READ STUDY GUIDE: Act III, scenes vi–vii |
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Act III, Scene vi:
The English camp in Picardy.
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.] |
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