Henry V

epub:type="z3998:persona">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?


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 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 I did see him do as gallant service.


Gower
What do you call him?


Fluellen
He is call’d Aunchient Pistol.


Gower
I know him not.



Enter Pistol.


Fluellen
Here is the man.


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,

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 painted blind, with a muffler afore his 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 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;

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 windpipe suffocate:

But Exeter hath given the doom of death

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.



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 him to execution; for discipline ought to be used.


Pistol
Die and be damned! and figo for thy friendship!


Fluellen
It is well.


Pistol
The fig of Spain!



Exit.


Fluellen
Very good.


Gower
Why, this is an arrant counterfeit rascal; I remember him now; a bawd, a cutpurse.


Fluellen
I’ll assure you, a’ uttered as prave words at the pridge as you shall see in a summer’s day. But it is very well; what he has spoke to me, that is well, 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: 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, 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 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. 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 bless your majesty!


King Henry
How now, Fluellen! camest thou from the bridge?


Fluellen
Ay, so please your majesty. The Duke of Exeter has 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 pridge: I can tell your majesty, the duke is a prave man.


King Henry
What men have you lost, Fluellen?


Fluellen
The perdition of th’ athversary hath been very great, reasonable great: marry, for my part, I 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 a coal of fire, sometimes plue and sometimes red; but his nose is executed, and his fire’s out.


King Henry
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 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.


King Henry
Well then I know thee: what shall I know of thee?


Montjoy
My master’s mind.


King Henry
Unfold it.


Montjoy
Thus says my king: Say thou to Harry of England: Though we seemed dead, we did but sleep: advantage is a better soldier than rashness. Tell him we could have rebuked him at Harfleur, but that