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 snow9
Upon the vallies: 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 Roüen

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 ransome.
Fr. King. Therefore, lord constable, haste on
Montjoy;

And let him say to England, that we send
To know what willing ransome he will give.-
Prince Dauphin, you shall stay with us in Roüen.
Dau. Not so, I do beseech your majesty.

Fr. King. Be patient, for you shall remain with

us.

Now, forth, lord constable, and princes all;
And quickly bring us word of England's fall.

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[Exeunt.

With pennons-] Pennons armorial were small flags, on which the arms, device, and motto of a knight were painted. melted snow-] The poet has here defeated himself by passing too soon from one image to another. To bid the French rush upon the English as the torrents formed from melted snow streams from the Alps, was at once vehement and proper, but its force is destroyed by the grossness of the thought in the next line.

SCENE VI.

The English Camp in Picardy.

Enter GoWER and FLUELLEN.

Gow. How now, captain Fluellen? come you from the bridge?

Flu. 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, (God 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.
Gow. I know him not.

Enter PISTOL.

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 Got; and I have merited some love at his hands.

Pist. 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,

Flu. By your patience, ancient Pistol. Fortune is painted plind, with a muffler before her eyes, 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 is make 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 hath stol'n a pir, 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 pir 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.
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 brother, I would desire the duke to use his goot pleasure, and

1 Of buxom valour,] i. e. valour under good command, obedient to its superiors.

For he hath stolen a pix,] A pix, or little chest, (from the Latin word pixis, a box,) in which the consecrated host was used to be kept.

put him to executions; for disciplines ought to be used.

Pist. Die and be damn'd; and figo for thy friendship!

Flu. It is well.

Pist. The fig of Spain!3
Flu. Very good.

[Exit PISTOL.

Gow. Why, this is an arrant counterfeit rascal; I remember him now; a bawd; a cutpurse.

Flu. I'll assure you, 'a utter'd as prave 'ords 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.

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. And such fellows are perfect in 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 newtuned oaths: And what a beard of the general's cut,

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3 The fig of Spain !] Mr. Steevens thinks this is an allusion to the custom of giving poisoned figs to those who were the objects either of Spanish or Italian revenge.

a sconce,] Appears to have been some hasty, rude, inconsiderable kind of fortification.

5 a beard of the general's cut,] It appears from an old ballad inserted in a Miscellany, entitled Le Prince d'Amour, 8vo. 1660, that our ancestors were very curious in the fashion of their beards, and that a certain cut or form was appropriated to the soldier, the bishop, the judge, the clown, &c. The spade-beard, and perhaps the stiletto-beard also, was appropriated to the first of these characters. It is observable that our author's patron, Henry Earl of Southampton, who spent much of his time in camps, IS drawn with the latter of these beards; and his unfortunate friend, Lord Essex, is constantly represented with the former.

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 marvellous 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. [Drum heard.] Hark you, the king is coming; and I must speak with him from the pridge.

Enter King HENRY, GLOSTER, and Soldiers. Flu. Got pless your majesty!

K. Hen. How now, Fluellen? camest thou from the bridge?

Flu. 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.

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 know the man: his face is all bubukles, and whelks, 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.

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6

his fire's out.] This is the last time that any sport can be made with the red face of Bardolph, which, to confess the truth, seems to have taken more hold on Shakspeare's imagination than