Gow. How now, Captan Macmorris? have you quit the mines? have the pioneers given o'er? Mac. By Chrish la, tish ill done: the work ish give over, the trumpet sound the retreat. By my nand, I swear, and by my father's soul, the work ish ill done; it ish give over: I would have blowed up the town, so Chrish save me, la, in an hour. O, tish ill done, tish ill done; by my hand, tish ill done! Flu. Captain Macmorris, I peseech you now, will you vouchsafe me, look you, a few disputations with you, as partly touching or concerning the disciplines of the war, the Roman wars, in the way of argument, look you, and friendly communication; partly, to satisfy my opinion, and partly, for the satisfaction, look you, of my mind, as touching the direction of the military discipline; that is the point. Jamy. It sall be very gud, gud feith, gud captains bath and I sall quit you with gud leve, as I may pick occasion; that sall I, marry. Mac. It is no time to discourse, so Chrish save me, the day is hot, and the weather, and the wars, and the king, and the dukes; it is no time to discourse. The town is beseeched, and the trumpet calls us to the breach; and we talk, and, by Chrish, do nothing; 'tis shame for us all: so God sa' me, 'tis shame to stand still; it is shame, by my hand: and there is throats to be cut, and works to be done : and there ish nothing done, so Chrish sa' me, la. Jamy. By the mess, ere theise eyes of mine take themselves to slumber, aile do gude service, or aile ligge i' the grund for it; ay, or go to death: and aile pay it as valorously as I may, that sall I surely do, that is the breff and the long: Mary, I wad full fain heard some question 'tween you 'tway. Flu. Captain Macmorris, I think, look you, under your correction, there is not many of your nation Mac. Of my nation? What ish my nation? ish a villain, and a bastard, and a knave, and a rascal? What ish my nation? Who talks of my nation? Defy us to our worst; for, as I am a soldier 4 Gov. Our expectation hath this day an end: The Dauphin, whom of succour we entreated, Flu. Look you, if you take the matter otherwise Returns us-that his powers are not yet ready than is meant, Captain Macmorris, peradventure, To raise so great a siege. Therefore, dread king, I shall think you do not use me with that affability We yield our town, and lives, to thy soft mercy: as in discretion you ought to use me, look you; Enter our gates; dispose of us, and ours; being as goot a man as yourself, both in the disci-For we no longer are defensible. plines of wars, and in the derivation of my birth, K. Henry. Open your gates.-Come, uncle Exand in other particularities. eter, Mac. I do not know you so good a man as my-Go you and enter Harfleur; there remain, self: so Chrish save me, I will cut off your head. Gow. Gentlemen both, you will mistake each other. Jamy. Au! that's a foul fault. SCENE III. The same. Before the Gates of K. Hen. How yet resolves the governor of the town? This is the latest parle we will admit: II shall quit you; that is, I shall, with your permission, requite you; that is, answer you, or interpose with my arguments, as I shall find opportunity. 2 The gates of mercy shall be all shut up. Gray has borrowed this thought in his Elegy: And shut the gates of mercy on mankind.' 3 Whiles yet the cool and temperate wind of grace O'erblows the filthy and contagious clouds." To overblow is to drive away, to keep off. Johnson observes that this is a very harsh metaphor. And fortify it strongly 'gainst the French: To-morrow for the march are we addrest." [Flourish. The King, &c. enter the Town. SCENE IV. Rouen. A Room in the Palace. Enter KATHARINE and ALICE. Kath. Alice, tu as esté en Angleterre, et tu parles bien le langage. Alice. Un peu, madame. Kath. Je te prie, m'enseignez; il faut que j'ap prenne à parler. Comment appellez vous la main, en Anglois? Alice. La main? elle est appellée, de hand. oublie les doigts, 6 Every one must wish with Warburton and Far mer to believe that this scene is an interpolation. Yet as Johnson remarks, the grimaces of the two Frenchwomen, and the odd accent with which they uttered the English, might divert an audience more refined than could be found in the poet's time. There is in it not only the French language, but the French spirit. Alice compliments the princess upon the knowledge of four words, and tells her that she pronounces like the English themselves. The princess suspects no defi 4 Whom of succour we entreated.' See A Midsum-ciency in her instructress, nor the instructress in herself mer Night's Dream, Act iii. Sc. 1, in a note on the passage I shall desire you of more acquaintance.' 5 i. e. prepared The extraordinary circumstance of introducing a char acter speaking French in an English drama was no novelty to our early stage. mais je me souviendray. Les doigts? je pense, qu'ils ont appellé de fingres; ouy, de fingres. Kath. La main, de hand; les doigts, de fingres. Je pense, que je suis le bon escolier. J'ay gagné deux mots d'Anglois vistement. Comment appellez vous les ongles ? Alice. Les ongles ? les appellons, de nails. Kath. De nails. Escoutez; dites moy, si je parle bien de hand, de fingres, de nails. Alice. C'est bien dit, madame; il est fort bon Kath. Dites moy en Anglois, le bras. Kath. Et le coude. Alice. De elbow. Kath. De elbow. Je m'en faitz la répétition de tous les mots, que vous m'avez appris dès à present. Alice. Il est trop difficile, madame, comme je pense. Kath. Excusez moy, Alice; escoutez: De hand, de fingre, de nails, de arm, de bilbow. Alice. De elbow, madame. Kath. O Seigneur Dieu! je m'en oublie; De elbow. Comment appellez vous le col ? Alice. De neck, madame. Kath. De sin. Le col, de neck: le menton, de sin. Alice. Ouy. Sauf vostre honneur; en vérité, vous prononcez les mots aussi droict que les natifs d'Angleterre. Kath. Je ne doute point d'apprendre par la grace de Dieu; et en peu de temps. Alice. N'avez vous pas déjà oublié ce que je vous ay enseigné ? Kath. Non, je réciteray à vous promptement. De hand, de fingre, de mails, Alice. De nails, madame. Kath. De nails, de arme, de ilbow. Dau. O Dieu vivant! snail a few sprays of us, Bour. Normans, but bastard Normans, Norman Mort de ma vie! if they march along Con. Dieu de battailes! where have they this Is not their climate foggy, raw, and dull? Sweat drops of gallant youth in our rich fields; Dau. By faith and honour, Our madams mock at us; and plainly say, And teach lavoltas high, and swift corantos; Fr. King. Where is Montjoy, the herald? spee Let him greet England with our sharp defiance. Kath. Ainsi dis je; de elbow, de neck, et de sin; You dukes of Orleans, Bourbon, and of Berry, Alençon, Brabant, Bar, and Burgundy: Kath. C'est assez pour une fois; allons nous à [Exeunt. disner. To't, Luxury, pellmell, for I lack soldiers.'-Lear. 2 Nook-shotten isle.' Shotten signifies any thing projected: so nook-shotten isle is an isle that shoots out into capes, promontories, and necks of land, the very figure of Great Britain. Randle Holme, in his Accedence of Armory, p. 338, has 'Querke, a nook-shotten pane' [of glass.] 3A drench for sur-rein'd jades.' Sur-rein'd is probably over-ridden or over-strained Steevens observes that it is common to give horses, over-ridden or feverish, ground malt and hot water mixed, which is called a mash. To this the Constable alludes. 4 Lavoltas high.' The lavolta, or volta, a kind of turning French dance,' says Florio; in which the man turns the woman round several times, and then assists her in making a high spring or cabriole. The reader will find a very curious and amusing article on For your great seats, now quit you of great shames. Con. This becomes the great. And let him say to England, that we send the subject in Mr. Douce's Illustrations of Shakspeare, 5 This should be Charles D'Albret; but the metre 6 Pennons were flags or streamers, upon which the arms, device, and motto of a knight were painted. A penon must be tow yardes and a halfe long, made round att the end, and conteyneth the armes of the owner, and serveth for the conduct of fifty men.'-MSS, Harl. No. 2413. A banneret was created by cutting off the point of the pennon, and making it a banner, which was pe culiar to the nobility. 7 And for achievement offer us his ransom.' That is, instead of achieving a victory over us, make a pro posal to pay us a sum as ransom. 1 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, 2 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? 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,3 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, 1 Rouen is spelt Roun in the old copy. It was pronounced as a monosyllable. 2 But keeps the pridge most valiantly. After Henry had passed the Some, the French endeavoured to intercept him in his passage to Calais; and for that purpose attempted to break down the only bridge that there was over the small river of Ternois, at Blangi, over which it was necessary for Henry to pass. But Henry having notice of their design, sent a part of his troops before him, who attacking and putting the French to flight, preserved the bridge till the whole English army arrived and passed over it. the poet is make a most excellent description of fortune: fortune, look you, is an excellent mora!. Pist. Fortune is Bardolph's foe, and frowns on him; For he hath stolen a pix,' and hanged must 'a be. Let gallows gape fc: dog, let man go free, Therefore, go speak, the duke will hear thy voice, Pist. Why then rejoice therefore. joice at; for if, look you, he were my brother, I Flu. Certainly, ancient, it is not a thing to re would desire the duke to use his goot pleasure, and put him to executions; for disciplines ought to be used. 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. 8 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, 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,' ,10 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 to the custom of giving poisoned figs to those who were the objects of either Spanish or Italian revenge; to which custom there are numerous allusions in our old dramas. In the quarto copies of this play we have :The fig of Spain within thy jaw. And afterwards :The fig of Spain within thy bowels and thy dirty maw. 7 Very good. In the quartos, instead of these two words, we have: Captain Gower, cannot you hear it lighten and thun der?" 8 Such and such a sconce,' Steevens has errone. 3 Buxom valour.' It is true that, in the Saxon and our elder English, buxom meant pliant, yielding, obe-ously explained this, 'a hasty, rude, inconsiderable dient; and in this sense Spenser uses it: but as we know it was also used for lusty, rampant, however mistakenly, it was surely very absurd to give the older meaning to it here, as Steevens did. Pistol would be much more likely to take the popular sense, than one founded on etymology. Blount, after giving the old legitimate meaning of buromeness, says, It is now mistaken for lustiness or rampancy.' 4 A muffler was a fold of linen used for concealing the face of a woman. kind of fortification. The quotation from Sir Thomas Smythe only described some particularly imperfect sconces. A sconce was a block-house or chief-fortress, for the most part round in fashion of a head; hence the head is ludicrously called a sconce: a lantern was also called a sconce, because of its round form. 9A beard of the general's cut' Our ancestors were very curious in the fashion of their beards; a certain cut was appropriated to certain professions and ranks. They are some of them humourously described in a ballad in The Prince D'Amour, 1660. The spade beard and the stiletto beard appear to have been ap 5 A pir. The folio reads par: but Holished, whom Shakspeare followed, says, 'A foolish soldier stole a pire out of a church, for which cause he was appropriated to the soldier. prehended, and the king would not once more remove till the box was restored, and the offender strangled. It was the box in which the consecrated wafers were kept, originally so named from being made of bor; but in later times it was made of gold, silver, and other costly materials. 6 And figo for thy friendship. See note on King Henry IV. Part 2. The Spanish fig probably alludes 10 Such slanders of the age,' Nothing was more common than such huffcap pretending braggarts as Pis. tol in the poet's age: they are the continual subject of satire to his contemporaries. To the reader who has any acquaintance with our early writers it would be su perfluous to cite instances. Steevens mentions Basilico, in Solyman and Perseda, as likely to have given the hint of Pistol's character to Shakspeare. 306 KING HENRY V. Enter KING HENRY, GLOSTER, and Soldiers. K. Hen. How now, Fluellen? camest thou from 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. K. Hen. 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 win K. Hen. What is thy name? I know thy quality. K. Hen. Thou dost thy office fairly. Turn the But could be willing to march on to Calais 1 'From the pridge. These words are not in the quarto. If not a mistake of the compositor, who may have caught them from the king's speech, they must mean about the bridge, or concerning it. 2 His face is all bubukles, and whelks, and knobs.' Whelks are not stripes, as Mr. Nares interprets the word; but pimples, or blotches: Papula. A pimple, a whelke; Bourion ou bubbe qui vient en face. Mr. Steevens remarks that Chaucer's Sompnour may have afforded Shakspeare a hint for Bardolph's face. He also had 'A fire red cherubimes face,' with welkes white,' and 'knobbes sitting on his cheekes.'-Cant. Tales, v. 628. 3 You know me by my habit. That is, by his herald's coat. The person of a herald being inviolable was distinguished by a richly emblazoned dress. Montjoie is the title of the first king at arms in France, as Garter is in this country 4 i. e. in our turn. This theatrical phrase has been already noticed. 5 i.e. without impediment. Empechement, Fr. Cotgrave's Dictionary 6 God before was then used for God being my guide. 7 We shall your tawny ground with your red blood Discolour.' This is from Holinshed. My desire is, that none o hairs.' Alluding to the bounding of tennis-balls, which SCENE VII. KING HENRY V. earth sings when he touches it; the basest horn of| his hoof is more musical than the pipe of Hermes. Orl. He's of the colour of the nutmeg. Dau. And of the heat of the ginger. It is a beast for Perseus: he is pure air and fire;' and the dull elements of earth and water never appear in him, but only in patient stillness, while his rider mounts him he is, indeed, a horse; and all other jades you may call-beasts.2 Con. Indeed, my lord, it is a most absolute and excellent horse. Dau. It is the prince of palfreys; his neigh is like the bidding of a monarch, and his countenance enforces homage. Orl. No more, cousin. Dau. Nay, the man hath no wit, that cannot, from the rising of the lark to the lodging of the lamb, vary deserved praise on my palfrey: it is a theme as fluent as the sea; turn the sands into eloquent tongues, and my horse is argument for them all: 'tis a subject for a sovereign to reason on, and for a sovereign's sovereign to ride on; and for the world (familiar to us, and unknown,) to lay apart their particular functions, and wonder at him. I once wrote a sonnet in his praise, and began thus: Wonder of nature, Orl. I have heard a sonnet begin so to one's mistress. Dau. Then did they imitate that which I composed to my courser; for my horse is my mistress. Orl. Your mistress bears well. Dau. Me well; which is the prescript praise and perfection of a good and particular mistress. Con. Ma foy! the other day, methought, your mistress shrewdly shook your back. Dau. So, perhaps, did yours. Con. Mine was not bridled. Dau. O! then, belike, she was old and gentle; and you rode like a Kerne of Ireland, your French hose off, and in your strait trossers." Con. You have good judgment in horsemanship. Dau. Be warned by me then: they that ride so, and ride not warily, fall into foul bogs; I had rather have my horse to my mistress. Con. I had as lief have my mistress a jade. Dau. I tell thee, constable, my mistress wears her own hair. Con. I could make as true a boast as that, if I had a sow to my mistress. Dau. Le chien est retourné à son propre vomissement, et la truie lavée au bourbier: thou makest use of any thing. Con. Yet do I not use my horse for my mistress; or any such proverb, so little kin to the purpose. Ram. My lord constable, the armour, that I saw in your tent to-night, are those stars, or suns, upon it? Con. Stars, my lord. Dau. Some of them will fall to-morrow, I hope. Con. And yet my sky shall not want. 1 'He is pure air and fire.' Thus Cleopatra, speaking of herself: I am air and fire; my other elements I give to baser life.' 2 He is, indeed, a horse; and all other jades you may call-beasts.' There has been much foolish contention about this passage; the sense of which is plain enough. I have elsewhere observed that jade is not always used for a tired or contemptible horse. The Dauphin means that his charger is indeed a horse, and alone worthy of that name; all others may be called beasts in comparison of him.' Beast is here used in the sense of the Latin jumentum, contemptuously to signify an animal only fit for the cart or packsaddle. 3'Like a Kerne of Ireland, your French hose off, This expression is here and in your strait trossers.' merely figurative, as Theobald long since observed, for femoribus denudatis. But it is certain that the frish trossers, or trowsers, were anciently the direct contrary 'Their trowses, to the modern garments of that name. commonly spelt trossers, were long pantaloons exactly fitted to the shape.' Bulwer, in his Pedigree of the English Gallant, 1653, says, 'Now our hose are made so close to our breeches that, like the Irish trossers, they too manifestly discover the dimensions of every part. Day. That may be, for you bear a many super fluously! and 'twere more honour, some were away Con. Even as your horse bears your praises; who would trot as well, were some of your brags dismounted. Dau. 'Would, I were able to load him with his desert! Will it never be day? I will trot to-morrow a mile, and my way shall be paved with English faces. Con. I will not say so, for fear I should be faced out of my way: But I would it were morning, for I would fain be about the ears of the English. Ram. Who will go to hazard with me for twenty English prisoners? Con. You must first go yourself to hazard, ere you have them. [Exit. Dau. 'Tis midnight, I'll go arm myself. Con. Swear by her foot, that she may tread out the oath. Orl. He is, simply, the most active gentleman of France. Con. Doing is activity: and he will still be doing. Con. Nor will do none to-morrow; he will keep that good name still. Orl. I know him to be valiant. Con. I was told that, by one that knows hin better than you. Orl. What's he? Con. Marry, he told me so himself; and he said, he cared not who knew it. Orl. He needs not, it is no hidden virtue in him. Con. By my faith, sir, but it is; never any body saw it, but his lackey: 'tis a hooded valour; and, when it appears, it will bate." Orl. Ill will never said well. Con. I will cap that proverb with-There is flattery in friendship. Orl. And I will take up that with-Give the devil his due. Con. Well placed; there stands your friend for the devil: have at the very eye of that proverb, with -a pox of the devil. Orl. You are the better at proverbs, by how much -a fool's bolt is soon shot. Con. You have shot over. Orl. "Tis not the first time you were overshot. Enter a Messenger. Mess. My lord high constable, the English e within fifteen hundred paces of your tent Con. Who hath measured the ground? Con. A valiant and most expert gentleman.'Would, it were day!-Alas, poor Harry of England!-He longs not for the dawning, as we do. I will add that Spenser says Chaucer's description of Sir Thopas gives the very manner and fashion of the Irish horseman,-in his long hose, his riding shoes of costly cordwaine, his hacqueton, and his habergeon,' &c.-State of Ireland, p. 115; Ed. Dublin, 1809. 4 It has been remarked that Shakspeare was habitually conversant with his bible: we have here a strong presumptive proof that he read it, at least occasionally, in French. This passage will be found almost literally in the Geneva Bible, 1589. 2 Peter ii. 22. 5 Tis a hooded valour; and, when it appears, it will bate. This poor pun depends upon the equivocal use of bate. When a hawk is unhooded, her first action is to bate (i. e. beat her wings, or flutter.) The hawk wants no courage, but invariably bates upon the removal of her hood. The Constable would insinuate by his double entendre that the Dauphin's courage, when it appears (i. e. when he prepares for encounter,) will bate; i. e. soon diminish or evaporate. 6 Instead of this and the succeeding speeches, the Come, come away; quartos conclude this scene with a couplet : The sun is high, and we wear out the day' |