Act III Scene I — France. Room in the French King’s Palace
Trumpets sound.
Enter the French King, the Dauphin, Duke of Bourbon, the Constable of France, and others, L.H.
Fr. King. (C.) ’Tis certain he hath pass’d the river Somme.
Con. (R.C.) 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.
Dau. (R.) By faith and honour,
Our madams mock at us;
They bid us—to the English dancing-schools,
And teach lavoltas high1 and swift corantos;2
Saying our grace is only in our heels,
And that we are most lofty runaways.
Fr. King. Where is Montjoy the herald? speed him hence:
Let him greet England with our sharp defiance.—
Up, princes! and, with spirit of honour edg’d
More sharper than your swords, hie to the field:
Bar Harry England, that sweeps through our land
With pennons3 painted in the blood of Harfleur:
Go down upon him,—you have power enough,—
And in a captive chariot into Rouen
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 ransom.4
Fr. King. Therefore, lord constable, haste on Montjoy;
Constable crosses to L.
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.
Dau. Not so, I do beseech your majesty.
Fr. King. Be patient; for you shall remain with us.—
Now, forth, lord constable (Exit Constable, L.H.), and princes all,
And quickly bring us word of England’s fall.
Exeunt L.H.
Trumpets sound.
Scene II — A View in Picardy
Distant Battle heard.
Enter Gower, L.U.E., meeting Fluellen, R.H.
Gow. (C.) How now, Captain Fluellen! come you from the bridge?(A)
Flu. (R.C.) 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 (Heaven 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 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.5
Gow. I know him not.
Enter Pistol, R.H.
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 Heaven; and I have merited some love at his hands.
Pist. Bardolph, a soldier, firm and sound of heart,
Of buxom valour,6 hath,—by cruel fate,
And giddy fortune’s furious fickle wheel,
That goddess blind.
That stands upon the rolling restless stone,—7
Flu. By your patience, ancient Pistol. Fortune is painted plind, with a muffler before her eyes,8 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 makes 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 has stolen a pix,9 and hang’d must ’a be.(B)
A damned death!
Let gallows gape for dog; let man go free,
Crosses to L.H.
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.
Crosses to R.H.
Flu. Ancient Pistol, I do partly understand your meaning.
Pist. Why, then, rejoice therefore.
Flu. Certainly, ancient, it is not a thing to rejoice at: for if, look you, he were my prother, I would desire the duke to use his goot pleasure, and put him to executions; for disciplines ought to be used.
Pist. Fico for thy friendship!10
Flu. It is well.
Pist. The fig of Spain!11
Exit Pistol, R.H.
Flu. Very goot.
Gow. Why, this is an arrant counterfeit rascal; a cut-purse; I remember him now.
Flu. I’ll assure you, ’a utter’d as prave ’ords at the pridge as you shall see in a summer’s day.
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. You must learn to know such slanders of the age,12 or else you may be marvellously 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.
March heard.
Hark you, the king is coming; and I must speak with him from the pridge.13
Enter King Henry, Bedford, Gloster, Westmoreland, Lords, and Soldiers, L.H.U.E.
Flu. (R.) Heaven pless your majesty!
K. Hen. (C.) 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 has 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 knows the man: his face is all bubukles,14 and whelks,15 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.16
K. Hen. We would have all such offenders so cut off.
Trumpet sounds without, R.
Enter Montjoy and Attendants, R.H.
Mont. uncovers and kneels. You know me by my habit.17
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. Tell him, he shall repent his folly, see his weakness, and admire our sufferance.18 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. 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.
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:19 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.—Forgive me, Heaven,
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, Heaven before,20 tell him we will come on,
Though France himself,21 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:(C) 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.
Mont.
I shall deliver so.
Montjoy rises from his knee.
Thanks to your highness.
Exit Montjoy with Attendants, R.H.
Glo. I hope they will not come upon us now.
K. Hen. We are in Heaven’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, R.H.
March.
End of Act Third
Historical Notes to Act Third
(A) Come you from the bridge?] After Henry had passed the Somme, Titus Livius asserts, that the King having been informed of a river which must be crossed, over which was a bridge, and that his progress depended in a great degree upon securing possession of it, despatched some part of his forces to defend it from any attack, or from being destroyed. They found many of the enemy ready to receive them, to whom they gave battle, and after a severe conflict, they captured the bridge, and kept it.
(B)
Fortune is Bardolph’s foe, and frowns on him;
For he hath stol’n a pix, and hanged must ’a be.
It will be seen by the following extract from the anonymous Chronicler how minutely Shakespeare has adhered to history— “There was brought to the King in that plain a certain English robber, who, contrary to the laws of God and the Royal Proclamation, had stolen from a church a pix of copper gilt, found in his sleeve, which he happened to mistake for gold, in which the Lord’s body was kept; and in the next village where he passed the night, by decree of the King, he was put to death on the gallows.” Titus Livius relates that Henry commanded his army to halt until the sacrilege was expiated. He first caused the pix to be restored to the Church, and the offender was then led, bound as a thief, through the army, and afterwards hung upon a tree, that every man might behold him.
(C)
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:]
My desire is, that none of you be so unadvised, as to be the occasion that I in my defence shall colour and make red your tawny ground with the effusion of Christian blood. When he (Henry) had thus answered the Herald, he gave him a great reward, and licensed him to depart. —Holinshed.
Enter Chorus
Cho. Now entertain conjecture of a time
When creeping murmur and the poring dark
Fills the wide vessel of the universe.
From camp to camp, through the foul womb of night
The hum of either army stilly sounds,1
That the fix’d sentinels almost receive
The secret whispers of each other’s watch:2
Fire answers fire;3 and through their paly flames
Each battle sees the other’s umber’d face:4
Steed threatens steed, in high and boastful neighs
Piercing the night’s dull ear; and from the tents,
The armourers, accomplishing the knights,
With busy hammers closing rivets up,
Give dreadful note of preparation.
Proud of their numbers, and secure in soul,
The confident and over-lusty5 French
Do the low-rated English play at dice;6
And chide the cripple tardy-gaited night,
Who, like a foul and ugly witch, doth limp
So tediously away.
Scene opens and discovers the interior of a French tent, with the Dauphin, the Constable, Orleans, and others, playing at dice.
Dau. Will it never be day?
Con. I would it were morning; for I would fain be about the ears of the English.
Dau. Who will go to hazard with me for twenty English prisoners?
Orl. The prince longs to eat the English.
Con. Would it were day! Alas, poor Harry of England! he longs not for the dawning, as we do.
Dau. If the English had any apprehension, they would run away.
Con. That island of England breeds very valiant creatures; their mastiffs are of unmatchable courage.
Dau. Foolish curs, that run winking into the mouth of a Russian bear, and have their heads crushed like rotten apples! You may as well say,—that’s a valiant flea, that dare eat his breakfast on the lip of a lion.
Con. Just, just: give them great meals of beef, and iron and steel, they will eat like wolves, and fight like devils.
Orl. Ay, but these English are shrewdly out of beef.
Con. Then we shall find to-morrow—they have only stomachs to eat, and none to fight. Now is it time to arm: Come, shall we about it?
Dau. It is now two o’clock: but, let me see,—by ten We shall have each a hundred Englishmen.
Scene Closes In
Cho. The poor condemned English,
Like sacrifices, by their watchful fires
Sit patiently, and inly ruminate
The morning’s danger; and their gestures sad,
Investing lank-lean cheeks, and war-worn coats,
Presenteth them unto the gazing moon
So many horrid ghosts.
Scene re-opens, discovering the English camp, with group of soldiery praying. After a pause the scene closes.
O, now, who will behold
The royal captain of this ruin’d band
Walking from watch to watch, from tent to tent,
Let him cry—Praise and glory on his head!
For forth he goes and visits all his host;
Bids them good-morrow with a modest smile,
And calls them—brothers, friends, and countrymen.
Upon his royal face there is no note
How dread an army hath enrounded him;
Nor doth he dedicate one jot of colour
Unto the weary and all-watched night;
But freshly looks, and overbears attaint
With cheerful semblance and sweet majesty;
That every wretch, pining and pale before,
Beholding him, plucks comfort from his looks:
Then, mean and gentle all,
Behold, as may unworthiness define,
A little touch of Harry in the night:
And so our scene must to the battle fly;
The field of Agincourt. Yet, sit and see;
Minding true things7 by what their mockeries be.
Exit.