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

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

4    Is the Duke of Exeter safe?

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

16   What do you call him?

17   He is called Aunchient Pistol.

18   I know him not.

19   Here is the man.

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

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

24   Bardolph, a soldier, firm and sound of heart,
25   And of buxom valour, hath, by cruel fate,
26   And giddy Fortune's furious fickle wheel,
27   That goddess blind,
28   That stands upon the rolling restless stone--

29   By your patience, Aunchient Pistol. Fortune is
30   painted blind, with a muffler afore her eyes, to
31   signify to you that Fortune is blind; and she is
32   painted also with a wheel, to signify to you, which
33   is the moral of it, that she is turning, and
34   inconstant, and mutability, and variation: and her
35   foot, look you, is fixed upon a spherical stone,
36   which rolls, and rolls, and rolls: in good truth,
37   the poet makes a most excellent description of it:
38   Fortune is an excellent moral.

39   Fortune is Bardolph's foe, and frowns on him;
40   For he hath stolen a pax, and hanged must a' be:
41   A damned death!
42   Let gallows gape for dog; let man go free
43   And let not hemp his wind-pipe suffocate:
44   But Exeter hath given the doom of death
45   For pax of little price.
46   Therefore, go speak: the duke will hear thy voice:
47   And let not Bardolph's vital thread be cut
48   With edge of penny cord and vile reproach:
49   Speak, captain, for his life, and I will thee requite.

50   Aunchient Pistol, I do partly understand your meaning.

51   Why then, rejoice therefore.

52   Certainly, aunchient, it is not a thing to rejoice
53   at: for if, look you, he were my brother, I would
54   desire the duke to use his good pleasure, and put
55   him to execution; for discipline ought to be used.

56   Die and be damn'd! and figo for thy friendship!

57   It is well.

58   The fig of Spain!

59   Very good.

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

62   I'll assure you, a' uttered as brave words at the
63   bridge as you shall see in a summer's day. But it
64   is very well; what he has spoke to me, that is well,
65   I warrant you, when time is serve.

66   Why, 'tis a gull, a fool, a rogue, that now and then
67   goes to the wars, to grace himself at his return
68   into London under the form of a soldier. And such
69   fellows are perfect in the great commanders' names:
70   and they will learn you by rote where services were
71   done; at such and such a sconce, at such a breach,
72   at such a convoy; who came off bravely, who was
73   shot, who disgraced, what terms the enemy stood on;
74   and this they con perfectly in the phrase of war,
75   which they trick up with new-tuned oaths: and what
76   a beard of the general's cut and a horrid suit of
77   the camp will do among foaming bottles and
78   ale-washed wits, is wonderful to be thought on. But
79   you must learn to know such slanders of the age, or
80   else you may be marvellously mistook.

81   I tell you what, Captain Gower; I do perceive he is
82   not the man that he would gladly make show to the
83   world he is: if I find a hole in his coat, I will
84   tell him my mind.
Drum heard
85   Hark you, the king is coming, and I must speak with
86   him from the pridge.
Drum and colours. Enter KING HENRY, GLOUCESTER, and Soldiers
87   God pless your majesty!

88   How now, Fluellen! camest thou from the bridge?

89   Ay, so please your majesty. The Duke of Exeter has
90   very gallantly maintained the pridge: the French is
91   gone off, look you; and there is gallant and most
92   prave passages; marry, th' athversary was have
93   possession of the pridge; but he is enforced to
94   retire, and the Duke of Exeter is master of the
95   pridge: I can tell your majesty, the duke is a
96   prave man.

97   What men have you lost, Fluellen?

98   The perdition of th' athversary hath been very
99   great, reasonable great: marry, for my part, I
100  think the duke hath lost never a man, but one that
101  is like to be executed for robbing a church, one
102  Bardolph, if your majesty know the man: his face is
103  all bubukles, and whelks, and knobs, and flames o'
104  fire: and his lips blows at his nose, and it is like
105  a coal of fire, sometimes plue and sometimes red;
106  but his nose is executed and his fire's out.

107  We would have all such offenders so cut off: and we
108  give express charge, that in our marches through the
109  country, there be nothing compelled from the
110  villages, nothing taken but paid for, none of the
111  French upbraided or abused in disdainful language;
112  for when lenity and cruelty play for a kingdom, the
113  gentler gamester is the soonest winner.

114  You know me by my habit.

115  Well then I know thee: what shall I know of thee?

116  My master's mind.

117  Unfold it.

118  Thus says my king: Say thou to Harry of England:
119  Though we seemed dead, we did but sleep: advantage
120  is a better soldier than rashness. Tell him we
121  could have rebuked him at Harfleur, but that we
122  thought not good to bruise an injury till it were
123  full ripe: now we speak upon our cue, and our voice
124  is imperial: England shall repent his folly, see
125  his weakness, and admire our sufferance. Bid him
126  therefore consider of his ransom; which must
127  proportion the losses we have borne, the subjects we
128  have lost, the disgrace we have digested; which in
129  weight to re-answer, his pettiness would bow under.
130  For our losses, his exchequer is too poor; for the
131  effusion of our blood, the muster of his kingdom too
132  faint a number; and for our disgrace, his own
133  person, kneeling at our feet, but a weak and
134  worthless satisfaction. To this add defiance: and
135  tell him, for conclusion, he hath betrayed his
136  followers, whose condemnation is pronounced. So far
137  my king and master; so much my office.

138  What is thy name? I know thy quality.

139  Montjoy.

140  Thou dost thy office fairly. Turn thee back.
141  And tell thy king I do not seek him now;
142  But could be willing to march on to Calais
143  Without impeachment: for, to say the sooth,
144  Though 'tis no wisdom to confess so much
145  Unto an enemy of craft and vantage,
146  My people are with sickness much enfeebled,
147  My numbers lessened, and those few I have
148  Almost no better than so many French;
149  Who when they were in health, I tell thee, herald,
150  I thought upon one pair of English legs
151  Did march three Frenchmen. Yet, forgive me, God,
152  That I do brag thus! This your air of France
153  Hath blown that vice in me: I must repent.
154  Go therefore, tell thy master here I am;
155  My ransom is this frail and worthless trunk,
156  My army but a weak and sickly guard;
157  Yet, God before, tell him we will come on,
158  Though France himself and such another neighbour
159  Stand in our way. There's for thy labour, Montjoy.
160  Go bid thy master well advise himself:
161  If we may pass, we will; if we be hinder'd,
162  We shall your tawny ground with your red blood
163  Discolour: and so Montjoy, fare you well.
164  The sum of all our answer is but this:
165  We would not seek a battle, as we are;
166  Nor, as we are, we say we will not shun it:
167  So tell your master.

168  I shall deliver so. Thanks to your highness.

169  I hope they will not come upon us now.

170  We are in God's hand, brother, not in theirs.
171  March to the bridge; it now draws toward night:
172  Beyond the river we'll encamp ourselves,
173  And on to-morrow, bid them march away.