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 slobb’ry 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-reined 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’ may we 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 CHARLES

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 Delabret, High Constable of France,

You Dukes of Orléans, Bourbon, and of Berri,

Alençon, Brabant, Bar, and Burgundy,

Jaques Châtillion, Rambures, Vaudemont,

Beaumont, Grandpré, Roussi, and Fauconbridge,

Foix, Lestrelles, Boucicault, and Charolais,

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 famished in their march,

For I am sure when he shall see our army

He’ll drop his heart into the sink of fear

And, fore achievement, offer us his ransom.

KING CHARLES

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 CHARLES

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 severally

3.6 Enter Captains 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 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 Ensign 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,

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 hangèd must a be.

A damned 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 therefor.

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 executions. For discipline ought to be used.

PISTOL

Die and be damned! and fico for thy friendship.