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Henry V: Act III, Scene 6

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Henry V
Act III, Scene 6

Picardy. The English camp.

E.M. Robson as Fluellen

E.M. Robson as Fluellen

Langfier, Ltd.; circa 1900

  1. Enter Captains, English and Welsh, Gower and Fluellen.

Gower

1
  1. How now, Captain Fluellen, come you from the bridge?

Fluellen

2 - 3
  1. I assure you, there is very excellent services committed at
  2. the bridge.

Gower

4
  1. Is the Duke of Exeter safe?

Fluellen

5 - 13
  1. The Duke of Exeter is as magnanimous as Agamemnon, and a man
  2. that I love and honor with my soul, and my heart, and my
  3. duty, and my live, and my living, and my uttermost power. He
  4. is not—God be praised and blessed!—any hurt in the world,
  5. but keeps the bridge most valiantly, with excellent
  6. discipline. There is an aunchient lieutenant there at the
  7. pridge, I think in my very conscience he is as valiant a man
  8. as Mark Antony, and he is a man of no estimation in the
  9. world, but I did see him do as gallant service.

Gower

14
  1. What do you call him?

Fluellen

15
  1. He is call’d Aunchient Pistol.

Gower

16
  1. I know him not.
  1. Enter Pistol.

Fluellen

17
  1. Here is the man.

Pistol

18 - 19
  1. Captain, I thee beseech to do me favors.
  2. The Duke of Exeter doth love thee well.

Fluellen

20
  1. Ay, I praise God, and I have merited some love at his hands.

Pistol

21 - 25
  1. Bardolph, a soldier firm and sound of heart,
  2. And of buxom valor, hath by cruel fate,
  3. And giddy Fortune’s furious fickle wheel,
  4. That goddess blind,
  5. That stands upon the rolling restless stone—

Fluellen

26 - 34
  1. By your patience, Aunchient Pistol: Fortune is painted
  2. blind, with a muffler afore his eyes, to signify to you that
  3. Fortune is blind; and she is painted also with a wheel, to
  4. signify to you, which is the moral of it, that she is
  5. turning, and inconstant, and mutability, and variation; and
  6. her foot, look you, is fixed upon a spherical stone, which
  7. rolls, and rolls, and rolls. In good truth, the poet makes a
  8. most excellent description of it. Fortune is an excellent
  9. moral.

Pistol

35 - 45
  1. Fortune is Bardolph’s foe, and frowns on him;
  2. For he hath stol’n a pax, and hanged must ’a be—
  3. A damned death!
  4. Let gallows gape for dog, let man go free,
  5. And let not hemp his windpipe suffocate.
  6. But Exeter hath given the doom of death
  7. For pax of little price.
  8. Therefore go speak, the Duke will hear thy voice;
  9. And let not Bardolph’s vital thread be cut
  10. With edge of penny cord and vile reproach.
  11. Speak, captain, for his life, and I will thee requite.

Fluellen

46
  1. Aunchient Pistol, I do partly understand your meaning.

Pistol

47
  1. Why then rejoice therefore.

Fluellen

48 - 51
  1. Certainly, aunchient, it is not a thing to rejoice at; for
  2. if, look you, he were my brother, I would desire the Duke to
  3. use his good pleasure, and put him to execution; for
  4. discipline ought to be used.

Pistol

52
  1. Die and be damn’d! And figo for thy friendship!

Fluellen

53
  1. It is well.

Pistol

54
  1. The fig of Spain.
  1. Exit.

Fluellen

55
  1. Very good.

Gower

56 - 57
  1. Why, this is an arrant counterfeit rascal, I remember him
  2. now; a bawd, a cutpurse.
    Aug 12, 2020 Miko
    Someone who engages in an evil practice, especially a pimp.

Fluellen

58 - 61
  1. I’ll assure you, ’a utt’red as prave words at the pridge as
  2. you shall see in a summer’s day. But it is very well; what
  3. he has spoke to me, that is well, I warrant you, when time
  4. is serve.

Gower

62 - 74
  1. Why, ’tis a gull, a fool, a rogue, that now and then goes to
  2. the wars, to grace himself at his return into London under
  3. the form of a soldier. And such fellows are perfit in the
  4. great commanders’ names, and they will learn you by rote
  5. where services were done—at such and such a sconce, at such
  6. a breach, at such a convoy; who came off bravely, who was
  7. shot, who disgrac’d, what terms the enemy stood on; and this
  8. they con perfitly in the phrase of war, which they trick up
  9. with new-tun’d oaths; and what a beard of the general’s cut
  10. and a horrid suit of the camp will do among foaming bottles
  11. and ale-wash’d wits, is wonderful to be thought on. But you
  12. must learn to know such slanders of the age, or else you may
  13. be marvelously mistook.

Fluellen

75 - 80
  1. I tell you what, Captain Gower: I do perceive he is not the
  2. man that he would gladly make show to the world he is. If I
  3. find a hole in his coat, I will tell him my mind.
  4. Drum heard.
  5. Hark you, the King is coming, and I must speak with him from
  6. the pridge.
  7. Drum and Colors. Enter the King and his poor Soldiers and
  8. Gloucester.
  9. God pless your Majesty!

King Henry the Fifth

81
  1. How now, Fluellen, cam’st thou from the bridge?

Fluellen

82 - 88
  1. Ay, so please your Majesty. The Duke of Exeter has very
  2. gallantly maintain’d the pridge. The French is gone off,
  3. look you, and there is gallant and most prave passages.
  4. Marry, th’ athversary was have possession of the pridge, but
  5. he is enforced to retire, and the Duke of Exeter is master
  6. of the pridge. I can tell your Majesty, the Duke is a prave
  7. man.
Costume design for Monjoy

Costume design for Monjoy

Emma Hamilton Smith, Charles Hamilton Smith, circa 1856

King Henry the Fifth

89
  1. What men have you lost, Fluellen?

Fluellen

90 - 97
  1. The perdition of th’ athversary hath been very great,
  2. reasonable great. Marry, for my part, I think the Duke hath
  3. lost never a man, but one that is like to be executed for
  4. robbing a church, one Bardolph, if your Majesty know the
  5. man. His face is all bubukles, and whelks, and knobs, and
  6. flames a’ fire, and his lips blows at his nose, and it is
  7. like a coal of fire, sometimes plue and sometimes red, but
  8. his nose is executed, and his fire’s out.

King Henry the Fifth

98 - 103
  1. We would have all such offenders so cut off; and we give
  2. express charge that in our marches through the country there
  3. be nothing compell’d from the villages; nothing taken but
  4. paid for; none of the French upbraided or abus’d in
  5. disdainful language; for when lenity and cruelty play for a
  6. kingdom, the gentler gamester is the soonest winner.
  1. Tucket. Enter Montjoy.

Montjoy

104
  1. You know me by my habit.

King Henry the Fifth

105
  1. Well then, I know thee. What shall I know of thee?

Montjoy

106
  1. My master’s mind.

King Henry the Fifth

107
  1. Unfold it.

Montjoy

108 - 124
  1. Thus says my King: Say thou to Harry of England, Though we
  2. seem’d dead, we did but sleep; advantage is a better soldier
  3. than rashness. Tell him we could have rebuk’d him at
  4. Harfleur, but that we thought not good to bruise an injury
  5. till it were full ripe. Now we speak upon our cue, and our
  6. voice is imperial: England shall repent his folly, see his
  7. weakness, and admire our sufferance. Bid him therefore
  8. consider of his ransom, which must proportion the losses we
  9. have borne, the subjects we have lost, the disgrace we have
  10. digested; which in weight to re-answer, his pettiness would
  11. bow under. For our losses, his exchequer is too poor; for
  12. th’ effusion of our blood, the muster of his kingdom too
  13. faint a number; and for our disgrace, his own person
  14. kneeling at our feet but a weak and worthless satisfaction.
  15. To this add defiance; and tell him, for conclusion, he hath
  16. betray’d his followers, whose condemnation is pronounc’d. So
  17. far my King and master; so much my office.

King Henry the Fifth

125
  1. What is thy name? I know thy quality.

Montjoy

126
  1. Montjoy.

King Henry the Fifth

127 - 154
  1. Thou dost thy office fairly. Turn thee back,
  2. And tell thy King I do not seek him now,
  3. But could be willing to march on to Callice
  4. Without impeachment; for to say the sooth,
  5. Though ’tis no wisdom to confess so much
  6. Unto an enemy of craft and vantage,
  7. My people are with sickness much enfeebled,
  8. My numbers lessen’d; and those few I have
  9. Almost no better than so many French;
  10. Who when they were in health, I tell thee, herald,
  11. I thought upon one pair of English legs
  12. Did march three Frenchmen. Yet forgive me, God,
  13. That I do brag thus! This your air of France
  14. Hath blown that vice in me. I must repent.
  15. Go therefore tell thy master here I am;
  16. My ransom is this frail and worthless trunk;
  17. My army but a weak and sickly guard;
  18. Yet, God before, tell him we will come on,
  19. Though France himself and such another neighbor
  20. Stand in our way. There’s for thy labor, Montjoy.
  21. Go bid thy master well advise himself.
  22. If we may pass, we will; if we be hind’red,
  23. We shall your tawny ground with your red blood
  24. Discolor; and so, Montjoy, fare you well.
  25. The sum of all our answer is but this:
  26. We would not seek a battle as we are,
  27. Nor, as we are, we say we will not shun it.
  28. So tell your master.

Montjoy

155
  1. I shall deliver so. Thanks to your Highness.
  1. Exit.

Duke of Gloucester

156
  1. I hope they will not come upon us now.

King Henry the Fifth

157 - 160
  1. We are in God’s hand, brother, not in theirs.
  2. March to the bridge, it now draws toward night;
  3. Beyond the river we’ll encamp ourselves,
  4. And on tomorrow bid them march away.
  1. Exeunt.
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