Act 3. Scene VI

SCENE VI. The English camp in Picardy.

Enter 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 life, 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 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 did see him do as
gallant service.

GOWER
What do you call him?

FLUELLEN
He is called Aunchient 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, Aunchient 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 stolen a pax, 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 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
Aunchient Pistol, I do partly understand your meaning.

PISTOL
Why then, rejoice therefore.

FLUELLEN
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