Complete Plays, The (238 page)

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

S
CENE
V. T
HE
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

S
CENE
VI. T
HE
E
NGLISH
CAMP
IN
P
ICARDY
.

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.

King Henry V

What is thy name? I know thy quality.

Montjoy

Montjoy.

King Henry V

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 lessened, 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 ransom 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;
Nor, as we are, we say we will not shun it:
So tell your master.