Original Text |
Translated Text |
| Source: Folger Shakespeare Library |
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Enter Captains, English and Welsh, Gower and Fluellen. 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? 5 FLUELLEN The Duke of Exeter is as magnanimous as
Agamemnon, and a man that I love and honor 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 10
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 I did see him do as 15
gallant service. GOWER What do you call him? FLUELLEN He is called Aunchient Pistol. GOWER I know him not. | Over at the English camp, we learn that Bardolph has been busted for
stealing a pax (a tablet with a crucifix stamped on it) from a Church.
He's been sentenced to death for looting. |
Enter Pistol. FLUELLEN Here is the man. 20 PISTOL Captain, I thee beseech to do me favors. 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 25
of buxom valor, hath, by cruel Fate and giddy
Fortune’s furious fickle wheel, that goddess blind,
that stands upon the rolling restless stone— | Pistol begs Captain Fluellen to intercede on Bardolph's behalf. |
FLUELLEN By your patience, Aunchient Pistol, Fortune
is painted blind, with a muffler afore her eyes, to 30
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 35
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 hangèd must he be. A 40
damnèd 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 45
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. 50 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. 55 PISTOL Die and be damned, and figo for thy friendship! FLUELLEN It is well. PISTOL The fig of Spain! He exits. FLUELLEN Very good. | When Fluellen says that Bardolph deserves to be punished, Pistol throws a tantrum and makes an obscene hand gesture called a "fig" (or fico), which involves pushing his thumb between two fingers. (It's basically the equivalent of flipping someone the bird – kind of like when Sampson bites his thumb at the Montague's servants in Romeo and Juliet.) Fluellen is unimpressed. |
GOWER Why, this is an arrant counterfeit rascal. I 60
remember him now, a bawd, a cutpurse. FLUELLEN I’ll assure you he uttered 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. 65 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 70
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 75
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 marvelously 80
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. 85 | Just then, Gower recognizes who Pistol is and chimes in that Pistol is nothing more than a pimp and a thief. He says that guys like Pistol are a dime a dozen in times of war. They show up at the battlefield and talk a lot of smack without ever actually doing anything. Then, they go home from war and brag to everyone about how brave they were. |
Drum and Colors. Enter the King of England and his
poor Soldiers, and Gloucester. Hark you, the King is coming, and I must speak
with him from the pridge.—God pless your
Majesty. KING HENRY How now, Fluellen, cam’st thou from the
bridge? 90 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 95
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 arrives with his exhausted soldiers in tow. Fluellen proudly reports that the English have taken over an important French bridge, which he calls a "pridge." (This is Shakespeare's way of exaggerating Fluellen's Welsh accent.) |
KING HENRY What men have you lost, Fluellen? FLUELLEN The perdition of th’ athversary hath been 100
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’ 105
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 110
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 115
winner. | When Henry finds out that his old pal Bardolph has been busted for
looting a local Church, he declares that any other English soldiers
caught stealing or abusing the French villagers will be hanged, period.
(Hmm. Maybe someone should remind Henry that he's in the process of
trying to steal the French crown.) |
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. 120 KING HENRY 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 125
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 130
the losses we have borne, the subjects we
have lost, the disgrace we have digested, which, in
weight to reanswer, his pettiness would bow under.
For our losses, his exchequer is too poor; for th’
effusion of our blood, the muster of his kingdom 135
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 140
king and master; so much my office. | Montjoy enters with a message from the French king: Even though you took Harfleur,
we're going to crush you if you take one step further into France. |
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 145
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, 150
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, 155
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, 160
Yet, God before, tell him we will come on
Though France himself and such another neighbor
Stand in our way. There’s for thy labor, Montjoy.
Gives money.
Go bid thy master well advise himself:
If we may pass, we will; if we be hindered, 165
We shall your tawny ground with your red blood
Discolor. 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. 170
So tell your master. MONTJOY
I shall deliver so. Thanks to your Highness. He exits. GLOUCESTER
I hope they will not come upon us now. KING HENRY
We are in God’s hand, brother, not in theirs.
March to the bridge. It now draws toward night. 175
Beyond the river we’ll encamp ourselves,
And on tomorrow bid them march away.
They exit. |
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