SparkNotes: Complete Text of Henry V: Act III, Scene vi

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READ STUDY GUIDE: Act III, scenes vi–vii

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?

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 live, 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 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:

Montjoy.

KING HENRY:

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

Unto an enemy of craft and vantage,

My people are with sickness much enfeebled,

My numbers lessen'd, and those few I have

Almost no better than so many French;

Who when they were in health, I tell thee, herald,

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;

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.

Go, bid thy master well advise himself.

If we may pass, we will; if we be hind'red,

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:

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.

KING HENRY:

We are in God's hands, 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

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Henry V

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