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 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 live, 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 ensign 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 gallant 
	service.

Gower	What do you call him?

Fluellen	He is called Ensign 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, Ensign 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 stol'n a pax, and hanged must a' be.
	A damnd 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	Ensign Pistol, I do partly understand your meaning.

Pistol	Why then, rejoice therefore.

Fluellen	Certainly, ensign, 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 damned! 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 assure you, a' 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.

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 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 the KING with his poor SOLDIERS, and GLOUCESTER.

	God 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 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	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	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	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 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 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 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	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 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 hindered,
	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 God's hand, brother, not in theirs.
	March to the bridge: it now draws towards night;
	Beyond the river we'll encamp ourselves,
	And on tomorrow bid them march away.
													[Exeunt.
