Fr. King. Be patient, for you shall remain with us. Now forth, lord constable and princes all,

And quickly bring us word of England's fall.

[Exeunt.

SCENE VI. The English camp in Picardy.

Enter GOWER and FLUELLEN, meeting.

Gow. How now, Captain Fluellen! come you from the bridge?

Flu. I assure you, there is very excellent services committed at the bridge.

Gow. Is the Duke of Exeter safe?

Flu. 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 10 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.

2. the bridge. The importance of the fight at the bridge hardly appears from the play, but is quite clear in Holinshed's narrative. The bridge spanned the little river Ternoise, which lay in the way of Henry's march upon Calais. Henry accordingly ' appointed certain captains with their bands to go thither with all speed before him, and to take possession thereof.' On

their arrival they found the French already at work breaking down the bridge, but assailed them so vigorously that they discomfited them' (Hol. iii. 552, ed. Stone).

13. an aunchient lieutenant, 'ensign-lieutenant.' Fluellen's imperfect English betrays him into a counterpart of Mrs. Quickly's 'quotidian tertian.'

Gow. What do you call him?

Flu. He is called Aunchient Pistol.

Gow. I know him not.

Enter PISTOL.

Flu. Here is the man.

Pist. Captain, I thee beseech to do me favours: The Duke of Exeter doth love thee well.

Flu. Ay, I praise God; and I have merited some love at his hands.

Pist. 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

Flu. 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.

Pist. Fortune is Bardolph's foe, and frowns on

him;

For he hath stolen a pax, and hangèd must a' be:

27. buxom (used with no is hi (pronounced 'he '). definite sense).

33. his; so Ff. In most editions altered to her.' But

the mistake was no doubt intended, confusions of pronoun gender being constant in WelshEnglish, in part owing to the fact that the Welsh for 'she'

20

30

40

41. Fortune is Bardolph's foe; referring to the ballad

Fortune, my foe, why dost thou frown on me?

་

42. pax; probably Shakespeare's error for pix,' which is given by Holinshed. The

A damned death!

Let gallows gape for dog; let man go free
And let not hemp his wind-pipe 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.
Flu. Aunchient Pistol, I do partly understand
your meaning.

Pist. Why then, rejoice therefore.

Flu. 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.

Pist. Die and be damn'd! and figo for thy friendship!

Flu. It is well.

Pist. The fig of Spain !

Flu. Very good.

[Exit.

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

Flu. 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.

Gow. Why, 'tis a gull, a fool, a rogue, that now and then goes to the wars, to grace himself

'pix' (pyx) was the box in which the host or consecrated wafer was preserved. 'Pax' was a small picture of Christ on wood or metal, 'solemnly tendered to all people to kiss.'

50

60

70

60. figo, an insulting gesture derived from Spain.

62. The fig of Spain, probably equivalent to 'figo. According to others, a reference to poisoned figs.

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 80 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.

Flu. 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 90 with him from the pridge.

Drum and colours.

Enter KING HENRY,
GLOUCESTER, and Soldiers.

God pless your majesty !

K. Hen. How now, Fluellen! camest thou from the bridge?

Flu. 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

80. new-tuned, to a new tune; new-fangled.

84. slanders of, scandals to.

90. speak with him from, bring him news from (i.e. of).

Exeter is master of the pridge: I can tell your 100 majesty, the duke is a prave man.

K. Hen. What men have you lost, Fluellen?

Flu. 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 110 sometimes red; but his nose is executed, and his fire's out.

:

K. Hen. 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.

Mont. You know me by my habit.

K. Hen. Well then I know thee: what shall
I know of thee?

Mont. My master's mind.

K. Hen. Unfold it.

Mont. Thus says my king: Say thou to Harry of England: Though we seemed dead, we did but

108. bubukles; a coinage of Fluellen's, for 'carbuncles.'

118. lenity. Rowe's correction from Qq Ff 'levity.' These lines appear to convey a pointed allusion to Essex's campaign in

120

Ireland, and are in any case significant of Shakespeare's judgment upon the harsh policy commonly pursued there.

120. Tucket, trumpet-blast.