Complete Plays, The
Page 190
I do not know you so good a man as myself: so
Chrish save me, I will cut off your head.
Gower
Gentlemen both, you will mistake each other.
Jamy
A! that’s a foul fault.
A parley sounded
Gower
The town sounds a parley.
Fluellen
Captain Macmorris, when there is more better opportunity to be required, look you, I will be so bold as to tell you I know the disciplines of war; and there is an end.
Exeunt
SCENE III. THE SAME. BEFORE THE GATES.
The Governor and some Citizens on the walls; the English forces below. Enter King Henry and his train
King Henry V
How yet resolves the governor of the town?
This is the latest parle we will admit;
Therefore to our best mercy give yourselves;
Or like to men proud of destruction
Defy us to our worst: for, as I am a soldier,
A name that in my thoughts becomes me best,
If I begin the battery once again,
I will not leave the half-achieved Harfleur
Till in her ashes she lie buried.
The gates of mercy shall be all shut up,
And the flesh’d soldier, rough and hard of heart,
In liberty of bloody hand shall range
With conscience wide as hell, mowing like grass
Your fresh-fair virgins and your flowering infants.
What is it then to me, if impious war,
Array’d in flames like to the prince of fiends,
Do, with his smirch’d complexion, all fell feats
Enlink’d to waste and desolation?
What is’t to me, when you yourselves are cause,
If your pure maidens fall into the hand
Of hot and forcing violation?
What rein can hold licentious wickedness
When down the hill he holds his fierce career?
We may as bootless spend our vain command
Upon the enraged soldiers in their spoil
As send precepts to the leviathan
To come ashore. Therefore, you men of Harfleur,
Take pity of your town and of your people,
Whiles yet my soldiers are in my command;
Whiles yet the cool and temperate wind of grace
O’erblows the filthy and contagious clouds
Of heady murder, spoil and villany.
If not, why, in a moment look to see
The blind and bloody soldier with foul hand
Defile the locks of your shrill-shrieking daughters;
Your fathers taken by the silver beards,
And their most reverend heads dash’d to the walls,
Your naked infants spitted upon pikes,
Whiles the mad mothers with their howls confused
Do break the clouds, as did the wives of Jewry
At Herod’s bloody-hunting slaughtermen.
What say you? will you yield, and this avoid,
Or, guilty in defence, be thus destroy’d?
Governor
Our expectation hath this day an end:
The Dauphin, whom of succors we entreated,
Returns us that his powers are yet not ready
To raise so great a siege. Therefore, great king,
We yield our town and lives to thy soft mercy.
Enter our gates; dispose of us and ours;
For we no longer are defensible.
King Henry V
Open your gates. Come, uncle Exeter,
Go you and enter Harfleur; there remain,
And fortify it strongly ’gainst the French:
Use mercy to them all. For us, dear uncle,
The winter coming on and sickness growing
Upon our soldiers, we will retire to Calais.
To-night in Harfleur we will be your guest;
To-morrow for the march are we addrest.
Flourish. The King and his train enter the town
SCENE IV. THE FRENCH KING’S PALACE.
Enter Katharine and Alice
Katharine
Alice, tu as ete en Angleterre, et tu parles bien le langage.
Alice
Un peu, madame.
Katharine
Je te prie, m’enseignez: il faut que j’apprenne a parler. Comment appelez-vous la main en Anglois?
Alice
La main? elle est appelee de hand.
Katharine
De hand. Et les doigts?
Alice
Les doigts? ma foi, j’oublie les doigts; mais je me souviendrai. Les doigts? je pense qu’ils sont appeles de fingres; oui, de fingres.
Katharine
La main, de hand; les doigts, de fingres. Je pense que je suis le bon ecolier; j’ai gagne deux mots d’Anglois vitement. Comment appelez-vous les ongles?
Alice
Les ongles? nous les appelons de nails.
Katharine
De nails. Ecoutez; dites-moi, si je parle bien: de hand, de fingres, et de nails.
Alice
C’est bien dit, madame; il est fort bon Anglois.
Katharine
Dites-moi l’Anglois pour le bras.
Alice
De arm, madame.
Katharine
Et le coude?
Alice
De elbow.
Katharine
De elbow. Je m’en fais la repetition de tous les mots que vous m’avez appris des a present.
Alice
Il est trop difficile, madame, comme je pense.
Katharine
Excusez-moi, Alice; ecoutez: de hand, de fingres, de nails, de arma, de bilbow.
Alice
De elbow, madame.
Katharine
O Seigneur Dieu, je m’en oublie! de elbow. Comment appelez-vous le col?
Alice
De neck, madame.
Katharine
De nick. Et le menton?
Alice
De chin.
Katharine
De sin. Le col, de nick; de menton, de sin.
Alice
Oui. Sauf votre honneur, en verite, vous prononcez les mots aussi droit que les natifs d’Angleterre.
Katharine
Je ne doute point d’apprendre, par la grace de Dieu, et en peu de temps.
Alice
N’avez vous pas deja oublie ce que je vous ai enseigne?
Katharine
Non, je reciterai a vous promptement: de hand, de fingres, de mails —
Alice
De nails, madame.
Katharine
De nails, de arm, de ilbow.
Alice
Sauf votre honneur, de elbow.
Katharine
Ainsi dis-je; de elbow, de nick, et de sin. Comment appelez-vous le pied et la robe?
Alice
De foot, madame; et de coun.
Katharine
De foot et de coun! O Seigneur Dieu! ce sont mots de son mauvais, corruptible, gros, et impudique, et non pour les dames d’honneur d’user: je ne voudrais prononcer ces mots devant les seigneurs de France pour tout le monde. Foh! le foot et le coun! Neanmoins, je reciterai une autre fois ma lecon ensemble: de hand, de fingres, de nails, de arm, de elbow, de nick, de sin, de foot, de coun.
Alice
Excellent, madame!
Katharine
C’est assez pour une fois: allons-nous a diner.
Exeunt
SCENE V. THE SAME.
Enter the King Of France, the Dauphin, the Duke oF Bourbon, the Constable Of France, and others
King Of France
’Tis certain he hath pass’d the river Somme.
Constable
And if he be not fought withal, my lord,
Let us not live in France; let us quit all
And give our vineyards to a barbarous people.
Dauphin
O Dieu vivant! shall a few
sprays of us,
The emptying of our fathers’ luxury,
Our scions, put in wild and savage stock,
Spirt up so suddenly into the clouds,
And overlook their grafters?
Bourbon
Normans, but bastard Normans, Norman bastards!
Mort de ma vie! if they march along
Unfought withal, but I will sell my dukedom,
To buy a slobbery and a dirty farm
In that nook-shotten isle of Albion.
Constable
Dieu de batailles! where have they this mettle?
Is not their climate foggy, raw and dull,
On whom, as in despite, the sun looks pale,
Killing their fruit with frowns? Can sodden water,
A drench for sur-rein’d jades, their barley-broth,
Decoct their cold blood to such valiant heat?
And shall our quick blood, spirited with wine,
Seem frosty? O, for honour of our land,
Let us not hang like roping icicles
Upon our houses’ thatch, whiles a more frosty people
Sweat drops of gallant youth in our rich fields!
Poor we may call them in their native lords.
Dauphin
By faith and honour,
Our madams mock at us, and plainly say
Our mettle is bred out and they will give
Their bodies to the lust of English youth
To new-store France with bastard warriors.
Bourbon
They bid us to the English dancing-schools,
And teach lavoltas high and swift corantos;
Saying our grace is only in our heels,
And that we are most lofty runaways.
King Of France
Where is Montjoy the herald? speed him hence:
Let him greet England with our sharp defiance.
Up, princes! and, with spirit of honour edged
More sharper than your swords, hie to the field:
Charles Delabreth, high constable of France;
You Dukes of Orleans, Bourbon, and of Berri,
Alencon, Brabant, Bar, and Burgundy;
Jaques Chatillon, Rambures, Vaudemont,
Beaumont, Grandpre, 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 valleys, 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 Rouen
Bring him our prisoner.
Constable
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 ransom.
King Of France
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.
King Of France
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 Gower and Fluellen, meeting
Gower
How now, Captain Fluellen! come you from the bridge?
Fluellen
I assure 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 life, and my living, and my uttermost power: he is not-God 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 pridge, I think in my very conscience he is as valiant a man as Mark Antony; and he is a man of no estimation in the world; but did see him do as gallant service.
Gower
What do you call him?
Fluellen
He is called 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 God; 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 goddess blind,
That stands upon the rolling restless stone —
Fluellen
By your patience, Aunchient Pistol. Fortune is painted blind, with a muffler 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 stolen a pax, 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 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 damn’d! and figo for thy friendship!
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 assure you, a’ uttered as brave words at the bridge 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 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 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 heard
Hark you, the king is coming, and I must speak with him from the pridge.
Drum and colours. Enter King Henry, Gloucester, and Soldiers
God pless your majesty!
King Henry V
How now, Fluellen! camest thou from the bridge?
Fluellen
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.
King Henry V
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 knobs, 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 V
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. Enter Montjoy
Montjoy
You know me by my habit.
King Henry V
Well then I know thee: what shall I know of thee?
Montjoy
My master’s mind.
King Henry V
Unfold it.
Montjoy
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 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 betrayed his followers, whose condemnation is pronounced. So far my king and master; so much my office.