Of buxom valor,' 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, ancient Pistol. Fortune is painted plind, with a muffler before her eyes, to signify to you that fortune is plind. 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 variations, and mutabilities; and her foot, look you, is fixed upon a spherical stone which rolls, and rolls, and rolls.-In good truth, the poet is make a most excellent description of fortune; fortune, look you, is an excellent moral.

Pist. Fortune is Bardolph's foe, and frowns on him;
For he hath stolen a pix,2 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 pix 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. Ancient Pistol, I do partly understand your
meaning.

Pist. Why then rejoice therefore.

Flu. Certainly, ancient, it is not a thing to rejoice at; for if, look you, he were my brother, I would desire the duke to use his goot pleasure, and put him to executions; for disciplines ought to be used.

1 " Buxom valor." It is true that, in the Saxon and our elder English, buxom meant pliant, yielding, obedient; and in this sense Spenser uses it; but it was also used for lusty, rampant, however mistakenly.

2 "A pix." The folio reads par; but Holinshed, whom Shakspeare followed, says, “A foolish soldier stole a pixe out of a church, for which cause he was apprehended, and the king would not once more remove till the box was restored, and the offender strangled." It was the box in which the consecrated wafers were kept, originally so named from being made of bor; but in later times it was made of gold, silver, and other costly materials.

Pist. Die and be damned; and figo for thy friend

ship!

Flu. It is well.

Pist. The fig of Spain!

Flu. Very good.1

[Exit PISTOL.

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 'ords 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, at his return into London, under the form of a soldier. And such fellows are perfect in 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 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 marvellous mistook.

Flu. I tell you what, captain Gower;-I do perceive, he is not the man that he would gladly make show to the 'orld 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.3

1 "Very good." In the quartos, instead of these two words, we have:— "Captain Gower, cannot you hear it lighten and thunder?”

2 "A beard of the general's cut." Our ancestors were very curious in the fashion of their beards; a certain cut was appropriated to certain professions and ranks. The spade beard and the stiletto beard appear to have been appropriated to the soldier.

3 "From the pridge." These words are not in the quarto. If not a mistake of the compositor, who may have caught them from the king's speech, they must mean about the bridge, or concerning it.

Enter KING HENRY, GLOSTER, and Soldiers. Flu. Got 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 Exeter is master of the pridge; I can tell your 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, very 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 of fire; and his lips plows 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.

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 sounds. Enter MONTJOY.

Mont. You know me by my habit.

K. Hen. Well, then, I know thee. What shall I know of thee?

1 "His face is all bubukles, and whelks, and knobs." Whelks are not stripes, as Mr. Nares interprets the word, but pimples, or blotches; Papule. "A pimple, a whelke."

2 "You know me by my habit;" that is, by his herald's coat. The person of a herald being inviolable was distinguished by a richly emblazoned dress. Montjoie is the title of the first king-at-arms in France, as Garter is in this country.

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 sleep: advantage is a better soldier than rashness. Tell him we could have rebuked 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 reanswer, his pettiness 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 adddefiance; and tell him, for conclusion, he hath betrayed his followers, whose condemnation is pronounced. -So far my king and master; so much my office.

K. Hen. What is thy name? I know thy quality. Mont. Montjoy.

K. Hen. Thou dost thy office fairly. Turn thee

back,

2

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 lessened; 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

1 i. e. in our turn. This theatrical phrase has been already noticed. 2 i. e. without impediment (empechement, Fr.). See Cotgrave's Dictionary.

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 neighbor,
Stand in our way. There's for thy labor, Montjoy.
Go, bid thy master well advise himself.

If we may pass, we will; if we be hindered,
We shall your tawny ground with your red blood
Discolor; and so, Montjoy, fare you well.

2

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.

Mont. I shall deliver so.

Thanks to your highness. [Exit MONTJOY. Glo. I hope they will not come upon us now. K. Hen. We are in God's hand, 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.

SCENE VII. The French Camp, near Agincourt.

Enter the Constable of France, the LORD RAMBURes, the DUKE of ORLEANS, Dauphin, and others.

Con. Tut! I have the best armor of the world.'Would it were day!

Orl. You have an excellent armor; but let my horse have his due.

1 God before was then used for God being my guide.

2 This is from Holinshed. 66 My desire is, that none of you be so unadvised as to be the occasion that I in my defence shall colour and make red your tawny ground with the effusion of Christian blood. When he had thus answered the herauld he gave him a great rewarde, and licenced him to depart." It was always customary to give a reward, or largess, to the herald, whether he brought a message of defiance or congratulation.

VOL. IV.

22