The Complete Works of William Shakespeare Part 166

FRENCH KING. Therefore, Lord Constable, haste on Montjoy, And let him say to England that we send To know what willing ransom he will give.

Prince Dauphin, you shall stay with us in Rouen.

DAUPHIN. Not so, I do beseech your Majesty.

FRENCH 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 CAPTAINS, English and Welsh, GOWER and FLUELLEN

GOWER. How now, Captain Fluellen! Come you from the bridge?

FLUELLEN. I a.s.sure you there is very excellent services committed at the bridge.

GOWER. Is the Duke of Exeter safe?

FLUELLEN. 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 live, and my living, and my uttermost power. He is not- G.o.d be praised and blessed!- any hurt in the world, but keeps the bridge most valiantly, with excellent discipline. There is an aunchient Lieutenant there at the bridge- I think in my very conscience he is as valiant a man as Mark Antony; and he is man of no estimation in the world; but I did see him do as gallant service.

GOWER. What do you call him?

FLUELLEN. He is call'd Aunchient Pistol.

GOWER. I know him not.

Enter PISTOL

FLUELLEN. Here is the man.

PISTOL. Captain, I thee beseech to do me favours.

The Duke of Exeter doth love thee well.

FLUELLEN. Ay, I praise G.o.d; and I have merited some love at his hands.

PISTOL. Bardolph, a soldier, firm and sound of heart, And of buxom valour, hath by cruel fate And giddy Fortune's furious fickle wheel, That G.o.ddess blind, That stands upon the rolling restless stone- FLUELLEN. By your patience, Aunchient Pistol. Fortune is painted blind, with a m.u.f.fler afore her 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.

PISTOL. Fortune is Bardolph's foe, and frowns on him; For he hath stol'n a pax, and hanged must 'a be- A d.a.m.ned 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 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.

FLUELLEN. Aunchient Pistol, I do partly understand your meaning.

PISTOL. Why then, rejoice therefore.

FLUELLEN. 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.

PISTOL. Die and be d.a.m.n'd! and figo for thy friends.h.i.+p!

FLUELLEN. It is well.

PISTOL. The fig of Spain! Exit FLUELLEN. Very good.

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

FLUELLEN. I'll a.s.sure you, 'a utt'red 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.

GOWER. 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 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 disgrac'd, 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-wash'd 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.

FLUELLEN. 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 within]

Hark you, the King is coming; and I must speak with him from the pridge.

Drum and colours. Enter the KING and his poor soldiers, and GLOUCESTER

G.o.d pless your Majesty!

KING HENRY. How now, Fluellen! Cam'st thou from the bridge?

FLUELLEN. Ay, so please your Majesty. The Duke of Exeter has very gallantly maintain'd the pridge; the French is gone off, look you, and there is gallant and most prave pa.s.sages. 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.

KING HENRY. What men have you lost, Fluellen!

FLUELLEN. 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 k.n.o.bs, and flames o' fire; and his lips blows 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.

KING HENRY. We would have all such offenders so cut off. And we give express charge that in our marches through the country there be nothing compell'd 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

MONTJOY. You know me by my habit.

KING HENRY. Well then, I know thee; what shall I know of thee?

MONTJOY. My master's mind.

KING HENRY. Unfold it.

MONTJOY. Thus says my king. Say thou to Harry of England: Though we seem'd dead we did but sleep; advantage is a better soldier than rashness. Tell him we could have rebuk'd 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 re-answer, his pettiness would bow under. For our losses his exchequer is too poor; for th' 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 betrayed his followers, whose condemnation is p.r.o.nounc'd. So far my king and master; so much my office.

KING HENRY. What is thy name? I know thy quality.

MONTJOY. Montjoy.

KING HENRY. 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, G.o.d, 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 ransom is this frail and worthless trunk; My army but a weak and sickly guard; Yet, G.o.d 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 pa.s.s, we will; if we be hind'red, 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; Nor as we are, we say, we will not shun it.

So tell your master.

MONTJOY. I shall deliver so. Thanks to your Highness. Exit GLOUCESTER. I hope they will not come upon us now.

KING HENRY. We are in G.o.d'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, the DAUPHIN, with others

CONSTABLE. Tut! I have the best armour of the world.

Would it were day!

ORLEANS. You have an excellent armour; but let my horse have his due.

CONSTABLE. It is the best horse of Europe.

ORLEANS. Will it never be morning?

DAUPHIN. My Lord of Orleans and my Lord High Constable, you talk of horse and armour?

ORLEANS. You are as well provided of both as any prince in the world.

DAUPHIN. What a long night is this! I will not change my horse with any that treads but on four pasterns. Ca, ha! he bounds from the earth as if his entrails were hairs; le cheval volant, the Pegasus, chez les narines de feu! When I bestride him I soar, I am a hawk. He trots the air; the earth sings when he touches it; the basest horn of his hoof is more musical than the pipe of Hermes.

ORLEANS. He's of the colour of the nutmeg.

DAUPHIN. And of the heat of the ginger. It is a beast for Perseus: he is pure air and fire; and the dull elements of earth and water never appear in him, but only in patient stillness while his rider mounts him; he is indeed a horse, and all other jades you may call beasts.

CONSTABLE. Indeed, my lord, it is a most absolute and excellent horse.

DAUPHIN. It is the prince of palfreys; his neigh is like the bidding of a monarch, and his countenance enforces homage.

ORLEANS. No more, cousin.

DAUPHIN. Nay, the man hath no wit that cannot, from the rising of the lark to the lodging of the lamb, vary deserved praise on my palfrey. It is a theme as fluent as the sea: turn the sands into eloquent tongues, and my horse is argument for them all: 'tis a subject for a sovereign to reason on, and for a sovereign's sovereign to ride on; and for the world- familiar to us and unknown- to lay apart their particular functions and wonder at him. I once writ a sonnet in his praise and began thus: 'Wonder of nature'- ORLEANS. I have heard a sonnet begin so to one's mistress.

DAUPHIN. Then did they imitate that which I compos'd to my courser; for my horse is my mistress.

ORLEANS. Your mistress bears well.

DAUPHIN. Me well; which is the prescript praise and perfection of a good and particular mistress.