HENRY THE FIFTH

Act 3 Scene 6

(Enter Captains Gower and Fluellen, meeting)
l1l	Gower	 How now, Captain Fluellen, come you from the
l2l		bridge?
l3l	Fluellen	I assure you there is very excellent services
l4l		committed at the bridge.
l5l	Gower	Is the Duke of Exeter safe?
l6l	Fluellen	The Duke of Exeter is as magnanimous as
l7l		Agamemnon, and a man that I love and honour with
l8l		my soul and my heart and my duty and my live and
l9l		my living and my uttermost power. He is not, God be
l10l		praised and blessed, any hurt in the world, but keeps
l11l		the bridge most valiantly, with excellent discipline.
l12l		There is an ensign lieutenant there at the pridge, I
l13l		think in my very conscience he is as valiant a man as
l14l		Mark Antony, and he is a man of no estimation in the
l15l		world, but I did see him do as gallant service.
l16l	Gower	What do you call him?
l17l	Fluellen	He is called Ensign Pistol.
l18l	Gower	I know him not.
		(Enter Ensign Pistol)
l19l	Fluellen	 Here is the man.
l20l	Pistol	 Captain, I thee beseech to do me favours.
l21l		The Duke of Exeter doth love thee well.
l22l	Fluellen	 Ay, I praise God, and I have merited some love
l23l		at his hands.
l24l	Pistol	 Bardolph, a soldier firm and sound of heart,
l25l		Of buxom valour, hath by cruel fate
l26l		And giddy Fortune’s furious fickle wheel,
l27l		That goddess blind that stands upon the rolling restless stone—
l28l	Fluellen	 By your patience, Ensign Pistol: Fortune is
l29l		painted blind, with a muffler afore her eyes, to signify
l30l		to you that Fortune is blind. And she is painted also
l31l		with a wheel, to signify to you—which is the moral of
l32l		it—that she is turning and inconstant and mutability
l33l		and variation. And her foot, look you, is fixed upon a
l34l		spherical stone, which rolls and rolls and rolls. In good
l35l		truth, the poet makes a most excellent description of
l36l		it# Fortune is an excellent moral.
l37l	Pistol	 Fortune is Bardolph’s foe and frowns on him,
l38l		For he hath stol’n a pax, and hangèd must a be.
l39l		A damnèd death—
l40l		Let gallows gape for dog, let man go free,
l41l		And let not hemp his windpipe suffocate.
l42l		But Exeter hath given the doom of death
l43l		For pax of little price.
l44l		Therefore go speak, the Duke will hear thy voice,
l45l		And let not Bardolph’s vital thread be cut
l46l		With edge of penny cord and vile reproach.
l47l		Speak, captain, for his life, and I will thee requite.
l48l	Fluellen	 Ensign Pistol, I do partly understand your
l49l		meaning.
l50l	Pistol	 Why then rejoice therefor.
l51l	Fluellen	 Certainly, ensign, it is not a thing to rejoice at.
l52l		For if, look you, he were my brother, I would desire
l53l		the Duke to use his good pleasure, and put him to
l54l		executions. For discipline ought to be used.
l55l	Pistol	 Die and be damned! and fico for thy friendship.
l56l	Fluellen	 It is well.
l57l	Pistol	 The fig of Spain.
l58l	Fluellen	 Very good.
l59l	Pistol	 I say the fig within thy bowels and thy dirty maw.
		(Exit)
l60l	Fluellen	 Captain Gower, cannot you hear it lighten and
l61l		thunder?
l62l	Gower	Why, is this the ensign you told me of? I remember
l63l		him now. A bawd, a cutpurse.
l64l	Fluellen	I’ll assure you, a uttered as prave words at the
l65l		pridge as you shall see in a summer’s day. But it is
l66l		very well. What he has spoke to me, that is well, I
l67l		warrant you, when time is serve.
l68l	Gower	Why ’tis a gull, a fool, a rogue, that now and
l69l		then goes to the wars, to grace himself at his return
l70l		into London under the form of a soldier. And such
l71l		fellows are perfect in the great commanders’ names,
l72l		and they will learn you by rote where services were
l73l		done—at such and such a sconce, at such a breach,
l74l		at such a convoy, who came off bravely, who was shot,
l75l		who disgraced, what terms the enemy stood on—and
l76l		this they con perfectly in the phrase of war, which they
l77l		trick up with new-tuned oaths. And what a beard of
l78l		the General’s cut and a horrid suit of the camp will do
l79l		among foaming bottles and ale-washed wits is
l80l		wonderful to be thought on. But you must learn to
l81l		know such slanders of the age, or else you may be
l82l		marvellously mistook.
l83l	Fluellen	I tell you what, Captain Gower, I do perceive
l84l		he is not the man that he would gladly make show to
l85l		the world he is. If I find a hole in his coat, I will tell
l86l		him my mind.
		(A drum is heard)
l87l		Hark you, the King is coming, and I must speak with
l88l		him from the pridge.
		(Enter King Harry and his poor soldiers, with drum and colours)
l89l		God pless your majesty.
l90l	King Harry	 How now, Fluellen, com’st thou from the bridge?
l91l	Fluellen	 Ay, so please your majesty. The Duke of Exeter
l92l		has very gallantly maintained the pridge. The French
l93l		is gone off, look you, and there is gallant and most
l94l		prave passages. Marry, th’ athversary was have possession
l95l		of the pridge, but he is enforced to retire, and the
l96l		Duke of Exeter is master of the pridge. I can tell your
l97l		majesty, the Duke is a prave man.
l98l	King Harry	What men have you lost, Fluellen?
l99l	Fluellen	The perdition of th’ athversary hath been very
l100l		great, reasonable great. Marry, for my part I think the
l101l		Duke hath lost never a man, but one that is like to be
l102l		executed for robbing a church, one Bardolph, if your
l103l		majesty know the man. His face is all bubuncles and
l104l		whelks and knobs and flames o’ fire, and his lips blows
l105l		at his nose, and it is like a coal of fire, sometimes plue
l106l		and sometimes red. But his nose is executed, and his
l107l		fire’s out.
l108l	King Harry	We would have all such offenders so cut off,
l109l		and we here give express charge that in our marches
l110l		through the country there be nothing compelled from
l111l		the villages, nothing taken but paid for, none of the
l112l		French upbraided or abused in disdainful language. For
l113l		when lenity and cruelty play for a kingdom, the gentler
l114l		gamester is the soonest winner.
		(Tucket. Enter Montjoy)
l115l	Montjoy	 You know me by my habit.
l116l	King Harry	Well then, I know thee. What shall I know of thee?
l117l	Montjoy	My master’s mind.
	King Harry	Unfold it.
	Montjoy	Thus says my King:
l118l		“Say thou to Harry of England, though we seemed
l119l		dead, we did but sleep. Advantage is a better soldier
l120l		than rashness. Tell him, we could have rebuked him
l121l		at Harfleur, but that we thought not good to bruise an
l122l		injury till it were full ripe. Now we speak upon our
l123l		cue, and our voice is imperial. England shall repent his
l124l		folly, see his weakness, and admire our sufferance. Bid
l125l		him therefore consider of his ransom, which must
l126l		proportion the losses we have borne, the subjects we
l127l		have lost, the disgrace we have digested—which in
l128l		weight to re-answer, his pettiness would bow under.
l129l		For our losses, his exchequer is too poor# for th’ effusion
l130l		of our blood, the muster of his kingdom too faint a
l131l		number# and for our disgrace, his own person kneeling
l132l		at our feet but a weak and worthless satisfaction. To
l133l		this add defiance, and tell him for conclusion he hath
l134l		betrayed his followers, whose condemnation is
l135l		pronounced.”
l136l		So far my King and master# so much my office.
l137l	King Harry	What is thy name? I know thy quality.
l138l	Montjoy	Montjoy.
l139l	King Harry	Thou dost thy office fairly. Turn thee back
l140l		And tell thy king I do not seek him now,
l141l		But could be willing to march on to Calais
l142l		Without impeachment, for to say the sooth—
l143l		Though ’tis no wisdom to confess so much
l144l		Unto an enemy of craft and vantage—
l145l		My people are with sickness much enfeebled,
l146l		My numbers lessened, and those few I have
l147l		Almost no better than so many French#
l148l		Who when they were in health—I tell thee herald,
l149l		I thought upon one pair of English legs
l150l		Did march three Frenchmen. Yet forgive me, God,
l151l		That I do brag thus. This your air of France
l152l		Hath blown that vice in me. I must repent.
l153l		Go, therefore, tell thy master here I am#
l154l		My ransom is this frail and worthless trunk,
l155l		My army but a weak and sickly guard.
l156l		Yet, God before, tell him we will come on,
l157l		Though France himself and such another neighbour
l158l		Stand in our way. There’s for thy labour, Montjoy.
l159l		Go bid thy master well advise himself.
l160l		If we may pass, we will# if we be hindered,
l161l		We shall your tawny ground with your red blood
l162l		Discolour. And so, Montjoy, fare you well.
l163l		The sum of all our answer is but this:
l164l		We would not seek a battle as we are,
l165l		Nor as we are we say we will not shun it.
l166l		So tell your master.
l167l	Montjoy	I shall deliver so. Thanks to your highness.
		(Exit)
l168l	Gloucester	 I hope they will not come upon us now.
l169l	King Harry	We are in God’s hand, brother, not in theirs.
l170l		March to the bridge. It now draws toward night.
l171l		Beyond the river we’ll encamp ourselves,
l172l		And on tomorrow bid them march away.
		(Exeunt)