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 damn’d! 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, ‘t is 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 disgrac’d, 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-wash’d 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 his poor soldiers.]
God bless your Majesty!
KING HENRY.
How now, Fluellen! cam’st thou from the bridge?
FLUELLEN. Ay, so please your Majesty. The Duke of Exeter has very gallantly maintain’d 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 the 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 compell’d 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 seem’d dead, we did but sleep; advantage is a better soldier than rashness. Tell him we could have rebuk’d 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 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 pettishness would bow under. 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 tell him, for conclusion, he hath betrayed his followers, whose condemnation is pronounc’d. So far my King and master; so much my office.
KING HENRY.
What is thy name? I know thy quality.
MONTJOY.
