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 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 gallant service.

GOW. What do you call him?

FLU. He is call'd Aunchient Pistol.

GOW. I know him not.

 

Enter Pistol.

 

FLU. Here is the man.

PIST.

Captain, I thee beseech to do me favors.

The Duke of Exeter doth love thee well.

FLU. Ay, I praise God, and I have merited some love at his hands.

PIST.

Bardolph, a soldier firm and sound of heart,

And of buxom valor, 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, Aunchient Pistol: Fortune is painted blind, with a muffler afore his 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.

PIST.

Fortune is Bardolph's foe, and frowns on him;

For he hath stol'n a pax, and hanged 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.

FLU. Aunchient Pistol, I do partly understand your meaning.

PIST. Why then rejoice therefore.

FLU. 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.

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

FLU. It is well.

PIST. The fig of Spain.

 

Exit.

 

FLU. Very good.

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

FLU. I'll assure you, 'a utt'red 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.

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 perfit 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 disgrac'd, what terms the enemy stood on; and this they con perfitly in the phrase of war, which they trick up with new-tun'd oaths; and what a beard of the general's cut and a horrid suit of the camp will do among foaming bottles and ale- wash'd 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.

FLU. 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 Colors. Enter the King and his poor Soldiers [and Gloucester].

 

God pless your Majesty!

K. HEN. How now, Fluellen, cam'st thou from the bridge?

FLU. Ay, so please your Majesty.