
164 Who when they were in health, I tell thee, herald,
165 I thought upon one pair of English legs
166 Did march three Frenchmen. Yet, forgive me, God,
167 That I do brag thus! This your air of France
168 Hath blown that vice in me. I must repent.
169 Go therefore, tell thy master here I am;
170 My ransom is this frail and worthless trunk,
171 My army but a weak and sickly guard;
172 Yet, God before, tell him we will come on,
173 Though France himself and such another neighbour
174 Stand in our way. There’s for thy labour, Montjoy.
175 Go, bid thy master well advise himself.
176 If we may pass, we will; if we be hind’red,
177 We shall your tawny ground with your red blood
178 Discolour; and so, Montjoy, fare you well.
179 The sum of all our answer is but this:
180 We would not seek a battle, as we are;
181 Nor, as we are, we say we will not shun it.
182 So tell your master.
183 MONTJOY.
184 I shall deliver so. Thanks to your Highness.
185 [_Exit._]
186 GLOUCESTER.
187 I hope they will not come upon us now.
188 KING HENRY.
189 We are in God’s hands, brother, not in theirs.
190 March to the bridge; it now draws toward night.
191 Beyond the river we’ll encamp ourselves,
192 And on tomorrow bid them march away.
193 [_Exeunt._]