8

Beaumont, Grandpré, Roussi, and Fauconberg,
Foix, Lestrale, Bouciqualt, and Charolois;
High dukes, great princes, barons, lords, and knights,
For your great seats, now quit you of great shames.
Bar Harry England, that sweeps through our land
With pennons painted in the blood of Harfleur :
Rush on his host, as doth the melted snow
Upon the vallies; whose low vassal seat
The Alps doth spit and void his rheum upon :
Go down upon him,-you have power enough,-
And in a captive chariot, into Roüen
Bring him our prisoner.

Con. This becomes the great.

Sorry am I, his numbers are so few,

His soldiers sick, and famish'd in their march;
For, I am sure, when he shall see our army,

He'll drop his heart into the sink of fear,

And, for achievement, offer us his ransome.

Fr. King. Therefore, lord constable, haste on Mountjoy; And let him say to England, that we send

To know what willing ransome he will give.

Prince Dauphin, you shall stay with us in Roüen.
Dau. Not so, I do besech your majesty.

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.

SCENE VI.

[Exeunt.

English Camp in Picardy. Enter GOWER and FLUELLEN. Gow. How now, captain Fluellen? come you from the bridge?

Flu. I assure you, there is very excellent service committed at the pridge.

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 livings, and my uttermost powers: he is not, (God be praised, and plessed!) any hurt in the 'orld; but keeps the pridge most valiantly, with excellent discipline. There is an ensign there at the pridge,-I think, in my very conscience, he is as valiant as Mark Antony; and

[9] Pennons armorial were small flags, on which the arms, device, and motto of a knight were painted STEEVENS.

he is a man of no estimation in the 'orld: but I did see

him do gallant service.

Gow. What do you call him?

Flu. He is called-ancient Pistol.

Gow. I know him not.

Enter PISTOL.

Flu. Do you not know him? Here comes the man. Pist. Captain, I thee beseech to do me favours: The duke of Exeter doth love thee well.

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

Pist. Bardolph, a soldier, firm and sound of heart,
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, 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 stol'n a pix, and hanged must 'a be,
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 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 mean-

ing.

Pist. Why then rejoice therefore.

Flu. Certainly, ancient, it is not a thing to rejoice at:

STEEV

[1] That is, valour under good command, obedient to its superiors. [2] Pir or par was a little box in which were kept the consecrated wafers. JOHN The old copies have par, which was a piece of board on which was the image of Christ on the cross; which the people used to kiss after the service was ended. MALONE.

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.

Pist. Die and be damn'd; and figo for thy friendship! Flu. It is well.

Pist. The fig of Spain!

Flu. Very good.

[Exit PISTOL.

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

Flu. I'll assure you, 'a utter'd 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,3 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.

Enter King HENRY, GLOSTER, and Soldiers.

Flu. Got pless your majesty!

K. Hen. How now, Fluellen? cam'st thou from the bridge? Flu. Ay, so please your majesty. The duke of Exeter has very gallantly maintained the pridge: the French is [3] A sconce appears to have been some hasty, rude inconsiderable kind of fortification. STEEVENS.

[4] It appears that our ancestors were very curious in the fashion of their beards, and that a certain cut or form was appropriated to the soldier, the bishop, the judge, the clown, &c. MALONE.

[5] This was a character very troublesome to wise men in our author's time. "It is the practice with him (says Ascham) to be warlike, though he never looked enemy in the face; yet some warlike sign must be used, as a slovenly buskin, or an over-staring frowneiug heat, as though out of every hair's top should suddenly start a good big oath." JOHNSON.

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 bubuckles, 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.?
habit.

Mont. You know me by my

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 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 weak

[6] This is the last time that any sport can be made with the red face of Bardolph, which, to confess the truth, seems to have taken more hold on Shakespeare's imagination than on any other The conception is very cold to the solitary reader, though it may be somewhat invigorated by the exhibition on the stage. The poet is always more careful about the present than the future, about his audience than his readers. JOHNSON.

[7] Mont-joie is the title of the first king at arms in France, as Garter is in England STEEVENS.

[8] That is, by his herald's coat. The person of a berald being inviolable, was distinguished in those times of formality by a peculiar dress, which is likewise yet worn on particular occasions. JOHNSON.

[9] In our turn. This phrase the author learned among players, and has imparted it to kings. JOHNSON.

ness, and admire our sufferance. Bid him, therefore, consider of his ransome; 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 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 add-defiance: and tell him, for conclusion, he hath betray'd 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,
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 ransome 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 hinder'd,

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;

[1] That is, hindrance. Empechement, Fr. STEEVENS.-Impeachment, in the same sense, has always been used as a legal word in deeds, as" without impeachment of waste;" i. e. without restraint or hindrance of waste. REED.

[2] This was an expression in that age for God being my guide, or, when used to another, God be thy guide. JOHNSON.